Church has largely consisted in the biographies of its saints, and every
great revival of religion has been the flame kindled round a flaming
heart. Paul was impelled by his own love; the brethren in Rome were in a
lower state as only reflecting his, and it ought to be the prerogative
of every Christian to be a centre and source of kindling influence
rather than a mere recipient of it. It is a question which may well be
asked by each of us about ourselves--would anybody find quickening
impulses to divine life and Christian service coming from us, or do we
simply serve to keep others' coldness in countenance? It was said of old
of Jesus Christ, 'He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire,'
and that promise remains effective to-day, however little one looking on
the characters of the mass of so-called Christians would believe it.
They seem rather to have been plunged into ice-cold water than into
fire, and their coldness is as contagious as Paul's radiant enthusiasm
was. Let us try, for our parts, to radiate out the warmth of the love of
God, that it may kindle in others the flame which it has lighted in
ourselves, and not be like icebergs floating southwards and bringing
down the temperature of even the very temperate seas in which we find
ourselves.

III. The wide tolerance of such enthusiasm.

It is stigmatised as 'narrow,' which to-day is the sin of sins, but it
is broad with the true breadth. Such enthusiasm lifts a man high enough
to see over many hedges and to be tolerant even of intolerance, and of
the indifference which tolerates everything but earnestness. Paul here
deals with a class amongst the Roman Christians who were 'preaching of
envy and strife,' with the malicious calculation that so they would
annoy him and 'add affliction' to his bonds. It is generally supposed
that these were Judaising Christians against whom Paul fulminates in all
his letters, but I confess that, notwithstanding the arguments of
authoritative commentators, I cannot believe that they are the same set
of men preaching the same doctrines which in other places he treats as
destructive of the whole gospel. The change of tone is so great as to
require the supposition of a change of subjects, and the Judaisers with
whom the Apostle waged a neverending warfare, never did evangelistic
work amongst the heathen as these men seem to have done, but confined
themselves to trying to pervert converts already made. It was not their
message