1 Peter 3:1-22

2. The sanction. We are in the sight of God; his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. If we can only realize that great truth—the eye of the Lord is upon us—we must try to please him and to do his will. His will is that we should love one another, that we should speak no guile, that we should follow after peace. Let those who would live a godly life try daily to bring home to their hearts the thought that the eye of God is reading their souls; that thought will make us humble and contented, will save us from the countless temptations that surround us, will keep us from breaking, by word or deed, the holy law of love. That searching eye is upon the righteous and the wicked; it found among the crowd of guests the one unhappy man who had not on a wedding garment; it pierces through the outside of pretence and hypocrisy down into the very heart. Let us not shrink from bringing this great truth to bear upon our lives; let us walk before God, as Abraham did, knowing that our whole inward life of thought, as well as the outward life of word and action, lies mapped out clear and plain to his all-seeing eye. That thought will give solemn meaning, depth of purpose, dignity to the most commonplace life. And it will give strength; for the Lord's ear is open to the prayer of the righteous; he hears those who come before him in that righteousness which is through faith in Christ; in answer to their prayer he gives his Holy Spirit, and with that Holy Spirit comes the gift of a higher life, the gift of strength and energy, and that best gift of all, holy heavenly love.

III. THE DUTY OF PATIENCE IN SUFFERING.

1. The true Christian cannot be really hurt by external troubles. If we are zealous of what is good, no one can harm us. In truth a man can be really hurt only by himself, through his own consent; for those who suffer for righteousness' sake are blessed; their suffering does them no real harm; it is turned by the grace of God into a blessing. Suffering is a test of our religion; it shows what it is worth. The mere outward semblance of religion fails under it; deep spiritual religion grows brighter and more refined in the furnace of affliction. But only true religion can endure that searching fire. True religion is zealous, fervent, growing; it cannot be lukewarm; it zealously seeks everything that is really good, zealously supports every good work. The true Christian cannot he hurt by external troubles, for they will only deepen and purify that religion which is the life of his soul, the joy of his heart. Sickness, pain, poverty—any trouble meekly borne, is blessed to the soul's inward happiness; but especially blessed is that suffering which is borne for righteousness' sake. When a man is content to suffer voluntarily in the cause of truth and righteousness, he is brought very near to Christ the Lord, for he is imitating his example, sharing his cross. The kingdom of heaven is his, for he is very near to the King; and the King dwelleth in his heart, filling him with his sacred presence.

2. Advice to suffering Christians.

3. Christians have comfort in their sufferings. For

LESSONS.

1. Let us love the brethren; then we shall be of one mind and one heart; we shall be pitiful, courteous, humble.

2. Remember the Lord's words, "Vengeance is mine;" "Love your enemies."

3. The eye of the Lord is upon you; speak and do only what is acceptable to him.

4. Make your heart a temple of God; reverence his presence there.

5. Be very careful, when it is your duty to contend for the faith, to speak with meekness and reverence.

1 Peter 3:18-22 - Consider Christ.

I. His SUFFERINGS.

1. Their cause. Even he suffered. The universality of suffering is a common topic of consolation. "Man is born to trouble." But the thought of the suffering Savior is a source of sweeter comfort and holier patience. A great saint has said, "They feel not their own wounds who contemplate the wounds of Christ." He endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy that was set before him. If we, in our sufferings, look unto Jesus, sacred thoughts of his cross will fill our heart more and more, and prevent us from dwelling overmuch on our own afflictions. He is the transcendent Example of suffering for well-doing. But his death is unique; it stands alone in its unapproachable glory; it is surrounded with an atmosphere of awful and yet most blessed mystery. He is not simply a martyr for the truth; he suffered, indeed, for well-doing, but he suffered also on account of sins. Sin was the cause of his death, but not his sin; he was absolutely sinless. He was just, the Just One; but he gave himself in his wondrous love to suffer for the unjust, for their sake, in their behalf, that he might do them good. Their sin caused his death; if man had not sinned, there had been no need that the Son of God should die. The sin of the world was a burden that none but he could bear; he took it upon him. As the high priest bore the names of the tribes of Israel on his shoulders and on his breast, so Christ the great High Priest bore the names of his chosen in his heart, and the tremendous burden of the world's sin upon his innocent head. And this he did of his own free will, in his own generous love; we must think of him when we are called to suffer, especially when we suffer for well-doing.

