hed the chivalrous heart of
David has to be repeated by us in regard to any work which we can ever
hope to make well pleasing to God; 'I will not offer burnt offerings
unto the Lord my God which cost me nothing.'

There is a spurious humility which treats all the works of good men as
filthy rags, but such a false depreciation is contradicted by Christ's
'Well done, good and faithful servant.' It is true that all our deeds
are stained and imperfect, but if they are offered on the altar which He
provides, it will sanctify the giver and the gift. He is the great Aaron
who makes atonement for the iniquity of our holy things. And whilst we
are stricken silent with thankfulness for the wonderful mercy of His
gracious allowance, we may humbly hope that His 'Well done' will be
spoken of us, and may labour, not without a foretaste that we do not
labour in vain, that 'whether present or absent we may be well pleasing
to Him.'

The fruit is here supposed to be growing, that is, of course, in another
life. We need not insist that the service and sacrifice and work of
earth, if the motive be right, tell in a man's condition after death. It
is not all the same how Christian men live; some gain ten talents, some
five, and some two, and the difference between them is not always as the
parable represents it, a difference in the original endowment. An
entrance may be given into the eternal kingdom, and yet it may not be an
abundant entrance.

III. The gift that supplies the givers.

Paul has nothing to bestow, but he serves a great God who will see to it
that no man is the poorer by helping His servants. The king's honour is
concerned in not letting a poor man suffer by lodging and feeding his
retainers. The words here suggest to us the source from which our need
may be filled full, as an empty vessel might be charged to the brim with
some precious liquid, the measure or limit of the fulness, and the
channel by which we receive it.

Paul was so sure that the Philippians' needs would all be satisfied,
because he knew that his own had been; he is generalising from his own
case, and that, I think, is at all events part of the reason why he says
with much emphasis, '_My_ God. As He has done to me He will do to you,'
but even without the 'my,' the great name contains in itself a promise
and its seal. 'God will supply just because He is God'; that is what His
name means--infinite fulness and infinite self-communicativeness and
delight in