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.