2. Their purpose. It was "that he might bring us to God." Our sin had separated us from God; we were afar off from him. "But now hath he reconciled us by his cross, having slain the enmity thereby." He has suffered our punishment; therefore, if we are his, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Apart from God there can be no holiness, no happiness, no true life. Separation from God means darkness, misery, spiritual death. Christ suffered that he might bring us to God; then we must follow him by the way which he trod, the way of the cross. He himself is the Way; and we can walk in that way only by imitating him; if, then, we would come to the Father by the new and living Way, which is Christ himself, we must learn to imitate Christ, always in patient submission to the will of God, sometimes in patient suffering for the truth's sake.

3. Their extent. Christ's sufferings extended even unto death; they could reach no further. "He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." It was his own free act; he laid down his life of himself; none could take it from him. The heathen thought it a good omen when the victim came quietly to the altar. No victim ever came with such entire consent of will as the Lord Jesus Christ; for he knew with perfect foreknowledge all the circumstances of his bitter Passion, and at each moment of that long agony he submitted himself of his own will to the tortures inflicted by those poor weak creatures whom he might by one word have swept into utter death. He set us the example of obedience unto death. Let us learn of him. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." The Lord was quickened in the spirit; so shall it be with his chosen. From the moment of death they are blessed; for they shall be with him in Paradise. From that moment they are quickened in the spirit; the spirit is filled with a new life, with new powers and energies; the life of departed saints is "far better" than this earthly life; indeed, they are absent from the body; they have not yet reached that perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul, which can be realized only in God's everlasting glory; but they are with the Lord; they rest from the labors of this anxious, restless life; their works do follow them; they are quickened in the spirit to a new life of love and blessedness, and, it may be, of holy work for Christ. That work will be full of happiness; there will be no more suffering, no more weariness. The natural tendency of goodness is to produce happiness; those tendencies are marred and impeded here; there they will have their perfect work; perfected holiness will issue in perfected happiness.

II. HIS WORK OF PREACHING.

1. The Preacher. It was the Lord himself, the Word of the Father. He is the Word: "God has spoken to us by his Son." He preaches the Word, the Word of eternal life. He preached all the years of his earthly ministry; and when his holy body lay in the grave, after he had been put to death in the flesh, still he preached in the spirit. The ministers of God's holy Word and sacraments must ]earn of the great Preacher; they must preach faithfully, diligently, for his sake, for the love of the souls whom he loved; they must count it not a labor, but a high and holy privilege, to preach the gospel of salvation. He preached in the spirit; then we may be sure that the spirits and souls of the righteous do not sleep idly in the intermediate state. Even Dives in torment prayed for his five brethren; can we doubt but that departed saints pray still for those whom they loved on earth, for whom they were wont to pray? It is full of sweetness to believe that they still think of us; that they are witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) of our heavenward course; that they help us with their prayers; that as the number of the blessed who have died in the Lord increases in ever vaster multitude, so a fuller volume of prayer rises from Paradise up to the glory-throne. They pray, we may be sure; it may be (for St. Peter throughout this passage is speaking of Christ as our Example) they also spread the glad news of the gospel among the kingdoms of the dead.

