Now before I pass from this part of my subject there is only one thing more that I want to say, and that is, that you cannot apply that glowing language about ‘the power of God unto salvation’ to anything but the Gospel that Paul preached.  Forms of Christianity which have lost the significance of the Incarnation and Death of Jesus Christ, and which have struck out or obscured the central facts with which I have been dealing, are not, never were, and, I may presumptuously venture to say, never will be, forces of large account in this world.  Here is a clock, beautiful, chased on the back, with a very artistic dial-plate, and works modelled according to the most approved fashion, but, somehow or other, the thing won’t go.  Perhaps the mainspring is broken.  And so it is only the Gospel, as Paul expounds it and expands it in this Epistle, that is ’the power of God unto salvation.’  Dear brethren, in the course of a sermon like this, of course, one must lay himself open to the charge of dogmatising.  That cannot be helped under the conditions of my space.  But let me say as my own solemn conviction—­I know that that is not worth much to you, but it is my justification for speaking in such a fashion—­let me say as my solemn conviction that you may as well take the keystone out of an arch, with nothing to hold the other stones together or keep them from toppling in hideous ruin on your unfortunate head, as take the doctrine that Paul summed up in that one word out of your conception of Christianity and expect it to work.  And be sure of this, that there is only one Name that lords it over the demons of afflicted humanity, and that if a man goes and tries to eject them with any less potent charm than Paul’s Gospel, they will turn upon him with ’Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?’

III.  What Paul felt about this Gospel.

His restrained expression, ‘I am not ashamed,’ is the stronger for its very moderation.  It witnesses to the fixed purpose of his heart and attitude of his mind, whilst it suggests that he was well aware of all the temptations in Rome to being ashamed of it there.  Think of what was arrayed against him—­venerable religion, systematised philosophies, bitter hatred and prejudice, material power and wealth.  These were the brazen armour of Goliath, and this little David went cheerily down into the valley with five pebble stones in a leathern wallet, and was quite sure how it was going to end.  And it ended as he expected.  His Gospel shook the kingdom of the Roman, and cast it in another mould.

And there are temptations, plenty of them, for us, dear friends, to-day, to bate our confidence.  The drift of what calls itself influential opinion is anti-supernatural, and we all are conscious of the presence of that element all round about us.  It tells with special force upon our younger men, but it affects us all.  In this day, when a large portion of the periodical press, which does the thinking