The peculiarity of the instructions given by the apostle for this purpose does not lie in the virtues enjoined, but in the light in which they are set and the motives by which they are inculcated. The common conscience condemns lying and theft, malice and uncleanness; they were denounced with eloquence by heathen moralists. But the ethics of the New Testament differed in many respects from the best moral philosophy: in its direct appeal to the conscience, in its vigour and decision, in the clearness with which it traced our maladies to the heart’s alienation from God; but most of all, in the remedy which it applied, the new principle of faith in Christ. The surgeon’s knife lays bare the root of the disease; and the physician’s hand pours in the healing balm. Let us observe at the outset that St Paul deals with the actual and pressing temptations of his readers. He recalls what they had been, and forbids them to be such again. The associations and habits of former life, the hereditary force of evil, the atmosphere of Gentile society, and added to all this, as we discover from chapter v. 6, the persuasions of the sophistical teachers now beginning to infest the Church, tended to draw the Asian Christians back to Gentile ways and to break down the moral distinctions that separated them from the pagan world. Amongst the discarded vices of the forsaken Gentile life, the following are here distinguished: _lying_, _theft_, _anger_, _idle speech_, _malice_, _impurity_, _greed_. These may be reduced to sins of temper, of word, and of act. Let us discuss them in the order in which they are brought before us.