The artist who is satisfied with his transcript of his ideal will never grow any more. Before the Church, therefore, is — 1 The real, conscious, manifested unity of all its members. As one exposed to fresh demands on principles and powers of all kinds. The means and the end will be one and the same. The student is riot doing the one thing of student life when he has ceased to think or read. D.)A life's purposeW. The tree may be full of bloom, and an orchard is a beauteous sight, but the blossom must wither away and be forgotten in the fruit. (4) This grand future should draw our thoughts all the more to itself, because it is not only grand, but certain. It reads, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Personal holiness, they say, is legal. Christ! )Forgetting the things that are behindW. There is no time for self-elation or self-sufficiency. If the aim of life were to do something, then, as in an earthly business, except in doing this one thing the business would he at a standstill. D.I. Of attainments. Yonder friend is very humble, but if he were to boast of it there would be an end of it. His vision of Christ in the infinite attractiveness of His character, and in the glory and blessedness of His presence and reign in heaven, made him long to be like Him, and to have, not only a place in His kingdom, but a place hard by the throne of the Lamb. But the world moved on to "forget the things behind," etc. The whole man gathering himself up to a point — oneness of being, body, soul, spirit — the will, judgment, energy in unity. the philosopher from the savage? The student is riot doing the one thing of student life when he has ceased to think or read. Thus it is with the memories of past sorrows. As a child leans on a parent, and a wife on a husband, and a husband on a wife, and so at last all things lean on God; and well it is that it is so, for he can at any time take off the wheels of the most rapid chariot, He can break the wings of the proudest ambition, and He is, in fact, constantly saying, "Arise, this is not your rest. UNDER THIS END OF ENDS AND SUBSERVIENT TO IT IT IS THE DUTY OF EVERY ONE TO HAVE SOME DISTINCT CHRISTIAN PURPOSE ALWAYS BEFORE HIM. D. Hoge, D. D.)The sense in which the past cannot be forgottenM. His example may be beyond us, but the spirit that moved him to work may be ours. And if you stand there looking backwards instead of making the best of your way out of evil, the evil will catch you up. They are not, indeed, to be dropped as mere bud scales, as mere means to an end — for they are the basis upon which all the subsequent efforts of the spiritual life are to be made. We cannot forget our early griefs and bereavements. He lived only to sweep, as with a roused tempest, over all the AEolian sympathies of the human heart. And so it will be in the eternal summer above. But even in his converted state there were many things which Paul required to forget. His was A SANCTIFIED, BUT BOUNDLESS AMBITION, forever reaching forth in the direction of higher acquisitions of spiritual truth and nobler results of Christian work.III. What have we to do with things past? D.)The racer as charioteerArchdeacon Farrar.St. (3) What God works in the great whole, we are to work in our part. As one endowed with talents which must be ceaselessly used. "We know that...we shall be like Him. The future is before you; the present is still yours.II. Spurgeon. Nothing can now be altered. 3. THE APOSTLE'S LIFE AFFORDS MANY STRIKING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THIS.1. (J M. Whiton, Ph. To that supreme beauty our nature is capable of unlimited approach. But self-complacency is the mother of spiritual declension. The world is good for an inn; but an inn is not a home; and it is unwise to lay any plan of life in which provision is not made for the infinite future of the soul. Taking a comprehensive view of the universe, we find that everything has a special object to perform, and when that object is accomplished, the agency perishes. She looked back, and as she stood there gazing behind her, precious time was irrevocably lost, the fugitives swept on in front, and the swift-flying death that struck her with terror, as she saw it pressing close behind, caught her up. "(Paxton Hood. Verse 7: But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. D.I. There is a circular movement in which all motions turn on themselves, and return to the point from whence they first set out, and then there is an onward movement, as when the whole system is borne upward into infinite space. He had a large congregation — as large a one as any of us need want; but he said to his people, "Now, it is of necessity that the New Testament should be translated; you must find another preacher. Then he must not sit down as if rooted to a place. — So far as acceptance with God is concerned a Christian is complete in Christ as soon as he believes. AS REGARDED HIS OWN IMPROVEMENT. A bold utterance of our trust in Jesus is an excellent remedy for unbelieving fears. LIVE IN THE FUTURE.1. As one endowed with talents which must be ceaselessly used. (3) Cowards, who say we