The historical incident in this passage makes way for the allegorical representation. When Moses came down from the mount he veiled his face that the people might not see his features and might not witness the fading of his celestial glory. And Paul affirms that a similar veil conceals the countenance of the great prophet and lawgiver when his writings are publicly read in the hearing of his countrymen. In many ways the Pentateuch is a witness to the Messiah, even Jesus. But over the Pentateuch, as read, there rests a veil which hinders the Jews from penetrating to the spiritual, the prophetic, meaning of the inspired writer. Moses testified of Christ; but to the unenlightened the writings of Moses prevent any perception, any vision, of the Divine Lord. A similar veil keeps many from apprehending the truth which is so near them.

I. IN WHAT DOES THE VEIL CONSIST? Especially in prejudice and in unbelief. As the Israelites were so persuaded of the incomparable excellence of the Mosaic Law that they could not discern the higher revelation to which that Law was designed to lead, so oftentimes men's minds are so preoccupied with their own notions of religion, of righteousness, etc., that they are not prepared to give heed to the Divine manifestation and appeal.

II. WHAT DOES THE VEIL HIDE? The covering referred to in the context hid the face of the lawgiver; but the veil of error and of unbelief conceals the countenance of Christ, the revelation of Divine attributes, purposes, and promises. What it would be most for our interests to behold we may, by our sin and folly, obscure from our own view. See what we may, if we behold not the light of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ we forfeit the highest privileges of which we are capable.

III. HOW IS THE VEIL REMOVED? The answer is very simple, "When it shall turn to the Lord." That is to say, the obstacle to spiritual vision lies with ourselves and not with Heaven. Repentance, or the turning of the heart away from sin, is the condition of true enlightenment, Whilst the mind is occupied with itself and its own inclinations and fancies, the spiritual glory of the Saviour is not discernible. It only needs that, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, the mind should look away from self to Christ, in order that at once the scales should fall from the eyes of the beholder, and the veil should drop from the face of the Redeemer, and a true revelation should take place.

IV. WHAT DOES THE REMOVAL OF THE VEIL EFFECT?

1. The transitory character of preparatory dispensations is clearly discerned; the veil being dropped, it is seen that the glory of the older covenant has gone.

2. The true glory of Christ and of Christianity is made manifest; the new covenant appears in all its splendour, unfading and eternal. - T.

True religion is very simple and very deep. A s simple as this statement, "God is good"; as deep as life and death. But it has ever been hard for men to receive religion in all its simplicity and in all its depth. They want something they can touch and handle, something to fill the imagination, something with many colours to attract the eye. And human teachers have ever been ready to adapt themselves to this craving, and have put their teaching into a shape in which they thought it most likely to be received. And yet it is sometimes the part of the Christian minister, in following the example of Christ and of St. Paul, to "use great plainness of speech": to tell the people, not what they most wish or expect to hear, not what is most in accordance with their previous ideas and prejudices, but what he himself thinks and knows, what he has found in his own experience to be of lasting value, or, in Scriptural language, the truth which he believes that he has heard of God. St. Paul made the greatest effort that was ever made by any one, excepting only Christ, to bring men to receive a spiritual religion. He strove to show to the Jew that God in Christ was the Father of all men, and not of the Jew only; that righteousness meant not the mere outward performance of certain acts, but a right attitude of the heart towards God. And we read in this Epistle to the Corinthians that this teaching of St. Paul was "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness." Now, why was this? Let us try to imagine how they must have felt in listening to him. Let us imagine the Jew being told that the law of Moses was abolished and done away, that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin; that the Passover, the commemoration of the great deliverance that had first made the Jews a nation, was only a type and a shadow which was vanishing; that the peculiar people must no longer think that Jehovah had any special regard for them, but must learn to embrace the Gentiles, who for half their lives had been polluting themselves with abominations of idols. Was this, the Jewish objector might say — was this, indeed, to stand upon the ancient paths and to restore the desolations of many generations? Was it not rather to remove the landmarks, to tear up the foundations? Such then was the nature of the offence which the teaching of St. Paul gave to the Jew. Let us now turn and ask what impression it was likely to produce upon the Gentiles. I think I hear one of them crying, "What will this babbler say? And are we not to worship the sun going forth as a giant to run his course, nor the moon walking in brightness, nor the earth, nor the glorious heaven that smiles on us with pure radiance in the daytime and gazes on us with a thousand eyes at night? The Diana of the Ephesians, the Jupiter of Lystria or of Athens, these are to be nothing to us. Those are no gods, you tell us, that are made with hands. Would you take from them the only stay, the only consolation which they have amid the miseries of their feeble life, and offer them instead an unseen God, to be comprehended only with the mind! Take heed that you are not destroying what you cannot restore." Now St. Paul was not the first nor the last who in teaching a spiritual religion, in trying to open a way between the soul of man and the Spirit of God, had won for himself amongst the people of his own time the name of a godless and irreligious man. Isaiah is heard proclaiming in the name of God, "Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth, they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them. Bring no more vain oblations. Cease to do evil, learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." And Ezekiel is heard to cry, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father. The soul that sinneth, it shall die." But Isaiah fell a victim to the idolatrous fanaticism of his countrymen, and of Ezekiel the people said, "Doth he not speak parables?" And so all the Hebrew prophets, one by one, bore witness equally against the formalism and idolatry of the people, and were rejected equally. And what of Christ Himself? Was He not put to death for blasphemy: because He had said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up," and because He told the Chief Priests that "The hour was coming when the Son of Man should sit on the right hand of Power"? We need not fear, then, or be discouraged, if it should be found that in some matters either of doctrine or of custom and tradition there is still a veil upon the people's heart which clouds for them the perfect vision of the righteousness and goodness, the justice and mercy, of Almighty God: nor should the Christian teacher, who thinks he sees it is so, shrink from trying to remove the veil: if he may hope thereby to bring the minds of his countrymen nearer to a pure and spiritual religion. Least of all is he to be deterred by the imputation of impiety, or of infidelity and atheism, which has been shared by all religious teachers who have had anything to tell mankind, including Christ Himself. But still the unveiling of Divine truth to human apprehensions must be a gradual process, and is not to be completed in this life, and the same St. Paul who says, "That we all, beholding with open face the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory," had already said to this same Corinthian Church, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I also am known."

