As we actually approach the rules of holiness now before us, let us once more recollect what we have seen all along in the Epistle, that holiness is the aim and issue of the entire Gospel. It is indeed an "evidence of life," infinitely weighty in the enquiry whether a man knows God indeed and is on the way to His heaven. But it is much more; it is the expression of life; it is the form and action in which life is intended to come out. In our orchards (to use again a parable we have used already) the golden apples are evidences of the tree's species, and of its life. But a wooden label could tell us the species, and leaves can tell the life. The fruit is more than label or leaf; it is the thing for which the tree is there. We who believe are "chosen" and "ordained" to "bring forth fruit" (John xv. 16), fruit much and lasting. The eternal Master walks in His garden for the very purpose of seeing if the trees bear. And the fruit He looks for is no visionary thing; it is a life of holy serviceableness to Him and to our fellows, in His Name. But now we draw near again and listen: [Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =I exhort you therefore, brethren, by means of the compassions of God;= using as my logic and my fulcrum this "depth of riches" we have explored; this wonderful Redemption, with its sovereignty, its mercy, its acceptance, its holiness, its glory; this overruling of even sin and rebellion, in Gentile and in Jew, into occasions for salvation; these compassionate indications in the nearer and the eternal future of golden days yet to come;--=I exhort you therefore to present,= to give over, =your bodies as a sacrifice,= an altar-offering, =living, holy, well-pleasing, unto God; for this (ἥτις) is your rational devotion (λατρεία).= That is to say, it is the "_devotion_," the _cultus_, the worship-service, which is done by the reason, the mind, the thought and will, of the man who has found God in Christ. The Greek term, _latreia_, is tinged with associations of ritual and temple; but it is taken here, and qualified by its adjective, on purpose to be lifted, as in paradox, into the region of the soul. The robes and incense of the visible sanctuary are here out of sight; the individual believer is at once priest, sacrifice, and altar; he immolates himself to the Lord,--living, yet no longer to himself.