The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 419

own minds herein is of the condescension of the Spirit, yet we need not p!ISs over the consideration, that this is in keeping with an analogy that we might expect would be observed. As St. Paul teaches us iorcibly, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, that they are to be adjudged worthy of the severest condemnation who refuse to learn the invisible things of God himself from his works visible in creation, so the Spirit would nourish in our outer works right methods of approaching the Beina who must all the while be " worshipped in spirit and in truth." ., !I, THE SPmIT PUTS HONOUR ON THE EXPRESSION ON THE PART OF MAN OF.HIS WORSHIP Al.'D SERVICE OF Gon, EVEN IN THE OUTER REQUISITES OF THEM. That which has cost nothing of money, of skill, of thought, of care, is not what is to be offered to God. It would not be offered to those we loved or respected among our fellow-creatures, and yet less should it be offered to him. Ill. THE SPIBIT HONOURS IN PARTICULAR THE EXACTITUDE AND PERFECTION IN ITS KIND OF WHAT IS GIVEN TO GoD. The sacrifice must be the young and the pure and the blemish less. And a similar principle must be observed throughout our service of God. But how often, how ~ossly, how notoriously, how self-deceivingly, is this plain principle disregarded by multitudes of professing Christians I To God is given last; to God tbe least; to God that which is too poor to keep or to give elsewhere. IV. THE SPmIT RECOGNIZES AND SUGGESTS OUR NEED OF PATTERNS. The Lord's Prayer was one kind of pattern ; the sermon on the mount was another kind of pattern ; the sacred cros.~ was another illustrious pattern; the directions given to the twelve disciples and again to the seventy, on their first missionary journeys, were a pattern; the Israelites were a pattern; John, Peter, and Paul were each respectively a pattern. And for the first solid temple that informed and intelligent worship of God ever reared, the Spirit gave the pattern, and pattern after pattern for details. V. STILL THE SPmIT GIVES BUT THE PATTERN. He does not supersede our active exertions, our best exertions, nor permits us to reckon on even his proxy. But he does wait to lead, offer to show and to teach, and above all in this particular way-the way of imparting principles of right action, of holy action, of beautiful action. VI. THE SPmIT GAVE THE TEMPLE MODEL, WHICH IN VERY DEED SPOKE PRINCIPLE IN EVERYTHING THAT MIGHT SOUND MOST· LIKE DETAIL, BECAUSE THAT TEMPLE WAS ITSELF THE TYPE OF Goo's CHURCH ON EARTH. No exclusive sanctity belonged to it. It and its lineal successors were to lie level with the ground. But its seed was to be as the stars of heaven, or as the sand upon the shore. "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem," meant no doom, no curse, no disparagement of the temple. '!'hose words of Jesus spoke the charter of God's Church, as a growing, an ever-growing, and a prevailing reality in the world. Literally innumerable have been already the copies after that type. And they have yet to be manifold more. The building itsel~ w~s emphatically not an ordinary building, nor a mere building. 'l'he tho~ght of ~t lil David's heart was not indigenous to that heart, nor was the execution of it to be ha.ble to be danaerously ascribed either to his architecture, or his sons, or to that of the combined professional talent of the nation, or of all nations. No, it is unique. It has virtue in it. It, in the person of its successor, justifies Jesus' admiration, and a share of his tears. It breathes and moves ubiquitously, and has life in it. And it we.a because it was necessary that it should have these endowments, that though David thought a.nd gave and prepared, and a nation now banded as one man consented and gave and wrought enthusiastically, yet the Architect was God the Spirit. Vers. 20, 21.-The courage of age, and its grand advantages as gl'Ounded in e:zJperi~ce. Once more, then, the voice of the aged king and the aged father is heard. Its subJect the same, its tones still more a.nd more earnest, persuasive, implo1ing, Age calms, mellows, subdues, in al11Wst all directions, but not literally in a.ll. I. WE ABE ARRESTED BY OVERHEARING THE URGENT TONES OF OLD AGE. The voice is not wt:ak, does not trembie, lisps not, nor hesitates. It is firm, full of vigour, a.nd rings again more musical than even of old. There must be some significant reason for this. ll. WE ABE ARRESTED BY SEEMING TO HEAB AGE 'UBGE IMPETUOUSNll:B8 AND DARING ON YOUTH. Surely the five times repeated exhortation," Be strong,"" of good courage,'' "do it," "fear not," "nor be dismayed," must betoken some very risky, presumptuous, ctt. xxvm. 1-21.) TIIE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 423