2. The listeners. They too were absent from the body; but they were not in Paradise, on the happy sides of Hades; they were in prison. They were in some dreary place, apart from the souls of the blessed; for they had once been disobedient through unbelief. There had been a preacher among them then—Noah, "a preacher of righteousness;" but they heeded him not. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that Noah entered into the ark. Noah and his sons ate and drank too; but his main work was to preach righteousness, and to build the ark according to the word of God. Still God's ministers preach; still the Church, which is the ark, bears witness to the mercy and long-suffering of God, and bids the world to escape from the wrath to come. And still, alas! vast multitudes live on in unbelief, eating and drinking and spending their whole time in worldly pursuits, as if eating and drinking were the end of life, as if this world with its vain pomp and glory were to abide for ever. So it was with these unhappy men; the long-suffering of God waited many years while the ark was a-preparing; as, blessed be his holy Name, it is waiting now till the number of his elect is complete. Then few only were saved; now, alas! it is the few who find the strait and narrow path. The "prison" must be the end of unbelief and disobedience; the word suggests fearful thoughts and dark unsatisfied questions. The Lord preached even there; he brought, we may be sure, the glad tidings of salvation: may we not venture to trust, in humble hope, that some who had not listened to Noah, the preacher of righteousness, listened then to Christ, the Preacher of salvation?

III. THE BAPTISM WHICH HE ORDAINED.

1. The outward and visible sign. It is water—"water wherein a person is baptized." Water once saved the world, water cleansed it from that wickedness which was bringing down the wrath of God; the world passed then through a baptism of water which was death unto sin, but a new birth unto righteousness; there was a new beginning, new possibilities, new hopes. And water saved the few that had entered into the ark; it bore up the ark, and saved those in it from the wrath of men and from the contagion of surrounding pollution. Yet one of those few brought upon himself his father's curse. So baptism, the antitype of the water of the Flood, is now saving those who by it are admitted into the ark of Christ's Church. It is saving us, for it is the beginning of our salvation, bringing us, as it does, into covenant with God. But it is only the beginning; still the Lord adds daily to the Church those who are being saved ( τοὺς σωζομένους, Acts 2:47). But that salvation has to be worked out by the grace of God who worketh within his chosen.

2. The inward and spiritual grace. Ananias said to St. Paul, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." But mere outward washing cannot cleanse the soul. The conscience must be good, the heart must be sprinkled from an evil conscience. The inward and spiritual grace is a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness; the conscience will bear witness whether this, the inner meaning of our baptism, is realized in our life. Conscience, Leighton says, is God's deputy in the soul: "Its business is to sit and examine and judge within; to hold courts in the soul.... Not a day ought to pass without a session of conscience within; for daily disorders arise in the soul, which, if they pass on, will grow and gather more, and so breed more difficulty in their trial and redress." The good conscience will inquire after God, will be ever seeking God. If we have not that good conscience, we are not abiding in the grace of our baptism, and then the holy sacrament ordained for our salvation loses its saving power.

3. The connection between them. Baptism becomes a means of grace through the appointment of the risen Savior. His people could not rise with him in baptism save through the power of his resurrection; that resurrection is the pledge of new life, new energies, new hopes, to all who are baptized in one Spirit into the one mystical body of Christ. He can give grace through the sacraments, for all power is given unto him; he is at the right hand of God, ever interceding for us, able to save us to the uttermost. There is no guardian, no helper, like unto him, for all the highest spiritual intelligences are made subject unto him; the elect angels are his ministers; he gives them charge over his chosen; the evil angels are under his control; he can restrain their malice, he can baffle their devices.

LESSONS.

1. Christ suffered in his flesh; let us take suffering patiently.

2. He suffered, "the Just for the unjust." Sometimes God's holiest servants are called to the greatest suffering; they will not complain; they are being made, in their poor measure, like their Lord.

3. He suffered to bring us to God; let us come in faith and love and gratitude.

4. He preached to the spirits in prison; may we listen while we are in the flesh, on the earth!

5. Let us strive by his grace to realize the deep meaning of our baptism, the death unto sin, the new birth unto righteousness.

1 Peter 3:13 - The armor of righteousness.

This is a promise in the shape of a question, which makes the affirmation stronger, not weaker. It is the question of triumphant faith, a trumpet-blast of confident defiance of all foes, like the wonderful series of similar challenges in the Epistle to the Romans (Romans 8:31-35), or that in Isaiah (Isaiah 1:9), the Septuagint Version of which is evidently the basis of our text. We have probably here a consideration additional to that preceding, in order to confirm the conclusion of the blessedness of holiness. The apostle has been quoting, with evident delight in the flowing periods, the assurance of the psalm, that God's watchful eye is upon the righteous. Here he as it were says—and, besides, it is the general experience of the world—lovers of good get good from men. As Christ said, "Sinners also love those that love them."

