The life and work of St. Paul

842 THE LIFE ANI> WORK OF ST. PA171*
the trammels of the vilest sins of heathendom, and barely even yet to have
escaped out of the snare of the fowler. Ho confidently addreases exhortations
of stainless purity and sensitive integrity to men who had been thieves and
and so far from any self-exaltation at his own moral
adulterers, and worse ;
superiority, he regards hia own life as hid indeed with Christ in God, but as
so little fit to inspire a feeling of satisfaction that ho is lost in the conviction
of his own unworthiness* as contrasted with the wealth of God's compassion,
aud the unspeakable grandeur of the long-hidden mystery which now in due
time he is commissioned to set forth. The mingled prayer and paean of
this magnificent Epistle is inspired throughout " by a sense of opposites of
the union of weakness and strength, of tribulation and glory, of all that
had been and all that was to be, of the absolute love of God, of the discovery
of that love to man in the Mediator, of the working of that love in man
through the Spirit, of the fellowship of the poorest creature of flesh and blood
on earth with the spirits in heaven, of a canopy of love above and an abyss of
love beneath, which encompasses the whole creation." The Apostle would
have delighted in the spirit of those words which a modern poet has learnt
from the truths which it was his high mission to reveal :
" I say to thee, do thou repeat
To the first man thou mayest meet
In lane, highway, or open street,
That he, and we, and all men move
Under a canopy of love
As broad as the blue sky above." *
* I then," continues the Apostle and how much does that word " then "
involve, referring as it does to all the mighty truths which he has been setting
forth !
"
I then, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthily of the
calling in which ye were called." This is the keynote to all that follows. So
little was earthly success or happiness worth even considering in comparison
with the exceeding and eternal weight of glory which affliction was working
out for them, that while ho has urged them not to lose heart in his tribula-
tions, he makes those very tribulations a ground of appeal, and feels that he
can speak to them with all the stronger influence as " a prisoner in the Lord,"
and " an ambassador in a chain." And the worthy elevation to the grandeur
of their calling was to be shown by virtues which, in then- heathen condition,
they would almost have ranked with abject vices lowliness, meekness, endurance,
the forbearance of mutual esteem. The furious quarrels, the mad
jealousies, the cherished rancours, the frantic spirit of revenge which characterised
their heathen condition, are to be fused by the heat of love into one
great spiritual unity and peace. Oneness, the result of love, is the thought
ruling
of this section (iv. 3 13).
"
One body, and one spirit, even as also
ye were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all." a
Tet this unity is not a dead level of uniformity. Each has his separate
1 Archbishop Trench. 2 Omit futv, M, A, B, 0, Ac,