(Prof. Lewis Campbell.)

I. ITS FIGURATIVE REPRESENTATION. This moral blindness)is —

1. Criminal — the result of a sinful course.

2. Dangerous — a most alarming moral disease.

3. Temporary — the heart must one day be quickened.

II. ITS UNIVERSAL SYMPTOMS. Want of spiritual —

1. Understanding.

2. Perception. A thick haze of sin hides the spiritual from the soul's eye.

III. ITS GRAND DISCOVERY. Man's awful moral insensibility is seen in —

1. His opposition.

2. His indifference to the gospel. But yet this will be done away in Christ.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

How is it that the number of those who believe the gospel is so small compared with the number of those who do not believe in it? Our nation has had the gospel in it more or less now for the space of one thousand six hundred years. Week by week the gospel has been expounded and enforced by all sorts of agencies, yet in no town is there one-half of the population found within the walls of Christian sanctuaries, and there are few congregations in which the unbelievers do not out-number the believers. How is this? We propose to look at the answer to this question as given by St. Paul. The veil is on the heart. The vision of an object may be rendered impossible in either of two ways at least. There is a mountain that rears its majestic head to the sky; you may spend weeks in its neighbourhood, and yet never see it once. It may be shrouded in mist. The veil is then on the mountain. Or, the mountain may be still unseen, for the eye may be covered with thick films. The veil is then on the eye. This latter case is the one which fitly illustrates the language of the apostle, "The veil is upon the heart, not upon Moses; he is read, but he is not understood; the veil is upon the heart." Let us look at a few of the veils which are on the hearts of men now.

I. THE VEIL OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY OR NATURAL CORRUPTION. No one surely will say that even the best man we know would reflect credit upon his Creator, had he been made exactly as he now is, with so many sinful tendencies in him. Nor do I see how any thoughtful man can maintain the theory which affirms that we all came into the world with a clean, pure soul, and which accounts for what we are, entirely upon the principle of the influence of circumstances and education. How any one who has had to deal with children can maintain such a theory passes my comprehension. It may sound a very plausible principle. "Teach men the truth, and they will believe it; teach men the right, and they will do it." But does any one seriously believe that ignorance explains all the wickedness of the world? Ignorance of what? Ignorance that it is wickedness? Is it so, then, that man is now doing wrong with the consciousness that it is wrong? To say that men would not drink" if they knew better is to trifle. They do know better. Where, then, is the veil in such a case which prevents their reformation? It is not over the consequences of their sin. It can only be upon their heart. The vice is indulged because it is loved. And what is true of this vice is true also of man's general alienation from what is good. The carnal mind is enmity against God, etc.

