Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, The farthest that any of the philosophers went in the discovery of blessedness was but to come to that — to pronounce that no man could be called blessed before his death; not that they had found what kind of better blessedness they went to after death, but that still, till death, they were sure every man was subject to new miseries, and interruptions of anything which they could call blessedness. The Christian philosophy goes farther: it shows us a perfecter blessedness than any conceived for the next life also. The pure in heart are blessed already, not only comparatively, that they are in a better way of blessedness than others are, but actually, in a present possession of it; for this world and the next world are not, to the pure in heart, two houses, but two rooms, a gallery to pass through and a lodging to rest in, in the same house, which are both under one roof, Christ Jesus. So the joy and the sense of salvation which the pure in heart have here is not a joy severed from the joy of heaven, but a joy that begins in us here, and continues, and accompanies us thither, and there flows on, and dilates itself to an infinite expansion. (John Donne, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,WEB: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, |
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