1 Corinthians 1:1-9 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God.The salutation I. The character of Paul.1. There were two things the apostle knew confidently. (1) That he was “ not meet to be called an apostle.” The same humility should mark us. Our humility, however, must not weaken faith or enfeeble energy. For-- (2) Paul was an apostle. We are not “ meet” to be saved, but we should never doubt our salvation when the Word of God assures us. 2. The strength and nobleness of Paul’ s character was based on the confidence that he was “ called of God” to be and to do the work of an apostle. A little thing will not make us lose heart in our work if we believe we are “ called of God.” II. The character of the Corinthians.1. They also were “ called of God” “ to be saints” --i.e., separated to God. They were not self-called, to be and to do what they liked. They were called of God to be like God, and to do His will; to be separated from their former selves. 2. They had been called out of a society-- (1) Where the Greeks sought for “ wisdom” and the Jews for “ signs.” (2) That was morally corrupt. 3. The character given them by God should inspire them with jealous care against-- (1) The admission into the Church of the elements of Corinthian society. (2) Religious bigotry and intolerance--the spirit of the Jew. They were but a part of the Church. III. The benediction. Grace is essentially an element of “ peace.” Its great dispensation was heralded in by “ peace on earth.” “ Sinai” and “ peace” were not known; but “ Calvary” and “ peace” are one. They who build on anything but “ grace” will not know “ peace.” The Church, too, will be characterised by “ peace” in the measure of the “ grace” in the heart of its members. The peace-breaker is never a man “ full of grace.” (The Study.)The salutation I. The designation of the writers.1. An apostle means “ one sent,” a missionary to teach the truth committed to him; and the authority of this apostolic mission St. Paul substantiates in 1 Corinthians 1:1, for it was questioned. In the firm conviction of his call by the will of God lay all his power. No man felt more strongly his own insignificance, but more deeply did he feel that he was God’ s messenger. Imagine that conception dawning on him in the midst of his despondency, and his joyful boldness against the slander of his enemies, and the doubtfulness of his friends is natural. This should be our strength. Called to be a politician, a tradesman, a physician. Why should not each and all of us feel that? But we get rid of it by saying that God called the apostles, but does not speak to us. But observe the modesty of the apostolic claim. He did not wish that his people should receive his truth because he, the apostle, had said it, but because it was truth. 2. St. Paul’ s joining with himself “ brother” Sosthenes is another proof of his desire to avoid lording it over God’ s heritage. If Sosthenes be he of Act 18:1-28., what a conqueror St. Paul, or rather Christianity, had become. Like the apostle, Sosthenes now built up the faith which once he destroyed. II. The persons addressed.1. “ The Church,” which, according to the derivation of the word, means the House of God. It is that body of men in whom the Spirit of God dwells, and who exist on earth for the purpose of exhibiting the Divine life, to penetrate and purify the world. It has an existence continuous throughout the ages, not on the principles of hereditary succession or of human election, but on the principle of spiritual similarity of character, just as the seed of Abraham are the inheritors of his faith. 2. There is, however, a Church visible and invisible; the latter consists of those spiritual persons who fulfil the notion of the ideal Church; the former embraces within it all who profess Christianity, whether they be proper or improper members of its body. Of the invisible Church St. Paul speaks as “ called to be saints,” “ temples of the Holy Ghost.” Of the visible as “ carnal, and walking as men,” and when he reproves their errors Christ too speaks of the same in the parables of the draw-net and the tares. To illustrate the abstract conception of a river is that of a stream of pure water, but the actual river is the Rhine or the Thames, muddy and discoloured. So of the Church. Abstractedly and invisibly it is a kingdom of God in which no evil is; in the concrete, and actually, it is the Church of Corinth, Rome, or England, tainted with impurity; and yet just as the muddied Rhone is really the Rhone, and not mud and Rhone, so there are not two churches, the Church of Corinth and the false church within it, but one visible Church in which the invisible lies concealed (cf. the parable of the Vine). 3. Rut beyond the limits of the visible is there no true Church? Are Plato, Socrates, Marcus Antoninus, and such as they, to be reckoned by us as lost? Surely not. The Church exists for the purpose of educating souls for heaven; but goodness is goodness, find it where we may. A vineyard exists for the purpose of nurturing vines, but he would be a strange vine-dresser who denied the reality of grapes because they had ripened under a less genial soil, and beyond the precincts of the vineyard. 4. The visible Church of which the Church of Corinth formed a part existed to exhibit what humanity should be to represent the Life Divine in (1) Self-devotion. They were “ sanctified in Jesus Christ.” When ecclesiastical dignity makes godliness a means of gain, or when priestcraft exercises lordship over God’ s heritage, then it is falsifying its mission. (2) Sanctity. The Corinthian converts came out of a factious and extremely corrupt society, and carried into the Church the savour of their old life, for the wine-skin will long retain the flavour of the wine. We find immorality existing, old philosophy colouring Christianity, the insolence of wealth at the Lord’ s Supper, and spiritual gifts exhibited for ostentation. Such was the Church of Corinth, the Early Church so boasted of by some! Nevertheless all are “ called to be saints,” and their mission is to put down all evil. (3) Universality: “ With all who, in every place,” &c. The Corinthian Church was only a part of the Church universal as a river is of the sea. Paul would not permit, it to think of itself as more spiritual or as possessing higher dignity than the Church at Jerusalem or Thessalonica. There is no centre of unity but Christ: We boast of our advantages over Dissenters and Romanists. Whereas the same God and the same Christ is “ theirs and ours.” (4) Unity. Christ was the Saviour of all, and His Spirit bound all together into a living and invisible unity. Each in their several ways contributed to fill up the same building on the same Foundation; each in their various ways were distinct members of Christ’ s body, performing different offices, yet knit into one under the same Head; and the very variety produced a more perfect and abiding unity. III. The benediction: “ Grace and peace,” &c. The heathen commenced their letters with the salutation, “ Health!” There is a life of the flesh, and there is a life of the spirit--a truer, more real, and higher life, and above and beyond all things the apostle wished them this. He wished them neither “ health” nor “ happiness,” but “ grace and peace,” &c. And nosy comes the question, What is the use of this benediction? How could grace and peace be given as a blessing to those who rejected grace, and not believing fell no peace? Its validity depended on its reception by the hearts to whom it was addressed. If they received it they became in fact what they had been by right all along. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)The apostolic salutations The praise here bestowed, though not greater than that with which other Epistles are opened, is remarkable as being addressed to a Church which is thought deserving of severe censures. But it is to be observed--1. That the praise there bestowed on faith and holiness is here almost confined to gifts such as knowledge and wisdom, which were obviously not incompatible with the moral degradation into which some of the members of the Church had fallen. And it is in accordance with the apostle’ s method to seize, in the first instance, on some point of sympathy and congratulation, not merely from a prudential policy, but from natural courtesy and generosity. 2. That this apostolic practice is an exemplification of the general rule, according to which Scripture presents strongly the ideal of the whole without describing the defects and sins of the parts. The visible society of Christians was to the apostles, in spite of its many imperfections, the representation of Messiah’ s kingdom. And then, although the Christian congregation in each city or country was distinct from the heathen community in which it was situated, it was, as it were, the Christian representative of that community. A Christian of Corinth or Ephesus might travel backwards and forwards from one to the other; but however great were the disorders of the one or the excellences of the other, there was no call upon him to exchange communions unless he actually ceased to reside in Corinth or Ephesus. The supposed duty of gaining proselytes from Christian communities different from our own, and the consequent division of Churches by any other than their local and national designations, are ideas alien from the apostolic age. “ Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna,” was a maxim of apostolical, no less than of Grecian wisdom. No Church of later ages has presented a more striking example of corruption or laxity than was exhibited at Corinth, yet the apostle does not call on his converts to desert their city or their community; and he himself steadily fixes his view on the better and the redeeming side. (Dean Stanley.)The Church in Corinth I. The writer--“ Paul, an Apostle,” &c.1. An apostle is one sent, as Christ was sent by the Father (John 17:18). It was therefore an office no one could take to himself, nor was it promotion from previous service. This explains one of Paul’ s most prominent characteristics: the combination of humility and authority. He is “ not worthy to be called an apostle,” yet he never hesitates to assert his claim to be listened to as the ambassador of Christ. And this is for us all the source of humility and confidence. It is altogether a new strength with which a man is inspired when he knows that God calls him to do this or that. 2. What share in the letter Sosthenes had we cannot say. He may have written it, and he may have suggested a point here and there. Paul did not stay to inquire whether Sosthenes was qualified to be the author of a canonical book; but knowing the authoritative position he had held among the Jews of Corinth, he naturally conjoins his name with his own. II. The persons to whom this letter is addressed (verse 2).1. With them are joined “ all that in every place,” &c. And therefore we may gather that Paul would have defined the Church as those who “ call upon the name of Jesus Christ.” This implies trust in Him, and acknowledgment of Him as supreme Lord. It is this which brings men together as a Christian Church. 2. But at once we are confronted with the difficulty that many persons who call upon the name of the Lord do so with no conviction of their need, and with no real dependence upon Christ or allegiance to Him. Hence the distinction between the Church visible, which consists of all who nominally belong to the Christian community, and the Church invisible. Where the visible Church is its members can be counted, its property estimated, its history written. But of the invisible Church no man can fully write the history, or name the members, or appraise its properties, gifts, and service. 3. From the earliest times it has been said that the true Church must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. That is true if the Church invisible be meant. But it is not true of the Church visible. Paul here gives us four notes which must always be found in the true Church. (1) It is composed of consecrated people. The word “ sanctify” means that which is set apart to holy uses. The New Testament word for Church, ecclesia, a society “ called out,” shows that it exists not for common purposes, but to witness for God and Christ and to maintain before men the ideal life realised in Christ. (2) Its members are called to be “ saints.” This Church was in danger of forgetting this. One of its members had been guilty of immorality; and of him Paul says, “ Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Even with sinners of a less flagrant sort, no communion was to be held. No doubt there is risk and difficulty in administering this law. The graver hidden sin may be overlooked, the more obvious transgression be punished. But the duty of the Church to maintain its sanctity is undeniable, and those whose function it is to watch over the purity of the Church would be saved from all doubtful action were the individual members alive to the necessity of holy living. (3) It is to be found not in one country or age, in this or that Church, whether it assume the title of “ Catholic” or national, but is composed of “ all that in every place,” &c. No visible Church can claim to be catholic on the ground of its being co-extensive with Christendom. Catholicity is not a matter of more or less; it cannot be determined by a majority. No Church which does not claim to contain the whole of Christ’ s people without exception can claim to be catholic. (4) The Lord of all the Churches is one Lord; in this allegiance they centre, and by it are held together in a true unity. Plainly this note can belong only to the Church invisible. It is doubtful whether a visible unity is desirable. Considering what human nature is and how liable men are to be imposed upon by what is large, it is probably quite as conducive to the spiritual well-being of the Church that she is broken up into parts. Outward divisions would sink into insignificance, and be no more bewailed than the division of an army into regiments, were there the real unity which springs from true allegiance to the common Lord and zeal for the common cause rather than for the interests of our own particular Church. And Christian people are beginning to see how much more important are those points on which the whole Church is agreed than those which split the Church into sects. 4. Paul, with his usual courtesy and tact, begins with a hearty acknowledgment of the distinctive excellences of the Corinthian Church (verses 4-6). (1) Paul was one of those large-natured men who rejoice more in the prosperity of others than in any private good fortune. Paul’ s joy was to see the testimony he had borne to Christ’ s goodness and power confirmed by the new energies and capacities in those who believed his testimony. The gifts of the Corinthian Christians made it manifest that the Divine presence and power proclaimed by Paul were real. And it is the new life of believers now which most strongly confirms the testimony regarding the risen Christ. (2) It is somewhat ominous that the incorruptible honesty of Paul can only acknowledge their possession of “ gifts,” not of those fine Christian graces which distinguished others. But the grace of God must always adjust itself to the nature of the recipient. The Greek nature was lacking in seriousness and moral robustness; but for many centuries it had been trained to excel in intellectual and oratorical displays. These natural gifts were quickened and directed by grace. Each race has its own contribution to make to complete the full-grown Christian manhood. (a) Paul thanked God for their gift of utterance. Perhaps had he lived now he might have had a word to say in praise of silence. There is more than a risk nowadays that talk takes the place of thought and action. But this utterance was a great gift. In no other language could Christian ideas have found such adequate and beautiful expression. And in this Paul saw promise of a rapid and effective propagation of the gospel. Legitimately may we hope for the Church when she so apprehends her own wealth in Christ as to be stirred to invite all the world to share with her. (b) But utterance is well backed by knowledge. Often has the determination to satisfy the intellect with Christian truth been reprehended as idle and even wicked. The faith which accepted testimony was a gift of God, but so also was the knowledge which sought to recommend the contents of this testimony to the human mind. (3) But however rich in endowments the Corinthians must be made to feel that no endowment can dispense with the necessity of conflict with sin. Richly endowed men are often most exposed to temptation, and feel more keenly than others the real hazard of human life. Paul therefore assigns as the reason of his assurance that they will be blameless in the day of Christ, that “ God is faithful,” &c. God calls us with a purpose in view, and is faithful to that purpose. He calls us to the fellowship of Christ that we may learn of Him and become suitable agents to carry out the whole will of Christ. (M. Dods, D. D.)The call of God Isaiah 1. The ground of ministerial authority.2. The motive to ministerial usefulness. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The authority of the Christian minister He is--1. The messenger of Christ.2. Divinely called.3. Set apart by the will of God as indicated by His Providence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And Sosthenes our brother.--Sosthenes a brother I. Who was Sosthenes?1. After Paul began work at Corinth, Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, was converted; and that Paul considered his a notable case is proved by the fact that he personally baptized him. But as Paul was compelled to leave the synagogue, it is probable that Crispus would also have to leave; and the fact that Sosthenes is afterwards mentioned as chief ruler implies that Crispus was deposed. Paul continued his lectures next door to the synagogue, and its success would naturally enrage Sosthenes, who was doubtless the head of the conspiracy which led Paul before Gallio. We know the result. The Jews had risen in insurrection; it was now the turn of the Greeks, who made Sosthenes the special object of their attack. 2. That the Sosthenes of the text is the same as he of Act 18:1-28, seems likely. (1) It is probable that if converted he would leave Corinth. His conversion would create deeper resentment than that of Crispus, for he had been not only chief ruler of the synagogue, but the persecutor of the new religion. (2) If Crispus had to leave Corinth he would naturally take a deep interest in the Church there, as we do in the home of our first birth and of our second. (3) Paul would surely regard Sosthenes with special interest. He had himself been a bitter persecutor. And if he had to flee from Corinth it is natural that he should have clung to Paul and Paul to him. (4) Paul would pray and strive for his conversion. After his acquittal Paul “ tarried yet a good while” at Corinth, and would deeply regret the onslaught on Sosthenes, some of whose assaulters, if not Corinthians, were doubtless attached to Paul, which would lead to an expression of regret on the part of the apostle. And who can tell what such an apology would lead to? Perhaps Paul would, during the interview, refer to his own conversion, and lead his listener to see in it a reflection of his own case. And then, Paul would see in Sosthenes one who was so like what he had been. (5) Unless this Sosthenes is he of Act 18:1-28. it is difficult to understand why Paul should have here introduced his name, which is not found elsewhere; but if the two are the same nothing is more natural. II. The lessons.1. How wonderful in its operations is the grace of God! Here is a man the very last one would expect to become a Christian. 2. Do not be hopeless over any case. Sosthenes was in office, and officials are always difficult to move, and the indignities he suffered would exasperate him against Christianity. 3. Cherish a forgiving spirit. How fully Paul forgave his enemy and admitted him into his friendship. 4. Cultivate kindly feelings towards the Christian friends with whom we have been or are associated. The first Christians Sosthenes knew were at Corinth. At first he hated them, but afterwards he loved them as he had never loved friends before; but the brotherliness was on both sides. (A. Scott.)To the Church of God. The term, ἐκκλήσια (church), formed of the two words “ out of” and “ to call,” denotes in ordinary Greek language an assembly of citizens called out of their dwellings by an official summons (cf. Acts 19:41). Applied to the religious domain in the New Testament, the word preserves essentially the same meaning. Here, too, there is a summoner--God, who calls sinners to salvation by the preaching of the gospel (Galatians 1:6). There are the summoned--sinners, called to faith thenceforth to form the new society of which Christ is the Head. The complement “ of God” indicates at once Him who has summoned the assembly, and Him to whom it belongs. The term, “ the Church of God,” thus corresponds to the Old Testament phrase, “ the congregation of the Lord” ; but there is this difference, that the latter was recruited by way of filiation, while in the new covenant the Church is formed and recruited by the personal adherence of faith. (Prof. Godet.)Threefold sanctification (Jude 1:1, text, and 1 Peter 1:2):--Mark the union of the three Divine Persons in all their gracious acts. How unwise all those who make preferences in the Persons of the Trinity. In their love, and in the actions which flow from it, they are one. Specially is this in the case of sanctification. This being the case, what value God must set upon holiness! God could as soon cease to be as cease to be holy, and sooner renounce the sovereignty of the world than tolerate anything unholy. Sanctification means-- I. Setting apart--the taking of something which might legitimately have been put to ordinary uses for God’ s service alone.1. E.g., in Exodus 13:2 God claimed the firstborn of men and cattle. The tribe of Levi was set apart to be the representatives of the firstborn. In Genesis 2:3, God set apart for His own service what had been an ordinary portion of time before. So Leviticus 27:14 was meant as a direction to devout Jews, who intended that the produce of the field or the occupation of the house should be wholly given to God. So in Exodus 29:44 we read that God said, “ I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar.” To the same effect are the sanctification of the altar, instruments, and vessels (Numbers 7:1), the setting apart of Eleazer to keep the ark (1 Samuel 7:1), and the establishment of cities of refuge (Joshua 20:7). This Old Testament use of the word explains John 10:26. Immaculately conceived and preserved from all stain of evil, Christ needed no sanctifying work within Him. All that is here intended is that He was set apart (John 17:19). You understand now the text in Jude. God the Father has specially set apart His people. 2. What suggestive and solemn thoughts are here. (1) If we are sanctified by God we ought never to be used for any purpose but for Him. Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price. “ But must we not work and earn our own bread?” Yes! but still as “ serving the Lord.” If any man say, “ I have an occupation in which I cannot serve the Lord,” leave it, you have no right in it; but there is no lawful calling in which you will not be able to say, “ I do all to the glory of God.” The Christian is no more a common man than was the altar a common place. It is as great a sacrilege for Christians to live to the world as it would have been for the Jews to use the holy fire for their own kitchen. (2) It was a crime which brought destruction upon Babylon when Belshazzar had brought forth the cups of the Lord, the goodly spoil of the temple at Jerusalem.” Just as the sacred vessel touched the sacrilegious lip, a hand was seen mysteriously writing out his doom. Oh, take heed, ye that profess to be sanctified by the blood of the covenant, that you reckon it not to be an unholy thing. See to it that ye make not your bodies which ye profess to be set apart to God’ s service, slaves of sin. If you and I are tempted to sin, we must reply, “ No, let another man do that, but I cannot; I am God’ s man.” When Antiochus Epiphanes offered a sow on the altar, his awful death might have been easily foretold. Oh! how many there are who make a high profession, who have offered unclean flesh upon the altars of God; have made religion a stalking-horse to their own emolument. II. That the thing set apart for holy uses is to be regarded, treated, and declared holy.1. E.g., in Isaiah 8:13, it is said, “ Sanctify the Lord of Hosts, Himself.” Now the Lord does not need to be set apart for holy uses, nor to be purified, for He is holiness itself. When Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:1-20.) put strange fire on the altar, and the fire of the Lord consumed them, the reason was--“ I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me” ; by which He meant that He would be treated as a most Holy Being with whom such liberties were not to be taken (see also Numbers 10:12, and “ hallowed be Thy name” in the Lord’ s Prayer). 2. Have we not some light here concerning our second text--“ Sanctified in Christ Jesus” ? In Christ Jesus the saints are regarded by God as being holy, and treated as such, i.e., are justified. A holy God cannot have dealings with unholy men; but He views us, not in ourselves, but in our federal Head, the Second Adam. We may boldly enter into the Holiest, where no unholy thing may come, because God views us as holy in Christ Jesus. We now come to-- III. Actually to purify or make holy.1. In Exodus 19:10-12 sanctification consisted in certain outward deeds by which they were put into a cleanly state and their souls were brought into reverential awe. In Joshua 3:1-17., when Israel were about to pass the Jordan, they were to prepare themselves to be beholders of a scene so august. Men in the old times were sprinkled with blood, and thus sanctified from defilement and considered to be pure in the sight of God. This is the sense in which we view our third text, “ Sanctification through the Spirit,” the sense in which it is generally understood. 2. Sanctification begins in regeneration, and is carried on in two ways--by mortification, whereby the lusts of the flesh are subdued, and vivification, by which the life which God has put within us is made to spring up into everlasting life. This is carried on every day in what we call perseverance, and it comes to perfection in “ glory.” Now this work, though we commonly speak of it as being the work of the Spirit, is quite as much the work of Christ. There are two agents: one is the worker who works this sanctification effectually--that is the Spirit; and the other, the agent, the efficacious means by which the Spirit works this sanctification is--Jesus Christ and His most precious blood. There is a garment which needs to be washed. Here is a person to wash it, and there is a bath in which it is to be washed--the Person is the Holy Spirit, but the bath is the precious blood of Christ. 3. The Spirit of God as the Author of sanctification employs a visible agent. “ Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth.” How important then that the truth should be preached. 4. In another sense we are sanctified through Christ Jesus, because it is His blood and the water which flowed from His side in which the Spirit washes our heart from the defilement and propensity of sin (Ephesians 5:25). There is no being sanctified by the law; the Spirit does not use legal precepts to sanctify us. No; just as when Marah’ s waters were bitter, Moses had a tree cast in, and they were sweet, so the Spirit of God, finding our natures bitter, takes the tree of Calvary, casts it into the stream, and everything is made pure. He finds us lepers, and to make us clean He dips the hyssop of faith in the precious blood, and sprinkles it upon us and we are clean. The blood of Christ not merely makes satisfaction for sin, but works the death of sin. The blood appears before God and He is well pleased; it falls on us--lusts wither, and old corruptions feel the death-stroke. 5. Just as the Spirit only works through the truth, so the blood of Christ only works through faith. Our faith lays hold on the atonement, sees Jesus suffering on the tree, and says, “ I vow revenge against the sins which nailed Him there” ; and thus His precious blood works in us a detestation of all sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Three notes of the Church I. It is God’ s--but to distinguish it from the heathen ἐκκλησίαι--a name never used in profane Greek to denote a religious assembly--but to distinguish it from the κόσμος, which is the antagonist of the kingdom and out of which the Church is called. Though the name ecclesia was borrowed from the clubs or associations of the time, the apostle discovers in it a Christian idea--that of separation from the world. To say that the Church is an ecclesia is to say it is God’ s. II. As a result of its being an ecclesia, the Church is sanctified (cf. John 17:16-19). The primary meaning is consecration. The Christian enters into the place hitherto occupied by the Jewish Church. But consecration in its Christian form resolves itself into holiness. Christ takes possession of every morality and raises it into spirituality. All goodness becomes a religion, binding the soul to God. “ In” means that believers are not only sanctified “ through the offering of Christ” (Hebrews 10:10), but also continue holy in virtue of union with Christ (cf. Romans 15:16). III. It consists of men “called to be saints.” They are saints by reason of a Divine call from without as well as of a Divine operation from within (cf. Romans 1:6; Leviticus 23:2). The notion of saintship is in Scripture inseparable from that of being reckoned, of being allotted a place by God. (Principal Edwards.)Grace be unto you, and peace.--Grace and peace Grace is favour, and peace its fruits. The former includes all that is comprehended in the love of God as exercised towards sinners; and the latter all the benefits which flow from that love. All good, therefore, whether providential or spiritual, whether temporal or eternal, is comprehended in these terms--justification, adoption, and sanctification, with all the benefits which either accompany or flow from them. These infinite blessings suppose an infinite source; and as they are sought no less from Christ than from God the Father, Christ must be a Divine person. It is to be remarked that God is called our Father, and Christ our Lord. God as God has not only created us, but renewed and adopted us. God in Christ has redeemed us. He is our owner and sovereign, to whom our allegiance is immediately due; who reigns in and rules over us, defending us from all His and our enemies. This is the peculiar form which piety assumes under the gospel. All Christians regard God as their Father and Christ as their Lord. His person they love, His voice they obey, and in His protection they trust. (C. Hodge, D. D.)The peace of the Christian Trust God and thy soul shall no longer be like “ the sea that cannot rest,” full of turbulent wishes, full of passionate desires that come to nothing, full of endless meanings, like the homeless ocean that is ever working, and never flings up any product of its work but foam and broken weeds; but thine heart shall become still, like some land-locked lake, where no winds or tempests ruffle, and on its calm surface there shall be mirrored the clear shining of the unclouded blue, and the perpetual light of the sun that never goes down. No peace without Christ The vessel in which we are passing over the sea of life is always driven by contrary winds till the Lord embarks. (J. Pulsford.)Divine blessings Observe-- I. The blessing we announce.1. Grace and peace.2. Needed by all.3. Offered to all. II. Their source.1. God.2. Our Father.3. Through Christ.4. Hence the supply is inexhaustible. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:4-13I thank my God … for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. Apostolic thanksgiving forI. The grace they had received.1. Freely given.2. Richly supplied.3. Amply confirmed. II. The hope they anticipated. They waited confidently for--1. The coming of Christ.2. Their final justification.3. Everlasting fellowship with Him. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Apostolic congratulation and warning I. The apostolic congratulation. “ I thank my God,” &c.1. In the heart of St. Paul, the unselfishness of Christianity had turned this world into a perpetual feast. If we want to know what his life was, turn to 2 Corinthians 11:1-33.; yet it was filled with the blessedness which arises from the abilities to enjoy the blessings of others as though they were our own. Personally we get very little in this world; and if we are to mourn that we never had a whole kid to ourselves “ to make merry with,” life will become desolate indeed. Only by saying, “ It is meet we should rejoice and be glad” with our brethren, can life be a blessing. Thus the apostle, in all his weariness and persecutions, was nevertheless always rejoicing with his Churches. 2. Here he rejoices over three gifts to the Corinthians-- (1) That of utterance. To Paul a blessing was nothing unless it could be imparted to others. Knowing a truth is one thing, being able to express it is another, and to dare to express it another. “ Utterance” implies both power and courage. A truth hidden is unproductive. And therefore the power of utterance becomes, by the grace of God, a faculty divine. (2) But there may be utterance without knowledge. St. Paul desired utterance in order to speak out something in him. With many persons utterance is only verbiage. Let us seek, not merely to have utterance, but to have something worthy of uttering. Be sure you speak that you do know, and nothing else. (3) The attitude of expectation (verse 7), as though that were the best gift of all. (a) We are to look for a Church of the future--not of the past, nor of the present. The coming of Christ includes the perfect state of human society, and here--Christ coming to us, not our going to Him. And we are to be looking forward to this; not busying ourselves in dreams about, and mournings after, the past, nor complacently praising the present, but thankful to God for what we have, feeling that the past was necessary, and, still dissatisfied with ourselves, hoping something better yet, both for God’ s Church and world. (b) It, implies a humble expecting state; not dogmatising, not dreading, but simply waiting. The kingdom of God is within us; but the kingdom of God developed will be as the lightning, sudden and universal. 3. Note the ground of hope for the continuance and successful issue of those blessings. Not on any stability of human goodness, but the character of God (verse 9). Had not Saul once had the Spirit? Had not Judas once had gifts? Who, then, could say that the Corinthians might not make shipwreck of their faith? The apostle answers this, not by counting on their faithfulness to God, but on God’ s faithfulness to them. Of course, this doctrine may be misused. We may rest upon it too much, and so become unwatchful and supine; but, nevertheless, it is a most precious truth, and without it I cannot understand how any man dares go forth to his work in the morning, or at evening lay his head on his pillow to sleep. II. The apostle’ s warning and reproof.1. Parties had arisen in Corinth. (1) That which called itself by the name of Paul. Now the teaching of this apostle differed from that of the others in the prominence which it gave to certain truths--justification by faith, the salvability of the Gentiles, and Christian liberty. Some of the Corinthians exaggerated all this, and said, “ This is the truth and nothing else” : accordingly they made the doctrine of justification by faith an excuse for licentiousness, and the doctrine of Christian liberty a cloak of maliciousness. (2) That which named itself after Apollos, the difference between whom and Paul seems to be not so much a difference of views as in the mode of stating those views; the eloquence of St. Paul was rough and burning, that of Apollos was more refined and polished. (3) That called by the name of Cephas, between whom and Paul there was this difference--that whereas the Spirit of God had detached Paul from Judaism by a sudden shock, in the heart of Peter Christianity had been slowly developed; he had known Jesus first as the Son of Man, and afterwards as the Son of God. It was long before he realised God’ s purpose of love to the Gentiles. Therefore all the Jewish converts preferred to follow him. (4) That calling itself by the name of Christ, who doubtless prided themselves on their spirituality and inward light, and looked down with contempt on those who professed to follow the opinion of any human teacher. Perhaps they ignored apostolic teaching altogether, and proclaimed the doctrine of direct communion with God without the aid of ministry or ordinances. 2. The guilt of these partisans did not lie in holding views differing from each other; the guilt of schism is when each party, instead of expressing fully its own truth, denies that others are in the truth at all. Nothing eats out the heart and life of religion more than party spirit. Christianity is love; party spirit is the death of love. Christianity is union amidst variety of views; party spirit is disunion. In these days of party spirit, be it urged solemnly on our hearts that we “ love one another.” Accuracy of view is worth little in comparison with warmth of heart. It is easy to love such as agree with us. Let us learn to love those who differ from us. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Exemplary gratitude and precious confidence Two blessed states of mind:-- I. Exemplary gratitude. “ I thank my God always on your behalf.” The gratitude here was--1. Unselfish. “ On your behalf.” It is right and well to praise God for what He has done for us, but it is a nobler thing to praise Him for what He has done for others. No man rightly appreciates a blessing who does not desire others to participate in it. The sublimity of a landscape is more than doubly enjoyed when one or more stand by your side to share your admiration. 2. For spiritual good. “ For the grace of God.” (1) That grace which “ enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge” --two splendid gifts where they are inspired by the “ grace of God” and properly related. “ Utterance” apart from “ knowledge” is worthless and pernicious, volubilities of vice, garrulousness of social evils. “ Knowledge” is of no value to others, unless it has effective “ utterance.” Knowledge with a powerful oratory will move the world; it has shivered dynasties, converted millions, and created churches. (2) That grace which confirmed in their experience the testimony of Christ. What higher gift than this--a personal realisation of Christianity? (3) That grace which inspired them with a practical hope of the appearance of Christ. 3. An habitual state of mind. “ I thank God always.” It was not an occasional sentiment. It was a settled attitude of heart. II. Precious confidence.1. In Christ perfecting character. “ Who shall also confirm you unto the end.” So perfecting it that it shall be “ blameless.” All moral imperfections removed. 2. In His appearing again. The day when He will appear is the day of days for humanity. 3. In His granting them companionship. “ Unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ the Lord.” “ Where I am there ye shall be also.” (D. Thomas D. D.)The grace and gifts of God Paul uses here two expressions, elsewhere placed in the same close connection (see Romans 12:6; 1 Peter 4:10), “ grace” (χάρις) and “ gift” --not δῶρον or its cognate words (which might include every natural blessing common to heathen and Christian), but χάρισμα, the spiritual blessing connected with and flowing from God’ s “ grace.” Note that-- I. Both are characteristic of the gospel dispensation.1. True, “ grace” is mentioned in the Old Testament, and God is proclaimed to be “ gracious,” but this rarely. It is in the New Testament that we have complete revelation of this, and first have the frequent phrase “ the grace of God.” 2. And this because “ grace … came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17; Titus 2:11). So in the text. God’ s fullest, freest favour to a sinful world, made possible by the sacrifice of Christ, made manifest by His life and ministry, and made over to His disciples as an abiding possession in the outpouring of the Spirit. 3. The “ gifts” of God are thus-- (1) The heritage of the Christian Church, which is the special sphere of the Holy Spirit’ s operations (2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:22). (2) Distributed to believers by Him as being God (chap. 12:4, 11). (3) The outcome of the Divine grace of our Christian calling (Romans 12:6), and argue the possession of that grace (1 Peter 4:10). II. Both are to be used by us.1. “ Grace” looks chiefly to the side of personal sanctification. St. Paul beseeches his converts not to “ receive the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1), shows how he himself had been changed from a chief of sinners “ by the grace of God” (1 Corinthians 15:10), and thanks God that they had been partakers of the same blessing (text and 1 Corinthians 6:11). 2. “ Gifts” look chiefly to the side of Church edification. They are to be used for others (1 Peter 4:10). Some have more, and some less; some have one, and some others. In our text St. Paul mentions two, “ utterance” (or perhaps the expounding of “ doctrine” --λόγος) and “ knowledge” of spiritual things. In chap. 12. he shows how this Church was “ enriched” by an abundance (see verses 8-10, 28). 3. As every truehearted Christian has received both grace and some spiritual gift or gifts, we should be careful to use both aright. (1) To profit by all “ means of grace.”(2) To essay some work in the Church. 4. The grace and gifts of God may be neglected or misused. Illustrate by the parable of the ten pounds for “ grace,” and of the ten talents for “ gifts.” III. Both point forward to the end set before us.1. Sanctification is in order to that “ holiness without which no m an shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14); to that being “ like Him,” that we may “ see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). 2. Christian work is not an end, but the means to an end, even preparedness for the second coming of Christ. 3. This second advent--and not death--is the one great end set forth in the New Testament as the goal of the Christian’ s hopes and efforts. So our text. Conclusion: Let this subject lead to--1. Thankfulness for the grace of God manifest in the progress of His work amongst us. 2. Humility in the recognition of our spiritual gifts as of His grace alone. 3. Earnestness in the fulfilling our obligation of “ ministering the same one to another.” 4. Singleness of purpose in looking towards the end of God’ s work in us and by us--the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (T. H. Barnett.)The blessings which the gospelI. Implants--1. An enlightened mind.2. A waiting spirit. II. Secures--1. The continued preservation of believers.2. Their ultimate acceptance. Application:1. Be thankful if you are partakers of this grace.2. Be careful to walk worthy of it. 3. Remember in whom is all your strength. (C. Simeon, M. A.)Christian excellence Paul here brings this before us as-- I. A fact of human experience. II. A product of Divine influence. III. A subject of thankfulness to God. (J. Willcox.)Our Lord Jesus Christ is I. The channel of Divine grace. If we are “ called to be saints,” “ partakers of the heavenly calling,” it is all in and through “ the grace given by Jesus Christ” (verse 4). II. The source of all spiritual gifts. “ Enriched by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge” (verse 5); “ So that ye come behind in no gift” (verse 7); “ Who shall also confirm you unto the end” (verse 8); “ That ye be unreprovable” (R. V.). Thus: Gifts of--1. Preaching.2. Hearing. 3. Miracles (1 Corinthians 12:4).4. Perseverance.5. Holiness--Are all traced to Him as the Author. III. The subject of apostolic preaching. “ The testimony of Christ” means the witness given concerning Christ. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all true preaching. Christ in all His work and offices, especially “ Christ as crucified.” IV. The object of Christian expectation (verses 7, 8). We look for Him in faith, and hope, and love. His coming will be a revealing of His glory, and of our judgment. May we be “ unreprovable” in His sight. (Clerical World.)That in everything ye are enriched by Him--Spiritual riches by Christ I. Man poor by nature (Revelation 3:17). Lost his birthright--his inheritance.1. Poor in time. If not enriched, poor in eternity. 2. “ Poor” in utterance, because poor in knowledge. His language impious, foolish, idle, &c. 3. “ Poor,” though possessing earthly wealth. “ Carry nothing out.” 4. “ Poor,” because without Him, “ without whom nothing is strong.” II. Man enriched by grace (Revelation 3:18). Birthright restored. Inheritance secured. “ If children, then heirs.”1. “ Rich” in utterance--“ all utterance” --because rich in “ all knowledge.” Holy, loving, grateful words. Prayer and praise. 2. “ Rich,” though possessing little of this world’ s wealth. “ Having nothing, yet,” &c. 3. “ Rich,” because “ in Christ,” “ in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” “ Unsearchable riches.” Enriched by Him. All of Christ, “ who for our sakes became poor that we … might be made rich.” (J. Cornford.)The enriching power of God “ In everything” --in your(1) physical,(2) intellectual,(3) emotional,(4) spiritual natures. All nature shows this affluence of God. We are enriched in all our relations--at home, in society, &c. “ In Him.” This can be said of no one else than God. Presidents and kings may help us to justice. Millionaires, railroad magnates, and bankers have the power to enrich us temporally. Only of God can it be said that in everything ye are enriched by Him. In what ways are we enriched?1. The best way to secure true honours is to make our lives conform to Christian principles. 2. The ideas of inspiration will more largely and more permanently enrich the intellect than draughts drawn from other reservoirs of wisdom. All others are receiving reservoirs: the Bible is a fountain source. 3. The man whose business is conducted on a Christian basis will most certainly be rich in the best sense of the word. No one is rich who is not rich in contentment and in good works. 4. We are enabled in God to believe in and assert our immortality. 5. In Him we have a wealth of spirituality which is ever-increasing. It is unaffected by the grave. Lack we any good thing, we ask and receive. All things are ours. If such to us is the enriching power of God on earth, how much more enriching will that power be in the world to come! (N. Schenk, D. D.)Enriched by Christ 1. Christ has enriched the world’ s intellectual life. Range of human thought immense, but finite. Grandeur of world’ s art and literature evidences the high, capacious powers of man. Christ has touched and refined the world’ s art and literature. Ancient literature, except Jewish sacred writings, Pagan, a mass of mingled glory and shame. Christ’ s purifying influence. To-day the world’ s art and literature are Christian. 2. Christ has enriched the world’ s moral life. Fatal weakness of human moralists. Lacked authority. Christ spake with authority. His teachings not opinions, but living rule of life and conduct. Christ’ s teachings have changed the world’ s moral life. Most important. (1) The Fatherhood of God. New meaning given to Old Testament simile, “ Like as a father,” &c. (2) The brotherhood of man. Strong and wise to help the weak and ignorant. “ Bear one another’ s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” (3) Necessity of moral change to fit men for the kingdom of heaven. (4) Life and immortality brought to light. Christ alone speaks here with authority. “ In My Father’ s house are many mansions.” 3. Christ has enriched the world’ s social life. Truths which enrich the world’ s thought and moral life bound to tell upon its social life. Living power in true and noble thoughts to leaven character. Truth subjective in its influence upon the mind; objective in character and influence upon others. Christian thought can mould a nation’ s life. (1) Human life made sacred.(2) By the elevation of woman. (Methodist Times.)Life enriched through Christ If you will to be His disciple, He will enrich your life, He will purge it of its pollution, He will conquer your lusts, He will enlighten your mind, He will deepen in you all that is generous and rich and brotherly and true and just. He will make your life worth having--yea, increasingly worth having--as you gain in experience of His power and His love, even to the end. He will touch your sufferings and your labours with the glory of His sympathy; He will deepen your hopes for yourselves and others with the security of an eternal prospect. At the last He will purify and perfect and welcome you. Only do not make the fatal mistake of imagining that your life is Christian anyhow, or that it can be Christian by any other process than by your deliberate and courageous acceptance of the law of Christ, because you desire to be His disciple. (Chas. Gore, M. A.)The power of utterance There is another power which each man should cultivate according to his ability, but which is very much neglected in the mass of the people, and that is the power of utterance. A man was not made to shut up his mind in itself, but to give it voice and to exchange it for other minds. Speech is one of our grand distinctions from the brute. Our power over others lies not so much in the amount of thought within us as in the power of bringing it out. A man of more than ordinary intellectual vigour may, for want of expression, be a cipher, without significance, in society; and not only does a man influence others, but he greatly aids his own intellect by giving distinct and forcible utterance to his thoughts. We understand ourselves better, our conceptions grow clearer, by the very effort to make them clear to another. Our social rank, too, depends a good deal on our power of utterance. To have intercourse with respectable people we must speak their language. (H. E. Channing, D. D.)Utterance and knowledge The two special gifts of the Corinthians consisted partly in the elevation and consecration of their national characteristics. Speech occupies no less prominent a place in the New Testament than it did among the Greeks. It has for its object to bear witness for Christ, and is a “ gift” of God for which the apostle gives thanks. Christianity broke on the world as a new revelation, which, by being told and echoed on all sides, is powerful to regenerate men. This is the origin and life of preaching; for, as Pascal says, “ The saints have never been silent.” (Principal Edwards.)Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.--Bearing witness to the truth Note-- I. The testimony of Jesus. When He was brought before Pilate the interrogatory was, What was His mission? The response was that He had a kingdom, not of this world, and consequently He must be a King. His was the kingdom of truth; and the weapons of His warfare were not carnal, but spiritual. He came into the world that He might bear witness to the truth. The Pharisees charged Him with witnessing for Himself. The response was not a denial of the facts, but a reaffirmation that He should be the light of the world and bear witness to the truth. When John, in his exile, began to see the revelations of God, he declared that Jesus was the faithful Witness: that He was the Prince of the kings of the earth. Whether, therefore, we view Him in prophecy or in history, or in the revelation which He made of Himself to His servants, we see that His mission was to be that of Witness. II. Jesus having given His evidence for truth, it now remains for every reliever to confirm that witness to the world in his life by words and deeds. The world does not believe in the Son of God. The Pharisees told Him that His witness was not true. He, on the other hand, when He had laid claim to being the witness for the truth, speaking as never man spake, working with the mighty power of God, turns round upon His followers, and says unto them, “ Ye shall be My witnesses.” The idea here evidently is that Jesus, having once deposed, they must stand forth to confirm Him before the world. He is, so to speak, the main witness in court. The effort is to break Him down when He claims to be the King of the truth. His word has been spoken, and now His people are rendering their evidence; it is passing silently to the jury, and the verdict is rapidly being made up, either for or against the Son of God. Men must receive Him. This they will do when they see His disciples corroborating in their lives the witness He made for the truth. This corroborating witness of the Church is borne in these ways: we do for God, or we bear for Him, or we suffer for Him. The world pays a special tribute to Christian ethics when it says, Your creed is a good one, but your life is not up to it. We may print religious literature and scatter it over the land, but the world will not read books--it is too busy, too restless, too eager; but it will read you, and it will receive or reject the claims of the religion of Christ in proportion as it finds in everyday life the record which believers are there making, the witness they are giving. (R. K. Smoot, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:7-8 So that ye come behind in no gift. Gift This word plays a large part in this Epistle. As the form of the Greek indicates, it denotes in general every concrete product in which grace is embodied. The various powers, which so often in St. Paul’ s writings bear the name of χάρισματα, are certainly the effects of the supernatural life due to faith in Christ; but they fit in, notwithstanding, to pre-existing natural aptitudes in individuals and peoples. The Holy Spirit does not substitute Himself for the human soul; He sanctifies it and consecrates its innate talents to the service of the work of salvation. By this new direction He purifies them and exalts them, and enables them to reach their perfect development. This was what had taken place at Corinth, and it was thus especially that the apostolic testimony had been divinely confirmed in the Church. We see how Paul still carefully avoids (as in 1 Corinthians 1:5) speaking of the moral fruits of the gospel, for this was the very respect in which there was a grave deficiency at Corinth. (Prof. Godet.)Gifts and graces Gifts show what a man has; graces, what he is.Gifts and prayer In mining operations, the full and empty carriages or vessels being connected together, those which have been emptied are from time to time raised up the ascent by the descending of those that have been filled. In this way let the descent of God’ s mercies and the gifts bestowed out of His fulness raise your empty vessels to receive again and again from His inexhaustible treasury all that you need. (R. Bickersteth.)Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Waiting for the coming of the Lord I. The object of expectation to all true believers. “ The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It should rather have been rendered, the discovery or manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The primary idea is that of stripping off a garment, rolling away a curtain, or removing a screen; and under whichever of these aspects we contemplate the image depicted by the apostle, it will come home with equal power to our own consciousness of frailty, our own liability to death. Practically, that moment will be to us the manifestation of Christ as Judge, which shall strip off this garment of mortality, roll away the dark curtain of the grave, and remove the screen which divides us from the invisible world. The believer does not, like one conscious of unacknowledged and unrepented sin, start back from judgment with apprehension and alarm. It is not a Judge who will be manifested to his spiritual view, arrayed in lightnings and attended by ministers of wrath--it is not such a Judge, but our Lord Jesus Christ: yea, he can even say, with all the confiding appropriation of the Apostle Paul, “ Christ Jesus, my Lord, the excellency of whose knowledge is life eternal, and in whom I desire to be found, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” II. The mode of so preparing for the coming or manifestation of Christ Jesus, that it shall be, not the apprehension of impending evil, but’ the expectancy of certain and enduring good. The apostle speaks of God “ confirming these Corinthians unto the end.” Confirming them, you will ask, in what? The reference is to the fourth verse, in which St. Paul speaks, first, of the producing cause, in which alone preparation had commenced or could commence, even the “ grace which had been given through Jesus Christ” ; and afterwards of the effect which had been produced thereby--“ that they were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge” ; in which utterance, being the declaration of a good confession--and in which knowledge, being that which is to life eternal--he desires that through the same grace, and by the same power, they may he confirmed. III. The consequence of being thus prepared by grace and confirmed of God unto the end: viz., that we shall be found blameless in the day of Jesus Christ. This word “ blameless” is strictly a forensic term, applicable to the trial of the soul in the high court of heaven, and by God, the Judge of all. Whatever may be the discoveries of the last day, or to whomsoever made, of one thing we are certain, beyond all fear of a contingency, “ there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” (T. Dale, M. A.)Waiting 1. We are all doing this in one way or another. Some watchful and faithful at our post, in the midst of a wicked world, like the sentry who died on guard in sinful Pompeii; some in slothful forgetfulness, like the foolish virgins; others in abject fear, like condemned criminals who wait the coming of the executioner; many, I trust, with patience, and hope, and peace. 2. Waiting is very hard work, far harder than doing. Waiting too for uncertainties, and better times which may never come; “ hoping against hope,” with that “ hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,” is one of the hardest of the tasks which we have to do. Waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ is also hard work, because of the sin which is in us and around us, but it is not hopeless or doubtful. “ In due time we shall reap if we faint not.” 3. How may we best wait for this? 4. Though we are waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus, He is in a sense always with us. 5. We must wait for our Lord’ s coming with our armour girded on and in the front of the battle. (H. J. W. Buxton, M. A.)The coming of Christ When we expect any one we turn our eyes that way, as the wife looks towards the sea when she expects her husband’ s return. Surely, then, if we look for Christ to come we shall keep our eyes heavenward, and our minds occupied with the country from which He cometh. Christ’ s second coming We are not afraid to go alone on a journey to a strange place when we are sure that a friend will meet us at the end of the journey. The husband in a distant city telegraphs to his wife to come to him, and he will be at the station to receive her. Faith and preparation as to the second coming of Christ The coming of Christ literally refers to His appearing at the last day, but in its substantial meaning, and as to all its practical effects, it may be considered as equivalent to our death, because there not only is our future condition determined, but we enter into that scene in which His award shall fix us when He pronounces our final sentence. Let us, then, consider what is implied in the Christian’ s waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I. A firm conviction that Christ will come. In any other state of mind the term “ waiting” would be inapplicable. And, indeed, the second coming of Christ forms a part of the deliberate and cherished creed of every true disciple. It is not a mere speculation indulged in because it is agreeable; a conjecture suggested by appearances, and adhered to as being probable and useful; the result of a process of reasoning, liable to errors and doubts; it is a point of settled belief, which the Christian maintains because it is founded on the testimony of Him who is equally omniscient and true. It is the subject of a Divine prediction, of a Divine promise, of a Divine assurance; and therefore we cannot withhold our full assent to it without impeaching the absolute perfection of that absolutely perfect Being by whom it has been attested. And remember that it is not set down merely as one of a multitude of events which will happen, but as a constituent portion of that scheme which the Son of God undertook to execute as the Redeemer of sinful men. Christ was “ once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them who look for Him Christ will appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation.” II. That this event is the subject of habitual thought and contemplation. How, indeed, can it be otherwise, seeing it is so true and so important in His regard? Were it a merely probable circumstance, a fact of little interest, or nothing more than a dry abstract truth, the mind of the Christian could not entertain it with much cordiality, or look forward to the period of its being realised with any intensity of feeling. But how differently must he be affected towards it, when he considers its indubitable certainty--the touching concerns which it involves--the various attractions which it presents in its every aspect--and the bearing which it has on all that he now is, and all that he is to be for ever! III. A diligent and faithful preparation for it. Unless we had this preparation, we could not with any propriety be said to wait for Christ’ s coming, because, if unprepared for His coming, it would be an event to be feared and deprecated. Christ will come for two purposes: to reward His people and to punish His enemies. But if we are among the number of His enemies, then, when He comes, we must suffer the condemnation which He has threatened against all those who have refused or neglected to become what He required them to be. Those who wait for His coming, and are prepared for that event, are--1. Believers. Relying on Christ in the exercise of a true faith, we may wait for His coming, because His merit, appropriated by that faith, has cancelled our guilt, the prevalence of which would have made His coming terrible, and has obtained for us a title to the celestial kingdom, which we never could have entered through any doings or deservings of our own. 2. Saints--holy persons. When Christ comes it is to conduct His people to their reward. But how can He take us into His Father’ s house, if our principles and dispositions and habits are all in irreconcilable hostility to the exercises and enjoyments of that blessed abode? Nothing that defileth can enter into the New Jerusalem. IV. A decided and ardent desire for it. The feeling is dictated by all our present experience, and by all our future prospects. There are evils from which that event alone can emancipate us, and there are enjoyments to which that event alone can introduce us. And if it be a right thing to wish for deliverance from the one, and for the attainment of the other, then it is right to wish for the second advent of Christ, because that is identified with both advantages.1. Here you are subject to disease--to its pain, and its languishing, and its mortal issue. But when your Saviour comes He will put upon you the crown of life, and you shall neither sicken, nor suffer, nor die any more. 2. Here your reputation may be wounded from ignorance, envy, prejudice, or malevolence. But when your Saviour comes He will place you among those whom God hath justified, and whom no man can condemn--in whose society calumny cannot reach you, and reproach cannot hurt you. 3. Here you may have to struggle with the numerous ills and hardships of poverty. But when your Saviour comes you shall have no wants which He will not supply with inexhaustible abundance. 4. Here your cherished friends may betray you when you are most confiding, and those who were dear to you as your own soul may be torn from your embrace by the relentless hand of death. But when your Saviour comes He will wind up this scene of trial, and will take you where ingratitude and treachery and dissolution shall be unknown. 5. Here you have the plague of sin to trouble and torment you. But when your Saviour comes He will place you where you shall be beyond the reach of temptation, and beyond the fear and the capacity of transgressing. 6. Here your eye and your heart are often pained by the sight of abounding iniquity. But when your Saviour comes He will conduct you into a region as pure as it is happy. 7. Here your best services and highest attainments are mixed with much imperfection and weakness. But when your Saviour comes He will make you “ perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” 8. Here all your enjoyments, however exquisite, multiplied, and prolonged, are but mingled at the best, and soon over. But when your Saviour comes He will impart to you a happiness immortal as the souls that are to enjoy it--as the uncreated source from which it is to flow. 9. Here it is a trial to your patience that the Cross of Christ should be such a rock of offence, and that He who bore its agony and its shame should be despised and rejected of men. But when your Saviour comes His enemies will be destroyed, the numberless trophies of His humiliation and His blood will be assembled to honour Him, and all the hosts of heaven will unite with all the redeemed from the earth, to ascribe to Him the blessing, and dominion, which He had so richly won. V. The exercise of patience and resignation. Submission to the Divine arrangements is a necessary part of the Christian character, and particularly in this regard. You should wait for Christ’ s second coming with patience, because--1. The period of that coming is fixed by God’ s appointment. It is a part of the plan which He has formed for your salvation. It originates in the same mercy which prompted Him to give up His Son to suffering and to death for you. And does not every view of the Divine perfections constrain you to acquiesce in all that has been fixed as to the second coming, as well as in all that took place with regard to the first coming of Christ? 2. It is conducive to your own improvement and advantage. The present is a scene of preparation for the future. Every temptation that you successfully resist; every obligation that you faithfully fulfil; every trial to which you patiently submit; every step that you advance in the career of godliness and virtue; every victory that you achieve over the devil, the world, and the flesh, by that faith and patience which characterisc the saints of God upon earth, will put a loftier note in your song of praise, and add another gem to your crown of righteousness and glory in heaven. Seeing, then, that your continual stay here is conducive to your everlasting benefit, let not your souls be cast down, and let not their desires for deliverance overstep the limits of devout resignation to the will of Him who has arranged your lot in this world with a view to your destiny beyond it, and whose redeeming mercy will lead Him to make all things work together for your good. 3. It is for the advantage of your brethren and fellow men. This was one of Paul’ s motives, when amidst his longings to depart and to be with Christ, he was still contented to remain where the great Head of the Church had ordained him to labour. “ Nevertheless,” said he, “ to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” (A. Thomson, D. D.)The uncertainty of Christ’ s coming This blending of light and obscurity-- I. Leaves us in a state more suitable and more profitable than either absolute ignorance or perfect knowledge.1. It awakens feelings which the former would fail to excite, and which--2. The latter would quench as they arose. II. It is specially adapted to keep alive expectation, by bringing emphatically before us the perpetual possibility of an immediate manifestation. It keeps us in a state of--1. Lively hope;2. Watchfulness;3. Humility;4. Fidelity;5. Earnest inquiry after truth;6. Reverence and dread. (W. A. Butler, M. A.)The revelation of Jesus Christ This “ revelation” would do two things-- I. “ Confirm them unto the end” (1 Corinthians 1:8). “ All is well that ends well.” The “ end” of the Christian will confirm the wisdom of his choosing such an “ end.” Hence “ the end of a thing is better than the beginning.” The world calls him a “ fool” ; the day of Christ will “ confirm” his wisdom. The world calls him ignoble; the day of Christ will “ confirm” his pretensions to greatness and glory. The world calls him poor; the “ day of Christ” will “ confirm” his claims to an “ inheritance incorruptible,” &c. We are now “ confirming the testimony of Christ,” and proving Him true (1 Corinthians 1:6). In “ that day” Christ will confirm our testimony, and prove us true. It will be the manifestation of the sons of God. II. Make them blameless. Then all imperfections will end. Sin’ s damp mists will no longer rise to obscure the moral heavens. Lessons:1. Encouragement to the faithful worker. 2. Confidence. Do circumstances look discouraging in your labours of love? Do long-looked-for wants tarry? Do the desired clouds refuse to break in blessings on the parched heart? Have faith. The blessing will come, though it tarry, “ for God is faithful,” &c. (1 Corinthians 1:9). He will keep His promises, &c. 3. Stimulus. “ The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ” will be a revelation of unrecognised or undeveloped” “ gifts.” Therefore “ come behind in no gift,” &c. When that day dawns, the grand confirmation service will be held--“ confirming” the good and the bad alike. (The Study.)Who shall also confirm you unto the end. The Christian’ s strength The writings of St. Paul contain frequent assurances to the converts of the continuance and increase of God’ s blessing and the grace of Christ, and of strength to support them under their trials, to carry them through their difficulties, and to make them “ more than conquerors through Him who loved them” (Romans 8:37; Philippians 1:6; Romans 8:31-32; Romans 8:38-39; 1 Corinthians 1:4, &c.). In what sense, and with what necessary restrictions, are such promises as these always to be understood? It is manifest, both from the reason of things and from Holy Writ, that some spiritual blessings are so entirely the work of God, that, when considered in themselves, it is impossible that man can contribute to them, or bear any part in their completion. Thus, forgiveness of sins; adoption into God’ s family; a resurrection from the dead; and the gift of eternal life; though they suppose due preparations in man, repentance, faith, hope, charity, fixed purposes of obedience, and patient continuance in well-doing are in themselves the absolute gifts of God, simple in their nature, and, as far as we can perceive, admitting of no addition nor decrease. But there are other blessings or endowments, implying increase and variety, in the advancement of which man must bear his part, and work with God. Such are those graces which qualify the human soul for pardon, and peace, and everlasting glory; which are the rudiments or first principles of the heavenly character. For these set out, for the most part, from small and often imperceptible beginnings, and are strengthened and ripened into habits by exercise and godly discipline. When, therefore, St. Paul assures the converts that God will “ confirm them unto the end, that they may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he does not comfort them with an assurance of support, divorced from all conditions and contingencies; nor does he lead us to believe that there are any particular persons whom God will at all events endow with an unfailing perseverance. Since, therefore, faith is spoken of in Scripture sometimes as God’ s gift, sometimes as man’ s duty, it is manifest that the gift and the duty mutually imply each other. On the one hand, our faith can neither begin nor continue, nor be perfected, without God’ s grace and blessing. On the other hand, we have no ground for supposing that He will “ confirm our faith until the end,” unless we endeavour to “ hold fast our own faith,” to improve it by acts of piety and obedience, and to abound in it more and more. Man is, of himself, strongly inclined to evil: he has a sinful nature stirring within him: his passions are continually provoking him to transgress the restraints of conscience and reason, and the laws revealed to him by his God. God, therefore, who well knows his indisposition to bear up against the power of corruption, mercifully promises to take him in hand, to discipline his imagination and affections (Ezekiel 36:26; Deuteronomy 30:6). But though God thus promises to circumcise the hearts of His people, and to subdue them to His own purposes, in other passages of Holy Writ He calls upon them to circumcise their own hearts, and to master and mortify themselves (Deuteronomy 10:16, Jeremiah 4:4; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:5-6). But in order to complete the Christian character, man stands in need of continual improvement in righteousness and true holiness, the daily renewal of his mind, and confirmed habits of piety and obedience. But since, when unassisted, he has no power in himself to help himself, and is, at the best, a mere beginner in the trade of virtue, God has graciously promised to renew and to supply him with spiritual sufficiency (Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ezekiel 36:26-27). Yet these promises of grace and spiritual succour are accompanied with earnest exhortations to the performance of our duty, and pressing calls upon us to do that for ourselves which God has, in some sort, engaged to do for us (Ezekiel 18:31; Ephesians 4:23-24). Hence it follows that God’ s promises of help to perfect our inner man, require diligence and exertion on our part; that our prayers for renewal will bring no blessing with them, if we do not endeavour to renew the spirit of our own minds; and that it is worse than idle to presume that God will not leave nor forsake us, if we shrink from our duty, and leave and forsake ourselves (Ephesians 5:1; Colossians 3:14-15). I shall lay down a few practical lessons which the consideration of this subject naturally suggests.1. You should make it your business to study the whole of God’ s Word, and, as far as you are able, to compare and combine its contents; and you must not accustom yourselves to dwell on the particular parts of it to the exclusion of other portions which require an equal degree of consideration and deference. 2. You will learn from those statements of the scriptural doctrine which have been laid before you, the folly and presumption of relying on God’ s goodness, and the grace and promises of Christ, without the exercise, on your own part, of religious labour and spiritual industry. 3. Whatever measure of religious industry you may exert, whatever progress you may make in the improvement of your souls and the reformation of your hearts and habits, still remember that you owe everything to God; that you are yourselves inclined to evil, and that it is your bounden duty to refer back all holy desires, good counsels, and just works to the Author and Giver of all goodness. (Bp. Bethel.)Confirming grace I. What does it include?--Confirmation.1. In faith, holiness, love.2. Unto the end. II. How is it effected?1. By Christ.2. Through the means of grace. III. Why is it so necessary?1. That ye may be blameless.2. In the day of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Firm to the end Steadfastness is one of the most important characteristics of a Christian. What are love, self-denial, patience, and faith without it? It is not the best regiment which makes the most headlong charge, but which can stand firm. The Spartans were forbidden by their laws to flee. In the Pass of Thermopylae stands a monument to Leonidas and his followers, bearing this inscription--“ Go, stranger, and tell at Lacedaemon that we died here in obedience to our laws.” What we want, as soldiers of Christ, is not so much zeal, or enthusiasm, or outward profession, as firmness to the end, steadfastness to die, if need be, for the laws of our God. We find plenty of zealous professors, but after a time the fire dies out into dead ashes; they have no staying power. Note-- I. Some of the dangers of the Church now.1. The restless spirit of the age. This is the result of various causes. (1) The spread of education. Men are taught to cultivate their heads at the price of their hearts. (2) The growth of cheap literature. The fact is, some of us in these days are getting too clever. We have got a few drops of learning, and we fancy that we can pour the whole ocean of knowledge into our poor little bottle. True education makes us humble, because it shows us our ignorance. What are the doubters and the unbelievers going to give you in exchange for what they rob you of? They can take away the Saviour, and only leave you your sins. They may scoff you out of believing in the resurrection. But can they laugh you out of believing in death? 2. A constant desire for something new, and, if possible, sensational. And, above all, these people want a religion made easy. They have no objection to being saved provided that the process is quick and cheap. They turn away from the thought of self-denial, &c.; they must be made good all at once. Beware of this mushroom religion; the best fruit is not that which ripens most quickly, and the best Christian certainly does not come to maturity all in a moment. The Persian fable tells us how a gourd wound itself round a lofty palm-tree, and in a few weeks climbed to its very top. The gourd asked the palm-tree its age, and the tree answered, “ An hundred years.” Then the gourd answered boastingly that it had grown as tall as the palm in fewer days than the tree could count years. “ True,” answered the palm-tree, “ every summer has a gourd climbed round me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt be.” 3. This is a specially busy age. Every walk of life is crowded, and competition is most keen. Now there is great danger in all this to a man’ s spiritual life, if he has not God with him in his work. He will become selfish and unscrupulous. II. The means by which Christ will confirm you unto the end. (H. J. W. Buxton, M. A.)Blameless in the day of … Christ.--Unimpeached “ So as to be unimpeached in the day of our Lord” ; for when the saints stand before the tribunal of Christ, they will not indeed be found to have been free from sin in their earthly life, but having persevered in the faith and in good works will find themselves under the wing and shelter of God’ s righteousness, safe from all impeachment. “ Unimpeached” of whom? Probably of the “ accuser of the brethren,” the adversary Satan. But being found holy in Christ and blameless to God, “ who shall then lay an impeachment against God’ s elect? It is God that justifieth” (Colossians 1:22-23). (Canon Evans.)Eternal blamelessness I. Judicial. The word used here is the judicial one. A Christian is one against whom there is not only no condemnation, but no accusation. He is a sinner, yet no man, nor angel, nor devil, may accuse him, or mention his guilt to God. II. Priestly. I might call it sacrificial. The word used in such places as Ephesians 1:4 is the same as that in 1 Peter 1:19, “ the Lamb without blemish, and without spot.” This unblemishedness has special reference to our fitness for worship and service. III. Personal (Philippians 2:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:13). We are forgiven and delivered from wrath that we may be personally holy; holy in heart and life; saved from sin, conformed to Christ. Holiness is to be everywhere in and about the man. If, then, you call yourself a Christian, consider how much is expected from you. Consider--1. Your names. They are “ saint,” “ Christian,” “ redeemed from among men,” “ follower of the Lamb.” Do not these call you to blamelessness? 2. Your designations. You are the lights of the world, the salt of the earth; pilgrims, strangers, virgins, cross-bearers, kings and priests; a temple, a habitation of God. 3. Your calling. You are called to glory, honour, and immortality. 4. Your hopes. 5. Your companionships. They are all heavenly and pure. Old friendships are severed, and new ones formed. If you are Christians, then, be consistent. Be Christians out and out; Christians every hour, in every part, and in every matter. Beware of half-hearted discipleship. (H. Bonar, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son.The faithfulness of God On this eternal, self-existent fidelity we can repose with safety. I. It is well that we have something sure, for talk as we will of the fidelity of man and woman, there is much to say also of their infidelity.1. Who can say--in friendship, in love--what a week, a month, a year may not bring forth? In the very strength of human affection lies its frailty. And it is in hours when this is realised, when we seem to toss upon a shifting sea in sailing over human love, that we turn to the everlasting firmness of God’ s fidelity. 2. But even more than in others do we recognise this faithlessness in ourselves. How often are we only faithful because we are ashamed to be otherwise, and how often have we betrayed that which was given us to keep? We look into our own hearts and know how slight and fluttering, how changeable we have often been, how we even enjoyed our change. What wonder, then, if we turn from the weakness of our own fidelity to seek a centre for it and a power of it in the unalterable strength of the faithfulness of God, and cry, “ Faithful Master of fidelity, enter into my life and make it all fidelity.” II. What answer does God give us to that? Not that we should at first expect. We have fled from man to God, God sends us back to man. If a man find not fidelity in his brother whom he hath seen, how can he find fidelity in God whom he hath not seen? We have been looking on the unfaithfulness we have found in man. Nothing can be worse for us. He bids us search for faithfulness, and we shall find it.1. In the hearts of those that love us. And the moment our whole position is thus changed, and we look on a new side of facts, we remember all the uncomplaining patience of long love that mother and father, wife and sister, have bestowed on us. We recollect that there are friends who have never failed us, to doubt whom would be a crime. 2. With this new light we look within our own hearts, and we are conscious that we have been true to many. Surprised, we ask ourselves, What is this faithfulness in the midst of unfaithfulness, this stability in human nature that accompanies instability? Oh! it is what we searched for, it is what we fled away from man to find. It is the fidelity of God Himself that moves and lives within His children. The kingdom of God is among you.III. Having learnt that lesson, we learn from it--1. To love and honour men much more. We are not so ready to impute unfaithfulness, and we are kinder and more gracious, and being so, we find that men and women are more faithful to us, for we have lost the evil and unpleasant qualities which made people tire of our love. By believing in faithfulness we make it grow. Then our power of creating faithfulness has a reflex action on our own faithfulness. That which we cause to grow in others, grows by that very effort in ourselves. 2. An ideal of God’ s fidelity. The beauty of human fidelity forces us to aspire to a more beautiful fidelity, the real leads us onwards to the ideal. IV. Still an ideal remains always somewhat in the vague. But to our wonderful comfort the fidelity of God is realised in humanity, in Christ, the image of God in man. “ He who hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” He who hath seen the human faithfulness of Christ hath seen the Divine faithfulness of God.1. His faithfulness was faithfulness to duty. At twelve years of age it was clearly conceived. “ Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’ s business?” For eighteen years He brooded on His duty, and at thirty it was accepted, and never let go. The imperative of His later saying, “ I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day,” was said with the same fervour as it had been said by the joyful enthusiasm of the boy; and when the supreme hour of life came He could say, “ It is finished.” What? tits Father’ s business! 2. That is the outward aspect of Christ’ s faithfulness to duty; its inner aspect was Eternal Truth. He had a few clear, dominant conceptions on which His whole life was built. To these ideas--such as the universal Fatherhood of God, the union of the Divine and human, the existence of a spiritual kingdom, and the necessity of man being a believer in these things, and being made at one with God through Him--Christ’ s whole inner life was faithful. He could say, with absolute truthfulness, feeling that His whole inner life had been faithful to them throughout: “ To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should hear witness unto the Truth.” This was Christ’ s fidelity, the image of God’ s. V. But what duty can God be said to have to which He is faithful? There can be no duty imposed on Him from without, else there were another greater than Himself. But there can be an imperative within His own nature which is to Him that which duty was to Christ and to us.1. With regard to us, that duty is the duty of a Father to His children. By that imperative of Fatherhood He can never cease to care for us, watch over us, educate us, and finally perfect us. 2. That is the outward form. But the central idea of which it is the form, and to which in His own inner life He is for ever faithful, is this: “ I am the eternal spiritual All. I give Myself forth in all that thinks, and loves, and acts, and is.” That being such, it is inconceivable that He should ever be unfaithful to His thought, for that thought is His own realisation of Himself, and were He unfaithful to it, God were unfaithful to God, which is absurd. To this idea, then, and to all the duties it brings with it, God is absolutely faithful; He cannot be otherwise. “ I am,” He says, “ because I am.” Conclusion: That is our security. We have arrived at the conception of it through Christ, through our own humanity taken up into and filled with divinity. And once we have grasped it, it transfigures life and gives us a rock to stand on amid the shifting sands of our own feeling, amid the wavering of human faithfulness. The foundation of God standeth sure. (Stopford A. Brooke, M. A.)The faithfulness of God I. Results from, or stands connected with, all His other perfections.1. His power (Psalms 146:6). This enables Him, without the possibility of failure, to accomplish all His promises and threatenings. Honest men may be prevented keeping their word by unexpected difficulties; but the designs of the Almighty cannot be frustrated (Matthew 19:26; Genesis 18:14; Romans 4:20-21; 2 Timothy 1:12). 2. His holiness; without it, indeed, He could not be holy (Psalms 92:15; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18; Numbers 23:19). Well might the Psalmist say, “ God hath spoken in His holiness: I will rejoice” (Psalms 60:6), for the holiness of God is a pledge of His faithfulness. 3. His unchangeableness. Angels have changed, and become devils; man is changed, and become a rebel; but God changes not (Malachi 3:6). Men frequently change their minds, sometimes from good to evil, at other times from evil to good; their second thoughts are best: but God’ s thoughts can neither be improved nor depraved (James 1:17). The promises and vows of men (like Jephthah’ s and Herod’ s) are sometimes unlawful or incautiously made, so that “ there may be more honour in the breach than in the observance of them.” Not so the engagements of Heaven (Job 23:13-14). 4. His wisdom. Among men, the non-performance of promises is frequently occasioned by circumstances which human prudence could not foresee; and therefore good men should not make promises hastily, and never without reference to St. James’ s caution (James 4:15). But no provisions are necessary when God makes a promise. No difficulties, no disappointments, can occur to Him; His instruments are always at hand, and shall all subserve His holy designs. 5. His mercy, love, and goodness (Psalms 138:2). His love inclines Him to make the promise, and His veracity induces Him to fulfil it. II. Our confidence in it is confirmed by the following facts.1. The promises are made in and to Christ, as the Head of His Church; and faithfulness to Him, as well as to us, insures their fulfilment (2 Corinthians 1:20; Titus 1:2; Ephesians 1:6). 2. God has confirmed His promise by an oath (Genesis 22:16; Hebrews 6:13; Hebrews 6:17-18). 3. The experience of the people of God in all ages. (1) The first promise (Genesis 3:15) has bees fulfilled (1 John 3:8; Galatians 4:5). Remember that there is nothing like distance of time in the mind of God between the promise and the fulfilment (2 Peter 3:8), and hence some events are spoken of in the prophets as present, or even as past, which are yet to come. (2) Was the universal flood threatened, and Noah with his family to be secured? The event corresponded with the threatening, though one hundred and twenty years intervened. (3) Was Abraham, when one hundred, and childless, to have a vast posterity? Every Jew we see is a witness that the promise has been fulfilled. (4) So with the deliverance of Israel, &c. Conclusion: 1. Learn the unreasonableness and sinfulness of unbelief (1 John 5:10).2. Let God be honoured in His faithfulness by a suitable confidence in it.3. Let us, in our humble measure, try to imitate God in this His glorious attribute (Ephesians 5:1). (G. Burder.)Faithful is He that calleth you Consider-- I. How God deals with you, in so calling you as to unite you to His Son. Faithfully throughout. He is faithful--1. In discovering to you your case.2. In commending to you His Son. 3. In presenting Christ to you, in free gift, as yours.4. In not repenting of His call. II. The end of this calling. You are united to His Son, and to such an effect as to have all things in common.1. Common interests. The interests which Christ has as-- (1) God’ s ally, are identical with those of the Father.(2) His Son, are identical with ours. 2. A common character.3. A common history. With respect to-- (1) A birth.(2) A baptism.(3) A work.(4) A cross.(5) A crown. (R. Candlish, D. D.)The special call and the unfailing result I. Your calling.1. Its Divine origin. The text says, “ God called you” --does not your experience prove the same? We thought that we had had no other call than that which came through our Bibles, good books, &c. But did we not read the same books years before? but they never touched a chord in our hearts; therefore we conclude that that time it must have been the finger of God. We had been called scores of times before, but we always turned a deaf ear. But when this particular call came, we threw down our sword and said, “ Great God, I yield!” 2. Its graciousness. What was there in you to suggest a motive why God should call you? Some of you were drunkards, profane, injurious. John Bradford, when he saw a cartful of men going off to Tyburn to be hanged, said, “ There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.” A good Scotchman called to see Rowland Hill, and without saying a word, sat still for some five minutes, looking into his face. At last Rowland asked him what engaged his attention. Said he, “ I was looking at the lines of your face.” “ Well, what do you make out of em?” “ Why,” said he, “ that if the grace of God hadn’ t been in you, you would have been the biggest rascal living.” 3. The privileges it brings. (1) Pardon.(2) Righteousness.(3) Sonship.(4) Heaven. II. To what end did God call you? That you might have fellowship with Christ. Now the word “koinonia” is not to be interpreted here as a society, but as the result of society; i.e., fellowship lies in mutual and identical interests. A man and his wife have fellowship with each other, in that which is common to both and enjoyed in communion accordingly. Now when we were called to Christ we became one with Him, so that everything Christ had became ours. This was the act of faith. Now we have fellowship to Christ.1. In His loves. He loves saints, sinners, the world, and pants to see it transformed into the garden of the Lord. What He loves we love, and what He hates we abhor. 2. In His desires. He desires to see multitudes saved, the glory of God, that the saints may be with Him where He is--we desire the same. 3. In His sufferings. We do not die a bloody death; yet many have done so, and there are millions ready to do so. But when He is reproached we have learned to bear His reproach too. Some few drops of His cup we drink, and it has been given to some more than to others to “ fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for His body’ s sake, which is the Church.” 4. In His joys. Is He happy? We are happy to think Christ is happy. 5. In His riches. If He has riches in pardoning, supporting, instructing, illuminating, sanctifying, preserving, or perfecting Christians, they are all ours. Is His blood precious, His righteousness complete, His merits sweet? They are mine. Has He power in intercession, has He wisdom, righteousness--has He anything? It is mine. 6. In His glory. There is not a crown He wears but we have part of it; nay, there is not a gem that sparkles in His crowns but it sparkles for us as well as for Him. For us the golden streets, the chariot, the crowding angels; the shout of “ Hallelujah! for Thou wast slain,” &c., the second advent with all its splendours, universal reign of Christ, the day of judgment. III. All this leads us to perceive our security. Saints must be saved--1. Because God has called them. “ The gifts and culling of God are without repentance,” Because-- 2. God has called them into fellowship with Christ, and that fellowship, if God be faithful, must be complete. You have shared His sufferings, His faithfulness secures the rest. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The fellowship of God’ s Son 1. The apostle writes as a peacemaker. Party strife had weakened spiritual life, and a weakened spiritual life had been fruitful in other evils. St. Paul would remedy all evil and restore harmony. He finds his potent spell in the Name which is above every name, and recalls Corinthian Christians to the consideration of the common Saviour, and their one hope which is by Him and in Him. Christ Jesus is all to each and to every one of them. Thus it is that throughout these opening verses this name occurs again and again. 2. Divine fellowship is often spoken of in the Scriptures. In the New Testament it is naturally most familiar, for there God has come nearest to man, and therefore man may come nigh unto Him. This is the gospel message that, “ made nigh by the blood of Christ” there is, for all, “ boldness to enter into the holiest.” “ No one cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Between God and men there is but the one Mediator. Fellowship with God must needs be first of all the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. 3. But what is this high privilege? Ordinarily the term suggests the interchange of sympathy and thought, or association in acts of Christian worship and participation in common joys and sorrows. The word itself has a meaning which, in its application to ordinary affairs, is very definite and clear. The sons of Zebedee are twice spoken of as “ partners” of Simon. Without any violence, therefore, we may read: “ The partnership of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (cf. Hebrews 3:14). In this busy life, partnerships are common; but never in human commerce did men look upon one like this. Suppose a firm utterly and hopelessly ruined. A wealthy man asks to be admitted as partner. As honest men, the bankrupts must needs protest that the offerer knows not what he is doing. Then comes the reply that all is known, that wealth is available more than sufficient to meet all the need, and that practical wisdom also whereby the ruin may be reconstructed on a safe and enduring basis. Yet this, and more than all this, is in the gospel. A ruined race may scan the present, or peer as they will into the dark future. Sin hath wrought shame and death. Yet now, in the midst of the utter wreck, there stands One who offers much, as He offers life--who giveth all, as He gives Himself. This is true for each and for all, without respect of persons, and without limitation of gift. 4. What has this communion brought to the Saviour Himself? The answer is soon given. He took upon Himself our nature, “ the likeness of sinful flesh.” He shared to the utmost its weakness, weariness, pain, and death. One burden He shared not; for Himself hath borne it all. “ By Himself” He “ purged our sins.” Beyond this He had nothing. Joy became His, “ the joy that was set before Him,” that of presenting “ faultless before the presence of His glory” the redeemed sons of men. Glory has been given to Him, but it is the glory of “ power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life.” And these things He hath “ received of the Father,” and not from mankind. 5. But let us turn to the other side, the relation of man to this fellowship. In the commercial world, partnerships are not all alike. Modern society, under the pressure of altered circumstances, has invented the contrivance of “ limited liability.” But in olden times when any man entered a firm he took in with him all that he possessed. Thenceforth none of the things which he had could, in presence of the common need, be called his own. From such a partnership the young ruler recoiled: “ Sell that thou hast,” &c. Into such a partnership the early Christians gladly entered, for they “ had all things common.” Into such a partnership are we called--one of unlimited liability. Entire consecration is the first requirement. “ Ye are not your own.” “ Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Christ will have all, or nothing. On this essential condition, the partnership is open to every man. He came “ to call sinners to repentance,” and, when sinners come, they are accepted just as they are. No man may bring less than his all to the fellowship of Christ; but no man can bring more. So the trembling servant comes with his burden of conscious liability. His all is a debt of ten thousand talents; but the Saviour admits him to the partnership. The poor wasteful and wasted wanderer comes, with rags and shame as his only contribution, but he meets with no denial. Penitent, needy soul! Lay thy gift thyself, whatever thou hast been, whatever thou art--lay it all upon the altar. It is His will, it is His command; therefore, for once, obey. The gift is accepted, for He hath promised. For “ God is faithful, by whom” thou hast been called unto this fellowship. 6. Once admitted, “ all things are yours.” In earthly partnerships, though there may be unlimited liability, there is only a limited supply. It cannot be that every partner shall have power to draw as he may upon the common resources. The banking account is strictly guarded; and the available funds are doled out to each and to all, not according to need, but according to legal claim. For sinful men, all this is blessedly otherwise. The treasury of grace is the fulness of God. There is “ enough for all, enough for each, enough for evermore!” “ But all He hath for mine I claim.” 7. If, now, we would learn something of the wealth which we share with and in Christ Jesus, we may read His own words (John 17:22-23). The glory of Christ is the possession of His people. That glory consists in what He is, and what He has; the riches of life and the gifts of love. (G. W. Olver, B. A.)Fellowship with Christ I. Our distinctive position as Christians is that we have fellowship with God’ s Son. Men are often marked out from others by the particular fraternity, corporation, or firm to which they belong. We as Christians are members of the firm of the Son of God; for the word here means co-partnership.1. The grounds of this fellowship are-- (1) The Divine acceptance of Christ’ s work. (2) “ The consequent Divine grant to Christ of all the power and gifts of salvation for the benefit of all who should become co-partners with Himself. 2. Its terms or conditions--entire self-surrender. Faith receives Christ “ as He is presented in the gospel,” i.e., in all His relations. To Christ as a Saviour trust is reliance, as a Teacher trust is teachableness, as a Ruler it is obedience, as a Leader following, as a King homage, as a Man sympathy, as God worship. Let there be no mistake here. Many put their trust in Christ as a Saviour, but not as a King; as man, not as God. They will take all He has to give, but give nothing in return, or if anything their money, but Hot themselves. But Christ seeks not yours, but you. He requires not large capital, knowledge, skill, art, &c., although He will receive them when offered; what He does require is your whole affection and unlimited trust. 3. Its prospects. Our position is that of partners--in spiritual life, brotherhood and service; but not on equal terms. We take nothing into the concern but weakness and poverty. Without Him we can do nothing, but with Him we shall jointly realise God’ s ideal of humanity. Military or commercial companies have often proposed to themselves the conquest of the world; this society has the same object, and will achieve it, only in a nobler sense. II. God has called us into the fellowship of His Son. In the invitations of the gospel God is calling men to become co-partners with Christ; but mere invitation does not come up to the full meaning of the term, and our hearts must say what that full meaning is. The heart makes God the author of its whole salvation. “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” That grace makes all the difference between a stranger to and a partner with Christ. III. Everything must depend on the faithfulness of God. This fellowship from first to last is His creation; on Him it depends to render it a failure or a success.1. Therefore our confidence rests immediately on God. In worldly affairs men usually contemplate success through natural laws and material properties. Farmers trust to the virtues of the seed, &c., merchants to the winds and waves, warriors to the spirit of their troops; but even in such cases a devout spirit will recognise the presence of God in all secondary causes, and make Him at least the basis of its hope. But in this great co-partnership we have no interventions to distract our faith. We go right to God at once. 2. We rest upon the most Godlike thing in God--His faithfulness, which supports the universe. Our fellowship with Christ is thus placed beyond the possibility of failure in God. No storm can shatter our bark, no blight destroy our harvests, for God is faithful. And what a stimulus to endeavour we have in this! Because God is so faithful to me I will be faithful to Him. Consequently the fellowship of Christ becomes to us the one permanent interest in this uncertain world. There is no possibility of bankruptcy; we cannot be outbidden or undersold; for ours is the capital of God’ s unsearchable Fiches. His name is pledged to every acceptance in which cur safety is involved, and so long as His throne shall stand our safety and glory is assured. (Prof. J. M. Charlton.)The Divine call, and its design I. The call comprehends all the purposes, decrees, providences, and means of salvation. II. The design of this call of God is, that all who obey it may for ever have “ fellowship” or communion with His Son our Saviour, Communion signifies joint participation in anything, good or bad. Here all is good. God calls the believer--1. To communion with His Son, in His miraculous formation in the womb. The Spirit creates believers anew “ in Christ Jesus unto good works.” 2. In His purity from sin. The Spirit keeps our new nature from sin. 3. In growth in grace. The Spirit brings “ unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” 4. In fitness for every duty. The Spirit anointed Him, and He anoints the believer. 5. In working miracles. The Spirit enables the believer to conquer Satan, sin, the world, death, and hell. 6. In comfort. The Spirit comforted Him, and He comforts real believers. 7. In death. 8. In the state of the dead. The Spirit preserved His holy body that it saw no corruption. The Spirit will keep the bodies of believers “ still united to Christ, till the resurrection.” 9. In the resurrection. The Spirit raised Him up; and the same Spirit will raise up the believer. 10. In glory. The Spirit glorified our Lord; and He will also glorify the true believer. (Jas. Kidd, D. D.)Sonship and fellowship Let us consider his fellowship or partnership with Christ in the following aspects:--I. Partnership with Him in what He was. He was crucified, He died, was buried, rose again. In all these we have part. II. Partnership with him in what he is. He has not only risen, but He has ascended. We share His present dignity; for we are said to be seated with Him in heavenly places, and are treated by God as such. We share His offices; we are prophets, priests, and kings; heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ Jesus. III. Partnership with Him in what He shall be. Much of His glory is yet in reserve; for now we see not yet all things put under Him. (H. Bonar, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:10-16 Now I beseech you … that ye speak the same thing, and that, there he no divisions among you.The apostolical exhortation to unity I. What it includes--unity.1. In confession.2. In spirit.3. In object. II. How it is enforced--by the name of Christ, implying--1. His will.2. His authority.3. His claims on our love and obedience. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Unity of sentiment I. The reasons why Christians should think alike upon religious subjects.1. God has given them an infallible rule of faith. His Word contains a complete system of Divine truth. That being the case, there is a plain propriety in His requiring them to believe that it is a complete system, and also to believe all the particular truths which compose the system. 2. That rule of faith is sufficiently plain and intelligible to every capacity. All who are capable of knowing that they are the creatures of God are equally capable of knowing what He has required them to believe concerning Himself, their own character, their present situation, and their future state. II. The objections which have been urged against this unpalatable doctrine.1. The great and visible diversity in the intellectual powers and external circumstances of Christians. But unity of sentiment does not require equality of knowledge. As one star differs from another star, so angels will differ from saints, and saints from each other in glory. But their difference in knowledge will not create any diversity of opinions respecting the same subjects. Saints will agree with angels so far as their knowledge extends; but so far as it fails, they will wait for further light. 2. The wide difference in the education of Christians. But since they have the Word of God in their hands, it is in their power to bring their own opinions and those of their instructors to an infallible standard, and to decide for themselves what they ought to believe or to disbelieve. 3. The right of private judgment. It is readily granted that every Christian has a right to collect evidence, and after that, to judge according to the evidence. But he has no right to examine and judge under the influence of prejudice, and form his opinion contrary to reason and Scripture. 4. That in Romans 14:1-23. the apostle allows Christians to differ in their religious sentiments, and only exhorts them to view their difference with a candid and charitable eye. But this only applies to the Mosaic rites, which were things indifferent, and which might be observed or neglected under a sense of duty. But he reminds them that they must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, where their opinions as well as actions would be either approved or condemned. III. The truths which naturally flow from the subject. If God does require Christians to believe alike upon religious subjects, then--1. It is not a matter of indifference what religious sentiments they embrace. 2. They have contracted a great deal of guilt from age to age by embracing and propagating error. 3. Christians who are united in the belief of the truth have a right to blame those who think differently from them upon religious subjects. 4. There appears to be no propriety in attempting to unite them in affection, without uniting them in sentiment. 5. It seriously concerns all who acknowledge the truth and divinity of the gospel to use every proper method to become entirely united in sentiment. (1) For this purpose, therefore, let them freely and candidly examine the various points in which they mutually differ. (2) There are various considerations which urge Christians to cultivate a sentimental union among themselves. (a) It will directly tend to unite them in affection. We find that those who agree in art or science commonly feel a mutual attachment arising from their concurrence in opinion. And a unity of faith never fails to produce a mutual esteem and affection among Christians. (b) The sure word of prophecy predicts the future peace and harmony of the Church as resulting from the knowledge of the truth. (c) By uniting in sentiment, Christians will remove one of the strongest prejudices of unbelievers against the Bible. (d) They will strengthen and animate one another in promoting the cause of Christ. (N. Emmons, D. D.)Divisions in the Church Hardly five years had lapsed since Paul had first preached the gospel at Corinth, when he is constrained to write to his converts, now in the language of fatherly entreaty, now in the language of the sharpest rebuke, and that though he can still give thanks to God with unfeigned gratitude for the growth of their faith in Christ. What then is the fault which causes him such keen anxiety? It is not heresy, it is not apostasy, it is not open separation from the Church of Christ: it is a matter which we might be inclined to regard as far less momentous than any of these: it is the growth and spread of party spirit within their body. They are degrading the names of the apostles into watchwords of divisions. Christ is divided! indignantly exclaims St. Paul. You are rending His body asunder, you are severing the members which cannot exist in isolation. The harmonious combination of manifold parts, all subservient to one end and united by one Head; this is the essential idea of the physical body. The same law holds in the mystical body of Christ. Disregard the Divine order, and the result can only be death. This division into parties is no venial offence, no pardonable enthusiasm for the teachers whose names you thus dishonour: it is the ruin of the unity for’ which Christ prayed, “ That they all may be one.” It is a work of the flesh: the outcome of the evil propensities of your unrenewed nature. I. What are the causes of party divisions?1. The ultimate cause lies, I believe, in a radical misapprehension of the nature of truth. God’ s truth is infinite. Man’ s mind is finite. It is in the nature of things impossible that we with our limited capacities should comprehend the whole of truth. All that we can do is to grasp some fragments, here a little and there a little: truth indeed sufficient for our personal necessities, if we seek aright in faith and patience, but immeasurably falling short of the reality. Our views of truth are therefore partial, disjointed; and it is inevitable that men with minds differently trained should apprehend different parts and different aspects of the truth. This variety is not of itself an evil. Far from it. Such different views are complementary, not antagonistic. As God’ s truth was revealed to man “ in many parts and in many fashions,” so only in “ many parts and in many fashions” can it be grasped and interpreted by man. Only as the ages roll on, and each generation contributes its share towards the final result, are we slowly learning the grandeur of the gospel. Differences are not to be ignored or dissembled, but frankly acknowledged: “ combination in diversity,” it has been said, is the characteristic feature of the Church of Christ, and it must be the characteristic feature of every organisation which truly represents that Church. Combination in diversity is a characteristic feature of Holy Scripture. It needs the records of four Evangelists to give a true portraiture of the Son of Man in His earthly ministry. We are not to regard one as more faithful than another, not to take any one as in itself complete, but to find in the harmony of all the true delineation of that perfection which we can only realise by contemplating it in its several parts. St. Paul and St. James, St. Peter and St. John, each offer to us different aspects of the truth; one is the apostle of faith, another of works; one of hope, another of love; but if they have each some special grace or duty upon which they insist, it is not to the neglect or exclusion of other graces and duties: nor are we to pit them one against the other. 2. Thus we see that various schools of thought are necessary for the full representation of truth. They supply, moreover, “ that antagonism of influences which is the only real security for continued progress.” But schools of thought are painfully liable to degenerate into parties. We naturally and rightly concentrate our attention upon that fragment of truth which we have realised for ourselves to be true and precious: gradually we grow to think that this is the whole of truth. We divide the swelling river of truth into a thousand paltry runlets, and each cries, Come drink at my stream, for it, and it alone, is pure and uncontaminated. Well for us, then, if the water of life is not evaporated and lost amid the sands of the barren desert of strife. 3. For the next step is easy. We affirm that because others see not with our eyes, they are enveloped in the mists of dangerous error; resistance to their tenets becomes a duty, and in the fierceness of controversy charity is forgotten, and the party contentions of the Christian Church become a spectacle that provokes the scornful laugh of devils and moves our angelic watchers to tears. The absence of humility, the strength of self-will, the spirit that desires victory rather than truth, all contribute to the direful result, and the imperfection of our knowledge is perverted by our sinful folly into the source of incalculable mischief to ourselves and those around us. 4. Especially in days of revival of religious life is there danger of party contentions. Conviction is intense, enthusiasm unbounded, old truths are resuscitated, new truths apprehended, and each individual cherishes his own discovery, and proclaims it as the one vital element of truth to the exclusion of others in reality no less important. 5. The use of party phraseology, too, tends to accentuate the difference between various schools of thought. “ By this means over and above all the real differences of opinion which exist, a fresh cause of separation is introduced among those who would perhaps be found, if their respective statements were candidly explained, to have in these tenets no real ground for disunion.” 6. Extremes beget extremes: if one set of men form themselves into an exclusive party, with narrow views and aims, the almost certain consequence is that those who are of the opposite way of thinking will form a party to resist them. But it is a faithless expedient. “ Through strife, and not by strife, the Church of God has passed upon her way.” II. What are the evils arising from party divisions?1. Party spirit causes the decay of spiritual life: for love is the breath of life, and where love is not, life must wither and die. But how can the gentle breezes of love co-exist with the fierce burning blasts of the sirocco of controversy? As each party circle moreover ceases to hold communion with its neighbours, and feeds more exclusively upon its own limited truths, there is peril that even these will grow to be lifeless, and become petrified into hard unmeaning formulas. Not loss of knowledge and narrowness of sympathy alone, but even death, may be the consequence of isolation. 2. Party spirit is a grievous hindrance to the growth of God’ s kingdom. This it is which breeds distrust between the clergy and the laity, and opens that gap which we are sometimes told is daily widening. When shall we learn that the kingdom of God does not consist in a phraseology, but in “ righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” ? 3. Party spirit is a waste of strength. 4. Party divisions are a stumbling-block to weak ,believers. What are we to think when we see men whose personal characters are equally estimable denouncing one another with unmitigated bitterness? 5. Party divisions are a laughing-stock to unbelievers. “ See how these Christians love one another,” is the scornful taunt. And thus we lose that testimony of an united Church which was the ideal contemplated by our Lord. III. What are the remedies for party divisions?1. The fundamental bond of religious unity is this: “ Ye are Christ’ s.” Not primarily in outward organisation, however valuable, not in creeds, however necessary, but in living union with our Head. 2. Another remedy is to be found in the frank recognition that in the Church of Christ variety is not only not wrong, but natural and necessary; because the views of any one individual or group of individuals can be at best but partial embodiments of the whole truth. When we maintain that our partial view is the complete and only true one, it is as if the dwellers in the valleys round some mighty mountain, a Mont Blanc or a Matterhorn, should meet and compare their ideas of its size and form: and because these ideas do not tally, and the outlines of its slopes and peaks and precipices are differently described by each, should forthwith deny the identity of the object of their argument; or impeach the veracity of their neighbours, and part with angry and embittered feelings. 3. A candid and patient examination of the views of those who differ from us will do much to moderate party spirit. Men of undeniable honesty, conscientiousness, zeal, holiness, differ from us. Why is this? They cannot be entirely in the wrong. No holy life is based entirely upon false premises. No system rests altogether upon a lie. 4. Once more, a remedy for divisions is to be found in practical co-operation wherever possible. 5. If controversy should unfortunately be unavoidable, as it may be on some occasions, and for some individuals, we must take heed that it is conducted with calm sobriety, temperate reason, and with the desire of truth, not success. But it is a perilous resource: far healthier for us if we can abstain from entangling ourselves in it. “ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.” (A. F. Kirkpatrick, M. A.)Division in the Church contrary to the spirit of Christ Because-- I. Contrary to the doctrine of Christ. Christ here by His servant--1. Exhorts to unity in (1) Confession;(2) Spirit;(3) Judgment. 2. Condemns all disunion. II. Incompatible with our obligations to Christ. Divisions--1. Arise from sinful attachment to persons, interests, or opinions.2. Divide the body of Christ.3. Transfer the honour due to Him to another. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Like-minded An eminent preacher says: “ I was walking some weeks ago in a beautiful grove, the trees were distant apart, and the trunks were straight and rugged. But as they ascended higher the branches came closer together, and still higher the twigs and branches interlaced. I said to myself, our Churches resemble these trees; the trunks near the earth stand stiffly and rudely apart; the more nearly toward heaven they ascend, the closer and closer they come together, until they form one beautiful canopy, under which men enjoy both shelter and happiness. Then I thought of that beautiful prayer of the Saviour, ‘ That they all may be one.’ Those who have the Spirit of Christ, who go about always doing good, will be like-minded.” Divisions, how to heal When so much had been done at Marburg to effect an agreement between Luther and the Helvetians, Zwingle and his friends, he magnanimously resolved that they should not make larger grants for peace, nor carry away the honour of being more desirous of union than he. He suggested that both “ the interested parties” should “ cherish more and more a truly Christian charity for one another,” and earnestly implore the Lord by His Spirit to confirm them in “ the sound doctrine.” (W. Baxendale.)The evil and danger of schism The Church of Corinth was now lying bleeding of her wounds, given her not by enemies, but by her own children. The apostle applies himself to the curing of this rent and broken Church in this most pathetic exhortation to unity. Note-- I. The compellation, “ Brethren.”1. A kindly compellation, whereby he endeavours to insinuate himself into their affections; for it is hard for faithful ministers to get people’ s affections kept where once divisions enter. 2. An argument for unity: he minds them that they are brethren; and it is a shameful thing for brethren to fall out by the ears (Genesis 13:8; Genesis 45:24). II. The obsecration, “ I beseech you, by the name,” &c. Paul turns a petitioner for the Church’ s peace, and begs of them, as he did of the jailor (Acts 16:28), that they would do themselves no harm, but lay by the sword of contention; and that it might have the more weight, he interposeth the name of Christ. It is as much as if he had said--1. As ye have any regard to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who hath so often enjoined unity and brotherly love to His followers, beware of divisions. 2. As ye love the Lord Jesus, as ye tender His honour and glory, let there be no divisions among you; for the name of Christ sadly suffers by your contentions. III. The matter of his exhortation.1. He exhorts them to unity of principles, “ that ye all speak the same thing” ; for now some were crying one thing, some another, like that confused multitude (Acts 21:34), till some of them came at length to deny the resurrection (chap. 15.). 2. He dehorts them from schisms, which properly signifies a cutting in a solid body, as in the cleaving of wood. Thus the one Church of Corinth was rent into divers factions, some following one, some following another; therefore says the apostle, “ Is Christ divided?” Where will you get a Christ to head your different and divided party? Through these divisions, it would seem, from 1 Corinthians 11:33, they had separate communions, they would not tarry for one another. The apostle also taxeth their divisions as carnal (1 Corinthians 3:3), where the word “ divisions” properly signifies separate standing, where one party stand upon one side, and another party on another side--such dissension, wherein one separate one from another. 3. He exhorts them to amend what was amiss already among them in that matter, to be perfectly joined together, in opposition to their contentions and divisions. The word in the original is very emphatic, and signifies-- (1) To restore disjointed members into their proper places again (Galatians 6:1). It is a metaphor from chirurgeons setting members or joints again. (2) To establish in the state to which a person or thing is restored; and so it denotes a firm union betwixt the members of that Church as a body, and withal he adds here the bonds of this union, the same mind, that is, the same heart, will, and affections, as the word mind is taken (Romans 7:25), and the same judgment or opinion anent matters; if the last cannot be got, yet the first may. IV. From the words we draw these following doctrines:1. That schism is an evil incident to the Churches while in this world. 2. That professors ought to beware of it, as they tender the authority and honour of our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. Where schism enters into a Church, there will be great heats, people contradicting one another in matters of religion. 4. That however hard it be, yet it is possible to get a rent Church healed. 5. That it is the duty of all Church members to endeavour the unity of the Church, and the cure of schisms; and particularly, it is the duty of disjointed members to take their own places in the body again. 6. That schisms, as they are grievous to all the sons of peace, so they are in a special manner heavy and afflicting to faithful ministers of the gospel of peace. (T. Boston, D. D.)It hath been declared.., by them which are of the house of Chloe that there are contentions among you.--Contentions in the Church I. How they arise. Out of undue attachments to persons or opinions. II. How they should be repressed.1. Not by seeking the triumph of one party over the other, or by the absolute sacrifice of private opinion. 2. But by exalting these points in which all agree, and cultivating one mind and spirit. III. Why they should be repressed--for the sake of Christ.1. His body is one and undivided.2. He was crucified for us.3. We are baptized into His name.4. None other has any claim upon us. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The factions I. There were four parties in the Church at Corinth.1. Those who held by Paul himself. They owed to him their salvation; and having experienced the efficacy of his gospel, they thought that there was no other efficacious mode of presenting Christ to men. So probably they fell into the mistake of all mere partisans, and became more Pauline than Paul, and were in danger of becoming more Pauline than Christian. 2. Those who were grouped round Apollos, who watered what Paul had planted. He fitted the gospel into their previous knowledge, and showed them its relations to other faiths, and opened up its ethical wealth and bearing on life. His teaching was not opposed to Paul’ s, but supplementary of it; and 1 Corinthians 16:12 shows that there was no jealousy between the two men. 3. Those who gloried in the name of Cephas, the apostle of the circumcision, whose name was used in opposition to Paul’ s as representing the original group of apostles who adhered to the Jewish law. Extreme Judaizers would find in this party a fruitful soil. 4. That which named itself “ of Christ.” From 2 Corinthians 10:7-18; 2 Corinthians 11:1-33; 2 Corinthians 12:1-18, it would appear that this party was led by men who prided themselves on their Hebrew descent (1 Corinthians 11:22), and on having learned their Christianity from Christ Himself (1 Corinthians 10:7). They claimed to be apostles of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:13) and “ ministers of righteousness” (1 Corinthians 11:15); but as they taught “ another Jesus,” “ another spirit,” “ another gospel” (1 Corinthians 11:4), Paul does not hesitate to denounce them as false apostles. II. The apostle hears of these parties with dismay. What, then, would he think of the state of the Church now? There was as yet in Corinth no outward disruption; and indeed Paul does not seem to contemplate as possible that the members of the one body of Christ should refuse to worship their common Lord in fellowship with one another.1. The evils attaching to such a condition of things may no doubt be unduly magnified; but the mischief done by disunion should not be ignored. The Church was intended to be the grand uniter of the race; but instead of this, the Church has alienated friends; and men who will do business and dine together, will not worship together. Had the kingdom of Christ been visibly one, it would have been without a rival in the world. But instead of this the strength of the Church has been frittered away in civil strife. The world looks on and laughs while it sees the Church divided over petty differences while it ought to be assailing vice, ungodliness, and ignorance. And yet schism is thought no sin. 2. Now that the Church is broken into pieces, the first step towards unity is to recognise that there may be real union without unity of external organisation. The human race is one; but this unity admits of numberless diversities. So the Church may be truly one in the sense intended by our Lord, one in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, though there continue to be various divisions and sects. As amidst all diversities of government and customs it is the duty of States to maintain their common brotherhood and abstain from tyranny and war, so it is the duty of Churches, however separate in form of government, to maintain and exhibit their unity. 3. There may be real union without unity in creed. This unity is desirable; and Paul entreats his readers to be of one mind. (1) True, the Church has gained much by difference of opinion. Were all men to be agreed there might be a danger of truth becoming lifeless for want of the stimulus, and doctrine has been ascertained and developed in answer to error. (2) But as a visitation of cholera may result in cleanliness, but no one desires that cholera may come; and as opposition in Parliament is an acknowledged service to the country, yet each party desires that its sentiments become universal; so, too, notwithstanding every good result which may flow from diversity of opinion regarding Divine truth, agreement is what all should aim at. (3) But what truths Me to be made terms of communion? The answer is, the Church of Christ is formed of those who are trusting to Him as the power of God unto salvation. He is in communion with all who thus trust Him, whether their knowledge be great or small; and we cannot refuse to communicate with those with whom He is in communion. No doctrinal error, therefore, which does not subvert personal faith in Christ should be allowed to separate Churches. Paul was contemplating Christ, and not a creed, as the centre of the Church’ s unity, when he exclaimed, “ is Christ divided?” In all Christians and all Churches the one Christ is the life of each. And it is monstrous that those who are virtually united to one Person and quickened by one Spirit should in no way recognise their unity. It is with something akin to horror that Paul goes on to ask, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” He implies that only on the death of Christ can the Church be founded. Take away that and the personal connection of the believer with the crucified Redeemer, and you take away the Church. III. From this casual expression of Paul we see his habitual attitude towards Christ.1. He was never slow to affirm the indebtedness of the young Christian Churches to himself: he was their father, but he was not their saviour. Not for one moment did he suppose that he could occupy towards men the position Christ occupied. Between his work and Christ’ s an impassable gulf was fixed. And that which gave Christ this special place and claim was His crucifixion. Paul does not say, Was Paul your teacher in religion, and did he lead your thoughts to God? did Paul by his life show you the beauty of self-sacrifice and holiness? but “ Was Paul crucified for you?” 2. It was not, however, the mere fact of His dying which gave Christ this place, and which claims the regard and trust of all men. Paul had really given his life for men; but Paul knew that in Christ’ s death there was a significance his own could never have. It was net only human buy Divine self-sacrifice that was there manifested. Through this death sinners find way back to God and assurance of salvation. 3. This unique work, then--what have we made of it? Paul found his true life and his true self in it. It filled his mind, his heart, his life. This man, formed on the noblest and largest type, found room in Christ alone for the fullest development and exercise of his powers. Is it not plain that if we neglect the connection with Christ which Paul found so fruitful we are doing ourselves the greatest injustice, and preferring a narrow prison-house to liberty and life? (M. Dods, D. D.)The apostle’ s view of party spirit Paul denounces it as a sin in itself irrespective of the right or wrong opinions connected with it; and the true safeguard against it is the recollection of the great bond of fellowship with Christ which all have in common. “ Christianus mihi nomen est,” said an ancient bishop in answer to some such distinction; “ Catholicus cognomen.”1. The first duty of the apostle was to lose himself entirely in the cause he preached. The most important details or forms were so insignificant in comparison that Paul spoke of them as though he had no concern with them. How often in later ages have the means and institutions of the Church taken the place of the end! Antiquity, novelty, a phrase, a ceremony, a vestment, each has in turn overbalanced the one main object for which, confessedly, all lower objects are inculcated. To all these cases the apostle’ s answer applies, “ Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” 2. The sin of the Corinthians consisted not in the mere adoption of eminent names, but in the party spirit which attaches more importance to them than to the great cause which all good men have in common. Even the sacred name of Christ may thus be desecrated; and as the apostle rebukes those who said, “ I am of Christ,” no less than those who said “ I am of Paul,” &c., so our Lord refused to take the title of “ good” (Luke 18:19), and “ baptized not, but His disciples” (John 4:2). If the holiest Name can thus be made a party watchword, if Christianity itself can thus be turned to the purposes of a faction, much more may any of its subordinate manifestations. The character of our Lord is distinguished from all others by the fact that it rises far above any local or temporary influences, and also that it has, for the most part, escaped, even in thought, from any association with them. So the character of the apostle, although in a lower measure, vindicates itself in this passage from any identification with the party which called itself after his name; and is a true example of the possibility of performing a great work, and labouring earnestly for great truths, without losing sight of the common ground of Christianity, or becoming the centre of a factious and worldly spirit. 3. It is by catching a glimpse of the wild dissentions which raged around the apostolic writings that we can best appreciate the unity and response of those writings themselves: it is by seeing how completely the dissentions have been obliterated, that we can best understand how marked was the difference between their results and those of analogous divisions in other history. We know how the names of Plato and Aristotle, of Francis and Dominic, of Luther and Calvin, have continued as the rallying point of rival schools; but the schools of Paul and Apollos and Cephas, which once waged so bitter a warfare against each other, were extinguished almost before ecclesiastical history had begun. Partly this arose from the nature of the case. The apostles could not have become founders of systems, even if they would. Their power was not their own, but another’ s. “ What had they that they had not received?” If once they claimed an independent authority their authority was gone. Great philosophers, conquerors, heresiarchs leave their names even in spite of themselves. But such the apostles could not be without ceasing to be what they were; and the total extinction of the parties which were called after them is in fact a testimony to the Divinity of their mission. And it is difficult not to believe that in the great work of reconciliation of which the outward volume of the Sacred Canon is the chief monument, they were themselves not merely passive instruments, but active agents; that a lesson is still to be derived from the record they have left of their own resistance to the claims of the factions which vainly endeavoured to divide what God had joined together. (Dean Stanley.)Sects and parties I. Their manifold variety occasioned--1. By the peculiarities of human nature in general.2. National differences.3. Personal differences.4. Attachment to individuals, as in the text. II. Their unity still possible, there should be--1. One language, one mind.2. One judgment on fundamental principle.3. Especially one faith in the crucified Jesus.4. And one baptism into His name. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The dissensions of the early Church I. How they originated.1. In the disputes of the Jewish and Gentile Christians.2. Hence one was of Peter and another of Paul--those of Christ and of Apollos appear to have been modifications of these. II. Who were the promoters of them?1. Not Paul or Peter, &c.2. Not the peaceably disposed, or those who loved Christ above all things.3. But-- (1) Some who unduly idolised the human in religion.(2) Ignorant persons, who had zeal without knowledge (Romans 10:2).(3) Contentious persons, who would have their own way (Philippians 1:16). III. What was the effect?1. Christ was divided.2. His claims forgotten.3. Some human idol exalted in His place. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Every one of you saith, I am of Paul … and I of Christ.--The factious affecting one pastor above another We may, and must, give a Benjamin’ s portion of respect to those who excel in age, pains, parts, and piety; but the lavishing by wholesale all honour on one, and scarce retailing out any respect to the other, is what Paul reproves. I. The mischiefs that arise from this practice.1. Dissention betwixt ministers. As the Grecians (Acts 6:1) murmured against Abe Hebrews, so ministers feel aggrieved that people pass them by unregarded. Perchance the matter may fly so high as it did betwixt Moses and Aaron (Numbers 12:2). It will anger not only Saul, a mere carnal man, but even those that have degrees of grace to say, “ He hath converted his thousands, but such an one his ten thousands.” 2. Dissension amongst people. Like the women that pleaded before Solomon (1 Kings 3:22), they contend “ The living minister is mine; he that hath spirit and activity: but the dead minister is thine; he cometh not to the quick, he toucheth not the conscience.” “ Nay,” saith the other, “ my minister is the living minister, and thine is the dead one. Thy pastor is full of the fire, of ill tempered and undiscreet zeal; ‘ but the Lord was not in the fire’ : whilst my minister is like to a ‘ still voice’ ; staunching the bleeding-hearted penitent, and dropping the oil of the gospel into the wounded conscience.” 3. Rejoicing to wicked men, to whose ears our discords are the sweetest harmony. Let not the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot fall out, whilst the Canaanites are yet in the land. 4. Great dishonour to God Himself. Here is such looking on the ambassador that there is no notice taken of the king. II. To prevent these mischiefs, both pastors and people must lend their helping hands.1. I begin with the pastors. (1) Those who have the thickest audiences. (a) Let them not pride themselves with the bubble of popular applause, often as carelessly gotten as undeservedly lost. Have we not seen those who have preferred lungs before brains, and sounding of a voice before soundness of matter? Let princes count the credit of their kingdoms to consist in the multitude of their subjects: far be it from a preacher to glory when his congregation swells by the consumption of the audience of his neighbour. (b) Let them discourage immoderate admiration. When St. John would have worshipped the angel, “ See thou do it not,” saith he: “ worship God.” Know thou who lovest to glut thyself with people’ s applause, it shall prove at the last pricks in thy eyes and thorns in thy side--because sacrilegiously thou hast robbed God of His honour. (c) Let them labour also to ingratiate every deserving pastor with his own congregation. It was the boon Saul begged of Samuel, “ Honour me before my people.” And surely it is but reason we should seek to grace the shepherd in the presence of his flock. (2) I come now to neglected ministers, whilst others, perchance less deserving, are more frequented. Never fret thyself, if others be preferred before thee. They have their time; they are crescents in their waxing, fall seas in their flowing: envy not at their prosperity. Thy turn of honour may come next. One told a Grecian statist who had excellently deserved of his city, that the city had chosen four-and-twenty officers, and yet left him out. “ I am glad,” said he, “ the city affords twenty-four abler than myself.” And let us practise St. Paul’ s precept, “ by honour and dishonour, by good report and disreport,” and say with David, “ Lord, here I am; do with Thy servant as Thou pleasest.” 2. By this time, methinks, I hear the people saying, as the soldiers to John Baptist, “ But what shall we do?” (1) Ever preserve a reverent esteem of the minister whom God hath placed over thee. For, if a sparrow lighteth not on the ground without God’ s especial providence, surely no minister is bestowed in any parish without a more peculiar disposing; and surely their own pastor is best acquainted with their diseases, and therefore best knoweth to apply spiritual physic thereunto. And as God’ s Word hath a general blessing on every place, so more particularly is it blessed to parishioners from the mouth of their lawful minister. Let not therefore the stranger, who makes a feast of set purpose to entertain new guests, be preferred before thy own minister, who keeps a constant table, feeding his own family. Wherefore let all the Ephesians confine themselves to their Timothy; Cretians to their Titus; every congregation to their proper pastor. As for those whose necessary occasions do command their absence from their flocks, let them see to it that they provide worthy substitates. (2) Let them not make odious comparisons betwixt ministers of eminent parts. It is said of both Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:5) and Josiah (2 Kings 23:25) that there were none like them. The Holy Spirit prefers neither for better, but concludes both for best; and so amongst ministers, when each differs from others, all may be excellent in their kinds. As, in comparing several handsome persons, one surpasseth for beauty of face; a second, for a well-proportioned body; a third, for comeliness of carriage: so may it be betwixt several pastors. One’ s excellency may consist in the unsnarling of a known controversy; another, in plain expounding of Scripture; one, the best Boanerges; another, the best Barnabas: our judgments may be best informed by one, our affections moved by a second, our lives reformed by a third. Grant some in parts far inferior to others: was not Abishai a worthy captain, though he attained not to the honour of the first three? And may not many be serviceable in the Church, though not in the first rank? (3) Entertain this for a certain truth, that the efficacy of God’ s Word depends not on the parts of the minister, but on God’ s blessing, on His ordinance. (T. Fuller, D. D.)Sects and parties I. How far are they right? As far as they--1. Stand upon the common foundations of Christ.2. Busy themselves to save souls and not to make proselytes.3. Esteem, love, and help each other.4. Exhibit a holy emulation in exalting Christ. II. When are they wrong?1. When they exalt party names and differences above Christ.2. When they are slavishly attached to their party, and make it the great object of their zeal.3. When they note and despise others and exclude them from their fellowship.4. When they seek to glorify their party above all others. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Is Christ divided? or “ Is the Christ made a share?” Is He not a whole, but only a part co-ordinate with three others? Is He no longer the complete circle around which is assembled in its oneness the Corinthian Church, regarding Him from all sides as the One Saviour? but is He reduced to a single quadrant of that circle, the other quadrants being Paul, Apollos, and Cephas? If this be true the startling inference is that Christ, being a Saviour to His own, the other three leaders are subordinate saviours, each to his own adherents; and so I ask you, while I shrink from the thought (such is the force of the Greek), was Paul (to take as an instance the first named of the three heads) crucified for you? Or were ye baptized? &c. And yet this is the conclusion, absurd as it is monstrous, nay, blasphemous, to which you are drifting on the waves of party opinions and professions. Wherefore I beseech you, by that Name which is above every name, the Name of Him who is our Lord, who is the Christ, the one Saviour of all, that divisions die among you, and that union and harmony revive in the pure atmosphere of sameness of view and purpose, leading to sameness of confession. Another translation slightly diverging from the above, but finally converging with it in the same logical connexion is this--“ Apportioned is Christ?” Assigned as a portion is He? The word “ portion” here denotes relation rather to its own claimant or appropriator than to other co-ordinate parts. The claimant of Christ as its own portion exclusively is in this instance, of course, the last-named party of Christ. If this be the more correct rendering, an underlink of connection between “ Apportioned is Christ?” and “ Was Paul crucified for you?” must be mentally supplied; an intermediate flash of thought so obvious that time would have been wasted in wording it. This silent link is expressed by the clause in italics: if the Christ, the one Saviour, has become the heritage of one party, what is to become of the salvation of the other three? “ Was Paul crucified for you,” &c. (Canon Evans.)Is Christ divided in 1. His person.2. His offices.3. His salvation.4. His Church. (W. W. Wythe.)The differences among Christians no objection to Christianity I. How it is that men come to differ in morals and religion. Almost every action, character, or doctrine, on which we are called upon to make up an opinion, is more or less complex; that is to say, has more than one side or aspect. It does not follow that one is true, and the other false: both may be true; that is, faithful representations of the same reality, only under different aspects. I am not aware of a single vicious action which was ever held as right, unless, in the circumstances, it really had a good or plausible side, on which alone, from some cause, it was contemplated, the whole action being judged by this one side. The same account is also to be given of the origin of most of our differences in religious doctrine when sincerely entertained. Take, for instance, what is perhaps the most fundamental difference of all, the different opinions which have prevailed respecting human nature. Who does not know that man actually appears under all these various aspects?--sometimes but little lower than the angels, and sometimes but little better than a fiend. Hence the most extreme and contradictory views on this subject are so far well founded as this, that they are faithful representations of real phases of human nature, the error consisting not in misconceiving some single phase, but in judging our whole nature by that alone. And so it follows, that what we call errors are not so much false as partial views of the reality. II. Such being the origin and nature of most religious differences, it will next be in order to inquire on what grounds they can be regarded as a reason or occasion for sceptical, cynical, or desponding thoughts. In the first place, do they afford us any reason or pretext for denying the trustworthiness or competency of the human faculties? Certainly not. Could we be induced to regard the object under precisely the same lights and aspects, we should doubtless see it alike; and better still, could we be induced to regard the object under all lights and aspects, we should doubtless not only see it alike, but see it as it is. Accordingly, the differences among Christians are not to be construed into evidence of the incompetency of the human faculties in themselves considered, but only of their partial application. When we begin our inquiries respecting any subject, we must begin, of course, by looking at it on one side: our views must be partial at first; hut it does not follow that they must always continue so. What, indeed, is progress in any inquiry but the gradual enlargement of our views? And hence the acknowledged fact, that thought and study, and a more generous culture, tend to dissolve differences and bring men together. To those, therefore, who think to find arguments for scepticism or despair in the divisions of Christians, and who are ready to pronounce the partial views which prevail as worthless, and mutually destructive of each other, the answer is plain. First, even the most partial of these views are worth a great deal; for they are partial views of an all-important truth, and as such contain much that is enduring and eternal. Again, as the error of these views grows mainly out of their being partial, it is one which must be expected to pertain to the first stages of every inquiry, but gradually disappear as the inquiry goes on. Finally, though the time may never come on earth when the multitude of partial views will be lost in a single all-comprehensive view, still this knowing “ in part,” and the trials and responsibilities which pertain to such a condition, may be essential to the discipline which is to fit us for that world, where “ that which is in part shall be done away.” Admitting all this, however, I ask, then, what there is in controversy--I do not say to condemn, for, considering how they are often conducted, there is enough in them, Heaven knows, to condemn, but to excuse in lookers-on either indifference or unbelief? Certainly of themselves they do not argue indifference or unbelief, but the contrary. An age of controversy is pre-eminently an age of faith; a man is not likely to dispute earnestly unless he believes in something, and attaches importance to it. Besides, how is it in other things? Name, if you can, a single interesting subject of inquiry which has not given occasion to controversy. The world is as much divided and estranged on scientific and political and philanthropic questions as on religious questions. But do men hence infer that there is no such thing as truth in any of these matters, or that we have no faculties to discover it? God forbid! Obviously, therefore, it cannot be controversy, as such, that is objected to in this connection, but something peculiar to religious controversy. First, it is said that controversy is well enough where it really has the effect to help forward the truth, or to diffuse and establish it; but in religion it does neither, leaving every question just where it found it. I reply, that even if this were so, it would not be to the purpose: it would follow, indeed, that controversy is of no use in religion, and ought to be avoided; but it would not follow that religion itself is of no use, or that controversy has made it of less use or less certain. But the whole statement is erroneous. Who has yet to learn the invaluable services of discussion and controversy in settling the laws of evidence on which the genuineness and authenticity of the Sacred Books depend, and the laws of interpretation by which their import is determined? To discussion and controversy we also owe it, that the Christian doctrines generally have been unfolded, cleared up, and re-stated. Again, religious controversy is objected to because of its asperities and spirit of denunciation, which on such a subject are peculiarly odious, creating in some minds an invincible disgust for religion itself. That religious controversy, even among Christians, sometimes assumes the character here given to it, I confess; but it is easy to see that it is not because Christians are Christians, but because Christians are men, having the weaknesses and imperfections of men. Once more. A vague notion exists, I believe, in some minds that the honour of God is somehow compromised by the disgraceful altercations to which Christianity has given birth. The fact that He does not interfere to suppress them creates a feeling of uneasiness and distrust, as if the revelation were not in reality from Him. Such persons would do well to remember that God gives us truth, as He gives us everything else, not to our acceptance, but to our acquisition. Even the truths of revelation are expected to do us as much good by exercising our fairness of mind, and our love of truth, in the acceptance and interpretation of His Word, as by the light they give. To the question, then, Which among the various partial and discordant views you are to adopt, this is my answer--Adopt your own; hold fast your own. Allowing others to have their views, be faithful and just to your own view; endeavouring, of course, to enlarge it from day to day, but adhering to it, meanwhile, and reverencing it, as one view at least of truth, and of that side of truth which is turned towards you, and which, therefore, you must be presumed to be most concerned to know. Above all, remember that, though we are divided, Christ is not. (J. Walker, D. D.)Was Paul crucified for you?--Was Paul crucified? I. The occasion of this question--the divided state of the Church at Corinth. Mark the peculiar ground of contention (verse 12). Paul was the founder of the Church; and some of the older members might naturally feel peculiarly attached to him. Apollos succeeded Paul--a man of more finished eloquence; and some, who joined the Church under his ministry, might, as naturally, become attached to him. Peter was especially the apostle to the Jews, and the Jewish converts would prefer him. Others affected to disparage all, and said, “ We are of Christ.” Surely it was a most unhappy state of things to make one preacher clash with another, and to appear to make any of them clash with Christ. So Paul says, “ Is there a separate Saviour for each of the four parties? for that is what you seem to mean” ; then adds, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” II. The truth involved in the question.1. Some one had been crucified for them. That was a fact which none of their divisions could pretend to deny. But who was this crucified One? Was it Paul? No! It was the Master, not the servant. And Christ was crucified for us! He had no guilt of His own to suffer for. The poor thief at His side made this acknowledgment, and prophecy had explained it 700 years before--“ He was wounded for our transgressions,” &c. 2. And this was the most memorable fact in His history. To talk about the blood of Christ offends certain people’ s taste, and is out of keeping with their theology. But what is the theology of the Bible? The tabernacle and the temple ran with blood; for “ without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin.” So in the New Testament we read that our Lord “ took the cup,” and said, “ This is My blood,” &c. And Peter reminded his fellow-believers, “ Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,” and John wrote, “ The blood of Jesus Christ, God’ s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” And the reason of all this is clearly given. Sin is a thing which a just and holy Ruler of the universe cannot pass by. It must be punished--if not in us, in another in our stead. And the grand message of the gospel is, that God has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all--so that “ in Him we have redemption through His blood,” &c. Now if this be so, the most memorable thing in the history of Christ is--that He “ was crucified for us!” 3. Such clearly is Paul’ s teaching. Talk too much of the blood of Christ? (1 Corinthians 2:2). The theme distasteful and offensive? (Galatians 6:14; cf. 1 Corinthians 3:23). III. The force of the question. What claim have I upon you compared with that of Christ? Notice the delicacy of the apostle’ s mind, He might have asked the same with regard to Peter or Apollos.1. Paul had some claim upon them, for it was he who first brought the gospel to them. And what Corinthian believer but was bound to bless the apostle’ s name? And don’ t you sometimes bless it, English believer? Have you not felt that the Apostle Paul has been one of your best friends? 2. But now I hear him saying, “ Don’ t talk of me--talk of nay Master. What claims have I upon you compared with His? It was not I that was your Substitute--I needed a substitute as much as you. You Corinthians talk of me and of Apollos as useful preachers. Who are we but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man. ‘ We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord,’” &c. And so you Englishmen talk of me as one whom you are bound to revere and love. But look up immensely higher! up, where angels bow before a Lamb as it had been slain! There’ s your best Friend! Give Him your deepest reverence, your warmest love! “ Was Paul crucified for you?” 3. The text is suitable, by way of warning, to these days when the tendency is to mingle Christ up with other famous teachers. And doubtless each of them has taught the world what had previously been forgotten. But can any Christian put them on a level with our Lord? I shudder at the thought! “ Is Christ divided?” Is there one Saviour for the Chinese, and another for the Indian, and another for the Arab? Was Confucius crucified for sinners?--or Buddha?--or Mahommed? Nay, brethren! Stand fast in the faith. “ There is none other name,” &c. “ Other foundation can no man lay.” (F. Tucker, B. A.)Jesus the only Saviour of men This question was intended to startle Paul’ s readers. They had been split up into separate groups, designated by names representing ideas which ought never to be separated, viz., Christian freedom, Christian philosophy, Church authority and organisation, and personal devotion to Christ. But these Greeks carried their old mental habits into the Church. For ages they had identified each shade of opinion in philosophy with the name of an individual teacher. It was natural for them to look at Christianity as an addition to the world’ s thought, which admitted of being treated as other systems. Moreover, religion is differently apprehended and presented by different minds. The one Truth which Peter and Paul and Apollos preached was presented in different forms. The fault of the Corinthians lay in treating a difference in the way of presenting truth as if it were a difference in truth itself. To them Paul, &c., were the teachers of distinct religions. Nay, more, the holiest Name of all was bandied about among the names of His messengers. Hence the pain which finds vent in the question, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” This question-- I. Suggests the difference between the debt which Christians owe to Christ and that which they owe to the most favoured of His servants.1. It was no slight debt which the Corinthians owed to the apostle--their conversion, their Church, their knowledge about subjects of the highest interest to man; his nature, God’ s nature and relations, and the eternal future. It was a debt which could never be repaid. But the apostle suggests its utter relative insignificance by his question, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” 2. Not that St. Paul had taught the Corinthians the faith of Christ without suffering (1 Thessalonians 2:2; Acts 18:5-6; Acts 18:12-17). But all such sufferings had differed in kind from that which was glanced at by the question, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” 3. His relation to Christ was altogether unlike that which existed between pupils and their Master, e.g., between Plato and Socrates. To St. Paul Christ was not merely the author of Christianity, but its subject and its substance. St. Paul was not indeed crucified; he was beheaded some years later, as a martyr for Christ. But excepting the testimony which he thus bore to the truth he preached, his death was without results to the world. He was beheaded for no one. And had he been crucified at Corinth, the sin of no single Corinthian would have been washed away by his blood. Do, teach, or suffer what he might, he was but a disciple. II. Tells us what it was in the work of Christ which had the first claim on the gratitude of Christians.1. Not His miracles. They were designed, no doubt, to make faith in His Divine mission natural and easy. They were more: frequently works of mercy than of power. They were acted parables. But others also have worked miracles. And the miracles of Christ have not touched the heart of the world more than His words. 2. Not His teaching. Certainly no human speech will ever say more to the conscience than did the Sermon on the Mount, or more to the heart than did the discourse in the supper-room. Yet He Himself implies that what He did would have greater claims on man than what He said. 3. Nor His triumph over death at His resurrection. Certainly that was the supreme certificate of His Divine mission. But the claim of the Resurrection upon our gratitude is so great, because it is intimately bound up with the tragedy which had preceded it. 4. But His Cross (verses 23, 24; 1 Corinthians 2:2; Galatians 6:14), on which He reminds us of our utter misery and helplessness until we are aided by His redeeming might (John 15:13; 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Revelation 1:5; Romans 3:25; Ephesians 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Hebrews 2:17). To expand, connect, explain, justify these aspects of His atoning death is no doubt a labour of vast proportions. But in their simple form they meet every child who reads the New Testament, and they explain the hold of Christ crucified on the Christian heart. And we understand the pathos and the strength of the appeal, “ Was Paul crucified for you?” III. Enables us to measure the true worth of efforts for improving the condition of mankind.1. We may well thank God that He has put it into so many hearts to support institutions and enterprises so rich in their practical benevolence. But when it is hinted that efforts of this kind satisfy all the needs of man, we are obliged to hesitate. The needs of the soul are at least as real as those of the body. The pain of the conscience is at least as torturing as that of the nerves. The invisible world is not less to be provided for than the world of sense and time. We are sometimes almost pressed, in view of the exaggerated claims of a secular philanthropy, to ask whether this or that benevolent person was crucified for the poor or the suffering. 2. In like manner, when Renan tells that we should all be much better if we would give increased time and thought to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, we naturally listen. That Marcus Aurelius was marked by eminent excellences must be frankly granted. But literary infidelity has done this man a wrong by the very excesses of his panegyric. For we cannot but ask whether his characteristic virtue was more than a social luxury; whether it had the slightest effect upon the degraded multitudes who lived close to his palace; whether it prevented him selecting as his colleague a worthless trifler, or from bequeathing his responsibilities to a profligate buffoon; whether it even suggested a scruple respecting his cruel persecutions of Christians. These are questions which history may be left to answer. And her judgment would make another question only more grotesque than profane--“ Was Marcus Aurelius crucified for you?” 3. Yes; only One ever was crucified out of love to sinners, and with a will and power to save them. The faith which St. Paul preached protects society against dangers which are inseparable from human progress at certain stages. For this faith in Christ crucified addresses itself to each of those poles of society, which, when left to the ordinary selfish impulses of human nature, tend to become antagonistic. To the wealthy and the noble the figure of the crucified Saviour is a perpetual preacher of self-sacrifice for the sake of the poor and needy; and to the poor it is no less a perpetual lesson of the beauty, the majesty of entire resignation. Thus does the truth which is at the very heart of the Christian creed contribute most powerfully to the coherence and well-being of society; and we live in days when society is not able to dispense with its assistance. (Canon Liddon.)I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius.-- Paul’ s modesty This is a beautiful trait of Paul’ s character. Most preachers delight to take a prominent part in the public reception of their converts. But Paul saw the danger of this, as tending to exalt the preacher in men’ s eyes. He therefore purposely (verse 15) and systematically placed himself on such occasions in the background (cf. Acts 10:48). This he could well afford to do because of the greater honour, given to him, of preaching the gospel and thus leading men to Christ. He wished men to think, not of the successful preacher, but of Him whose professed servants the baptized ones were. How different was the aim of those who wrote Paul’ s name on the banner of their party! Paul thanks God for his own conduct. For every good action is prompted by God, and enriches the actor. (Prof. Beet.)Christian baptism contains two things: something on the part of God, and something on the part of man. On God’ s part it is an authoritative revelation of His paternity: on man’ s part it is an acceptance of God’ s covenant. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 St. Paul expresses the meaning of baptism as symbolising discipleship. When the Israelites passed through the Red Sea they cut themselves off for ever from Egypt, so that, figuratively speaking, in that immersion they were baptized unto Moses, for thereby they declared themselves his followers, and left all to go with him. And so, just as the soldier who receives the bounty money is thereby pledged to serve his sovereign, so he who has passed through the baptismal waters is pledged to fight under the Redeemer’ s banner against sin, the world, and the devil. And so Paul argues thus: To whom were ye when baptized? To whom did you pledge yourselves in discipleship? If to Christ, why do ye name yourselves by the name of Paul? If all were baptized into that one Name, how is it that a few only have adopted it as their own? Upon this we make two remarks. I. The valve and blessedness of the sacraments.1. They are authoritative signs and symbols. There is very much contained in this idea; e.g., in some parts of the country it is the custom to give and receive a ring in token of betrothal; but that is very different from the marriage-ring. It is neither authoritative, nor has it the sanction of the Church. It would have been perfectly possible for man to have invented another symbol of the truth conveyed in baptism, and then it would not have been authoritative, and consequently it would have been weak and useless. 2. They serve as the epitomes of Christian truth. Antinomianism had crept into the Roman Church. Paul meets this by an appeal to baptism (Romans 6:1-4). And again, in reference to the Lord’ s Supper, in the Church of Corinth that sacrament had become a feast of gluttony and a signal of division. This error he endeavours to correct by reference to the institution of the Supper itself: “ The bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the body of Christ?” The single loaf, broken into many fragments, contains within it the symbolical truth, that the Church of Christ is one. Here, in the text, St. Paul makes the same appeal: he appeals to baptism against sectarianism, and so long as we retain it, it is an everlasting protest against every one who breaks the unity of the Church. II. The peculiar meaning of the sacrament. There are those who believe and teach that men are born into the world children of the devil, and who hold that the instrument for their conversion into God’ s children is baptism; and believe that there is given to the ministers of the Church the power of conveying in that sacrament the Holy Spirit, who effects this wondrous change. If a minister really believes he has this power, then it is only with fear and trembling that he should approach the font. But if this view be true, then the apostle thanked God that he had not regenerated any, that he had not conveyed the Spirit of God to any one but Crispus and Gaius, and the household of Stephanas. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 1:17-31 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.Paul’ s preaching I. It exalted the Cross of Christ as the central element of the gospel. The apostle does not teach that truths associated with the details of Christian belief and living are not proper themes for the pulpit; nor that ritualistic observances are of no importance; nor that he considered as naught the human wisdom seen both in logic and skill; what he meant was that the gospel as the means of salvation revealed by God was everywhere the burden of his message. Neither church observances nor creeds, nor man’ s philosophy can become a substitute for this essential truth. II. It made the agency of God essential in causing the Cross of Christ to have saving power.1. Paul gives the reason of man its proper place in the apprehension of the truth, and the truth so apprehended its proper place as connected with regeneration; but he never teaches that the truth alone, however fully understood, will secure salvation. Being saved is not an intellectual process only, even though the sacrifice of Christ be the truth considered. Only when made the power of God through the attending influence of the Holy Ghost does it save. 2. Paul’ s preaching insisted that this Divine agency can render the weak-- (1) Able to appropriate the gospel in its saving power. The pride of high station and marked ability would not avail, but the humility of confessed unworthiness and dependence upon him who would attract God’ s favour and incline its possessor to accept the Saviour He has provided. Hence, the poor, the ignorant, the wicked, the child, will find no barriers around the Cross when they turn toward it for help. (2) Useful in throwing over opposition and causing the gospel to triumph (1 Corinthians 1:27, &c.). III. It declared that the result of the gospel’ s proper presentation must be that God, and not men, will have all the glory (1 Corinthians 1:29; 1 Corinthians 1:31). Conclusion: Paul’ s preaching declares--1. That true salvation is the penitent and trustful acceptance of the crucified Christ. 2. That true religion is loyalty to God. (J. Exells, D. D.)The true work of the preacher Paul sought to teach that there were different functions which belonged to the officers of the Church. Some were to “ serve tables,” some to administer the ordinances. He did not cast contempt on the ordinances, but declared that he had a special work appointed him. I. The office of the preacher arose with the Saviour. There were instructors previously. The prophets were much more teachers than predictors. The Rabbis when Christ was upon earth were teachers. Christ’ s method of teaching was utterly different. Outwardly it was the same--He went from place to place, He taught sitting, &c.; but the interior contents of His teaching were very different. Christ spake “ with authority” ; so does every man who speaks from the roots and fundamental elements of truth. II. Preaching is teaching in a vitalising way ethical truths--truths which ally men to God and to each other. They must be taught so as to breathe the life of Him who teaches. They must carry personal power. III. It is not to be thought that this function of the Christian Church has ceased even in liberally educated and cultivated sections of society. Let us look closely and ask, Is the function of the preacher temporary? Will it ever pass away? There is one element belonging distinctively to the preacher which will for ever give him a place and function which can never change: the bringing of the truth home to men in a living form. In the light of this observe the genius and the sphere of preaching--1. From this sphere are excluded largely the higher forms of theological speculation, for it is not possible to bring these home to men in a living way. His distinctive business is to deal with those truths which he can take into his consciousness, and, having given to these a personal expression from himself, send them forth living truths. His proper sphere is ethical truth. That which men most need to know is how to love God and man perfectly. This is his whole duty. To teach this duty is the sphere of the preacher. 2. This includes every condition of mankind. 3. From this it appears that no man is a true preacher whose chief business is the organisation of worship, the conduct of Church affairs, or mere pastoral administration. The true preacher is the utterer of truth. 4. Then as no man can represent in himself every form of the human mind, or have a full conception of all truth, the preacher must necessarily be a partialist. The robin sings as a robin, bluebirds as bluebirds. One man has large power of imagination, another overflowing emotion, &c. All are fragmentary preachers. No man was ever built large enough to preach the whole of God. 5. Pride, vanity, and unspiritual life will effectually prevent the preacher becoming personally, experimentally, a presentation of the truth to the people. (H. W. Beecher.)Preaching I. It has been ordered by Divine wisdom that the gospel should, as much as possible, avail itself of the ordinary channels of communication and influence in spreading through the world. II. The secret of the power of preaching.1. It conveys far better than any other vehicle the affirmation of the whole man--his whole nature, his whole experience--to the matter which he desires to communicate. 2. It brings into play all the affinities, sympathies, and affections of the being, and is therefore a most powerful instrument in arriving at the truth. 3. So much is true of all preaching. But in the preaching of the gospel there is a source of special power--the principle of representation the power and right to speak to men in the name of God. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)Paul’ s preaching 1. Observe, Paul does not say “ we preach Christ” as if the declaration of the personal dignity of the God-man were all. Neither does he emphasise the “ crucified” as if the setting off of the death of Jesus as that of a martyr and for an example were enough. But he combines the two. The dignity of the Christ was needed to give efficacy to the sacrifice on the Cross, and the sacrifice on the Cross was required to complete the work of the Christ. 2. In the prosecution of his work Paul met with three classes, each of which treated his message in a peculiar fashion. The Jew and the Greek, without trying the gospel on themselves, rejected it--the one for its lack of power and the other for its lack of wisdom; but the third class, acting on the only true philosophical principle of proving the matter by personal experiment, found in it both the power of God and the wisdom of God. Nowadays it is sturdily insisted on that nothing shall be received save that which rests on the basis of observation and experiment, but that is all the gospel asks; and here we see that those who reject it are those who refuse to put it to the test. Which of the two classes is the more scientific? The Baconian philosophers should not hesitate as to the reply. Christ crucified is-- I. “ The power of god.”1. Yes, but this power is not physical like the might of an army; nor material, like that which is connected with a development of matter; nor mechanical, as derived from any sort of mechanism, but dynamical, as exerted by spirit upon spirit. It is “ power unto salvation.” It is not therefore to be tested by material gauges, as one measures the pressure on a steam-boiler, or estimates the horse-power of an engine. We are to look for its operation in the human heart. Its trophics are in character, and its results are in life. (1) Take it in the case of an individual, and the transformation wrought on such men as Paul, and Augustine, and John Newton, may well illustrate its reality and efficacy. (2) Take it in the case of communities, and Christianity has either implanted or stimulated regard for the personality of the weakest and the poorest; respect for women; the absolute duty of each member of the fortunate classes to raise the unfortunate; humanity to the child, the prisoner, the stranger, the needy, and even the brute; unceasing opposition to all forms of cruelty; the duty of personal purity; the sacredness of marriage; the necessity of temperance. 2. But are we quite sure that it is “ the power of God” ? Yes, for there are only two spiritual powers in the world--that of evil and that of good. Very evidently, therefore, a result like that of the conversion of a man, and the revolution of society, from evil to good, must be traced up to God. Man cannot do it for himself, for as water cannot rise above its level, so the soul cannot change its nature by its own efforts. And what one man cannot do for himself, the aggregate of men cannot do for the race. They had four thousand years given to them in which to make the experiment, and here (verse 21) is the result. II. “ The wisdom of God.”1. Wisdom is manifested in the choice of such means as are best adapted to the production of the end. The problem to be solved in the salvation of men is, “ How shall a sinner be forgiven without weakening the sanctions of morality and giving encouragement to evil?” Now the race vainly wrestled with that for four millenniums; but the despair of humanity is the opportunity of God, for in “ Christ crucified” we are shown “ a just God and a Saviour.” 2. Wisdom is seen in the securing of different ends by one and the same means. So salvation is not merely forgiveness; it is also regeneration and growth in holiness. Its highest result is character, and the renovation of that is produced by the Holy Ghost. Now the dispensation of the Holy Spirit would have been impossible save for the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross; while, again, the love of Christ, as manifested in His sacrifice on the Cross, is the great means used by the Spirit for the regeneration and sanctification of the believer. Conclusion: From all this four inferences follow. If Christ crucified is the power of God unto salvation, then-- 1. Any sinner may be saved through faith in Him.2. There is no other way of salvation.3. When men are saved through this means the whole glory of their salvation is due to God.4. If we would see such results from our preaching as those which followed Paul’ s, we must preach the same gospel, “ Christ crucified.” This is the gospel for our age, because it is the gospel for all the ages. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)The gospel as preached by Paul I. There is a gospel to be preached. Amid all the diversities of doctrine and ritual there are some things which must be found in all Christian preaching: that Christ alone can save men; that He can save any man and all men; that He saves men completely and for ever. No man can be said to preach the gospel who does not make these thoughts central and controlling. He may preach very important and helpful truth; but until he makes Christ the ground, the motive, and the end of his teaching, he is not a preacher of the gospel. The gospel is good news. It is not the publication of the moral law. It is not telling men what they ought to be and do. The ministry of Christ was not needed to teach that lesson. Conscience proclaims it, and universal experience confirms it. It is not equivalent to the affirmation of the eternal and universal Fatherhood of the Holy One. It implies this, but it is more. That consoling thought is imbedded in the Old Testament. Paul affirmed more than that. In his preaching the person of Christ assumes central and permanent prominence. In Him the law of God is fulfilled and honoured. In Him the love of God leaps from the heavens to the earth links itself with the burden and guilt of humanity, challenges the powers of darkness and the might of death, achieving a practical and eternal victory. Fear rules paganism, hope smiles in the Old Testament, assurance is the ringing keynote of the gospel. So much for the contents of the gospel. It is crowded into this sentence: “ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” II. But does the world need such a message? Can we not get along fairly well without it? That is the very question which Paul discussed in Romans 1:1-32. What does the world need? Righteousness. That secured and the millennium would be there. But the one thing most needed is the thing most difficult to create and promote. It cannot be said that there has been any lack of earnest attempts. Confucius, Sakya-Muni, Zoroaster, and Socrates, tried to supply the want. But the multitudes were deaf to their appeal; and Rome at the zenith of her culture was but a “ veneered brutality.” And mightily endowed as Judiasm was it failed to achieve even its own reformation. The men who boasted in the law trampled upon it every day. A mightier hand than that of Socrates, or of Moses, was needed to save the world. A more than human hand, though nerved by an inspired heart, must smite the ranks of evil. III. But granting that the world needs just the help which the gospel declares has been brought to it. “will even this secure the desired result? To this we can only answer, first, if it does not then God is clearly and hopelessly defeated, for a greater than Christ cannot, come to the rescue; and second, if Christ be what the gospel affirms Him to be, the triumph of righteousness is a foregone conclusion. Hence the tone of victory in the New Testament is always in the present tense. “ Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory.” “ This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” This is our highest assurance. It receives impressive confirmation in the historical triumphs of Christianity. Its moral conquest of the civilisations of Rome and Greece are unquestioned. Its restraining and reorganising energy during the Middle Ages is freely admitted. Its profound and salutary influence upon modern life is beyond cavil; but there is a more direct and living proof of its power. Hundreds among you can bear testimony to the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ. What the gospel has done for you it can do for all. (A. J. F. Behrends, D. D.)The gospel neither ritual nor philosophy I. A large class of minds like to make a superstition out of their religion. Mere words addressed to the understanding and the heart appear too feeble, too immaterial. They long to be set in rapport with the superhuman in some realistic way. Establish some “ sign.” Paul, generalising from what he saw before his eyes, calls this demand of human nature Jewish; but it is common everywhere. It has penetrated every religion from the days of the Chaldeans downwards. One after another Judaism, Buddhism, Parseeism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, have succumbed to this demand for material signs. Each of them has degenerated into a system of ceremonial and stooped to pander to the sensuous taste of its devotees. II. There is in man a tendency, not So widespread, but nobler than the vulgar bent to superstition--after intellectual satisfaction and an exhaustive knowledge of truth.1. No sooner had Christianity appeared than this appetite seized upon it, questioned it, thought to find in it what it had failed to find elsewhere. Generalising, again, Paul termed this the Greek habit of mind. “ The Greek,” he says, “ searches after philosophy” ; but it is as little exclusively Greek as the bias to superstition is exclusively Jewish. In our day it is no less profound, unsuitable, or eager than it ever was. Men claim that it shall be as systematic, exhaustive, and demonstrable as a science; that it shall help to answer the unanswered problems of existence; that it shall abjure all pretensions to be supernatural; that every one of its facts be found explicable on natural grounds; and that its boasted virtue to save shall prove as intelligible as the action of any other truth upon human minds. 2. Follow out this conception of Christianity to its issues, and what have you? Not a genuine revelation from heaven; not the advent of a Divine power to save; but simply some very beautiful and elevating truths, discerned first by a certain Jew of Palestine and by him added to the world’ s treasure-house of thought, yet competing with many discoveries of more modern times. Is it not to some such appraisement of the gospel that a great deal of modern discussion among the learned is tending? Nay, is there not a way of preaching and defending the gospel--such a way as Paul avoided in speculative Corinth--which actually invites men to rate its value as low as this among the rival systems of human wisdom? 3. Against such a misconception of the essence of the gospel, what is St. Paul’ s protest? It is true, he seems to say, the gospel is a rational word, and not a magical rite. It is spoken truth, and it acts, like truth, through the misunderstandings of men. But, for all that, it is not a philosophy. With abstract truth it has little to do; but it proclaims Jesus the Messiah, and proclaims Him as crucified for the sins of men. Its real character is this--it is a, testimony from God which we are not called upon to discuss so much as to credit. It is in this, accordingly, that its power lies. For power it unquestionably possesses. Only not the mere power of wisdom, but the quiet personal power of the Speaker’ s authority and the Speaker’ s love. Speculate about this and it may seem in your sagacious eyes folly. But cease to criticise and be humble enough to believe it, to surrender yourself to Him who speaks; then it will prove itself to be Divinely wise and strong in your experience. It will work in you as no human wisdom works; it will save you as no intellectual system saves. 4. On this side also I think a faithful Church needs just now to speak out in clear tones. It is not the first time in the history of our faith that the gospel has been like to lose its characteristic spirit by evaporation. Treat it as you treat an ordinary system of thought, and you end (as Paul feared to end) by making the Cross of Christ “ of none effect.” You miss its very essence as a gospel. For what makes it to be a gospel? Just this, that it is God’ s own record of His peculiar way of having mercy upon sinners. It is a plain, practical, personal appeal from our reconciling Father to each wandered soul among us; or it is nothing. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)The foolishness of preaching As Paul repudiates the idea that he had given any countenance to the founding of a Pauline party, it occurs to him that some may say, True enough, he did not baptize; but his preaching may more effectually have won partisans than even baptizing them into his own name could have done. And so Paul goes on to show that his preaching was not that of a demagogue or party-leader, but was a bare statement of fact, garnished by absolutely nothing which could divert attention from the fact either to the speaker or to his style. Paul explains to the Corinthians-- I. The style of preaching he had adopted while with them1. His time in Corinth, he assures them, had been spent, not in propagating a system of truth which might have been identified with his name, but in presenting the Cross of Christ. In approaching them he had necessarily weighed in his own mind the comparative merits of various modes of presenting the gospel, and he well knew that a new philosophy clothed in elegant language was likely to secure a number of disciples. And it was quite in Paul’ s power to present the gospel as a philosophy; but he “ determined not to know anything among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 2. Paul then deliberately trusted to the bare statement of facts and not to any theory about these facts. In preaching to audiences with whom the facts are familiar, it is perfectly justifiable to draw inferences from them and to theorise about them. Paul himself spoke “ wisdom among them that were perfect.” But what is to be noted is that for doing the work proper to the gospel, for making men Christians, it is not theory or explanation, but fact, that is effective. It is the presentation of Christ as He is presented in the Gospels which stands in the first rank of efficiency as a means of evangelising the world. The actor does not instruct his audience how they should be affected by the play; he so presents the scene that they instinctively smile or find their eyes fill. Those onlookers at the crucifixion who beat their breasts were not told that they should feel compunction; it was enough that they saw the Crucified. So it is always; it is the direct vision of the Cross, and not anything which is said about it, which is most effective in producing penitence and faith. 3. The very fact that it was a Person, not a system of philosophy, that Paul proclaimed Was sufficient proof that he was not anxious to become the founder of a school or the head of a party. And that which permanently distinguishes Christianity from all philosophies is that it presents to men, not a system of truth to be understood, but a Person to be relied upon. Christianity is for all men and not for the select, highly educated few; and it depends therefore not on exceptional ability to see truth, but on the universal human emotions of love and trust. II. Why he had adopted this style.1. Because God had changed His method (verse 21). (1) Even the wisest of the Greeks had attained only to inadequate and indefinite views of God. To pass even from Plato to the Gospel of John is to pass from darkness to light. Plato philosophises, and a few souls seem for a moment to see things more clearly; Peter preaches, and three thousand souls spring to life. (2) That which, in point of fact, has made God known is the Cross of Christ. No doubt it must have seemed mere lunacy to summon the seeker after God away from the high speculations of Plato to a human form gibbeted on a malefactor’ s cross. None knew better than Paul the infamy attaching to that cursed death, but he knew also its power (verses 22-24). As proof that God was in their midst the Jews required a demonstration of physical power. Even at the last it would have satisfied them had Christ stepped down from the Cross. The Cross seemed to them a confession of weakness, and was a stumbling-block they could not get over. And yet in it was the whole power of God for the salvation of the world. For the power of God that is required to draw men to Himself is not power to alter the course of rivers or change the site of mountains, but power to sympathise, to sacrifice self, to give all for the needs of His creatures. It is this love of God that overpowers men and makes it impossible for them to resist Him. 2. Paul appeals to the elements of which the Church was actually composed. (1) It is plain, he says, that it is not by anything generally esteemed among men that you hold your place in the Church (verse 26). It is not men who by their wisdom find out God and by their nobility of character commend themselves to Him; but it is God who calls men, and the very absence of wisdom and possessions makes men readier to listen to His call (verses 27-29). It is all God’ s doing now; it is “ of Him are ye in Christ Jesus.” Human wisdom had its opportunity and accomplished little; God now by the foolishness of the Cross lifts the despised, &c., to a far higher position than the wise and noble can attain by their might and their wisdom. (2) Paul thus justifies this method by its results. The Cross may seem a most unlikely weapon with which to accomplish great things, but it is God who uses it, and that makes the difference. Hence the emphasis throughout this passage on the agency of God. But for this reason also all ground of boasting is removed from those who are within the Christian Church. (3) In Paul’ s day this argument from the general poverty and insignificance of the members of the Christian Church was readily drawn. Things are changed now; and the Church is filled with the wise, the powerful, the noble. But Paul’ s main proposition remains: whoever is in Christ Jesus is so, not through any wisdom or power of his own, but because God has chosen and called him. And the practical result remains. Let the Christian, while he rejoices in his position, be humble. 3. Paul avers that had he used “ enticing words of man’ s wisdom” the hearers might have been unduly influenced by the mere guise in which the gospel was presented and too little influenced by the essence of it. He feared to adorn the simple tale lest the attention of his audience might be diverted from the substance of his message. He was resolved that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Here again things have changed since Paul’ s day. The assailants of Christianity have put it on its defence, and its apologists have been compelled to show that it is in harmony with the soundest philosophy. It was inevitable that this should be done; but Paul considered that the only sound and trustworthy faith was produced by direct personal contact with the Cross. And this remains for ever true. (M. Dods, D. D.)The true minister of Christ I. His commission. II. His paramount work.1. Not to baptize, much less busy himself with a thousand other things.2. But to preach the gospel. III. His prescribed methods.1. Not with wisdom of words.2. But simply, plainly, pointedly. IV. His motive.1. That nothing might hinder.2. But everything promote the effect of the Cross of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The aim of the ministry In a village church in one of the Tyrolese valleys, we saw upon the pulpit an outstretched arm, carved in wood, the hand of which held forth a cross. We noted the emblem as full of instruction as to what all true ministry should be, and must be--a holding forth of the Cross of Christ to the multitude as the only trust of sinners. Jesus Christ must be set forth evidently crucified among them. Lord, make this the aim and habit of all our ministers. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Lest the Cross of Christ should be made of none effect. The Cross of Christ of none effect I. “ The cross of christ” is an instrument intended and adapted to produce a certain “ effect.” So far as man had to do with it it was intended to abase a prophet whom many honoured, to kill as a malefactor a Man whose great fault was that He had no fault at all. So far as God had to do with it, it was intended to be a Divine force. The Cross of Christ is to be a Divine force with an “ effect” retrospective, aspective, and prospective.1. The Cross fulfilled the first promise; it was the “ good thing” of which the sacrifices were a shadow; it was the event toward which the course of all events had tended. 2. The Cross cast a long, deep shadow upon the Holy Land; its peculiar people; its priesthood, temple, and ritual; a night-of-death shadow to cover a time of change in which old things would pass away and all things become new. 3. The Cross shed light into the darkness of the world, and indicated those stirrings of the Divine mercy which terminated in the proclamation of salvation to the world. As matter of history, since the Cross of Christ has begun to take effect, it has caused religious systems hoary with age, and rooted by ten thousand fibres in the hearts of the people to be laid aside as worn-out garments. It has spread civilisation over many nations; it has been a key to unlock the treasures of all useful knowledge; it has elevated art, widened commerce, removed the fetters from the slave; it has founded hospitals and schools, checked the harsh government of rulers, quelled the anarchy of subjects, restored woman to her primitive position, imparted peace and joy to the home, exalted nations, and is now both the light and leaven of the world. The Cross of Christ alone saves. II. Paul speaks of the cross being “ made of none effect.”1. To make the sun of none effect would send our world back to chaos, but this ruin would be-- 2. Small compared with negativing the Cross of Christ. And Paul tells us that if he had exhibited the Cross with “ wisdom of words,” it would have been powerless in his hands. He cannot mean intelligible and acceptable words; for without such the Cross could not be manifested at all. By “ wisdom of words” is meant the artifices of rhetoric, &c. If the Cross were a jewel to be hoarded and hid I would make its bed in wool; but as it is a gem to be used let me see it as it is. If the Cross were an inferior gem I might add to its worth and beauty by the setting; but as its value is beyond price, let its surroundings be as simple as possible. The question is not, however, one of taste, but of utility. Shall we mingle with our daily bread that which will deprive us of its nutritive effect? 3. The Cross is made of none effect when-- (1) It is made identical with the crucifix, as though the Cross were nothing more than His crucifixion. The crucifix to the vulgar eye puts exclusively forward the bodily sufferings of Christ, and its effect is to bring us into sympathy with them. This is the effect of painting, poetry, and music, when employed upon the same subject. But the Cross of Christ is not an example of suffering merely, but the “ Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world.” (2) False doctrine and speculation concerning it are taught. The effect of the Atonement is in itself, not in its philosophy. And if the attempt at explanation fail, and the philosophy be false, I exhibit a cross framed by my own vain imagination. Then, what have I done? I have led men from living waters to the appearance of a fountain in shining sand. (3) It is exhibited without a personal recognition of its claims. That which you say about it will not be believed unless it appears important and true, and it cannot appear real and momentous except as exhibited in faith. Faith begets faith. (4) Its requirements are multiplied and complicated. It saith, “ Come to Me” ; “ Look to Me” ; “ Believe in Me.” If we surround it with a long and difficult creed; if we clothe it with an elaborate ritual; if we plant it in the shrine of a particular ecclesiastical polity, and require men to come to it, by these we make it of none effect. (5) There is lack of faith in its power. It is impotent in the hand of an unbeliever. Our faith does not affect the value and efficacy of the Cross in the eye of God; but it does in the eye of man. (6) When it is used for objects foreign to itself. Ecclesiastics have used it to satisfy their ungodly ambition; political rulers as an engine of government; private individuals as a, spy in a camp uses the password, and prejudice has been raised against it. Conclusion:1. What is the effect of the Cross of Christ upon yourselves? (1) Child of Christian parents, you have been directed to it ever since your eyes opened to see. Other things have had effect. The scenes of your early life; the books you have read; the companions with whom you associated, &c. And what has been the effect of the Cross of Christ? It has repelled you or attracted you. Repelled you! The magnet of the eternal mercy repelled you! (2) Pupil of a Christian school! (3) Hearer of Christian preaching and possessor of Holy Scripture, unless you are saved by it you will be damned by it. Christian brethren, what is its daily effect upon your hearts and lives? Are you crucified with Christ? Is its effect to captivate your heart; to command your energies; to sanctify your life? 2. What is the effect of the Cross in your hands? We more than fear that Christians and Churches of Christ have done much to make the Cross of Christ of none effect. (S. Martin.)The world’ s greatest blessing and its greatest evil I. The greatest blessing in the world--“ the Cross of Christ.” By “ the Cross of Christ” the apostle did not mean of course the timber on which Christ was crucified, or any imitation of that in wood, &c. He uses the word as a symbol, as we use the words Crown, Court, Bench, &c. He meant the eternal principles of which the Cross of Christ was at once the effect, the evidence, and the expression--i.e., all that we mean by the gospel. And this is the greatest blessing in the world to-day. Look at it 1. As a revealer. All true theological doctrine and ethical science come to us through the Cross. It is the moral light of the world. 2. As an educator. The Cross is to the human soul what the vernal sunbeam is to the seed; it penetrates, warms, quickens, and brings all its latent powers out to perfection. 3. As a deliverer. The Cross bears a pen to cancel the sentence, a balm to heal the wound, a weapon to break the fettering chain. Such, and infinitely more, is the Cross. What would human life be without it? A voyage without a compass, chart, or star. II. The greatest evil in the world. Making this Cross of “ none effect,” i.e., so far as its grand mission is concerned. Some effect it must have; it will deepen the damnation where it does not save. “ We are unto God a sweet savour,” &c. This tremendous evil is--1. Painfully manifest. Intellectually, socially, politically, it has confessedly done wonders for mankind; but morally, how little! How little genuine holiness, disinterested philanthropy, self-sacrificing devotion to truth and God, Christliness of life! 2. Easily explained. The apostle indicates one way, viz., by “ wisdom of words,” i.e., gorgeous rhetoric. The Church has done it by (1) Its theologies. In its name it has propounded dogmas that have clashed with reason and outraged conscience. (2) Its polity. It has sanctioned wars, established hierarchies, which have fattened on the ignorance and poverty of the people. (3) Its spirit. The spirit of the Cross is self-sacrificing love, the spirit of the Church has been to a great extent that of selfishness, greed, ambition, and oppression. Malrepresentation of Christ by the Church is the instrument that has made the Cross of “ none effect.” 3. Terribly criminal. It is wonderful that man has the power thus to pervert Divine institutions and blessings; but such power he has. He forges metals into weapons for murder, he turns breadcorn into liquids to damn the reason and the souls of men. A greater crime you cannot conceive. Were you to turf, all bread into poison, make the flowing rivers pestiferous, quench the light of the sun, mantle the stars in sackcloth, you would not penetrate an evil half so enormous as that of making the Cross of Christ of “ none effect.” Conclusion: 1. What is the spiritual influence of the Cross on us? Has it crucified unto us the world?2. What are we doing with the Cross? Are we abusing it or rightly employing it? (D. Thomas, D. D.)The Cross neutralised by theories about it The force of êåíï̀ò (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:14; Romans 4:14) may be conveyed by the words “ empty of content, unreal, not having objective existence, consisting only of opinions, sentiment speculation.” The Cross of Christ is a real cause in the moral order of things. To substitute a system of notions, however true and ennobling, for the fact of Christ’ s death, is like confounding the theory of gravitation with gravitation itself. (Principal Edwards.)The preaching which the apostle condemns as ineffective I. Scholastic preaching, which--1. Aims only at the intellect, not at the heart.2. Gives no satisfaction on the main point--religion.3. Deals with philosophical speculations which injure rather than edify. II. Rhetorical preaching.1. Which proceeds not from a zeal for the truth, but from a desire to please. 2. This unworthy mode of dealing with Divine truth robs the Cross of its effect, because it diverts the attention from the truth to the speaker and distracts the heart--because it excites a craving for merely intellectual gratification--because the impression produced is referred to the ability of the preacher and not to the truth itself. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.The preaching of the Cross I. Its character.1. Simple in its facts.2. Humiliating in its doctrines.3. Startling in its announcements. II. The result.1. Foolishness to them that perish.2. The power of God unto them that are saved. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The word of the Cross In 1 Corinthians 1:17 Paul had renounced the “ wisdom of words.” It is clear, therefore, that there is an eloquence which would deprive the gospel of its due effect. This “ wisdom of words” --1. Veils the truth which ought to be set forth in the clearest possible manner. 2. Explains the gospel away. It is possible to refine a doctrine till the very soul of it is gone. Under pretence of winning the cultured intellects of the age, it has gradually landed us in a denial of those first principles for which the martyrs died. 3. Is frequently used with the intent of making the gospel appear more beautiful. They would paint the rose and enamel the lily, add whiteness to the snow and brightness to the sun. With their wretched candles they would help us to see the stars. To adorn the Cross is to dishonour it, One of the old masters found that certain vases which he had depicted upon the sacramental table attracted more notice than the Lord Himself, and therefore he struck them out at once: let us do the same whenever anything of ours withdraws the mind from Jesus. 4. Is employed to augment the power of the gospel. Paul says it makes it of none effect (see 1 Corinthians 2:4-5). Having cleared our way of the wisdom of words, we now come to the word of wisdom. I. “ The word of the cross” (R. V.). This is exactly what the gospel is. From which I gather that the Cross--1. Has one uniform teaching. There are not two gospels any more than there are two Gods: there are not two atonements any more than there are two Saviours (1 Corinthians 3:11; Galatians 1:8-9). 2. Is one word in contradistinction from many other words which are constantly being uttered. Christ’ s voice from the Cross is, “ Look unto Me and be ye saved” ; but another voice cries aloud, “ This do and thou shalt live.” The doctrine of salvation by works, or feelings, is not the word of the Cross. Much less is the word of ceremonialism and priestcraft. 3. Should be allowed to speak for itself. It cries, let us hear this word of the Cross, for in effect my text says, “ Let the Cross speak for itself.” (1) God must be just. The Cross thunders more terribly than Sinai against sin. If God smites the perfect One who bears our sin, how will He smite the guilty one who rejects His love? (2) God loves men, and delights in mercy. God commendeth His love to us, &c. (3) The one sacrifice is accepted and the atonement is complete. “ God was in Christ,” &c. (4) Come and welcome! “ Whosoever will,” &c. II. The word of its despisers.1. They call the doctrine of the atonement “ foolishness.” (1) “ Because,” say they, “ see how the common people take it up. Why, the very children are able to believe it.” But are the well-known facts of nature foolishness because they are open to all? Is it quite certain that all the wisdom in the world dwells with the superfine gentlemen who sneer at everything and take in a Review? I wish that their culture had taught them modesty. (2) Because this doctrine of the Cross is not the offspring of reason, but the gift of revelation. All the thinkers of the ages continued to think, but they never invented a plan of salvation. As a thought it originated with the Infinite Mind, and could have originated nowhere else. It is God telling men something which they could not else have known, and this suits not the profound thinkers, who must needs excogitare everything. (3) Because anything which proves a man to be a fool will at once strike men as being very foolish. Our conscience is dull, and therefore we retaliate upon those who tell us unpleasant truth. (4) Because it treats on subjects for which we have no care. If I were able to show how to make unlimited profit, all the world would ‘ listen; but when the sermon is only about the Word of God, and eternity, and the soul, and the blood of Jesus--most people turn on their heel. They call the gospel foolishness because they look after the main chance, and care more for the body than for the soul. (5) Because they regard all the truths with which it deals as insignificant trifles. 2. These gentlemen-- (1) Are not qualified to form a judgment upon the subject. A blind man is no judge of colours, a deaf man of sound, and a man who has never been quickened into spiritual life of spiritual things. (2) Are proofs of their own folly and of the sad results of unbelief. Paul says that such men are perishing. What a calamity! Men who are not living to God are missing the end of their being, and like deserted houses are falling into ruin. Yonder is a tree: around its trunk the ivy has twisted itself, grasping it like a huge python, and crushing it in its folds. Multitudes have about them sins and errors that are eating out their life--they are perishing. Those that believe not in Jesus are drifting towards an immortality of misery; and yet while they perish, they condemn the means of rescue. Fancy drowning mariners mocking at the life boat! Imagine a diseased man ridiculing the only remedy! III. The word of those who believe. What do they say of the Cross? They call it power, the power of God.1. The phenomenon of conversion is a fact. Men and women are totally changed, and the whole manner of their life is altered. The word of the Cross has delivered us from-- (1) The love of sin: no sin is now our master. We fall into sin, but we mourn over it, and hate the sin, and hate ourselves for committing it. (2) From the dread which once held us in bondage, and made us tremble before our Father and our Friend. But now we love Him and delight in Him. (3) From the power of Satan. (4) From self and from the world, and from all things that would enthral us. We are saved. We feel that heaven is born within us--born by the word of the Cross through the Spirit. 2. The power with which God created and sustains the world is no greater than the power with which He made us new men in Christ, and by which He sustains His people under trial; and even the raising of the dead will be no greater display of it than the raising of dead souls out of their spiritual graves. Conclusion: Believe in the power of the Cross for the conversion of those around you. Do not say of any man that he cannot be saved. The blood of Jesus is omnipotent. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Two classes of gospel hearers I. The one is perishing, the other is being saved. The perishing and the saving are gradual.1. There is a class gradually losing sensibility--contracting fresh guilt, &c. They are not damned at once. 2. There is a class gradually being saved. Salvation in its fullest extent is not an instantaneous thing, as some suppose. II. To the one class the gospel is foolishness, to the other the power of God.1. It is foolishness to them that are perishing, because it has no meaning, no reality. 2. It is a Divine power to them that are being saved. Enlightening, renovating, purifying, ennobling. The power of God stands in contrust with mere human philosophy and eloquence. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The dispensation of the gospel and its effects I. Its theme--the Cross. II. Its dispensation by preaching. III. Its reception--1. To them that believe not, both the subject and the means are foolishness, because they humble human pride, discountenance merit, oppose the wisdom of this world. 2. To them that believe it is the power of God in the conscience, the heart, the life. IV. The issue--those perish--these are saved. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel the power of God I. By the “ preaching of the Cross” we understand the preaching of the gospel. There are two circumstances which may have led to the use of this name.1. The apostle did not so preach the gospel as to conceal the Cross. This has sometimes been done. The Roman Catholic missionaries that went out to the East held back the fact that the great Saviour had died in ignominy upon the Cross, and told their hearers only of those facts concerning Him which had a glorious appearance, such as His resurrection and ascension. And the first disciples may have sympathised in such a feeling. The Cross tended to attach dishonour to Christ and to His gospel. But the apostles did not do so; they told the whole story. 2. The crucifixion supplied, and was the whole origin of, the great topics which their preaching of the gospel contained. It would have been nothing for Paul to have preached the resurrection, &c., if he had not preached His death. These facts have no evangelical glory or meaning if you separate them from the Cross. Take away the Cross, and you take away the very life and soul of the gospel itself. II. This gospel is perverted.1. By those who say that it derives its power not so much from the death of Christ, but mainly from His life. Now I do not mean to depreciate the life of Christ, which was superlatively grand and striking in all respects. But the presenting to the world of a life of virtue will not in any degree be influential in its regeneration, and as for presenting an aspect of the benignity of God this is infinitely exceeded in the death of Christ. What Paul preached was not Christ’ s life, but Christ’ s death. 2. By those who say that the death of Christ has an influence, but that it is not an atonement. What is it then? It is a “ way of speaking” ! To this I would say-- (1) If God tells us about an atonement, and there really is none, that is not truth. (2) Unless the Atonement be a fact it cannot be a power. III. The gospel is a power in that it presents a set of topics and considerations intended to work upon men’ s hearts and consciences. If the atoning death of Christ be a fact--1. What a fact must sin itself be! He is God making a vast provision by the humiliating death of His own Son for the expiation of the sin of the world. What a proof it is of the lost state of man! 2. What a fact is God’ s justice! The sinner says, “ Well, I have sinned, but God is merciful.” Well, now, come again with me to the Cross. See a dying Saviour; there is God’ s vengeance against man’ s representative. 3. How great the love of God to a rebellious world. See to what an expense He has gone to save you. 4. What a fact is the foundation of a sinner’ s hope. None need despair; whosoever believeth in Him shall be saved. 5. What a fact is a believer’ s obligation to devotedness and love. If we have been bought at such a price, we are no more our own, but our Purchaser’ s. 6. What a fact is the guarantee of a believer’ s faith! “ He that spared not His own Son,” &c. Conclusion:1. How wonderful it is that God should be pleased thus to deal with men! 2. What a thought it is for ungodly men that there is a Divine power in the gospel, and that in it God puts forth all His powers of persuasion. 3. And it is for us to remember that the gospel is a power for all the exigencies of the Christian life. (J. H. Hinton, M. A.)Salvation and destruction continuous processes A slight variation of rendering, which will be found in the Revised Version, brings out the true meaning of these words. Instead of reading “ them that perish” and “ us which are saved,” we ought to read “ them that are perishing,” and “ us which are being saved.” That is to say, the apostle represents the two contrasted conditions, not so much as fixed states, either present or future, but rather as processes which are going on, and are manifestly, in the present, incomplete. That opens some very solemn and practical considerations. Then I may further note that this antithesis includes the whole of the persons to whom the gospel is preached. In one or other of these two classes they all stand. Further, we have to observe that the consideration which determines the class to which men belong is the attitude which they respectively take to the preaching of the Cross. I. I desire, first, to look at the two contrasted conditions, “ perishing” and “ being saved.” We shall best understand the force of the darker of these two terms if we first ask what is the force of the brighter and more radiant. If we understand what the apostle means by “ saving” and “ salvation,” we shall understand, also, what he means by “ perishing.” If, then, we turn for a moment to Scripture analogy and teaching, we find that well-worn word “ salvation” starts from a double metaphorical meaning. It is used for both being healed or being made safe. In the one sense it is often employed in the gospel narratives of our Lord’ s miracles. It involves the metaphor of a sick man and his cure; in the other it involves the metaphor of a man in peril and his deliverance and security. The sickness of soul and the perils that threaten life flow from the central fact of sin. And salvation consists, negatively, in the sweeping away of all these, whether the sin itself, or the fatal facility with which we yield to it, or the desolation and perversion which it brings into all the faculties and susceptibilities or the perversion of relation to God, and the consequent evils, here and hereafter, which throng around the evil-doer. The sick man is healed, and the man in peril is set in safety. But, besides that, there is a great deal more. The cure is incomplete till the full tide of health follows convalescence. When God saves He does not only bar up the iron gate through which the hosts of evil rush out upon the defenceless soul, but He flings wide the golden gate through which the glad troops of blessings and of graces flock around the delivered spirit, and enrich it with all joys and with all beauties. So the positive side of salvation is the investiture of the saved man with throbbing health through all his veins, and the strength that comes from a Divine life. It is the bestowal upon the delivered man of everything that he needs for blessedness and for duty. This, then, being the one side, what about the other? If salvation be the cure of the sickness, perishing is the fatal end of the unchecked disease. If salvation be the deliverance from the outstretched claws of the harpy evils that crowd about the trembling soul, then perishing is the fixing of their poisoned talons into their prey, and their rending of it into fragments. II. Now note, secondly, the progressiveness of both members of the alternative. All states of heart or mind tend to increase, by the very fact of continuance. Look, then, at this thought of the process by which these two conditions become more and more confirmed and complete. Salvation is a progressive thing. In the New Testament we have that great idea looked at from three points of view. Sometimes it is spoken of as having been accomplished in the past in the case of every believing soul--“ Ye have been saved” is said more than once. Sometimes it is spoken of as being accomplished in the present--“ Ye are saved” is said more than once. And sometimes it is relegated to the future--“ Now is your salvation nearer than when ye believed,” and the like. But there are a number of New Testament passages which coincide with this text in regarding salvation as, not the work of any one moment, but as a continuous operation running through life. As, for instance, “ The Lord added to the Church daily those that were being saved.” By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are being sanctified. So the process of being saved is going on as long as a Christian man lives in this world. Ah I that notion of a progressive salvation, at work in all true Christians, has all but faded away out of the beliefs, as it has all but disappeared from the experience, of hosts of you that call yourselves Christ’ s followers, and are not a bit further on than you were ten years ago; are no more healed of your corruptions (perhaps less, for relapses are dangerous) than you were then. Growing Christians--may I venture to say?--are not the majority of professing Christians. And, on the other side, as certainly, there is progressive deterioration and approximation to disintegration and ruin. I am sure that there are people in this place this morning who were far better, and far happier, when they were poor and young, and could still thrill with generous emotion and tremble at the Word of God, than they are to-day. Now, notice, the apostle treats these two classes as covering the whole ground of the hearers of the Word, and as alternatives. If not in the one class, we are in the other. If you are not more saved, you arc less saved. Further, note what a light such considerations as these, that salvation and perishing are vital processes--“ going on all the time” --throw upon the future. Clearly the two processes are incomplete here. You get the direction of the line, but not its natural termination. And thus a heaven and a hell are demanded by the phenomena of growing goodness and of growing badness which we see round about us. III. And now, lastly, notice the determining attitude to the Cross which settles the class to which we belong. So there are two thoughts suggested which sound as if they were illogically combined, but which yet are both true. It is true that men perish, or are saved, because the Cross is to them respectively “ foolishness,” or “ the power of God.” And the other thing is true, that the Cross is to them “ foolishness,” or “ the power of God,” because respectively they are perishing or being saved. That is not putting the cart before the horse, but both aspects of the truth are true. If you see nothing in Jesus Christ, and His death for us all, except “ foolishness,” something unfit to do you any good, and unnecessary to be taken into account in your lives, that is the condemnation of your eyes, and not of the thing you look at. It a man, gazing on the sun at twelve o’ clock on a June day, says to me, “ It is not bright,” the only thing I have to say to him is, “ Friend, you had better go to an oculist.” And if to us the Cross is “ foolishness,” it is because already a process of “ perishing” has gone so far that it has attacked our capacity of recognising the wisdom and love of God when we see it. But, on the other hand, if we clasp that Cross in simple trust, we find that it is the power which saves us out of all sins, sorrows, and dangers, and “ shall save us,” at last, “ into His heavenly kingdom.” That message leaves no man exactly as it found him. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)The gospel not a wisdom This the apostle demonstrates--1. By the irrational character of the central fact of the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). 2. By the mode of gaining members to, and the composition of the Church (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). 3. By the attitude taken in the midst of them by the preacher of the gospel. (Prof. Godet, D. D.)The triumph of the gospel over the wisdom of this world Look at-- I. The means--the simple preaching of the Cross--which--1. Is foolishness to the wise.2. Yet triumphs over human wisdom.3. Effects what the wisdom of this world has failed to do.4. And in spite of the opposition of the Jew and the philosophy of the Greek demonstrates Christ the wisdom and the power of God. II. The agents--“ not many wise, not many noble are called.”1. God has chosen the most unlikely instrumentalities.2. And made them successful through Christ.3. That no flesh might glory in His presence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The divinity of the gospel is demonstrated-- I. In them that perish--they deem it foolish--yet it confounds their wisdom--succeeds where it has failed. II. In them that are saved--because it conquers their opposition--and becomes in them the power of God and the wisdom of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:19-21 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.True wisdom The discovery of what is true, and the practice of that which is good, are the two most important objects of philosophy. (Voltaire.)Human wisdom I. Its character.1. Presumptuous in its attempts.2. Proud in its assumptions.3. Unsatisfactory in its conclusions. II. Its destruction--effected--1. By time.2. By revelation.3. By the Divine Spirit.4. By the appearing of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The vanity of the wisdom of this world I. God puts it to shame.1. It often blunders in its theories.2. Always in relation to Divine things.3. Generally leads to practical error. II. It has utterly failed to regenerate the world. Instead of mending it it has made worse--witness the philosophy of the Greeks and the “ age of reason.” III. It is fully exposed by Christianity, which--1. Succeeds where it fails.2. Triumphs over it.3. Will ultimately destroy it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel ministry--its superiority over human methods We have here-- I. The inference drawn from the effects of the gospel upon those who had received it.1. It had accomplished that which the wisdom of the world had failed to do (1 Corinthians 1:20-21). The wise, the scribe, the disputer, include respectively the thinker, the writer, and the speaker. Thought and its two mediums of expression were the great agents in the world’ s education, and had succeeded in creating a literature which remains unparalleled. But what had they done towards the regeneration of mankind? Nothing. “ Where is the wise?” &c. In the world of philosophy, of poetry, of art, I can see their work; but in the realm of the spiritual they have left the world as they found it. God turns the tables upon those boastful wise ones. They call His plan “ foolishness,” but its effectiveness proves the folly to be with them. And Christianity is not alone in its frustration of the predictions of the wise. When Fulton constructed a steamship to cross the Atlantic they cried, “ There goes Fulton’ s Folly.” Subsequent history has, however, proved them to be the fools, and Fulton the wise man. So when Christianity was starting on its grand voyage, laden with salvation to a sin-afflicted world, the wise called it “ foolishness.” But how strangely has history proved their own infatuated folly. 2. This glorious result the gospel achieved whilst disregarding men’ s preconceived notions and prejudices (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). The Jews and the Greeks had their own theories of what ought to be the character of any religious message that might be addressed to them. The Jew, from the standpoint of his expectation of an all-conquering political Messiah, heralded by supernatural marvels, looked for a sign. The Greek, from his standpoint of intellectual culture, sought for wisdom. Of these, however, the apostle took no cognisance, but interpreting correctly the spirit of Christianity, boldly preached “ Christ crucified.” There is something sublimely unique and grand in this attitude. Other religions seek to accommodate themselves to the thoughts and ways of those whom they seek to win. II. But notwithstanding its bold defiance of cherished preferences, the gospel, being the power and wisdom of God, supplied in their highest form the very things which its rejectors desiderated.1. It was the “ power,” i.e., the miracle “ of God” corresponding with the “ sign” which the Jews sought. The ordinary operations of nature, though the expressions of His power, yet are never called the “ power of God.” But the gospel is such a transcendent revelation of God’ s love, such an extraordinary interruption of the ordinary course of dealing with sin, that it may well be called a miracle; and its moral effects upon those who come within the scope of its influence are so wonderful, as to render it a moral miracle far beyond any physical miracle. 2. It is “ the wisdom of God.” Wisdom to the Greek meant learning and knowledge, but mostly only ingenuity in the use of dialectics. But that which is deserving of the name is “ the use of the best means for attaining the best ends.” And the Cross proposes the best end within the entire scope of Divine benevolence to conceive of deliverance from sin, and forms the best means for attaining it. III. The gospel exerted such power on the consciences of men because it was divine. If it be foolishness, still it is the foolishness of God; and the foolishness of “ God must be wiser than men. If it be weakness, still it is the weakness of God; and the weakness of God must be stronger than men. Thus is the success of the gospel assured by the simple fact of its relation to God. IV. The thoughts forming the burden of the argument.1. The comparative value of the Cross and human culture in the moral regeneration of men. The apostle shows that it is not a question of degree of efficacy, but of absolute failure in the one case, and of transcendent success in the other. Culture has its mission, and a most important one in its own proper sphere. But the human heart, with its sin and guilt, has needs which the highest culture cannot meet in the remotest degree. The moral history of those communities that have attained to the highest degree of cultivation testifies most unmistakably to this. The only remedy for sin is Christ crucified. The faith of some still is, that “ the sweetness of light,” of intellectual discipline and refinement, will dissipate the gross moral darkness in which men lie. A little of any of the salts of sodium introduced into the flame of a gas lamp gives that flame the power of imparting to every coloured object a greenish yellow tint; but any black in that object remains still black. The sodium flame has no power of affecting this sombre hue. Just so is it with education in relation to sin. 2. The simple method of preaching as against the rhetorical. The apostle sets against the “ wisdom of words,” so esteemed by the Corinthians, his own customary “ plainness of speech.” He seems peculiarly apprehensive lest anything should stand between the truth and the conscience it is intended to influence. The more the mind is charmed by the style of the message, the less likely it is that the conscience will be pricked by its truth. Religion is so much a thing of the heart, that its truths come into the soul much more through spiritual insight and quickened sympathy than by logical processes. At one of the Westminster Industrial Exhibitions a workman exhibited two beautiful metal violins. The highest prize, however, was not awarded to him, for the reason that the instrument made of such material did not realise the purpose of a violin. The superior metal looked pretty, but the coarser material gave forth by far the sweeter sound. So high scholarly attainments may produce sermons, but they will, like the metal violin, fail in their purpose, while the discourses of the less polished preacher give forth music, often more capable of touching the heart. The cultured genius of Milton produced “ Paradise Lost,” but the uncultured mother-wit of Bunyan produced “ The Pilgrim’ s Progress.” The refined acumen of Butler produced the “ Analysis,” but it was the untutored fervour of Whitefield aroused the heart of England from its spiritual torpor. (J. A. Parry.)Where is the wise? where is the scribe?--Where! 1. What have they not attempted?2. What have they not promised?3. What have they achieved?4. How are they brought to nought? (J. Lyth, D. D.)Philosophy and the gospel The “ wise” refers specially to the sages of Greece. They were called at first “ wise men,” and afterwards assumed a more modest title, “ lovers of wisdom,” “ philosophers.” The “ scribe” refers to the learned among the Jews. The appeal of the text, therefore, is to the wisdom or the philosophy of the world, including that of the Greek or Jew. Here we have philosophy-- I. Challenged by the gospel. The apostle here challenges the wise men of the world to accomplish the end which the gospel had in view. That end was the impartation to men of the saving knowledge of God. Where, unaided, had it ever succeeded in accomplishing this? Who amongst the wise will come forward to give one single instance. II. Confounded by the gospel. “ Hath not God made foolish?” &c.1. By doing what philosophy could not. “ The world by wisdom knew not God.” Though the pages of nature lay open to the eye, with God’ s signature in every line, man failed to discover Him (see Romans 1:1-32.). 2. By doing, by the simplest instrumentality, what philosophy could not do. The proclamation of the history of Jesus of Nazareth, and that by a few simple men regarded as the off-scouring of all things, did the work. Hath not God in this way “ made foolish the wisdom of this world?” III. Superseded by the gospel. “ It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” The preaching is not foolish in itself, only in the estimation of the would-be wise men. The great want of men is salvation--the restoration of the soul to the knowledge, the likeness, the fellowship of God. This want philosophy cannot supply, but the gospel does. It has done so, it is doing so, and it will continue to do so. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The coronation of nescience Our vaunted knowledge largely consists of shrewd guesses concerning surface appearances. The last result of culture is the coronation of nescience. Its proudest achievement is fixing the limits of thought. The most sinewy brain cannot scale those adamantine barriers that convert reason’ s highway into a “ no thoroughfare.” (Dr. Howard Duffield.)The failure of worldly philosophy Lessing, after toiling at the task of establishing a morality which should be independent of revelation, confesses his failure in this plaintive cry: “ If any one can convince me that Christianity is true he will confer on me the greatest benefit that one can offer to another.” Insufficiency of philosophy Philosophy, in the night of Paganism, was like the firefly of the tropics making itself visible, but not irradiating the darkness. But Christianity, revealing the sun of righteousness, sheds more than the full sunlight of those tropics on all that we need to see, whether for time or eternity. (Coleridge.)Christ the wisdom of God Justin Martyr wanders in search of the highest wisdom, the knowledge of God. He tries a stoic, who tells him his search is in vain. He turns to a second philosopher, whose mercenary tone quenches any hope of assistance from him. He appeals to a third, who requires the preliminary knowledge of music, astronomy, and geometry. Just think of a soul thirsting after God and pardon and peace being told, You cannot enter the palace and have access to the fountain until you have mastered music, astronomy, and geometry. What a weary climb for most! what a sheer inaccessible precipice for many of us! In his helplessness he applies to a follower of Plato, under whose guidance he does begin to cherish some hope that the road leading to the desired summit may some day be struck. But in a memorable hour, when earnestly groping after the path, he is met by a nameless old man, who discourses to him about Jesus the Christ. Without any more ado, he is at the end of his quest. “ Straightway,” says Justin, “ a flame was kindled in my soul.” Pride, the antagonist of the gospel of Christ I. In the meeting of St. Paul and the old heathendom at Corinth there was everything to stir each to the very inmost of its depths.1. Every element of society here burst, as the whirlwind breaks on the giant of the forest, upon his whole intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature. In no city of the ancient paganism was the spirit of the world stronger. The grand families of the Bacchiadae, and even the descendants of the later dynasties of Cypselus and Periander, with their humanising ancestral recollections, had all perished by the sword of Mummius. A century later the discerning eye of Julius Caesar fixed on Corinth as the site of a colony; and it grew up marked by the unelastic hardness of the old soldier, and the elated baseness of the children of slaves. But, planted where it was, it could not but grow rich and prosperous. New Corinth gathered to itself the traders of the world, who multiplied at once its wickedness and its wealth. Many causes combined to promote the demoralisation of such a society. The wholesome lessons of ordinary labour were untaught within it. The barren soil of the Isthmus discouraged agriculture. Manufacture it had none. Trade, stained deeply by all the pollutions of heathendom, was everything in Corinth. Men met there to grow rich by all means, or to spend their acquired wealth in the most unrestrained sensuality. Religion amongst other powers ministered to their exaltation and amusement. The disputers of this world would speculate on Egyptian mysteries, mock at Jewish superstitions, trifle with Greek mythology, and be learned in Roman auguries. Each man took to himself his share of this distinction, and so believing himself wise, he in very deed became a fool. Into such a society the apostle cast himself with the doctrine of the Cross of Christ. 2. If the meeting moved to its lowest deep his mighty spirit, not less disturbing was it to every existing element of Corinthian society: not greater--if the sinewy arm of their fancied progenitor had cast one of their own hills into the blue waves which slept around their isthmus--not greater would have been the tumult of those riven waves, than was the shock to the moral stagnation of their sensual life by the casting in amongst them of the marvellous doctrine which the apostle preached. We may mark its effects in the brief record of the Acts, and yet more in the two Epistles. In them we may trace the intense sharpness of the gospel conflict with the schismatic habits bred of a fierce democracy, with the gross sensuality of heathen voluptuaries, with the speculating temper of a false and unreal philosophy, with the cold scorn of abundant wealth which shut the rich and noble out of the heavenly election. II. But we may discern throughout the conflict as the foundation and protecting barrier of all, other forms of evil, a self-elating pride.1. With this the apostle not darkly connects an outbreak within the new community of more than Gentile licentiousness; whilst everywhere outside the Church he speaks of it as the most insurmountable hindrance to the reception of the truth. “ Where?” --looking round upon the gathered company with the saddened gaze of that discerning eye--he asks, “ is the wise?” &c. Not one, he intimates, has listened to the gospel call. 2. It is not difficult to see why he thus treated this spirit of pride as his master antagonist. It was not merely because he ever remembered the guilty consequences of his own Jewish haughtiness, or because every circumstance of his own conversion was ever before his eyes; but it was pre-eminently a thorough insight into man’ s nature, and of the relations to it of the gospel which he preached. 3. For that nature does, indeed, bear its witness to the absolute need of humility as a prerequisite to all true learning. He who would learn the common truths of a business or an art, must, if that learning is to be successful, submit to take this posture of humility. As the truths to be mastered become more difficult of discovery, the need of humility increases. Upon almost every matter, some bias, preconception, assumption, troubles the course of discovery; and it needs a great humility of spirit to lay these down, and follow patiently the unlooked-for course. Yet without doing so progress is almost impossible. The history of philosophical discovery strikingly illustrates all this. Of old, man had gazed into the mystery of nature round him, and sought to impose upon it as laws the guesses of his own, often impatient, intellect. He came to it an unhumbled reasoner, and he learned nothing from it. Science was not, until man consented humbly to abandon theories, to be content to accumulate facts, and to let those facts teach him by degrees their often darkly intimated lesson. One of the greatest advancers of physiological knowledge in this land has been known to make ten thousand dissections whilst, setting experiment after experiment aside without gaining the clue he wanted, he followed fact after fact with humble conscientiousness, until at last the revelation which he longed for gladdened his heart. The greatest English discoverer of mathematical science records that he differed from others only in the greater largeness of his patience. Beyond, moreover, the humility of the mere waiting there must be humility in seeing old prepossessions swept away. No physician over forty, when Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, ever received the new-found truth. The sacrifice of old opinions was too severe a trial of the humility of the learner. 4. But if in these comparatively cold and colourless inquiries humility must prepare the learner’ s mind, how vastly greater must be the need of it to him who would receive in their simplicity the secrets of moral and spiritual truth; for against these are arrayed not merely foregone intellectual conclusions, and the impatience which the spirit feels at their removal, and its weary shrinking from the labour of a troublesome and passionless inquiry, but also the restless and impetuous forces of the appetites and particular affections which resent the imposition of a new law of restraint, which is absolutely inconsistent with their habitual or uncontradicted enjoyments. Then the gospel required of men, who proudly deemed themselves the traditional possessors of that wonderful mythology which genius, art, language, scenery, and climate had conspired to make so beautiful, to cast it all aside; to receive, from what they deemed dull Jewish hands, a teaching which trampled on all these wonderful creations of the natural imagination; which, moreover, was not only exclusive, but unspeakably real; which claimed the whole man, his body and mind, his soul and spirit; which was not to be speculated on or disputed about, but was to be lived; which revealed to him such depths of corruption, guilt, and helplessness within himself, that he was altogether hopeless of pardon, unless the Eternal Son had died for him; and powerless for any good, unless the Blessed Spirit breathed into him the breath of a new life. Surely, then, we may see why in rich, self-exalted, trading, sensual Corinth, the preaching of that blessed gospel, in which was all the power of God, must have been “ to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” III. The application of all this to ourselves is a most direct one. We, too, must be converted and become as little children, or we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; and there is much within us and around us leading us to resist the call. The trial is indeed largely various to men of different tempers, but to every one it is real, urgent, inevitable. To one the humiliation lies in the receiving simply the dogmas of the faith as the truth of God, instead of treating them as intellectual playthings, and so dissolving their reality in the fleeting colours of passing speculations, or developing from some supposed internal consciousness their supplements, or corrections, or substitutes. To another the trial is the curbing the appetites of the body and the particular affections of the mind by the law of the new kingdom. To another it is the yielding up the life to the one will of God. To another the receiving in its simplicity the atonement wrought for us by our Master’ s death, and craving meekly for the inpouring of His Spirit. To another it is the being led along, as the apostle speaks, with such lowly things as outward rules and institutions, whether it be of the Church or the particular society into which God’ s providence has cast us. How real is this trial, how inevitable are its issues! Conclusion:1. Seek from God a special gift of His regenerating Spirit, a special sign of predestination unto life. 2. Set ever before your eyes the pattern of our Lord’ s humility. If the pathway be hard, His steps have trodden it. 3. Keep watch over thine heart with diligence and wisdom. Beware of the many wiles of the proud deceiving spirit. Seek to be, not to seem humble, No pride is deadlier in its working than the pride of being humble. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?--The folly of atheism 1. The wisdom of the world and the foolishness of the Cross are represented as rivals engaged in the regeneration of the race. By the “ wisdom of this world” is meant all speculations begotten of antipathy to the conception of God, and intended to supersede its authority, including the labours and the spirit of those who do not like to retain God in their knowledge. Now, in this account of the wisdom of the world we cannot include science, or its discoveries, or literature. The most exalted work of God with which we are acquainted is the human mind. Even in partial eclipse, it is about the brightest of the known creations--and when the Scriptures refer to it it is always in language of respect. It is not intellectual labour honestly pursued, nor the discoveries and conduct which are the prizes of its success, that provoke the denunciations of Scripture. It is the mind that insists upon teaching everybody, but will not condescend to be taught by anybody. It is the mind that pursues as its chief end the distinctions, the worship of inferior minds, and allows itself to be flattered into delusions of greatness and authority until it acknowledges no other God but its own conceit. Now, the Bible has no mercy on men of this class; and for the very plain reason: in every age these men are the enemies of faith; and, whether they allow it or not, they are equally the enemies of morality. They are exposed in every book of the Scriptures. 2. And now let me ask, What is the pre-eminent virtue according to our adversaries, of learning and speculation? The votaries of these powers profess, while they have their accomplishments in refining taste and furnishing elegant occupation for leisure hours, that their chief mission is to raise the standard of life--to encourage its struggles against vice, and indolence, and want; to refine and multiply its fiery motions; to increase personal worth, and fit the entire community for great things. I agree with that. But here I differ from them. The wisdom which would make the human mind, thus cultivated, the ultimate authority on all moral questions, and make the training of the human faculties the source of moral power--has been stultified by God because it has universally failed. In endeavouring to cure the sickness of humanity the wisdom of man has not touched the roots of the disease. It has salved the surface, but never probed the wound. 3. If man were a mere animal we might look for a type of the family which has been formed under the most favourable conditions, and try to spread those conditions abroad. But man is not an animal. I grant that where climate is kind, and territorial selection happy, the tribe becomes a people, and the people a mighty nation. But I deny that this progress necessarily means the distinctive greatness of man. If I look at the Pyramids of Egypt, or the Colosseum at Rome, I see an impressive image of greatness. But, then, greatness itself is really the ascendency of moral intelligence--intelligence that grows righteousness. The wisdom of the world in its higher moods confesses this. But where is the people amongst whom the wisdom of the world has grown to righteousness? I confess that anything more sickly than the history of civilisation--as it is called--I cannot imagine. I visited Italy not long ago and I studied in its noble and pathetic remains the wisdom of Rome. In that city the man who wrote my text spent two years of his life. He was a man of taste, and he saw its beautiful palaces, its exquisite provision for the artificial productions of luxury, its triumphal arches, its amphitheatres, and he read its literature and saw its great men; and this was his opinion of its philosophy, and his analysis of it. “ Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,” &c., and the deeds that philosophy dared not rebuke, and was utterly helpless to arrest, are darkly shadowed forth in another verse, “ Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, for it is a shame to speak of those things that are done of them in secret.” He writes with a large and grateful appreciation of good wherever he may find it. He says, “ Whatsoever things are true,” &c. Oh! ponder the moral condition of Rome when Paul was there--there, where the accomplishments of men--where the wisdom of the world in every department in which that wisdom is concerned--had exhausted its resources, morality was not to be found (see Romans 1:1-32.). 4. At all costs the folly, the wickedness of the atheistic spirit must be made flagrant. And they were made flagrant. The atheistic spirit in the interests of humanity has been from the beginning a universal and an unqualified failure. It has done nothing for humanity; it has left behind it nothing but disaster. It has befooled the worshipper, betrayed the legislator, ruined the people, and but for the fact that God has put a testimony into your very mind to controvert this atheism--a testimony which sceptical habits long continued cannot subdue, which the most violent lusts cannot intimidate, a testimony confirmed by nature around us, and by the striking providence of God--but for that, I believe that the race would have perished outright. The man who impugns my verdict is bound to point out, if he can, in the vast wilderness upon which atheism has been working all these ages past--to point out one single acre reclaimed from the desert and made to blossom like the rose. 5. The apostle cries out with pardonable triumph, “ Where is the wise?” And we may take up the parable, and ask where are they? Where are the problems which they say they have made their own? I will tell you. (1) The problem of the degeneracy of the race and how to arrest it. I wish them well over that. (2) The problem of bringing back the departed manhood of the savage tribes. Let them do their best with that. (3) The problem of invigorating and cleansing the nations of the earth--the stagnant nations of China and India--the problem of providing an adequate supply of knowledge, sympathy, and heart to meet the necessities of the race. These are their problems. They are a long time sitting down before them. Where are the wise to-day? They ought to be in the field if they are sincere. But they do not like the field. They are at home, writing, disputing, criticising! They were doing it in Paul’ s day: they are doing it to-day. It is their vocation! 6. What is the doctrine of the Cross doing to-day? Changing the world. I was thinking the other day whether I could find out one single force acting for the benefit of the human race that had not its origin from the Cross. I cannot find one. Who discovered the interior world of Africa? Missionaries. Who solved the problem of preaching liberty to the women of India? Missionaries and their wives. Who first brought into modern geography the hidden ]ands and rivers of China--unsealed for inspection the scholarship and opened for the enrichment of commerce the greatest empire of the East? Missionaries. Who first dared the cannibal regions, and converted wolves into a nation? Missionaries. To come nearer home. Who are those in Europe who are now lifting up their voices against war, that horrible perversion of the intellect and of the soul of man? Who are devoting their means and influence against vice in the high places and low, and against the infliction of wrong upon the defenceless? Who are those whose example of righteousness and purity and gentleness conforms with their own spirit the legislation of governments and the sentiments of society? The followers of the Nazarene. (E. E. Jenkins, LL. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God.Wisdom and salvation I. Paul meant that men had tried to know God in His wisdom, not in His righteousness, not in His love, and had failed.1. The wisdom of God is revealed in the universe, in man and in history--revealed but hidden. Wise men have endeavoured to construct a philosophy of the universe, and to reach God by reaching His thought as it underlies the universal order. They have not succeeded. In our times the endeavour to master the laws of Nature has achieved a brilliant success; but this is science, not philosophy. Philosophy attempts to discover what lies behind and above all the laws. It asks whence and where the universe came, and is not satisfied with learning its present structure or its history. It attempts to reduce all things to unity--to determine the relation of man to all things, to verify the certainty of the real value of human knowledge, and to discover the truth about destiny. If it had been successful it would have reached the thought of God, and so, in a measure, God Himself. 2. But Paul declares that in this great adventure human wisdom had failed; God, in His wisdom, remained unknown to the wisest. The task of philosophy had proved to be beyond human strength. School after school had risen in Greece, and the supreme question remained unsolved. There was a feeling of exhaustion, and there was a last desperate attempt to reach the object by means of transcendent speculation, ascetic mortification and ecstasy. But Neo-Platonism failed, and ancient philosophy sank in complete exhaustion. 