II. THE VEIL OF CONCEIT OR INTELLECTUAL PRIDE. This is closely connected with the one we have just considered. It is, in fact, one of its folds. There is a peril in our times arising from the almost exclusive attention which is being directed to the study of the wonders of external nature. It is obvious that the fascinations of scientific investigation may blind the mind to the claims of higher truth, which depends for its understanding on qualities of heart rather than of intellect. The mathematician may dwell so long in the region of figures and formulas that he may never dream of a world in which they play no part whatever. The chemist may so busy himself among acids, and alkalies, and crucibles, and retorts that he may deign no thought to anything which he cannot fuse or analyse. The Bible introduces the philosopher into a world which is all but entirely new. It does not require his calculus, or his crucible, or his battery, or his microscope. Its truths are different from any that can be reached by these processes of investigation. What can they tell us about sin? The Bible does not create sin, it finds it. It deals not only with sin as a fact, but guilt as a feeling. This, too, is not created by the Bible. The Bible deals with the idea of a nobler life. Even this idea it did not wholly create. It deals with death, and with death in its moral aspects, and with eternity. The Bible tells us of the incarnation, and of the Cross, and of the resurrection. Now the reason of man could tell us nothing of these things apart from the Bible. That profound mysteries are mingled up with this revelation is admitted. But it surely is not for the human intellect to proudly turn away from it on this account. How many doors of nature it has knocked at? how many subtle forces it has sought to seize, and see in their inmost essence, but in vain? Does it hear and obey the voice which nature utters, "Hitherto shalt thou go, but no further"? and does it resent such a limitation in the domain of the Divine Word? Then it becomes not the reason which is reverent, but the reason which is proud. It will not accept the truth on which the light shines full, because there is truth which lies in darkness. But where in this case is the veil? The veil is on the heart.

III. THE VEIL OF PREJUDICE AND TRADITION. There are few vices of the mind which are more common and invincible. What a fearful amount of evidence a prejudice can resist! Now prejudice often assumes the form of holding fast to a traditional faith. This was the very case with the Jews, who held fast not to the true Moses, but to the Moses as he had been represented to them by their authoritative teachers. Had they listened to the true Moses, they would have been prepared to welcome Christ. But when Moses was read in their hearing, or by themselves, he was read, not through a clear medium as when one sees objects through the pure air by the light of the sun, but he was read through a jaundiced eye and a medium which distorted him. They brought their conceptions with them, and made their own Moses in a large degree. They were like men who consult the oracle, and tell the oracle what shall be his response, or who speak in an echoing vault, and find their voice returned to them. Things are to us in great measure what we are to them. And if we bring prejudice or a traditional faith with us, a faith, I mean, which we have not ourselves tested and proved, and which does not live within us and support our life, then we need not expect to see the truth. Let us have a better reason for our faith than that we have always held it, or that our father held it. It was because the Jews had no better reason that they called Christ Beelzebub — that they crucified Him: and that even to the days of Paul, yes, and even down to our own days when Moses is read, the veil is on their eyes.

IV. THE VEIL OF LUST, SELF-INTEREST, OR ANY OTHER SIN WHICH HAS ACQUIRED A MASTERY OVER THE HEART AND LIFE. There is nothing that can so darken the eye of the soul as a sin, and hence no man who is addicted to sin can see so clearly as the man whose soul is pure whether in fact or in aspiration. Who is sanguine in his endeavours to persuade a man to relinquish a traffic, however mischievous, provided only it brings in ample gains? He sees no evil in the traffic, why should he? He compels no one to buy; and they may buy as little as they choose. Besides, if he did not sell some one else would. Thus he reasons, but those arguments did not lead him to begin the traffic, or to continue in it. They never occur to him except when he is put on his defence. The one abiding and omnipotent motive is that the trade is lucrative. This is the veil which is before his eyes, and which no amount of light will suffice to penetrate. Conclusion: Will you submit to this blinding process? Or, will you cry to the Great Healer, and say to Him, "Lord, that I may receive my sight"? The veil, you will remember, cannot remain for ever. The hand of death will tear it away; but the light which then will fall upon your eyes will not be the light of salvation, but that which discovers to you, when too late, the blessedness which you have bartered for the pleasures of a day.

(E. Mellor, D. D.)

