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sentence some vivid impression which for the moment occupied his whole
soul. But we must pause--as he would have paused, nay, did manifestly
pause--before we treat it as a mould in which we are to cast our rules
of action or habits of life. The sentence expresses the desire and
purpose of the apostle's heart, that which would animate and give aim to
all its action; but the action itself would be wisely modulated by a
hundred secondary considerations, and by other co-ordinate principles,
so as to secure, as far as might be possible, the end at which he aimed,
without imperilling other and it might be yet higher things. It would be
a grand mistake then to formulate such a sentence as this into a rigid
rule of action. Treated thus, the first thing which would fall under
condemnation would probably be the apostle's life.

These words are very constantly employed as though they laid down a rule
of action concerning things indifferent which might lead easily to sin,
and set before us a way of helping men against vicious habits at the
cost of some personal self-sacrifice. That may be a very important
subject, and it has plenty of passages bearing on it in the word of
God. But it is not the difficulty here. This passage has quite a
different bearing. It is a case, not of a weak will, but of a weak
judgment, a weak conscience, in which there is danger of false beliefs
or of a lowering of the tone of the conscientious principle of action.
It is this, and not any question of vicious habits, which draws from the
apostle, who had fought his way through the whole jungle of doubts and
difficulties and perplexities in which the weaker brethren were
struggling painfully still, these ardent and decisive words.

I. At the root of this declaration lies the conviction that there is no
consideration which may compete in a man's motives with the desire to
promote the spiritual welfare and progress of mankind. It is the object
dearest to God. It was the object dearest to the apostle's heart. It
seemed so great to God, so essentially glorious, that God came forth in
the form of a man to die for it. This is the true form of the
Calvinistic tenet that to God His own glory is His highest end. And Paul
was prepared to die for it too. "_And as we tarried there many days,
there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus. And when he
was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and
feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy