is interesting, ingenuous, and chivalrous.  He strongly asserts his right, even while he as strongly declares that he will waive it.  The reason for his waiving it is that he desires to have somewhat in his service beyond the strict line of his duty.  His preaching itself, with all its toils and miseries, was but part of his day’s work, which he was bidden to do, and for doing which he deserved no thanks nor praise.  But he would like to have a little bit of glad service over and above what he is ordered to do, that, as he ingenuously says, he may have ‘somewhat to boast of.’

In this exposition of motives we have two great principles actuating the Apostle—­one, his profound sense of obligation, and the other his desire, if it might be, to do more than he was bound to do, because he loved his work so much.  And though he is speaking here as an apostle, and his example is not to be unconditionally transferred to us, yet I think that the motives which actuated his conduct are capable of unconditional application to ourselves.

There are three things here.  There is the obligation of speech, there is the penalty of silence, and there is the glad obedience which transcends obligation.

I. First, mark the obligation of speech.

No doubt the Apostle had, in a special sense, a ‘necessity laid upon’ him, which was first laid upon him on that road to Damascus, and repeated many a time in his life.  But though he differs from us in the direct supernatural commission which was given to him, in the width of the sphere in which he had to work, and in the splendour of the gifts which were entrusted to his stewardship, he does not differ from us in the reality of the obligation which was laid upon him.  Every Christian man is as truly bound as was Paul to preach the Gospel.  The commission does not depend upon apostolic dignity.  Jesus Christ, when He said, ’Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ was not speaking to the eleven, but to all generations of His Church.  And whilst there are many other motives on which we may rest the Christian duty of propagating the Christian faith, I think that we shall be all the better if we bottom it upon this, the distinct and definite commandment of Jesus Christ, the grip of which encloses all who for themselves have found that the Lord is gracious.

For that commandment is permanent.  It is exactly contemporaneous with the duration of the promise which is appended to it, and whosoever suns himself in the light of the latter is bound by the precept of the former.  ‘Lo!  I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,’ defines the duration of the promise, and it defines also the duration of the duty.  Nay, even the promise is made conditional upon the discharge of the duty enjoined.  For it is to the Church ’going into all the world, and preaching the Gospel to every creature,’ that the promise of an abiding presence is made.