The apostle in the text contrasts the state of believing Christians with that of the unbelieving Jews, for the former, all with open face, behold the glory of the Lord. Now the language here employed admits of some latitude of interpretation. The word "open" means unveiled, and this shows that a contrast is intended. And the phrase may either be rendered "with open face," alluding to the face of the beholders, or "in an open face," referring to the face of Christ, as contrasted with that of Moses. For at the sixth verse of the next chapter the apostle expressly says that "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." If, then, we understand the words in the former sense, the spiritually enlightened Christian is contrasted with the carnal and prejudiced Jew. But if we understand the words in the latter sense, the objects contrasted are the Christian and Mosaic dispensations, implying that the beholders have now the advantage, externally, of a far more glorious revelation. Christ did not put a veil on His face like Moses, but openly reflected the glory of the Lord. Now, in whichever sense the words ought to be grammatically explained, we apprehend that both ideas are included in the view of the apostle. He obviously means, that however it was in former times, and however it might be still with blinded, unbelieving Jews, both the veil of Moses and the veil of the heart were now taken away in reference to the Christian believer. There was no longer an obstructing medium interposed between them and the sublime truths of redemption. The light fell at once upon the eyes of their understanding and the object of their contemplation, and nothing tended any longer either to obscure it or to intercept its progress. There was neither a diseased organ of vision in the beholder nor a concealed object.

I. In the first place, IT BECOMES US TO REFLECT, WITH UNFEIGNED GRATITUDE TO GOD, ON THE PECULIAR ADVANTAGES OF OUR OWN EXTERNAL SITUATION IN REGARD TO THE MEANS OF GRACE. There are many heathen nations in the world who have never enjoyed the light of Divine truth in any degree. And how obscurely was it possessed even by the ancient Israelites! Yes, the way of salvation is now patent and plain. The glory of the Lord, the excellent glory of His Divine mercy and love, as seen in the whole series of His dispensations, and reflected from the word of His grace, is now placed fully in our view.

II. BUT IT BECOMES US TO CONSIDER THE STATE OF OUR OWN HEARTS IN REFERENCE TO THE PRIVILEGES WE ENJOY. In our day there is no veil upon the truth, but is there none upon our own minds? Do we now distinguish that glory of the Lord which emanates from the plan of redemption? Do we discern the moral beauty, and feel the blessed influence of the doctrines of grace? If so, then the internal veil has surely been removed from our hearts. But if not, let us remember that the fault is our own, and that the blindness is in ourselves, for the glory of the Lord has been openly revealed. And if we discern it not the veil must be still upon our hearts. This was the case with many among the Jews even after Christ had come, And, alas! how many among professing Christians in the present day have the same veil upon their hearts. For otherwise, how shall we account for the dimness of their perception in discerning the real nature and bearings of Divine truth? Why do they not see sin in all its native deformity and soul-ruining consequences? Why do they not see the beauty and excellency of holiness, and the pure and spiritual happiness with which holiness is connected? Why do they not recognise the claims of God upon the devoted affection? Or why do they not feel and acknowledge the unspeakable obligations under which they are laid to the infinite love and grace of the Redeemer? Why do they not see the magnitude of the gospel salvation, and the aggravated guilt and infatuation of neglecting it? And why do they form such erroneous, unworthy, and unscriptural conceptions of that salvation? Were it only a cloud of ignorance which overshadowed their understandings, it might easily be dispelled, and could not long remain with all the abundant means of instruction they enjoy. But, alas! it is a dark cloud, not of ignorance merely, but of prejudice. It is the influence of pride, stirring up the enmity of the carnal mind against the humiliating doctrines of the gospel; it is the cherished indulgence of some favourite sin; it is the inveterate love of this present evil world. But it is the peculiar privilege of the true believer to behold the glory of the Lord with open face in the mirror of the gospel. Savingly taught by the Holy Spirit, he has been delivered from his native ignorance and unbelief; he has obtained the gift of spiritual discernment, and he beholds wondrous things out of the Divine law. He sees a majesty and a glory in the Scriptures, a high importance and excellency in spiritual subjects, to which he was originally blind.

(R. Brydon.)

1. In this passage the intellectual blindness of the Jews is traced up to the wrong state of their hearts. Indeed, even without this statement we could have gathered as much. The miracles of our Lord, and the close agreement of His career with prophecy, must have carried the convictions of the Jews by force, had there not been a predisposition in the heart not to believe. As soon, therefore, as this predisposition shall be removed, they shall forthwith be convinced, and "the veil shall be taken away."

2. Men are well aware that the understanding is liable to be prejudiced by the heart. "Love," they say, "is blind." We should exclude from the trial of a man's cause both his friends and his foes, because we account strong sympathies or antipathies prejudicial to the judgment. But the proverb extends to our judgment of things. The mind of man — the faculty by which he discerns truth — may be compared to an eye placed above a fuming caldron, which can see nothing clearly, because the vapours intercept the vision. The heart is the caldron, and sends up the vapours which distort the view. Now in seeking to reform human nature, the philosophers of antiquity either did not notice this fact, or did not see how the difficulty which it presents could be surmounted. At all events, by way of persuading men to virtue, they made their appeal to the understanding, and sought to carry their point to convincing the mind. As far as the understanding went, nothing could be more effective than such a method. But what if men do not, as notoriously they do not, conclude moral questions affecting themselves, on the mere verdict of the understanding? What if they set the will on the judgment-seat? Unless you can rectify the will and its prepossessions, you only argue before a corrupted judge, and in the sentence the argument goes for nothing.

3. Christianity, in seeking to reform mankind, makes its first appeal to the affections, which are the springs of the will, and through them clears and rectifies the understanding. What may be said to have been the main scope of our Lord's teaching? This — "God so loved the world," dee. Was not the apostolic exhortation only a prolonging of the echoes of the Saviour's voice: "We pray you... be ye reconciled to God"? Now the facts of the life and sufferings and teaching of Christ are the implements with which Christianity works. Let any one read the gospel records with thorough simplicity, and he cannot fail to be touched by them in a salutary way, especially by the concluding part of the great story.

4. But not only did Christianity commence with an appeal to the hearts of men; but this is the order which grace observes in its work on each individual soul. The Scripture says, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Justifying faith is not a mere intellectual conviction of the truth; but an operation of the heart, and by consequence of the will, involving a movement of the affections towards Christ in trust or love. And every forward step in Christian life must be made on the same principle as the first. It is quite as true to say, "with the heart man is edified," as it is to say, "with the heart man believeth." Now let us develop this truth, that edification is through the heart, and not through the mind.

I. TESTIMONY IS BORNE TO IT BY THE UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE OF CHRISTIANS. What is that impalpable something, which if an inferior sermon has, it succeeds in doing good, but if a superior sermon lacks, it fails of doing good? We call it "unction" — a fervent way of throwing out Divine truth, corresponding with the fervent character of that truth. Unction would be no merit at all, but the reverse, if the gospel were to be received by the intellect rather than the affections. But men know that the gospel is designed to meet their sympathies; and if it should be presented to them in such a manner as not to do this, they feel that it is wronged and misrepresented.

II. OWING TO OUR NOT PERCEIVING THIS TRUTH, RELIGIOUS EXERCISES ABE SOMETIMES TAKEN TO BE EDIFYING WHICH ARE NOT SO. Shall I say that much of our ordinary reading of Holy Scripture comes under this head? that it often resolves itself into a mental exercitation, and that not of a very high order? What a misuse of terms is there in the phraseology so often applied to things got by rote, of which we say that they are "learned by heart"! So far from being learned by heart, such things are often not even learned by mind, for sometimes they are most deficiently understood; and the very utmost that can be said in favour of such learning is that it lodges truth in the memory, which may expand and serve a good purpose at some future time. Has our study of Scripture given any bias to the will in the path of holiness? Has it at all stimulated the affections to the love of God, or of our neighbour? Has it nerved us against temptation? supported us under trial? prompted a prayer? or stirred in us a holy ambition? By these and the like questions must its influence upon the heart be tested; and unless it has had some influence upon the heart, there has been no edification in it.

III. LET OUR STUDIES TURN MORE AND MORE ON THAT WHICH IS THE CORE AND CENTRE OF THE BIBLE. The Bible is a revelation of God; and the core and centre of God's revelation is Christ crucified.

(Dean Goulburn.)

