churches, the advancement of the kingdom of God on earth, has more value, in his estimation, than his own individual advantage. This example finds its application, not only according to the letter, in a precisely similar case,-when one, possessed with the longing for his heavenly country, is necessitated to bear the burden of earthly life for the benefit of others; we may apply it, according to its spirit, to all cases where a man is called to abandon a life which promises most for the higher interests of the soul,—a peaceful life, consecrated, in undisturbed composure, to meditation, and prayer,—and to throw himself into the midst of duties, and labours, and conflicts, with which the higher desires of his soul have no sympathy, but where he is summoned to work for the salvation of others, who need his aid. In this respect, Paul gives us the example, to be imitated, of a self-denying love, which dreads no sacrifice in the service of others. How often have Christians, who have withdrawn from amid the corruptions, instead of seeking to be the salt, of the world, acted contrary to this example!

Standing between life and death, what is the ground of Paul's confidence? This is a point so important for all Christians, that it claims we should dwell on it. He, if any one, was a true labourer in the work of the Lord. He was conscious of having laboured more abundantly than all the apostles in the preaching of the Gospel; but he was conscious also that this was not his work, but that the grace of God had wrought everything through him, as he himself says, "I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me," (1 Cor. xv. 10.) Where higher considerations required it for his self-defence against suspicions tending to unsettle the confidence of the churches in him, he knew well how to enumerate all that he, more than others, had laboured and suffered and borne for the cause of the Lord, (2 Cor. xi. 22, 23); he could appeal to the marks of the Lord Jesus which he bore, signs like those imprinted on slaves and soldiers, testifying whose servant he was, and impressed on him by the Lord himself, in whose communion he bore these his sufferings, and whose example in suffering he followed in his. (Gal. vi. 17.) But yet, when he looked to the end of his earthly career, and surveyed

a life so rich in deeds and sufferings in the cause of the Lord, not upon what he himself had done, did he believe he could ground his confidence; in his eyes all this appeared defective. All that he had hitherto performed, he believed he must forget, and look only to that which still remained for him to do. His principle was to forget all past performances, and ever to press forward towards the prize of his heavenly calling. It may, at first sight, appear strange to us, that Paul should express himself with so much hesitation and doubt, as to whether he shall attain the prize of eternal life, a participation in the blessedness of the Resurgent. This seems to conflict with the Divine confidence which breathes throughout the epistle, and with which he expresses himself elsewhere upon the object of his hope; as, for instance, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me in that day," (2 Tim. iv. 8, 9.) But these are discrepancies which belong to the essence of Christian life, and which must always be found in the life of Christians. When the Christian looks to his Redeemer, to the grace of redemption assured to him, to the unchangeable word of promise, the end to which all his conflicts are directed appears to him as an object of undoubted certainty; but when, on the other hand, he examines his own life by the measure of Divine holiness, his confidence has no firm foundation; defects and stains everywhere present themselves to his view, and all this the more he has advanced in holiness, the keener his spiritual glance has become, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to apprehend the ideal pattern of Divine holiness, in its application to the duties of his own life, to test, in reference to this, his inward and outward life, to prove its nakedness and its shortcomings, and to penetrate the dark corners of his heart. Hence the source of this fluctuation in Paul's expressions regarding both what he is, and has done. His past actions appear as nothing in his own eyes,-he considers only what he has yet to do. He is filled with the consciousness that he is still far from perfection—that he has not yet attained the perfect. But this is the foundation of his confidence, that as Christ had drawn

