Vers. 19-26.-Tlie sacred and the secu,lar. There are three preliminary truths which may be gathered before considering the proper subject of the text. 1. The worthlessness of heartless praise. What value do we suppose Jesus Christ attached to the eulogium here pronounced (ver. 2)? How worthless to him now are the epithets which are uttered or the praises which are sung by lips that are not sincere I 2. The evil end of a false attitude toward Christ. The attitude of hostility which his enemies had definitely taken up led them to resort (1) to shameful deceit (ver. 20), and (2) to a malign conspira, ~ against the one Teacher who could and would have led them into the kingdom of G-uJ, 3. The final discomfiture of guilt. (Ver. 26.) It is silenced and ashamed. Respecting the principal subject before us, we should consider- L Two NOTIONS THA.T FIND NO COUNTENANCE m OUR LORD'S BEl'LY. 1. When Jesus answered, "Render unto Ciesar," etc., he did not mean to say that the spheres of the secular and the sacred lie so apart that we ca:r.not serve God while we are serving the state. Let none say, "Politics are politics, and religion is religion." That is a thoroughly unchristian sentiment. If we ought to "eat and drink," if we ought to do everything to the glory of God, it is certain that we ought to vote at elections, to speak at meetings, to exercise our political privileges, and to discharge our civil duties, be they humble or high, to the glory of God. A man may be, and should be, serving Christ as truly and as acceptably in the magistrates' court, or in the lobby of the House of Co=ons, as he can be in the school or the sanctuary. 2. Nor did Christ mean to say that these spheres are so apart that a man cannot be serving the state while he is engaged in the direct service of God; for, indeed, there is no way by which we render so true and great a service to the whole body politic as when we are engaged in planting Divine truth in the minds and hearts of men; then are we sowing the eeeds of peace, of industry, of sobriety, of every national virtue, of a real and lasting prosperity. 3. Nor yet that there are no occasions whatever when we may act in opposition to the state. Our Lord encouraged his apostles in their refusal to obey an unrighteous mandate (A.cts v. 28, 29). IL THE LEADING TRUTH WHICH CHRIST'S WORDS CONTAIN, viz. that our obligation to God does 11ot conflict with our ordinary allegiance to the civil power. If the latter should enjoin apostasy, or blasphemy, or positive immorality, then disobedience would bE:COme a duty, and might rise into heroism, as it has often done. But ordinarily, we can serve God and be loyal citizens at the same time, and this none the less that the rulers whom we serve are Moha=edans or pagans, To be orderly and law-abiding under the rule of an infidel is as far as possible from being unchristian. On the con- trary, it is decidedly Christian (see 1 'l'im. ii. 2; Rom. iii. 1-7). Indeed, service ren- dered to "the froward" has a virtue not possessed by service to "the good and gentle;" and faithful citizenship in "a strange land" may be a more valuable and acceptable service than in a Christian country. Our duty, in the light of Christ's teaching, is not that of discovering conscientious objections to the support of the civil government; it is rather that of rendering a hearty obedience to the Divine will, and also of qonforming ii.! all loyalty to the requirements of human law.-C. • OH, xx. 1-47.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 177
Vera. 27-38.-Fowndation& of Christian hope. On what foundation do we build our hope for the future? Not now on any philosophical deductions; these may have a certain measure of strength to some minds, but they are not firm enough to carry such a weight as the hope of immortality. Wo build on the Word that cannot be broken- on the promise of Jesus Christ. Our future depends upon the will of our Divine Creator, on the purpose of our God, and only he who came from God can tell us what that purpose is. Here, as elsewhere, we have- I. 'l'HE FIRM GROUND OF CHRISTIAN PROMISE. Our Lord tells us, from his own knowledge, that there is a future for the sons of men. And he indicates some features of this future. 1. Our life will be one of perfect purity. There is to be nothing of ths grosser element that enters into our social relations here (ver. 35). Great founders of great faiths have promised to their disciples a paradise of enjoyment of a lower kind. Christ leads us to hope for a life from which everything that is sensual will be removed. Love will remain, but it will be spiritual, angelic, absolutely pure. 2. It will be a life without end, and therefore without decay. "Neither can they die any more" (ver. 36). How blessed the life that knows no fear of interruption, of diRsolution, of sudden cessa- tion, and, more particularly, that is free from the haunting consciousness of passing on to a time when faculty must fade, or the sadder sense of decline already commenced or even hastening to its end 1 What will it be to live a life that becomes ever brighter and fuller as the periods of celestial service pass away! 3. It will be a life of hi_ghese honour and elevation. "They are equal unto the angels; and are the chiklren of God, being the children of tbe resurrection" (ver. 36). "Now are we the sons of God," and when the future life is disclosed our sonship will mean yet more to us-it will be life on a. loftier plane, in a deeper and fuller sense; we shall be nearer to God, and more like him in our faculty and in our spirit and our character. II. THE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT OF CHRIST'S INFERENCE. To be "the God of Abraham," he argued, meant to be the God of a living soul ; he whose God was the living God was a living man in the fullest sense. For God to be ou,· God includes everything we need. 'l'he living God is the Gori of living men; the loving God of loving men; the blessed God of happy men ; the holy God of holy men. All the highest good for which we long in our noblest hours is guaranteed to us in that "the everlasting God," the righteous and the faithful and the loving One, is our God. 1. The heritage of the future is not promised unconditionally; there are "those accounted worthy to obtain" it; therefore there are those who are not worthy, and who will miss it. 2. '!'he condition that is implied is that of a living personal connection with God himself. Those who can truly claim him as "their God" may confidently look forward to an eternal home in his presence and in his service. To us, to whom he has revealed himself in his Son, this meaus a living union with Jesus Christ our Saviour. To know him, to live unto him, to abide in him,-this is life eternal.-C.