3. The Corinthians, many of them, were seeking God in the old way; and when Paul came, they expected him to satisfy their desire for wisdom and explain everything. When he spoke of Christ, and of His death as a propitiation, they passed at once with a certain impatience from the fact, and wanted some new and deeper speculation about sin, some discussion about the nature of eternal life; some account of the reason why the death of Christ should be connected with these great things. Paul refused to listen to their demands. God had not given him a philosophy to make known to men of intellectual activity, but a series of facts within the reach of the least intelligent. They said, Let us know the philosophy of your message. No, said Paul, for you I have only the fact. You say it explains nothing, and that it is a foolish thing. Granted; but seeing that the world, in its wisdom, knew not God in His wisdom-- III. It was God’ s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believed. Paul does not mean to say that it pleases God to save men by foolish preaching. There is nothing to save men in intellectual feebleness and folly. This Epistle on the very next page says, “ We speak wisdom among the perfect.” When a man has received the Divine life, and that life has reached a certain maturity, he is capable of moving into regions of thought even sublimer than those which are familiar to the loftiest philosophy, and in the light of the Spirit of God the thought of God becomes known to him. But at first, while he is dealing with those who have not yet received Christ, Paul will not theorise or philosophise. It is not the theory that holds the planets in their orbits, but the force which the theory attempts to explain. And if that force ceased to act you might have the most perfect understanding of the theory, but you would all fly off into space. Here are the facts--this is Paul’ s position--resting on the testimony of the apostles; facts which have witnessed their own reality to millions of hearts. The Eternal Son of God became man, died for the sins of men, rose again, and has not forsaken the world that He came to save. How do we know? Why, age after age men have spoken to Him and He has answered; they have brought to Him the burden of guilt, and at the touch of His hand the burden has gone. Weak, in the presence of duty, they have appealed to Him for strength and have become strong. That was the foolishness of Paul’ s preaching, and this has proved to age after age wiser than all the wisdom of man, for through this men have actually found God, and through this they have actually been able to translate the will of God into life and conduct. The Incarnation is the basis of a philosophy of the universe, the death of Christ for sin contains a philosophy of human nature; and of the Divine order of the moral universe, the resurrection of Christ contributes new elements to the philosophy of human life. Yes; on these great facts a majestic philosophy may rest; but between the facts and our philosophy there is a difference as wide as between all other facts and our theories about them; and if you must be persuaded to receive the facts by the theories that are constructed in relation to them, your faith, to use Paul’ s words, will stand in the wisdom of man, and mot in the power of God. We must begin with the facts and pass to the philosophy. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)The insufficiency of worldly wisdom In this verse we have two general parts especially considerable of us. First, the world’ s misimprovement and neglect of the opportunities of knowledge, which sometimes were afforded unto them. Secondly, the supply of this neglect by a new kind of dispensation to them. The former we have in these words, “ the world by wisdom knew not God” ; the latter we have in these: “ After that … it pleased God by the foolishness,” &c. We begin first of all with the former. First, the wisdom of God. What is the meaning of this? The wisdom of God is variously taken in Scripture. First, it is taken for an essential attribute of God (Job 12:13; Proverbs 8:14). But this is not that wisdom which is meant here in this place. Secondly, the wisdom of God is sometimes taken for Christ Himself, who is the wisdom of the Father: thus here in this very text (1 Corinthians 1:24), “ Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Thirdly, the wisdom of God is taken for that wisdom which is in us, participative, and by derivation from God. Thus the wisdom of Solomon is called the wisdom of God (1 Kings 3:28). To Joseph it is said, “ The Spirit of God was in him” in regard of his wisdom (Genesis 41:38-39); and Daniel, it is said of him that he was a man “ in whom the Spirit of the holy gods, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him” (Daniel 5:11). Fourthly, the wisdom of God is sometimes taken for the Scripture and Word of God, as Luke 11:49. Fifthly, the wisdom of God is taken more restrainedly for the doctrine of the gospel, and the great mysteries which are contained in that (1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:10). Lastly, the wisdom of God is taken for the creation of the world; that wisdom which does shine forth in the creature, and the works of God in that respect. And so it is particularly to be understood here in this place. When it is said that “ the world knew not God in the wisdom of God,” the meaning is this, that they did not so improve that advantage for the knowledge of God by the creation, as indeed it became them to do so. This work of the creation is fitly called the wisdom of God, because the wisdom of God does therein very much appear to all such persons as will take notice of it (Romans 1:20; Psalms 104:24). The second is, what is meant by the world. And surely here, as in the first term, was understood the world for the frame of it, so also in this second term is understood the world for the inhabitants of it. That world which is opposed to the Church, these are the world which the apostle Paul points here unto in sundry respects.1. Because they are most of the world in regard of their number.2. Most in the world in regard of their interest.3. Most in regard of their affections. The third is, what is meant by wisdom, “ the world by wisdom” ; surely that is the wisdom of the world, as the other was the wisdom of God. Well, but what now do ye call that here in this place? We may reduce it to two branches, either first of all, the wisdom of parts and natural wit and sagacity; or secondly, the wisdom of study and industry, learning and philosophy; their wisdom which consisted in knowledge of natural things. First, they knew Him confusedly, but not distinctly; they knew Him in the general, but not in reference to the right person. Secondly, they knew God imperfectly, and according to some weak and slender apprehensions which they had of Him in their minds, but they knew Him not in the latitude of those excellences which are to be found in Him. Thirdly, they knew God notionally, and in the speculation; they had some apprehensions of Him in their Understanding. But they did not know Him practically and in the effects, so as this knowledge had any influence upon their hearts for the ordering of their lives and conversations. Fourthly, they knew God essentially, as considered in His own nature, but they knew Him not dispensatively and representatively, as exhibited in Christ. I come now in the next place to the proposition itself thus explained as it lies in the text, that “ in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God,” which affords us this observation, as the moral of all, that the greatest wits of the, world having no more but the common light of nature, are oftentimes exceedingly to seek in the spiritual and saving knowledge of God. And I shall endeavour to make it good by a threefold consideration, and that founded upon the words of the text. First, the insufficiency of the medium, and that is the glory of God shining forth in the creatures, which is here called the wisdom of God. This of itself is insufficient to the producing of such a kind of knowledge as this is. There is not the least spire of grass, but it presents a god to our thoughts, much more the whole body of the creation. This does exhibit God a great deal more fully. But yet God as He is laid open in the gospel, and as He is made known in the preaching of the Word, this the creature does ‘ not show, nor is able to do it. Secondly, from the weakness of the faculty, the world by wisdom knew not God; that is, by its own wisdom, and that wisdom which is within the compass of itself, so it knew Him not. The wisdom of the world is insufficient alone of itself to bring any people to the saving knowledge of God: this is clear out of sundry places of Scripture (Matthew 16:17). So that we see how men may much abound in worldly wisdom, and yet fall short of evangelical knowledge. First, because this mystery of the gospel is a thing which is merely dependent upon the will and counsel of God Himself. Again it is said to be hid in God (Ephesians 3:9), that is, in the secret of His own purpose and eternal counsel. Secondly, as it is hid in God, so it is also hid by God; and that of purpose, oftentimes, from those which are otherwise the wisest men in the world (Matthew 11:25). Thirdly, the world by the strength of natural wisdom is not able to know God in Christ, in regard of the disproportion betwixt the faculty and the object, the knowledge of Christ being of a far different and contrary nature and condition hereunto. We know that no faculty can act beyond its own sphere, nor reach an object which is above itself. As bodily eyes cannot see spiritual substances, no more can wit and natural sagacity be able to reach the knowledge of God in Christ, which is an object transcendent unto it. The improvement of this point to ourselves is not (as some would make it to be) from hence to cast a reproach and disparagement upon wit and human learning. There is a threefold disparagement especially which we do justly cast upon human learning and the wisdom of the world. First, comparative and exclusive, we do disparage it and diminish from it so. Human learning, if we compare it with Divine, and worldly wisdom with the wisdom from above; here it is as good as nothing (Philippians 3:8). Secondly, we do disparage human wisdom, as a ground or argument of pride and boasting and carnal confidence. Thirdly, and more principally to our present purpose, we do disparage human wisdom in reference to such an effect as this, which is to bring those that have it to the saving knowledge of God in Christ. Here the wisdom of the world is too weak, and of small or no effect; it cannot do this. Go to now, let us see then in what sense we do disparage this wisdom of the world; namely, as in another case we seem likewise to disparage good works; this is not simply considered in themselves, but in order to justification and merit. The third is, from the perverseness of the subjects; namely, those persons in which this wisdom was, they did not do their duty to this purpose as they should, and from hence it comes to pass oftentimes that they are as they are. The world by wisdom might have known Him more than they did, if they had given themselves to it. But there was a manifold obstruction upon them, which is a great hindrance hereunto. At first, their non-attendancy, that they did mot heed nor apply their minds to these things. A scholar that looks off his book will never learn his letters, let them be written or printed before him in never so fair and elegant a character. Secondly, it proceeds from idleness and want of taking some pains with ourselves to dive into these things. A scholar must not only read but study, that will improve in any knowledge. A third obstruction to this knowledge is pride and scornfulness of spirit, because men think themselves too good to be taught or learn anything. Well, to close up all now with a brief word of application, let us consider what does result from these truths for our own use. And first let us here take notice of the corrupt nature which is in man, to be abased and humbled for it. Secondly, seeing the world by wisdom knew not God, let us then labour to find somewhat more in us than worldly wisdom. Thirdly, let those who know God and have this worldly wisdom, see what cause they have to bless God and to acknowledge His goodness to them. And again, for those who desire this wisdom, let them learn hence to veil and cover the other, and lay it down in order to the other, where it makes any opposition and resistance. Yet to conclude, let me add one thing more, and that is this, that though human wit does not give grace of itself, yet it does sometimes forward the means of grace, and accordingly is to be improved by us; as the star occasionally led the wise men to Christ. Again, though parts make us not good at first, yet when we are good they are good helps to make us better and more useful in the exercise of piety; and so likewise are we conscionably to use them. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)Philosophy and the gospel I. The failure of philosophy.1. Exhibited in ignorance of God.2. Occasioned by wisdom.3. The conformity with the wisdom of God. II. The success of the gospel. Though the scorn of man it is--1. The salvation of believers.2. The pleasure of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)God’ s plan of salvation a remedy for man’ s ignorance To each man his highest welfare is entrusted as a most solemn charge. The question is, By what method can he obtain salvation? To know what his duties are, he must be acquainted with his Ruler. A true knowledge of God is therefore indispensable. Let us consider the assertions of the text. I. A true knowledge of God not reached by man’ s wisdom. Consider--1. The admissions of the wisest men of old. The lament of Plato was that it was so hard to discover the Father of the universe, and he never seems to have reached the conception of God as a self-conscious, living, personal Being. Socrates deemed it the greatest happiness to know the will of the gods; but how this knowledge was to be obtained he could not say; perhaps by a resort to divination. 2. The low morality of heathenism at its brightest periods. Vices tolerated which now are reprobated. The mythologies are disgraceful. All this shows practical ignorance of God. 3. The assertions of modern philosophy--that it has dislodged theology from its lofty pedestal, and made it only a curious speculation. The world by wisdom now knows not God, nor seems likely to. It refuses the appointed organ of knowledge, and resembles a man attempting to learn the meaning of sounds by the eye instead of the ear. II. God’ s remedy for man’ s ignorance is foolishness in the eyes of the world. The remedy is “ preaching,” including the thing preached and the act of preaching. This preaching is to the wisdom of man foolishness, for--1. It simply states facts, not theories and reasonings. The apostles came simply to “ bear witness” to Christ. 2. It states facts likely to excite contempt. The Jew didn’ t want a suffering Messiah; the Greek could not understand a crucified God, 3. It makes salvation depend on faith, not on wisdom. “ To save them that believe.” III. The conspicuous manifestation afforded of the wisdom of God. Wisdom is discoverable--1. In the whole plan, in that man was first taught his weakness. A wise teacher lets his pupil flounder a little that he may learn a lesson of humility. So the centuries before Christ are a standing rebuke to man, reminding him of his impotence. Hence no flesh can “ glory in the presence of God.” The saint cannot, for all he knows was taught him; the preacher cannot, since the “ treasure” does not depend on the “ earthen vessel” for its value; the facts he has to deliver are successful not from his eloquence, or thought, or exposition. 2. In the plan of proclamation, in that it enables all Christians to be preachers. He has only to testify what he has seen, tasted, and felt. 3. In making salvation depend on faith, in that it makes salvation possible to all. (S. R. Aldridge, B. A.)God’ s interposition for the world I. Its condition--ignorant of God; consequently 1. Alienated.2. Guilty.3. Depraved.4. Miserable. II. Its helplessness--unalleviated by--1. Philosophy.2. Art.3. Legislation.4. Religious systems--infidelity. III. Its belief--by the foolishness of preaching--exemplified in--1. The preacher.2. The subject.3. The condition.4. The result. (J. Burnet.)God’ s procedure with the world I. His wisdom.1. In delaying the revelation of the gospel.2. In affording man ample opportunity to test the insufficiency of reason.3. And by his worldly wisdom to work out his own misery. II. His pleasure.1. In the discovery of His mercy.2. In its free dispensation by the foolishness of preaching--to all that believe. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The world’ s need and God’ s remedy I. The state of the then heathen world.1. It “ knew not God.” It was in no barbarous age that the apostle bore this testimony; but in the evening of the Augustan age, when man’ s intellect had been developed to the utmost. It was not on the Arab’ s tent, nor the Indian’ s wigwam, that these words were inscribed; but it was on the polished marbles of Athens and on the proud walls of imperial Rome. And not only was it of that particular age he spoke; but he seems to look back to the very earliest ages, “ After that,” &c. After four thousand years had rolled by, looking back to the place where science was born and cradled, to Egypt with its reptile gods, to Babylon where science was nourished and cherished, and whither the Grecian sages went to light their lamps. 2. It was in a perishing condition. Men would not have needed to be saved if they were not lost. II. The method of belief which God provided. “ It pleased God.” Here is something in which the Lord delighted. And what was it that “ pleased God” ? It was that which man despised. Beware how you say a word against preaching, and extol or depreciate it in favour of sacraments. But what is this preaching? Heralding, the calling of the rebel to submission, the exhibition of the lawful Sovereign, the proclamation of mercy from the “ King of kings,” &c. And what is the substance of this preaching? Christ, in all the glories of His person; in all the sufficiency of His offices, and in all the riches of His grace. But this is not all. There is peculiar character in this preaching, by the foolishness of preaching the apostle means its simplicity. It is possible so to preach Christ and His gospel as to strip it of its power. Conceal it in the tangled web of human sophistry; garnish it with the flowers of human eloquence; obscure it with the dusky mantle of antiquity; dress it up in the gorgeous dish; and what do you? You destroy its hidden power. You may attract the eye of man from the precious pearl to the gorgeous setting of it; and what do you then? It is “ an uncertain sound” which the trumpet gives, and none will “ prepare them for the battle.” It is only plain, affectionate, scriptural declarations of God’ s truth, unreserved, full, free, from the heart, and in the power and demonstration of the Spirit, that can save them that believe. III. The result of the application of this remedy. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save--whom? all the world? every creature? No; “ them that, believe.” The effect of early evangelising efforts at best what is it? “ And it came to pass, that some believed, and some believed not.” It was nearly three centuries before the civilised world became Christian. But in all cases preaching did “ save them that believed” ; and there is the important truth to fix the mind upon. Look at the converts; whether they were in Jewry, or in Corinth, or in Athens; wherever it might be the effect which followed the preaching of the gospel was the same. “ As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,” &c. Lions became lambs; licentious men pure; impious men became pious. These were the effects which uniformly followed in them that believed. (Dean Close.)Divine wisdom displayed in the gospel I. The christian religion is a supernatural science. “ The world by wisdom knew not God.” Genuine religion is a subject of pure revelation, and cannot be discovered by human reason, in its most perfect state. It “ s a spiritual science, and can only be comprehended by faith, and realised through the operations of the Holy Ghost (2 Corinthians 2:14). II. The gospel is a full development of the method of salvation. “ It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Thus, the gospel is not only a revelation of the scheme of salvation, but also an instrument of its accomplishment in the believer (Romans 1:16). III. The gospel is a glorious display of infinite wisdom. “ In the wisdom of God,” &c. The Divine Being always acts according to infinite wisdom and eternal truth. In the dispensation of grace, the Lord has proposed the best possible ends, and accomplishes them by the best possible means. It is not only a display of the wisdom of God, but is the medium of all Christian knowledge. IV. The gospel is a clear manifestation of Divine benevolence and love. “ It pleased God,” &c. V. The gospel enjoins faith as an essential principle of salvation. “ It pleased God to save them that believe.” (Sketches of Sermon.)Sense, reason, and faith Here we have three kinds of evidence referred to--the sign looked for by the Jews; the philosophy sought after by the Greeks; and the wisdom and power of God. This leads to observations on-- I. The domain of sense. The present age is one in which sense knowledge is unduly exalted. This arises partly from the vast advancement of physical science, and partly from the development of commerce which leaves small time or inclination for the study of spiritual things.1. But sense knowledge is-- (1) Exceedingly limited. We know very little indeed from direct experience; information for the most part is based upon testimony. Even in science the great mass have neither time, means, nor capacity to conduct experiments, and thus to verify the theories they so boldly advocate. We must always believe much more than we can know. (2) Often deceptive. The state of our minds always gives colouring to eternal things. We see in nature just what we bring to nature the capacity for seeing. The same scenery produces very different effects upon different minds, and upon the same mind at different times. (3) Never extends beyond the surface of things. Behind the domain of our experience there lies a whole world of things which we can never cognize with any organ of sense. 2. Christianity is based upon as much sense knowledge as will suffice to prove its truth. Christ’ s resurrection is the greatest fact in history; and at the first its appeal was made directly to the senses. To us it is a matter of testimony; but the testimony is irresistible. If, like the Jew, therefore, we would demand a sign, it is forthcoming. II. The province of reason.1. This province is also very limited. A correct process of ratiocination by no means ensures the accuracy of the conclusion arrived at, for the premises may be incorrect. Butler has well remarked, that “ the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence, with which we are obliged to take up in the daily course of life, is scarcely to be expressed.” Reason, of herself, is incompetent to inform man of some of the most important facts which appear to lie completely in her own domain. She cannot describe the essence either of matter or of mind. The freedom of the will she has proved herself utterly incompetent to deal with. Reason is by no means perfect in her own domain, for-- (1) The knowledge on which the process is based is often too limited. (2) The instruments that are employed are very defective. 2. Man is not left to the guidance of reason alone. Impulse, enthusiasm, feeling, passion, love, and faith are independent of reason, and often lead to higher results. 3. Christianity is supported by reason as far as their powers coincide. The evidences of the Divine authority of Christ’ s religion are conclusive if judged of by reason. Those, therefore, who seek after philosophy, like the Greeks, can find it here. 4. Many Christian truths are higher than reason, but not opposed to it. Christianity leads into a region where reason cannot follow. There are mysteries in religion, as there are also in nature. Man is surrounded by mystery, and is himself the greatest mystery of all. And mystery deepens as knowledge increases. III. The region of faith. This belongs peculiarly to religion. Here we can discuss the conscience, the soul, and man’ s relation to God. Reason might discover the existence of Deity, but it could never tell us of His relationship, to man. Modern science puts God, when it admits Him, at the end of the universe. Revelation places Him at the beginning. Scientific men do not hesitate again to proclaim the unknown God, thus taking us back two thousand years in history. There is a tendency in this age to decry faith, yet society could not exist a week without it. Christ is described as--1. The wisdom of God. Everything seen in His light is clear. By Him we read the riddle of the universe. The purpose of God in creation is seen in Him, and nowhere else. 2. The power of God. His influence on the ages is greater than that of all other systems combined. And He alone can save the soul. 3. Christ is the “ wisdom of God and the power of God” only to those who believe. They become one with Him, and receive out of the fulness of His grace. (G. Sexton, LL. D.)It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.-- The foolishness of preaching God’ s “ folly” is the highest wisdom; man’ s highest “ wisdom” is but folly. The foolishness of preaching is here contrasted with the wisdom of human teaching. I. Wherein does the “ foolishness of preaching” consist?1. God chooses and uses the simplest means to save men, which human philosophers would have scorned. It is the proclamation of a message. God’ s plan is, first of all, to tell men the good news of a free, full salvation. After they have believed and accepted the gift of God, they are to be taught more fully the whole range of Christ’ s commands. But, at the beginning, it is only pointing to the Lamb of God, and crying, Behold! 2. God takes the most humble and unlettered believers as His heralds. 3. God makes no heavy demands on the souls to whom the gospel comes. It is only “ Hear, believe, confess.” Salvation is thus put within reach of all--even the feeblest mind and greatest sinner (Romans 10:1-21.). II. In employing this method--1. God discarded the aid of all human wisdom in saving men: “ Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” Not a feature of His redemptive plan was borrowed from the philosophies of men. The utter failure of human philosophy is one of the marked facts of history. It culminated in Pantheism, Atheism, Materialism, Rationalism, Agnosticism, or in a refined selfishness, like Stoicism and Epieureanism. God not only discarded, but contradicted, the teachings of man’ s philosophy. (1) He presented Divine thoughts far above the thoughts of man; mysteries above comprehension, though not above apprehension; things too high and lofty for human wisdom to grasp, and which the natural man could not receive. (2) He dared to present paradoxes, apparent contradictions, irreconcilable by man’ s philosophy, such as the union of two natures in one person in the God-man; the union of three persons in one God; the doctrines of Divine sovereignty and human free-agency, an unchangeable God and yet prevailing prayer, &c. (3) The whole philosophy of redemption, of sin and its desert, the law and its demands, salvation by vicarious suffering, &c., is above the reason of man to devise, or even explore. Into it even the angels desire to look. 2. God discarded all human merit. The gospel not only humbles the proud intellect, but the prouder heart. A free salvation is the “ offence of the Cross?’ III. In all this the wisdom of god appears. For--1. God makes it possible for all sinners to be saved. Whoever can sin can understand salvation. All philosophies were addressed to an elect few: witness Plato’ s few disciples, and Pythagoras, with his exoteric and esoteric schools. 2. God makes possible for all believers to be preachers of the gospel and winners of souls. 3. God abolishes invidious distinctions between sinners and believers. All are on a level, as guilty, condemned, and helpless; all on a level, as saved by grace without works. 4. God presents a faith so grandly superior to all human teaching that there is no risk of confounding it with man’ s philosophy, or mistaking it for a human invention. 5. God reserves to Himself all the glory. Man has no ground for boasting or self-complacency, &c. 6. God teaches men implicit submission and obedience. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)The wisdom of God by preaching First, the order of working, After that, &c. Secondly, the affection to the work, “ It pleased God.” Thirdly, the means by which the work is wrought, “ the foolishness of preaching” ; and fourthly, the work or design itself, “ To save them that believe.” We begin with the first, viz., the order of working, “ After that,” where we must note that this word “ after,” it carries a double force and emphasis with it, either first of all as a restraining word; “ after,” that is, not before: or secondly, as a resolving word, “ after,” i.e., to be sure then. First, take it in the restraining sense. First, that so by this means He might the more fully and palpably convince the world of their neglect; let them first alone and see what they will do of their own accord, and then come in upon their miscarriage. Secondly, that He might the more discover the insufficiency of mere natural and carnal wisdom, which did not yet reach to the knowledge of God. Thirdly, that He might gain to Himself the greater glory. He that does anything after another which misses, he has from hence so much the more honour to himself; especially if he that misses be one that pretends to any great matters, as here it was. The second is the affection to the work, “ It pleased God.” And this again carries a twofold intimation in it. First, it is a word of freedom and spontaneity, it pleased God, that is, He did it of His own accord and inclination, being not moved thereunto by anything out of Himself. Secondly, it is a word of delight and complacency, “ it pleased God,” that is, it was very acceptable to Him; He took a great deal of pleasure and contentment and satisfaction in the doing of it, as in nothing more. The third is the means by which the work is wrought, and that is here expressed to us to be by the foolishness of preaching. Where again there are two particulars considerable of us. First, the means itself considered in its own nature, and that is preaching, by preaching to save believers. Secondly, the qualification of this means as the denomination which is put upon it, and that is mean and contemptible. It is here called the foolishness of preaching. We will begin first of all with the second, to wit, the means in its denomination, the foolishness of preaching, blot as it is, indeed, but as it is rather in men’ s apprehension. Now there is a double account which may be given hereof unto us. First, occasionally from others in regard of their carriage: for truly as many men order the business, it is the foolishness of preaching indeed; there are some kind of persons in the world which have a great deal to answer to God for the offence which they give in this respect, and the scandal and ill report which they bring upon God’ s own ordinance by their unworthy managing of it. But then again secondly, there is an occasion given to think preaching foolishness from too much niceness and affectation. When we shall make preaching a mere business of wit, and a thing to tickle the fancy, an airy and empty discourse, carried with some high-flown language, but never touching or coming near the heart, nor uttering anything which may be profitable to the soul. Secondly, originally from themselves in regard of their own perverse reasonings. And here there are sundry things which they falsely reason upon. At first, they think meanly of preaching, from the nature and condition of the instruments which are employed and improved in it; poor, frail, and weak men like themselves. If an angel might be the dispenser of it, then it may be they would have some high thoughts of it. Secondly, in regard of the matter of it, and the subject which it is conversant about. And that is, Christ crucified, this is the foolishness of preaching, that is not only the ordinance, but the doctrine; and not only the preaching, but the thing preached about. And so not only in the narrative, but in the hortatory part of it; when it persuades men to deny themselves, to cross their sweetest lusts. Thirdly, in regard of the manner of it, and way of proceeding in it. That it comes not so much with reason and demonstration, as rather simple propositions. Fourth, from defect mingled with pride. And so much of that first, viz., the denomination of the ordinance, as it is here styled, the foolishness of preaching. The second is the means and ordinance itself simply considered, and that is preaching; this is the means of working salvation; God saves believers by preaching. First, by preaching He makes them believers; and then being believers, He bestows salvation upon them. This is the order and method that God uses. That poor and mean ordinance which the world thinks so scornfully of, and counts no better than foolishness; yet it has this excellency that it is a means to bring men to heaven; and God is pleased to use it to this purpose. If it be foolishness, it is a saving foolishness, and that’ s a great deal better than a destructive wisdom. For the better handling of this present point, there are two particulars which may here profitably be considered by us. For the first, what preaching is: it is not merely to speak somewhat of religion, to make a rambling and roving discourse, and nothing to the purpose. But preaching is a ministerial and authoritative improvement of the truths and doctrines of the Scriptures, to the good and benefit of men’ s souls, and the procurement of their eternal salvation. The showing men of their misery by nature, and the benefit which they may have by Christ, with the appurtenances thereunto, this in a word is preaching, blow further, for the efficacy of this ordinance, and whence it comes to be thus powerful, this is merely from the ordinance of God. As it is His institution who has ordained and appointed it to be so. “ It pleased Him,” there is an account of the business indeed. Alas! preaching considered in itself is a poor and empty voice, and were able to do no great matter at all. It is not the gifts of the preacher, it is not the nature of the argument, it is not the strength of the matter, it is not the sweetness of the expression, it is none of all these things in themselves which makes preaching so powerful a conveyance; no, but the ordinance of God which has appointed to work by these means, and the Spirit of God who is pleased to concur with it in working. The improvement of this point to ourselves for application may be twofold. First, as it concerns ministers, there is a very good item for them to quicken us and encourage us in our work, and the conscionable discharge of it without fainting and giving out. Again, let us also hence learn so much the more faithfully to discharge, and make that our chief end in undertaking it, which was God’ s chief end in ordaining it. Secondly, here is somewhat also for the people, and that is so much the more carefully to attend upon this ordinance of preaching, and to take heed of the despising of it as a weak and foolish thing; they which despise preaching, they do in effect despise believing. And further let this teach us with what affections to come to the ordinances, the preaching and hearing of the Word, namely, as those which expect and desire salvation from it as the end whereunto it is intended. Let us not come to a sermon as to a prize, or a mere trial of wits. Now the fourth is the work or design itself which we have in the last words--“ To save them that believe.” Where among many other things which might be profitably observed by us concerning salvation, in the nature of it, and the causes of it, and the means of it, and the like, I shall at this time only fasten upon that which is here especially presented unto us, and that is the subjects of it--believers. And here there are two things again which this restraint does extend itself to. First, here is a restraint of the benefit of preaching to faith. And secondly, here is a restraint of the benefit of salvation to faith. There are none which have benefit by preaching any further than they believe; and there are none which do partake of salvation, but those only which do believe neither. And for saving faith has it here attributed to itself. First, as the radical and fundamental grace, and that which puts a life and vigour into all the rest. Secondly, faith has it attributed to it, because it is that whereby we please God (Hebrews 6:6). Thirdly, it is faith which lays hold upon Christ, who is the Author of eternal salvation (Galatians 2:20). Fourthly, it is faith which gives most glory to God (Romans 4:20; 2 Thessalonians 1:10). Fifthly, faith is that which does most conquer temptations, and subdue all the enemies of our salvation (Ephesians 6:16). Lastly, faith is said to save as the condition which God requires and will have in them which shall be saved; and this were enough, though nothing else, to give account of it. In all these respects is salvation attributed hereunto. But what is this faith which we speak of all this while, and wherein does it consist? Sure it is not a mere assent to the truth revealed; though that be somewhat which belongs thereunto, yet this is not all. But saving faith is quieting faith too: “ Being justified by faith, we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1-21.). For the rise of faith, it comes by preaching, and is suitable to the doctrine of the Word. Those who contemn the ordinance, they have none of the grace. For the fruits of it, it works by love.1. It makes us afraid to displease God.2. It makes us courageous for God.3. It makes us love the children of God.4. It quite changes and alters our converse from evil to good. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)The foolishness and excellence of preaching God frequently employs instrumentality in the accomplishment of His purposes so inadequate, as to make it manifest that the excellency of the power is of Himself. It was before the blast of rams’ horns that the walls of Jericho fell down, &c.; and it is by the foolishness of preaching that souls are saved. Note-- I. The apparent foolishness of preaching.1. How inadequate is the means itself to accomplish much! How little has human eloquence been able in other fields to achieve? True; once an orator’ s audience, wrought up by his invective, exclaimed, “ Let us march against our foe!” But that effect soon passed away. And in the ordinary intercourse of mankind; look at the effect of mere persuasion, when it comes in collision with men’ s passions, interests, and tastes. 2. But the inadequacy of the instrumentality will be still more apparent when we remember that the first preachers of the gospel were not highly gifted, and had no advantage of rank, or influence. They were unlettered fishermen, who had no excellency of speech; and taking the mass of ministers in all ages, how few have had any pretensions to transcendant powers of persuasion! 3. But if we pass on to regard the grand theme of preaching the foolishness of preaching will be still more obvious. The Cross of Christ has ever been to the Jew a stumbling-block and to the Greek foolishness. 4. And yet more will the foolishness of preaching strike us if we regard how contrary to the natural bias is that effect at which preaching aims. It aims at getting men to “ deny themselves,” to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts; to live for eternity and not for time. II. Its real wisdom and excellency.1. It is an ordinance of Almighty God. Judaism was propagated by ceremonies and types; false religions have usually been propagated by the sword; but it is the preeminent peculiarity of the religion of Jesus, that by the simple appeal of truth to the conscience and the heart, it has its potency and its triumph. Omniscience could only devise, and infinite grace must have prompted the best of all machinery. 2. It is the ministration of the Spirit of God. We are under the dispensation of the Spirit, and the Spirit communicates Himself mainly and most frequently through preaching. 3. The theme at which the Jews stumbled, and which the Greeks esteemed foolishness is to them that are called “ Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 4. It is attended with great and gracious results. Why are we not gathered, as our forefathers were, under the oak-tree, to go through our dark orgies of impiety and blood? Why have we the arts, and sciences, and literature, and all that marks out a civilised people? These are the external triumphs of Christianity. But they are nothing compared with its internal, its everlasting triumphs. What multitudes has it made to pass from death to life, from darkness to light, from the bondage of Satan, to the glorious liberty of the Son of God. Conclusion: If, on the one hand, preaching appears so foolish, and, on the other, it is so wise and powerful--1. Do not fall into the false notion of the day, that education is to be the grand regenerator of mankind. 2. How faulty must many of you be when you go to hear the preaching of the Word much as the world goes to the theatre; when you go to hear the words of man instead of the Word of God. 3. How much does it behove the Christians of this country to multiply that machinery which is God’ s great ordinance, to promote that righteousness which exalteth a nation. (Canon Stowell.)The preaching of the gospel The chief means by which the blessings of this revelation have been communicated to mankind, is the preaching of the Word--a means of instruction which, in the time of St. Paul, was in a great measure new to the world. It had been employed, indeed, in the Jewish synagogue, at the reading of the law and the prophets; but that employment of it was very limited, both in respect of the subjects which it embraced, and of the persons to whom it was addressed: and throughout the whole extent of the heathen nations, the practice was altogether unknown. In Greece, by far the most celebrated of these nations for learning and refinement, there were magnificent temples, in which many splendid ceremonies were observed in honour of the gods, and a variety of officers consecrated to the services of devotion; but there was no institution like that of preaching, for explaining to the people the principles of their religious system. Hence, when the apostles of Christ went forth preaching the kingdom of God, and unfolding clearly its doctrines and its objects, their plan of conduct excited surprise. By the Greeks in particular it was derided as foolishness--as a scheme of reformation unskilfully devised, and on account of the simplicity and weakness of those who engaged in it, incapable of answering any valuable end. I. The preaching of the gospel has contributed in a remarkable degree to improve the intellectual capacities of human nature, and to disseminate, through a wider sphere, the principles of useful knowledge. It threw into the circulation of human thought a new stock of most interesting principles--principles well established themselves, fruitful in important consequences, and fitted to exercise all the higher faculties of the understanding. It trained a numerous order of men, and forced them, by the very nature of their employment, to cultivate their intellectual talents, to cherish habits of regular thought, and to study the most effectual method of elucidating and confirming the doctrines which they taught. This order of men it mingled with the mass of the people, and placed them in a situation, where their example and instructions could not fail to draw forth and improve the reasoning powers of their hearers. This institution furnishes, besides-- II. A rich inexhaustible treasure of consolation to every individual who employs it with proper dispositions. Numerous are the evils to which we are subjected in the course of our earthly pilgrimage. In the sanctuary of God we see the plan of Providence unveiled, and, through the ministry of the Word, discover order and beauty rising from the darkness. The train of thought which is there presented to us, and rendered habitual by its frequent recurrence, has a direct and powerful tendency to calm the agitations of a troubled heart, and to re-establish our confidence in God. We there learn that God is good to all; that, through Christ, He is reconcilable even to the guilty; that His government of the universe is free from defect; that the apparent disorder around us is essential to the nature of our probationary state, and productive of good; that even afflictions are frequently messengers of His love. But the doctrines which the preaching of the gospel preserves, and diffuses through all orders of the people, tend not only to enlighten the understandings of men and to alleviate the ills of life. They are also-- III. Powerful means of our moral improvement. The system of duty which the gospel contains is most perfect in itself, and most wisely adapted to the exigencies of human nature. It reaches to the thoughts and intents of the heart; it prescribes with a minuteness and accuracy which leaves no room for misconception, the conduct proper for all the situations in which we may be called to act; and it enforces its precepts by motives the most awful and the most interesting which can operate on the mind. (James Finlayson, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. Christianity viewed in three aspects I. As associated with a great fact. “ Christ crucified.” This maybe looked at--1. Historically. As an historical fact it is the most-- (1) Famous.(2) Influential.(3) Best authenticated. 2. Theologically (1) It unfolds the Divine, and is a mighty expression of God’ s idea, government, and heart. 3. Morally. It is fraught with suggestion the most-- (1) Quickening.(2) Elevating.(3) Sanctifying. II. As associated with popular opinion. It had not sufficient of the gorgeous philosophical ritualism for the speculative and pedantic Greek, nor sufficient of the gorgeous religious ritualism for the sensuous and bigoted Jew. And now to millions it is nothing. To the sceptic it is a fable; to the formalist a creed or a ceremony. III. As associated with Christian consciousness. “ But unto them that are called,” &c. The Christian sees the highest wisdom in a system which, in saving a sinner--1. Manifests the righteousness of an insulted sovereign.2. Augments the influence of moral government.3. Maintains intact all the principles of moral freedom.4. Develops, strengthens, and perfects all the powers of the soul. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Jew, Greek, and Christian The Christian of to-day can but ill-understand the Christian of the year 50. Perhaps if he did, he might feel much more as did the Greek or the Jew, than as did the Christian.1. Think of Paul in Corinth. (1) The city was full of Jews, base sometimes, and poor, doing meanest work; rich sometimes, and able to play as it profited him most. (2) There, too, was the Greek, argumentative in his very commerce, and beating out all questions connected with the principles and profits of trade. (3) There, too, was the Roman, thinking the world had been made to be conquered, and he the conqueror of the world. (4) And Paul preached, and the Jew hated and despised; the Greek smiled in his large disdain; the Roman tolerated in his proud indifference; and you might have seen him some evening stealing along the quay, the mean-looking little Hebrew, who still could not be conquered, but resolved that his gospel should conquer men, finding entrance by a main stair to a meaner upper room, where the slave set free for an hour by his master, or the wharfinger escaping from loading and unloading his ship, or, the porter seeking relief from his weary burden by day, met with their small offerings to hear the preacher, great, in spite of his meanness, in dignity and in power. Had Peter gone to Corinth, Peter would have preached and hardly known, and less cared, how people thought and what they felt; but the keen, creative spirit of Paul could insert itself into the brain of the Roman, and look through his eyes; into the intellect of the Greek, and judge with his cynicism; into the imagination of the Hebrew, and feel with his heart, dream with his fancy. 2. Here you have the reminiscence of the older time, and that reminiscence comes out in three series of antitheses. (1) There are three typical persons--the Jew, the Greek, the Christian. (2) The three typical persons have three characteristic quests. The Jew requires a sign, the Greek wisdom, the Christian preaches Christ. (3) There are three typical attitudes of the one subject. Christ is to the Jew a stumbling-block, to the Greek foolishness, to the Christian the power and the wisdom of God. What the Jew demanded was a vision of power; what the Greek sought was a source of wisdom; what the Christian found `was power and wisdom in one. Look, then, at these three persons, with their characteristic quests and attitudes. They are old, they are new; they belong to nineteen centuries distant, they live to-day. I. The Jew. Illustrious was his ancestry, and he could feel that he was in the face of people that were of yesterday and of earth, while he was of eternity and of God. His founder was Abraham, friend of God, greatest of faithful men; his lawgiver was Moses, author of a law straight come from God. The literature of Greece and Rome was of the earth; his was a book God made. Nay, they worshipped idols; he worshipped the one Creator. And so, proud man was the Jew, proudest for this reason--he owned God rather than God owned him. He so owned God, that he determined the very terms on which God was to be held and known by other men. And so he said, when he stood before the new gospel, “ Show me a sign” : but by the very terms no miracle was possible. The Jew said, “ I am God’ s great work; a greater than I is not in the world: I am the sign; show me a greater.”2. Ah, Jew! if thou hadst been able to see the Christ, thou hadst seen a greater. Think of Him; child He is of thine own proud race, yet lowly in heart, giving rest unto the soul, Thou hast cause for pride, O Jew! yet greater still for humiliation. Out of thy loins He sprung; yet for Him thou only hadst the Cross. See how He “ broke His birth’ s invidious bar” ; see how, breaking it, He became no local, narrow Jew, but Son of Man, yet Son of God. See how, through Him, God became the new Being for man--Father. He stands manifest God, witness to this--that man’ s sin is God’ s sorrow, man’ s saving God’ s suffering. From millions the cry has risen for the Father. Out of heaven the Father stoops to seek the sons. Here, through His Son, he comes to create a great family of God, and a Greek and Jew become brothers; Roman forgets empire and Hindoo colour; negro loses slavery, male ceases to be man, female ceases to be woman--all become one in Christ. Miracle ye claim and seek, O Jew! to you a miracle I bring! II. The greek.1. He, too, had his illustrious ancestry. He made this great discovery: freedom, manhood through freedom. Read the inscriptions of Assyrian kings that tell you how they vanquished empires, but tell you not of the armies they lost and the armies they destroyed without pity or regret. Read the records of Egyptian monuments, and they will tell how a great king, to preserve his very dust, builds a mighty pyramid, throwing thousands of men away in the building of it. The Greek, in creating a free state, created the very idea of manhood. Man free is man reasonable, ordered, a social, joyous, complete life. He, too, discovered for all time art and beauty. Take those colossal figures standing by the Nile--cold, impassive; take those great Assyrian monarchs--massive, insensible to pity, sensible only of power; or look at the Hindoo, with his god--many-headed, many-armed, many-breasted, hideous symbol of a race without beauty; take the Greek discovering the human form is Divine. Can you tell hew much the good man owes to the race that discovered beauty in men? Look at poetry. Pithy speech for deepest emotion. Think, too, what philosophy means--the passion for the true, the search for the good. We owe that to the Greek; but when you spoke to him of Christ, he turned away and said, “ Where is the wisdom? He is a barbarian, and uses speech that cannot with grace or truth be called language. Think of Him, too, as your later artist pictured Him, crowned with thorns. We love the gracious and we love the great; we love not this.” 2. But, O Greek! hast thou thought of the meaning of that Christ? You love freedom--you made it; but see how you bind man still in passion that makes him a very slave. This Christ can take the man bound in the bondage of sin, make him a free man who loves the law of God and loves to obey it, and make him a citizen of an eternal kingdom. You made art; hut think of the beauty that is in Christ--how radiant the goodness that makes Him alone “ the altogether lovely.” He creates the rarer art of holy being, of holy living. You think your poetry is great; but, see, He has made all time, all the universe--nay, the very eternity itself, poetical. Has He not filled every life that is lived with poetic meaning, by bringing Deity into humanity, by lifting humanity into Deity. And is it thy wisdom, O Greek! that thou lovest? See, then, in this Christ is the great mystery of being--God that made the world, the end to which God made it, the means by which He is to reach His end, the glorious method by which the scattered and multitudinous creatures who have estranged themselves from Him may yet, through holy concord, and beautiful love, and perfect devotion, be brought into a saved society in Him. O Greek! in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge; in Him thou hast all things. III. The Christian. It is said, “ If thou wouldst know a poet, go and live in the poet’ s land.” So, if you would know Christ, make your appeal to Christian experience. Two things are in Him--power, casual, creative; wisdom, adaptive, constructive. Christ brings to the re-making of men power that can take the lost and re-make it until it becomes the holiest; wisdom to take what He has re-made, and shape, develop, guide it, until its early promise becomes richest performance. There is power in Christ, for He is able to save to the uttermost; there is wisdom in Christ, for Christ can sanctify what He has saved. Now you are face to face with the evil and the need of men; what other way can you cure it? You may call to your aid philosophy. Philosophy will make a select and cultured class, scornful of the multitude, and growing cynical through the sense of its own pre-eminence. Call in social theory, that argues that new conditions must be created that men may be made happy and perfect. You may invoke the Act of Parliament; and yet all these together fail to do that which Christ has achieved. (A. M. Fairbairn, D. D.)Offensiveness of the gospel to human pride 1. It comes in the form of preaching, and offers its blessings only to faith. 2. It describes the crucified Jesus as the power and wisdom of God. 3. It pronounces all this, which seems to men to be folly and weakness, to be wiser and stronger than all the wisdom and power of the world. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The causes of the rejection of the gospel I. The Jewish craving for--1. The ostentatious.2. The miraculous. II. The gentile love for--1. The intellectual.2. The aesthetic. III. In both the pride that will not submit to the simplicity of faith. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel and its opponents Observe-- I. The great hindrances of the gospel in apostolic times.1. Jewish prejudice.2. Gentile philosophy. II. These are general types of human error--e.g., Pharisaism and Sadduceeism; Epicureanism and Stoicism; Ritualism and Rationalism; self-righteousness and self-conceit. III. Their utter incompatibility with the gospel.1. The gospel requires humility; these are the offspring of pride.2. The gospel insists on faith. These demand demonstration. (J. Lyth, D. D.)How the gospel triumphed I. Its theme. Christ crucified. His Divinity, sacrifice, offices, redeeming power, universal government. II. Its difficulties.1. Jewish prejudice.2. Gentile wisdom. III. Its triumphs in them which are called, 1. Christ the power of God-- (1) Surmounting difficulties.(2) Providing means--His Atonement, Word, Spirit.(3) Determining conditions.(4) Counteracting human depravity.(5) Choosing instruments.(6) Exposing error and sin. 2. Christ the power of God in-- (1) The Incarnation.(2) The application of the gospel.(3) Its successes.(4) Its results. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The Jews require a sign, the Greeks seek wisdom In this verse the apostle illustrates and confirms that expression which had passed from him in the verse before, concerning the foolishness of preaching. First, in the demand of the Jews; and secondly in the pursuit of the Gentiles. The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. First, we will speak of them jointly, as they agree in one notion, and then severally in what is proper to each. First, jointly, where we must know thus much, the demand of the Jews, “ The Jews require a sign.” Here was an error in both, as concerning their receiving the gospel of Christ: whence we may observe in general then, first this: that the corruption of nature does act and improve itself differently in different ranks and conditions of persons. Here are Jews and Gentiles both, people of a several temper and frame, yet both of them have their censure; the one in the requiring of a sign, and the other in the seeking after wisdom; both of them in a several kind of nature had their weaknesses and failings. This various working of corruption according to the subject wherein it is, may be variously accounted unto us as proceeding from various causes. As first, sometimes from the difference of age and constitution of body: there are some sins which are more proper to one age and temper, and others which are more proper to another. Again, secondly, sometimes it proceeds from a difference of assault and temptation; as there are several tempers and constitutions in regard of men themselves, so there are several drawing out of these constitutions in regard of Satan’ s improving of them. Thirdly, it proceeds from a difference of employment and education, and particular calling, wherein men are set. First, that we should not from hence at any time be secure and presumptuous in ourselves from our freedom from any particular sin or infirmity whatsoever; though thou art not guilty of such a sin, yet it may be thou mayest be guilty of another, which in its kind may be as bad. Again, secondly, observe this: that all men by nature have some quarrel or exception or other against the Word of God, and some pretence to put it off from them. “ The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom” ; neither of them were every way right, and so as they should be. This is that which has always been in all ages and times of the Church. Thirdly, observe in general this: that it is a great matter for the entertainment of any ministry what people have been formerly used and accustomed unto; that has commonly a great sway with them. For see here in this present Scripture how it was now with these two sorts of people, the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews, they had been used to signs heretofore under Moses and the prophets, and therefore nothing would serve their turn now but signs still. And the Gentiles, they had been used to their philosophy and rhetoric. This shows us what cause we have therefore, as to be careful of what principles we admit at any time of ourselves, so to bless God that He has any time in His providence heretofore so well ordered it to us. I come now to them more distinctly in particular, to look upon them in their several propositions, to wit, the demand of the Jews by itself, and the pursuit of the Gentiles again by itself. First, for the demand of the Jews--“ The Jews require a sign.” This the apostle speaks of as some kind of weakness and viciousness in them: and so indeed it was, as may appear in these particulars. First, it does denote unto us that sottishness and stupidity which was in them. A sign it is a thing which is accommodated to the outward sense, and ordained for the teaching of those which are of low understandings, and which cannot attain to the spirituality of Divine mysteries; now thus it was here with these Jews. And this is the disposition of most men else by nature to be thus affected in themselves. Thus it was with the apostle Thomas at Christ’ s resurrection (John 20:25). That the more carnal any people are, the more they are carried away after such matters, and do not rest themselves satisfied in that evidence which the Scripture holds out unto them; and it proceeds from hence, because they have not their senses exercised to discern of things that differ. Secondly, here was also their infidelity and unbelief, that is likewise implied in this, that they asked a sign. Signs, says the apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 14:22) they are not for them that believe, but for them which believe not; and accordingly they have been still used (as we shall find) upon such occasions as these are, either to begin faith where it has been wanting, or to strengthen it where it has been weak; they are an argument of unbelief where they are given, but especially they are so where they are required. Whilst the Jews demand a sign, they show their infidelity indeed, that they are as yet in a state of unbelieving (John 1:11), “ He came to His own, and His own received Him not.” Thus it was with this people: and if we would know whence it came to be so, the apostle tells us, “ Because the god of this world had blinded their eyes, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). Well, let it teach us all for our particulars to take heed “ lest there be in any of us an heart of unbelief to depart from the living God” ; yea, let us take heed of admitting any scruples and doubts in the main points of Christianity; for if we begin once, we shall never have done. And that is the second evil in this demand of the Jews in asking for a sign, to wit, their infidelity. The third is their hypocrisy; there was a great deal of false-heartedness and double-dealing in this request of theirs; for why, they intended no such thing as to receive the truth. This is the manner of hypocrites to pretend an unsatisfiableness in the means when they do not relish the thing; when they favour not the conclusion, they call in question the argument. Fourthly, here was their insolency and unworthy behaviour in the laying of this demand; and that as expressing itself also in sundry particulars, which we may briefly take notice of. As first, here was their preposterousness and presumption, in that they would prescribe and limit God to a way of their own--they ask a sign. But here was the miscarriage in these Jews, that they would teach God, and set Him a rule, and point which they would determine Him unto; that when as He would have it done by preaching, they would have it done by miracle. And when the apostles brought them a sermon, they would needs have a sign. This is a sure rule--that in the things of God especially, as in all other things, we must be ruled by God Himself. To ask a sign was here a presumption. Again, as there may be a fault in asking one, so there may be a fault likewise in refusing one, when God offers one to us: observe that this was the miscarriage of Ahaz (Isaiah 7:11). But now where God sets up a sign, there they pull the sign, down. As for example now in the sacrament of the Lord’ s Supper. Here they throw the sign away. Thus those which are so much for signs at another time, as with the Jews themselves, to require them when themselves please; here, when God offers one to them, they will not have one. Secondly, here was their peremptoriness and importunity, they require a sign; that is, there is no remedy, but have one they must in all haste. If they had asked it modestly and soberly, though they had asked it, there might not perhaps have been so much in it: there have been those of the servants of God which have asked signs, and they have not been blamed for it; Gideon asked one and had it in his wet and dry fleece (Judges 6:37). Hezekiah, again, asked one (2 Kings 20:8-9). Thirdly, here was their malice and perverseness, “ they require a sign,” as if hitherto they had never had any. The Jews had signs of Christ exhibited unto them, both by Himself in His own particular Person, and likewise in His servants the apostles; they had wonders in heaven above, and they had signs in the earth beneath; as it is in Acts 2:19, and in verse 22 of the same chapter--“ Ye men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did by Him in the midst of you,” &c. And again (verse 43), “ Many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.” And (Mark 16:20), “ The Lord confirmed the Word by signs following.” So we see then they wanted not signs, and yet as if they had been altogether destitute, they here require them; this was now an horrible perverseness and maliciousness in them, and a slighting both of the power and goodness of God Himself. The second is the inquiry or pursuit of the Gentiles, “ The Greeks seek after wisdom.” By Greeks here we are to understand all other nations besides the Jews. Now the great learning and eloquence of the Greeks was occasionally and accidently through their corruption, not in the nature of the thing itself, a great hindrance to them for their embracing of the saving knowledge of Christ; they were so taken with the conceits and apprehensions of their own wit and excellent parts, that the preaching of the Cross it seemed no better than foolishness to them; they would believe nothing now in religion without an argument and a demonstration. In brief, there are two things especially which are here by this passage of the apostles prohibited to us. First, a restraining of the truths and doctrines of religion to the apprehensions of carnal reason, the wisdom of the flesh. This was the fault of these Greeks, and we are to take heed it be not ours. And the reason of it is this, because indeed religion is a mystery, and the things which are propounded in the gospel they are above the reach of human wit. Why but then must we lay aside all kind of reason in matters of religion? is Christianity an unreasonable business? and does the gospel deprive us of our wits and ordinary understandings? No, no such matter; religion it is not against reason but it is above it. The sum of all is this, that reason it may be improved in religion, but religion is not to be limited to reason; faith and right reason do not cross, though indeed they do not always meet; nay, indeed, religion is upon the point the greatest reason and wisdom of all, because it is the reason and wisdom of God Himself, who is the highest intelligence. And that is the first thing which was here taxed in these Greeks in the text, their seeking after wisdom, namely, the wisdom of the flesh, in restraining religion to reason, which is a thing here prohibited to us. The second is, the wisdom of words in adulterating the ordinance of preaching with the affectation of human eloquence; this is not to be done by us neither, either in preachers or hearers. This was another thing in these Greeks seeking after wisdom, they refused the doctrine of Christ, because it was not brought to them with the excellency of speech and human wisdom, which the Apostle Paul did of purpose decline, as he tells us (1 Corinthians 1:17; 1 Corinthians 2:1). For the right understanding of this point, that we may not be mistaken, we do not here prohibit all use of human learning or eloquence in reference to preaching; but--First, that this be not the chief business which is intended by us: we may use these things by the by, but this is not the main to be looked after by us, like children that more regard the cover of the book than they do that which is contained in it. Secondly, we must consider the nature of this eloquence and wisdom, what it is; there is a comeliness of expression suitable to the nature of the matter and argument which is spoken unto, which may very well become a preacher of the gospel; but strong lines and bombast is such as is very uncomely and improper. Thirdly, for the measure of doing it, it must be done very sparingly and moderately; I mean the mixture of wit and human learning in preaching; as sauce, but not as meat. Lastly, a regard is to be had to the nature of the auditory itself, which we have to deal withal, that they be such as are capable of it, and where it may serve as an advantage to the conveyance of the doctrine itself. With these and the like explications there may be a good use of human eloquence and speech; but otherwise in the excess and failing in the manner of it, it is very dangerous and inconvenient. And that especially, as first, it oftentimes takes off the efficacy of the ordinances and makes the Word of God of none effect. Secondly, besides this, it is that which is not so acceptable for the most part to a spiritual heart. Thirdly, God Himself does not commonly so work by them--“ By the foolishness of preaching He saves them that believe.” (Thomas Horton, D. D.)The reasonableness of the gospel Evil exists, is the result of sin, which is a want of affection for God, and its cure is by Christ crucified. God is limited in His mode of cure by the capacities and endowments of human nature. I. The gospel cannot be a system of force. It must be one of motive. II. Love cannot be transferred at will from one object to another. God must become man to secure man’ s affection. III. Hate in the human heart can only be conquered and overcome by manifested self-denying love. God’ s first work is to teach men their sinfulness and need of salvation. Without faith it is impossible to please God. There is no other avenue to the human heart than that which God has tried. IV. The duties and prohibitions of the gospel are demanded by our natures. Social scientists admit this. Prayer, praise, worship, are as necessary to soul-growth as food, exercise, and rest for bodily powers. V. The rewards and penalties of the gospel are in accordance with nature, with reason, with those principles upon which we act in daily life. This wisdom of God is perfectly adapted to man’ s wants, and meets man’ s necessities. (Bp. Fellowes.)But we preach Christ crucified.-- An orthodox preacher I. The leaning theme of Paul’ s ministry.1. The Person declared in his ministry. Christ, not the patriarchs, prophets, &c. Men of renown in history must not supplant Jesus. 2. The atonement proclaimed in his ministry. We have to speak to the masses--not science, philosophy, &c., but a crucified Lord. II. The great difficulties in Paul’ s ministry.1. The superstition of the Jews. They spurned the gospel because it appealed to their spiritual nature. They did not want a suffering Messiah. If we are seeking signs, we are superstitious. We are rejecting the tidings of “ Christ crucified.” 2. The scepticism of the Greeks. A crucified Christ appeared to them a fable. Many in spirit are still doing the same. III. The Divine character of Paul’ s ministry.1. The universality of the gospel. The glorious gospel is for all mankind. 2. The powerfulness of the gospel. The death of the Cross is the greatest manifestation of the power of God. 3. The knowledge of the gospel. Christ displays God’ s highest wisdom. None can instruct us aright but Christ, and we shall never learn the wisdom of God unless we sit at the foot of the Cross. Conclusion:1. There is no other way of salvation but what is revealed in the gospel of a crucified Saviour. 2. May we never be of the class who reject and despise God’ s method of redemption. 3. Between the conflict of power and wisdom, Christ is the living embodiment of the greatest force in the world. 4. We must believe the gospel before we can experience its saving influence. (A. Buckley.)Our preaching I. Its great subject. Christ crucified. We--1. Declare the nature of His death.2. Exhibit its benefits.3. Persuade men to seek an interest in it. II. Its reception.1. Some reject it with contempt.2. Some receive it with respect and advantage. (J. Lyth, D. D.)St. Paul’ s preaching at Corinth I. What St. Paul preached. “ Christ crucified” --i.e., not so much the sufferings of Christ on the Cross as the doctrines connected with the Cross and all the benefits which are secured to us by it. He preached--1. The dignity of Him who suffered.2. His humiliation.3. His willingness.4. The shamefulness of His death.5. The intensity of His sufferings. His death was lingering, not sudden. He suffered from men, from devils, from God. II. Some reasons for his so preaching. There were--1. Personal reasons. A dispensation was committed unto him. St. Paul preached thus because he was commanded. “ Woe is unto me,” &c. 2. Doctrinal reasons. He preached Christ crucified because by the Cross-- (I) God’ s wrath is appeased. God was willing to be appeased; but God’ s justice could not be appeased except by the death of Christ. (2) God’ s law is silenced. For every breach of its commands the law thunders forth against us, “ The soul that sinneth it shall die.” But Christ has undergone all the curses of the broken law in our behalf. “ He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” “ There is now no condemnation,” &c. (3) Our guilt is removed. If God’ s law, which we have broken, has been satisfied by Christ, then must necessarily follow the removal of our guilt. (4) The devil’ s power is subdued. (5) Holiness is promoted Dr. Chalmers tells us that, so long as he preached only moral duties, he saw no results of his labours. All the vehemence of his powerful oratory had not the weight of a feather in making the drunkard sober, and the unchaste man clean. But when he began to preach the atonement, he saw in rich abundance the precious fruits of holiness; and so John Berridge tells us that for six years he preached morality to his parishioners at Stapleford till there was hardly a moral man left in the parish; but when he was taught by God’ s Spirit to lift up Christ, the people came flocking to the sanctuary in deep concern about their souls. (6) Heaven is opened. Conclusion: We hence see the duty of ministers, viz., to walk in the steps of Paul.1. He was emphatically a preacher. We, too, who are ministers, should aim to be preachers. Our Lord’ s commission ran, “ Go ye into all the world and preach.” “ Christ sent me,” says Paul, “ not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Others, uninspired men, have said the same. Latimer said, “ Take away preaching, take away salvation.” St. Chrysostom affirms, “ My whole priesthood is to teach and preach the gospel. This is my sacrifice.” 2. But what are we to preach? Christ crucified. The Socinians preach Christ, but only as a bright example, not as a vacarious sacrifice. But we, like St. Paul, preach Christ crucified, because we know that this is the only preaching which God the Holy Ghost will honour. As Cecil says, “ A philosopher may philosophise his hearers, but the preaching of Christ will alone convert them. Men may preach Christ ignorantly, blunderingly, absurdly, yet God will give that preaching efficacy, because He is determined to magnify His own ordinance.” (C. Clayton, M. A.)Apostolic preaching I. Its matter. The apostle opposes his theme, on the one hand, to Judaising teachers, who taught converts that they must be circumcised, and keep the laws of Moses; and, on the other hand, to Gentile philosophers, who spent much time in eloquently haranguing on the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice; but who, with all their arts of rhetoric, never could guide one soul to heaven. II. Its manner They exhibited the Cross of Christ--1. As the end of the law for righteousness.2. As the only foundation of a secure hope of acceptance with God.3. As the only legitimate object of a Christian’ s glory.4. As the most powerful incentive to obedience. Conclusion: Let me ask--1. What think you of Christ?2. What influence has the subject had on you? (J. Hooper.)Apostolic preaching I. Its grand subject. The apostles set forth--1. The dignity of our Saviour’ s person as the true Messiah of God. 2. The perfection of His atonement. Having laid the foundation in His Divinity, this naturally followed. 3. The plenitude of His redemption. Christ died for all men, and we are therefore enabled to offer salvation to every man. This is a blessing which leads to all others. II. The reception which this doctrine met with.1. “ To the Jews it was a stumbling-block.” 2. To the Greeks it was foolishness. 3. “ Unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” These perfections are admirably discovered if we consider-- (1) The method that God took to make known to the lapsed posterity of man His merciful designs. (2) The men whom God selected to carry the message of salvation to the world. (3) The easy terms which the Lord hath fixed upon in order to be benefited by the redemption. (4) The great effects which have been produced by this doctrine. (E. Oakes.)Apostolic preaching: its theme and effects I. The great theme of apostolic preaching. The crucifixion of our Lord was the great centre of their preaching, but its range was much wider. They preached Christ in--1. The Divinity of His person.2. The perfection of His atonement.3. The variety of His offices.4. The blessings of His redemption.5. The universality of His government. II. The diversity of the effects which attend the publication of this gospel.1. To the Jews it was a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; “ to them that are called” -- (1) The wisdom of God. This wisdom is displayed in-- (a) The wonderful method by which the difficulties were removed which stood in the way of the restoration of fallen man. (b) The perfect adaptation of the means which it supplies for the attainment of human salvation. First, the sacrifice of Christ. Second, the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. (c) Its direct tendency to counteract one of the most evident manifestations of human depravity--viz., pride. (d) In the selection of the instruments who were ordained to propagate it. (e) The period appointed for its proclamation. (f) The facility of those terms on which the benefits are conferred. (2) The power of God is displayed in-- (a) The various acts by which the stupendous scheme was accomplished. (b) The Divine influence which attended the publication of this doctrine. (c) The triumphant progress which the gospel has made against every opposition. (d) Its influence on man’ s present and eternal destinies. (J. Bowers.)Preaching Christ crucified 1. Preaching is an agency previously unknown, which Christianity has created for itself, and just as the gospel has been truly apprehended has it sought; expression purely through this form. Rationslise it into a philosophy, and the pulpit becomes a tribune to lecture from; mistake it for a magical mystery, and the pulpit is deserted for the altar. But Christianity is neither “ a wisdom” for “ Greeks,” nor “ a sign” for “ Jews” ; it is a Divine message for which preaching must ever be the appropriate vehicle. 2. When we set our modern pulpit alongside that of apostolic men there is a pretty wide divergence. Theirs was simple, direct, historic; built itself up on a few facts which clung around a central Person. Ours is elaborate, discursive, theoretical. To some extent such difference is not only natural, but proper. For the apostles were missionary preachers, addressing men to whom everything was new. We who minister among a people moulded by the truths which we preach must traverse an ampler field and cannot decline to use what the Christian past has brought to illustrate or confirm the old message. In accessory helps the pulpit grows yearly richer; yet through this very embarrassing wealth, the preacher is in danger of being beguiled too far from his appointed work. I. The great pulpit theme.1. The gospel offers itself as a plan of restoration; and opens with an event which lifts the scheme above parallel--the descent into our race of God Himself. At no other point does creation touch Divinity in such strange fellowship. 2. If we estimate the singular moment of this fact we shall not wonder to find the whole course both of nature and of providence looking towards it. (1) Thus there were laid in the constitution of nature materials for that rich symbolism which in the light of Holy Scripture it is our business to read. When, e.g., the light diffused through space received a home for us in the sun, there seems to have been present to the thought of God the ultimate gathering up of His omnipresent glory in Christ as the spiritual light of the world. And when, under laws of organic life in animal or plant, many parts were knit together and sustained in corporate action by a force undiscoverable, resident in one part, yet penetrating the whole, He meant to foreshadow the mysterious conjunction of believing souls into one, even Jesus, through the life-giving Spirit who proceedeth from Him. (2) So also with providence. Those strangely diverging lines which history traces have a reassembling point in the advent of Jesus Christ. To prepare the nations for it in the fulness of time, and to work out its fruits since, must be the key for the intricate movements of providence in all time. 3. If the Christian scheme of salvation through incarnate God is thus the world’ s centre of gravity, then its own centre of gravity is the Cross. Modern thought is strong because it recognises the Incarnation; but it is weak because it fails to see the necessary issue of the Advent in the Cross. The event of Golgotha came to complete and to explain the event of Bethlehem. Christ took our nature in order to redeem our souls; was born that He might die. Thus we reach the heart of Christianity. That is a nerveless gospel which glozes over the fact of atonement with vague phrases; that which ignores or denies it is another gospel altogether. 4. But on these facts what is the message which rests? Not merely that the man Jesus was actually the Son of God and become one of our own race; nor that He many centuries ago suffered generously, and for our sakes died; but that the God-Man, who did once at Jerusalem cancel guilt and win deliverance, is here, and able, therefore, to save all who trust Him. He has a pardon which He won as man, yet bestows as God. This acting Christ with His direct access to and contact with men, we must preach. We preach a Christ who, because He was crucified once, is dead no more; but is even now and always breathing power and life into human hearts; and from this central power of Christ to give the Holy Ghost as the fruit of His bitter tree, there branch spiritual works manifold as the miracles of His earthly ministry. II. The considerations which ought to regulate its delivery from every pulpit. Pentecost gave tongues to the disciples. That was the birthday of preaching. The new message brought new utterance; and times of religious awakening have been signalised by a fresh development of preaching gifts. So it was at the revival of the thirteenth century, of the fifteenth, of the eighteenth. What, then, is this novel voice which Christ’ s gospel has found for itself?1. As to matter, nothing which is quite foreign can be admitted, and everything which is cognate has a right to be here only in so far as it can serve the preacher’ s main drift, and illustrate or commend his message. This is no rule of narrow exclusion; for there is hardly a department of human thought or knowledge out of connection with Jesus Christ. But the rule is of constant value nevertheless. What ponderous piles of sacred learning have sometimes buried the simple message! What wire-spun theological niceties have perplexed the hearer! The gospel has been more often discussed than preached. Nothing has any right to be in a sermon except because it contributes to the clearness and effect of the message about Christ. 