ut the
inference from his present faith, and the joy and sweetness of his
present love. For surely when we rise to the heights which are possible
to us all, and on which I suppose most Christian people have been
sometimes, though for far too brief seasons; when we rise to the heights
of communion with God, anything seems more possible to us than that
death, or anything that lies in the future, should have power over a tie
so sweet, so strong, so independent of externals, and so all-sufficing
in its sweetness. Thus we shall be sure that God is our portion for
ever, in the precise degree in which, by faith and love, we feel that
'He is the strength of our hearts,' to-day and now. So, then, we have
the three foundation-stones.

And now a word or two, in the second place, about

II. The fair building which rises on them.

I have already half apologised for using the metaphor of a foundation
and a building. I must repeat the confession that the symbol is an
inadequate one. For the Apostle does not conceive of the work and labour
and patience which are respectively allocated to these three graces as
being superimposed upon them, as it were, by effort, so much as he
thinks of them as growing out of them by their inherent nature. The work
is 'the work of faith,' that which characterises faith, that which
issues from it, that which is its garment, visible to the world, and the
token of its reality and its presence. Faith works. It is the foundation
of all true work; even in the lowest sense of the word we might almost
say that. But in the Christian scheme it is eminently the underlying
requisite for all work which God does not consider as busy idleness. I
might here make a general remark, which, however, I need not dwell upon,
that we have here the broad thought which Christian people in all
generations need to have drummed into their heads over and over again,
and that is that inward experiences and emotions, and states of mind and
heart, however good and precious, are so mainly as being the necessary
foundations of conduct. What is the good of praying and feeling
comfortable within, and having 'a blessed assurance,' a 'happy
experience,' 'sweet communion,' and so on? What is the good of it all,
if these things do not make us 'live soberly, righteously, and godly in
this present world'? What is the good of the sails of a windmill going
whirling round, if the machinery has been thrown out of gear, and the
great stones which i