which
serve not to further the faith nor to supply the wants of the body and
preserve it. We have enough else to talk about during this short
lifetime, if we desire to speak, enough that is profitable and
pleasant, if we talk only of Christ, of love and of other essential
things. The apostle mentions the giving of thanks. It should be our
daily and constant employment to praise and thank God, privately and
publicly, for the great and inexpressible treasures he has given us in
Christ. But it appears that what is needful is relegated to the rear,
while objects of indifference are brought to the fore.

Now, mark you, if Paul will not tolerate banter and suggestive
conversation among Christians, what would he say of the shameful
backbiting which is heard whenever people meet, though but two
individuals? Yes, what would be his judgment of those who in public
preaching clinch and claw, attack and calumniate each other?

FRUITLESS CHRISTIANS ARE HEATHEN.

"For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person,
nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the
kingdom of Christ and God."

15. Hereby he declares in dry words that the man who does not exhibit
the fruits of faith is a heathen under the name of a Christian. Here
is absolute condemnation in a word. The whoremonger is a denier of the
faith; the unclean person is a denier of the faith; the covetous
individual is a denier of the faith: all are rebellious, perjured and
faithless toward God. Paul tells Timothy (1 Tim 5, 8): "But if any
provideth not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath
denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever." How could he utter
anything more severe, more terrifying?

He begins, "For this ye know." In other words: Doubt not; do not find
vain comfort in the thought that this is a jest or an aspersion. A
Christian name, and association with Christians, will count for
nothing. It will profit you as little as it profits the Jews to be
Abraham's seed and disciples of Moses. Christ's words (Mt 7, 21)
concern every man: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." There must be performance;
faith must be manifested by works.

16. If the great fire of divine love which he uses as his first
argument will not draw us, then may the terrible threat of hell fire
prove a sufficient incentive. In other words, if men follow not God,
walking in love and showing