o a temple worthy of the divine indwelling.
Now, I suppose that the metaphor is such a natural and simple one that
we do not need to look for any Scriptural basis of it. But if we did, I
should be disposed to find it in the solemn antithesis with which the
Sermon on the Mount is closed, where there are the two houses pictured,
the one built upon the rock and standing firm, and the other built upon
the sand. But that is perhaps unnecessary.

We are all builders; building up--what? Character, ourselves. But what
sort of a thing is it that we are building? Some of us pigsties, in
which gross, swinish lusts wallow in filth; some of us shops; some of us
laboratories, studies, museums; some of us amorphous structures that
cannot be described. But the Christian man is to be building himself up
into a temple of God. The aim which should ever burn clear before us,
and preside over even our smallest actions, is that which lies in this
misused old word, 'edify' yourselves.

The first thing about a structure is the foundation. And Paul was narrow
enough to believe that the one foundation upon which a human spirit
could be built up into a hallowed character is Jesus Christ. He is the
basis of all our certitude. He is the anchor for all our hopes. To Him
should be referred all our actions; for Him and by Him our lives should
be lived. On Him should rest, solid and inexpugnable, standing
four-square to all the winds that blow, the fabric of our characters.
Jesus Christ is the pattern, the motive which impels, and the power
which enables, me to rear myself into a habitation of God through the
Spirit. Whilst I gladly acknowledge that very lovely structures may be
reared upon another foundation than Him, I would beseech you all to lay
this on your hearts and consciences, that for the loftiest, serenest
beauty of character there is but one basis upon which it can be rested.
'Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ.'

Then there is another aspect of this same metaphor, not in Paul's
writings but in another part of the New Testament, where we read: 'Ye,
beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.' So that, in a
subordinate sense, a man's faith is the basis upon which he can build
such a structure of character; or, to put it into other words--in regard
to the man himself, the first requisite to the rearing of such a fabric
as God will dwell in is that he, by his own personal act of faith,