1 Phil. ii. 4—8
It may however be asked, What are we to do, if they be- come our enemies, and seek to destroy us? I answer, Contend with them : if they will fight, so do ye fight : and the more they exert themselves, the greater let your efforts be also. Only remember, that your weapon must not be like theirs : They fight with evil ; but you must have no weapon but good. Nor must you ever yield to them ; but to your latest hour, and with your latest breath, you must keep up the conflict, even as the first martyr Stephen did. This is St. Paul's own direction, " Be not overcome of evil ; but overcome evil with goodV]
Such are the duties which St. Paul inculcates : and this view of them will lead us to notice,
II. The example he has set us —
As, in his Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul says, " Thou hast fully known my doctrine, and manner of life1;" so he here refers the Philippians, first, to what they had " learned and received from him ;" and then, to what they had " heard and seen in him."
1. What, then, were his principles?
[They were precisely and practically such as he had in- culcated on others. Did he enjoin on others to be dead to the world, and to self? Hear what he declares to have been his own experience ; " I am crucified with Christ : nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me"1." Yea, so entirely was he under the constrained sense of redeeming love, that he shuddered at the very thought of glorying in any thing but the cross of Christ," and more especially because, " through the influence of that, the whole world was crucified unto him, as he also was unto the world"."]
2. With these his whole life was in perfect unison —
[Nothing could abate his zeal for God. Not all the trials which human nature is capable of sustaining could move him in the least : he counted not life itself dear to him, if he were called to sacrifice it for righteousness' sake : on the contrary, he was ready to suffer bonds, or death, at any time, and in any way, for the honour of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ0. Nor were there any bounds to his love to man. He panted for the salvation of all men, and especially of those who were " his
k Rom. xii. 21. '2 Tim. hi. 10. ™ Gal. ii. 20.
11 Gal. vi. 14. ° Acts xx. 24. and xxi. 13.