him into communion with Himself, as Christ had "apprehended" him, so, therefore, he hopes that, having been thus apprehended, he also would apprehend the prize offered him by Christ. He knows that Christ, who apprehended him, will not leave His work in him unfinished, but will carry it through all conflicts to a glorious termination, if he yield himself truly to Him. Let us hear his own words upon this-words which, though few, express so much: "Not as although I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus," (chap. iii. 12.) This is a topic of such magnitude in Paul's mind, that he dwells on this thought, and urges it on all Christians, from his own Christian selfconsciousness and experience, in order to warn them against all danger of self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness, and spiritual pride; and therefore, he once more addresses them, and says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," (chap. iii. 13, 14.) Conscious of the insufficiency of all human righteousness-not merely of that righteousness preceding regeneration, which is wanting in the true principle of life, and which subsists independent of Christianity, but of that which has the true principle of holiness in faith, although still imperfectly developed and imperfectly realised,—the alone immoveable ground of Paul's confidence is Christ, through whose grace he has been apprehended, and whom he seeks more and more to apprehend and make his own. Turning his glance from himself, and directing it to Christ, he is full of confidence; directing it to himself, he is given over to doubts. and uncertainties; in order that, by averting it from himself, he may again cleave more and more to Christ, from whose love nothing can separate him. The righteousness given to him by God in Christ alone has value in his eyes, as he says in these words of this epistle, "The righteousness. . . . which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God through faith," (chap. iii. 9.) To him Christ is all in all.

Everything depends only on entering into communion with Him, and making it more and more our own,- -on following Him, by taking His cross upon us, therefore, on following Him as the crucified for us, by dying, in His communion, to sin, ourselves, and the world, on following him in self-denial and renunciation of the world, and in the fellowship of His sufferings, which we fear not to share with Him, and on following Him as the Resurgent Christ, experiencing in ourselves the power of His resurrection-a resurrection to an imperishable Divine life, exalted above sin and nature, which passes from Him upon us, if so be He has apprehended us, and we have apprehended Him; as Paul says in these words, "That I may know the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death; if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead," (chap. iii. 10, 11.) We have already remarked how compatible it is with the assurance of faith, that the apostle should express himself here with such apparent hesitation.

It was the greatest joy of the apostle to perceive, that his imprisonment, when once it became known that no charge of any kind could be proved against him, but that zeal only for the faith he pleaded, had brought his afflictions upon him,— must tend to the furtherance of the cause of the Gospel. Attention would necessarily be directed to a cause, for which such a man as Paul felt himself constrained to sacrifice everything. The impression, moreover, which the noble enthusiasm of his testimony, his steadfastness, and his whole life, made on those who were witnesses of them, contributed to the same end, (chap. i. 13.) The report of these things was spread abroad, as he hints, by the different reliefs of the soldiers of the Emperor's body-guard, the Castra Prætoriana, who were appointed to watch him in his dwelling, more and more among their comrades, and through them was still further disseminated. The example of the apostle inflamed other Christians at Rome to imitate him in zeal for the preaching of the Gospel, without showing fear, when they saw him so dauntless. And thus there was an increase of preaching.

But among those preachers, Paul himself draws a great distinc

tion. He says, namely, in expressing his joy, that his bonds in Christ contribute to the spreading of the Gospel: "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of good will; the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the others of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the Gospel," (chap. i. 15-17.) With regard to the latter, he means to say, that such, with their love for the Gospel, joined also a love for himself. They knew, that they could give him no greater joy, than in co-operating in rendering his imprisonment a means for the furtherance of the Gospel; for they knew, that this is the great function of his whole life, that he regards this as his life-long appointment from God, the end of all God's dispensations towards him, -even of his present "bonds." This is clear; but how are we to understand the declaration, "the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds?" Who are those who sought, by preaching the Gospel, to add to the apostle's vexation in his imprisonment, and whom he reproaches with want of sincerity? Along with this we must take, what he afterwards says on this difference, that, by the one, Christ was preached "in truth," by the others, only "in pretence," (chap. i. 18.) Are we, then, to assume that these men, without any love for the cause of the Gospel, without any inward conviction of its truth, preached Christ, merely, in order to contribute to render Paul's position worse, and to expose him to greater dangers,-that their motive, in the further dif fusion of the Gospel in Rome, was to make that Paul, who was the centre of the whole movement, an object of greater suspicion and hatred to the Roman authorities? It is easy to be seen, how unnatural and intrinsically improbable such a supposition is. If by preaching, they could bring Paul into greater dangers, they would, at the same time, have incurred the same dangers. And is it conceivable, that they would have played so dangerous a game, merely to gratify their hatred of another? He, who did not himself believe the Gospel, must, at that period, have been prejudiced against it, and could not certainly have gone so far as to preach it, as a means to another end. We must, therefore, seek another explanation