2. As to the form of the message, it must be in the main declarative. If true to its nature it cannot be anything else. It admits, indeed, of embodiment in a creed; it has given to philosophy its richest, deepest principles; before it there goes out the only law of ethics: yet these are none of them the gospel. In its naked essence it is a salvation offered in the person of a Saviour. As such it is to be published. This declarative form implies two subordinate elements. We found wrapped up in the object of preaching two things, a person and a fact. Now these should give to preaching at once a historical and a personal complexion. That Christianity is rooted in the past, and had a birthplace which ties it to one spot of history. All that concerns the life of Christ, with its foreshadowings, its self-manifestations, and each recorded step which conducted to the achievement of redemption--must be prominent in the Christian pulpit. Yet the historical is to be blended with the personal element; and that ministry is best which leads straight to the living helping Saviour. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)Christ crucified First, the apostle’ s carriage, as concerning the ordering of his ministry; and secondly, the apostle’ s doctrine, as concerning the nature of those points and truths which were delivered in it. First, for his carriage; this is very much hinted unto us in the adversative particle “ but,” where there are these things further considerable: first, his contrariety of spirit; we see plainly that Paul and the rest of the apostles with him went a quite contrary way to that which was both required by Jews and Gentiles; the one required a sign, and the other sought after wisdom; but they accommodated neither, but instead they preach Christ crucified. What do we learn from hence? That it is the duty and wisdom of a minister to cross men’ s carnal humours; when people shall affect such kind of preaching as is unprofitable for them, especially to make them fail of their expectation. Physicians, when their patients are immoderate in thirsting after drink, keep it from them the rather. And the reason of it is this, because satisfying of such humours feeds them, and adds strength unto them. This then meets with all such whose carriage is quite contrary hereunto, who make not their hearers’ necessities, but their affections, to be the rule of their teaching; and if there be any crotchet or humour more than other, which does prevail and abound in them, they will be sure to apply themselves to that in the course of their ministry. Secondly, we have here in this passage the apostle’ s humility and self-denial, in that he did here lay aside those things wherein he might otherwise have gloried and set out himself; he here denied his own wisdom, and learning, and eloquence, and such accomplishments as these are, that so he might the better advance the gospel of Christ. Paul had been caught up into paradise, and been made partaker of such admirable mysteries as were there revealed unto him, that he now should condescend to the preaching of such familiar points, and that after such a familiar manner, as he does here intimate unto us. This I say was a business which was very much to be taken notice of in him. “ We preach Christ crucified.” There was a great matter in that, for such poor creatures as we are. What does this now teach us but this much, that plain and familiar kind of teaching and laying down the mysteries of religion in an easy and perspicuous manner, is that which may well become the greatest and learnedest that are; it is no shame nor disparagement for any teacher. And truly why not, if indeed we consider all? for first, there is a great deal more of art and skill sometimes in it, than otherwise; to preach Christ crucified, and such fundamental truths of religion as these are, and in that manner as they ought to be preached, requires a great deal more of wisdom as belonging unto it than many other points besides, which it may be to some vain kind of minds seem far above them. It is an easier matter to preach fancies and notions, than it is to preach solid truths; it is an easier matter to preach in the enticing words of man’ s wisdom, than to preach in the powerful evidence and demonstration of the Spirit of God. Secondly, as there is more skill in it, so there is likewise more modesty, and less temptation and danger of miscarriage; the venting of strange speculations, and the preaching plausibly to men’ s humours and affections in this respect, is not without some hazard of pride and self-applause in those that shall do it. Thirdly, there is also profit and advantage hereby to our hearers, as concerning the good of their souls. Besides, if we speak of human learning and eloquence itself, we must know that this does not cross nor contradict plain kind of preaching. There may be a great deal of learning sometimes in a plain sermon, and in the opening of a plain truth in that sermon. Thirdly, here is his faithfulness and impartiality to either part in the indefiniteness of the subjects which this his doctrine extends unto, to Jew and Gentile both alike; he preaches Christ crucified to either, as a doctrine which might well fit them both. And in particular not only the Jews, which were a people of more low capacities, but likewise as well to the Greeks, which were a people of more raised apprehensions. And a minister does not wrong his hearers with such points whosoever they are. First, because they are such points which are indeed of a very deep reach in religion. Secondly, the wisest and learnedest that are, such points as these may very well become them, forasmuch as they are necessary points, and such as tend to salvation itself. If wise men will be saved they must be glad to hear of saving truths: there being but one way to salvation for them, and all others besides. Those who have the greatest skill in physic, they are glad to take the same potions for their health which others take. Thirdly, again, there is this besides considerable in it, that there is an infinite depth in these matters, which we can never sufficiently reach, or dive into, and those that knew never so much of them, yet they are still capable of knowing more. Besides, further, that we need affections even there where we need not information. This is a special ground for the preaching of plain truths to great wits, thereby to work upon their hearts, and to draw their love and affection to them. Let us not disdain the common doctrines of religion, nor think them too low for us; which as no man is too good to preach of, so no man is too good to hear, nor to have imparted and communicated unto them. Fourthly, there is here one thing more in his practice, and that is this, namely, his wisdom and discretion in the course which he here took for the curing and removing of the distempers of these Jews and Gentiles in reference to preaching; and that is by the very exercise of preaching itself. They counted it the foolishness of preaching. Well, how does the apostle now go about to free them from this mistake? why, he does it no other way than indeed by preaching to them. And this there is good cause for: first, because a great occasion of people’ s prejudice against preaching is because indeed they are unacquainted with it. Secondly, because there is an authority in preaching, and an efficacy which goes along with it, which does command respect unto it. But so much of the first particular, viz., the apostle’ s carriage as concerning the ordering of his ministry, which we have seen in four several instances. The second is the apostle’ s doctrine for the points delivered by him, and that is Christ crucified. This was the string which the apostle here harped upon, and the lesson which he principally taught; from whence we may observe this much, that Christ crucified is the main object and matter of our preaching. But why Christ crucified, rather than Christ exhibited in some other consideration? why not rather Christ incarnate, forasmuch as that was the first news of Him? or why not Christ risen again, or Christ ascended, which was a great deal more glorious? Surely there is very good reason to be given for it: first, because he would give them the worst of Christ at first, that he might show he was not ashamed of Him, nor of that gospel which made Him known, but that hereby he might the better prepare them for other truths, and make them the welcomer to them. Christ’ s Cross is the first letter of all in a Christian’ s alphabet. God’ s beginnings with us are commonly most tedious. His conclusions and closings are for the most part very sweet and comfortable. Secondly, because Christ crucified, it is virtually and implicitly all the rest; for why was Christ incarnate? it was for this end that He might be crucified. Thirdly, this was that mystery which did most concern us for the good and benefit which comes by it; His death was that which pacified God’ s wrath, and paid the debt which was due for our sins. Lastly, Christ crucified, because this was that which these people had a particular hand in as instrumental hereunto; they had been active in the crucifying of Christ themselves. Therefore accordingly we shall find that this was the practice of the apostles in the whole course and way of their ministry. And so it is that which is the chief work of ours, it is the doctrine which is to be chiefly preached by us; and that upon these following considerations. First, as it is a doctrine of the greatest humiliation, it is an humbling and convincing doctrine. If we ask how this is done, I answer by an act of reflection and special consideration to this purpose, namely, as from hence taking notice of this grievous and odious nature of sin; those which make nothing of sin, they may here see what it is now, in the price which was paid for it, and the pain which was endured to expiate it in Christ crucified. This doctrine of Christ’ s Passion, it is thus in this way of proceeding a doctrine of humiliation, and therefore fittest to be urged in the course of our ministry. And that because this is a main part of our ministry, to humble men and convince them of sin. Secondly, this doctrine of Christ crucified, as it has cause to be the chief work of our ministry, forasmuch as it is an humbling doctrine; so it has cause likewise to be so too, because it is a comforting doctrine, and a doctrine of the greatest comfort that can be. First, as Christ’ s death keeps us from the wrath of God and purchases peace to us with God the Father; for that it does, as we may see in Colossians 1:19-20. Secondly, it obtains to us peace with angels, and all other creatures besides, whether in heaven or earth. Thirdly, it frees us from the power and dominion of sin. Fourthly, it frees us from the power and tyranny of Satan (Colossians 2:15). Fifthly, from bondage and thraldom to the ceremonial law, Christ crucified flees us from hence (Colossians 2:14). Sixthly, it frees us from the inordinate fears of death and final dissolution (1 Corinthians 15:55; Hebrews 2:14). Now this doctrine containing so much sweetness and comfortableness in it, what does from hence follow, but that accordingly it should be a principal part of our ministry to dispense it. Thirdly, as it is a doctrine of the richest and most abundant grace; for it contains in it the exceeding love of God towards mankind, and the height of His mercy towards us. In Christ crucified there is a combination of all the riches and mysteries of the gospel: it was His love to be incarnate, to be tempted, to be persecuted for us; yea, but His Passion it was the accomplishment and perfection of all the rest (John 15:13). What is it then to preach Christ crucified? For answer hereunto, we must know thus much, that the meaning hereof is not this, that we should preach of no other subject but only of the death of Christ; for there are many other points besides which it is necessary for a minister to speak of, and for a Christian likewise to hear of. First, for the matter of our preaching, that we are to preach this principally, and to make people sensible of this point more especially above any other, because the hinge of the gospel turns upon this point, and we are ministers of the gospel. Secondly, for the order of our preaching, to do all in reference to this; then we preach Christ crucified, not only when we discourse of this argument for the particular subject of it, but likewise when we preach of such points as are introductive and preparatory hereunto, or which are superstructed and founded hereupon. Thirdly, for the manner of our preaching, we then preach Christ crucified, when we preach Christ and the doctrine of Christ in a grave and sober fashion; this is clear by the opposition which the apostle Paul himself there sets (1 Corinthians 2:2), where he sets this preaching of Christ crucified as opposite to the excellency of human speech. (Thomas Horton, D. D.)Preaching Christ The expression means-- I. To preach his doctrines. If I say that Newton is taught in our universities, I mean his doctrines are taught; and to preach Christ crucified is to preach His doctrines (Acts 15:21). For example, the world says, Resent an injury; Christ says, Forgive your enemies. If, therefore, we preach forgiveness, are we not thereby preaching Christ, even though no distinct mention may be made of His Divinity, or of the doctrine of the Atonement? The world says, Indulge your inclinations; Christ says, Be pure in the last recesses of your mind. He, then, who lives a pure life is teaching Christ, even though he may not on every occasion name Him. In the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Epistle of St. James, there is not one word respecting the Atonement; hut if we work out the truths contained in them we preach Christ. II. Preaching truth in connection with a person; it is not merely purity, but the Pure One; not merely goodness, but the Good One, that we worship. Observe the advantages of this mode of preaching.1. It makes religion practical.2. It gives us something to adore, for we can adore a person, but we cannot adore principles. III. Preaching surrender to the will of God. St. Paul would not preach Christ the conqueror, but Christ the crucified, Christ the humble. You may know a man when once you know what it is he worships. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Preaching Christ and preaching the times Archbishop Leighton was once publicly reprimanded for not “ preaching up the times.” “ Who,” he asked, “ does preach up the times?” It was answered that all the brethren did. “ Then,” he rejoined, “ if all of you preach up the times, you may surely allow one poor brother to preach up Christ and eternity.” (Principal Edwards.)Christ crucified We have here-- I. A gospel rejected.1. By the Jew. A respectable man the Jew was in his day; all formal religion was concentrated in his person. To him the fact that Jesus was the carpenter of Nazareth was proof positive that He was not the Messiah. He bow to the Nazarine! Accordingly, he turned a deaf ear to Paul. Farewell, old Jew. Alas! that Christ who was thy stumbling block shall be thy Judge. But I am going to find out the Jew here. You, too, have a religion which you love--so far as the outside goes. When I tell you that all your going to the house of God, your singing and praying, all pass for nothing if your heart is not right with God, the Cross becomes a stumbling block. Another specimen of the Jew is thoroughly orthodox; he thinks nothing of forms and ceremonies. Here, up in this dark attic of the head, his religion has taken up its abode; he has a best parlour down in his heart, but his religion never goes there. He has money in there, worldliness, self-love, pride; and accordingly when once you begin to strike home, and let him see what he is by nature, and what he must become by grace, the man cannot stand that. 2. By the Greek. He is a person of quite a different exterior to the Jew. He does not care for the forms of religion. He appreciates eloquence; He admires a smart saying; he likes to read the last new book; and to him the gospel is foolishness. He is thoroughly wise. Ask him anything, and he knows it. If you are a Mahomedan he will hear you very patiently. But if you talk to him of Christ, “ Stop your cant,” he says, “ I don’ t want to hear anything about that.” This Greek gentleman believes all philosophy except the true one; he studies all wisdom except the wisdom of God. Once when I saw him, he told me he did not believe in any religion at all; and that it was best to live as nature dictated. Another time he spoke welt of all religions, and believed they were all right in their place; and that if a man were sincere, he would be all right at last. I told him I did not think so, and he said I was a bigot. Another time I discussed with him a little about faith. He said, “ Right; that is true Protestant doctrine.” But presently I hinted something about free grace; but that was to him foolishness. Ah, wise man, thy wisdom will stand thee here, but what wilt thou do in the swellings of Jordan? II. The gospel triumphant. “ Unto us who are called” &c. Yonder man rejects the gospel, despises grace, and laughs at it as a delusion. Here is another who laughed at it too; but God brought him to his knees. The Jew and the Greek shall never depopulate heaven. The choirs of glory shall not lose a single songster by all the opposition of Jews and Greeks. John Bunyan says, “ The hen has two calls, the common cluck, which she gives hourly, and the special one which she means for her little chickens.” So there is a general call to every man; the other is the children’ s call. You know how the bell sounds over the workshop to call the men to work--that is a general call. The father goes to the door and calls out, “ John, it is dinner-time!” --that is the special call. The call which saves, is like that of Jesus, when He said, “ Mary,” and she said unto Him, “ Rabboni” ; when He said, “ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” and “ Zaccheus, come down.” I cannot give the special call; God alone can give it, and I leave it with Him. III. The gospel admired; unto us who are called of God, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. This must be a matter of pure experience. If you are called of God this morning, you will know it. I do not understand how a man can be killed and then made alive again and not know it.1. The gospel is to the true believer a thing of power. What is it that makes the young man devote himself as a missionary to the cause of God? What is it that constrains yonder minister, in the midst of the cholera, to stand by the bed of one who has that dire disease? And what emboldens that timid female to go through that den of thieves? It is the power of the gospel. But I behold another scene. A martyr is hurried to the stake; the flame is lighted up. What makes him stand unmoved in the flames? The power of the Cross. Behold another scene. There is no crowd there; it is a silent room. There is a poor pallet, and a young girl lying on it, her face blanched by consumption. Joan of Are was not half so mighty as that girl. Hear her sing: “ Jesus! lover of my soul,” &c., as she shuts her eye on earth, and opens it in heaven. What enables her to die like that? The power of Jesus crucified. 2. To a believer the gospel is the perfection of wisdom, and if it appear not so to the ungodly, it is because of the perversion of their judgment. It has been the custom to talk of infidels as men of great intellect. But this is a mistake; for the gospel is the sum of wisdom; a treasure-house of truth. Our meditation upon it enlarges the mind. It confers wisdom on its students. A man who is a lover of the truth, as it is in Jesus, is in a right place to follow with advantage any other branch of science. Once when I read books, I put all my knowledge together in confusion; but ever since I put Christ in the centre, each science has revolved round it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ crucified The Cross is the preacher’ s theme. In all ages and lands this theme of the apostle has lent to the preacher’ s voice the most thrilling tones, and to his spirit the deepest earnestness. Preaching is man’ s wisdom as well as God’ s. It is the simplest, wisest, most natural, and most effectual way of lodging our beliefs in the hearts and consciences of men. But among all preachers in all ages the preachers of the Cross stand pre-eminent. The Cross stirs the heart, chains the spirit, as no other theme in this universe can do. I. “ The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.” “ Jews and Greeks.” These are not names of the past. The world still divides itself thus in its moral aspects.1. The Jews require a sign. Two thoughts were ever clashing in the Jewish mind. The earlier splendours of their national history, and their present bondage and shame. The restorer of the kingdom of Israel was the national description of the expected deliverer; but when they saw that the only empire Christ cared for was over the hearts and consciences of men--that there was no chance of a national restoration, they turned from Him. But He knew how little earth would be helped by the establishment of such a society as the Jews were dreaming of. There is many a man in a popular tumult who will throw up his cap and shout “ Liberty!” whose notion of liberty is the grossest licentiousness or the sternest tyranny. And many a Jew would attend a triumphal progress, and rend the air with Hosannas, who, when he heard of an inward moral reformation as the first act of obedience, would change his cry to “ Crucify Him!” I take the Jewish “ seeking for a sign” as the representative of that seeking for an outward regeneration of society which has lived in the hearts of the men of this world in all ages. Socialism is its most modern manifestation. The hope that if society were rearranged, property redivided, and a fair start given to all, man would be blessed. “ The difficulty lies not there,” say the preachers of the gospel: “ your hearts need the cure, not your circumstances.” The Jews “ sought a sign,” a hint even, that Jesus was anything like what their fancies pictured; and when He gave no sign but His shameful Cross, they shouted, “ Better Caesar than He.” And the world is full of sign-seekers. Men looking for redemption, but misconceiving utterly its nature. French republics, New Jerusalems, all mean the same thing. Men expect that God will begin from without instead of from within. 2. The Greeks seek after wisdom. The Greeks represent those who try by searching to find out God. Greek intellect was hopelessly baffled in the search. Blank atheism was the result of it in all the philosophic schools. An altar to the unknown God kept up the memory of the effort in the mind of the populace; but every thinker on earth had been brought, in the absence of revelation, to the bewildered question of Pilate “ What is truth?” Some said, “ There is such a thing, but man can have no hope of finding it.” Some said, “ Tush! there is no such thing in the universe at all.” That a tale of a crucified man in an obscure and dishonoured country should be what they had been fruitlessly seeking for ages was an insult to their understandings. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.The offence and success of the Cross God will always so ordain it in His providence that some shall at all times welcome His gospel. First, for the accomplishment of His own elect. Secondly, God will also have it for the honour of His own truth, and the doctrine itself which is delivered. Thirdly, for the encouragement of the labours of His own servants and ministers which are employed in preaching the gospel. This observation should accordingly be improved by those which are ministers to quicken them in their work; forasmuch as there where God calls them, He will more or less be assistant to them. Secondly, observe this, that a minister for the success of his doctrine is especially to consider how it takes with those which are most godly and religious; thus does the apostle Paul here, he does not so much trouble himself to think how it was accepted of those Jews and Greeks, but how it was to them which were “ called.” The ground hereof is this: First, because such as these they have best skill and judgment in the work; every one studies rather to approve himself in any business which he undertakes to workmen rather than to bunglers. Secondly, such as these they come to the Word freest from prejudice and carnal affection. A drunkard will never like that preacher that presses sobriety, nor an adulterer him that preaches for chastity. Thirdly, those which are godly and effectually called are most to be regarded for their entertainment of the work, because they are most intended in the work itself. This condemns the contrary disposition and practice of many who more consider how their doctrine takes and is accepted of those which are great and wise and mighty in the world, than how it takes with those which are good and pious. We come now to the words more closely in themselves, “ But unto them which are called,” &c., where we have these two parts chiefly considerable. First, the success of the gospel considered simply in itself, “ Christ the power of God,” &c. Secondly, the parties to whom it is thus laid down two manner of ways. First, in their personal qualification, “ To them which are called.” Secondly, in their national qualification, “ both Jews and Greeks.” To these it is thus effectual and successful. We begin first of all with the parties; and that first of all in their personal qualifications. “ To them which are called.” For the further opening of it to you there are these three things especially considerable of us in it. First, the Author of it who it is that calls. That is no other than God himself. Thus in 1 Corinthians 1:9 of this present chapter, “ God is faithful by whom ye were called,” &c, And 2 Thessalonians 2:14 --“ Whereunto He called you by our gospel,” speaking of God. And 2 Peter 1:3 --“ Through the knowledge of Him that hath called us” ; he speaks of God still. It is God and He alone that is the Author of our effectual calling. Therefore let us learn to give Him the praise and glory of all, “ and show forth the virtues of Him that hath called us.” And let us look upon His call as the spring and fountain of all the good which comes from us. First, freely of His own accord, none moving or persuading Him hereunto. And secondly, sweetly in the preservation of the natural liberty of the will in the exercise of it. And thirdly, yet strongly in an irresistible drawing of the heart to the embracing of His heavenly motions. Secondly, for the subjects of this calling, who they are which are called; this we have from God to be only the elect (Romans 8:30). This now accordingly takes it off from any personal qualification in ourselves as to be the original and cause hereof unto us. And this for the subjects of this calling, who they are; for the general, they are the elect. The third is the terms from whence, and to which. This the Scripture sets forth unto us in sundry expressions, as first from darkness to light (Colossians 1:12-13). From the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18). From the world to the fellowship of Christ and the saints (1 Corinthians 1:9). From a state of hell, and wrath, and death, to a state of life, and peace, and salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:14). These are the terms from whence and to which. And this sets forth unto us the excellency and dignity of our calling considered in itself. I come now to them in the second place, in their natural qualification both Jews and Greeks; this must be taken in connection with the former reference. The apostle had in the verse before laid a disparagement upon such, as concerning their rejection and ill entertainment of the gospel, affirming it to be to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness. Now that he might not be here mistaken as condemning these whole nations at large, he here qualifies this censure. “ But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks,” &c. In the laying of censures at any time upon a community of persons, whether nations or societies of men, we must take heed while we find fault with some, that we do not indefinitely condemn all. This restriction is requisite, first, to prevent discouragement in the condemned, that so we may not trouble the minds of those which are innocent. Not break the bruised reed, &c. Secondly, to prevent scandal in the standers by, and that others may not be offended at them for it. Thirdly, to prevent injustice in ourselves, and that we may not give wrong judgment. This does, therefore, meet with the rashness or malice of many persons in this particular; ye shall have some people so to condemn an whole company, as that they spare none at all in it. But to speak more particularly to the words, “ To them which are called both Jews and Greeks.” We see here that God has His numbers, and portion, more or less in all people and nations without any difference. This may be made good unto us from these considerations. First, both Jew and Gentiles they are the subjects of God’ s election. Secondly, Christ died for both. They have both alike interest in Christ. Thirdly, they have both alike interest in the gospel and means of salvation; this was cleared by Peter’ s going to Cornelius (Acts 11:17-18). The consideration of this present point is thus far useful unto us, as it teaches us two things--First, to pray for the calling and conversion of the Jews. And secondly, to pray for the accomplishment and fulness of the Gentiles. But then again a little further, these words may be here taken, not only in an historical sense, but in a moral; not only as spoken particularly of these two nations, the Jews and the Greeks, but likewise as spoken of such persons as were noted either for simplicity or wisdom--the Jews being notorious for their stupidity, and the Greeks famous for their learning. And so there is this in it, that God has His lot and portion amongst learned and unlearned both; there is no exception in point of conversion. The ground hereof still is this, the good pleasure and will of God, who is no respecter of persons. Therefore let those which are unlearned not here excuse themselves. Again for those which are learned, let them not rest themselves in their human learning. Now the second is the success of this preaching itself, “ Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” ; where we may observe how as the apostle crossed these Jews and Greeks in what they desired, so also he did in a sort comply with them. Christ is to them which are called both the wisdom and power of God. First, He is so absolutely, and considered simply in Himself in the whole office of His mediatorship. For the power of God, first, this showed itself--First, in His incarnation, when He was born of a pure virgin. Secondly, in His crucifixion and death. Thirdly, in His resurrection (Romans 1:4; 2 Corinthians 13:4). Fourthly, in His ascension and coming to judgment (Mark 14:62; Matthew 24:30). Lastly, as in that which was done upon Him, so also which was done by Him (Matthew 28:18). Thus was Christ the power of God. Secondly, He was the wisdom of God; as God in Him did show forth His wisdom, and as in Him were hid all the treasures both of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). And here Christ was the wisdom of God in divers explications. As--First, in choosing such a fit and accommodate means for the reconciling of His justice and mercy both. Secondly, in choosing such an unlikely and unexpected means, and thereby confounding the wisdom of the world. Thirdly, in furnishing of Christ with all such gifts as were fitting Him to perform that office which He had laid upon Him. And thus was Christ both God’ s power and wisdom considered absolutely in His own office. Secondly, He was so also relatively, in order and reference to believers, “ To them which were called” He was the power and wisdom of God. First, I say He was so estimatively, in the apprehensions and opinions which they had of Him; they counted Him to be both the wisdom and the power of God. The reason of this is this, because that now after conversion men have a new understanding put into them, and see things with other eyes than they did before. Secondly, He is so to them which are called effectively, in that He has an answerable influence upon their persons, and that in each particular. First, He is the power of God to them (2 Corinthians 13:3), “ Mighty in you.” And that again in sundry respects. First, in His death, the mortifying of their lusts (Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:6). Secondly, in His resurrection, for the raising them up again. First, corporally in their bodies (1 Corinthians 6:14). Secondly, spiritually in their souls (Colossians 2:12). Thirdly, Christ is powerful in believers for the conquering and overcoming of temptations, and fighting against principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:10-11). Fourthly, in enduring of afflictions, which without this power they could never sustain. Lastly, in final perseverance (1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:24). Thus is Christ the power of God to them. Secondly, He is the wisdom of God to them also in sundry respects likewise. First, in revealing to them the mind and will of God in those things which concern their salvation (1 Corinthians 1:30). Secondly, in giving them discretion to walk worthy of their heavenly calling, and to honour religion by their conversation. Thirdly, in giving them a spirit of discerning, to judge aright of persons, and times, and things. Lastly, in teaching them to number their days, and to consider their latter end (Deuteronomy 32:29; Psalms 90:12). (T. Horton, D. D.)The power of God and wisdom of God What was it in Christianity which mainly incensed the scribes and Pharisees? They disliked its simplicity, which contrasted with their ceremonial; its purity, which frowned on their dissoluteness; but what they above all detested was the Cross. Nor could the ignominy and agony which Jesus underwent of themselves be fascinating to any one. What was it, then, which induced so many to acknowledge in Christ crucified “ the power of God and the wisdom of God” ? I reply-- I. The humiliation of Christ was judicial. So His enemies professed to regard it. But they were not consistent in their accusations, and the sentence of Pilate has not been confirmed by man’ s sense of justice. And yet justice was maintained in His death; and this maintenance of justice commends and endears His death to indebted followers. He was cut off, but not for Himself. But how can the sinless justly suffer for the sinful? As a matter of fact the effects of iniquity often fall upon the blameless. But is substitution so utterly excluded from our own forensic proceedings, that the very idea of it should be scoffed at? An established mode of punishment is by fine, but fines are often paid by proxy. If a culprit were languishing in a dungeon from inability to pay the sum demanded, and a friend paid it for him, the feeling would not be that righteousness had been outraged, but that law had been upheld while generosity was manifested and misery relieved. The clear doctrine of Scripture is that Christ’ s sufferings were sacrificial (Hebrews 9:26). Here is a pathway for pardon in which justice itself shines resplendent, and is more honoured in clemency than by countless retributions. Here is a road for the sinful ascending to heaven, yet such as to discourage sin and render it infinitely detestable. And if such be the character and influence of the Saviour’ s suffering, is not Christ crucified “ the power of God and the wisdom of God” ? II. The humiliation of Christ was accompanied with manifestations of His dignity. Certainly His abasement was profound. And yet all this humiliation was suitable to dignity. His was that dignity that was often attacked, but never impaired: a dignity which appears, like a majestic edifice or sublime promontory seen at night, more vast and imposing for the gloom with which it is surrounded. And we never find the Son in circumstances of special abasement without some accompanying seal or token of Paternal acknowledgment and favour. Note the attendant circumstances of His birth, baptism, death, &c. III. The humiliation of Christ, in its spirit and objects, infinitely transcends all other exhibitions of moral excellence and glory. View it--1. In relation to the Sufferer. What filial obedience when He said, “ The cup that My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it?” What fulfilment of righteousness when He met the claims of a broken law, and, contemplating it in all its magnitude, could say in expiring, “ It is finished.” What friendship to sinners when He died for them to gain them admission into His glory. 2. In relation to our race. In this respect it is the grand manifestation of God’ s love to man (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9). 3. In relation to its effects. Who can dispute their prodigious influence? They have visibly changed the aspect of the world. See the power of this love manifested in the apostle of the Gentiles. And this was but a single instance illustrative of countless multitudes. (D. King, LL. D.)Christ--the power and wisdom of God I. Personally. Christ considered as God and man is--1. The power of God. (1) From all eternity. “ All things were made by Him,” &c. (2) But when He came to earth He gave abundant proofs of His power in His miracles and resurrection. (3) He is the power of God now, for “ He sitteth at the right hand of God.” He hath the reins of Providence in His hands, and is the Sovereign Head of the Church, the Lord of heaven, and death, and hell. 2. The wisdom of God. (1) The great things that He did before all worlds were proofs of His wisdom. He planned the way of salvation; He built the heavens. Mark the world, and see all its multitudinous proofs of the wisdom of God. (2) And when He became man He gave proofs enough of wisdom. In childhood He astonished the doctors by His questions; and in manhood He confounded Pharisee, Sadducee, and Herodian. And when He paralysed those who came to take Him by His incomparable words. (3) And now that He is our Advocate before the throne, now that the reins of government are in His hands, we have abundant proofs that He is the wisdom of God. II. In His gospel. That gospel is-- 1. A thing of Divine power. (1) How could it have been established if it had not in itself intrinsic might? By whom was it spread? By learned doctors, fierce warriors? No, by fishermen, untaught, unlettered. How did they spread it? By their swords? No, but by their simple words. But what was this gospel? Was it a thing palatable to human nature? No, it was a gospel of morality most strict, it was a gospel with delights entirely spiritual. And yet it spread. Why? Because it has in it the power of God. (2) How has it been maintained? No easy path has the gospel had. The good bark of the Church has had to plough her way through seas of blood. But “ the blood of the martyrs” has been “ the seed of the Church.” It has been like the herb camomile, the more it is trodden on the more it grows. (3) I do not wonder that the Church has outlived persecution, so much as I wonder she has outlived the unfaithfulness of her professed teachers. From the days of Diotrephes to the latter times men of all sorts have come into her ranks and done all they could to turn her aside. And, even now, when I mark the supineness of many; when I see the want of unction and prayerfulness, she must have the power of God within her, or else she would have been destroyed. (4) There are not a few of you who would be ready to bear me witness that I speak the truth. There are some who were drunkards, &c., and now you are here, as different as light from darkness. 2. The wisdom of God. The intellects of Locke and Newton submitted to receive the truth of inspiration. What a vast amount of literature must be lost if the gospel be not true. No book was ever so suggestive as the Bible. III. In the heart.1. The power of God-- (1) For salvation.(2) In temptation.(3) In trouble. 2. The wisdom of God. If you want to be a thoroughly learned man the best place to begin is to begin at the Bible, to begin at Christ. But wisdom is not knowledge, but the right use of knowledge; and Christ’ s gospel helps us by teaching us the right use of knowledge. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christianity, the wisdom and power of God The wisdom of any scheme is evinced by the excellency of its effects, and the simplicity and fitness of the means by which they are produced. Power is seen in the sure and easy overcoming of obstacles which lie in the way of success. Applying these tests to the scheme of redemption, by means of the atoning death of Christ, we shall see enough to satisfy us that in it we have a transcendent manifestation of the power of God and the wisdom of God. Consider the influence of Christianity upon-- I. The world at large.1. The wisdom of God is seen in-- (1) The exceeding excellence of its results. When it appeared the spiritual condition of mankind was deplorable. Among the Gentiles all knowledge of the true God seemed to have fled, and among the Jews the light of revelation was hid by thick clouds of prejudice and ignorance. It seemed the midnight of the world, but when this darkness was at its worst the Sun of Righteousness arose. Before it ancient superstitions yielded up their sway, the stiff formalisms of a shadowy economy gave place to living spiritual realities; old traditions grew decrepid, religion came back to be a dweller in man’ s heart, the reign of vice became smitten as with a dead palsy, the bonds of society were re-knit and made firmer than ever, philosophy, instead of pandering to man’ s passions, became the minister of his virtues, poetry dipped her sparkling cup in the river of the water of life, art bathed herself in the light of heaven; so that over the whole field of human interests there spread an influence which proclaims the surpassing wisdom of Him by whom the whole had been purposed and performed. (2) The simplicity of the means employed. A few poor, illiterate men went forth to convert the race--to tell the world that their Master was incarnate Deity, that He had died for the world’ s sins, and had gone up into heaven, and that through Him there was free remission of sin and eternal felicity to all who would come unto God through Him. This was all. No glare of worldly power; no resources of worldly learning; no artifices of carnal rhetoric; no courting the favour or the assistance of the great or wise. (3) The suitableness and adaptation of these means to the end in view. The design was not to establish Christianity by any means. (a) If fraud or force, e.g., be used on its behalf, an injury and not a benefit is conferred upon it; for, being a religion of truth and love, it would be self-contradictory to suppose it capable of being aided either by falsehood or tyranny. (b) As its aim is to regulate man’ s whole being by spiritual principles and motives it can only interfere with this to mix up its appeals with anything which addresses itself to man’ s carnal and earthly nature. (c) As its great design is to erect in man’ s soul an undivided empire for God, it is necessary that he shall be made to feel that it is not on the ground of eloquence or science, but on the ground of God’ s word to him that his hopes of pardon and grace must rest. (d) Who, then, does not see in the means employed an agency most wisely adapted to attain this end and no other? Had the apostles come working no miracles, the proof of their Divine commission would have been defective; had they wrought miracles more frequently, they would have incurred the risk of attaching to them a multitude who were attracted by their power, but had no real love for their doctrine. Had they been men of splendid abilities, they might have rested so much upon these as to hide from the people the purely Divine character of their doctrine and mission. Had they put themselves under the protection or sought to advance their cause by the resources of human power, the empire which they would have founded would not have rested simply on the basis of inherent worth of the doctrine they taught. 2. The power of God is seen in the obstacles it has overcome. These obstacles were of a kind which might well have discouraged any but men who felt that they were sustained by Omnipotence. When we think how hard it is to effect even a slight reform in some long established and corrupt system; how interest, fashion, and prejudice, and even sometimes the better feelings of our nature rise up against any attempts to displace time-honoured errors or usages: we may well admire the boldness of the apostles who went forth to overthrow all the religions that then enjoyed the homage of the race. And when we consider their fewness, illiteracy, and poverty, the unpretending character of their machinery and the repulsiveness to human pride of their doctrines; when we see all the learning, wealth, and power of the world forbidding their progress; when we see the kindling of the fires of persecution; and when we see how to meet all this they had no weapons but words, we may well stand in wonder at the courage which led the apostles of Christ to descend into the arena to do battle in His cause. But they knew perfectly what they were about. They knew that however humble the instrument, he becomes irresistible when the agent is the Almighty (verses 27, 28). II. Upon individuals.1. Here is a man who was once afar from God, resting on His righteous displeasure. Behold him now! He has been brought nigh to God; he has found the pardon of all his sin; and he waits but the summons of the Judge to enter His presence with a good hope of a triumphant acquittal at His bar. How transcendent the change in that man’ s condition and character and prospects! And how simply has it all been brought about--by the mere reception and realisation of the truth concerning Christ and Him crucified! And in spite of what tremendous obstacles has this been achieved--obstacles from old habits of evil, and the strong tide of custom and fashion, and the incessant assaults of him who goeth about seeking whom he may deceive and destroy! Who can refuse to see in such things a supernatural agency? 2. In judging of this subject we should not forget that the redemption of the sinner is the raising of him to a higher state of being and of blessedness than that from which Adam fell. By the work of the gospel on his soul man is brought nearer to God; he is placed under higher motives to love and serve God; and he draws from the Divine favour restored a depth of joy which those who have never lost that favour cannot reach. How wonderful is this! Who can refuse to behold here the working of Him whose attribute it is “ from seeming evil” to be “ still educing good” --of Him who is “ excellent in counsel” as well as “ wonderful in working” ? (W. L. Alexander, D. D.)Preaching the Cross An air of singular antithesis will be observed to pervade this passage, and the verses with which it is connected. The wisdom of the world is contrasted with the inscrutable wisdom of God; and its vaunted science with its own palpable folly, as evinced in an unnatural but universal ignorance of God. The things which it accounts to be foolishness are placed in honourable competition with those which it falsely reverences as wise. Again, the blind infatuation of the Jews is set over against the unprofitable curiosity of the Greeks; the prejudice of the one against the insolent derision of the other. By the text itself our attention is invited to a brief but most comprehensive delineation of the character and great subject of the apostolic ministry. It was the preaching of “ Christ ,crucified.” And its subject was, net the truths of natural religion, not the precepts of moral virtue, but the work and glory of the Saviour, as inseparably associated with His own sufferings and death. Let us consider-- I. That aspect of repulsiveness and folly which the gospel has in every age presented to the greater portion of mankind. The attestations demanded for the establishment of a new religious system must obviously vary with the condition of those to whom they are presented. The greatest force of argument may be expended in vain if it comport not, in its form and bearing, with our habitudes of thought. There are two comprehensive classes into which human minds may, with reference to this design, be advantageously divided: such as are susceptible of being wrought on through the medium of external objects, and such as are affected chiefly by the force of abstract reason. Now, to these great classes there are specific forms of proof respectively adapted. There is the evidence we are accustomed to denominate external, consisting of accrediting signals and actual events--and that also which we call internal, namely, the reasonableness, congruity, utility, and moral fitness of systems, considered in themselves. Neither of these should be wanting in a religion that assumes to be Divine. The demand, therefore, referred to by the apostle, if made with intelligence and candour, could not have been disregarded. It was natural, and could not be wrong, that they should call, in the one case, for a sign, to show that an institute, in all its parts so singular, had truly the impress of divinity; and in the other for the manifestations of celestial wisdom, to evince that what was alleged to be revelation was beyond the reach of artifice and the power of falsehood. Their fault lay only in this. It was with perverted sentiments and obstinate preconceptions this demand was accompanied. Yet both these forms of evidence were amply and unitedly supplied. They who, with a mind open to conviction, had beheld the Saviour’ s miracles, were awed by the revelation of His power. “ We know,” said they, “ that Thou art a Teacher sent from God; for no man can do those miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him.” They who had listened candidly to His discourses were astonished at the discoveries of His superhuman wisdom, exclaiming, “ Never man spake like this man.” In different instances, indeed, it would appear that each of these kinds of evidence alternately prevailed. It was probably the healing of the impotent man, rather than the preaching of Paul, which constrained the multitude at Lystra to exclaim, “ The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” Yet in ordinary cases the internal evidence was inseparably linked with the external, and an answer equally provided for the satisfaction, or the silencing, whether of those who demanded a sign, or of those who sought after wisdom. Let us observe, further, the force of the term here employed to describe the method adopted in their publication of the gospel--“ We preach” --proclaim, announce, in the manner of a herald, Him who was crucified at Jerusalem. We require of all men allegiance in His name; and, denouncing all rival pretensions, ascribe to Him an absolute dominion. We present these claims, not as subjects of debate, but of testimony. Our appeal is less to reason than to conscience, and more to the actual subjugation of the soul than either. And yet, as if the meanness of His outward circumstances had not been sufficiently opposed to all Jewish expectations, it was emphatically as “ the Crucified” that they proclaimed Him. However easily they might have cast this fact into comparative obscurity, by dwelling on His inflexible constancy, His unparalleled benevolence, His heroic self-devotement, His resurrection; yet, disdaining all such evasions, they exultingly pointed to His crucifixion, now as a sacrifice, now as a triumph, and thus appeared to invite the united scorn and hatred of mankind. It is not easy adequately to conceive what amount of impulsive and imperious conviction must have been required, in that earlier age, to proclaim in this manner, as the Christ, one that had been crucified. To avow that belief, in the face of universal contempt, to defend it when its bare annunciation would seem an outrage on the very name of reason, must have demanded, I do not say a grandeur of moral heroism, but a strength and fixedness of persuasion, such as the world has rarely witnessed. But such as the gospel appeared to the Jews and Greeks of the first ages, such is still essentially its aspect, when viewed in its primitive and unsophisticated character, to multitudes in every country. They hate or they despise it for the same reasons. It presents to some of them a cause of offence and irritation; to others one of ridicule or proud neglect. There are the superstitious, who loathe its simplicity, and the speculative, who repel its practical requirements. As to the one class, it is too spiritual for their reliance on external ordinances, and far too humbling to flatter or confirm their self-dependence. As to the other, it is originally derived from a source unknown to all their wisdom, established by proofs not apprehensible by their investigations and experiments, and enforced by sanctions destructive of their vaunted freedom, recommended by inducements which appeal not to reason, but to faith. They may both conspire to acknowledge somewhat which they call by its name, but ,which has as little either of its native features, or its inherent energy. Elsewhere, though its doctrines are professed, its spirit is evaporated. In opposition, therefore, to all such attempts to modify or to disguise its character, we fearlessly allege the conduct of the first disciples. For it should never be forgotten that such as was the strength of their conviction, such, too, must have been the fulness of that proof by which it was sustained; and thus the measure of their confidence is the measure also of the credibility of the whole frame and fabric of the gospel. Thus, what was evidence to them will become, in a twofold manner, evidence to us; while we see, not only the belief in which it issued, but that actual and living character which belief, thus generated, was found in practice to create. Nor was their confidence misplaced. The gospel proved itself equal to every emergency, and adapted to every design. By this consideration we are led to examine-- II. Those transcendent manifestations of the Divine power and wisdom with which the gospel has been ever seen to be accompanied, by all who have rightly understood its principles, or imbibed its spirit. Let us endeavour, therefore, to form definite conceptions of the sense wherein the apostle intends to characterise the excellency of the gospel, when he calls it “ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” It is plain that there are two acceptations chiefly, wherein this statement may be understood, either as denoting that that gospel, and the great events which it makes known, constitute an eminent manifestation of God’ s power and wisdom, or else that they are an instrument by which His power and wisdom are eminently found to operate. According as we determine on the one or the other of these applications, the great mediatorial scheme will be naturally brought into comparison with different portions of the Divine workmanship, to which it will be seen to possess different, though not incongruous, affinities; and the analogy of which to itself may aid us more precisely to apprehend, and more impressively to feel its import. If we select the former, the labour of human redemption will demand to be compared with those manifestations of the Creator’ s agency presented in the structure of the physical universe, or else with those more exalted essences formed by His word out of nothing, angels and the spirits of men. If the latter, then we shall be taught to compare the doctrine of redemption, in its practical effects, with the inexhaustible energies of nature, and its numberless and nameless influences, in quickening, renewing, beautifying that wondrous frame, whether of sentient or material things, with which we are surrounded. By the one, our attention is directed to the work and process of redemption; by the other, to the tidings which proclaim it. It is the Saviour Himself on the Cross that, in the one, shines forth with all the glory of omnipotence, bearing the burdens of a guilty world; and in the other, it is His gospel, realising, through the grace of His Spirit, the sublime purpose of its renovation. Perhaps it is not necessary wholly to separate these references, or to decide so rigorously between them, as that either should be excluded in the observations that follow. If we think of the design which was effected and the objects attained upon the Cross, how jarring claims were readjusted in the Divine administration, how infernal principalities were overthrown, and evils were decisively suppressed; if we advert to the honour which was thus insured to the great Ruler, and the benefit acquired to His dominions, to the progress of His righteousness and mercy; if we see the curse that had blasted the earth, now arrested, we are ready to take up the language of the text in its first and simplest application, and to speak of the crucifixion of Messiah as the last and greatest of those wonders which are for ever revealed in the wisdom and the power of God. Or, if we examine the actual effects flowing from the proclamation of the gospel, and permanently signalising it as an instrument for the renewal of mankind, we shall be equally prepared to adopt, though in another sense, the sentiment before us. We speak not of its efficiency to ameliorate men’ s secular condition. Our present reference is to consequences of a higher character; it is to those spiritual transformations, of which the gospel has ever, from the first ages, been everywhere productive. For the altars of: heathenism sank not alone; but the strongholds of sin within the soul were equally demolished. The night of falsehood was dissipated, and the phantoms of error” fled. The slumber of conscience was broken. The captivity of the affections was unloosed, and the imprisoned soul was invited to cast away her chains. The world was renewed around her. With the utmost justice, therefore, not less than with the utmost magnificence, may this doctrine of redemption be described under the appellations here employed; and it is not without reason that so eminent a place-is assigned it, when the apostle calls it by the names of those two great attributes which stand foremost in the array of the Divine perfections--wisdom and power. And it must be so; for without consummate wisdom a being of unlimited power would be most inapt to the control of numberless free and accountable agents; but without power equal to His intelligence, a being of infinite wisdom, baffled by His own designs, and lost in the immensity of His own purposes, would be supremely and infinitely miserable. Their combination in equal measure, therefore, as it is inseparable from His nature, is required alike in order to His rectitude and His felicity. Each has its own sphere of action, and each its standard of independent excellence, It is power which brings out of nothing; wisdom which arrays and beautifies. Power is the source of elements; wisdom, of affinities; power, of innate forces and undirected energies; wisdom, of useful adaptation s and beneficial results. Power might create a chaos; wisdom must fabricate a world. His power finds its witnesses in the lightning and the whirlwind; His wisdom, in those delicate and just proportions which fit the most destructive of elements to sustain and nourish life. Perhaps it is power which most astonishes us in the productions of nature; wisdom, which excites our greatest admiration in the disposals of providence; but the union of both, which we behold, with the sublimest ravishment, in the mystery of redemption. It is a high and sovereign exercise of power to pardon sin, but an arrangement of profoundest wisdom to make that pardon consistent with the honour of the Lawgiver, and the security of His dominion. Power might rescue; wisdom would redeem. We behold almighty power raising up from amongst the nations the ancestry of the Messiah, preserving His lineage unbroken through so many ages, and fulfilling, by continued miracle, what had once been uttered by an unalterable decree: “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to Him shall the gathering of the people be.” But we discern not less of wisdom, so ordering all things by the cooperation of natural causes, that, when the long-looked-for Messiah actually came, the state, both of the world and of His own people, should be such as to insure His rejection, and to issue even in His death; and yet to make the consequences of His ministry the most extensively effectual, causing their tidings to spread and their influence to be experienced with the greatest speed and certainty, over every land. How illustriously is the agency of omnipotence revealed, when at length, though lifted up upon a Cross, He becomes the Conqueror of death, the Spoiler of the grave, the Deliverer of captive souls, and the Emancipator of an enslaved world! And yet, conspicuous as are these discoveries, the features of unerring and awful wisdom are at least equally discernible. It is the part of such wisdom to attain the greatest ends without profuse or ineffective expenditure; to restrain the premature disclosure of its objects; to provide, infallibly, against emergent occasions and contingent events; to neutralise opposition and hindrance; or to convert opponent forces into auxiliaries and useful allies; and thus to secure its results, in manner exempt from complication or embarrassment, as well as from ostentatious or unmeaning display. Now, in each of these is revealed “ the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” in the process of redeeming mercy. We select but one further discovery of the union of these attributes as exhibited in the gospel, viz., in the practical effect of all upon the hearts and conduct of men. When God had created the matter of the globe, and was about to put the stupendous mass first into motion, there remained one problem as yet unresolved, on which its welfare and permanency were essentially dependent. It was this: What was that specific direction in which an impulse might be given which should originate, by the same act, those complicated yet inseparable movements which insure the perpetuity of its place in the general system, and the regularity of those changes which are demanded for its own immediate service? Here, then, was an occasion for the combined and equal manifestation both of power and wisdom. Neither could accomplish the purpose, separately from its fellow. Hence followed the sweet interchange of day and night, the grateful vicissitude of seasons, the admirable diversity of climate, soil, and temperature, the perpetual freshness of the air and ocean, the inexhaustible plenitude of life, its constant renovation, and its numberless diversity. All was secured in a moment, but destined to continue, without interruption or rest, until the same hand should interpose to stay its progress or to change its course. Such is the analogous phenomenon, but presented on a sublimer scale and in connection with more awful elements, in the world, not of matter, but mind, and in relation, not to the physical events of nature, but the destiny of the imperishable soul. The problem here was to determine what was that mighty impulse which, in one act, should combine all that was essential to its separate happiness with all that was necessary to the order of the moral universe; what that mysterious movement which, once impressed upon it, should for ever continue unexpended, securing the completeness of its nature, together with the perpetuity of its relations; how the energy of duty could be united with the calm of dependence; rectitude of action, with simplicity of trust; quenchless aspirations, with unresisting submission; the consciousness of perfect liberty, with the necessity of unceasing obedience. That impulse could be imparted only through the agency of love. All was effected by the Cross. And oh! what marvellous transformations attest the greatness of that one and all-commanding impulse! What beneficial consequences are insured through the whole compass of our spiritual existence! What rich and happy productions spring up together, to reveal both its energy and its design! Hence it is that love derives her flame, adoration her incense, gratitude her song, hope her fairest visions, fear her most purifying terrors, humility and patience their most permanent motives and firmest support. Reason here finds the loftiest inquiry, contemplation the sublimest object, memory the sweetest recollections. And thus the power of the Cross prevails to sanctify the whole character both of thought and action; just as the same sap which supplies the root with moisture becomes verdure in the foliage, fragrance and beauty in the flower. Sin is hence made, not so much to be shunned because it is dangerous as to be hated because it is unholy; while the performance of duty is secured rather by its congeniality with the tendencies of a renewed nature, than by its mere connection with the acquisition of happiness. And the manner in which these results are wrought out is one equally applicable to every order of intellect and every condition of society. Besides, the just and practical belief of these truths is far from being limited by the boundaries of their strictly intellectual revelation. They operate to save and purify, not because they are rational or beautiful, but because they are Divine; being in harmony with our whole spiritual nature, and proceeding from the same hand which has fashioned the constitution of our being. Many a voyager is therefore guided by these lights from heaven, by whom the wonders of their mechanism were never penetrated; and their “ sweet influences” are often realised where their mystic glories are unknown. And now behold it in its not less wonderful effects upon our social affinities and conduct, and on the relation of the individual to the good of the whole. To soften barbarian ferocity, to refine the habits of the civilised, to strengthen the bands of human sympathy, and to entwine more firmly the links of universal brotherhood; these are the methods by which it insures an unrestricted diffusion, and an ever-widening control. Let us now attempt to deduce and apply to practical purposes. III. The Reflections Which This Review Is, In Both Its Portions, Fitted To Supply.1. It cannot, I think, be doubted that a sanguine calculator, judging from the rapidity and number of the first triumphs of the gospel, would have expected, before this period, its far more wide and unobstructed diffusion. “ Such,” he might say, “ were its effects when it began to be proclaimed among the nations. Why have those effects in so large a measure disappeared? But the calculation would be made in ignorance both of the gospel and of human nature. Behold what it is really accomplishing wherever it is faithfully and simply preached. Or let its results be estimated in their more essential character. The experience of twenty centuries has borne uniform testimony to this truth, that no other apparatus is adapted to the momentous work of human renovation; and that even where this is employed its efficacy depends, to a very large extent, on its application being unencumbered and alone. 2. It is natural to inquire, Has the Church been at all times duly considerate of the method in which only it might anticipate prosperity, in its efforts for the diffusion of the gospel, and how it might legitimately commend it to approbation and confidence? As a matter of Divine revelation, we should surely present it without addition or retrenchment. Even in its external accompaniments and the circumstances attendant on its ministration, we should preserve the same subordination of all things to the discovery of its native greatness. The stateliness of sumptuous buildings, and the splendours of a gorgeous ritual, are little in harmony with the religion of the Cross. The effulgent beauty of the gospel requires not, and its majesty forbids, such enhancements. 3. We cannot but admire the method adopted by the first advocates of Christianity to secure the diffusion of their principles, and thus learn in what manner to pursue the same object for ourselves. They presented them, as we have seen, with the directness of an unwavering and solemn proclamation. Must man be wooed into acquiescence, or enticed into belief, when it is not speculative principles, but stupendous facts, on which his redemption is suspended? Or must the gate of life be set open with the pomp of ceremony and the voice of music, before the outcast will condescend to enter it, though the avenger of blood is behind him and the sword of justice is already flaming and unsheathed? Besides, if we are to judge what might have been the result of such accommodation by its effect in modern times, the expedient is one presenting little claim to have been employed at such a period, or by instructors so prepared. 4. How powerful is the inducement, and how plain the directory, to seek for ourselves an interest in the blessings of this great salvation! If it be the production of such wisdom and power our hope can never be disappointed. 5. What a test is supplied in this description to ascertain whether we have truly received the spirit of the gospel! If it be adjusted by infinite wisdom and armed with infinite power, then what should have been its effects, and what have they actually been? Has it conquered our vices, eradicated our evil propensities, humbled our presumption? Again, is it unresisted and absolute? Is one evil not supplanted by another, but all, increasingly, by this new element of good? Is the effect of Christian principle consistent and uniform? Does it pervade our total conduct and impart its character to all our actions? If not, what is our religion but a whited sepulchre, beautiful without, but full of death within? Let us never, then, rest satisfied with dubious or inoperative principles. 6. We are taught how to count on the future progress and final triumphs of the gospel. Thus organised and thus sustained, it might appear to guarantee even its own perpetuity. What need have we to shrink because of the ravings of blasphemy, the surmises of false wisdom, the sorceries of perverted genius, the sneers of wit, the antipathies of taste, the caprice of passion, the assaults of unbelief? Has not the gospel already encountered enemies at least as formidable? Finally, we cannot fail to be reminded how great must be the glory wherein all shall issue. What the consummation when this scene of wonders shall be perfectly unfolded! (R. S. McAll, D. D.)Christ the power of God 1. To redeem a world.2. To save sinners.3. To subdue sin and Satan.4. To establish His kingdom.5. To remove the curse and make all new. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The power of God in self-sacrifice I. Is God a being passible or impassible?1. It would seem to follow from the infinitude of His creatively-efficient power and the immensity of His nature that He must be impassible. Besides, He is spirit only, and what we call force cannot touch Him. 2. But after all there must be some kind of passibleness in God, else there could be no genuine character in Him. A cast-iron Deity could not command our love and reverence. The beauty of God is that He feels appropriately toward everything; that He feels badness as badness, and goodness as goodness--pained by one, pleased by the other. A very large share of all the virtues have, in fact, an element of passibility in them, and without that element they could not exist. Indeed, greatness of character culminates in the right proportion and co-ordination of these passive elements. And God is great as being great in feeling. 3. We raise a distinction between what we call the active and the passive virtues. If I impart a charity, that is my active virtue; if I receive an insult without wishing to revenge it, that is my passive virtue. And without this in its varieties we should be only no-characters, dry logs of wood instead of Christian men. Or, if we kept on acting still, we should only be active machines; for what better is the active giving of a charity if there be no fellow-feeling or pitying passion with it to make it a charity? Now God must have these passive virtues as truly as men. How, then, shall we conceive Him to have them when He is, in fact, impassible? The salvation is here; God, being physically impassible, is yet morally passible, i.e., He is a Being whose very perfection it is that He feels the moral significance of things. Be can feel ingratitude when He cannot feel a blow. He can loathe impurity when He cannot be injured by any assault. He is pleased and gratified by acts of sacrifice when He could not be comforted or enriched by benevolence. A thermometer is not more exactly and delicately passive to heat than He is to the merit and demerit of all actions. This, accordingly, is the representation given of Him in the Scriptures. Thus He is blessed according to the merit and beauty of whatever is done that is right. He smelled a sweet savour in Noah’ s sacrifice. He has pleasure in them that hope in His mercy. He is tender to the obedient, pitying them that fear Him as a father pitieth his children. On the other hand, by how many pains of feeling does He suffer in His relation to scenes of human wrong. The sighing of the prisoner comes before Him to command His sympathy. In all the afflictions of His people He is afflicted Himself. And, in the same manner, He is said to be exercised by all manner of unpleasant sentiments in relation to all manner of evil doings; sore displeased, wroth, &c. 4. But this painful feeling in regard to evil--what is this but to assume the unhappiness, or, at least, the diminished happiness of God? How, then, shall we save His infinite blessedness? By just dropping out our calculations of arithmetic and looking at facts. It seems to be good arithmetic that, if any subtraction is made from God’ s infinite happiness, He cannot be infinitely happy. No, on the contrary, He may even be the more blessed because f the subtraction, for to see that He feels rightly towards evil, despite of the pain suffered from it, to know that He is pouring the fulness of His love upon it, to be studying now, in conscious sacrifice, a saving mercy--out of this springs up a joy deeper than the pain, and, by a fixed law of holy compensation, the sea of His blessedness is kept continually full. All moral natures exist under this law of compensation. To receive evil rightly is to master it, to be rightly pained by it is to be kept in sovereign joy. II. Thus far I have spoken of God’ s passive virtue, principally as concerned in feeling towards what is moral just according to its quality. But there is a moral passivity vastly higher and reaching further, viz., a passivity of mercy or sacrifice.1. In this a good or perfect being not only feels toward good or evil according to what it is, but willingly endures evil, to make it what it is not--to recover and heal it. No extraordinary purity is necessary to make any one sensible of disgust in the contemplation of what is vile, but to submit one’ s ease to the endurance of wickedness, in order to recover and subdue it, requires what is far more difficult. 2. Just here, then, we begin to open upon the true meaning of “ Christ the power of God.” There is no so great power even among men as that which conquers evil by enduring evil. Just here evil becomes insupportable to itself. It can argue against everything but suffering patience: this disarms it. All its fire is spent. Christ crucified is the power of God, because He shows God in self-sacrifice, because He brings out and makes historical in the world God’ s passive virtue. By this it is that He opens our human feeling, bad and blind as it is, pouring Himself into its deepest recesses and bathing it with His cleansing, new-creating influence. There is the highest efficiency in it for it is moral power, not physical force. Hence it is that so much is said of Christ as a new-discovered power--the power of God unto salvation: the Son of God with power; the power of Christ. The power is conceived to be such that Christ is really our new Creator. We are His workmanship created unto good works. 3. But how does it appear that so great efficacy is added to the known character of God by the life and death of Christ? Was not everything shown to us in His death explicitly revealed in the Old Testament? God was represented there as being duly affected by all evil according to its true nature; displeased, abhorrent, &c. But to have these things ascribed formally to God is one thing, and a very different to have them lived and acted historically in the world. Perfections that are set before us in mere epithets have little significance; but perfections lived and acted before the senses, under social conditions, have quite another grade of meaning. And if this be true respecting God’ s mere passivities of sensibility to right and wrong, how much truer is it when we speak of Him in sacrifice. No such impression or conception of God was ever drawn out, as a truth positive, from any of the epithets we have cited. And nature gives it no complexion of evidence. We could almost as soon look for sacrifice in a steam-engine as in nature. How necessary, original, powerful, then, is the God of sacrifice--He that endures evil and takes it as a burden to bear--when we see Him struggling under the load. Somewhere there is a wondrous power hid in the Cross! This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 1:25-28 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God stronger than men.The gospel as contemplated by man and employed by God I. Its doctrine--is foolishness, yet wiser than men. II. Its agencies--are weak, yet stronger than men. (J. Lyth, D. D.)For ye see your calling, brethren.-- The Christian calling 1. The word “ calling” means the great primary truth of religion, viz., that our erring life is governed by a will above it, and is capable of receiving influences of attraction from the Spirit of God. A man’ s common employment, too, is spoken of as his “ calling.” But this usage discovers the same origin; for it must have sprung up in days when it was verily believed that each man’ s business in the world was a sacred appointment. A living faith not only justifies that view, but requires it; for it supposes that in the soul which has confessed its calling there is a power of holy consecration supreme over all the choices and pursuits of the mind. 2. The expression stirs some feeling of mystery. More is suggested than the understanding clearly grasps. But there is something here that is plain enough to common sense, and, to earnest moods at least, very welcome. How many weeks will any of us be able to live without coming to some spot where it will be felt as a rational comfort to believe that all our way was ordered for us by Him who sees the end from the beginning? If there is a “ calling,” there is one who calls, and who when calling has a right to be heard. It follows that there is one object in existence so pre-eminent that to accomplish that is to fulfil the great purpose of our being, and to fail of that is to miss the chief end. It is only triflers who conceive of their life as without a plan, and have never heard the call of the Master, “ Go, work to-day in My vineyard.” So true is this, that it has been observed of the most efficient and commanding men in the history of the world, that they were apt to represent themselves as led on by some Power beyond themselves--a demon, a genius, a destiny, or a Deity. But the apostle refers to something higher and holier than any dreamy sentiment like this. Standing on the verities of the gospel, speaking to those that have nominally assented to it, he summons them to a more solemn and searching sense of what it requires of them: “ Ye see your calling, brethren.” The truth is clear; you see it. It is not of men, but of God, who calls. Christ has lived, and He asks living followers. 3. It is remarkable how perseveringly the New Testament clings to this particular conception of the Christian relation. Disciples are said to be “ the called of Jesus,” “ called out of darkness into marvellous light,” “ called unto liberty,” “ called to peace,” “ called to eternal life,” “ called” first, to be afterwards “ justified and glorified,” “ called to inherit a blessing,” “ called in one body” and “ one hope,” “ called by God’ s grace” to “ holiness,” to “ His kingdom and glory,” with “ a holy calling,” “ a heavenly calling.” The apostles are “ called” from one place, work, suffering, joy, to another. To “ walk worthy of the vocation” is made the business of a careful conscience. To make our “ calling and election sure” is the victory of our warfare. The promise that subdues all anxiety as to the result is “ Faithful is He which calleth you.” Notice the prominent teachings of this language. I. That the business of a Christian life is something special--a “ calling” by itself, to be distinguished from all other occupations. A Christian character springs from its own root, grows by its own laws, and bears its own peculiar fruit. It must have a beginning, which the New Testament everywhere speaks of as being born into a new life. Then there must be a growing into greater strength and goodness, without end. Here, therefore, is a new principle of conduct. It is a Divine calling. Paul speaks as if no pursuit were to be thought of in comparison with it. II. That this idea of a “ calling” individualises not only the Christian obligation, but the Christian person. Paul had no conception of a social Christianity apart from the personal righteousness of the men that make up society. It is your calling. It is quite vain for us to congratulate each other on a state of general integrity and order if we tolerate depravity in ourselves or the class to which we belong. If we have a community here of a thousand people, in which we want to see the Christian graces flourishing, our only way is to go to work and turn one and another of the thousand into a Christian person, each beginning with himself. How weary and indignant God must be at hearing the Pharisaic praises of a Christian religion, legislation, literature, country, from speakers and writers who allow Christianity to conquer no one of their propensities to pleasure or to pride! The vocation is an individual matter. Ye see it, each for himself. The work is for each. “ Repent,” “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” “ Take up the cross and come after Me,” are for each. “ Ye see your calling.” III. That, notwithstanding all this, Christ’ s truth is a matter, not of partial, but of universal application. The Christian spirit, revelation, privilege, and promises are not meant for a class of men culled out arbitrarily here and there; not for a few persons of special constitutional proclivities or whose circumstances happen to predispose them for a spiritual plane of being, making it easy for them to reach it. The Bible makes no such exceptions. “ Whosoever will.” Nor is the Christian calling a whit the less universal and impartial for the reason that it is special, requiring a personal consecration. On the contrary, its speciality is the very ground of its universality. The more definite, important, and searching you make the Christian command to be, the more will the principles of its righteousness send their pressure into every department of life, and the spirit of its charity diffuse its fragrance into every nook and corner of the household of humanity. If there were any variations excusing men from this calling, they might be expected to exist either in their nature, their place, or their time. Yet how far these things are from constituting an apology for disregarding the duty of a disciple!1. Take the inequalities of intellectual equipment. There is not much likelihood of men’ s seeking a release from taking up the Christian work and cross on a plea of mental infirmity. More probably the plea of exemption will arise in the opposite quarter, and be a pretence of gifts or a culture superior to the need of faith, independent of the humiliating doctrines of the Crucified (1 Corinthians 1:20-24). 