We are not servants merely we are sons. Remembering how much we owe to our Creator and Redeemer, can we do other than desire to please Him? Let every Christian call in the aid of this beautiful and persuasive motive. God is not hard to please. If we make the effort with humility, sincerity, and, above all, with love, we may be sure we shall not fail.

"THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, EVEN YOUR
SANCTIFICATION"
(1 Thess. iv. 3).

Ir is God's will, the great purpose that He has at heart concerning men, that they should be holy. "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth." Pardon and all other blessings are a means to this great end. The Great Sculptor would think and plan and labour only for a torso, in room of a statue, without this; the Great Builder would never see the topstone on His chosen temple without this; the Great Husbandman would never taste of the fruit of His vineyard without this. Now, if our sanctification-our growing holiness here and our perfected holiness hereafter-is God's will, then

I. HOLINESS IS A GREAT AND BLESSED CONSUMMATION. “ "Good is the will of the Lord." There can be nothing so great and blessed for any creature as to have God's will perfected in it. "Thy will be done" is a prayer that pictures to us all struggle and misery at an end, and the sun shining down on a calm and green and fragrant world. Only in holiness are eternal life and blessedness possible. To have the thoughts pure, the life at every point and in all its interests set like music to the words of God's law, the soul moulded into the image of Christ, that is to have eternal life begun. "In the keeping of Thy commandments there is great reward."

II. GOD WILL SPARE NO PAINS TO CREATE AND PERFECT HOLINESS IN A MAN'S SOUL. He has spared no sacrifice, in that He sent His Son; for it was the very essence and heart of Christ's mission to "purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." And still towards and in us He will direct His working to this great end. He will prune His vine, that it may bring forth more fruit. He will hammer the rude block, if need be, by the heavy strokes of that law of His which is both without and within a man, by the loving sternness of His Providence, &c., till the form of limb and feature stand out. He will cut and chisel and polish it till it becomes the fair image of Christ. And as we smart and weep, and wonder at our Heavenly Father's severity, let us think of the great purpose on which He is bent,

and hear in all our Saviour saying, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification."

III. WE ARE BOUND TO CO-OPERATE WITH GOD IN THIS GREAT END. "God wills it," exclaimed the Crusaders, and buckled on their armour for the conquest of the Holy Land. "God wills it" that we should fight and strive and pray for a purer and higher conquest, the attainment of holiness itself. And what a start God gives us in His full forgiveness through Christ! He thereby gives us freedom, gratitude. momentum; and in our whole warfare with sin He gives His Holy Spirit to inspire and direct and sustain. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness," &c.

IV. WE ARE ASSURED OF SUCCESS. "This is the will of God." It is undoubtedly, purely, earnestly His will. When thou wouldst faint in the struggle be re-strengthened by this thought. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" "Though ye have lien among the pots, ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold."

THE MOTIVE POWER OF OUR SAVIOUR'S PASSION
(1 Thess. iv. 1-8).

THE First Epistle to the Thessalonians is the earliest apostolical letter of St. Paul, and indeed the first book which was written of our present New Testament. Driven from Asia by persecutions, St. Paul came to Europe and founded the first Christian Church in Philippi. Compelled to leave this city by persecutions and imprisonment, he came to Thessalonica, a seaport and great commercial city, and there he preached the gospel with "signs following." Once more obliged to leave by reason of Jewish hatred and insolence, he came to Corinth. But still deeply interested in the newly planted Church in Thessalonica, with which he was still present in spirit, he sent his companions, Timothy and Silas, to ascertain and report on the condition of the converts. And when these informed him of their not unnatural or surprising state of old heathen habits still clinging to them, he wrote this admonitory Epistle. Whilst he cannot sufficiently thank God for their state of grace in Christ Jesus, he has pertinent and much-needed counsels to give them. These circumstances cast light on the exhortations found in this part of the letter under consideration. At first sight there appears to be but little connection between this Epistle and the passion of our Saviour, little to lead us to contemplate the death of our Lord as one of the subjects of Lenten thought and preparation; but if we look closer, we shall find that here the cross of

Christ is the earnest preacher of every Christian virtue; the passion of our Saviour is the real motive power to the perform

ance

I. OF OUR DUTY TOWARDS SELF (vers. 1-5). St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the commands, the charges, which he had given them. The Church had just been won from heathenism, and they are to remember that the old heathenish life is incompatible with their calling as Christians. The letter is rich in commands. The law is not abrogated, he assures them, but the Apostle does not announce that law, as did Moses, with threats of temporal and eternal punishment. He beseeches them by the Lord Jesus. But what does this mean but to pray them by that manifestation of love which Jesus gave on the cross as the richest and most powerful proof of affection and love? As He gave Himself for us, we are to give ourselves up to Him, and to devote ourselves with soul and body, and with all that we have and are to His service. From this standpoint let us regard this command. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication," &c. If the Apostle selects only one example, and that chastity, of the duties we owe to ourselves, is not the reason clear that unchastity was just one of those vices to which a community like that of Thessalonica would be most prone? Think of the state of our great maritime and commercial centres in this land! Is not licentiousness a prevailing and damning sin? But the heathens knew nothing of that command, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." Their very worship was the seat and home of unchastity, their very gods being pleased with the most horribly impure rites. If the Old Testament warned the Jews against these sins, must not an apostle of the pure and holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ warn Christian men against these sins? And so the Apostle teaches us our body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, or, as the words here used will at least bear interpreting, a vessel, our own vessel, of the Holy Spirit, which is to be kept in sanctification and honour. It is only under the cross that we can learn that we, who belong to Christ, must "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof."