cannot conquer all sin, and, therefore, we need not aim at it.5. Life is going on onboard that vessel in many forms, but they are all moving on together to the port — there is a master principle which everything obeys, and they all delight to have it so. In the trees of warm climates the buds have no winter leaves or protective scales, being simply formed of the ordinary leaves rolled up; consequently they expand in growth without losing anything. W. Robertson, M. A.Perfection is being, not doing — it is not to effect an act but to achieve a character. They are apt to weaken you. It is vain to tell the believer to forget the things that are behind, to discard the preparatory means by which he advances in piety by a mere temporary effort of will. Every temptation to evil temper which can assail us today will be an opportunity to decide the question whether we shall gain the calmness and the rest of Christ, or whether we shall be tossed by the restlessness and agitation of the world. Multitudes of Christians are content just to be saved — to get inside the heavenly gate. The white faces of the crowd around the course are seen as in a flash as he rushes past them to the winning post, and the parsley garland that hangs there is all that he is conscious of. It is foolish to dwell in idle regrets, for thus we neglect the duty of to-day in lamenting the neglect of yesterday's duty! And so he reached forth unto those things which were before.II. He takes the world as he finds it, and leaves it as he found it. Martin., D. King, LL. Wadsworth.Paul's experience teaches us that one unmutilated and entire idea is as much as a man can entertain in his soul, or actualize in his lifetime. But the day does come when the form should be lost to us in the reality, the letter lost in the spirit. There is childhood, youth, manhood in Christian life. Very many believers stop short at the very initial processes of grace, and imagine that these are the final ends — that nothing more can be desired or attained. But amidst his fairest dreams by the ancestral waters, a great voice out of heaven spake to him of "a city which hath foundations, whose builder was God." So of trials.4. D. Hoge, D. D.)The hindering force of past habitA. MAY FOSTER SELF-SATISFACTION AND PRIDE.1. 1. An extending and improving influence on society.5. THE PURPOSE OF PAUL: What is involved in it?1. Nor, indeed, man's restoration by itself. In our conversion we must separate ourselves from the associations of our unregenerate state, and count those things that were gain to us, loss, so that we may be found in Christ. Our highest condition is not the attainment of perfection, but the recognition of heights above us as yet unreached. Vaughan, M. A.The secret of all moral force, of all spiritual success, of all reality, is concentration. To this boldness of confession they should add knowledge, and follow on to know the Lord. )The things that are beforeS. 1. The fellowship of the Spirit in all its perfection.5. There is no limit in that respect, and to take the past as proving it is to deny the power of God's gospel, the expansibility of the soul, and the promise of the Divine Spirit.2. THE GLORY OF GOD IS THE RIGHT END OF MAN, because —1. Melvil, B. D.is like those problems in mathematics where we can never find the true answer. Absolute pardon. H. Spurgeon.A neighbour near my study persists in practising upon the flute. And then, lest knowledge should puff up, there should follow self-discipline, meek endurance, fervent piety towards God, and charity to men.II. The winter leaves having served their purpose, now dropped off, and the summer leaves of grace — the blossoms of holiness, the fruits of righteousness — had full liberty to grow and develop themselves.4. Let us, with eye and hand flung forward, "stretch out towards the things that are before," and imitate that example — not in the fierce whirl of excitement, indeed, but in fixed regard to, and concentrated desire of, the mark and the prize.(A. Even when the glory is given to God there is apt to be a ring of self-satisfaction, "I am not as other men." Melvil, B. D.)The varied means of obtaining perfectionF. There will be a constant unfolding of the fulness of immortal life from glory to glory; but there will be no loss of the processes and experiences through which the unfolding will take place. "The power of a single aimC. Napoleon was the most efficient man of his own time, not because gifted above his fellows, either physically or intellectually, but because universal empire was his single aim — he lived only to conquer! "Forgetting," etc.1. He who would be a great artist must not follow low models. The people we have left. Life by itself has a tendency to stagnate, to grow commonplace, bounded in desire and aim. The world is good for an inn; but an inn is not a home; and it is unwise to lay any plan of life in which provision is not made for the infinite future of the soul. A hundred processes may go to the manufacture of a pin. His example may be beyond us, but the spirit that moved him to work may be ours. 1. These are all embraced in fellowship with Christ.1. So