A WILLING SACRIFICE (Phil. ii. 16-18, R.V.) 287 PAUL AND TIMOTHY (Phil. ii. 19-24, R.V.) 295 PAUL AND EPAPHRODITUS (Phil. ii. 25-30, R.V.) 305 PREPARING TO END (Phil. iii. 1-3, R.V.) 311 THE LOSS OF ALL (Phil. iii. 4-8, R.V.) 321 THE GAIN OF CHRIST (Phil. iii. 8, 9, R.V.) 328 SAVING KNOWLEDGE (Phil. iii. 10, 11, R.V.) 336 LAID HOLD OF AND LAYING HOLD (Phil. iii. 12) 348 THE RACE AND THE GOAL (Phil. iii. 13, 14) 359 THE SOUL'S PERFECTION (Phil. iii. 15) 369 THE RULE OF THE ROAD (Phil. iii. 16) 381 WARNINGS AND HOPES (Phil. iii. 17-21, R.V.) 391 II. CORINTHIANS HOPE AND HOLINESS Having therefore these promises . . . let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.'--2 COR. vii. 1. It is often made a charge against professing Christians that their religion has very little to do with common morality. The taunt has sharpened multitudes of gibes and been echoed in all sorts of tones: it is very often too true and perfectly just, but if ever it is, let it be distinctly understood that it is not so because of Christian men's religion but in spite of it. Their bitterest enemy does not condemn them half so emphatically as their own religion does: the sharpest censure of others is not so sharp as the rebukes of the New Testament. If there is one thing which it insists upon more than another, it is that religion without morality is nothing--that the one test to which, after all, every man must submit is, what sort of character has he and how has he behaved--is he pure or foul? All high-flown pretension, all fervid emotion has at last to face the question which little children ask, 'Was he a good man?' The Apostle has been speaking about very high and mystical truths, about all Christians being the temple of God, about God dwelling in men, about men and women being His sons and daughters; these are the very truths on which so often fervid imaginations have built up a mystical piety that had little to do with the common rules of right and wrong. But Paul keeps true to the intensely practical purpose of his preaching and brings his heroes down to the prosaic earth with the homely common sense of this far-reaching exhortation, which he gives as the fitting conclusion for such celestial visions. I. A Christian life should be a life of constant self-purifying. This epistle is addressed to the church of God which is at Corinth with all the _saints_ which are in all Achaia.