I. THE SORT OF MEN THAT GENERALLY GO UNHARMED. The Revised Version reads "zealous" instead of "followers," and probably is right in the substitution. If "followers," or more literally, "imitators," were retained, it would be most natural to translate "him who is" instead of "that which is" good. But the antithesis with the previous verse ("them that do coil") and with the word translated "harm," which is from the same root as that rendered "evil,' makes the neuter more probable. If, then, we take "zealous for that which is good" as the description of the kind of men to whom the promise implied in our text is made, we may say that it is not the actual possession of purity and virtue which draws men's affections, so much as a certain enthusiasm for goodness and aspiration after it. It is possible to be good in a very disagreeable fashion—to be pure as the eternal snows on the Alps, and cold and forbidding as they. And it is possible to have the whiteness of even an austere morality lit up with a rosy gleam of ardor and emotion which shall make it lovely as that same snow as it blushes in the rising sun. The morality which casts, for the most part, a shield around its possessor is "morality touched by emotion," in which good is evidently loved as well as practiced, and practiced because it is loved. It is precisely there that so much goodness presents an unlovely face to the world. The doer does net seem to find delight in it himself, and so the onlookers have little in him. If our practice of purity be obviously reluctant and constrained it will net dispose men to look on us with respect or favor. We must be "zealous of good" if we are to claim the benefit of this promise. And it is extremely improbable that such zeal or enthusiastic emotion shall be continuously cherished towards a mere neuter abstract—that which is good. A living Person is needed to evoke it. If the abstract "good" be the personal God our Father; if it be incarnated in Jesus Christ our Brother who loves us, and to whom as their conscious and responsive Object our hearts may turn;—then there may be such zeal, but scarcely if we have to be zealous only for that cold and vague impersonal idea—goodness. It is very hard to keep up enthusiasm for anything ending in "ness." Men must have a person to love, and their desire after purity is deepened and changed into a more ardent earnestness when "that which is good" takes human form and becomes "him who is good, the perfect Christ, the Image of God, the only Good." All earnest seeking after moral excellence leads the seeker at last to Jesus Christ, and the merchantman's quest for many goodly pearls ends in the finding of one entire and perfect chrysolite in which all fragmentary preciousnesses are sphered.

II. THE SAFETY OF THESE ENTHUSIASTS FOR THE GOOD. There is an antithesis in the original which is lost in our versions, but may be represented by some such rendering, "Who is he that will do bad things to you, if you be zealous of the good?" That principle thus forcibly put, by the triumphant challenge of the question and by this sharp antithesis, may be illustrated by several considerations which are linked together in such a way that each comes into play where the preceding ceases or fails.

1. The first of these is that, as a rule, a character of obvious single-minded enthusiasm for goodness conciliates. Men are not so bad but that there is a place in their hearts and consciences which can be touched by goodness, especially if it is accompanied with that self-forgetfulness and consciousness of imperfection which zeal for goodness will always bring. When good men are disliked it is very often not for their goodness but for some accompaniment of it which would be better away, such as their want of tact or of sympathy, their apparent sense of superiority, or the like. But even if men are not won to love purity, or even to be at ease in the presence of good men, they will very seldom go so far as to put dislike into action and do harm to one who does good to them. The traveler without a revolver is safest. Fire at the gaping crowd on the banks, and they will overwhelm you. Meet them with a smile and a handful of gifts, and you will almost always make friends. Gentleness and patience, sympathy and love, clear a path for their possessors. It is not vinegar, as the old legend has it, which will split the rocks. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." Of course, this is not true without exception, as the whole history of good men shows, and as Peter goes on to admit. Sometimes, righteousness excites men's enmity, and, when it fails, then the second consideration comes in.

