Expositions of Holy Scripture | Page 6

we yield ourselves. A God who has love for us will be a God to whom it is blessed
that we should be consecrated, and so saints.
Then, still further, this consecration, thus built upon the reception of the divine love, and
influencing our whole nature, and leading to all purity, is a universal characteristic of
Christians. There is no faith which does not lead to surrender. There is no aristocracy in
the Christian Church which deserves to have the family name given especially to it.
'Saint' this, and 'Saint' that, and 'Saint' the other--these titles cannot be used without
darkening the truth that this honour and obligation of being saints belong equally to all
that love Jesus Christ. All the men whom thus God has drawn to Himself, by His love in
His Son, they are all, if I may so say, objectively holy; they belong to God. But
consecration may be cultivated, and must be cultivated and increased. There is a solemn
obligation laid upon every one of us who call ourselves Christians, to be saints, in the
sense that we have consciously yielded up our whole lives to Him; and are trying, body,
soul, and spirit, 'to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.'
Paul's letter, addressed to the 'beloved in God,' the 'called saints' that are in Rome, found
its way to the people for whom it was meant. If a letter so addressed were dropped in our
streets, do you think anybody would bring it to you, or to any Christian society as a
whole, recognising that we were the people for whom it was meant? The world has
taunted us often enough with the name of saints; and laughed at the profession which
they thought was included in the word. Would that their taunts had been undeserved, and
that it were not true that 'saints' in the Church sometimes means less than 'good men' out
of the Church! 'Seeing that we have these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit; perfecting holiness in the fear of the
Lord.'

PAUL'S LONGING[1]
'I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be
established; 12. That is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith
both of you and me.'--ROMANS i. 11, 12.
I am not wont to indulge in personal references in the pulpit, but I cannot but yield to the
impulse to make an exception now, and to let our happy circumstances mould my
remarks. I speak mainly to mine own people, and I must trust that other friends who may
hear or read my words will forgive my doing so.
In taking such a text as this, I desire to shelter myself behind Paul, and in expounding his
feelings to express my own, and to draw such lessons as may be helpful and profitable to
us all. And so there are three things in this text that I desire to note: the manly expression
of Christian affection; the lofty consciousness of the purpose of their meeting; and the
lowly sense that there was much to be received as well as much to be given. A word or
two about each of these things is all on which I can venture.

I. First, then, notice the manly expression of Christian affection which the Apostle allows
himself here.
Very few Christian teachers could or should venture to talk so much about themselves as
Paul did. The strong infusion of the personal element in all his letters is so transparently
simple, so obviously sincere, so free from any jarring note of affectation or unctuous
sentiment that it attracts rather than repels. If I might venture upon a paradox, his
personal references are instances of self-oblivion in the midst of self-consciousness.
He had never been in Rome when he wrote these words; he had no personal relations
with the believers there; he had never looked them in the face; there were no sympathy
and confidence between them, as the growth of years. But still his heart went out towards
them, and he was not ashamed to show it. 'I long to see you,'--in the original the word
expresses a very intense amount of yearning blended with something of regret that he had
been so long kept from them.
Now it is not a good thing for people to make many professions of affection, and I think a
public teacher has something better to do than to parade such feelings before his
audiences. But there are exceptions to all rules, and I suppose I may venture to let my
heart speak, and to say how gladly I come back to the old place, dear to me by