THE

CHRISTIAN LIFE;

ITS COURSE, ITS HINDRANCES,
AND ITS HELPS.

BY

THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D.,

HEAD MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL,

AND LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD.

From the Fifth London Edition.

1856.

"As far as the principle on which Archbishop Laud and his followers acted went to re-actuate the idea of the church, as a co-ordinate and living power by right of Christ's institution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the church they meant the clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a tangent.

"For it is this very interpretation of the church, that, according to my conviction, constituted the first and fundamental apostasy; and I hold it for one of the greatest mistakes of our polemical divines, in their controversies with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of the gospel faith to the Papacy."--COLERIDGE,

Literary Remains, vol. iii. p. 386.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

LECTURE I..

GEN. iii. 22.--And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.

LECTURE II.

1 COR. xiii. 11.--When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

LECTURE III.

1 COR. xiii. 11.--When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

LECTURE IV.

COL. i. 9.--We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

LECTURE V.

COL. i. 9.--We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

LECTURE VI.

COL. iii. 3.--Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

LECTURE VII.

1 COR. iii. 21--23.--All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.

LECTURE VIII.

GAL. v. 16, 17.--Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

LECTURE IX.

LUKE xiv. 33.--Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

LECTURE X.

1 TIM. i. 9.--The law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane.

LECTURE XI.

LUKE xxi. 36.--Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

LECTURE XII.

PROV. i. 28.--Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer: they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.

LECTURE XIII.

MARK xii. 34.--Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.

LECTURE XIV.

MATT. xxii. 14.--For many are called, but few are chosen.

LECTURE XV.

LUKE xi. 25.--When he cometh he findeth it swept and garnished.

JOHN v. 42.--I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.

LECTURE XVI.

MATT. xi. 10.--I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.

LECTURE XVII.

1 COR. ii. 12.--We have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God.

LECTURE XVIII.

GEN. xxvii. 38.--And Esau said unto his father, Hast thou but one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.

MATT. xv. 27.--And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.

LECTURE XIX.

MATT. xxii. 32.--God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

LECTURE XX.

EZEK. xiii. 22.--With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life.