2. That is, that God will protect those who for righteousness' sake suffer. The grand promises which Peter has been quoting from the thirty-fourth psalm come into play. A tacit comparison is suggested between the good man's enemies and his defenses. "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous," and that being so, though deadly foes prowl round him with their cruel eyes gleaming like a lion greedy of his prey, the question of our text rings out the same assurance as Paul's proud challenge, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Many a time the persecutor has had. to confess that just as he seemed to have the prey in his power—

"The man sprang to his feet,

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts and prayed!

So I was afraid."

The man whom an angel had brought out of prison when the morning of his martyrdom was dawning might well preach that God would take care of his children even when man's wrath was hottest.

3. But that Divine protection is not always granted. Peter had indeed experienced deliverance at the eleventh hour, but his Lord had told, him that one day the putting off of his tabernacle was to come by violence; and more, one of the apostles had already trod that brief and bloody path of martyrdom which he knew lay before him and before many of those to whom his writings would come. What, in such extreme cases, should be the worth of such a saying? Is it not grimly contradicted by the scaffold and the fire? No; for even if these two outer walls of defense are carried by the enemy, and men's malice is not softened but rather embittered by goodness, and God's love does not see fit to shield us from the blow, the inner line of fortification remains impregnable. In the utmost extremity of outward suffering, ay, even from the midst of the fire, the Christian may ring out the triumphant words of our text; for no real harm can touch us if we be zealous of that which is good. The evil in the evil will be averted. The bitter will be changed into sweet, as in the old legend the shower of burning coals became a shower of rubies. The poison will be wiped from the arrow. The loving heart that cleaves to Christ and desires most to be united to him will not count that an evil which brings it nearer its home and its joy, nor think the wildest storm a calamity which blows it to Christ's breast. The same events may be quite different in their character to different men. Two men may be drowned in one shipwreck. To the one it may be the opening of the door of his Father's house to the weary pilgrim and the very crown of God's mercies. To the other it may be misery and truly a sinking in a boundless sea of death. All depends on our relation to God, who is the Source of all good. If we love him in Christ, and are seeking as our highest aim amid the illusory and fleeting good of earth to press closer to him, then he will deliver us from all real evil; and "who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?" "All things work together for good to them who love God."—A.M.

1 Peter 3:3, 1 Peter 3:4 - true apparel and ornament of women.

That attention to dress and personal decoration is natural to woman, is obvious from an observation of the customs of every nation in every age. The Apostle Peter must not be understood as in this place censuring such attention, but as pointing out that there is apparel, that there is ornament, far preferable to any bodily costume and jewelry that taste can devise and wealth can purchase. Christian women of every position in life are exhorted to provide themselves with these precious and incomparable recommendations; to cultivate, above all things, "a meek and quiet spirit."

I. SUCH APPAREL AND ORNAMENTATION COMMAND THE ADMIRATION OF ALL WHOSE ADMIRATION IS DESIRABLE. Empty fools may admire as supremely admirable in woman the outward display of riches and of fashion, with which the worldly sometimes seek to dazzle and captivate those who are as worldly as themselves. To men of sense such things are utterly indifferent; to men of discernment and character gentle and virtuous dispositions and habits are in a woman beyond all price. Such qualities as Jesus found in the sisters of the home at Bethany won his friendship, and similar qualities will never cease to elicit the approval and appreciation of the upright and the pure.

II. SUCH APPAREL AND ORNAMENTATION ARE INSEPARABLE FROM THE CHARACTER THEY ADORN, AND ARE IMPERISHABLE. Poverty may deprive a woman of the power to dress with expensiveness; advancing years may make the adventitious attractions excused in youth unseemly and ridiculous. But "the meek and quiet spirit" remains unchanged with changing time. Often does it happen that the feminine character, refined and sweetened by the experience of life and by ministrations of pity and of self-denial, shines with a fairer luster with advancing years.