said the English kings of the seventeenth century to the uprising spirit of liberty. Spurgeon. (1) Such recognition is the condition of all progress. Every day is full of a most impressive experience. A. It is amazing how soon when we cease to forget the things that are behind, and remain stationary we degenerate. )Christian progress as it nears its endM. Man, an essentially active being. A man cannot run with his eyes over his shoulder; he is sure to knock against somebody, and so be delayed and hindered. That in which the seeds of things were bound and nourished must become a dried and worthless skin; and the finest foliage must fade; and to such things it is unwise to hold. W. Robertson, M. A.The life of man is a vagrant, changeful, desultoriness; like that of children sporting on an enameled meadow, chasing now a painted butterfly, which loses its charm by being caught — now a wreath of mist, which falls damp upon the hand with disappointment — now a feather of thistledown, which is crushed in the grasp. That whatever shape self-satisfaction may assume it is a shirking of the hardships of Christian soldierhood. "The power of a single aimC. Yet he teaches me that I must practise if I would be perfect; must exercise myself unto godliness if I would be skilful; must, in fact, make myself familiar with the Word of God, with holy living, and saintly dying. All the influences that have made our actual characters what they now are came out of the past, just as the seed sown in earlier seasons, with their sunshine and rain, make the subsequent harvest. Oh, let us remember that hate is transitory, is temporal, like the sear on the bark of a tree; but love, goodwill, is eternal, like the grey old firmament, which, old as it is, was never younger than it is today. There is no point on that happy voyage, beyond which icy cliffs and a frozen ocean forbid a passage; but before us, to the verge of our horizon of today, stretch the open waters; and when that furthest point of vision lies as far astern as it now gleams ahead, the same boundless sapphire sea will draw our yearning desires, and bear onwards our advancing powers.(A. An extending and improving influence on society.5. is it in the advance of agriculture or manufactures? WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS WHICH PAUL LEFT BEHIND AND FORGOT.1. Every one is familiar with the buds which tip the extremities of every branch in spring. We are to keep them in the background, and prize the character they have formed for the glory of God, and not for self-complacency. Men forget it is with us as it is with our planet. Newton was the king of astronomers, not because his eye was keener as it scanned the heavens, nor because God gave him mighty wings to sweep through the empyrean, but because, with the power of an omnipresent dream, the constellations of heaven were flashing on his soul! The branch of a tree puts forth bud after bud in its gradual growth anal enlargement. )The racer as runnerProfessor Eadie.The picture is that of a racer in his agony of struggle and hope. It is the spirit in which, not the work at which, we work that makes life one. His idea was an ark! Macmillan, LL. AS REGARDED HIS OWN IMPROVEMENT. "Very well," said the general, "just let them remain where they are; the enemy's going to advance, and will spare you the trouble."(W. But Paul rebukes this spirit. This purpose formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect expanded and his fortunes rose. He must use them. But in spring, the buds, stimulated by the unwonted sunshine, begin to open at their sharp extremities. Nay, the very vicissitudes of the seasons, day and night, heat and cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhilaration or depression, are so contrived as to conduce towards the being which we become, and decide whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether we shall be swept at the mercy of accident and circumstance, miserably susceptible of merely outward influences. As one must continue to the end.4. D.)Spiritual barbarismJ M. Whiton, Ph. III. D. Hoge, D. D.Paul could not have meant that he literally forgot the past, for had he done so, both present and future would have been alike useless to him. D. Hoge, D. D.)The sense in which the past cannot be forgottenM. Baxendale. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so manifold are the paths to saintly character; and he who has not found out how directly or indirectly to make everything converge towards his soul's sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this life.(F. What you have to do now is to throw as much heart into the new purpose as you did once into the old.III. As contrasted with our grandfathers we are great and powerful; yet for our descendents there is reserved a land of promise, compared with which our modern civilization is but as the desert. Divided affection, and allegiance, half-hearted strivings, will end in disappointment and disaster. Us the NARROW and STAINED PAST.1 to Moriah, to grow commonplace, bounded in DESIRE and aim of,... 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