The Pulpit Commentary — Ephesians — Section 199

rejection _of ~he restorative in enjoyment. By the adoption of the partial and the fleeting to the rejection of the complete and permanent, he pursues a course that involves the ruin of himself, the utter loss of all good. Are not these facts sufficient to show the darkness of the sinner's mind and the dense ignorance that reigns within him? II. WITH A SOUL WITHOUT THE TRUE GoD. "Alienated from the life of God." No soul, no creature in the world can live a moment without God. "By him we live, and move, and have. our being." Yet there is a solemn sense in which moral beings can and do live aloof from him, live without him. Sinners are" without God" in the world . ." He is not in all their thoughts." They shut him out from the whole sphere of their feelings, thoughts, and activities. Not only do they practically ignore his presence and his claims, but his very existence. They are without God. Practical atheists. Is not this moral madness? I. Is it not moral madness to shut the eye to the greatest Object in the universe---One compared with whom the creation itself is as nothing? 2. Is it not moral madness to disregard the most absolute Mast~ of our destiny-the one Bein~ in whose hand our breath is; One whose very word can make for us an eternal hell or heaven? 3. Is it not moral madness to have no sympathy with the best Being in existence-the Fountain of all love, truth, and blessedness? III. WITH A HEART WITHOUT TRUE SENSIBILITY. "Blindness [hardness] of their heart." "Past feeling." This insensibility, whilst it has been brought about by moral irrationality and ignorance, reacts, deepens the darkness of the understanding, allll intensifies the folly of the soul. When the man's heart gets so hardened as to be "past feeling," he becomes utterly incapable of taking right views of spiritual things. The impure atmosphere of a corrupt and hardened heart will obscure the vision of the intellect. When the heart is " past feeling," man becomes so stupid in intellect a~ to be utterly incapable of seeing the beauty or feeling the force of spiritual tmth. 1. To be "past feeling" is to be past the power of true improvement. Where there is no feel- ing there is no pain, and where there is no pain there will be no impulse for the search of a remedy; A bodily diseo.se without pain is the most hopeless, and a moral diseo.se without pain must prove fatal. "Past feeling." The moral heart run to "fat." 2. To be " past feeling " is to be past the power of true enjoyment. There is no pleasure without feeling. IV. WITH A LIFE WITHOUT TRUE VIRTUE, "Given themselves over unto lascivious- ness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." The passage includes two things. 1 . .A voluntary abandonment to sin. "Given themselves over unto lasciviousness,'· etc. Having lost spiritual intelligence, God, and sensibility, the son! abandons itself to moral corruption. It does it voluntll.rily. " Given themselves." 'l'hey are not forced by God or the devil. What a sight !-souls made in the image of God plunging into o. hideous, sunless, lifeless, lawless chaos I 2. .An avaricious appetite for sin. " With greediness." The word "greediness " elsewhere means "covetousness "-o. desire to have more. CONCLUSION. Learn: 1. That a clear intellect requires a clean heart. 2. That a clean heart requires a vital connection with God. Religion is essentio.l to a sound intellect.-D. T. Vers. 20-24.-TM true method of studying Christianity. "But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have beard him, and have been taught by him, as tho truth is in Jesus: that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old mnn, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of yonr mind; and that ye put on the new man, which nfter God is created in righteousness and true holiness." These verses, including those bnck to the seventeenth, contain a general exhortation to holiness. The exhortation takes two forms-the negative nml the positive. 'l'hc negative wo have noticed in our previous homily, vers. 17-19 ; tho positive is now before us. 'l'he subject is-The true method of studying Christianity. Christianity is to be "learned." It is not an inbred knowledge. Man has no intuition~ about 1t. Nor is it a knowledge imparted in any way irrespective of the use of onr faculties nnd means. It corues to a man as tho rrsult of "learning." 'l'he man who iloes not rightly study will never know it. But what is the true method of stndyin<:;? '!'his ie our present question, a question which we shall endeavour to an~wer in tlio light ot' the pnss~ge before us. 19S THE EPISTLE 'l'O THE EPHESIANS. [011. IV. 1-32,