III. SUCH APPAREL AND ORNAMENTATION ARE ACCEPTABLE AND PRECIOUS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD HIMSELF. The approval of our fellow-creatures may be sought with too earnest diligence, and their attachment may be valued beyond its true value. But the qualities which are commended by him who alone judgeth with perfect justice are qualities which cannot be cultivated with too great assiduity and care. Our Lord has spoken with severity of those who seek honor from men in preference to that honor which cometh from God. Of the "meek and quiet spirit" we are told that it is "of great price in the sight of God." What greater inducement than this could be offered to Christian women to look with comparative unconcern upon all those social and external recommendations which are so often over-estimated, and to cultivate with all diligence and devotedness the graces of the Christian character and the charities of the Christian life?—J.R.T.

1 Peter 3:7 - The twofold claim of womanhood.

In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female; the man and the woman, as possessors alike of our common humanity, participate alike in the privileges of Christianity, and come alike under the law of Christian principle and motive. And if this is so in the Church, it is the case in ordinary social life, that, whilst the man and the woman have their several and distinct places to fill and services to render, in their relations to each other duty is reciprocal. The New Testament is altogether opposed to the too common notion that the rights are all on the side of the man, and the duties all on the side of the woman. St. Peter is no more stringent in laying down the obligations of wives, than in prescribing the treatment due to them from their husbands. Himself a married man, as the Marriage Service in our Prayer-book reminds us, he writes explicitly and wisely to husbands as to the spirit and tone which should be apparent in their domestic life. The grounds upon which he here bases his injunctions are very different from each other, and yet thoroughly harmonious.

I. THE CLAIM OF WOMAN TO JUST AND CONSIDERATE TREATMENT IS BASED UPON HER PHYSICAL WEAKNESS. The fact is unquestionable that woman is less robust in constitution, less powerful muscularly, and of more delicate nervous organization, than man. Now, this fact is often made a reason for overbearing demeanor, contemptuous language, unjust dealing, and even brutal abuse, on the part of the man towards the woman. This is so, not only in savage communities, but not infrequently even among civilized nations. Irresponsible power and selfishness concur in leading to feminine degradation. But the apostle brings forward the fact that woman is the weaker vessel as a reason why husbands should live with their wives in a reasonable and kindly manner, and should render to them all due respect.

1. Human sympathy requires that this should be so. There is a natural principle within leading us to cherish kindness towards the weak and defenseless; and this principle is to be encouraged as against selfishness and brutal indifference and injustice.

2. In addition to this natural feeling, there is a cultivated habit of chivalry which tends to the exaltation of woman in human society. Not simply of the young and beautiful, the highborn and accomplished, but of all who are stamped with the seal of true, gentle, and virtuous womanhood. It is in this sense only that we can speak approvingly of sentiments of chivalry.

II. THE CLAIM OF WOMAN TO JUST AND CONSIDERATE TREATMENT IS BASED UPON HER SPIRITUAL EQUALITY. Granted that there is on the average physical inferiority in the one point of strength, it must be maintained that, in a higher plane, inferiority vanishes. Husbands are reminded that their wives, being Christians like themselves, are joint-heirs with them of the grace of life. If, then, the former motive was addressed to compassion, this appeals to reverence. God himself acknowledges "the weaker sex" as appointed unto immortal blessedness through his Son, our Redeemer. How justly, then, are men required to give all honor to those who are fellow-inheritors with themselves of a domain and a dominion so unspeakably glorious!

1. The woman is by the Father of the spirits of all flesh regarded with the same interest as the man. Womanhood is God's own creation, and the feminine characteristics and graces are revelations of God's own thoughts and purposes. Humanity without the feminine element would be incomplete, one-sided, and lacking in the harmony of "perfect music set to noble words."

2. The woman is equally with the man redeemed by the Friend and Savior of mankind. Our Lord's ministry upon earth was a ministry to both sexes. He counted holy women among his friends; he comforted sorrowful women in their distress; he saved sinful women from their debasement. And his death was for all mankind; his mediation brings near to God all who were afar off—woman as well as man.

