It is remarkable that joy should take so eminent a place it attaineth unto the first three, and is but one place lower than the first. The fruit of the Spirit is love first, as comprehensive of the rest then joy arising out of it. As for joy, if it be not the first product of the Spirit of God, it is next to the first, and we may be sure that the order in which it is placed by the inspired apostle is meant to be instructive. See that ye abound in love to the great Father and all his family, for if you fail in the first point how can you succeed in the second? Above all things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. All the commandments are fulfilled in one word, and that word is “love” and all the fruits of the Spirit are contained in that one most sweet, most blessed, most heavenly, most Godlike grace of love. Perhaps ‘Move” is put first not only because it is a right royal virtue, nearest akin to the divine perfection, but because it is a comprehensive grace, and contains all the rest. ![]() As some fruits are easily divisible into several parts, so you perceive that the fruit of the Spirit, though it be but one, is threefold, nay, it makes three times three,- “love, joy, peace longsuffering, gentleness, goodness faith, meekness, temperance,”- all one. OBSERVE, “the fruit of the Spirit,” for the product of the Spirit of God is one. “But the fruit of the Spirit is joy.”- Galatians v.
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