2. Take the excuse of unfavourable outward fortunes. What are those fortunes? Poverty and hardship? Unto the poor the gospel was first preached, and in every age it is with them that its simple and consoling truths have found their most cordial and fruitful reception. Wealth and station? But unto whom much is given, of them shall much be required. Or is it the busy and contented state of pecuniary mediocrity or a competency? Yet that is the very state which, of all others, a wise man is represented as praying for, and which common sense would pronounce most favourable to a useful and healthy piety. Indeed, the whole honest spirit of our religion disallows the evasive notion that any position can liberate the child of God from loving his Maker, serving his Saviour, and living in godly charity with his fellow-men. 3. The changing aspects of the times are just as powerless to acquit any single conscience of its accountability for a Christian walk and conversation. Principles do not change with periods. The Christ of whom it is written that He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, is not subject to fluctuation, either in the measure of His affection or in His demands for allegiance. Conclusion: Ye see your calling--1. Families. On every domestic sanctuary Christ lays She law of a consecrated and holy economy. Set thy house in order; for these earthly tabernacles are to be dissolved. And while they last they take in no calm, no abiding light, save through invisible windows that open upward into the unshadowed and undivided heaven. 2. Parents. To exercise your trust you will have to feel that the Christian character of every child committed to your charge is immeasurably the most urgent interest of your parental office. 3. Men of action. “ I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you.” (Bp. Huntington.)Behold your calling A concrete fact of faith. Our vague and vagrant life is attracted by a magnetism and swayed by a will superior to itself and supremely wise and good--the Spirit of God. Behold your calling-- I. Is of god. Supreme, authoritative, irreversible. The call of wisdom and love. “ Faithful is He that calleth you.” II. His glorious, comprehensive blessings. Called out of darkness into marvellous light--“ unto liberty,” “ to peace,” “ to eternal life,” to “ holiness,” to “ His kingdom and glory.” It is “ a heavenly calling,” “ a holy calling.” III. Is to special, distinctive mode of living. IV. Is intensely personal. V. Includes the whole man in all his relations in life. (Homiletic Monthly.)How that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. Not many wise, &c., are called I. The fact.1. Undeniable.2. Lamentable.3. Worthy of consideration. II. The reason. Not that God despises human wisdom, &c. it is His gift--but that these gifts are perverted--1. By pride, in judging the things of God which are beyond human understanding.2. By unbelief which rejects salvation.3. By moral blindness occasioning self-sufficiency and independence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The few and the many 1. There is a great difference between a historical statement and a doctrinal one. The former tells you something which is true with reference to a particular place or time; the latter what is always and everywhere true. It must, therefore, often be a grave, often a most ridiculous blunder, to take the one for the other. 2. Now, here is a statement which has been often taken as if it were doctrinal, though it is, in fact, historical, with mischievous results; for if these classes are always to be reckoned unchristian and unbelieving-- (1) Thoughtful men of all classes would, on that account alone, hesitate to embrace the gospel. If Christianity were only fit for the mob, its prospects would be poor, especially as the education of the people will not suffer from having now been made a national affair. (2) It would be a misfortune for the world if what we call civilisation advances. Each generation more nearly than its predecessor approaches to the condition of the privileged classes of society--the wise, the mighty, the noble. 3. On the other hand, consider the text as historical, and it is plain enough. We still sometimes hear explanations given of how it is that the learned and the great and the noble are not Christians, but-- (1) These explanations account for what is not the fact, for there are as many Christians among cultivated and aristocratic people as in any other class; and-- (2) These explanations, as a rule, would not account for the fact, if it were one. It is nonsense, e.g., to say that wise men in their conceit reject Christianity because it is simple or because it is supernatural; for there is more conceit, not with those who have some knowledge, but with those who have none. 4. Now if we glance at Corinth, it is easy to understand why the classes specified were more reluctant than others to embrace Christianity. I. As regards the “ wise men after the flesh.”1. By these the apostle did not mean the great sages of antiquity. It would certainly not be anything to boast of if we had to suppose that Christianity rejected them or they it; for one could wish that the majority of Christians had attained to as lofty, as enlightened ideas as some in the golden age of Greek wisdom entertained and taught. But we have to do here with the men of a degenerate time--smatterers, would-be wise men, pretenders to universal knowledge, which is often largest and loudest where ignorance and frivolity divide between them the empire of the human mind. 2. Nor were they thinkers of our modern type. (1) The principles according to which our scientific men conduct their inquiries are modern discoveries. Our wise men try to discover the facts of nature, life, and history, and construct their theories according to the facts. But exactly the reverse was the common way of the wise men here spoken of. (2) Our modern thinkers are seekers after truth, and they are as likely to discover the truth of Christianity as other people, if not more so. These ancient wise men, on the other hand, were rather like our ignorant and superstitious masses, who take a side without candid inquiry, and are resolute to defend their side just because it is theirs. (3) Our literary and scientific men, as far as they are faithful to their vocation, inquire each man for and by himself, and own no allegiance to a party or a master, but to truth alone. But these ancient wise men, as leaders or adherents of their school, enjoyed what credit and influence they had, and were jealous of new opinions, as possibly inimical to their authority and its repute. II. As regards the mighty and the noble.1. When Christianity was new it had all the disadvantages of novelty. (1) So it most repelled those who had least to gain and most to lose by any change. These, of course, were the privileged classes here mentioned. (2) Remember, too, that the changes which Christianity threatened were the most violent, and therefore the most distasteful possible to these classes. They were free, and a great part of the community were their slaves. It is now a maxim--thanks to Christianity--that property has its duties as well as its rights. But that maxim had no existence then. (3) Then it was not some magnate of their own lofty order, or even of their own race, who told those lords of many to become the servants of all; it was a company of artisans, fishermen, slaves, foreigners. (4) Then consider that the gospel was gospel in those days. It was a plain, straightforward declaration of the truth that God is love, and man’ s true life is love; that to be selfish is to be damned, to love is to be saved. 2. The gospel has no longer these disadvantages. When sons of nobles are ill-paid clergymen, and sovereigns and statesmen are gratuitous defenders of the faith, there is nothing to hinder the great and noble, any more than the poor and lowly, from professing Christianity. And, as regards the practice of Christianity, the case is not different. The mighty and the noble, as a matter of course, now accept, along with their honours and their privileges, a host of duties, public and social, which are enjoined rather by public opinion than by law. So much are things changed, property now has not only duties as well as rights, but has fewer rights than duties, and there are at least as many of these classes as of any other who exhibit the true spirit of Christianity in lives of faith towards God and charity towards men. (J. Service, D. D.)The benefits arising from human learning to Christianity 1. Of all the apostles St. Paul was the one endued with the greatest natural powers, cultivated with the most assiduous care, and one would have expected him ever to have been the advocate of knowledge. Against this, however, the text is often quoted. But this admits of a double construction--either “ that not many wise men after the flesh” were called to believe the gospel, or were called to preach the gospel. Now, that the former interpretation is erroneous will be apparent when we tell you that, although during Christ’ s life the majority of the Pharisees and rulers did not believe on Him (John 7:48; comp. 12:42), immediately after the day of Pentecost a great company of the priests became obedient unto the faith (Acts 6:7), and also that “ many of those who used curious arts at Ephesus brought their books together, and burned them before all men” (Acts 19:19-20). Since these two classes, converted to the faith, are to be reckoned amongst the wise and learned, with truth it cannot be said, “ Not many wise men after the flesh are called” to become disciples of the Messiah. So we conclude that the text means that “ not many wise men after the flesh,” &c., called the Corinthians into the gospel. 2. Should, however, the correctness of the present version be maintained, we still deny that it was written to warn us against the acquisition of human learning, for the use and abuse of knowledge are not identical, and the text thus understood could only apply to the Greeks, who preferred their wisdom to revelation, and to the Jews, who, having misinterpreted their Scriptures, required a sign to confirm that misinterpretation. The passage which was intended to apply to such as these can never be quoted to condemn that which only becomes reprehensible when it is not made subservient to the religion of our Lord. This is a conclusion worthy your attention, inasmuch as, if disproved, it would tend to cause the pious scholar to throw aside all the aids he might derive from history, criticism, and science in explaining and defending the oracles of God. That such a course would prove a serious detriment to religion the records of our race abundantly testify. Where ignorance has prevailed, there infidelity or superstition has abounded, whilst in the train of knowledge more accurate conceptions of the Deity and of social duties have ever followed. When Christianity was spreading many of the wise, indeed, rejected it, but the more obstinate were found among those whose prejudices in favour of their ancient faith remained unshaken, because their minds had not been trained by knowledge to estimate the value of those doctrines propounded for their acceptance. Note, then-- I. The advantages of knowledge to religion.1. The annals of the Reformation speak an unmistakable language in favour of human acquirements. 2. It is from the arsenal of knowledge that the most formidable weapons have been taken wherewith to resist the assaults of infidelity. 3. The benefits of a knowledge of science, history, &c., to the missionary are simply incalculable. 4. The cultivation of learning greatly conduces to a right understanding of the Bible. II. The opposition to knowledge commenced in primitive times. Whilst Origen and Clement recommended the study of literature, Tertullian declaimed against it as the source of those heresies which disturbed the peace of the Church. Because philosophers had erred philosophy was condemned; and yet, in defiance of the experience which has proved that there is no necessary connection between philosophy and infidelity, in spite of the fact that Newton and Bacon and Pascal and Boyle have submitted their powerful minds to the teaching of the gospel, the same objection and the same plea is boldly advanced. III. The abuses to which it is liable.1. Prior to the promulgation of the gospel (though there then existed minds as powerful as any which have since adorned the pages of history) the grossest immorality prevailed amongst the wise ones of the earth. Hence we deduce the fact that by itself “ the wisdom of the world” now, as then, is unable to reform the morals of mankind. “ The world by wisdom knew not God” ; and the writings of infidels have confirmed the assertion of our apostle. 2. Knowledge is fatally abused when Scripture is wrested from its obvious meaning in order to make it coincide with some cherished theory or to advance some favourite doctrine. Suppose that by an induction of facts we arrive at a conclusion opposed to a certain portion of the Bible, our duty is to extend our observation till we obtain a result in accordance with that indicated in the Word of God. (D. H. Cotes, LL. B.)God’ s strange choice Note-- I. The elector Some men are saved and some men are not saved. How is this difference caused? The reason why any sink to hell is their sin, and only their sin. But how is it that others are saved? The text answers the question three times--“ God hath chosen.” This will be clear if we consider 1. The facts. God elected fallen man, but not the fallen angels; Abraham, the Jews, David, &c. God is a king. Men may set up a constitutional monarchy, and they are right in so doing; but if you could find a being who was perfection itself, an absolute form of government would be undeniably the best. The absolute position of God as king demands that, especially in the work of salvation, His will should be the great determining force. 2. The figures-- (1) Salvation consists in part of an adoption. Who is to have authority in this matter? The children of wrath? Surely not. It must be God who chooses His own children. (2) The Church, again, is called-- (a) A building. With whom does the architecture rest? With the building? Do the stones select themselves? No; the Architect alone disposes of His chosen materials according to His own will. (b) Christ’ s bride. Would any man here agree to have any person forced upon him as his bride? II. The election itself. Now observe--1. How strange is the choice He makes. “ He hath not chosen many wise,” &c. If man had received the power of choosing, these are just the persons who would have been selected. “ But God hath chosen,” &c. If man had governed the selection, these are the very persons who would have been left out. 2. It is directly contrary to human choice. Man chooses those who would be most helpful to him; God chooses those to whom He can be the most helpful. We select those who may give us the best return; God frequently selects those who most need His aid. We select those who are most deserving; He selects those who are least deserving, that so His choice may be more clearly seen to be an act of grace and not of merit. 3. It is very gracious. It is gracious even in its exclusion. It does not say, “ Not any,” it only says, “ Not many” ; so that the great are not altogether shut out. Grace is proclaimed to the prince, and in heaven there are those who on earth wore coronets and prayed. 4. It is very encouraging. Some of us cannot boast of any pedigree; we have no great learning, we have no wealth, but He has been pleased to choose just such foolish, despised creatures as ourselves. III. The elected. They are described--1. Negatively. (1) “ Not many wise men after the flesh.” God has chosen truly wise men, but the sophoi--the men who pretend to wisdom, the cunning, the metaphysical, the rabbis, the doctors, the men who look down with profound scorn upon the illiterate and call them idiots, these are not chosen in any great number. Strange, is it not? and yet a good reason is given. If they were chosen, why then they would say, “ Ah! how much the gospel owes to us! How our wisdom helps it!” (2) “ Not many mighty.” And you see why--because the mighty might have said, “ Christianity spreads because of the good temper of our swords and the strength of our arm.” We can all understand the progress of Mahommedanism during its first three centuries. (3) “ Not many noble,” for nobility might have been thought to stamp the gospel with its prestige. 2. Positively. “ God hath chosen” -- (1) “ The foolish things” ; as if the Lord’ s chosen were not by nature good enough to be called men, but were only “ things.” (2) “ The weak things” --not merely weak men, but the world thought them weak things.” “ Ah!” said Caesar in the ball, if he said anything at all about it, “ Who is King Jesus? A poor wretch who was hanged upon a tree I Who is this Paul? A tent-maker! Who are his followers? A few despised women who meet him at the water-side.” (3) “ The base things” --things without a father, things which cannot trace their descent. (4) “ Things that are despised,” sneered at, persecuted, hunted about, or treated with what is worse, with the indifference which is worse than scorn. (5) “ Things that are not” hath God chosen. Nothings, nonentities. IV. The reasons for the election.1. The immediate reason. (1) “ To confound the wise.” For one wise man to confound another wise man is remarkable; for a wise man to confound a foolish man is very easy; but for a foolish man to confound a wise man--ah! this is the finger of God. (2) “ To confound the mighty.” “ Oh!” said Caesar, “ we will soon root up this Christianity; off with their heads.” The different governors hastened one after another of the disciples to death, but the more they persecuted them the more they multiplied. All the swords of the legionaries which had put to rout the armies of all nations, and had overcome the invincible Gaul and the savage Briton, could not withstand the feebleness of Christianity, for the weakness of God is mightier than men. (3) “ To bring to nought the things that are.” What were they in the apostle’ s days? Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Diana. Here comes Paul with “ There is no God but God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.” He represents “ the things that are not.” So contemptible is the heresy of Christianity that if a list were made out of contemporary religions of different countries Christianity would have been left out. But where are Jupiter, &c., now? What was true in Paul’ s day is true to-day. Existing superstitions, though attacked by those who are things that are not, shall yet cease to be, and the truth as it is in Jesus, and the pure simple faith backed by the Spirit of God, shall bring to nought the things that are. 2. The ultimate reason is “ that no flesh may glory in His presence.” He does not say “ that no man” ; no, the text is in no humour to please anybody; it says, “ that no flesh.” What a word! Here are Solon and Socrates, the wise men. God points at them with His finger and calls them “ flesh.” There is Caesar, with his imperial purple; how the Praetorian guards shout, “ Great is the Emperor! long may he live! Flesh,” saith God’ s Word. Here are men whose sires were of royal lineage. “ Flesh,” says God. “ That no flesh may glory in His presence.” God puts this stamp upon us all, that we are nothing but flesh, and He chooses the poorest, the most foolish, and the weakest flesh, that all the other flesh that is only flesh and only grass may see that God pours contempt on it, and will have no flesh glory in His presence. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Weak things chosen Luther says: “ Next unto my just cause the small repute and mean aspect of my person gave the blow to the Pope; for when I began to preach and write the Pope scorned and contemned me. He thought, ‘ Tis but one poor friar; what can he do against me?’ I have maintained and defended this doctrine in Popedom, against emperors, kings, and princes; what, then, shall this one man do?” We all know what the one man did, and we often see that weak ones who come in the name of the Lord of Hosts conquer where stronger ones have failed. The Lord often chooses weak things in order that we may more easily see that the victory is due to Him. God’ s choice of instruments A native convert originally belonging to one of the lowest castes thus delivered himself in my hearing: “ I am, by birth, of an insignificant and contemptible caste--so low that if a Brahmin should touch me he must go and bathe in the Ganges for purification; and yet God has called me, not merely to the knowledge of the gospel, but to the high office of teaching it to others. My friends, do you know the reason of God’ s conduct? It is this: If God had selected one of you learned Brahmins, and made you the preacher, when you were successful in making converts bystanders would have said it was the amazing learning of the Brahmin and his great weight of character that were the cause; but now, when any one is converted by my instrumentality, no one thinks of ascribing any of the praise to me, and God, as is His due, has all the glory.” (H. Townley.)The gospel ministry--its power exemplified in the Corinthians In proof of the superiority of the gospel over human learning, the apostle points to their own knowledge of the working of the Divine power and wisdom. Two facts are adduced in proof. I. The unfavourable condition in which the gospel found them, and how it made them the subjects of its power. The apostle divides society into two classes--1. The one consisting of the wise, the mighty, and the well-born--the man of thought, the man of action, and the man of leisure. These three he further describes as those who “ are” (1 Corinthians 1:28)--those who are deemed somebody, the recognised of the world; those for whose sole interest all things are deemed to exist--what would now be termed “ society.” 2. The other class consists of the foolish, the weak, and the base, or despised, &c. Those forming this class are further described as those which “ are not.” They were those who had no status, and were ignored by the world as things utterly beneath notice. Of this class were the bulk of the Corinthian believers. “ For ye see your calling.” Thus it will be seen that the gospel chose as the subjects of its gracious operations (l) Those whom the so-called wise, mighty, and noble utterly neglected, those who in the estimation of the world “ are not.” (2) Those who were incapable of helping themselves. Supposing they had been able to help themselves, society’ s neglect of them would not have mattered so much. Their utter helplessness is indicated by the descriptive epithets. But to such as these came the gospel. This proves its truly benevolent character, and sets it in direct contrast to the world’ s ways and methods. The spirit of this world is always to give where it sees the prospect of a return. The ancient gods always bestowed their favours upon those who brought to their altars the costliest sacrifices. The world follows the example of its gods. But it is the glory of the gospel that it seeks out the foolish, the weak, the base, and despised (Matthew 11:4-5). It was a new thing in the world to supply a gospel to the poor. A gospel preached to the poor must be something more than human. God alone can afford such grace as this. II. Its effects upon its subjects far transcends the world’ s highest good and most desirable possessions. The world’ s highest good are wisdom, might, and nobility, i.e., culture, prowess, and rank. But the gospel bestows upon its subjects far higher things (1 Corinthians 1:30).1. “ Things that are not,” i.e., without a status in the world, obtain one in Christ--one infinitely surpassing anything the world can boast of. 2. In Christ they are endowed with qualities far transcending the world’ s best gifts. Has the world wisdom, might, and nobility? The gospel-- (1) Endues men with a wisdom far surpassing in worth the world’ s highest philosophy or culture--the wisdom that makes wise unto salvation. (2) It confers a might far surpassing in degree and nature the might of the world--the might of right. (3) It endows with a nobility far more glorious than that of blood, the nobility of holiness. Nobility gives a right of entrance into the highest society, holiness into the heavenly society. It requires blood to give the social nobility that men prize. Similarly the spiritual nobility comes of the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin. And by virtue of this we become endowed with rank. The blood is royal blood, and they who come under its influence become royally related--they become kings and priests to God His Father. (4) They who “ are not” are redeemed. This state of “ being not,” i.e., of being without social status, implies a state of slavery. But He Who was made for them redemption brings them freedom from the bondage and degradation of sin, a freedom far more glorious than any social one. From being slaves of sin, and ,though still slaves of men, they become, not merely free, but sons of the heavenly King. (A. J. Parry.)But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.-- God’ s choice of the weak and foolish to confound the wise and mighty Dr. Vinton was a sceptical physician. A friend advised him to read “ Butler’ s Analogy,” which satisfied his reason. A short time after he was called to the dying bed of a little girl who whispered that she had something to say to him, that she hardly had the courage, as it was about his peace with God; but she added, “ To-morrow morning, when I am stronger, I will tell you.” And on to-morrow morning she was dead. This led to Dr. Vinton’ s conversion, and a grand life in the ministry was the result. Who shall deny that “ God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” ? (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)God’ s choice of feeble agencies I. The fact.1. God has chosen feeble agencies.2. Has by them confounded the mighty. II. The importance of it. It shows that Christianity--1. Regards all men alike.2. Is independent of human help.3. Is sustained only by the power of God. III. The lesson.1. The humble should be thankful.2. The proud humble. (J. Lyth, D. D.)God destroying the conventionally great by the conventionally contemptible I. Evils exist under conventionally respectable forms. In Corinth dangerous errors wore the costume of wisdom. Power was also on their side. Statesmen, wealth, and influence stood by them, and they appeared “ mighty.” Here, as in Corinth, evils wear fine clothing, and pass under great names.1. Infidelity writes and speaks in the stately formularies of philosophy and science. It is a “ wise” thing of the world. 2. Licentiousness passes under the grand name of liberty. The vaunted religious liberty of England’ s population means often only power to neglect sacred ordinances. 3. Social injustice does most of its fiendish work in the name of law. 4. Selfishness goes under the taking name of prudence. 5. Bigotry, superstition, fanaticism, wear the sacred name of religion. 6. War is called glory. Could we take from sin the mantle of respectability that society has thrown over it, we should do much towards its annihilation. II. God is determined to overthrow evil by conventionally contemptible means.1. Negatively. This language does not mean (1) That the gospel is an inferior thing. The gospel is not “ foolish,” “ weak,” or “ base.” As a history of facts, as a system of thought, as a code of laws, it is incomparably the grandest thing within the whole range of human thought. What light it throws on man, the universe, God! What influence it has exerted, and what changes it has wrought! (2) That the men appointed as its ministers are to be inferior. This passage has been abused to support the claims of an ignorant ministry, than which few things have tended more to degrade Christianity. There are several things to show that the gospel ministry requires the highest order of mind. (a) The character of the work: “ Teaching men in all wisdom.” (b) The character of the system. What a system it is to learn! What mines of truth lie beneath the surface of the letter! What digging is required to reach the golden ore! Simpletons call the gospel simple, but intelligence has ever found it of all subjects the most profound and difficult. The greatest thinkers of all ages have found the work no easy task. (c) The character of society. Who exerts the most influence upon the real life of the men and women around him? The man of capacity, thought, sound judgment. If the gospel ministry is to influence men, it must be employed by men of the highest type of culture and ability. (d) The spirit of the work. Humble, charitable, forbearing, reverent. Such a spirit as this comes only from deep thought and extensive knowledge. Ignorance generates a spirit of pride, bigotry, intolerance, and irreverence. (e) The character of the apostles. Where can you find greater force of soul than Peter’ s, a more searching sagacity than James’ s, a more royal intellect than Paul’ s, a finer intuitional nature than John’ s? They were men of talent and men of thought. And more, they all understood Hebrew and Greek. We require a long college course for this, and then only very partially reach their linguistical attainments. 2. Positively. It means-- (1) That the gospel was conventionally mean. It was so in the estimation of the age. The schools, religions, institutions, and great men of the day regarded it with contempt. It was a “ foolish” thing to the Greek, a “ weak” thing to the Jew, and a “ base” and “ contemptible” thing more or less to all. (2) The first ministers were conventionally mean. They were not selected from chairs of philosophy, or seats of civil power, or homes of opulence. They were fishermen. The system and its ministers, however, are merely conventionally contemptible, nothing more. But these, like many other things that erring man regard as insignificant and mean, shalt do a great work. The flake of snow is insignificant, but it is commissioned to build up a mountain that shall overwhelm widespread districts. The coral insect is insignificant, but it builds up vast islands, beautiful as paradise. The insignificant things do the work of the world. They clothe the earth with verdure, and provide subsistence for man and beast; they rear majestic forests, and provide materials for building our cities and our fleets. Even so the gospel. What work it has already done! What systems it has shattered! What towering institutions it has levelled to the dust! It has “ brought to nought” a vast world of things; and so it shall proceed until all the “ things that are” great in the estimation of man, but bad in themselves, are for ever brought to “ nought.” The little pebble shall smite the giant and send him reeling to the grave; the little stone shall shiver the colossus and scatter its particles to the winds. Conclusion: From this subject we may infer--1. That so long as evils exist in the world great commotions are to be expected. God hath chosen this system to confound, to put to shame, and bring to nought things that are. “ It will overturn, overturn, overturn,” the whole system of human things. The gospel, when it first enters a soul, confounds it. When it enters a country and begins its work it is revolutionary in its action. In the first ages it confounded the Jewish Sanhedrin, and the heathen priesthood, and the Gentile philosophy. 2. That the removal of evil from the world is, under God, to be effected through man as man. The gospel is to make its way, not by men invested with political power, scientific attainments, or brilliant oratory, but by men as men, endowed with the common powers of human nature, inspired and directed by the living gospel. Let no one say he is too poor or too obscure, too destitute of artificial endowments to minister the gospel to others; all that is wanted is the common sense, the common affection, and the common speech of man. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.--The “ things which are not” : God’ s chosen instruments for advancing His kingdom This clause is the last of a series of clauses, of which each that precedes it prepares the way for it, and by natural progress leads the mind toward it. The foolish and the weak, the base and the despised things--it is only natural that from the last and lowest of these the apostle should step to the things which are not; that is, which have no existence that is recognised by mankind; which arrest no thought, excite no fear, and are not prominent enough to be scorned. And these things, he says, the Lord hath chosen, to bring to nought the things that are; the great institutions, establishments, forces, which mark or mould the constitution of society. He hath chosen them for this purpose, to the end that His name may be magnified by their agency, and His glory be revealed in their ultimate triumph. That the “ things which are,” at any time, in human society, however venerable, are always liable to be displaced by others which were not in existence, or were not of recognised importance when the former were established. These are facts familiar as any fact of nature, which impress immediately the most careless observer. “ Things which are not,” so far as men’ s earlier knowledge is concerned, which exist but in embryo, and are only to be developed by a keener observation, are yet usually superior to the things which precede them, and more replete with a vitalising energy; that thus each industrious community is likely to surpass in its later years the attainments of its earlier, and the race itself to be gradually enriched and elevated as the centuries proceed; these also are facts which modern history clearly illustrates. But these things of which the age knows not and dreams not are all the time present to the mind of the Most High; they are indeed His preordained instruments, not only for working the changes which shall come in the aspects or in the life of society, but for the grander purpose of establishing supremely His kingdom in the world. So here, as everywhere, does Christianity vindicate its origin in God’ s mind, by placing us at once upon the highest levels of truth, and opening to our minds the widest range for reflection. Let us review the scenes amid which the text was written, and then the events which became its immediate and complete vindication. It was written from that delightful and populous city planted by the Ionian colony on the hills overlooking “ the Asian meadows,” along the Cayster. In this city of Ephesus, important and peculiar, partly Greek but still more Oriental in its manners and spirit, the metropolis of a province, and with a commerce that drew to its wharves the representatives of all nations, in which schools of philosophy seem so much to have abounded that one of them was opened to Paul for his labours, yet in which the Eastern superstitions and magic haughtily confronted philosophy, and still had a power which they had not either at Athens or at Rome. In this city, where the East and the West were commingled, and within whose spacious walls and harbour was assembled so busy and so various a life, the apostle, coming westward from Antioch, abode for more than two years, and from thence wrote this Epistle. It was written to Corinth, that wealthier, more brilliant, and more luxurious town planted upon the celebrated Greek Isthmus, and by its position attracting the trade not only of Greece, but of all the countries whose shores were washed by either of the seas between whose almost meeting waves it fortunately stood. It is evident, then, at once, what were the institutions which Paul describes as “ things that are” ; the great established powers in society, which withstood, or at least did not harmonise with, the extension of Christianity. Foremost amongst them we must reckon, of course, that haughty Judaism, dogmatic and secular, into which the religion given by God to the people of His election had by degrees been transformed, and which now had the seat of its dominion in Palestine, but the outposts of its influence in many, cities of the empire. Ennobled and vitalised as it had been at the beginning, by the supreme truth of the being of God, eternal and holy, almighty and wise the Creator, moral Governor, and Judge of the universe, it received a practical impressiveness from the discoveries which it made of His presence and providence, and of His perfect law. Yet from this religion the nation had early and persistently swung away into grossest idolatries, reproducing in gold the Egyptian Apis beneath the very pavement of sapphire on which the feet of God were treading above the mount; in their subsequent history, polluting the hills which looked out upon Jerusalem with the fury and lust of sacrilegious observances. Second in order of these “ things that are” --these powerful institutes of the day of the apostle, opposed to Christianity--must be reckoned of course the heathenism which prevailed outside of the Jews among all nations; which confronted Paul everywhere, ancient as man, but still vigorous in strength, imperial in place, and arrayed in universal opposition to the gospel. First of all it is to be recognised by us that this heathenism which so withstood Christianity was not an altogether artificial system in any nation; that it grew out of real and even deep motions in the general mind, and was not in its substance a matter of chance or a creature of contrivance, least of all an arbitrary and fabricated arrangement either of statecraft or of priestcraft; nay, that it had a certain real moral life in it, and was related not to depraved desire alone, to the lust and the pride which it never denied and too often deified, but related also, however insufficiently, to needs which the soul always feels to be inmost and knows to be abiding. Its answer was a vain one, but it sought to give an answer, to questions which never since the exile from Eden have ceased profoundly to agitate the race. Unconscious prophecies of better things lurked in many of its forms and in some of its traditions. Its sacrifices were efforts to staunch the flow from bleeding hearts. And while the popular mind acknowledged chiefly the hold of its ceremonies and shows, the thoughtful found also some solace or stimulus in its sublimated legends. Then further it must be noticed that as existing in any nation it took the form most germane to that people, to its genius and spirit, to its circumstances and habits; and that everywhere it allied itself with whatever was strongest, whatever most attracted men’ s minds. Thus in Greece, from the first, it enshrined itself in art; made eloquence its advocate; was indebted for the memorable form which it assumed to the noble poetry in which its mythologies were melodiously uttered. In Rome the same power allied itself with politics, and became a military force. Still further we must remember that in no land was this recent; in none was it devoid of that dignity and authority which were derived from a high antiquity; while to all the peoples, in proportion to their advancement, it was associated with whatever was to them most renowned and inspiring in their history. It was dear to them as the bond which connected their life with heroic ages. There remains a third thing to be recognised as standing among the “ things that are” --the powerful institutes and establishments of society, opposed to Christianity--when Paul was writing from Ephesus to Corinth. But this was also the most powerful of all; the most dangerous to assail, to human view the most inaccessible to change or decay; supreme over every force that could touch it, and comparing with them all as the Mediterranean with the restless streams which sought and sank into it. It was, of course, the authority and power of imperial Rome. It was hardly as yet at its uttermost height, this imperial power; for scores of years still slowly passed before that age of Trajan and the Antonines which marked its consummate might and splendour; while it was later even than this that Severus carried his victorious arms to Ctesiphon and Seleucia, transferred the entire legislative power from the senate to himself, and scattered the profuse memorial of his reign over Africa and the East. And so was this empire now exhibited to Paul, encircling the sea which was the centre of his thoughts, from Carthage to Alexandria, from Alexandria to Ephesus, and on to the very pillars of Hercules, with no sign of weakness. Considering its history, its growth, it seemed hardly so much a construction of man, this empire of Rome, as one of the preordained elements of nature; reaching in its exhaustive roots to the centres of history, and draining the earth to give it nutriment. So it stood before Paul, as at Ephesus he saw it, as everywhere he met it, as he knew and felt it environing the earth. And Paul knew that this mightiest establishment of government on the earth, this impregnable despotism which was touched by no fear, against which human power seemed vain, that this should also, in God’ s own time, be wrecked and “ brought to nought.” But how should it be done? By what agencies should each of these prophesied victories over Judaism, heathenism, and the terrible iron-limbed empire of Rome, be brought to pass? Not, he affirms, by the forces which already are at work in the world, and which may be still further multiplied, and made to bear on this new issue; not by armies revolting, or statesmen conspiring, or philosophers projecting new answers to heathenism; not by nations reclaiming their ravaged rights, or the still existing senate combining with the people to bury the haughty imperial prerogative in a cataclysm of revolution. The forces which God shall employ for this work, and to which He shall give a might irresistible, are simply thus far the “ things which are not” ; the things which He alone can bring out of the secrets of thought and life, and make triumphant on their mission. How utterly insignificant was Christianity in the beginnings before one temple had sprung toward heaven; before one treatise had wrought its principles into scientific statement, or clothed them in the grace and the majesty of letters; before any government had sought to incorporate its rules into statutes; before any one of all the great names now associated with it had become its bulwark in the popular confidence. In the simply spiritual elements it involved, it was set against this array which opposed it; and of all the auxiliaries which it afterward gained, not one had as yet appeared on the earth. How utterly insignificant seemed then its force! How incredibly inadequate to the end to be accomplished! The truths which had been taught the apostles, and afterward recalled to them and unfolded more fully by the witness of the Spirit, and which were to be enshrined in evangelical narratives, not one of which had yet been written--these were the primary instruments to be used, with the oral proclamation of their principles and laws, for the spread of God’ s kingdom, and the overthrow of whatever withstood its advance. And these!--it seemed like binding the lightning in the meshes and knots of metaphysical argument. Epistles and talks in the synagogue against armies! The might that lay on letters and lips against the might that ruled from thrones! The publication of doctrines against establishments of power as rooted- as the hills! And yet these were the very agencies--these “ things which were not” in every sense--which were not regarded, and which hitherto existed only in germ, these Gospels and Epistles which were still to be written, these teachings and preachings which had scarcely commenced, these Christian forces in life and character which hardly thus far had appeared on the earth--these were the forces which God had chosen to bring to nought the “ things that were” --the ancient, immense, and impregnable institutions that stood in all their august might and tremendous effectiveness fronting the gospel. Not with energy only, but with an exact precision of speech, had Paul then described them. The philosopher thought of them, if he thought of them at all, with a contempt only greater than that which he gave to the most absurd or childish of fables. The soldier regarded them less than the mists which had hovered last year around the crests of the hills. To the Jew, in comparison of his august forms and world-challenging miracles, they seemed as frail and shadowy as dreams. The whole: wisdom of the world anticipated as little an impression from them as we that the tiny animalculae in the ocean, streaking its waves with phosphorescent glow, will arrest the revolution of shaft and wheel, and stay the steamship on its march. Those secondary forces, too, which were in time to be evolved by God’ s plans, and confederated in effective alliance with these, although, of course, existing in embryo, they were, if possible, still more unrecognised, and even unrealised, when Paul was writing. The awakening spiritual longings under Judaism, at which his ministry to so large an extent was sympathetically aimed; the awakening moral instincts within heathenism, whose premonitions he must have felt, of which Plutarch soon afterward became so illustrious an example; the gradual progress of moral decline in all the systems that were rooted in error and maintained by force--all these were things which one by one came into development, each in its time, as the truths and the spirit of the gospel went forward, but which were as latent, when Paul looked forth from Ephesus on the sea, as were the germs of modern oaks. And those still additional procedures and events, also auxiliary to these more silent forces, already were purposed in the mind of the Most High; already He saw their seeds unfolding; but how vaguely, if at all, were they thus far foreshown even to Paul; how entirely unsuspected were they yet by the world! The destruction of Jerusalem by the arms of Titus, who seems to have felt himself but the instrument of a power which he could not comprehend and could not contravene, in his overthrow of the city; the consequent extinction of the Jewish nationality, the final obliteration of all distinctions between the tribes, and the scattering of their impoverished remnant to the ends of the earth--this was a fact lying still as hidden among God’ s plans. Judaism was surpassed and terminated in a higher religion, more adequate to man’ s wants, more illustrative of God’ s glory. Heathenism was not only broken down, but it was made, thenceforth and for ever, the veriest outcast of civilisation. The Roman Empire was as finally extinguished as if the crust of the globe had been opened to swallow it up. And all was wrought within a few centuries by what; at the outset had appeared so unreal or so ineffectual. (B. S. Storrs, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 1:30 But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption The life of the Christian from Christ In using these words the apostle seems to have in mind the principal phases of Christ’ s being. I. Wisdom, by His life and teaching. II. Righteousness, by His death and resurrection. III. Sanctification, by His elevation to glory. IV. Redemption, by His future return. (Prof. Godet.)The union of the genuine disciple with his Master This union is-- I. Most vital. “ In Christ,” not merely in His school, dispensation, character, but in Himself, as branches are in the vine. He is their life. II. Divinely formed. “ Of Him” --Whom? God. It is the Eternal Spirit that brings the soul into vital connection with Christ. “ My Father is the Husbandman.” III. Blessedly productive.1. Wisdom.2. Righteousness.3. Sanctification.4. Redemption, come out of this union. What transcendent blessings are these! IV. Exultingly adoring (1 Corinthians 1:31). It inspires the highest worship. It causes the soul to triumph to God Himself. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The connection of Christ with Christians I. A most intimate connection exists between Christ and Christians. “ In Christ.” The connection is--1. Real. “ Ye are in Christ Jesus.” Not imaginary; not theoretical; not prospective. 2. Vital. Not that of a sapless branch with a decayed root; not that of a pulseless arm with a lifeless head. 3. Essential to the continuance of spiritual life. Not merely a life like Christ’ s, but a life that is a part of Christ’ s life. The temperament of Christ pervades the whole body. II. This connection has been formed by God. “ Of Him.” Our Lord referred to Divine operation as well as supervision when He said, “ My Father is the Husbandman” (Comp. Romans 11:17-24). Union with Christ is--1. Not natural. Our natural condition is one of separation and alienation.2. Not affected by human agency; neither our own, nor another’ s.3. Effected by Divine agency-- (1) Incomprehensible in the mode of operation.(2) Inexplicable in the selection of its subjects. III. This connection has been productive of most advantageous results to Christians. These, as well as the connection, are of Divine ordination.1. Observe the progression of thought. (1) There is the truth by which the mind is arrested, instructed, convinced, strengthened, and elevated. (2) There is the work without us by virtue of which we are accepted and treated as righteous; conjoined with-- (3) The work within us by virtue of which we are purified and made actually righteous. (4) There is the final deliverance from all evil; when with the redemption of the body the soul will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God; when salvation will be consummated in the glorification of all. 2. Christ is-- (1) Our wisdom. He said “ I am the truth.” He is “ the light of the world.” He is that by which we are enlightened. The condition of the non-Christian is described in Ephesians 4:18, and Romans 10:3. Ignorant of our real spiritual state, Christ enlightens us respecting it. Ignorant of our relation to God, Christ reveals our alienation from Him, and invites us to be reconciled. Ignorant of what is to be done, Christ tells us what is essential. Ignorant of the way of salvation, Christ says, “ I am the way,” &c. (2) Our righteousness. The revelation of truth is not all we want. Christ was not only the Revealer but the Doer, not only the Teacher but the Mediator. The condition of the non-Christian is represented as one of condemnation, guilt, and rebellion. Out of this we are brought by Christ. He is our Representative; in nature and character perfect; possessing immaculate righteousness; therefore competent to appear and act for us. His life and death of obedience are accepted on our behalf, and we are accepted through Him. The rebel is pardoned; alienation is displaced by friendship; as virtually righteous he is received into God’ s family, a joint heir with Christ. (3) Our sanctification. The condition of the non-Christian is one of corruption and defilement. Christ will have all His followers conformed to His image. The process of sanctification is-- (a) Effected by direct and indirect agency. Direct. The influence of Spirit upon spirit. “ The Spirit dwelleth in you,” &c. Indirect. Christian ordinances and privileges, providential circumstances, social influences; every temptation resisted, trial endured, difficulty overcome, passion quelled, habit corrected; triumph over self, steadfast opposition to evil, loss suffered for the cause of Christ; manful exhibition of godliness, true-hearted adherence to principle. (b) Invisible and indescribable. More mystery respecting the internal work of the Spirit than the external work of Christ. Facts perceived by the senses are more easily described than those perceived by consciousness. (c) Sometimes prolonged. If immediacy may be regarded as a characteristic of justification, progressiveness is characteristic of sanctification. It is the work of our lifetime. (d) Generally apparently incomplete. But we cannot unveil the spiritual world. What constitutes completeness? Enough for us to aim at her lofty attainment. “ Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father,” &c. (4) Our redemption. Reference to the final release from the bondage, dangers, and trials of humanity. The condition of the non-Christian is one of bondage to sin (2 Peter 2:19). Christ makes His people free. The liberty of the sons of God includes not only release from the condemnation of law and from the power of sin, but also from the laws and limitations of human nature; from the habits which bind us, and dispositions which enslave us; from the annoyances of earthly life; from associations with evil; from injurious influences, human and satanic. IV. This connection and its results are designed to promote the glory of God (verses 29, 31). Not to glorify ourselves, but to live, in time and in eternity, to the glory of His grace, who “ hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” (T. T. Waterman, B. A.)The relation of Christ to His people He is set forth as made unto us-- I. “ Wisdom.” A controversy has been carried on as to the character of real wisdom from the days of Job (Job 28:20). But his definition is the only correct one (verse 18).1. What is wisdom unconnected with Christ? It can elevate man’ s mind by leading it up the pathway of science, it can help to the study of men and manners, it may solve some of the higher problems of morality. But its best efforts are only as the light of the taper compared with the sun. It cannot bestow peace or joy in the moment of trial, or in the day of death. 2. What is wisdom connected with Christ (James 3:17)? II. “ Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6; Romans 8:33). III. “ Sanctification.”1. It is necessary to distinguish between justification and sanctification. They differ essentially-- (1) In their nature; the one being an alteration of his state in the sight of God, the other a change in his character before man and his conscience. (2) In their causes; the former is imputed through Christ’ s obedience, the latter is communicated by the Holy Spirit’ s influence. 2. Sanctification is a difficult work, so far as we are concerned in it. (1) Our nature is opposed to it. (2) The world generally is opposed to it. (3) Satan with all his varied instruments are opposed to it. 3. But yet it is possible and easy; for Christ is made such unto us. How is this? It is simply to have Christ enter the lists with sin in us (Philippians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). IV. “ Redemption.” Our present redemption is only partial. We have a privilege to come into God’ s presence, &c. Nevertheless the “ glorious liberty of the sons of God” yet remains to be enjoyed. Then every fetter shall be knocked off. The mind no longer shall be hindered in its investigations; the heart shall be deceitful no more; the body itself shall no more be weary. (G. F. Galaher, M. A.)What is Christ to us I. Our prophet to impart wisdom.1. Anointing us with His Spirit.2. Revealing Himself in us.3. Giving us understanding to know Him as the only way to the Father. II. Our high priest to impart righteousness.1. Making atonement for us.2. Pronouncing our absolution.3. Constantly interceding for us at the right hand of God. III. Our King to communicate holiness.1. Pouring out His Spirit.2. Ruling in our hearts.3. Giving us dominion over sin. IV. Our final deliverer from all evil. (E. Fraser.)God’ s device for the salvation of sinners I. The whole of man’ s salvation is from Christ. God has made or constituted Him the fountain of all salvation, from whom it must be conveyed to all that shall partake of it (Psalms 89:24).1. Man is ignorant naturally of the way to true happiness; he has lost God, and knows not how to find Him again. For remedy of this Christ is made “ wisdom” (Colossians 2:3), and He is constituted the grand Teacher of all that seek for eternal happiness. 2. Man is unrighteous, and cannot stand before a righteous God. Now, the natural man, for remedy of this, goes about to work out a righteousness of his own. But when it appears in the light of the holy law, it is nothing but as a moth-eaten garment, that cannot cover the soul before the Lord (Isaiah 64:7). For remedy of this Christ is made righteousness. He, by His obedience to the law’ s commands, and suffering the wrath it threatened, hath brought in everlasting righteousness, which is a large garment, able to cover all that betake themselves to it. 3. Man is unholy, unfit for communion with a holy God here or hereafter. The natural man, to help himself in this point, calls together his natural powers, and endeavours to turn the stream of his life into the channel of the law. Some prevail this way to the reformation of their outward conversation; but there is as much difference betwixt true holiness and their attainment as between a living body and an embalmed corpse. Others find all their endeavours to no purpose, and so they come to despair of sanctification, and therefore even lay the reins on the necks of their lusts (Jeremiah 2:25). But for remedy in this, Christ is made sanctification. There is a fulness of the Spirit of holiness lodged in Him, to be communicated to the unholy; and to Him God sends the unholy sinner, that out of His fulness he may receive, and grace for grace. 4. Man by the fall is become liable to many bodily infirmities and miseries, and at length must go to the grave. Nature could find no remedy for this. But man’ s salvation cannot be complete without a remedy; therefore Christ is made “ redemption,” who will give in due time deliverance to His people from misery and death (Romans 8:23). And in this sense He calls Himself “ the resurrection and the life.” II. All who are saved must be saved by virtue of union with Christ. As the stock is stay, strength, and sap, to the branches, so is Christ wisdom, &c., to those who are united to Him. The sap of the stock is not conveyed to branches that are not in it; neither is Christ wisdom, &c., to any but those who are in Him. He is the Saviour of His body; and we must be partakers of His salvation as members of His body. (T. Boston, D. D.)Adaptedness of Christianity to man’ s spiritual necessities This is a very strong evidence of its Divine character.1. An individual is taken suddenly ill in the street. Persons gather round him, administering many things for his relief; but all is in vain. A stranger draws near, examines his symptoms, and from his case administers a medicine. Immediately he is relieved, and they all cry out, “ He is a doctor!” His ability to make a correct diagnosis and to prescribe the proper medicine demonstrates his professional character. 2. We are all of us sinful, and suffering, and dying. Can any one provide a relief? Men have been experimenting ever since the days of Cain; the wisest and best have utterly failed. It follows, then, that if there be a provision by which we can be saved from sin, such provision must come from God. 3. We claim that in the gospel God has made such a provision, which is very comprehensively stated in our text. God is its author, Christ is its medium or agent, and wisdom, &c., are its benefits. Christ is made unto us-- I. Wisdom.1. What is the first great need of mankind? Light; knowledge of God, of His law, of Christ, of the way of salvation, of duty and interest. 2. We have evidence of this in the general practice of Christian parents in seeking the spiritual welfare of their children, which is to impart instruction. And when our missionaries go to heathen countries, their first work is the same. And is it not a constant effort of the Church, both at home and abroad, to spread religious knowledge through the Sabbath school, the pulpit, and the religious press? 3. The gospel provides this light. Hence Jesus Christ is made unto us “ wisdom,” by furnishing to us-- (1) The Bible. But for His mediation we should never have received it. These Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation. (2) The institutions of the Church. (3) The lives, activities, and instrumentalities, of Christian believers, who are “ the light of the world.” (4) The teachings of the Holy Spirit; His Divine illumination, His assistance enabling us to apprehend and understand the written Word. II. Righteousness.1. Light, in its first revealings, does not always bring comfort and hope. When we see our moral condition we discover ourselves to be lost sinners; as absolutely helpless as was a poor man once upon the rock just above the falls of Niagara. Certainly he saw and felt that if he ever regained the shore and the home of his love, it must be through some agency other than his own. And when we discover our sinfulness and helplessness, how anxiously do we inquire where help may be found! 2. Righteousness is a conformity to law. If we observe the laws of the State there is no unrighteousness in us in relation to those laws. And if we could observe the law of God, there would be no unrighteousness in us in respect to His law. It is because we have transgressed that law that we are unrighteous. 3. Being thus under condemnation, Christ rendered a perfect obedience to that law, and having thus honoured it, He submitted to its penalties in our stead. Thus Christ has wrought out a righteousness for us; He has made it possible for us to obtain the remission of our sins. 4. But if this were the extent; of the atonement, it would leave us still unrighteous in character, unconformed to the law in our motives and spirit. It was, therefore, necessary that there should be “ the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” ; so that; Jesus Christ might work a real righteousness within us. 5. If the provision were to stop here it would still fail of meeting the whole case, because we are accountable to God, and our conduct subsequent to this great exercise of mercy toward us must be in conformity with the principles and spirit of His law. We consequently need the constant help of our Lord and of the Divine Spirit. 6. And even with these helps we are not able so fully to meet tile claims of this law that we do not need constantly to depend upon the atonement. III. Sanctification. But the regenerate have still further spiritual needs.1. The converted man hates sin; and when he finds it in his heart he is afflicted. To him there is nothing so lovely, so precious, as holiness. How he hungers and thirsts after it! He cannot be satisfied until he realises it, any more than a famishing man can be satisfied without; food and drink. His heart, his soul, cries out for the nature and image of God! 2. Can we realise this full salvation? Yes, for “ He is able to do exceeding abundantly,” &c. “ The blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from all sin.” When we are thus brought to bear the image of the heavenly-- IV. Is there still anything further needed? Yes, we still need Christ as our redemption. To redeem is to deliver from some obligation, or embarrassment, or danger, or necessity, from which a person is unable to deliver himself.1. We are subject to affliction, and we need the presence, and power, and comfort, of Christ to enable us to stand. 2. We have many duties to perform. Who of himself is competent to work the works of our Divine Master? None of us; but, through Christ strengthening us, we can do all things, meet all our obligations to our own souls, to our fellow-men, and to God. 3. And how about the dying hour? With the Captain of our salvation with us, we can meet death with joy, accounting it a gain. (Bp. Janes.)Christ Jesus the believer’ s wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption Let us-- I. Explain the words. Christ is made unto us--1. Wisdom. (1) As in knowing Him we know everything that is essential, and especially God, “ whom to know is life eternal.” God in nature is God above us; God in providence is God beyond us; God in law is God against us; but God in Christ is God with us and for us. (2) As He is the Author of our wisdom. He opens the eyes of our understandings, and, by His Spirit, “ leads us into all the truth.” And the knowledge, which He imparts, is always distinguished by its influences and effects. Wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence, but the excellency of this wisdom “ is that it giveth life to them that have it.” 2. Righteousness. “ Christ is the end of the law of righteousness, to every one that believeth.” 3. Sanctification. (1) The former is a relative thing, this is a personal. The former is the change of our state, this the change of our nature; the former is a work complete at once, but the latter is gradual, and carried on through the whole of life. But then, though these are distinguishable, they are never separate. (2) But what is this “ sanctification.” It must be something more than mere reformation or morality. A man cannot be sanctified indeed, unless he be moral; but he may be moral, without being sanctified. Sanctification is a transformation by “ the renewing” of the mind; the implantation of new principles; a separation from the Spirit and course of the world, and a deliverance from the dominion and the love of sin, and a dedication of ourselves to the service and glory of God. 4. Redemption. The resurrection is called so-- (1) Because it is the effect of the Saviour’ s purchase; for He ransomed the bodies of His people, as well as their souls. (2) Because of the grandeur that awaits us. II. Apply the words. If we be “ made of God unto us wisdom.”1. We see the state we are all in by nature. We see that we are destitute of all these things, and that, if ever we have them, we must obtain them from another. 2. We see the value and importance of the Lord Jesus. 3. We need not wonder that He should be the subject of the whole of revelation. 4. He ought to be the theme of every minister. 5. We see the wretched and dreadful state of unbelievers. “ He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life,” hath not “ wisdom,” &c. 6. What can be so worthy of our pursuit as to seek after union and communion with Him. This was the apostle’ s conviction--“ That I may win Christ, and be found in Him.” 7. We learn the happiness of all those who belong to Him--or rather to whom He belongs. (W. Jay.)Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption derived from Christ This is one of the most comprehensive texts in the Bible. It is a short but full inventory of the invaluable blessings of the gospel; enough to make a poor sinner rich, and a miserable sinner happy. I. Wisdom1. Wisdom chooses the best objects, and then pursues the best means of obtaining them. 2. All wisdom is from God; but there is a peculiar and superior kind of wisdom, viz., religion (Proverbs 28:28); and this St. Paul terms being “ wise unto salvation,” and James, “ the wisdom that is from above.” 3. Christ is the original fountain of wisdom. He is “ wisdom” itself (Proverbs 8:1-36.; Colossians 2:3); so that whatever true wisdom is found in the world is derived from Him, even as the natural sun is the source of all the light of this world. Accordingly, we find Him, by His personal ministry, diffusing wonderful light, and when He ascended into heaven He committed this work to the Holy Spirit. “ The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God” ; but, by His gracious help, “ they are spiritually discerned,” and believers learn “ the mind of Christ.” 4. Other kinds of wisdom have their value; yet what do they avail? “ I have spent my life,” said a great scholar on his dying bed, “ I have spent my life in laborious trifling! “ Compared with heavenly wisdom, all literary attainments will be as a grain of sand to a mountain, or a drop of water to the ocean. II. Righteousness, i.e., perfect conformity to the will of God. The word signifies that which is full weight or measure, the standard being God’ s holy law. And is there any man thus righteous? No; “ there is not a just man upon earth” ; that is, one “ that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Yet, without a perfect righteousness, no man can be justified. But must we, then, despair? Yes; of making ourselves righteous; but not of becoming righteous by other means, for “ Christ is made unto us righteousness” (Romans 4:24). But do any suppose that we may therefore become careless about good works? Let them attend to the declaration that Christ is made unto us-- III. Sanctification.1. By this we mean the renewing of our nature in the image of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the mediation of Christ. 2. Sanctification differs from justification. Justification respects the state of man; sanctification respects His nature, disposition, conduct. A man may be tried for his life, and he may be acquitted; but if he have, at the same time, a mortal disease upon him, he will die. The province of a judge and a physician are very different. Justification is the act of God as a Judge; sanctification is the work of God the Spirit as the great Physician of souls; and we find both these works united in Psalms 103:3. It is also to be observed that our title to heaven is founded only on the righteousness of Christ, by which we are justified; but in sanctification consists our meetness for heaven. 3. Christ is made unto us sanctification. (1) Because He first relieves us by His atoning sacrifice from the guilt and defilement of sin.(2) By His intercession (John 17:15; John 17:17).(3) By His Word--its doctrines, precepts, examples, promises, and threatenings.(4) By union to Him.(5) By His example.(6) By His love, which is, of all motives to holiness, the strongest and most effectual. IV. Redemption. If Christ be made unto us wisdom, we are delivered from the powers of darkness; if righteousness, we are redeemed from the curse of the law; if sanctification, we are delivered from the dominion of sin. In these things consists the redemption of the soul. But the “ redemption of the body” seems to be intended; and this agrees with Romans 8:21. (G. Burder.)Christ the believer’ s wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption I. I would point out to you the fountain from which all those blessings flow, that the elect of God partake of in Jesus, “ who of God is made unto us,” the Father, He it is who is spoken of here. Not as though Jesus Christ was not God also; but God the Father is the fountain of the Deity. II. I come to show what these blessings are which are here, through Christ, made over to the elect.1. Christ is made to them “ wisdom” ; but wherein does true wisdom consist? Were I to ask some of you, perhaps you would say in indulging the lust of the flesh; but this is only the wisdom of brutes. Others would tell me true wisdom consisted in adding house to house; but this cannot be true wisdom, for riches often take to themselves wings, and fly away. But perhaps you despise riches and pleasure, and therefore place wisdom in the knowledge of books; but it is possible for you to tell the numbers of the stars, and call them all by their names, and yet be mere fools; learned men are not always wise. “ Know thyself,” was a saying of one of the wise men of Greece; this is certainly true wisdom, and this is that wisdom spoken of in the text, and which Jesus Christ is made to all elect sinners. They see the necessity of closing with a Saviour, and behold the wisdom of God in appointing Him to be a Saviour; they are also made willing to accept of salvation upon our Lord’ s own terms: thus Christ is made to them wisdom. 2. “ Righteousness.” Christ’ s whole personal righteousness is made over to, and accounted theirs. 3. Christ is not only made to them righteousness, but sanctification; by sanctification I do not mean a bare hypocritical attendance on outward ordinances, nor do I mean a bare outward reformation, and a few transient convictions, or a little legal sorrow; for all this an unsanctified man may have; but by sanctification I mean a total renovation of the whole man. Their understandings, which were before dark, now become light in the Lord; and their wills, before contrary to, now become one with the will of God; their affections are now set on things above; their memory is now filled with Divine things; their natural consciences are now enlightened; their members, which were before instruments of uncleanness, and of iniquity unto iniquity, are now instruments of righteousness and true holiness. But, before we enter upon the explanation and contemplation of this privilege (1) Learn hence the great mistake of those writers and clergy who, notwithstanding they talk of sanctification and inward holiness, yet they generally make it the cause, whereas they should consider it as the effect, of our justification. For Christ’ s righteousness, or that which Christ has done in our stead without us, is the sole cause of our acceptance in the sight of God, and of all holiness wrought in us: to this, and not to the light within, or anything wrought within, should poor sinners seek for justification in the sight of God. (2) From hence also the Antinomians and formal hypocrites may be confuted, who talk of Christ without, but know nothing, experimentally, of a work of sanctification wrought within them. 4. Let us now go on, and take a view of the other link, or rather the end, of the believer’ s golden chain of privileges, “ Redemption.” But we must look very high; for the top of it, like Jacob’ s ladder, reaches heaven, where all believers will ascend, and be placed at the right hand of God. By the word redemption we are to understand, not only a complete deliverance from all evil, but also a full enjoyment of all good both in body and soul. (G. Whitfield, M. A.)The fourfold treasure I. Our spiritual existence.1. Its origin, “ Of Him,” i.e., as some think, “ through Him.” Are you this day united to Christ--a stone in that building of which He is both foundation and topstone--a limb of that mystical body of which He is the head? Then you did not get there of yourself. “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” He “ hath begotten us again unto a lively hope.” 2. Its dignity. Being in Christ you are of God. God’ s husbandry, people, children, beloved. Some have thought it a great thing to be of a prince’ s household; but you are of the Divine family. 3. Its essence. We have no life except as we are “ in Christ Jesus.” Out of Christ we abide in death. II. Our spiritual wealth. Here are four things, and in the original the second and third have a peculiar connecting link. The wisdom stands alone, and the redemption, but the righteousness and sanctification have a special link, as though we should be taught that they always go together. Christ is made unto us--1. Wisdom. The apostle had been speaking of some other wisdom which set itself up in opposition to the Cross. Now, instead of pointing to his own brain, or to the statue of Socrates or Solon, he says Christ is made of God unto us wisdom. There are those who will have it that the gospel such as was preached by Banyan, Whitefield, and Wesley, was very well for the dark times in which they lived; but that there is wanted in this intensely luminous century a more progressive theology. We are afraid that instead of bringing greater light, the advanced thinkers have made darkness worse. Christ makes us wise-- (1) By His teaching. All you want to know of God, of sin, of life, of death, of eternity, &c., Christ has either personally, or by His Spirit in the Word of God, taught you. Anything that you find out for yourself over and above revelation, is folly. (2) By His example. You shall never be a fool if you follow Christ, except in the estimation of fools. (3) By His presence. Let none of us ever be so foolish as to suppose that when we have received Jesus we have occasion to blush when we are in the company of the very wisest. Carry a bold face when you confront the brazen-faced philosophy which insults your Lord. 2. Righteousness. The doctrine of imputed righteousness is firmly established in the Word of God; yet it is possible to put too much stress upon “ imputed,” and scarcely enough upon “ righteousness.” Not only is Christ’ s righteousness imputed to me, but it is mine actually, for Christ is mine. 3. Sanctification. (1) Because we are in Christ we have the basis of sanctification, which consists in being set apart. (2) The power by which we are sanctified comes to us by virtue of our union with Christ. The Holy Spirit who sanctifies us through the truth works in us by virtue of our union with Jesus. (3) Let Jesus always be the motive for your sanctification. Is it not a strange thing that some professors should look to Christ alone for pardon and justification, and run away to Moses when they desire sanctification? “ The love of Christ constraineth us” ; not fear of hell. 4. Redemption. Somebody says: “ That ought to have come first; because redemption is the first blessing that we enjoy.” Ay, but it is the last as well. You are not yet redeemed altogether. By price you are--but you are not yet redeemed by power. In a measure you are set free by Divine power, but there are links of the old chains yet to be snapped from off, and there is a bondage still about you from which you are ere long to be delivered. You are “ waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body.” Conclusion: If all this be the case, then let all our glory be unto Him. What insanity it is to boast in any but in our Lord Jesus! How foolish are they who are proud of their wisdom, of their wealth, &c. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ the wisdom of believers I. Because of those new and illustrious revelations which he has given to us of God. Christ is the great Teacher of God.1. By declaration. In the course of His ministrations He did not reason concerning God. “ No man hath seen God at any time.” Man, therefore, must darkly reason, and doubtfully infer. “ The only-begotten Son, who lay in the bosom of the Father,” neither acquired nor made known this knowledge in that way. “ He hath declared Him.” An instance of this declaratory mode of teaching we have in His conversation with the Samaritan woman (John 4:21-24). What instruction is here! What a contrast to the teachings of men! 2. By action. In His life, He was the visible image of God’ s purity; in His works, of God’ s power; in His condescending compassion, of God’ s yearning goodness; in the freeness of His gifts, of God’ s abundant grace and liberality; in His intercourse with His disciples, of God’ s regard for pious humble souls; in His denunciations of judgment, of God’ s justice; and in His death, the brightest and most awful demonstration was given of His holiness, justice, and love united. II. By the views which He has given us of the moral condition of man. The sinfulness, helplessness, and danger of mankind have all been acknowledged and felt; but in what new and awful views are they placed by Christ! Sin is not a trifle. See the proof of this in the sufferings of thy Saviour. It is not in man to make atonement for sin. Behold, the Victim which God appointed was both God and man. The punishment of sin is not light. If the Substitute so suffered, what must the principal suffer, should he reject his Saviour? By those sufferings justice was satisfied, and God reconciled to man; and this light is thrown upon our condition, that, sinful, helpless, and endangered as it is, we are all invited to obtain mercy. III. In the discoveries he has made of the nature, extent, and possibility of holiness. The foulest blot in creation is an unholy spirit. The brightest, the loveliest idea that can enter the human mind is that of moral order, and the purity of the heart. The nature of real holiness is explained to us by Christ. It is not a ceremonial holiness--the mistake of superstition. It is not merely a regulation of the heart and conduct--the mistake of philosophers. It is not a sentimental approval of what is fair and good--the mistake of men of imagination. It is the conversion of the heart to God; the renewal of the primitive image of God in man. The possibility of this is explained by Christ. Without hope there could be no effort. The agency exhibited by Christ in the accomplishment of our sanctification is equal to the effect. His Spirit is the sanctifier; and the whole process of our consecration to God is the mighty working of the Holy Ghost, with the means which He has appointed in order to that end. (R. Watson.)Wisdom in Christ Having Christ, believers have a key which unlocks the mysteries of God’ s eternal purpose of mercy and of the present life; and knowing this eternal purpose and the eternal realities, they are able to choose their steps in life. (Prof. Beet.)Union with Christ the only way to sanctification Consider Romans 7:4; John 15:5; Galatians 2:20. I. The holiness derived from Christ. It is that disposition of heart and course of life which is conformable to God’ s holy law, and pleases Him.1. True holiness is universal in respect of the commands of God (Psalms 119:6). A profane life is a sure evidence of a profane heart (Galatians 5:19, &c.). 2. True holiness is not only in external duties, but necessarily includes internal obedience of the soul to the will of God (Psalms 24:3). 3. In true holiness there is a bent, inclination, and propensity of heart to obedience. By Adam’ s fall the hearts of men got a wrong set (Romans 8:7; Hosea 11:7). Now, in sanctification it is bent the other way, towards God and godliness (2 Thessalonians 3:5), that as the needle in the compass, touched with a good loadstone, turns towards the north, so the heart, touched by sanctifying grace, inclines Godward and Christward. 4. As the love of God is the great comprehensive duty of holiness, love is the fulfilling of the law; so love runs through all the duties of religion, to give them the tincture of holiness (Hebrews 6:10). 5. True holiness is influenced by the command of God. The will of God is not only the rule, but the reason of a holy life (John 5:30). 6. True holiness has for its chief end the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). He that is the first cause of all goodness must needs be the last end of it. 7. Lastly, true holiness is universal as regards man. (1) Mortification is universal (Galatians 5:24). It is no true mortification where one lust is spared. (2) Vivification is universal (2 Corinthians 5:17). As when the body of Christ was raised there was life put into every member; so when the soul is raised to live the life of holiness, the image of God is repaired in all its parts, and the soul embraces the whole yoke of Christ, so far as it knows the same. So that sanctification sets a man on every known duty. II. This holiness is derived from Christ, according to the grand device of infinite wisdom for the sanctifying of an unholy world.1. God made the first Adam holy, and all mankind was so in Him (Ecclesiastes 7:29). 2. Adam, sinning, lost the image of God, so that all mankind are naturally dead in sin. 3. Man’ s sanctification by himself thus being hopeless, it pleased God to constitute a Mediator, to be the head of sanctifying influences to all that should partake of them. 4. Though by the death and resurrection of Christ the sanctification of His people is infallibly insured, as the corruption of all mankind was by the fall of Adam; yet we cannot actually partake of Christ’ s holiness till we have a spiritual being in Him, even as we partake not of Adam’ s corruption till we have a natural being from him. 5. As Christ is the prime receptacle of the Spirit of holiness, as the head of all the saints; so the continual supplies of that Spirit are to be derived from Him for the saints’ progress in holiness, till they come to perfection. And faith is the great mean of communication betwixt Christ and us (Acts 15:9). III. Uses. 1. Of information. This lets us see-- (1) The absolute necessity of holiness. (2) In vain do men attempt sanctification without coming to Christ for it. (3) Unholiness ought not to stop a sinner from coming to Christ, more than a disease ought to hinder a man to take the physician’ s help, or cold from taking the benefit of the fire. (4) True faith is the soul’ s coming to Christ for sanctification as well as justification. For faith must receive Christ as God offers Him, and He offers Him with all His salvation. Now He is made sanctification. Wherefore the soul, being willing to take Christ with all His salvation, to be sanctified, comes to Him for it. 2. Of exhortation. Come then to Christ for sanctification, and note the following motives. (1) If ye be not holy ye will never see heaven (Hebrews 12:14). (2) Ye will never attain holiness if ye come not to Christ for it. (a) While ye are out of Christ ye are under the curse; and is it possible for the cursed tree to bring forth the fruit of holiness? (b) Can ye be holy without sanctifying influences, or can ye expect that these shall be conveyed to you otherwise than through a Mediator, by His Spirit? (c) Ye have nothing wherewith to produce holiness. The most skilful musician cannot play unless his instrument be in tune. The lame man, if he were ever so willing, cannot run till he be cured. Ye are under an utter impotency, by reason of the corruption of your nature. (d) If ye will come to Christ ye shall be made holy. There is a fulness of merit and spirit in Him for sanctification. Come then to the fountain of holiness. The worst of sinners may be sanctified this way (1 Corinthians 6:11). (T. Boston, D. D.)Christ our righteousness One day, as I was passing into the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, “ Thy righteousness is in heaven” ; and methought withal I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’ s right hand. There, I say, was my righteousness, so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, “ He wants a righteousness,” for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame that made my righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, “ The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and my irons; my temptations also fled away, so that from that time those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me. (John Bunyan.)Christ is our sanctification I. What is sanctification?1. It is to be changed (2 Corinthians 3:18). Sanctification makes a great change; the judgment is changed, the disposition, the way, the company. 