of mediaeval parish life represent an ideal
very imperfectly realized. But is it not an ideal we need to recover?
Is there not a call for Church reform, both moral and formal, to
restore to us the community life of our parishes, and fill St. Paul's
language again with its primary and natural meaning?

[1] See i. 5, 11-15; xv. 15-17.

[2] Jas. i. 17.

[3] The word is the same as St. Paul has just used to describe the
eager 'pursuit' of opportunities of hospitality by the Christian. He
'pursues' opportunities of doing good, while he is himself 'pursued' by
enemies to do him evil.

[4] Cf. xi. 25, and Prov. iii. 7.

[5] Prov. iii. 4 LXX. 'Provide things honourable in the sight of the
Lord and of man.'

[6] Deut. xxxii. 35.

[7] Prov. xxv. 21.

[8] The truth, however, which underlies the metaphor of the body is, we
may say, equally present in all the New Testament writers.

[9] See, however, p. 196.

[10] 1 Cor. vii. 7.

[11] Dr. Liddon, with many others, interprets 'according to the
proportion of _the_ faith,' i.e. according to 'the majestic proportion
of the (objective) faith.' This is the characteristically Latin, as
against the Greek, interpretation, and the Greek is certainly to be
preferred, because 'according to the proportion of our faith' follows
naturally upon 'according as ... the measure of faith' just above;
indeed 'faith' in this context can hardly have assigned to it without
violence the objective meaning which, however, in the context of the
Pastoral Epistles it no doubt frequently bears. Cf. app. note A, p.
205.

[12] _Somersetshire Records_, vol. iv, 1890.

[13] Dr. Jessop, 'Parish Life in England before the Great Pillage,'
_Nineteenth Century_, Jan. 1898, p. 55; cf. also Dom Gasquet on 'The
Layman in the Mediaeval Period,' _Tablet_, Sept. 2, 1899.

{116}

DIVISION V. Sec. 3. CHAPTER XIII. 1-7.

_The Christians and the imperial power._

It is possible that the thought of the innocent victim of injustice and
wrong waiting upon the divine wrath, brings to St. Paul's mind the idea
of the State which exists to represent divine justice in the world, and
minister divine wrath on behalf of the innocent. But, whether this
particular connexion of thought was really in St. Paul's mind or no, at
any rate the previous section has made it plain that the 'love of the
brethren' must extend itself to become a right relation to all men,
whether Christians or not[1]. In particular