says the apostle, instead of that being a tie, it ought to be the very reverse. Your relationship must not be made an obstruction to your progress, but an impulse. No relationship that is formed upon earth should ever supersede, or deaden, or darken in the least our sense of an eternal relationship to God. "It remains that they that weep be as though they wept not." Then, it is not sinful to weep. The Stoics of old said that man became perfect as he became granite; that is, the absence of feeling was their attribute of perfection.

But there is a triumphant confutation of all such nonsense in one short text-" Jesus wept." Christians may weep at some bitter loss, some painful bereavement, some heavy trial. But whatever it be, they must weep not as those that despair, not as those that despond, not as those that have no hope; but while they weep, it must be weeping tempered by holier and better thoughts, that it shall be as though they wept not.

"They that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not." He is speaking of earthly joy. There are four sorts of joy; there is sensual and sinful joy, there is demoniac joy, and there is human joy, and there is divine or spiritual joy. In spiritual things we may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But the apostle is speaking here of the joy that any man takes in his home, in his farm, in his merchandise, in his attainments, in his books, in his studies, in all the things with which he is associated; to have joy from which is perfectly lawful, and to joy in which is not in any shape sinful: the only thing required is, that the joy shall be so tempered by a sense of higher thoughts, and by waters from higher springs, that it shall be a joy as if

it were no joy at all, "Rejoice as though you rejoiced not;” that is, it must not be excess.

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Buy as though you possessed not; and to use the world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away." Then, you may go to the market; it is not sinful to sell in the market, it is not sinful to buy in the market; and that man who, in his shop, does his duty to himself, to his family, to his customers, in the fear of God, is serving and honouring God in his place. It is not sinful, therefore, to buy or to exchange the things of this world in mercantile and commercial pursuits. But they that buy must sit so loose to what they have bought, think so little of it in comparison of a heavenly inheritance, feel so weak an attachment to it in comparison of their attachment to unsearchable riches, that when they have made their bargain, and bought what they valued, and have it for their own, they must feel in reference to it as if they had it not; that is, be ready to part with it when the Master calls for it, and to give it up when he, in his providence, requires the sacrifice.

"And they that use the world," in the next place,

It

as not abusing it." Then we may use the world, we may have the world; for how could we use it unless we had it? It is not sinful, therefore, to be rich, if riches have been left you, or earned honestly, fairly, and without covetousness, and exaction, and selfishness. is not sinful to have; it is not sinful to buy; it is not sinful, therefore, to possess. Only what you possess you must so use, and so possess, as if you possessed it not; and you must so use the riches that God has given you as never to be charged with abusing them; that is, turning them to bad purposes, to gratify the lust of

the eye, the pride of life, the love of this present world.

And what do we learn from all this, then? That we may weep, that we may rejoice, that we may marry, that we may buy, that we may have property; showing that all those things about which monks, and hermits, and ascetics, and epicureans, and sensualists, and worldlings, have quarrelled and rushed to extremes, have their place in God's Word, and a place that they may occupy in the Christian's heart; till one knows not which most to admire, the thorough good sense, or the lofty inspiration, that runs through every page of that most wonderful book, the Bible.

He assigns the reason for it all. He says, "The fashion of this world passeth away." This word "fashion" is in the Greek allusive to the drama, a play, a tragedy; and the idea is, that the fashion that one has passes away. In the ancient drama actors put on masks, and appeared in masks; they were also dressed according to the character they sustained.

Now, the idea conveyed by the fashion of the world passing away in the apostle's mind is, that men appear to be what they are not; just as the actor spends his brief hour upon the stage as a king, is treated as a king, addressed as a king; but the moment he steps off the stage the mask is laid aside, and the crown, and the sceptre, and the robes, and he appears what he was and what he really is. So, says the apostle, all the masks of this world, that make us look what we are not, are dropping off; all the circumstance, all the masquerade of life, is rapidly disappearing, and the fashion of all things is passing constantly away. Do we not feel it so? Every day new faces, new voices,

new incidents, new scenes, new circumstances; till, when you go back to the scenes of your youth, you feel all is changed. And yet it is not so much that these are changed as that your feelings are changed. And the whole world itself, all its economy, is undergoing change; none can prevent it. Therefore, says the apostle, how important, how dutiful, to lift our affections above the masquerade, above the theatre, above the dramatic appearances that are not real, to those realities where we are not play kings, but true kings and priests unto God and to his Christ for ever and for ever.

Thus we see the admirable practical advice given by the apostle in these most precious words. Let us therefore set our affections not upon things that are beneath, but upon things that are above. It is not said, let us dislodge every earthly thought, let us snap every earthly tie,-it is not so enjoined; but let the heavenly tie be stronger: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be added." The Gospel does not require us to cease to be human; it asks us only to beautify the human by accepting and adding the dignity and glory of the Divine. It asks us to live as men, but as Christian men, strangers, pilgrims, sojourners, whose home is in the future, whose heart should be in the future also, where Christ our Saviour is.

CHAPTER VIII.

GENTILE DIFFICULTIES-FOOD OFFERED TO IDOLS-IS IT LAWFUL TO EAT IT?-CONTROVERSY-LOVE AND LIGHT-ONE LIVING GOD -SYMPATHY WITH THE WEAK-TOLERATION.

In order thoroughly to understand this chapter, it is requisite that we should recollect that precisely as conformity to the rites of Moses was the great question that perplexed and irritated many of the early Christian converts from among the Jews; so the question, whether things that had been offered in the heathen temple to a heathen idol might be eaten when purchased in the market for this purpose by those Gentiles who were converts to Christianity, was the great topic that perplexed and irritated the Gentile mind. It is also necessary to recollect that the origin of the dispute, or the practical difficulty,-for such that dispute had become-was this. In the heathen temples at Rome and at Corinth, and everywhere throughout heathendom, the animal was first offered in sacrifice; a portion was eaten by the priest, the rest was exposed for sale in the market, and might be purchased at the market-price by anybody who was so disposed. But certain Christians thought that to purchase meat, or animal food, that had been first offered to an idol in a heathen temple, and to partake of that as their ordinary nutriment and common and every-day meal, was in some degree to countenance idol worship and indirectly