2. It is to be cured. Sin is the sickness of the soul. The only physician is our Lord Jesus Christ, raised up of God for that purpose; no hand but His can heal us. 3. It is to be cleansed. Sin is the pollution of the soul; and it is pollution in grain, such as nothing can wash us from but the fountain opened, and that fountain is Christ (Zechariah 13:1). 4. It is to be clothed. A sinful condition is a naked condition (Revelation 3:17). And what must poor naked souls do, but come to Christ, to His shop, and here buy of Him white raiment (Revelation 3:18; Zechariah 3:3-4). “ I clothed thee also with broidered work,” &c. (Ezekiel 16:10-14). Grace is rich raiment, princely, priestly, comely clothing, that waxeth not old. 5. It is to be consecrated. Sanctifying is the same with consecrating, that is, setting apart from common and profane to holy and spiritual uses, as persons, places, vessels, times, were under the Old Testament. II. How is Jesus Christ made all this to us?1. Principally by the working of His Spirit and grace. The Spirit of Christ is the Sanctifier. When He comes into the heart to dwell there, He renews, and He regenerates, and He raises, and He reconciles. It is through Jesus Christ. If He had not satisfied and died, to make God friends with us, He would never have sent the Spirit, to make us friends with Him. 2. Instrumentally by the Word, “ Sanctify them through Thy truth” (John 17:17). Error never sanctifies. Truth only doth that (James 1:17; Titus 1:1). The Word of truth begins, and the same carries on this good work. III. The practical improvement.1. Shall I propound one needful question to you? Are ye sanctified? is Jesus Christ made of God sanctification to you? It is a thing that may be known. There are three marks: (1) Where Christ is made to us sanctification, it is become natural to us to walk in all holy obedience to the will of God. I say natural, not to the old, but to the new, nature. Then, says one, I fear I am not sanctified. I reply, The trial is not to be made by any one single action at any one time, but by our course and way. How is it ordinarily with us? There is no man but doth something that beasts do; but is he therefore a beast? There is no beast but doth something that a man doth; but is he therefore a man? (2) Where Christ is made to us sanctification, holiness is highly prized and dearly loved, and more and more of it earnestly desired. I believe it is never otherwise among the truly sanctified. (3) Where Christ is made to us sanctification, He is owned and acknowledged as our all in all. The crown is set upon His head. To us to live is Christ. 2. I shall suppose you now propounding to me another needful question. What may I do that Christ may be made to me sanctification? (1) We must be inwardly and thoroughly convinced that there is an absolute necessity He should be so. If we mean to please God in this world. None but the sanctified are accepted of Him, He hath no pleasure but where His image is. Our sacrifices are an abomination, our prayers an abomination, otherwise. Till the tree is good the fruit cannot be good. And also, if we mean to enjoy God in the other world. “ Without holiness no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). (2) We must apply ourselves to the Lord Jesus by faith and prayer. (3) We must attend upon the ordinances. These are the conduit pipes through which the grace of sanctification is conveyed to poor souls. 3. What must they do to whom Christ is already made sanctification? (1) They have cause to bless God for it every day, all their days (Psalms 103:1-3). (2) They must press after further degrees of sanctification, more and more. Dying to sin. Living to righteousness. (Philip Henry.)Christ is our redemption That Jesus Christ is made of God unto all men that are in Him redemption. I. What does this mean--“ made redemption” ? He is made of God redemption to us; that is, God hath ordained and appointed Him from all eternity, and in the fulness of time raised Him up, and sent Him, to be the author and procurer of redemption for us; or, which is all one, to be a redeemer to us (Luke 1:68). Now to redeem is, in general, to recover those that are in bondage out of bondage, as the Jews were released by Cyrus out of their captivity in Babylon. Redemption, viz. 1. By power; when those who kept us in bondage are conquered and overcome. 2. By exchange; when one prisoner is let go for another. 3. By price; when a sum of money is paid to buy off a prisoner, more or less, according as the quality of the prisoner is. Now this last is properly redemption, and this last is the way in which Jesus Christ hath made us free. To this purpose we are told of a covenant of redemption which was transacted from all eternity between the Father and the Son, the terms whereof were--That if the Son would come and be man and die, that dying of His should be accepted as the price or ransom of all the elect, how many soever there were. The Son accepted of this motion, did what was to be done, suffered what was to be suffered, and so became our redemption. See some footsteps of this covenant transaction in two Scriptures (Psalms 40:6-8 : Isaiah 49:2; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 49:9). But-- II. What find of redemption is this?1. Needed redemption. It is the redemption that we needed. He came to supply all our needs. Now among other needs, being in bondage, we needed one to redeem us; not only one to clothe us, being naked; to feed us, being hungry; to wash us, being filthy; to heal us, being wounded; to cure us, being sick;--but to redeem us. If He had done all this for us in our bondage, and left us still in bondage, we had been miserable notwithstanding. 2. It is a nonsuch redemption, when compared with other redemption. Whether personal, as Joseph out of prison, or Peter (Acts 12:1-25.), or Daniel out of the lions’ den. Whether public, as from Egypt, from Babylon. It surpasses them all in number, way, and consequences. 3. Distinguishing redemption. It is denied to the angels that sinned. The commons are ransomed, the nobles left behind. He paid no price to redeem them. 4. It is divers, manifold redemption according to the manifold evils that we lay under. They are of three sorts--temporal, spiritual, eternal. (1) He is redemption to us from temporal evils. Such as concern the body, and the life that now is; such as sickness, death, poverty. Not that they shall not befall us, but that they shall not hurt us. The sting of them is taken out (Psalms 91:10). (2) Which is better, it is redemption to us from spiritual evils. These are worse evils than the former, because they affect the better part of us. The guilt of sin; whereby we are bound over to punishment, the fear whereof causes bondage (Hebrews 2:14). To redeem us from this, He is made righteousness to us for our justification. The filth and power of sin; whereby sin hath dominion over us, and we are perfect slaves to it, the vilest of slaves (John 8:34). To redeem us from this He is made sanctification to us. (3) There is another sort of evils yet, and those are eternal evils; and by redemption here we are especially to understand our deliverance from those. Because it is mentioned after righteousness and sanctification as a thing different from them; and because of what we find in other Scriptures, where redemption is applied to something in the other world: “ Waiting for the redemption of the body” (Romans 8:23), that is, the resurrection and glorification of our bodies: compare Luke 21:28 with Ephesians 4:30, the day of redemption. 1. What those eternal evils are which redemption frees us from. (1) It frees us for ever, not only from the guilt, and filth, and power of sin, but from the very being of it also. (2) It frees us from Satan ever having any more to do with us, either as a tempter or as a tormentor. He is busy now with the saved (1 Peter 5:8), and he will be more busy hereafter with those that perish (Matthew 18:34). But where the redeemed are he comes not (Romans 16:20). (3) It frees us from all sorrow and suffering, of what kind soever, in mind or body (Revelation 21:4). (4) It frees us from all society with wicked and ungodly men, and that for ever. They are blended here, and it pleases neither (Psalms 120:5-6). But there is a redemption coming (Matthew 25:33). 2. What there is that is positive in this redemption. (1) As soon as the redeemed die their souls immediately go to God, to the vision and fruition of Him in glory (Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23). (2) At the resurrection, at the last day, the same soul and the same body shall come together again. Though we are not redeemed from death, we are to be from the grave (Isaiah 26:19; Hosea 13:14). (3) To all eternity there shall be a fulness of uninterrupted joy and felicity; a remaining rest; a Sabbath without a week of working days after it, perpetual, eternal. 3. I shall show how Jesus Christ is made this to us, this future redemption. He is the purchaser of it; it was bought with His blood, bought back. We had mortgaged it for an apple, and must never have retrieved it, had not He died (Ephesians 1:14). He is our forerunner in it (Hebrews 6:20). He went thither as our attorney or proxy, to take possession of the purchase in our name and stead (John 14:1-2). It is He that Himself actually puts us into possession of it. At the resurrection it is His voice and trumpet that raises the dead; He is the resurrection. It is He Himself alone that is the sole object of all our future happiness; to be with Him, to see and enjoy Him, is our future redemption (Revelation 21:23). III. The improvement.1. Then it concerns us all, by all means, to give all diligence to make sure to ourselves our interest in this redemption. 2. If Jesus Christ be made of God this redemption to you, then, in God’ s name, take the comfort of it. Lift up the head and hands that hang down; “ Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say, rejoice.” 3. Then live as the redeemed of the Lord. (Philip Henry.)Christ our sanctification “ I remember a short time ago, when I was conducting a service at Oxford, a working man came into the meeting. He was the first penitent that night, and he has frequently told me since that he had been most honestly and sincerely trying for twenty years to be a true Christian, but he had failed every day and almost given up in despair when he came by accident and heard this truth--that his failure was due to the fact that he had been trying to be a Christian in his own strength. He then went into the inquiry-room, trusted in Christ, and was united with Christ, shared the life of Christ, and from that day to this he has done what he could not do for twenty years before, although he was really trying, because he was strong in the life which he shared with Christ. Are not some of us in danger of supposing that we can make ourselves better Christians, more Christlike Christians, by our own resolution, and efforts, and rules, and discipline?” (Hugh Price Hughes, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 1:31 He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Glorying in the Lord here is an irresistible tendency in us to glory in something or other. All classes of men glory. Good people have the tendency to glory, and sometimes they glory in unworthy objects, and therefore God has prepared a cure for it--not by repressing the instinct, but by giving it a worthy subject. The prevention or cure of glorying in men, in riches, and in self, is glorying in the Lord. Let us-- I. Glory only in the Lord. Because--1. The theme is too great to admit of another. If God fills all in all, there can be no other god; and if the glory of God be infinite, then there can be no second glory. 2. Any other object highly provokes the Most High. He has said, “ My glory will I not give to another, nor My praise to graven images.” Where the ark of the Lord is, Dagon must come down. God will be all, or nothing. Think of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Herod. 3. There is no other fit ground for glorying. (1) If there were some other object in which we thought we could glory, yet since it came from Him it would be idle to glory in the streams, we had better boast in the fountain-head from which the stream descends. (2) Moreover, all things in this world are fleeting, and wherefore should we glory in that which to-day is, and to-morrow will pass away? Let your glory be in that which will last as long as your own being. (3) Besides, there is nothing in this world worth glorying in, in comparison with God. He is the sun; the stars must hide their heads when He appears. Let us bless the eternal ocean of all-sufficient glory and goodness, and not turn aside to magnify our little Abanas and Pharpars. 4. When we do so we shall be in accord with the true order of the universe. (1) With creation “ The heavens are telling the glory of God.” “ All Thy works praise Thee, O God.” Creation is a temple in which every one speaks of His glory. (2) With Providence. “ For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be the glory for ever.” (3) With the angels. What is their song? “ Glory to God in the highest.” (4) With the Divine Trinity; for what does the Father do but glorify the Son? What does the Son aim at when He says, “ Father, glorify Thy Son” ? It is, “ that Thy Son also may glorify Thee.” What does the Holy Spirit do when He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us? Has not Jesus said of Him, “ He shall glorify Me” ? II. Glory heartily in the Lord. Because of--1. His love. Glory in-- (1) Its antiquity. “ I have loved thee with an everlasting love!” (2) In its wonderful benefactions. (3) In its freeness. He loved us because He would love us; not because we were lovely, but because He was love. Glory in it, therefore, all the day long, for well you may. “ He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” 2. His faithfulness. Whom once He loves He never leaves, but loves them to the end. 3. His holiness. “ Bless the Lord, O my soul,” and “ All that is within me, bless” --His gracious name, is it? No. His loving name? No; but “ His holy name,” because the whole includes all the parts, and the holiness, or the wholeness of God is a grander thing than any one of the distinct attributes which make up His character. Glory in the holiness of God, for there is none holy as the Lord. It is this which angels glory in, for as they veil their faces, they say, “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.” 4. His all-sufficiency, and the liberality with which He distributes His mercies among His chosen. In Christ Jesus is not one good thing given to us, but every good thing. Do we need to be instructed? Christ is oar wisdom. Do we need to be clothed in the sight of God with a righteousness that shall render us acceptable? Christ is our righteousness. Do we need to be purified and cleansed? Christ is our sanctification. And do we need to be set free and delivered from all bondage? Christ is our redemption. 5. The nearness and dearness of the relationship which God holds to us. The mar, who can bow his knee, and say from his heart, “ Our Father,” has more to glory in than the emperor of the grandest nations. Is Christ my Brother? I am ennobled by that relationship. III. Glory in the Lord growingly. That is to say, we should glory in God in proportion as we learn more of Him, and receive more from Him. Glory growingly in the Lord as you know more of Him--1. By revelation. And as you see more of Him, go and tell abroad more of Him, and let others know what a glorious God you serve. 2. By experience. Never let a special season pass without praising Him; and as answers to prayer increase, as grace is given to you in times of need, and as you see converting work going on in others glorify Him more. By and by, as time rolls on, we shall know more of the Lord, and get to be more like Him, and approach nearer to the glory itself. Beholding that glory, as in a glass, we are changed from glory to glory, as by the image of the Lord. IV. Glory in the Lord practically.1. By owning that you belong to Him. A man does not hide away that which he glories in. Charge a veteran with having been at Waterloo, and he will glory in it. Accuse an artist of being a Royal Academician, and he will own the charge. Abuse me for loving my wife and children, and I smile at you. Why, then, blush to be called a follower of Jesus? 2. By talking about Him on all fit occasions. We are too reticent in our piety. As the rose betrays itself by its perfume, and the glowworm by its shining, so should our glorying in the Lord discover us to all observers. A foreigner may speak English well, but he is known by his accent, and the accent of grace is quite as marked as that of nature. 3. By standing up for Him when He is opposed. If you hear the proud ones ridicule His gospel, and despise His people, put in a word for Jesus. 4. By being calm under your troubles. 5. By having a contempt for those things which others value so much. Do not be greedy after the world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)True glorying Man-- I. Loves to glory. II. Has nothing in himself of which he can glory. III. Should glory in the Lord--who--1. Has given him all.2. Redeemed all.3. Is become his portion for ever. (J. Lyth, D. D.)God exalted and creatures humbled by the gospel That men are sinners I shall assume. If, then, there is any salvation for them, it must be by grace. And such a salvation cannot fail to exalt God and humble the sinner. None will deny that the world are proud. The tendency of the gospel to exalt God and humble the creature appears-- I. In its outward administration. This includes--1. The humble appearance of Christ in our world. When we understand the reasons of this humble appearance of Christ, we see in it the wisdom of God; but had it been left to us beforehand, we should have assigned Him the most magnificent state. Thus did the wisdom of man pronounce. Indeed, the pride of man, showing itself in lofty pretensions to the omniscience of wisdom, was seen to be the most intrepid enemy which the religion of heaven had to encounter. It therefore was a main point in the outset to overwhelm this enemy with convictions of his own ignorance and folly and of the far superior wisdom of God. In all these proud pretensions reason aspires to a place for which it was never designed. It is not its province to penetrate the mysteries of the universe by its own ken, but to work up into judgments materials furnished by information. It is the eye, but it cannot see without, light. In no other science but that which relates to the incomprehensible God and to the interests and government of the universe, does reason attempt to build on its own independent discoveries. The anatomist does not presume to tell you how a man ought to be made, but with all submission proceeds to examine the animal system which God has exposed to his view. And why does man act so differently in this case from what he does in all others? Because in other sciences he wishes to obtain accurate knowledge; in this, relief to his conscience and fears and mortified pride. He does not like God, and wishes to modify Him after his own taste. 2. Another way in which the outward administration of the gospel took the pride of the world, was in the weakness of the instruments employed, the simplicity of their preaching, and their triumphant success. Instead of angels or Jewish doctors or Grecian philosophers, Christ chose fishermen. II. The same tendency appears in the texture of the gospel. This is noticed in our text and the preceding verse. “ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.”1. Our wisdom. Instead of ignorant and prejudiced reason, on which the wise men of the world proudly rested for the discovery of God, Christ, the great Prophet of the world, was appointed to lay open the secrets of the eternal mind, and to bring “ life and immortality to light” ; “ No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” 2. Our righteousness. There is nothing to which men more strongly adhere than to the claims of their own merit. The whole texture of the gospel is fitted to put down this arrogant pretender, to annihilate the last lurking pride of man. (1) The atonement.(2) The obedience of Christ.(3) The intercession of Christ. But the soul-humbling and God-exalting process is not yet ended. Not only are the atonement, obedience, and intercession of Christ thus provided, in a way to support the rights and claims and government of God, to condemn sin, and cover pride with eternal confusion; but no man is allowed to share in this salvation until, from the bottom of his heart, he has approved of all these measures and all their expressions; until he has taken back all his proud speeches against God, and bent his imperious head to his Maker’ s feet. Even pardon itself buries the sinner still lower in the dust. This is none of that poverty of spirit which involves degradation. It is only viewing things according to truth. III. The same tendency of the gospel appears in its application. Christ is made of God unto us sanctification, “ that, according as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.” As the race were condemned by the law to the curse of eternal abandonment, the Spirit could not come to men without the mediation of Christ. The heathen philosophers depended on the self-determining power of the will for all their personal virtue, and on their self-Caught ethics for the reformation of the world. In opposition to all these proud aspirations, the gospel casts the world fur sanctification on the Spirit of God and the purchase of Christ. Nor is this all. In their spiritual death it finds nothing in them to aid their resurrection, and ascribes to God, not only the whole power, but a conquering power, “ the working of mighty power,” as great as that “ which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.” Thus every part of the gospel is calculated to abase the pride of man, to break and subdue and humble the sinner, to support the rights, the claims, the government of God, and to give all the glory to Him. “ Whatever light or holiness or title to salvation we possess, comes from God through the Redeemer. Whatever brings out God to view, exalts Him, abases sinners, and humbles and blesses the creation. Let us, then, see what and how much of God is revealed in the plan of salvation. In the first place, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are brought out to view in their own proper and infinitely important characters; a distinction never whispered to the universe in any of His other works. In the next place, His inflexible resolution, at all hazards, to support His moral empire over the creation, comes out; disclosing His infinite attachment to all the principles of His law and to the happiness which it subserves, and thus manifesting His holiness, justice, and benevolence. In the next place, His amazing compassion and mercy and patience and condescension and accessibleness and truth are brought to light; His power, too, in subduing the carnal heart, in restraining, bounding, and defeating all the machinations of Satan. But the wisdom elicited is that on which I wish chiefly to dwell. This wonderful plan of the Incarnation was the forming of a connecting link between finite and infinite natures, and filling up the whole chasm between God and us. He confounded the wisdom of men by the triumphs of that very weakness which provoked their contempt, and by making, in various ways, the most unpromising means lead to the most splendid success. He so shaped the gospel, that, in every part, it should be at war with pride, and touch it in every tender spot, and call into the field every arm of that foe, and exhibit it before heaven and earth in the hideous attitude of warring against all the love and authority of the gospel. He pressed into the service of His cause all the agents in the wicked world; the policy of kings, the pride of philosophers, the craft of priests, and the very ferocity of bloody persecution. He defeated all the stratagems ,of Satan and effectually bruised the serpent’ s head. Elect man is a gainer by his own ruin. His sin is made the occasion of higher advances in holiness; for to whom much is forgiven the same loveth much. His misery is made the occasion of his greater blessedness. And finally, the wisdom of God appears in that capital measure to vindicate His own impartiality, the appointment of the Friend and Brother of man to be his Judge. “ The Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of man.” Why should you think that this grandest of all the exhibitions of God will be shut up in the nut-shell of a single world? (E. D. Griffin,. D. D.). 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 And I, brethren,… came … not with excellency of speech or of wisdom. The spirit or tone in which St. Paul preached It was in-- I. A decisive tone of personal conviction. It was “ the testimony of God,” not an opinion. He does not say, “ I think so,” but “ God says so.” So in Galatians 1:11-12. St. Paul was no hired, official expounder of a system. He felt that his words were eternal truth: hence their power. Hence, too, arises the possibility of discarding rules of oratory. For it is half-way towards making us believe when a man believes himself. Faith produces faith. II. A spirit of self-abnegation (verse 2). There were no side glances at his own prospects, reputation, success. And this sincerity and self-forgetfulness was a source of power. It was so with the Baptist, who declared of Christ: “ He must increase, but I must decrease.” In any work which is to live, or be really beautiful, there must be the spirit of the Cross. That which is to be a temple to God must never have the marble polluted with the name of the architect or builder. III. A spirit of personal lowliness (verse 3). Partly this refers to his infirmities and disadvantages; but partly, too, it means deep humility. Now, remember who it was who said this--the daring St. Paul, whose soul was all of flame, whose every word was a half-battle, who stood alone on Mars’ Hill, and preached to the scoffing Athenians “ Jesus and the Resurrection.” How little they who heard his ponderous sentences could have conceived that “ weakness, and fear, and much trembling” of the invisible spirit! But again: see how this tells on the tone of his ministry. St. Paul did not begin with asserting his prelatical dignity and apostolic authority. He began with declaring truth, and that in “ trembling.” Then, when men disputed his right to teach, he vindicated his authority, but not till then. And this is a lesson for modern times. Each minister must prove his apostolical succession by apostolic truthfulness, sincerity, and courage--as St. Paul proved his--and by his charity, and by his Christ-like meekness. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Paul a model preacher Look at-- I. His matter. 1. He excludes all that is foreign to his purpose.2. Knows nothing but Christ. II. His manner.1. He is modest in the consciousness of his own weakness.2. Plain in the conviction of the presence and power of the Spirit. III. The effect.1. Faith not in the man.2. But in the power of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)A faithful picture of a true gospel preacher The grand subject, of his ministry-- I. Is the crucified Christ, because--1. He is the highest, revelation of God’ s love for men.2. He is the most thrilling demonstration of the wickedness of humanity.3. He is the grandest display of loyalty to moral rectitude. II. Soul-absorbing (verse 3). The man who has some paramount sentiment looks at the universe, through it, and values it so far as it reflects and honours that sentiment. Hence to Paul Christ was “ all in all.” All other subjects-political and philosophical--dwindled into insignificance in its presence; it swallowed up his great soul III. Makes him indifferent to all rhetorical considerations (verse 1). The theme was infinitely too great for it. Does the splendid apple-tree in full blossom require to be decorated with gaudy ribbons? Christ crucified is mighty eloquence. IV. Subdues in him all self-consciousness (verse 3). V. Invests him with Divine power over man (verses 4, 5). (D. Thomas, D. D.)The Christian preacher I. His message.1. The testimony of God.2. Concerning Christ.3. Divine, therefore true. II. His method of delivering it.1. Not artificial in style, matter, or manner.2. But plain, simple, pointed. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Gospel preaching Note--1. That the proper method to convert men in any community, Christian or Pagan, is to preach or set forth the truth concerning the person and work of Christ. 2. The proper state of mind in which to preach the gospel is the opposite of self-confidence or carelessness. The gospel should be preached with a sense of weakness and with great anxiety and solicitude. 3. The success of the gospel does not depend on the skill of the preacher, but on the demonstration of the Spirit. 4. The foundation of saving faith is not reason, i.e., not arguments addressed to the understanding, but the power of God as exerted with and by the truth upon the heart. (C. Hodge.)Preaching--fruit and flowers At Hampton Court Palace every one regards with wonder the enormous vine loaded with so vast a multitude of huge clusters: just outside the vine-house is as fine a specimen of the wistaria, and when it is in full bloom, the cluster-like masses of bloom cause you to think it a flower-bearing vine, as the other is a fruit-bearing vine. Fit emblems these two famous trees of two ministries, both admired, but not equally to be prized--the ministry of oratory, luxuriant in metaphor and poetry, and the ministry of grace, abounding in sound teaching and soul-saving energy. Gay as are the flower-clusters of the wistaria, no one mistakes them for the luscious bunches of the grape; yet there are many simpletons in spiritual things who mistake sound for sense, and seem to satisfy their hunger not on solid meat, but on the jingle of a musical dinner-bell. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Conditions of successful preaching If a preacher wishes to be successful he must--1. Deny himself (verse 1) and exalt Christ (verse 2).2. Feel himself weak (verse 3), yet strong (verse 4).3. Ignore the human and magnify the Divine (verse 5). (J. Lyth.)Brilliant, but not saving, sermons Sir Astley Cooper, on visiting Paris, was asked by the surgeon en chef of the empire how many times he had performed a certain wonderful feat of surgery. He replied that he had performed the operation thirteen times. “ Ah, but, monsieur, I have done him one hundred and sixty times. How many times did you save his life?” continued the curious Frenchmen, after he had looked into the blank amazement of Sir Astley’ s face. “ I,” said the Englishman, “ saved eleven out of the thirteen. How many did you save out of one hundred and sixty?” Ah, monsieur, I lose dem all; but de operation was very brilliant.” Of how many popular ministries might: the same verdict be given! Souls are not saved, but the preaching is very brilliant. Thousands are attracted and operated on by the rhetorician’ s art, but what if he should have to say of his admirers, “ I lose them all, but the sermons were very brilliant!(C. H. Spurgeon.)The messenger like the message 1. As the gospel is the foolish thing of God, so the apostle had no wisdom or utterance of his own (verses 1, 2). 2. As the gospel is the weak thing of God, so the apostle came to Corinth in weakness, fear, and trembling (verse 3). But as Christ is the power and wisdom of the gospel, so the Spirit is the power and wisdom of the ministry (verse 4). 3. As the gospel is the mystery of God, and therefore a Divine power, so the ministry is a Divine power, and therefore the manifestation of Divine wisdom. (Principal Edwards.)The Divine testimony, and the apostle’ s responsibility in relation to it Consider-- I. The theme. “ The testimony of God,” which has to do with “ Jesus Christ and Him crucified(verse 2). The “ declaration” of this theme, in all its manifold relations and aspects, is the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is characterised by--1. Wisdom (verse 6). Perfection of moral character is seen only in the character of Jesus Christ. 2. “ Hidden wisdom.” 3. Ancient wisdom. “ Ordained before the world.” 4. Glorifying wisdom. “ Ordained unto our glory.” II. The declaration (verse 1) was--1. Simple in its character. “ Not with excellency of speech” --“ not with enticing words of man’ s wisdom.” 2. Convincing in its arguments. It was “ in demonstration of the Spirit.” 3. Powerful in its effects (verse 5). 4. Of exclusive importance (verse 2). (The Study.)Faith, not intellect A friend said to Archbishop Whately on his death-bed: “ The Lord has heard your prayers and preserved your intellect unimpaired.” He replied: “ It is not intellect which can avail me now, but faith in Christ Jesus.” Rhetorical preaching In ascending the lofty peaks of the Jungfrau and Monte Rosa, the guides, I have read, not unfrequently resort to the innocent artifice of endeavouring to interest the traveller in the beauty of the flowers in order to distract his attention from the fearful abysses which the giddy path overhangs. What the Alpine guides thus innocently do, we preachers are often tempted to do not so innocently. We are prone so to occupy our hearers with the graces of composition and the flowers of rhetoric that they are in danger of altogether forgetting that there is a dread abyss beside them, and that there is but a step between them and death. (J. Halsey.)The spirit of successful preaching The Rev. Dr. McAll, founder and superintendent of the remarkable mission in Paris and other parts of France which bears his name, was the son of the celebrated Robert S. McAll, LL.” D., of Manchester, some of whose sermons are justly ranked amongst the noblest productions of pulpit literature. His ministry was powerfully influenced by what he considered to be the failure of his father’ s ministry. He tells how “ he had repeatedly seen his father weep because, while so much run after and admired on account of his eloquence, so little spiritual good seemed to be done, and there were scarcely any conversions.” Warned by this example, “ he determined,” he says, “ to throw overboard ‘ excellency of speech and of wisdom’ and to strike direct for the heart and conscience of the unconverted, in the hope of saving many.” The right kind of preaching Mr. Spurgeon uttered words-in one of his prayer-meeting addresses which speak volumes as to the secret of his successful ministry: “ I think I can honestly say that when I have had something come to me rather fine--a nice, rare oratorical bit, and I think I could do it--I think if I tried I might say something “ very fine--I have pulled it out of my mouth and flung it away that I might not take away the attention of any hearer from Christ crucified. ‘ Here is a sword.’ ‘ But,’ says one, ‘ it has not a handsome scabbard.’ No; we pull that off. We throw that to some old rag and bone dealer. We use nothing but the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ. When that does not save men, men shall be lost. We know nothing equal to it for the keenness of its edge; for the force with which it slays. It is a strange sword. With its edge it kills, and with its back it heals. 1 Corinthians 2:2I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Paul’ s theme I. Paul’ s theme.1. Christ.2. Him crucified. II. His determination.1. To know nothing else.2. Spite of ridicule and reproach. III. His motive. This was--1. His duty.2. His delight.3. His glory. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Paul’ s one theme Paul was emphatically a man of one idea. He went forth not to baptize (1 Corinthians 1:17); not to preach self (2 Corinthians 4:5); not to teach philosophy (1 Corinthians 1:23); not to practise tricks of rhetoric (1 Corinthians 2:4); but everywhere in synagogues, market-places, judgment halls, prison, crowded cities, his one theme was “ Christ and Him crucified.” In the synagogues at Antioch and Thessalonica, what does he preach?-- Acts 13:38; Acts 17:3. On Mars Hill, what?-- Acts 17:31. Before Felix and Agrippa, what? Acts 24:25; Acts 26:23. In the prison at Rome, what?-- Acts 28:31. And now in writing to the Corinthian Church, what? Why does Paul give such prominence to this theme? Because-- I. It is the most important theme. Philosophy would have reached only the cultured. A plea for the oppressed would have reached only the patriotic, but the Cross commands universal attention, for it touches a universal want. It means--1. Remission of sins. Sin is the source of all ills. Christ is “ the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” 2. An immortality of glory. II. It is the grandest theme.1. Grand is the starry world above, but grander is the Cross. 2. It gives grandeur to the life. If it be grand to die for one’ s country, grander is it to die for the salvation of men. If it be grand to minister to a mind diseased, grander is it to minister to a soul diseased. The Cross made Paul’ s life grand, and Luther’ s, Whitfield’ s, and Wesley’ s. III. Of the central position of the theme in the gospel. (J. C. Williamson.)The great subject of evangelical preaching I. The determination of the apostle.1. “ Jesus” signifies a Saviour. The kind errand upon which He comes is included in this name--to save from the guilt of sin, by imputing the merit of His sacrifice, and from the dominion of sin, by imparting His Spirit. 2. Christ signifies the Anointed One (Psalms 45:7). As kings and priests and prophets were anointed, so He was especially anointed of God as the King, the Priest, and the Prophet of His Church. 3. A special emphasis must be laid upon the words, Him crucified. “ Jesus Christ” they, know in heaven; “ Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” sinners are to be acquainted with upon the earth. 4. Paul determines to “ know” this. To know sometimes meant-- (1) Respect and love. “ I beseech you to know them which labour among you in the Lord. (2) To make it known to others. And this the apostle did. (3) The word here signifies especially that he so resolved to preach among them “ Christ crucified,” as if he knew nothing so much as--nothing in comparison with--“ Christ, and Him crucified.” And read his sermons and epistles, and see how he carried out this blessed determination. II. Some reasons for this determination.1. It was a subject which God approved. He calls it “ the testimony of God,” because to His crucified Son God has given wonderful testimony in the Scriptures. 2. It was the subject calculated to convert sinners. And why? Because the Spirit, as the glorifier of Christ, will not apply any other subject but this. 3. It was fitted to comfort the sorrowful. We have in it everything adequate to our present and eternal necessities. 4. It was adapted to promote holiness. If I wish you to manifest His obedience in all your conduct, how is it to be obtained? “ The love of Christ constraineth us.” If I want to press upon your attention holy love to Christ, it proceeds from the same source. If I want to excite you to holy liberality, where can I point you but here? “ Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor,” &c. 5. It agrees with the theme of heaven. (J. Sherman.)The man of one subject Paul was a very determined man, and whatever he undertook he carried out with all his heart. “ This one thing I do” was always his motto. He had once been a great opposer of Christ; it was not therefore to be wondered at that he should now bring all his faculties to bear upon the preaching of Christ crucified. I. What was this subject to which Paul determined to shut himself up while preaching to the Church at Corinth?1. He first preached-- (1) His great Master’ s person--Jesus Christ. (a) He held Him up as a real man, no phantom, but one who was crucified, &c. (b) He had no hesitation about His Godhead. He preached Jesus as the wisdom and power of God. (2) His work, especially His death. “ Horrible!” said the Jew; “ Folly!” said the Greek. But Paul did not, therefore, put these things into the background and begin with the life of Christ and the excellency of His example, and thus tempt them onward to His divinity and atonement. 2. Very impolitic this must have seemed. (1) Wise men would have remarked upon the hopefulness of the Israelites, if handled with discretion, and their advice would have been, “ We do not say, renounce your sentiments, Paul, but disguise them for a little while.” The apostle yielded to no such policy, he would not win either Jew or Gentile by keeping back the truth, for he knew that such converts are worthless. (2) Another would say, “ But if you do this you will arouse opposition. Do not provoke the contempt of all thinking men. Argue with them, and show them that you too are a philosopher. Be all things to all men. By these means you will make many friends, and by degrees bring them to accept the gospel.” But the apostle puts down his foot with, “ I have determined.” 3. He resolved that his subject should so engross attention that he would not even speak it with excellency of speech or man’ s wisdom. He would hide the Cross neither with flowers of rhetoric nor with clouds of philosophy. Some preach Christ as the painter who, in depicting a sea fight, showed nothing but smoke. II. Although Paul thus concentrated his energies upon one point, it was quite sufficient for his purpose. If the apostle had aimed at pleasing an intelligent audience, or had designed to set himself up as a profound teacher, he would naturally have looked out for something a little more new and dazzling. A select Church of culture would have assured him that such preaching would only attract the servants and the old women; but Paul would not have been disconcerted by such observations, for he loved the souls of the poorest and feeblest: and, besides, he knew that what had exercised power over his own educated mind was likely to have power over other intelligent people.1. Paul desired to arouse sinners to a sense of sin, and what has ever accomplished this so perfectly as the doctrine that sin was laid upon Christ and caused His death? 2. But he wanted also to awaken the hope that forgiveness might be given consistently with justice. Need a sinner ever doubt when he has once seen Jesus crucified? 3. He longed to lead men to actual faith in Christ. Now, faith cometh by hearing, bus the hearing must be upon the subject concerning which the faith is to deal. 4. He wanted men to forsake their sins, and what should lead them to hate evil so much as seeing the sufferings of Jesus on account of it? 5. He longed to train up a Church of consecrated men, zealous for good works; and what more is necessary to promote sanctification than Christ, who hath redeemed us and so made us for ever His servants? I say that Paul had in Christ crucified a subject equal to his object; a subject that would meet the case of every man; a subject for to-day, to-morrow, and for ever. III. The apostle’ s confining himself to this subject could not possibly do harm. A man of one thought only is generally described as riding a hobby: well this was Paul’ s hobby, but it was a sort of hobby which a man may ride without any injury to himself or his neighbour.1. But Christ crucified is the only subject of which this can be said. (1) A class of ministers preach doctrine only, the effect of which is generally to breed narrowness, exclusiveness, and bigotry. (2) Others preach experience only. (a) Some of them take the lower scale of experience, and say that nobody can be a child of God except he groans daily, being burdened. This teaching brings up a race of men who show their humility by sitting in judgment upon all who cannot groan as deeply as themselves. (b) Another class preach experience always upon the high key. For them there are no nights; they sing through perpetual summer days. They have conquered sin, and they have ignored themselves. So they say, or we might have fancied that they had a very vivid idea of themselves and their attainments. Certainly their conventions and preachings largely consist of very wonderful declarations of their own admirable condition. (3) Another class preach the precepts and little else, and the teaching becomes very legal; and after a while the true gospel which has the power to make us keep the precept gets flung into the background, and the precept is not kept after all. Do, do, do, generally ends in nothing being done. (4) Others make the second advent the end-all and be-all of their ministry, and in many cases sheer fanaticism has been the result. 2. But keeping to this doctrine cannot do hurt, because-- (1) It contains all that is vital within itself. Within its limit, you have all the essentials for this life and for the life to come; you have the root out of which may grow branch, flower, and fruit of holy thought, word, and deed. This is a subject which does not arouse one part of the man and send the other part to sleep; it does not kindle his imagination and leave his judgment uninstructed, nor feed his intellect and starve his heart. As in milk there are all the ingredients necessary for sustaining life, so in Christ crucified there is everything that is wanted to nurture the soul. (2) It will never produce animosities, as those nice points do which some are so fond of dealing with. “ I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Christ,” comes from not keeping to Jesus crucified; but was there ever yet a sect created by the preaching of Christ crucified? IV. Because of all this we should all of us make this the main subject of our thoughts, preaching, and efforts. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Paul’ s determination Nothing but Christ--1. Could satisfy the preacher.2. Save the hearer.3. Please God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Method of preaching Paul had been trained up in all the learning that was common among the Jews, and it would seem from some casual expressions in his writings, in much also that was common among the Greeks; he might, therefore, have taken his hearers upon their own favourite grounds; he might have treated them in a way suited to the prevailing taste, he might have touched lightly upon those parts of the Christian system against which their prejudices were most powerfully directed, and thus have escaped not only the contempt of his auditors, but secured their admiration. I. This determination was plainly founded on a deep and heartfelt conviction that Christ Jesus, in that which He has done and suffered, is the only ground of the sinner’ s hope. The apostle knew that, though the case of the sinner was dreadful, it was not hopeless, and bearing in mind that the eternal safety of the soul is a matter compared with which everything else must Sink into insignificance, we cannot understand how he could form any other resolution than that which he here expresses, when he says, “ I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” II. But the apostle’ s determination to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, rested not merely on the fact that, by the atoning death of Christ, it was rendered possible for God to extend His pardoning mercy to rebellious man, but upon the other fact, that by the same means, the sinner is rendered a fit subject for pardon, and endowed with capacity for enjoying the blessings which pardon supposes imparted. Man is not only guilty, but polluted; he is not only subjected to the wrath of God, here and hereafter, because he has broken His law and incurred its penalty, but he is excluded from His fellowship here, and from the enjoyment of Him hereafter, because, by the depravity of his tastes, his feelings, his desires, his affections, he is incapable of holding that fellowship, and enjoying that felicity. It is the tendency of the preaching of Christ crucified to remedy this evil, to reduce the rebellious sinner to throw aside the weapons of his rebellion, to enkindle within his bosom the flame of love, and to adorn his soul with all the virtues which adorn the Saviour, and to change him into the same image from glory to glory. And in illustration of this tendency of the preaching of Christ crucified to produce these effects, we remark, that the strongest possible assurance is thereby afforded to men of God’ s willingness to be reconciled to them. Nothing surely can tend more to dispel the fears and strengthen the confidence of his creatures, to soften their hearts, and to win them over to His service, than the view in which the gospel represents God as willing to be reconciled; as not only willing, but earnest that such a reconciliation should be effected, as even sending His Son to suffer and die, that this end might be effected, and delegating men as heralds to offer terms to the guiltiest and most unworthy. But, again, by the preaching of Christ crucified, there is such a demonstration of love afforded, as tends most directly to ensure a return of the same affection. Do we think of a departed parent’ s tenderness, her days of toil and nights of watching, that she might bring us (under the blessing of God), through the weakness and dangers of infancy, without wishing her alive, that we might afford her, during her declining years, a practical proof of our gratitude? Can the helpless orphan think of the beneficence of the philanthropist, whose hand has rescued him from want and ignominy and death, and raised him to affluence, without bedewing his grave as he stoops over it with the tears of sensibility and tender recollection? Can we think of the love of God, not only in saving us, but in giving up His Son to the death for us all, in order to save not His friends but His enemies, without having our hearts warmed with a kindred love, and constrained by an irresistible influence, to live no longer to ourselves, but to Him who hath died for us and risen again? And does not the contemplation of the character of Christ, as exhibited in His life of suffering and death and agony, tend to beget in us a conformity to His image? You behold the Son of God leaving a palace, and becoming the tenant of a prison; and who can indulge in pride that contemplates such an overpowering exhibition of humility? You behold the Lord of all worlds wandering to and fro upon this earth without a house to afford Him shelter, yet not repining; and who, having food and raiment, should not therewith be content? You behold Him rejected by the nation He was sent to save, yet lamenting its infatuation, and weeping in the foresight of its doom; and who would not pity the miserable man who does not forgive the injurious? You see the crucified Jesus laid in the grave; and who would not repose in the bed He has hallowed? You see Him rising in glory; and who would not exult in the hope of immortality? Had Christ not been crucified, this Spirit had never been sent to earth, to move, to arrange the disordered elements of our moral nature, to convert the desert into the fruitful field, and the bleak and barren wilderness into the paradise of God. What, then, we ask, should the apostle have determined to know, in comparison with the great subject upon which he dwelt? What is more suited to the hungry than bread--what more consonant to the state of the weary traveller than rest--what more cheering to the guilty than pardon; and what could the apostle, in his regard to the honour of his Master, and to the interests of his fellows of the city of Corinth, guilty and polluted sinners, preach more adapted to their situation, than that Jesus, by whose blood they might be forgiven, by whose Cross and Spirit they might be sanctified, and thus be prepared, both by title and qualification of nature, for a place in that heavenly family, in reference to which they were now foreigners and strangers. (J. Clason.)Christ crucified: the theme of St. Paul’ s preaching I. What it is to make known Jesus Christ. By separating the idea of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified, the apostle means by the first to specify the person of Christ. To make known the person of Christ is to proclaim Him--1. The incarnate God. Such he declares Him to be in many passages, “ Who, being in the form of God,” &c. “ He is God over all, blessed for ever.” He is the true God and eternal life.” 2. The great Prophet of man. As such He was spoken of by the prophets (Isaiah 61:1). Hence they, by predicting His advent, applied to Him the epithet, the Messiah, or the Anointed. 3. Jesus Christ the example. “ Leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps.” Men are prone to imitation, it is one of the principles that come earliest into action, by it the child acquires the art of speech. Of this great principle Jesus Christ availed Himself in effecting His benevolent purposes on the moral condition of men; He commanded them to be perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect; and, lest their hearts sink within them, and they should turn away from the effort in despair, He hath Himself obeyed His own commandments. In the example He has set they may confide: it is perfect in the embodying and personifying His law. II. What it is to make known Jesus Christ crucified.1. For pardon--“ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.” 2. Christ crucified for purification--for if He died a propitiation for men, to save them from their sins, His work must be either complete or completely ineffectual: ineffectual it would be to save them from the punishment of sin if they were still left under its ruling power. By that death Christ having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, sheds Him abroad on the hearts of His people, destroying the tyranny of passion, weakening the power of habit, correcting the taste, implanting new principles, regenerating the affections. 3. Christ crucified for protection--for the protection of those whom He died to save (Philippians 2:8-10; Ephesians 1:22.) He is the ruler of providence, and subordinates all its events to promote the object for which He was crucified, even the salvation of men. They are exposed to danger from temptation, the sin that remains within them would precipitate them into guilt, His grace restrains; the world would seduce, He discloses the vanity of its fascinations; in the hour of death, when trial assails every weakness of humanity, He illumines and supports. 4. For resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:12-13). 5. For eternal glory--this is the consummation of it (John 17:24). Of His glory, “ it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive” ; but elsewhere it is said, that His followers shall be like Him, and that as they have borne the image of the earthly, so also shall they bear the image of the heavenly, and that image shall never be defaced. III. What is the import of the phrase not to make known anything” ?1. Anything at variance with, or opposed to, these doctrines. These doctrines were novel; novelty of opinion implies opinions previously existing, which are for the most part not only distinct, but opposite; for truth is one, and opinions respecting it are either consistent with it or are inconsistent. Novelty of opinion, therefore, implies opposition. The opposition in the present ease was extensive; the doctrines of Christianity contrasted themselves with every department, throughout the whole sphere of religious thinking, at Corinth. The sufficiency of reason to instruct and to regulate was tacitly assumed by them; of the necessity of Divine instruction they had no general idea. Naturally allied to this was the sufficiency of human merit to command acceptance. The moral character of their gods was so low that few men, however bad, could despair of reconciling themselves to one or other deity: the thief, the murderer, the adulterer, could all find examples of their own vice in the superior beings they feared. A degradation of the standard of virtue necessarily followed, accompanied with callousness of moral disapprobation. Even in those religious rights where human inability appeared more unambiguously acknowledged in the sacrifices by which they deprecated the wrath of offended Deity, it is easy to descry the spirit striving by such means to establish a claim on the Divine equity for protection and blessing, rather than the mere mercy of God. And again, allied to this, and forming but a new aspect, was the assumption of the sufficiency of human effort to originate and carry on to perfection excellences of character. I mention further their notions of the relative value of the virtues: pride was with them elevation of spirit; brute courage, designated by way of eminence, virtue; a spirit of revenge was esteemed honour, and the constituted favourite topic of their most lauded poets. Throughout the whole sphere there was a lamentable destitution of spirituality in their modes of thinking and feeling. Now, as these were the opinions that obtained at Corinth, and as all these are directly at variance with Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, with the Christianity which the apostle had to make known, it is obvious that in the text he referred specifically to these opinions, and that he considered them as what was not to be made known by one to whom was committed the ministration of the gospel; and condemning them thus specifically, he condemned them by their principles, and so he condemned all the consequences of such principles whenever they should in after years, under any other forms, appear. 2. Not anything exclusive of these doctrines. At first sight it appears impossible that any one, pretending to make known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, should be able to do it in a way exclusive of the doctrines we have explained: they seem so essential to Christianity. Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and Christianity, are convertible terms, they signify the same thing. But as what appears to man to be impossible is often possible with God, so what appears to man to be impossible is often possible with the great enemy of God and His Son: the arch enemy of the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, has devised the means of doing what is apparently impossible: these means vary with circumstances; but one of the most common is to originate controversy respecting the minor matters of the law and the subordinate or less essential parts of religion. By giving to these a temporary and unmerited importance, the attention of those appointed to make known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, is concentrated and engrossed, weightier matters are in proportion neglected, and the duty of promulgating Christianity is performed in a way more or less exclusive of its characteristic doctrines. S. Not anything so habitually as those doctrines. There is no virtue, no excellence, that in practice may not be carried to an extreme; and every extreme is bad. On this subject, of making known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, men having indulged in the utmost extravagances; have, under the best and most pious feelings, conceived that in the words of the apostle they are enjoined so to make known the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, as to exclude everything else; have tacitly denied any importance to the minor parts of the system, and have deemed the explication of them unworthy their attention. By thus failing to accommodate themselves to the demands of the system, and the mixed character of those who hear the gospel, they have given offence to the sensible, disgusted the almost Christian, and by limiting their range of topics, have introduced into their illustrations and enforcements a monotony of thinking, destructive, in no small degree, of ministerial usefulness. Such persons seem to act under the mistake that they have to make Jesus Christ known only to the unconverted. IV. What is expressed by the resolution, “ I determined not to know anything,” &c.1. His conviction of the truth of these doctrines. 2. His sense of their importance. “ Why am I invested,” he would naturally ask himself, “ by the Creator, the Ruler of men, with extraordinary and supernatural power to propagate among them these tenets, unless they are of more than worldly importance to them? 3. His determination to act worthily of his convictions. How peculiar and how sublime was the attitude in which he now stood! He saw the mightiest purposes of benevolence identified with his efforts, he saw the cause of truth dependent on his success, he heard the voice of gratitude for his own preservation summoning him to the sacred enterprise. (W. Moodie, D. D.)Preaching Christ “ Don’ t you know, young man,” said an aged minister, in giving advice to a younger brother, “ that from every town, and every village, and every hamlet in England, there is a road to London?” “ Yes,” was the reply. “ So,” continued the venerable man, “ from every text in Scripture there is a road to the metropolis of Scripture--that is, Christ. And your business, when you get a text, is to say, now what is the road to Christ, and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis, Christ.” In considering what is implied in preaching Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, we remark-- I. That it implies the preaching of Christ’ s Divinity. II. To preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, implies the preaching of the attractiveness of Christ’ s character. “ The Lord Jesus, it has been remarked, is the subject of all prophecy, the substance of all types, the end of the law, the jewel that lies in the casket of every promise, the sun in whom all the rays of heavenly truth centre, and from whom they radiate, filling the minds of all redeemed men, and of all holy angels, with their light and glory.” III. Preaching Christ implies preaching Him in all His offices as Prophet, Priest and King. IV. Preaching Christ, and Him crucified, implies the setting forth in all its fulness and freeness Christ’ s atoning sacrifice, and commending Him and it for the acceptance of all hearers, Now, whilst the substitutionary work of Christ must ever be the theme of true gospel preaching, preachers should be careful to be fervent in spirit whilst commending Christ and His salvation to men. No doubt God may bless clear anal cold preaching. For illustration, when Dr. Kane was in the Arctic regions he cut a piece of ice clear as crystal, in the form of a convex lens, held it up to the sun’ s rays, and to the surprise of the natives set in a blaze some dry wood which had been gathered. So an unconverted preacher may be the medium by which the truth may be brought to other hearts and kindle them with the holy flame of Divine love. Still, that is not usual, and it is well it is not. True preaching should be earnest; and, indeed, all the most eminent soul-winners may be said to have had their hearts in their mouths, so fervent were they in spirit. Thus, Richard Sheridan used to say, “ I often go to hear Rowland Hill because his ideas come red-hot from the heart.” Dr. Mason, when asked what he thought was the strong point of Dr. Chalmers, replied, “ His blood-earnestness.” And a Chinese convert once remarked in conversation with a missionary, “ We want men with hot hearts to tell us of the love of Christ.” Such is the manner in which Christ, and Him crucified, should be preached. (D. Scott, D. D.)St. Paul’ s determination And was the apostle wrong in his determination? He speaks as if the doctrine of the Cross were ample enough, comprehensive enough, for all his powers. Does this at all indicate that he was of a narrow and contracted mind, which could apply itself to only one topic, whilst a hundred others, perhaps nobler and loftier, lay beyond its grasp? Nay, not so; the tone of the apostle is not that of a man who is apologising for the limited character of his preaching, or its humiliating tendency; it is rather that of one who felt that the Corinthians had nothing to complain of, seeing that he had taught them the most precious, the most diffusive, the most ennobling of truths. Here, then, is our subject of discourse--the apostle determined to know nothing save the Cross; but the Cross is the noblest study for the intellectual man, as it is the only refuge for the immortal. How different was the plan of the apostle from that pursued by many who have undertaken the propagation of Christianity. The missionary might keep back all mention of the Cross, because fearful of exciting dislike and contempt. But, all the while, he would be withholding that which gives its majesty to the system, and striving to apologise for its noblest distinction. Now, we need hardly observe to you that, so far as Christ Jesus Himself was concerned, it is not possible to compute what may be called the humiliation or shame of the Cross. It is altogether beyond our power to form any adequate conception of the degree in which the Mediator humbled Himself when born of a woman, and taking part of flesh and blood. But when the Redeemer, though He had done no sin, consented to place Himself in the position of sinners, then was it that He marvellously and mysteriously descended. “ He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.” Here it is that the word “ shame” may justly be used; for in this it was that Christ Jesus became “ a curse for us.” We read nothing of the shame of His becoming a man, but we do read of the shame of His dying as a malefactor. And it we allow that it was a shameful thing, that it involved a humiliation which no thought can measure, with what other emotions, you may ask, but those of sorrow and self-reproach, should we contemplate the Cross? Shall we exult in the Cross? The awful transactions of which Calvary was the scene should never be contemplated by us without a deep sense of the magnitude of the guilt which required such an expiation, and great self-abhorrence at having added to the burden which weighed down the innocent sufferer. But though of all men, perhaps, St. Paul was the least likely to underrate the causes of sorrow presented by the Cross, this great apostle, in determining to know nothing but the Cross, could adopt a tone which implied that he gloried in the Cross. And why, think you, was this? Or why, if there be so much of shame about the Cross, was the apostle wise, when addressing himself to a refined people, in determining to “ know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? Indeed, there is no difficulty in finding answers to these questions; the only difficulty is in the selecting those which are the more pertinent and striking.1. We may first observe that the great truth which the apostle had to impress on the Corinthians was that, in spite of their sinfulness and alienation, they were still beloved by the one true God. And how could he better do this than by displaying the Cross? The greater the humiliation to which the Son of God submitted, the greater was the amount of the Divine love towards man. We know not whether it be lawful to speak of the possibility of our having been saved through any other arrangement. We may not be able to prove, and perhaps it hardly becomes us to investigate, what may be called the necessity for Christ’ s death, so that, unless Jesus had consented to die, it would not have been in God’ s -power to open to us the kingdom of heaven. But we cannot be passing the bounds of legitimate supposition if we imagine for a moment that some less costly process had sufficed, and that justice had been satisfied, without exacting from our Surety penalties so tremendous as were actually paid. And is it not too evident to ask any proof, that in the very proportion in which you diminish the sufferings of the Mediator, you diminish also the exhibition of His love, and leave it a thing to be questioned? It is, then, to “ Christ Jesus, and Him crucified” that we make our appeal when we would furnish such evidence of Divine love as must overbear all unbelief. We do not rest our proof on the fact that we have been redeemed, but on the fact that we have been redeemed ,through the bitter passion and the ignominious death of God’ s only and well beloved Son. It is here that the proof is absolutely irrefragable. Notwithstanding all which man hath done to provoke Divine wrath and make condemnation inevitable, he is regarded with unspeakable tenderness by the Almighty. Teach me this, and you teach me everything. And this I learn from Christ crucified. I learn it, indeed, in a measure from the sun, as he walks the firmament and warms the earth into fertility. I learn it from the moon, as she gathers the stars into her train and throws over creation her robe of soft light. But if I am taught by these, the teaching after all is but imperfect and partial. But when I behold Christ crucified, I cannot doubt the Divine love. I cannot doubt of this love, that it may justly be called inexhaustible, and that, if I will only allow myself to be its object, there is no amount of guiltiness which can exclude me from its embrace. 2. We proceed to observe that, although to the eye of sense there be nothing but shame about the Cross, yet a spiritual discernment perceives it to be hung with the very richest of trophies. It is necessarily to be admitted that, in one point of view, there was shame, degradation, ignominy, in Christ’ s dying on the Cross; but it is equally certain that in another there was honour, victory, triumph. There are impaled those principalities and powers, the originators and propagators of evil; there is fastened Death itself, that great tyrant and destroyer of human kind; there our sins are transfixed, having been condemned in the flesh, because borne in Christ’ s body on the tree. And am I, then, to be ashamed of the Cross? It is to be ashamed of the battle-field on which has been won the noblest of victories, of the engine by which has been vanquished the fiercest of enemies. It is to be ashamed of conquest, ashamed of triumph, ashamed of deliverance. And therefore was His death glorious, aye, unspeakably more glorious than life, array it how you will with circumstances of honour. This turns the crown of thorns into a diadem of splendour. This converts the sepulchre of Jesus into the avenue of immortality. 3. But we have hitherto scarcely carried our argument to the full extent of the apostle’ s assertion. Not only was he determined to know amongst the Corinthians “ Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” but he was determined to know nothing else. And if you consider for a moment what reason we have to believe that every blessing which we enjoy may be traced to the Cross, you will readily acknowledge that St. Paul went no further than he was bound to go as a faithful messenger of Christ. I can say to the man of science, thine intellect was saved for thee by the Cross. I can say to the father of a family, the endearments of home were rescued by the cross. I can say to the admirer of nature, the glorious things in the mighty panorama retained their places through the erection of the Cross. I can say to the ruler of an empire, the subordination of different classes, the working of society, the energies of government, are all owing to the Cross. And when the mind passes to the consideration of spiritual benefits, where can you find one not connected with “ Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? But we have yet another remark to offer. St. Paul must have desired to teach that doctrine which was best adapted to the bringing the Corinthians to “ live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.” If, therefore, he confined himself to any one doctrine, we may be sure that he considered it the most likely to be influential on the practice, on the turning sinners from the error of their ways, and making them obedient to God’ s law. And what doctrine is this if not that of “ Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? (H. Melvill, B.D.)The knowledge of Jesus Christ the best knowledge I. I am to explain what is meant by “ not knowing anything, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” By Jesus Christ we are to understand the eternal Son of God. By this word “ know,” we are not to understand a bare historical knowledge. It implies an experimental knowledge of His crucifixion so as to feel the power of it. II. I pass on to give some reasons why every Christian should, with the apostle, determine “ not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”1. Without this our persons will not be accepted in the sight of God. Some may please themselves in knowing the world, others boast themselves in the knowledge of a multitude of languages. The meanest Christian, if he know but this, though he know nothing else, will be accepted; so the greatest master in Israel, the most letter-learned teacher, without this, will be rejected. 2. Without this knowledge, our performances, as well as persons, will not be acceptable in the sight of God. Two persons may go up to the temple and pray; but he only will return home justified, who, in the language of our Collects, sincerely offers up his prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord. Farther: As our devotions to God will not, so neither, without this knowledge of Jesus Christ, will our acts of charity to men be accepted by Him. As neither our acts of piety nor charity, so neither will our civil nor moral actions be acceptable to God, without this experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus Christ has turned our whole lives into one continued sacrifice. III. Exhort you to put the apostle’ s resolution in practice, and beseech you, with him, to determine “ not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.(G. Whitfield, M. A.)The knowledge of Christ crucified 1. Let us be thankful to God for a crucified Redeemer. There is nothing in heaven and earth such an amazing wonder as this, nothing can vie with it for excellence. 2. Let us delight in the knowledge of Christ crucified, and be often in the thoughts and study of Him. Study Christ, not only as living, but dying. (1) This will keep up life in our repentance. We cannot look upon Christ crucified for us for our guilt, but the meditation of this must melt us into sorrow. (2) It will spirit our faith, when we shall see His blood confirming an everlasting covenant wherein God promises to be gracious. (3) This will animate us in our approaches to God. Not only a bare coming, but a boldness and confidence in coming to God was purchased by a crucified Christ (Hebrews 10:19). (4) This will be a means to further us in a progress in holiness. An affection to sin, which cost the Redeemer of the world so dear, would be inconsistent with a sound knowledge and serious study of a crucified Saviours (5) This will be the foundation of all comfort. What comfort can be wanting when we can look upon Christ crucified as our Surety, and look upon ourselves as crucified in Him; when we consider our sins as punished in Him, and ourselves accepted by virtue of His Cross. (Bp. Hacket.)The demonstration of the Spirit If the wisdom of men had been to advise about the most effectual means to promote Christianity in the world, they would presently have considered what those things are which are most likely to prevail on mankind, and, according to their several inclinations, would have made choice of one or the other of them. Some would have been for the way of external greatness and power as most apt to oversway the generality of mankind. Others would have thought this an improper way of promoting religion by the power of the sword, because that is more apt to affright than convince men, and the embracing religion supposes the satisfaction of men’ s minds about it, and all power doth not carry demonstration along with it; therefore such would have proposed the choosing out of men of the finest parts and best accomplishments, who, dispersing themselves into several countries, should, by their eloquence and reason, prevail on the more ingenious and capable sort of men, who by degrees would draw all the rest after them. Thus the wisdom of men would have judged; but the wisdom of God made choice of ways directly contrary to these. He would not suffer His truth to be so much beholden for its reception either to the power or the wit of men. I. Why St. Paul doth so utterly renounce the enticing words of man’ s wisdom? For we are not to imagine it was any natural incapacity or want of education which made him forbear them. The apostle implies an unsuitableness in these enticing ways of man’ s wisdom to the design of promoting the Christian religion; what that was I shall now more particularly search into.1. As to the enticing words of persuasion.2. As to the way and method of reasoning, or man’ s wisdom. 1. As to the way of eloquence then in so much vogue and esteem, called by St. Paul (verse 1) the excellency of speech. And what harm was there in float that it could not be permitted to serve the design of the gospel? Is not the excellency of speech a gift of God as well as knowledge and memory? What are all the instructions of orators intended for but to enable men to speak clearly and fitly and with all those graces and ornaments of speech which are most apt to move and persuade the hearers? And what is there in all this disagreeable to the design of the doctrine of Christ? Are not the greatest and most weighty concernments of mankind fit to be represented in the most proper and clear expressions, and in the most moving and affectionate manner? Why, then, should St. Paul be so scrupulous about using the enticing words of man’ s wisdom? To clear this matter we are to consider a twofold eloquence. (1) A gaudy, sophistical eloquence is wholly renounced by him, of which the apostle seems particularly to speak, mentioning if under the name of man’ s wisdom, which was in mighty esteem among the Greeks, but suspected and cried down by wiser men as that which did only beguile injudicious people. And the great orator himself confesses the chief end of their popular eloquence was so to move their auditors as to make them judge rather according to passion than to reason. This being the common design of the enticing words of man’ s wisdom in the apostle’ s age, had they not the greatest reason to renounce the methods of those whose great end was to deceive their hearers by fair speeches and plausible insinuations? (2) The apostle is not to be understood as if he utterly renounced all sober and manly eloquence; for that were to renounce the best use of speech as to the convincing and persuading mankind. And what is true eloquence but speaking to the best advantage, with the most lively expressions, the most convincing arguments, and the most moving figures? What is there now in this which is disagreeable to the most Divine truths? Is it not fit they should be represented to our minds in a way most apt to affect them? 2. As to the way and method of reasoning. So some think these words are chiefly to be understood of the subtilty of disputing because the apostle brings in demonstration as a thing above it. But this again seems very hard that the use of reasoning should be excluded from the way of propagating Christian religion. But that which St. Paul rejects as to this was--1. The way of wrangling and perpetual disputing, by the help of some terms and rules of logic, so that they stuck out at nothing, but had something to say for or against anything. No man that understands the laws of reasoning can find fault with the methodising our conception of things by bringing them under their due ranks and heads; nor with understanding the difference of causes, the truth and falsehood of propositions, and the way of discerning true and false reasonings from each other. But men were fallen into such a humour of disputing that nothing would pass for truth among them. And therefore it was not fitting for the apostles of Christ to make use of these baffled methods of reasoning to confirm the truth of what they delivered upon the credit of Divine revelation. 2. The way of mere human reasoning as it excludes Divine revelation. The apostle proves the necessity of God revealing these things by His Spirit (verses 10-12). II. To inquire into the force of that demonstration of the Spirit and of power which the apostle mentions as sufficient to satisfy the minds of men without the additional help of human wisdom; wherein are two things to be spoken of. I. What is meant by the demonstration of the Spirit and of power?1. It must be something by way of proof of another thing, otherwise it could not bear the name of demonstration. If the apostle’ s words were understood of the conviction of men’ s consciences by the power of preaching, his argument could reach no farther than to those who were actually convinced, but others might say, We feel nothing of this powerful demonstration upon us. Since, therefore, St. Paul speaks for the conviction of others, and of such a ground whereon their faith was to stand (verse 5), it is most reasonable to understand these words of some external evidence which they gave of the truth of what they delivered. 2. That evidence is described by a double character--it was of a Spiritual nature and very powerful. And such a demonstration was then seen among them in the miraculous gifts and works of the Holy Ghost. 3. Why this was not as liable to suspicion as the way of eloquence and logic, since those had been only corrupted and abused by men, but the power of miracles had been pretended to by evil spirits. Why, then, did God reject the most reasonable ways of dealing with men in the way of eloquence and demonstration, which were more natural and accommodate to the capacities and education of the most ingenious minds, and make choice of a way which the world had been so much abused in by the imposture of evil spirits?1. Because the method God ,chose did prove it was not the invention of men, which would have been always suspected if mere human arts had been used to promote it. Whereas if the way of promoting this religion had been ordinary with the usual methods of persuasion, men would have imputed all the efficacy of it only to the wisdom of men. For God knows very well the vanity and folly of mankind, how apt they are to magnify the effects of their own wit and reason. 2. God gave sufficient evidence that these extraordinary gifts could never be the effects of any evil spirits. (1) The publicness of the trial of it, when it first fell upon them on the day of Pentecost. (2) The usefulness of this gift to the apostles, for considering the manner of their education and the extent of their commission to preach to all nations; no gift could be supposed more necessary. (3) The manner of conferring these miraculous gifts upon others show that there was somewhat in them above all the power of imagination or the effects of evil spirits. II. The power of miracles, or of doing extraordinary things, as well as of speaking after an extraordinary manner. This seems the hardest to give an account of, why God should make choice of this way of miracles above all others to convince the world of the truth of the Christian doctrine, upon these considerations:(1) The great delusions that had been in the world so long before under the pretence of miracles. (2) The great difficulty there is in putting a difference between true and false miracles. 