When Moses spoke of old to their fathers, the veil was upon his face; but now when he is read to them, the veil is upon their hearts. In old time it was God's doing; the Scriptures were made obscure for a time on purpose, the types and prophecies could not be understood till their fulfilment: but it is now the Jews' own doing; it is their own perverseness, refusing to see Christ in their Scriptures. Thus St. Paul speaks; thinking, most likely, as in many other places, of his own history, and of God's dealings with him in particular. You know, in his early days, he was a sort of figure and type of the whole Jewish nation, in his great and bitter enmity to Jesus Christ. His face was not towards the Lord. When he read the law he saw only the outward sign; he knew nothing as yet of its end and hidden meaning. But our Saviour, in compassion to his well-meaning but blind zeal, called to him from heaven and touched his heart by His grace. When St. Paul's heart had thus turned to the Lord, then the scales fell from his eyes; then he saw the purpose and drift of the ceremonies and sacrifices, the temple and tabernacle, the crown on David's head, and the anointing oil on Aaron's. And here we must observe well what "knowing Christ," and "turning to Him," mean in such places as these. It was not simply knowing that there was such a person, attending to what they heard and saw of Him; "turning to Him," means turning to His Cross, taking it up and following Him. When a person had done this sincerely, he would find quite a new light break in upon places in the Old Testament, which before he had no true knowledge of. He would learn what was meant by a lamb without spot or blemish. Again, he would understand the meaning of circumcision; how it marked men as belonging to Him. He would see why the people were fed with manna, to signify the true bread from heaven. He would understand why the tabernacle and temple had two parts, the holy place and the most holy, and why the most holy can only be entered once a year, and then not without blood. But does this saying apply to Sews only, and to the reading of the Old Testament only? or is it so, that we also, though we have been Christians many years, may have a veil upon our hearts, and -that, in the reading of the New Testament as well as the Old, of the gospel as well as of the law, of St. Paul and the epistles as well as of Moses and the prophets? Surely it may be our case too; after all that has been done for us, we may but too easily, if we will, yet go on in stumbling and in ignorance. Is it not too plain that very many of us come often to hear God's Holy Word; we are present at the reading of chapter after chapter, and yet we make no real improvement in our knowledge of holy things? And the cure for this must be the same as in the other case. When a man turns unto the Lord, that is, unto Christ, then the veil is taken away. Then a new light and an unaccustomed glory will break out and shine round our Bibles and in our Churches, and we shall begin to feel something of what the holy patriarch felt when he cried out, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not." But, as I said, to obtain this blessing, to see so much of heaven on earth, a person must turn habitually to the Lord. And what is "turning to the Lord"? I will answer in the words of an ancient writer. "The better to know what it is to be turned to the Lord, let us first state what it is to be turned away from Him. Every person who, while the words of the law are in reading, is occupied with matters of ordinary talk, is turned away from the Lord. Every one who, whilst the Bible is reading, is indulging thoughts of worldly business, of money, of gain, he too is turned away. Every one who is pressed with cares about his possessions, who strains himself eagerly after wealth, who longs after worldly glory and the honours of this life, every such person likewise is turned away." Who follows Divine meditations with as much zeal and labour as human? and how then dare we complain of our ignorance of that which we never tried to learn? Then again he reproves them for their carelessness about what is read in Church, and says of those who talk during the service, that when the Holy Scriptures are read, not only a veil, but even a partition, if one may call it so, and a wall, is upon their hearts." The veil, he says, of the sense is the sound of the words; but not even so much as this comes to them, who either stay away from the solemn assemblies, or come there and behave inattentively. Thus you see what strict attention "turning to the Lord" was then supposed to require, Now merely to attend may seem to some a simple thing enough: but those who have tried know it to be no small effort. But then we must well observe what else is implied in that turning to the Lord which the apostle mentions as the condition of the veil being withdrawn. Attention by itself is not enough; children we see will sometimes attend to their lessons in order to be rewarded; or out of a sort of curiosity, just to know what is said; it must be accompanied by prayer, and must be itself of the nature of prayer. Christian obedience is a great condition of all the promises we have heard. Without this, turning to the Lord is but a mockery, and it is vain to think of the veil being taken away. And, finally, as Moses at our Lord's transfiguration saw that in course of real accomplishment, which in shadow God had showed him in Mount Sinai long before — saw the skirts of the glory of God, the Incarnate Son glorified, and partook himself in His brightness; so shall it be one day with all who faithfully turn to Christ; and in the meantime His Spirit is with them to change them, unknown to themselves (for Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone), after the one image, from glory to glory.

(Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts for the Times.)

Corinthians, Israelites, PaulAchaia, CorinthAnyone, Heart, Nation, Nevertheless, Removed, Returned, Turn, Turns, Vail, Veil, Whenever, Whensoever, Withdrawn1. Lest their false teachers should charge him with vain glory,
2. he shows the faith of the Corinthians to be a sufficient commendation of his ministry.
6. Whereupon entering a comparison between the ministers of the law and of the gospel,
12. he proves that his ministry is so far the more excellent,
17. as the gospel of life and liberty is more glorious than the law of condemnation.