'That no man go

II. OF OUR DUTY TOWARDS OUR NEIGHBOUR. beyond, and defraud his brother in any matter." If these words are taken as they stand, and the reference is to fraud generally, has not the Apostle hit upon another prominent sin of great centres of trade, covetousness and the haste to be rich, leading to dishonesty and sharp practice? It is not easy to say how greatly social life is injured by both these sins, unchastity and fraud, and how manifold is the destruction of both bodies and souls wrought by these crying sins of great cities. And if the refer

ence is special (see R.V.), "that no man transgress and wrong his brother in the matter," the particular matter here spoken of, then we still see how the Apostle teaches that we have certain duties we owe to our brother. We may transgress or overreach (margin R.V.) a brother in many things, and thereby sin against him and against God. At bottom, it is the same sin of selfseeking and covetousness, whatever is the object. Sensuality and covetousness were two prominent sins of the heathen world. The Old Testament teaches the avoidance of these evils, but where is the love of God and of our brother so clearly taught as in the cross of Christ? Nothing preaches so definitely the words of the Saviour, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, as I have loved you."

III. OF OUR DUTY TOWARDS GOD. The duty we owe to self, the duty we owe to our neighbour, cannot be performed unless we recognise that these have their roots in the true service of God. Only he who loves God can also truly love himself, by not seeking his enjoyment in the goods of this world, but in God. Only He who loves God can also truly love his neighbour, by seeking to bring him into the way that leads to the life eternal. Therefore the Apostle knits the two preceding duties more firmly together when he adds, "The Lord is the avenger of all such, as we have also forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He, therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who also hath given unto us His Holy Spirit." This is a call to the love of God, who has not left us to sink into the depths of impurity, but called us from it, and given His Holy Spirit to free us. Itis, too, a call to the fear of God. God is the avenger. The cross of Christ is the seal of both, for it proclaims at once His love to the sinner and His hatred of sin.

CALLED TO HOLINESS.

"FOR THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, EVEN YOUR

GOD has called us not to impurity but to holiness, i.e., to a holy mode of life; for in the Christian kingdom of God the old heathenish life of sin cannot endure alongside the new life in Christ. Believing, knowing, praying, these do not constitute us true Christians without sanctification of the heart and life. This holiness

I. IN RELATION TO GOD IS CHILDLIKE OBEDIENCE, so that we

give ourselves up completely to God's will, and in joy and sorrow are led by God. He has learnt "how to walk and to please God" (vers. 1-3).

II. IN RELATION TO SELF IS CHASTITY IN THOUGHT AND DEED. Keep thyself pure." The Christian avoids fornication and the Just of concupiscence, and preserves his vessel, that is, the sheath in which his soul is, his body, in sanctification and honour. He desires nothing that weakens the body, avoids all loose words and objects calculated to inflame the passions (vers. 3−5).

III. IN RELATION TO OUR NEIGHBOUR IS HONOUR AND HONESTY. Whether" defraud his brother in any matter" is a phrase having a general or a special application, the sense is the same. Christian honour and honesty will have their sway in either sphere.

Let us not forget to note that to this life we are exhorted (1.) by the most touching, and (2.) by the most awful sanctions. 1. "I exhort you by the Lord Jesus" (ver. 1). "Ye know what commandments are given you by the Lord Jesus."

2. "He, therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit."

GOD'S WILL OUR SANCTIFICATION.

"THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD, EVEN YOUR

I. WHAT IS SANCTIFICATION? It includes

1. The absence of impurity, "that ye abstain from fornication," and all other sins of the flesh of which this is a type.

2. The presence of purity. God desires the presence of good as well as the absence of evil. It means the action and evercontinued performance of what is right before God and man.

II. HOW DOES GOD WILL OUR SANCTIFICATION? There is God's will in the material creation. This obeys God unquestioningly and because it must. His law is impressed upon it. There is God's will in the moral sphere; and so our sanctification is willed in harmony with the nature He has Himself given

to man.

1. God wills our sanctification by and through the death of Christ.

2. He wills our sanctification through the co-operation of our own wills. We may set ourselves at variance to the will of God.

3. He wills our sanctification by the use of all means. Bibles, ministers, teachers, events of life, each and all are intended to minister to the culture of our spirits, and the