nd holy desire than in his petitions for his friends.

In that great prayer, of which my text forms a part, we have his
response to the good news that had reached him of the steadfastness in
faith and abundance in love of these Ephesian Christians. As the best
expression of his glad love he asks for them the knowledge of three
things, of which my text is the first, and the other two are the
'riches of the glory of the inheritance' and 'the exceeding greatness of
God's power.'

Now if we take the 'hope' in my text, as is often done, as meaning the
thing hoped for, there seems to be but a shadowy difference between the
first and the second of these subjects of the apostolic petition.
Whereas, if we take it as meaning, not the object on which the emotion
is fixed, but the emotion itself, then all the three stand in a natural
gradation and connection. We have, first, the Christian emotion; then
the object upon which it is fixed; 'the glory of the inheritance'; then
the power by which the latter is brought and the former is realised. We
shall consider the second and third of these petitions in following
sermons. For the present I confine myself to this first, the Apostle's
great desire for Christians who had already made considerable progress
in the Christian life, 'that they may know,' by experiencing it, 'what
is the hope of His calling.'

I. Now the first thought that these words suggest to me is this, that
the Christian hope is based upon the facts of Christian experience.

What does the Apostle mean by naming it 'the hope of his calling'? He
means this, that the great act of the divine mercy revealed to us in the
Gospel, by which God summons and invites men to Himself, will naturally
produce in those who have yielded to it a hope of immortal and perfect
life. Because God has called men, therefore the man who has yielded to
the call may legitimately, and must, if he is to do his duty, cherish
such a hope. It is clear enough that this is so, inasmuch as, unless
there be a heaven of completeness for us who have yielded to the summons
and obeyed the invitation of God in His Gospel, His whole procedure is
enigmatical and bewildering. The fact of the call is inexplicable; the
cost of it is no less so. It was not worth while for God to make the
world unless with respect to another which was to follow. It is still
less worth His while to redeem the world if the results of that
redemption, as they are exhibited here and now,