2 Corinthians 3:16

     5149   eyes

2 Corinthians 3:6-17

     4906   abolition

2 Corinthians 3:13-17

     5005   human race, and redemption

2 Corinthians 3:13-18

     5195   veil

2 Corinthians 3:14-16

     1445   revelation, responses
     5135   blindness, spiritual

2 Corinthians 3:14-17

     3203   Holy Spirit, and assurance

2 Corinthians 3:15-16

     1352   covenant, the new
     6627   conversion, nature of

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity Gospel Transcends Law.
Text: 2 Corinthians 3, 4-11. 4 And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: 5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; 6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. 7 But if the ministration of death, written, and engraven on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look stedfastly upon …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Transformation by Beholding
'We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image.'--2 COR. iii. 18. This whole section of the Epistle in which our text occurs is a remarkable instance of the fervid richness of the Apostle's mind, which acquires force by motion, and, like a chariot-wheel, catches fire as it revolves. One of the most obvious peculiarities of his style is his habit of 'going off at a word.' Each thought is, as it were, barbed all round, and catches and draws into …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

Spiritual Liberty
Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not meet it in any country save where you find the Spirit of the Lord. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Thank God, this is a free country. This is a land where I can breathe the air and say it is untainted by the groan of a single slave; my lungs receive it, and I know there has …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 1: 1855

The Letter and the Spirit
(Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.) II COR. iii. 6. God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. When we look at the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for to-day one after the other, we do not see, perhaps, what they have to do with each other. But they have to do with each other. They agree with each other. They explain each other. They all three tell us what God is like, and what we are to believe …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
(From the Epistle for the day) Teaching us that we ought to receive God, in all His gifts, and in all His burdens, with true long-suffering. 2 Cor. iii. 6.--"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." THERE are two sorts of men among God's friends; those of the Old Testament, and those of the New. All the men who should be saved before the birth of Christ had to observe the old dispensation with all its rites, until the new dispensation came with its laws and its rites. The old law served as …
Susannah Winkworth—The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler

How to Become Like Christ.
"But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."--2 COR. iii. 18 (Revised Version). I suppose there is almost no one who would deny, if it were put to him, that the greatest possible attainment a man can make in this world is likeness to The Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly no one would deny that there is nothing but character that we can carry out of life with us, and that our prospect …
Marcus Dods—How to become like Christ

That the Body and Blood of Christ and the Holy Scriptures are Most Necessary to a Faithful Soul
The Voice of the Disciple O most sweet Lord Jesus, how great is the blessedness of the devout soul that feedeth with Thee in Thy banquet, where there is set before it no other food than Thyself its only Beloved, more to be desired than all the desires of the heart? And to me it would verily be sweet to pour forth my tears in Thy presence from the very bottom of my heart, and with the pious Magdalene to water Thy feet with my tears. But where is this devotion? Where the abundant flowing of holy …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Ministry of the New Covenant
"Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God: not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh. And such confidence have we through Christ Godward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God: who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

The New Covenant: a Ministration of the Spirit
"Ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on tables that are hearts of flesh . . . Our sufficiency is of God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. For if the ministration of death came with glory, how shall not rather the ministration of the Spirit be with glory? For if the ministration of …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

General Notes by the American Editor
1. The whole subject of the Apocalypse is so treated, [2318] in the Speaker's Commentary, as to elucidate many questions suggested by the primitive commentators of this series, and to furnish the latest judgments of critics on the subject. It is so immense a matter, however, as to render annotations on patristic specialties impossible in a work like this. Every reader must feel how apposite is the sententious saying of Augustine: "Apocalypsis Joannis tot sacramenta quot verba." 2. The seven spirits, …
Victorinus—Commentary on the Apocolypse of the Blessed John

Let not Country Presbyters Give Letters Canonical, or Let them Send Such Letters Only To...
Let not country presbyters give letters canonical, or let them send such letters only to the neighbouring bishops. But the chorepiscopi of good report may give letters pacifical. Notes. Ancient Epitome of Canon VIII. A country presbyter is not to give canonical letters, or [at most] only to a neighbouring bishop. These "letters canonical" were called in the West letters "formatæ," and no greater proof of the great influence they had in the early days of the Church in binding the faithful together …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils

