Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection… We see this in everything. We see it in the little pastimes of children playing in the market-place — practising their baby games, and never resting till they can catch upon their battledore their fifty or their hundred. We see it in the cricket-field and on the rifle-ground — we see it in the hunt and at the billiard table: what time, what toil, what patience, what disappointment, is grudged, if at last there may be perfection? We see it in the young scholar's devotion to his reading, to his composition. Some may study, some may compete, for the sake of the prize or the emolument, for the fame or the advancement. But we do a great injustice if we doubt that hundreds of the nobler youth of England would toil equally, and struggle equally, for the mere sake of knowing and of being. What is it which makes the great advocate, the eloquent orator, always tremble before speaking, and oftentimes lash himself afterwards? This, too, is not all of vanity and greed of praise; this is not all of eagerness to display self and mortification if the display be unsuccessful; much more is it, in real men, because there lives and glows in them, like a consuming fire, the ambition of perfection — a perfection which they never feel themselves to attain, just because nothing short of perfection will satisfy them. So it is with every painter, sculptor, writer, poet, who has in him that spark of genius by which art works and thought breathes. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, |
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