3. The woman is appointed with the man to share the happiness and the service of heaven. The grace which bestows eternal life is extended to the wife as well as to the husband. As there is a place for woman in God's gracious heart, so is there a place for her in God's glorious and blessed home. Such are the high considerations which hallow and dignify the Christian home!—J.R.T.

1 Peter 3:13 - Christian zeal.

Zeal is a habit of feeling and purpose. It supposes that a certain cause, a certain end of action, is apprehended by the understanding and approved by the judgment. As the etymology of the word implies, this quality is one characterized by warmth, fervor, ardor, in the pursuit of the object approved. It manifests itself in effort, in endurance, in perseverance. Zeal is in itself neither good nor bad; but it is always powerful, giving efficiency to toil, and an impetus to the cause which calls it into activity. In a bad project zeal does harm, for it assists in diffusing error and immorality. In a holy enterprise zeal does good; no great and worthy cause was ever brought to success and victory without zealous labors. There are cases in which abundant zeal compensates slender abilities and mean position. Yet it is possible for zeal to outrun judgment and discretion.

I. OF WHAT DOES CHRISTIAN ZEAL CONSIST?

1. Its spring, its source, is grateful love and ardent consecration to God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Here no fanaticism is possible. There is the best reason and ground for such emotions; the danger is in the direction of indifference and coldness. Interest in Divine truth cannot be too keen; consecration to Divine service cannot be too complete.

2. Its tokens and evidences are these—earnestness in devotion, in praise and prayer, both public and private; earnestness in the discharge of daily duty, however secular, yet sanctified by the Christian motive and spirit; earnestness in discouraging and repressing all sin; earnestness in exerting social influence for the spread of truth and righteousness.

II. WHY SHOULD CHRISTIANS BE ZEALOUS?

1. The Scriptures expressly enjoin and encourage zeal. "Be zealous!' is the admonition the ascended Savior addresses to his Church. "It is good always to be zealously affected in a good cause," is the assertion of an apostle.

2. Our Lord Christ was supremely zealous, He was "clothed with zeal as with a cloak." In his conduct was a fulfillment of the words, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." Zealous in love, he loved to the end; zealous in labor, he finished the work given him to do.

3. The best and most useful men have been zealous. This is true of the apostles, of the great thinkers and scholars of the Church, of the Reformers, of leaders in benevolent effort and missionary enterprise.

4. The presence or absence of zeal affects the character beneficially or injuriously. Its absence is accompanied by spiritual declension; its presence promotes the true prosperity of the Church and the advance of the gospel; and these in turn react upon the individual character and further its higher development and everlasting well-being - J.R.T.

1 Peter 3:14-17 - Sufferers fortified.

There were providential reasons why the early Christians should have been exposed to many trials of faith, purity, and patience. This reason is obvious to us—that thus opportunity was afforded for the administration of such fortifying and consolatory principles as are serviceable to the afflicted and the tempted in every age.

I. THE TRIALS AND SUFFERINGS CHRISTIANS SHOULD EXPECT. These, of course, are many and various; but it is instructive to notice what those are which are here singled out and placed in prominence, doubtless by the wisdom of the inspired apostle.

1. Christians may expect to suffer for well-doing. That is, they will have to endure injustice from the world, which will not appreciate their character and their efforts for its good.

2. They may expect to be evil spoken of, as if evil-doers. That is, they will have to endure calumny from those who will take pleasure in detracting from their merits, magnifying their faults, misrepresenting their motives, and traducing their life.

II. THE REFLECTIONS BY WHICH IN SUCH CASES CHRISTIANS MAY BE COMFORTED.

1. They should not forget that it is the will of God that his people should suffer, even wrongfully.

2. They should cherish the assurance that none can really harm them.

3. They should consider that their lot is compatible with happiness.

4. And they may even believe that some who have ill treated and slandered them may come to be ashamed of their sinful conduct.

III. THE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES BY WHICH CHRISTIANS MAY IN SUCH CASES FORTIFY THEMSELVES.