Note F. Note from Bengel on Rom. I. 4.
According to the Spirit of Holiness. The word hagios, holy, when God is spoken of, not only denotes the blameless rectitude in action, but the very Godhead, or to speak more properly, the divinity, or excellence of the Divine nature. Hence hagiosune (the word here used) has a kind of middle sense between hagiotes, holiness, and hagiasmos, sanctification. Comp. Heb. xii. 10 (hagiotes or holiness), v. 14 (hagiasmos or sanctification). So that there are, as it were, three degrees: sanctification, …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

The Authority and Utility of the Scriptures
2 Tim. iii. 16.--"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." We told you that there was nothing more necessary to know than what our end is, and what the way is that leads to that end. We see the most part of men walking at random,--running an uncertain race,--because they do not propose unto themselves a certain scope to aim at, and whither to direct their whole course. According to men's particular …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Of the Effects of those Prerogatives.
From these prerogatives there will arise to the elect in heaven, five notable effects:-- 1. They shall know God with a perfect knowledge (1 Cor. i. 10), so far as creatures can possibly comprehend the Creator. For there we shall see the Word, the Creator; and in the Word, all creatures that by the Word were created; so that we shall not need to learn (of the things which were made) the knowledge of him by whom all things were made. The most excellent creatures in this life, are but as a dark veil …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Two Covenants: the Transition
"Now the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of the everlasting covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ."--HEB. xiii. 20, 21. THE transition from the Old Covenant to the New was not slow or gradual, but by a tremendous crisis. Nothing less than the death of Christ was the close of the Old. Nothing less than His resurrection …
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

The Image of God in Man.
"As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."--1 Cor. xv. 49. One more point remains to be discussed, viz., whether the divine image refers to the image of Christ. This singular opinion has found many warm defenders in the Church from the beginning. It originated with Origen, who with his brilliant, fascinating, and seducing heresies has unsettled many things in the Church; and his heresy in this respect has found many defenders both East and West. Even …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Scripture.
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."-- 2 Tim iii. 16, 17. Among the divine works of art produced by the Holy Spirit, the Sacred Scripture stands first. It may seem incredible that the printed pages of a book should excel His spiritual work in human hearts, yet we assign to the Sacred scripture the most conspicuous place …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Bible in the Days of Jesus Christ
[Illustration: (drop cap S) Reading from a Roll--old Roman Painting] Slowly but surely, as time went on, God was adding to His Book, until about four hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ the Old Testament Scriptures, in their present shape, were completed. Many questions have been asked as to how the canon of the Old Testament was formed--that is, how and when did the Jews first begin to understand that the Books of the Old Testament were inspired by God. About the first five Books--the …
Mildred Duff—The Bible in its Making

Faith an Assurance and a Proof.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them. By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear."--HEB. xi. 1-3 (R.V.). It is often said that one of the greatest difficulties in the Epistle to the Hebrews is to discover any real connection of ideas between the author's general purpose in the previous discussion and the …
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

The Unsatisfied Life and Its Remedy
Cant. i. 2-ii. 7 There is no difficulty in recognizing the bride as the speaker in verses 2-7. The words are not those of one dead in trespasses and sins, to whom the LORD is as a root out of a dry ground--without form and comeliness. The speaker has had her eyes opened to behold His beauty, and longs for a fuller enjoyment of His love. Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: For Thy love [1] is better than wine. It is well that it should be so; it marks a distinct stage in the development …
J. Hudson Taylor—Union and Communion

How those who Fear Scourges and those who Contemn them are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 14.) Differently to be admonished are those who fear scourges, and on that account live innocently, and those who have grown so hard in wickedness as not to be corrected even by scourges. For those who fear scourges are to be told by no means to desire temporal goods as being of great account, seeing that bad men also have them, and by no means to shun present evils as intolerable, seeing they are not ignorant how for the most part good men also are touched by them. They are to be admonished …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Blessed and Tragic Unconsciousness
'... Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him.'--EXODUS xxxiv. 29. '... And Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from him.'--JUDGES xvi. 20. The recurrence of the same phrase in two such opposite connections is very striking. Moses, fresh from the mountain of vision, where he had gazed on as much of the glory of God as was accessible to man, caught some gleam of the light which he adoringly beheld; and a strange radiance sat on his face, unseen by himself, but …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Of the Necessity of Divine Influences to Produce Regeneration in the Soul.
Titus iii. 5, 6. Titus iii. 5, 6. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. IF my business were to explain and illustrate this scripture at large, it would yield an ample field for accurate criticism and useful discourse, and more especially would lead us into a variety of practical remarks, on which it would be pleasant …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

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