1. How we may know when anything doth exceed the power of mere nature as that is opposed to any spiritual beings; for some have looked on all things of this kind as impostures of men. 2. We must therefore inquire further, whether such things be the effects of magic or Divine power. For which end these two things are considerable.1. That Christ and His apostles did declare the greatest enmity to all evil spirits, professing in their design to destroy the devil’ s kingdom and power in the world. 2. The devil was not wanting in fit instruments and means to support his kingdom; and God was pleased, in His infinite wisdom, to permit him to show his skill and power, by which means there was a more eminent and conspicuous trial on which side the greatest strength did lie. Thus the matter is brought to a plain contest of two opposite powers, which is greater than the other, and which shows itself to be the Divine power. To which purpose we may consider these two things. That the pretended miracles of the opposers of Christianity did differ from the miracles wrought by the apostles in several weighty circumstances.1. In the design and tendency of them. Most of the wonderful things whereof the enemies of Christianity did boast were wrought either-- (1) To raise astonishment and admiration in the beholders.(2) To gratify the curiosity of mankind.(3) To encourage idolatry.(4) To take men off from the necessity of a holy life. 2. In the variety, openness, usefulness, and frequency of them. The greatest magical powers were limited and confined; and the spirits which ruled in the children of disobedience were sensible of their own chains. I shall only add one circumstance more, wherein the miracles wrought to confirm the Christian religion exceed all others, and that is-- 3. In the satisfaction they have given to the most inquisitive part of mankind, i.e., either to convince them of the truth of the doctrine confirmed by them, or, at least, to bring them to this acknowledgement that, if the matters of fact were true, they are a sufficient proof of a Divine power. (Bp. Stillingfleet.)The determination of Paul I. Its import.1. What are we to understand by “ Christ, and Him crucified” ? This theme is distinguished by-- (1) Great simplicity. Other teachers engaged the mind with speculations on subjects of various degrees of interest, but this teacher had for his theme a Person and a fact. Leaving the philosophers to their “ wisdom” he held up a Man, and that Man hanging on a Cross. Other instructors spoke with great respect of eminent men, whose opinions they were anxious to advance; but it was never known before that a person and his sufferings were to be the foundation and the superstructure of every discourse. (2) Vast comprehensiveness. It was not Paul’ s practice to indulge in an endless repetition of the name of Christ, or in a mere detail of His history, but to exhibit His life and death as the basis of a grand system of truth. He “ preached Christ, and Him crucified,” as the brightest and best revelation of the Divine character, and the grand announcement of mercy to man. In His incarnation and death we see the Divine love, for “ God so loved the world,” &c.; the Divine wisdom, for “ Christ is the wisdom of God” ; the Divine power, “ for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation” ; the Divine justice, for the Saviour lived and suffered that the righteousness of God might be revealed; the Divine truth, for Christ came to “ confirm the promises made of God unto the fathers.” 2. In what sense we are to understand the apostle’ s determination. He determined-- (1) To exclude every subject that would deprive the gospel of its power. The gospel is a sharp, two-edged sword, but if we lower its ethereal temper by forging it anew on our own anvil, it will wound no conscience and slay no sin. It is a fire able to melt the hardest heart, but if we damp its flame by earthly additions, the heart of stone defies its power. It is the sincere milk of the Word; but the admixture of human fancies and dogmas will destroy its power to sustain. It is a mirror, in which the sinner is to see the correct reflection of his own image; but beclouded by the mists of error, the natural man cannot be expected to behold his face in this glass. And therefore would we humbly cherish the apostle’ s holy jealousy for the unadulterated gospel, and “ know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. (2) To exclude everything that might tend to deprive the gospel of its glory. His anxiety on this subject is clearly expressed in verses 1, 4, 5. He knew the effects assigned by the Greeks to human wisdom, the power ascribed to persuasive words, and how ready they would be, supposing great moral changes to follow, to give to his reasoning and eloquence the glory of bringing those changes about, and therefore was he most careful to prevent this evil. II. Its reasons.1. His anxiety to be found faithful. A sacred trust had been reposed in him. How, then, could he most effectually shield himself from the woe threatened against unfaithfulness, and give up his account with joy and not with grief? It was simply by having his mind so engrossed with the grand theme of the gospel as to shut out every other. 2. His desire to promote the highest interests of man. He was eminently a philanthropist, and it is easy to see how such a true lover of mankind would seize with avidity this remedy for universal suffering, and be ready to employ the rent means for “ promoting the greatest good of the greatest number.” In the great announcements of mercy connected with “ Christ, and Him crucified,” he had the panacea for the spiritual woes under which men were suffering. 3. His grand aim to give the greatest glory to God. When the Redeemer was within a few days of His crucifixion He said in His prayer, “ Father, save Me,” &c. (John 12:27-28). From this prayer, and its supernatural answer, we learn, first, that the prevailing desire of every holy mind is the glory of God; and, secondly, that that glory was displayed in the death of Christ and its great results. The prayer of Christ is that of every child of God, “ Father, glorify Thy name.” It was so in a remarkable degree in Paul. And it was by the faithful exhibition of “ Christ, and Him crucified,” that he could most effectually secure the high end he had thus constantly in view. All the Divine perfections are displayed in the sacrifice of Christ. And the effects of this great theme on the minds that receive it are of such a nature as to bring the highest honour to the Divine name. The case of the apostle is a striking illustration. When he became a preacher of the faith he had once attempted to destroy, men “ glorified God in him.” The character of the Divine artist could be seen in the work of His hands. What power, in turning the stubborn will, and causing it to move in the true way! What love, in receiving into the Divine friendship a bitter enemy! This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 2:3-5 And I was with you in weakness and in fear. The apostle’ s discouragements St. Paul was laden with a message that would seem homely and jejune beside a fine-spun rhetoric. Come from Athens, where he had partly failed, to make at Corinth a fresh attempt to confront the grandeur of Greek philosophy with the simplicity of the gospel, was enough to make him timid. Of this contrast he was daily conscious, and the weakness here described was ethical, not physical. He was naturally anxious, lest in poising the plain argument of the Cross against the colossal fabric of a seated philosophy, he might fail: was a David armed with such a pebble to prevail against a Goliath in such a panoply? But in his “ fear and tremblingthe apostle was encouraged by a vision of God’ s presence and his own duty (Acts 18:9). (Canon Evans.)The feelings of a faithful minister I. Their character--often--1. Intense.2. Painful. II. The occasion of them--a sense of--1. The importance of his work.2. His own insufficiency.3. His responsibility.4. The tremendous issues. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And … preaching was not with enticing words,… but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.--Enticing words It is related of Dr. Manton that, having to preach before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, he chose a subject in which he had an opportunity of displaying his learning and judgment. He was heard with admiration and applause by the intelligent part of his audience; but as he was returning from dinner with the Lord Mayor, a poor man, following him, pulled him by the sleeve of his gown, and asked him if he was the gentleman that preached before the Lord Mayor. He replied he was. “ Sir,” said he, “ I came with the hopes of getting some good to my soul, but I was greatly disappointed, for I could not understand a great deal of what you said; you were quite above my comprehension.” “ Friend,” said the doctor, “ if I have not given you a sermon, you have given me one: by the grace of God, I will not play the fool in such a manner again.” Some displeased and one converted The Rev. John Cotton was an eminent minister of the seventeenth century, who laboured for many years at Boston, in Lincolnshire. When at the University of Cambridge, he was remarkable for learning and eloquence; and being called upon to preach at St. Mary’ s church in that town, high expectations were raised as to the character of the sermon. After many struggles in his own mind, arising from the temptation to display his talent and learning, and from a powerful impression of the importance of preaching the gospel with all simplicity, he at length wisely determined on the latter course. The vice-chancellor and students were not pleased, though a few of the professors commended his style; but his sermon was blessed to the conversion of Dr. Preston, who became one of the most eminent ministers of his day. Effective preaching I. Needs so display.1. This does not exclude the use of knowledge or talent.2. But the ostentatious exhibition of it. 3. Which helps nothing.4. But damages much. II. Depends on divine power.1. The convincing energy of the Holy Spirit.2. The saving power of the truth. III. Requires the communication of the spirit.1. To the preacher.2. To the hearer. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Flowery preaching Hall was once asked what he thought of a sermon which he had just heard delivered, and which had appeared to produce a great sensation among the congregation. His reply may suggest an important hint to some Christian ministers--“ Very fine, sir; but a man cannot live upon flowers.” Force the main consideration in preaching I had tried to drive certain long brass-headed nails into a wall, but had never succeeded, except in turning up their points, and rendering them useless. When a tradesman came who understood his work, I noticed that he filed off all the points of the nails, the very points upon whose sharpness I had relied; and when he had quite blunted them, he drove them in as far as he pleased. With some consciences our fine points in preaching are worse than useless. Our keen distinctions and nice discriminations are thrown away on many; they need to be encountered with sheer force and blunt honesty. The truth must be hammered into them by main strength, and we know from whom to seek the needed power. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Popular and apostolical preaching I. Popular.1. Is distinguished by display, attractiveness, novelty.2. Aims at pleasing and sensational effect. II. Apostolic.1. Plain.2. Unvarnished.3. Accompanied by the convictions of the Spirit and the saving power of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Paul’ s preaching and the blessing that attended it I. “ The speech and preaching” of the apostle.1. His great subject was the gospel. He was a great preacher of the law; for no man preaches the gospel who does not preach the law, and our appreciation of the gospel is always in direct proportion to our real perception of God’ s holy law. But that which Paul delighted in was the gospel. He preached in all His fulness a full Christ; he exhibited Him in the glory of His person, in all the perfection of His atonement, in all the freeness of His free-grace salvation. And he preached it largely, and wherever he went. He preached it holily too; he set it forth in all its holy tendencies, and he exhibited it in its holy effects in his own life (1 Thessalonians 1:5). 2. His manner was “ not with enticing words of man’ s wisdom.” His subject was grand, awful, sublime, wondrous; but his speech was plain, simple, unadorned, and homely. No glare and glitter were his, no traps for human applause, no desire to be thought a man of great talent; the gifted apostle was above it. How does this show to us what sort of preachers we want! We do not mean that the apostle did not suit his speech to those to whom he spake, for he became all things to all men, &c. II. The blessing that attended it. “ In demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”1. Many understand by this the miraculous gifts that Paul was able to exhibit, as proof that he was an apostle of Christ. That be wrought miracles, is quite clear; and that they were great seals to his ministry is also quite clear (Romans 15:18). But the Word of God tells us that signs and wonders may be the means of hardening those who work them. Besides, a continuous miracle would cease to be a miracle; and the mightiest could never of itself convert one single soul. 2. More marvellous things than those that wrought in the triumph of God over matter are wrought when He triumphs over mind. The apostle set forth the truth to men’ s understanding, but the Holy Ghost conveyed the light into their minds; he spake to men’ s consciences, but the Spirit conveyed the tenderness of heart, and made the word’ effectual. Here is no violence, no new faculty, no new truth; but the Holy Ghost put forth His power, and brought in demonstration (Colossians 1:5-6; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:13). 3. The power of the gospel is demonstrated-- (1) In the conversion of the sinner.(2) In the comfort of the mourner.(3) In the sanctification of the believer.(4) In the hour of death. (J. H. Evans, M. A.)Powerless sermons Many a powerful sermon so called is a powerless sermon, because of the absence from it of what is invisible. The gospel preached without power is like a cloud, without rain; there is a promise of rain, but there is no water of life, and no springing up of the seed the result. The gospel preached without power is like a well with all its arrangements for drawing perfect--but without water. (G. Pentecost.)True power lies in the gospel itself Hipponicus, intending to dedicate a costly statue, was advised by a friend to employ Policletus, a famous workman, in the making of it; but he, being anxious that his great expense should be the admiration of all men, said that “ he would not make use of a workman whose art would be more regarded than his own cost.” When, in preaching the great truths of gospel salvation, the enticing words which man’ s wisdom teacheth are so much sought out that the art of the orator is more regarded by the hearers than the value of the truth spoken, it is no wonder that the Lord refuses to grant His blessing. He will have it seen that the excellency of the power lies not in our speech, but in His gospel. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Faith 1. Upon what does your faith stand?2. Where ought it to stand?3. Why should it stand there? (J. Lyth, D. D.)True faith I. Cannot be produced by the wisdom of man.1. He may convince by the force of argument or persuasion.2. But such a faith is-- (1) Impure.(2) Unsettled.(3) Inoperative. II. Depends upon the power of God.1. Through the operation of the Spirit.2. This-- (1)Heals the conscience.(2) Converts the soul.(3) Sanctifies the life. III. Should be the end of all preaching.1. The preacher should aim at it.2. The people should desire it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The domain of faith I. The domain of faith is to be distinguished from that of human wisdom,1. Men are ever confounding the two. Faith, they think, is simply the intellect in its ordinary processes dealing with religious things. The man who rejects Christianity does it on this ground. “ I cannot,” he says, “ reason out a demonstrative proof of Christianity; therefore I refuse to believe it true.” Because faith cannot stand in the wisdom of man, it cannot, he thinks, stand at all. Now, according to the apostle, faith stands in “ the power of God.” What is the difference? 2. How do we know things? (1) By sensible proof. If I put my finger into the fire it burns me; if I hear music it delights me. This is the proof which my body furnishes concerning things that appeal to it. I do not reason about them; no spiritual or moral sympathies are called into exercise. I prove them exactly as a brute does. (2) By rational proof. If a man tells me that two and two make four, that a whole is greater than its part, my senses, my religious feeling have nothing to do with the proof--it is a process of pure reason. A brute could not prove anything in this way. A rational man must believe on such evidence. (3) Moral proof. When I see moral qualities in a man, I instinctively receive impressions concerning him. I say he is a kind man, a true man, a reverential man. If he be a hypocrite, he may deceive me; but that does not affect the validity of this method of proof. Life would be impossible if we could not trust men until we had collected evidence about them. We are always trusting men whom we know nothing about, because of the moral judgment of them which we form. 3. Now, this distinction of different kinds of proof will carry us a long way in understanding the domain of faith as distinguished from that of intellectual wisdom. When God speaks religious things to me, He does not appeal to my physical senses. He does not appeal to my reason, as the multiplication table does, as a proof in logic does; He appeals directly to my religious sense. Is not this religiously true, pure, suitable? And my religious sense responds, as the eye responds to light, understanding to intellectual truth, the heart to love. Men who are “ of the truth” respond to moral truth when they see it. 4. Now, the strong tendency is to interchange these methods of proof. “ I can believe nothing,” says the materialist, “ that I cannot prove.” Quite true; neither ought you. “ Aye, but I mean that I cannot prove by processes of reason,” which is quite another thing. Suppose the brute should say, “ I will believe nothing which I cannot prove by the senses. I will not believe in your mathematical astronomy, your subtle chemistry.” And is he not as much justified in denying your rational proof as you are in denying my spiritual proof? Your rational proof belongs to a higher nature than his; my spiritual proof belongs to a higher nature than mere reason. What can reason do with moral qualities? You cannot reason out right and wrong; you cannot by reason prove love, or purity, or goodness; you can only feel them. You tell me that you have explored nature, but cannot find God; as well may the surgeon conducting a post-mortem examination tell us that he cannot find the pure patriot, the loving father. How can he detect moral qualities by physical tests? 5. We are always trying to get above the domain of mere matter into that of reason. How the painter and the poet idealise nature; change actual colour and form into glorious ideals! How the philosopher uses them for the creation of a science! How the economist uses them for an economy of social life! And so we are always trying to get above the domain of reason into the domain of faith. It is the necessity of our nature to think about good and evil, to form moral judgments about things. There is another tendency which is always dragging the spiritual down to the sensual; but all men agree to call this wrong moral feeling; Christianity calls it sin. 6. Faith, then, is that quality of our spiritual nature which, when it hears God’ s truth, sees God’ s purity, feels God’ s love, simply and implicitly believes it. It does not wait for processes of reason to prove it, any more than the eye waits for processes of reason to prove light, or the heart for processes of reason to prove love. But, it may be said, does not this make faith irrational? Certainly not. It simply goes farther than reason can go, sees things that reason cannot see, feels things that reason cannot feel. When a truth of God is spoken to me--first, my senses are exercised; next, my reason--it judges the meaning of the words, of the thought, then it delivers the sentiment to my spiritual faculty. Is it religiously true, suitable, and precious? Simple reason could not pronounce upon this; but my religious heart does. I am told of the existence of a God; my senses cannot recognise Him, my reason cannot demonstrate Him, but my spiritual nature confesses His existence, just as the heart confesses love. I am told of the Incarnation; neither sense nor reason can prove it; but my religious consciousness testifies that it is precisely what my condition needed. So with the atonement--the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of Christ; and the immortal life that He gives. II. How did Paul set forth Christ? (verse 1). Not as a rhetorician, or a moral philosopher. Why not? There is no merit in abjuring reason, when it is a process of reasoning that has to be conducted. But it was not an argument that Paul had to conduct; it was a testimony of God that he had to bear. It was not a science of religion that he had to construct; it was a simple fact that he had to declare. Men knew all about sin; he did not need to prove that they were sinful. Men earnestly craved to know “ what they must do to be saved.” He did not need to reason about that. And he simply declared the great fact that “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” ; that was all he said, but that was enough. Thus, receiving his testimony to the Divine fact, the faith of these men “ stood not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Christ, then, is to be preached, and His atonement set forth by bearing testimony. It is the cry of a herald rather than a philosophical argument. The physician does not need to prove to the sick that they need healing; he needs only say, “ Wilt thou be made whole?” Preaching Christ is simply setting Him forth as the great gift of the Father’ s love. They who hear the testimony have only to trust in the crucified Christ for forgiveness and life. And when so believing God’ s testimony we receive Christ, and have experience of His redeeming grace, our “ faith stands in the power of God.“ We have the witness in ourselves--a certainty and strength of belief which is like the consciousness of life; argument cannot disturb it. Christ is “ formed in us” ; we “ know whom we have believed.(H. Allon, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of God, as preached by the apostles of Christ I. Explain the character here mentioned as necessary to discern true wisdom.1. The apostle means by “ them that are perfect,” such as have attained that measure of understanding which is necessary to comprehend the wise design of the whole, and perfect consistency of the several doctrines of Christianity. 2. “ Perfect men” conveys the idea of minds unprejudiced, and free from the bias of irregular passions and affections; and this is indeed necessary to a just understanding of things: for truth can never appear as it is through a gross and fallacious medium. 3. A sincere and upright heart is another character essential to the perfect man. Wisdom flies the grasp of a dishonest mind; and, though it were possible he could find it, he would soon let it go; for the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. II. Show the wisdom of God manifested in the redemption of man by Jesus Christ, according to the doctrine of His apostles.1. We read clear characters of Divine wisdom in the discovery that the gospel has given man of his true state. 2. The wisdom of God, by the gospel, is visible in the glorious end it purposes and publishes to the world, that is, the salvation of sinners. 3. Our thoughts might trace with pleasure a vast variety of topics to illustrate the wisdom of God in the means He hath chosen to accomplish the mighty design of His mercy to mankind. To reconcile sinners to Himself, He hath chosen the fittest Mediator that could possibly be, His only begotten and well-beloved Son: the only one who could approach God without terror, and converse with men without pollution; who alone could make up the peace by laying His hand upon both. But another thought, which I cannot pass, to magnify the wisdom if God in the redemption of man discovered by the gospel, and that is to observe how it draws the greatest good from the greatest evil, taking occasion from sin to honour God, by raising man to a more exalted state. 4. The wisdom of God discovers itself in the honourable terms of mercy which the gospel hath established. (1) Faith, or a firm persuasion of all that God hath recorded in His Word: the most plain and speedy way to truth, particularly in those matters which the bulk of mankind have not time or capacity to trace; and the only way in matters which the reason of man could not discover or comprehend. (2) Repentance, or amendment of life, is another term of salvation wisely fixed, because without it the guilty can never be fit objects of mercy, or capable of happiness. 5. As it exceeds the power of man to work such a change of heart and life in himself, the wisdom of God is manifested in the direction and assistance He hath provided to bring His mighty purpose to effect. (1) For his direction, He hath given him such a system of precepts, such an assemblage of illustrious examples, as the wisdom of man could never devise, as the history of mankind could never furnish. (2) That men, seriously concerned to be saved, might not fall short of the end of their faith, the gospel hath done what no other law or doctrine so much as pretends. It hath assured us of sufficient help and ability to practise the duties it teacheth. And we may come boldly to the throne of grace, not only to obtain mercy, but to find grace to help in the time of need. Conclusion:1. The folly of infidels, who spend all their wit and learning to oppose the gospel of Christ, the plan of Divine wisdom, a system so friendly to virtue, which they pretend to patronise; a scheme so directly calculated to purify the hearts and refine the manners of mankind. 2. Since the gospel of Christ reveals the wise counsels of God for the salvation of men, it must be our duty, who preach it, to understand more and more of the unsearchable riches of Christ, that we may speak to others with greater success and better hope. 3. To the hearers of the gospel let me only say (James 1:21). (Wm. Beat.)The contrast between the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of God I. That is--1. Changeable.2. Presumptuous.3. Fallible. II. This is--1. Divine.2. Eternal.3. Enjoyed by the perfect. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Wisdom, human and Divine A blind tortoise lived in a well. Another tortoise, a native of the ocean, in its inland travels happened to tumble into this well. The blind one asked of his new comrade whence he came. “ From the sea.” Hearing of the sea, he of the well swam round a little circle, and asked, “ Is the water of the ocean as large as this?” “ Larger,” replied he of the sea. The well tortoise then swam round two-thirds of the well, and asked if the sea was as big as that. “ Much larger than that,” said the sea tortoise. “ Well, then,” asked the blind tortoise, “ is the sea as large as this whole well?“ Larger,” said the sea tortoise. “ If that is so,” said the other, “ how big, then, is the sea?” The sea tortoise replied, “ You having never seen any other water than that of your well, your capability of understanding is small. As to the ocean, though you spent many years in it, you would never be able to explore the half of it, nor to reach the limit, and it is utterly impossible to compare it with this well of yours.” The tortoise replied, “ It is impossible that there can be a larger water than this well; you are simply praising up your native place in vain words.(J. Gilmour, M. A.)The hidden wisdom I. Is glorious in its nature.1. Apprehensible only by the perfect.2. Not of this world.3. Divine in its origin.4. Adapted to secure eternal happiness. II. Is undiscoverable by human reason (1 Corinthians 2:8).1. Proved by the ignorance and conduct of the princes of this world.2. By the unsearchableness of the Divine purpose. III. Is revealed by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:10).1. He searcheth the deep things of God.2. Communicates them to man. IV. Can only be communicated by the help of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:13).1. We must use the words of the Spirit.2. He must create spiritual discernment. V. Is realised and enjoyed by those who abe spiritually enlightened (1 Corinthians 2:15-16). Who--1. Judge all things.2. Are understood by none.3. For God is unsearchable.4. Have the mind of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Paul’ s view of spiritual wisdom It is necessary to bear in mind that the “ wisdom” with which the apostle was confronted was not the vigorous and lofty aspirations of Aristotle and Plato, but the hollow and worn-out sophistries of the last days of the Greek rhetoricians. Still, although a different turn would doubtless have been given to the whole argument if the living power of the gospel had been met not by a dead form, but by a power which, though of lower origin, and moving in a different sphere, was still living like itself, the general truth here urged remains the same. It is not by intellectual, but by moral and spiritual excellence, that the victories of the gospel have been achieved. Religion is not philosophy. But although the two spheres of intellect and Christianity are thus distinct, the apostle also wishes to show that there is in Christianity an element analogous to that by which intellectual wants are gratified; as though he had said, “ Although the Christian lives in a world of his own, yet in that world he is independent of all besides (what the philosophers would have called αὐταρκης), and the more fully his Christian stature is developed, he will find every craving of his nature the more completely satisfied.” This element he here introduces under the names of “ wisdom,” “ the Spirit,” and “ solid food” as distinct from “ milk.” Taking into comparison the other passages (John 3:12; John 16:12; Hebrews 6:1), where a similar contrast is drawn between the higher and lower stages of Christian progress, the reference seems not to be to any exhibition of new doctrines, but to the deep spiritual intuitions which have always been regarded as the highest privilege of advanced Christian goodness. Thomas a Kempis says that “ a pure heart penetrates the secrets of heaven and hell; the “ beatific visionhas always been regarded as the consummation of our intellectual and moral perfection; and the analogy which is here drawn between the perceptions of the human intellect and those of the enlightened spirit might be illustrated abundantly from the biographies and devotions of good men in all ages. What this was in its highest or most extraordinary form may be seen in the account of St. Paul’ s rapture (2 Corinthians 12:1; 2 Corinthians 12:4) or of St. John’ s (Revelation 1:10; Revelation 4:2). What it was in its more ordinary form may be seen in the whole atmosphere of St. John’ s first Epistle, especially in the connection between love and knowledge which pervades it, and which is illustrated in chap. 13:8, 12 of this Epistle. See also Romans 11:33-34; Ephesians 1:8; Ephesians 1:17-18. This use of the passage-- I. Accords with the words employed. “ Wisdom,” although suggested in the first instance by the contemporary philosophy, derives its religious sense chiefly from its use in Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, where it is applied not to the gaining of new truths, theological or natural, but to a deeper practical insight into moral truth. This general sense is further limited in this passage by the indication of its subject, viz., the “ glory” or blessedness of Christians, which in verses 8, 10 assumes such a prominence as to be almost identified with the “ wisdom” itself that seeks it. And the faculty by which this wisdom is obtained is described emphatically as “ spiritual” --“ the Spirit.” The word is chosen partly from the frequent use of the phrase both in Greek and Hebrew, to express the intellect-chiefly as expressive of a direct connection with God. It is the “ inspiration” which in Scripture is ascribed to every mental gift (Exodus 31:3; Job 32:8, &c.), but which is specially applicable to the frame of mind (to use the modern form of speech founded on the same metaphor) “ breathes the atmosphere” of heaven. The same sense also-- II. Agrees with the general context and occasion. When the apostle says, “ But to us God revealed it by His Spirit,” the use of the first person, here as elsewhere, indicates that, though speaking of believers generally, he especially refers to his own experience. The consciousness of his spiritual gifts, especially of his spiritual insight into things invisible, was always present with him, and never more so than at the period of these two Epistles (1 Corinthians 14:18; 2 Corinthians 12:1; 2 Corinthians 12:4). And this tendency to dwell on the inward, as distinct from the outward blessings of the gospel--on the things which “ eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” as distinguished from the things which the eyes of the first apostles had seen and their ears had heard--was a peculiarity of St. Paul’ s teaching. III. It best suits the circumstances of the Corinthian Christians, who had no especial need of new intellectual truths, nor, if they had, was there any especial impediment to their reception. But higher consciousness of the Divine presence; a knowledge deep and comprehensive, as being grounded in love; an insight into the spiritual world--were gifts which, on the one hand, the apostle might well long to give them, and which were yet, on the other, most alien to their state of faction and bitterness. How could they, who were absorbed in their contentions, enter into the atmosphere of peace which surrounds the throne of God? How could they, who were for ever insisting on particular names and party watchwords, enjoy the vision where all else is lost in the sense of communion with Christ? Controversy and party spirit may sharpen the natural faculties of shrewdness and disputation, but few sins more dim the spiritual faculty by which alone all things are rightly judged. These disputes and rivalries were “ of the flesh,” no less than the sensual passions which are commonly so classed; and, if so, they have no place in heaven, they are directly opposed to “ the Spirit.(Dean Stanley.)The wisdom of God as displayed in the gospel I. In relation to its great end. The gospel is glad tidings of good. This good is--1. Most suitable. God, who well knows our nature, has adapted His gifts to its wants. 2. Permanent. God has formed us to endure for ever; and the good which He has prepared for us is enduring also. 3. Divine. God has revealed Himself as the chief, the only satisfying good. He only can fill the powers of the soul--He only subsists through every changing scene. Let us admire the wisdom of God in proposing such a good to us; and let us recollect that such a good as is proposed to us in the gospel is to be found nowhere else. II. In relation to the medium through which it is communicated.1. The salvation of the race is made to turn on the death of an individual. This is above all the ideas of men; it never could enter the human mind that one man could be saved through the mediation of many, much less that all could be saved through the mediation of one. This was “ a stumbling-block to the Jews,” &c. But this displays the highest wisdom. It is not an individual merely, but an individual fashioned expressly for the work. In the person of Christ we see a man with a person capable of suffering; and a Divine person, to make His sufferings meritorious. Had Christ been mere man, there could have been no merit; had He not been man, He could not have suffered. Had the question been asked, “ How shall man be just with God?” it could not have been answered to eternity; but, “ in the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son,” &c. The way to reconcile the justice and the mercy of God could never have been conceived but for the wisdom of God in fitting this God-man and sending Him to suffer for the sins of the world. 2. The wisdom appears in Christ’ s defeating Satan by the very weapons which he employed to subvert His designs. By the Cross of Christ God has, as it were, reversed the order of things. In the first Adam man fell by aspiring to be as God; Jesus Christ, the second Adam, saves by condescending to become man. Man was indebted for his ruin to an evil spirit; he owes his recovery to a good Spirit. As man was ensnared by deceit and vanity and became miserable, he is liberated by truth and purity and becomes happy. The machinery of Satan is thus turned upon himself. III. In the dispensation of the gospel the wisdom of God appears--1. In the manner in which the truths of the gospel are taught. There are two modes of communicating instruction: the one is by facts, the other is by argument. The latter mode is generally considered the most efficient, and was most commonly employed by the ancients in their schools of learning. But many subtleties were resorted to in this mode of teaching. Learning was clothed in such a garb that it did not even attract the attention of the common people; they could not comprehend it, they could not be benefited by it. But God taught by facts. “ I came declaring unto you the testimony of God.” Such were the facts the apostles asserted, that the truths they taught must stand or fall by those facts. And these facts are the very soul of the gospel. He who believes that the apostles spake truth, that Jesus Christ really came, and died, and rose again, and ascended, must also believe that He died for the salvation of sinners. And he who considers the number of these witnesses, their character, the harmony of their testimony, their miracles, and refuses to believe their testimony, will be found turning the gospel of the Saviour against himself. In all this the wisdom of God’ s teachings appears above the teachings of the philosophers. They retired from the crowd; but heavenly wisdom is addressed to all, and is founded upon facts that all may understand. 2. In committing the dispensation of the gospel to men. They can enter into the states of those whom they address; they can comfort those that mourn by the same consolations with which they have been comforted; they can have access to them at all times. And not only was the dispensation of the gospel committed to men, but to men of obscure station and mean talents (1 Corinthians 1:26; 1 Corinthians 1:31). Had God employed the great and the wise to propagate His gospel, suspicions might have been raised in the minds of men that its success was to be ascribed to the elevated talent and station of its propagators. But the greatest effects have been produced more by piety than by talent. God will not divide His success with any human being. (R. Hall, M. A.)The wisdom of the gospel I. The wisdom of the gospel is--1. Divine.2. Transcendent.3. Spiritual.4. Practical. II. Its reserved communication.1. Among the perfect who believe, study, practise it. 2. Because they only can understand, appreciate, and profit by it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The superlative wisdom of the gospel is demonstrated-- I. By its origin. It proceeds--1. Not from the wise and mighty of this world.2. But from the hidden depths of the Godhead. II. By its purpose, which is--1. Not realised in time. 2. But in eternal glory. III. By its essential mystery.1. Unknown to the greatest in times past.2. Undiscoverable by reason or sense. IV. By the mode of its revelation.1. Through the Spirit of God.2. To the spirit of man. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel I. Its nature. Wisdom. The wisdom of a system may be determined--1. By the character of the end it contemplates, A system which aims at an insignificant or unworthy end would scarcely be considered wise. The end the gospel aimed at was the restoration in human souls of supreme sympathy with God. This man lost in the Fall. Its absence is the cause of all the evils that curse the world; its restoration is the soul’ s salvation. When the value and the influence of one soul are considered, is not this restoration, even in one case, a grand end? But the gospel aims at it in all souls. 2. By the fitness of the means it employs. Though a system contemplate a grand end, yet ii the means are unadapted it could scarcely be called wise. The means Christianity employs to generate this love for God are-- (1) A personal manifestation of God. (2) A human manifestation of God. God in the form of an angel, e.g., would not awaken this affection. God in any form but man’ s would rather terrify and repel than inspire with confidence and hope. (3) A loving manifestation of God. A manifestation of coldness or anger would never awaken love. Love alone begets love. These things are essential, and the gospel in Christ gives us a personal, human, loving manifestation of God. It is, therefore, emphatically the “ wisdom of God.” It is Divine philosophy. II. A rule for its preachers. “ We speak wisdom among them that are perfect.” The word “ perfect” has, some think, an allusion to the heathen mysteries. These mysteries were religious observances of a secret kind, open only to the initiated. The apostle clearly means by the word “ perfect” those in the Christian community who were more advanced in the knowledge of Christ, who stood most in contrast with those who are but “ babes in Christ.” One of three ideas may be attached to the language of the apostle. Either that he had an exoteric and esoteric doctrine for men, or that the most advanced Christian alone could discern the wisdom of his doctrine, or that he adapted his teaching to the capacity of his hearers. Which of these ideas are we to accept? Not the first, for Paul had not two messages, one for those who were without the Church, and one for those within--one for those who had high capacity, and one for those who had weak. His message to all was one--God’ s love to the world through Christ. Not the second, for the man who was the least advanced in the Christian life must have some appreciation of the gospel. It was the last, namely, that he accommodated his teaching to the capacity of his hearers. In another place he tells the Christians at Corinth that he had hitherto “ fed them with milk, and not with meat, because they were not able to bear it.” His conduct I take as a rule for all true preachers. The great saving facts of the gospel are few and simple, viz., that Christ died and rose again. But the doctrines connected with these facts and their relation to man, God, the universe, and phases of truth which can only be appreciated by those who have attained to certain stages in Christian knowledge and experience. The Great Teacher has said, “ I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” III. An Obligation Upon Its Hearers. If the higher aspects of gospel religion can only be appreciated by those who are “ perfect,” those who have attained to a high stage of Christian knowledge, it is manifestly their duty to endeavour to advance beyond the “ first principles of the oracles of God.” This duty hearers owe--1. To themselves. The more knowledge man has of the wisdom of the gospel, the more power he has within him to purify his affections, exalt his character, and bless his being. The ignorant Christian is feeble, fickle, uninfluential. 2. To their minister. The man who has to minister to hearers who make no progress in Divine truth is limited in his thoughts to the mere rudimentals of the gospel. His motives for pulpit study weaken, and he becomes the commonplace utterer of platitudes. 3. To the system of Christ. The glorious system of Christ, which is “ the wisdom of God,” will only grow in power, influence, and extent in the world as men’ s knowledge of it increases. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The gospel and the intellect 1. It must not be thought that the gospel despises wisdom. The gospel is itself wisdom, only it is God’ s wisdom and net man’ s. “ We speak wisdom … yet a wisdom not of this world.” There is nothing which some of us need more just now than a demonstration of this sort. 2. It is constantly assumed that the progress of knowledge has exploded the gospel; that the cultivated intellect leaves faith behind; that the triumph of reason means the overthrow of religion. 3. This is bad enough, but what is worse is that some Christian people countenance such a view. They look askance at science, believing it to be an enemy of the faith. Huxley and Tyndal are very terrible names to them. They are uncomfortable when they find their sons are beginning to question and to think. Reason has an unpleasing suggestion of “ The Age of Reason” and the French Revolution. Then these good people quote, “ Not many wise are called,” omitting the qualifying “ after the flesh.” 4. Does Christ relinquish His claim on able men? No. The Christian religion is distinguished from all other religions in this, that it is an appeal to the reason, it calls into play all its powers and welcomes all the established results of science. It asks us to believe that we may know and understand. It calls for faith, but only that faith which reason allows or requires. And as the religion differs from other religions, so our Scriptures are distinguished by their constant eulogy of wisdom. The Bible is not only an appeal to the conscience; it is also an appeal to the brain. It is so constructed that it demands diligent study. I. Who are the natural men nowadays who correspond to those who, in St. Paul’ s time, were incapable of receiving the things of the Spirit of God?1. Those who tell us that matter can explain Spirit, that thought is a mere function of a grey, unthinking substance called the brain. Now they cannot receive the wisdom of the gospel--not because they are wiser than every one else, but because their wisdom is after the flesh, and a limited and foolish kind of wisdom. So far from being really wise, they do not even comprehend the question which agitates all earnest men, viz., the meaning of the spiritual world of which you are all more or less conscious. They say, “ The spiritual world is only part and parcel of the material world with which we are familiar.” But if thought comes from brain, then it must be already a thinking brain from which it comes. If spirit is a mere outcome of matter, then it must be already a spiritual matter which produces it. Materialism cannot apprehend the wisdom of the gospel, for it has juggled away the very meaning of its terms--spiritual and material. 2. Those who speak as if the understanding could answer all the questions and meet all the needs of the human spirit. The understanding ,cannot comprehend God; therefore, say they, God does not exist. The understanding cannot explain the freedom of the will; therefore the will is not free. And not admitting the existence of God or the freedom of the will, moral responsibility is quickly discredited. On the same showing love and hope and self-sacrifice ought to be dismissed as chimeras--and perhaps by some they are. Now, such people cannot understand the wisdom of the gospel; not because they are so much cleverer than all the world, only because they have made a rather childish mistake, they have not noticed the limits within which the understanding is able to work; they are like men who should deny that the atmosphere exists because they cannot walk on it as the birds of the air can. The understanding is only a part of our being. Every man is more than understanding; he is also heart, conscience, will. The understanding is only absolute within its own sphere. II. The wisdom which Paul “ speaks among the perfect” is nothing less than the indwelling of the Spirit of God in the spirit of the Christian man. Just as consciousness alone can be aware of our own inward life, so God’ s consciousness alone can understand the depths of God; and only by being made partakers of God’ s consciousness can we search those depths.1. Such an indwelling Spirit will rescue us from the two errors on which we have been reflecting: of materialism and the undue exaltation of the powers of our own understanding. This indwelling Spirit forces us to recognise that the world and life, as we see them, stand forth out of an encircling sea of mystery in which their origins and issues are hidden. It makes us glad to learn from science all about the process of development, but it clearly teaches us that in the last resort it is only in the will of God that either the world or the life upon it could have its birth and find its issue. 2. But this wisdom of the gospel is more than an admission of mystery and of our own limitations. It comes to us as the explanation of the mystery and as the aid of our limitations. The gospel gives us the key to creation, culminating in humanity, the Incarnate God-Man--Christ Jesus; the key to man’ s great dumb longing for God in God’ s great uttered longing for man; the key to the heavy sorrow which oppresses the life of man, in the suffering of the God-man; the key to the dead weight of sin in the complete and voluntary sacrifice of Christ. 3. Nor is this all; in the mind of Christ, an intellect in which there meets the fullest understanding of God with the most tender sympathy for man, is really hidden a treasure of wisdom, a solution of all the questionings of our imperfect spirits. “ We have the mind of Christ.” The humble and unlearned believer is made partaker of that wonderful mind, is allowed to share its workings, and so to apprehend the answer which it is always giving to the searchings of man. III. Thus, as we reflect on Paul’ s pregnant sentences, we become aware that the gospel does not suppress wisdom; it is a wisdom far surpassing the wisdom of the world. It would be the greatest mistake to suppose that by the “ wisdom” of 1 Corinthians 1:20-21; 1 Corinthians 1:26 Paul means the reason, or the exercise or products of reason. Indeed, there is not a little almost unintentional irony in his use of the word, and his comment on its rarity among the “ called.” He speaks rather as one might speak to a number of miners who have just come out of the bowels of the earth into the broad light of day. “ You see your calling, my friends; not many torchbearers among you; not many people carry safety-lamps.” No; and, indeed, under so glorious an expanse of sunlit blue there is not for the general purposes of life much need of them. We have had among us in this generation many brilliant “ natural” men, highly gifted with wisdom after the flesh. There was the late Professor Clifford; there are Haeckel, Maudsley and Spencer. Have they thrown light upon the universal question? Why are we-intelligent spiritual beings, with conscience, will, and hearts--why are we here at all; whence coming, whither going? So far from superseding this wisdom of which Paul speaks, they fall very short of it. For the most part they modestly confess they have no answer to the question. But Paul has an explanation; and to spiritual minds reason is satisfied. (R. F. Horton, D. D.)Christianity a system of wisdom and mystery I. A system of consummate wisdom.1. Devised by God.2. Before the world began.3. To our glory. II. A system of mystery.1. Hidden from the world.2. Mysteriously communicated.3. Among the perfect, who believe and act upon it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Mystery revealed I. The revelation of this mystery is made--“Them that are perfect,” i.e., those who have qualifications for receiving the wisdom.1. Of course, we are told at once that this is the ignorant conceit of religious people. But why ignorant conceit? You do not speak of the ignorant conceit of the physician, or of the engineer, or of the chemist, or of the artist, or of the poet. Nay, does not the ignorant conceit belong rather to those who think that without faculty, without study, they can understand as well as the most assiduous and learned? A spiritual man must know that he has a faculty of spiritual discernment, just as a poet knows that he has a faculty of poetic discernment. And an unspiritual man should know this also, that he has not the spiritual faculty which the other man has. The great doctrine of the apostle is that in religious things right feeling, a right disposition, is the condition of all knowledge. “ If any man will do His will,” &c. If you begin with an ignorant or unspiritual man by simply instructing his understanding in the hope that his heart will be affected, you have this difficulty--his hardened spiritual feeling will hinder understanding. We all know how difficult it is to make men understand what they do not like. All the training of a university will not make some men mathematicians. Again, if a man does not love truth and honesty, you cannot make him true and honest by expounding truth or honesty; you must begin by creating within him a feeling of truth and honesty; then you can easily teach him what things are true and honest. You must have a moral faculty for discerning moral things. 2. I think, therefore, we may see the profound wisdom of the gospel method. It begins by setting man’ s feeling right, producing in him a desire for holiness and a hatred of evil. The apostle tells us that this is the working of the Spirit of God. Take the little faults of men; you cannot reform a habit or a temper by merely teaching about it--nay, by a mere resolution of the will. The root of the thing is in the love for it, and you must begin by destroying this and cultivating love for good, or you will never succeed. You can cure a bad passion only by producing a good one; you can expel an evil affection only by the Spirit of God. 3. The way of the world in seeking religious truth and life is to investigate evidence, to exercise the reasoning faculties--just as you would investigate a problem of history, or demonstrate a proposition in mathematics or logic. Hence it is that so many learned philosophers and theologians never attain to Christianity; to them it is simply an intellectual study; they study it as they would study Buddhism or Mohammedanism. They can understand theology as a science of God; they can understand religion as a theory and a morality; but they have no conception of its spiritual character. “ The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit” ; they are discerned only by a spiritual faculty. II. But then it is wisdom, even to the perfect, of a mysterious kind.1. A man cannot reason out such a system as God’ s salvation by Christ; it is discerned, as Paul says, by spiritual recognition, just as the poetry of a landscape cannot be discerned by a mere mathematician, by a mere engineer. Christianity is a revelation of facts, not a mere notion; Christ tells us what God is, that He is “ our Father in heaven” ; what God has done, that God “ has given His only begotten Son, because He so loved the world.” Now these facts could not have been imagined, could not have been demonstrated by human reasoning. But when they are testified by God, when they are proved by evidence to be facts, then, if I am a “ perfect,” i.e., a spiritual man, I at once feel that this revelation of God in Christ is true; that it is exactly suited to my personal need; it “ commends itself to every man’ s conscience in the sight of God.” None of the princes of this world in thought or in politics have believed. They did not see the principles of truth, righteousness, and love that were manifested by Jesus Christ. Had they seen these as the man of spiritual feeling sees them, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Pilate had some philosophical knowledge; he felt even an interest in and wanted to save Christ. He talked with Him about His kingdom and about the truth; but Pilate’ s corrupt selfishness, his political interests, permitted him to sentence a man to crucifixion--whom he knew to be innocent. There was the moral blindness in close conjunction with the philosophical intelligence. 2. Every teaching about God must have mystery pertaining to it that can never be revealed. This is true, indeed, of everything in human life. Let a man begin to think about God and about moral being, and how soon he comes to a blank wall that he cannot penetrate! Well, it is not that God purposely conceals things, it is that we cannot comprehend them. Instead of adding to the mystery of God, we understand more of God through Jesus Christ than we can on any other theory. And yet how much remains that is impenetrable! We are compelled to exclaim, “ Oh! the depths,” &c. Who can fathom the mystery of the incarnation, of the atonement, of the quickening of spiritual life in men, &c. In the love of Christ, in the love of God, there are heights and depths that pass knowledge. And yet observe-- (1) That there are no mysterious things in Christianity. Christianity has no sacred rites, inscrutable puzzles, artificial concealments. (2) That Christian mysteries are revealed to men so far as they are qualified to discern them. Nothing in Christianity is purposely concealed. The religious life of us men and women who have to do with the business of this great city, is never so powerfully moved, so loftily inspired, so practically directed, as when we simply stand before the great Christian doctrines. (3) What a practical temper this gives to the religious life! What a passionate desire for God, for the study of God, in His Word, in prayer, in worship! (4) The domain of the knowable is sufficient for all the practical needs of man. It is so in science. We eat without knowing the chemistry of food; we act without knowing the philosophy of motion. It is so in religion. I may, however ignorant of the higher mysteries of being, practically realise the life of virtue and piety. The way of life through Christ is plain. (H. Allon, D. D.)The foundation of faith In the verses which precede the text, St. Paul reviews the motives which actuated him, and the line of conduct he had pursued during his ministry at Corinth. When he went there, two courses were open to him. He might have aimed to gain personal adherents, merely using Christianity as a means of displaying the extraordinary powers of mind. Nor can we doubt that he would have been successful. The other course was for him to gain believers in the gospel he preached, and disciples for the Master whom he served. Without the least hesitation, he chose the latter as his aim. Self was studiously kept in the background. This faithful man could say, with perfect sincerity, “ We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” ; whilst he assigns this as his motive, “ That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Now the steadfast pursuance of this plan, by St. Paul and his colleagues, gave a marked feature to the early Churches. I refer to their singular and rapidly acquired independence of apostolic care. Scarcely was a community of believers gathered, although it might be in the midst of some heathen city, before the little flock were left to themselves, to be instructed by their native teachers, and to preserve their fidelity by mutual oversight. Indeed, but for this, the progress of Christianity could not have been so rapid as it was. Its chief original agents were very few, and if they had been compelled to remain long in one place, only a much smaller portion of the world could have been covered by their labours. Here, in the text, we have described two foundations on which our faith may rest--“ the wisdom of men,” and “ the power of God,” and we have to make our election between them. I. The human foundation. “ The wisdom of men.”1. The personal influence of good and wise men in the Christian Church is an ordinance of God, and when kept within proper limits, is an incalculable blessing. It is perfectly right, as well as perfectly natural, that any man who is endowed with eminent gifts, added to sincere piety and fervent earnestness, should win the respect, affection, and confidence of brethren. They involuntarily place themselves under his direction, taking him as their guide and teacher. He becomes a high authority in their estimation. So far all is lawful; but go beyond this, and the most serious consequences follow. If any man was ever entitled to the kind of authority I have described, it was St. Paul, who not only had these personal excellences, but possessed supernatural inspiration. Yet hear how he limits that authority, and indicates a point where it would fail him--“ Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Again, “ Be ye followers of me” ; but observe, he adds the qualification, “ even as I also am of Christ.” These limits to human influence, however, are commonly disregarded. There are human teachers who are not only allowed to be influential, but omnipotent; not only good, but perfect; not only wise, but infallible. Respect for them passes into blind obedience; affection into something very much like idolatry. Their utterances are regarded as above criticism. Whatever they say is taken as gospel; not because of its intrinsic truth and reasonableness, but because they say it. This is clearly a form of the evil which St. Paul so earnestly deprecated when he wrote, “ that your faith should not stand in the wisdom ,of men.” 2. This undue influence of men in matters of religion is not only exercised through their oral teaching, and over those who are personally acquainted with them, but also through their writings. No man who is sincerely anxious about his spiritual culture, and is glad of light, from any quarter, upon the most important of all subjects, can afford to neglect the stores of Christian thought which have come down to us as precious legacies from the past, or which are still issuing from the press. And yet the teachers, however wise and good, who speak to us through their books, ought to be listened to with the same cautious reserve as those who address us in an audible voice. They ought to be treated as helps, not as final authorities. Is it not a very common thing to hear the inquiry, not “ What saith the Scriptures?” but, “ What say the fathers? What saith St. Chrysostom? What saith St. Augustine?” And the answer obtained is considered as final. The opinions of commentators, the systems of theologians, and even the beautiful dreams of Christian poets, may be useful to us, but to take our religion from them alone is to let our faith stand in the wisdom of men. 3. A faith which rests on such a foundation must of necessity be insecure. If men have given us our faith, men can take it away from us. What one has built up, another can destroy. Are there not multitudes continually undergoing such changes of religious belief? They are ever passing from one teacher to another; the last and newest is sure to have them. No anchorage, no stability for them! Staggered by each new scientific theory, which appears hostile to religion, or captivated by the last vagary of superstition, they are “ children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men.” But insecurity of belief is not the only evil in their case. The life they live is as unstable as the faith they hold. Character degenerates, and every semblance of piety disappears, when the influence which gave birth to it is withdrawn. II. The Divine foundation. “ The power of God.” We recognise this phrase as one which the apostle uses elsewhere. “ I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation.” In the previous chapter he had said--“ We preach Christ crucified.., the power of God.” When, therefore, he desires that faith should stand in the power of God, he means that it should rest upon the gospel, and especially upon Christ, who is the gospel’ s central Object. This grand revelation has been made to the world once for all. It is open to universal, to individual inspection. We may be very thankful to another for telling us what he sees in Christ. For if he is a man of eminent piety, who has looked long and earnestly, with an eye whose perceptions love has quickened, and holiness has purified, he may point out to us some features which would otherwise have escaped our dimmer vision. But what he tells us should rather stimulate than supersede our personal observation. All such helps should be like the guide books which a traveller takes with him when he ascends a mountain. If he did not consult them now and then, he might miss some points of interest in the panorama which lies around him. But then he does not allow them to prevent him from using his own eyes. It is evident, however, that St. Paul meant something more than the contact of individual minds with Divine truth, when he speaks of faith standing in the power of God. The power of God can never give stability to faith until it actually enters the soul and exerts its mighty influence there; until Christianity ceases to be a mere set of opinions, and becomes a vital experience. It may seem very satisfactory to say--“ my religion is not to be found in the teaching or writings of men, it is contained between the covers of the Bible.” But if your religion is shut up there it is a worthless thing. It is not the perception, but the entrance of God’ s Word that giveth light, and heat, and life, to our dark, cold, dead nature. It is when the power of God brings peace to our conscience, and submission to our wayward will, and purity to our sinful heart, that it makes our faith a strong and indestructible thing. (B. Bird.)Obedience begetting faith According to Scriptures there are two remedies for unbelief; one the way of argument, the other the way of experiment. In these two ways it is possible to establish the great doctrines of revelation. A careful investigation of the “ Evidences of Christianity” is exceedingly helpful to some persons. But it is well to remember that historical knowledge is one thing, belief another. They may quicken the intellect; they do not necessarily enkindle devotion in the soul. Again, Christ’ s Church has had a noble history--one with which we do well to acquaint ourselves. Still, a knowledge of its sufferings, sorrows, trials, losses, triumphs, and glories does not necessarily produce faith. There are some, not a few, who endeavour by a process of speculation to strengthen their faith in God and in His revealed will. It is admitted that in matters of religious faith reason should be satisfied. Intelligent service is what our Heavenly Father demands. Commending most heartily the application of reason to the solution of questions connected with religion, we are nevertheless justified in severely condemning the spirit of rationalism. Ratienslistic speculation has accomplished but little good in the world. Some persons are disposed to view truth in abstract form. They endeavour to comprehend what is, always has been, and for ever must remain incomprehensible to finite minds. Argument, it is true, has its place in the defence of Scripture. It establishes God’ s people in the truth. It by no means follows, however, that arguments, however potent they may be, will convince the prejudiced. Proof is not conviction. The establishment of the facts is not the removal of antagonism to the facts. Moreover, the way of argument, when exhaustive, is exceedingly laborious. We would find it quite inconvenient to believe nothing till we had established it by unanswerable arguments. May I believe nothing in astronomy, nothing in geology, nothing in chemistry until I have possessed myself of all the arguments bearing upon the subjects? Must I analyse every species of food before eating anything? Supposing I have the ability to do so, will I ever have the opportunity of examining critically all the arguments bearing upon Christianity? There assuredly must be some more direct method of establishing the truth. Yes, says Christ, “ If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of Myself.” Yes, says Paul, “ Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” “ Stand in the wisdom of men.” How could our faith rest secure on such a tottering foundation? Man’ s wisdom is folly. Look at the seething whirlpool of opinions, philosophies and elaborate systems, all driven by the breath of some new metaphysical nondescript into the gurgling vortex of endless oblivion. What metaphysical truth has been so firmly established that no defiant caviller has presumed to call it in question? Shall we found our faith on this ever-heaving ocean? No. Do and know. Stand in the power of God and live. There is then a more direct way of securing faith than by the toilsome process of argumentation. The seeker after truth may experiment. He may test God. He may test doctrine. He may test religion. He may test prayer. He may test piety. He may do and know. Does he lack faith in the efficacy of Christ’ s merit? Let him come to Christ. They who have cordially accepted the Saviour have never questioned His saving ability. Do any question the preciousness of Jesus’ love? “ Oh taste and see that the Lord is gracious.” God, then, has seen fit to allow His system of faith to be tested by actual experiment. He invites us, commands us to try it in our own experiences. In this age the inductive method of philosophising is universally accepted. Scientific truths are established by a carefully conducted series of experiments, not by a priori reasoning. The ancient philosophers endeavoured to determine the facts of each science by reasoning from first principles. “ Cease your blind reasoning,” said Bacon. “ Sit as learners at the feet of Nature and listen to what she has to say. Gather up the facts. Arrange them logically. Form generalisations. Interpret nature.” As a result of the adoption of this method, the physical sciences have made gigantic strides in these last days. To most of us, therefore--for we insensibly imbibe the spirit of the age--it is a question of no small moment: “ Are the doctrines of revealed religion open to experiment?” We answer, Yes, we may make a scientific investigation of the truths we are asked to adopt. In adopting this method of establishing truth, however, it should be borne in mind that we have no right to make our own selection of the tests. I have no right to say, “ If there is a sovereign ruler of the universe, let Him speak to me in an audible voice from heaven.” Are we justified in imitating the cavillers of the Saviour’ s time and exclaiming, “ We would see a sign” ? “ To such no sign shall be given.” Though there are experiments that would be irreverent, there are others that are entirely proper. (J. S. Van Dyke, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.The wisdom of God in the gospel appears I. In its origin--the Divine purpose. II. In the form of its revelation--mystery. III. In the mode of its communication--by man. IV. In its ultimate design--to our glory. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel-wisdom I. It is God’ s wisdom (1 Corinthians 2:6-9). II. It is revealed inwardly by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10-13). III. It is understood only by the spiritual man (verse 2:14-3:4). (Principal Edwards.)God’ s wisdom in a mystery Christianity is-- I. “ The wisdom of God.” Wisdom is knowledge directed to practical ends through the most effectual means. The moral systems of Greece ill deserved that appellation. They were imaginative; they fed the appetite for speculation, but fell with no power upon conscience or conduct. But in the gospel “ the wisdom of Godis displayed in efficient and wondrous arrangements to enlighten and save a fallen world.1. It affords infallible instruction in all necessary truth. All true knowledge properly comes from God. Even art and science were probably first suggested to the mind by God, but secretly and without any mark of distinction. It is conceivable that much of Bible truth might have been thus secretly suggested, and have been published only as the results of the human investigation. Beyond their own rational evidence none of these truths, however, would have had, in this case, a greater than human authority. They would have been but matters of opinion still. The disadvantage of the most enlightened paganism was, that what of the wisdom of God was in it was not known to be from God. When they met with truth they met also with error; and both appeared to rest upon equal authority, and each was held with equal unsteadfastness and doubt. What was wanting was truth in a revealed form. “ The wisdom of God” has supplied that desideratum. Whilst human teachers remained in the human court darkly investigating what might be hidden within that veil, the “ Teacher sent from God” rent that veil, and He who dwelt between the cherubim “ shone forth.” Whilst they were gazing upon every dark form of error which flitted before them like the clouds of night, He came forth, and cried, “ I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me,” &c.; and the credentials He bore were equal to this high declaration. 2. It is a Divine contrivance to administer pardon to the guilty. This is peculiar to the gospel. The question, “ What must I do to be saved?” has been sighed from many a breast, but has obtained no answer except from Christianity. 3. It is an efficient scheme for promoting personal and universal happiness. Man is miserable, and cannot be otherwise. Between sin and misery there is a necessary connection. Many experiments have been tried to build up happy and peaceful societies, but all have failed. Christianity would not have been “ wisdom” had it not provided for man’ s happiness; and it could only provide for it by effecting his regeneration. When this takes place the heart is at rest; “ the fruits of the Spirit” spring forth from the renewed soil; then man lives to help and bless his fellows. II. “ The wisdom of God in a mystery.” The apostle here probably alludes to the mysteries of Paganism. The priesthood in many places pretended to be in possession of a higher and purer doctrine which they kept from the vulgar, under the plea that they were too base and impure to be entrusted with it. It was, therefore, “ hidden wisdom.” But it was occasionally communicated to distinguished persons. The “ initiated” had, however, to undergo severe penances; scenic symbolic representations in caverns, and in the night, were the means adopted for unfolding the secret; and these, and other ceremonies, were employed to inspire greater awe and to enforce secrecy. Probably this secret doctrine contained some of the ancient and purer theology, but mingled with fables. The apostle supposes--1. Points of resemblance; but even the resemblances are implied contrasts such as exist between the sun and a fire, which at once calls our thoughts from what is common to both, to the contrast exhibited between a darkened blaze and an unsullied light. (1) Christianity was connected with symbolic representations running through the previous ages, of which it was at once the accomplishment and the exposition; and it retained some figurative rites of its own--e.g., Baptism, the Eucharist, and the Sabbath. (2) It, too, is hidden from the profane, and those who receive it must be prepared by a previous discipline. But its discipline is not some foolish bodily austerity or onerous ceremonies, it is the discipline of humility and prayer. For “ the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” and to them “ He shows His covenant.” (3) It also produces deep impressions of awe and reverence upon those who are admitted, to it. Religion has an awful grandeur, but nowhere is it displayed so impressively as in the gospel. 2. Points of direct contrast. (1) The mysteries of Paganism were, for the most part, by artifice; those of Christianity by nature and necessity. The bottom of this ocean is not discovered, not because the waters are muddy, but because they are deep. (2) In the Pagan mysteries plain truths were often hidden in doubtful enigmas; in Christianity nothing is mysterious but what is so by the appointment of Him who hides that from us which is unfit for us to know, or from the necessary magnitude of the objects. (3) The impression produced upon the initiated was the result greatly of trick, and brought the spirit of man into bondage and disquieting superstition. But “ the mysteries of godliness” at once humble and exalt; and whilst they inspire fear, elevate, strengthen, and sanctify. (4) In the mysteries of Paganism, whatever wisdom was “ hidden” was for the few; that of Christianity, for all. From the former the poor were systematically excluded. The poor find mercy in the gospel, but nowhere else. III. This “ Wisdom of God In a mystery” was “ Ordained before the world to glory.”1. Christianity was ordained “ before the world.” We hear sometimes of its invention by man. We acknowledge that things invented have been added by human authority. But these are no parts of the system itself; and we may ask, When was that invented? And what human mind first devised its leading fundamental principles?--that man is a fallen being who can be saved only through the merits of a Divine sacrifice. 2. It was ordained as a perfect and efficient plan for human recovery. (R. Watson.)The great theme of gospel preaching I. The wisdom referred to in the text. It is called the wisdom of God; by which we are to understand, not that attribute of God’ s nature, but that attribute in its display. The wisdom of God has been denominated manifold--manifold, not simply because the things in which it is displayed are many, but because, as displayed in each of those things, it is in itself manifold; in other words, ample, full in its display. And of what does he thus speak? It is of God’ s wisdom as displayed in the economy of human salvation. What is wisdom? What but that which, having an object in view, chooses a plan, and employs means for the attainment of its object--not indeed any plan, but that which is indisputably the best--nor any means, but those which are indisputably the most suitable; and by its choice of the one and its employment of the other, both seeks the attainment of its object, and makes provision for the removal out of the way of what would otherwise operate to make its attainment impossible. If this be what wisdom is, does it not furnish an explanation of what the wisdom of God is, as displayed in the economy of human salvation? He had an object in view. That object was twofold--His own glory and man’ s salvation. Had sinful man been left to perish, without any regard to the wish of mercy, the holiness, and the faithfulness, and the justice of God would doubtless have been seen in man’ s perdition. Or had sinful man been rescued from destruction, without any regard to the demand of holiness, and faithfulness, and justice, the mercy of God would doubtless have been seen in man’ s preservation from ruin. But where--in either the one or the other of those supposed cases--where would have been God’ s glory? For His glory is not His mercy, or His justice, or His faithfulness, or His holiness, in their separate form, but all these perfections in combination. And is not this the appearance which these perfections of God present to view in His mode of saving man? II. The peculiar description which the apostle in the text further gives of it. 1. “ The wisdom of God in a mystery.” By this, questionless, the apostle primarily intended to intimate that in speaking, or in ministerially publishing the wisdom of God, or the plan of human salvation in the mode of its accomplishment, in which the wisdom of God has its highest illustration, he proclaimed that which, in itself, is mysterious or incomprehensible. And is it not so? But though there is here that which is mysterious, that which is incomprehensible, there is nothing that is incredible. To refuse the plan of human salvation a place in our creed, because the mode of its accomplishment transcends our comprehension, we must, in order to be consistent, disbelieve whatever we cannot fully understand or explain. And in what tremendous and hopeless scepticism would this involve us! For what is there that is not to us replete with mystery? 2. But though the apostle may have referred to what is strictly mysterious in the plan of human salvation when he said, “ We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,” yet, from what immediately follows, it would appear that he meant to be understood as referring, not so much to the essential incomprehensibility of that plan, as to its previous secrecy. The plan of human salvation was before a mystery, a secret; but in consequence of the commencement of the Christian era, it is now made known: hence, “ We speak--I and my fellow-apostles” speak--publish, proclaim, the once “ hidden wisdom.” His meaning is, that, compared with the revelation of it now made, all former revelations of it were imperfect. Though adapted to be spiritually and morally useful, yet every former revelation was not only partial, but oftentimes obscure. In this latter revelation, however, there was no darkness; it was clear, intelligible, satisfactory. But the apostle refers, not merely to the complete discovery now made of the plan of human salvation compared with the former partial and defective revelations of it, but also to its benevolent, its philanthropic character, when he says, “ We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom.” The plan of human salvation was primarily revealed to the progenitor of the human race as their representative; but subsequently this revelation was made only to a portion of his descendants. The rest of mankind needed it, as well as these favoured ones; but from all without the pale of their privileged community it was withheld, and long withheld--so long, that to this latter class it seemed its revelation was never to be made. Until the commencement of this era the calling of the Gentiles to be partakers with the Jews of the blessings of salvation was a “ mystery,” a secret; but no sooner did this era commence than the original benevolent and philanthropic character of the plan of human salvation was made manifest. Widely was the revelation of this plan spread during the apostolic age; widely has it been spread since; but still it is far, very far from being universally spread. III. The source whence it originated, the antiquity of its device, and the grandeur of the object of its revelation.1. Its source was God. “ We speak the wisdom of God” ; that in which “ the wisdom of God” was illustriously displayed we publish--even the plan of human salvation “ which God ordained” ; that is, which God decreed, and having decreed, revealed as His own contrivance. And is not this what the plan of human salvation is? Could it have any other origin than that to which it is here traced? Does not that about it which exceeds all description and transcends all conception prove that its contrivance not only was, but must have been Divine? 2. The antiquity of its device. “ We speak the wisdom of God” the plan of human salvation “ which God ordained before the world,” that is, before the creation of the world; and if before the creation of the world, before the beginning of time; and if before the beginning of time, from eternity. And is not the plan of human salvation thus ancient? “ Known unto God,” it is said, “ are all His works from the beginning f the world” ; language which, whilst it undeniably imports antecedent arrangement, as undeniably implies that that arrangement was, on the part of God, eternal. And if, in reference to all His other works, the date of God’ s plans must be fixed in eternity, what other date can be reasonably assigned to His plan of human salvation? What admiration, what gratitude, what confidence is this fitted to excite in our breast! 3. The grandeur of the object of its revelation. “ We speak the wisdom of God, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory.” In devising the plan of human salvation, God sought His own glory; and in the accomplishment of that plan His glory has been secured. But though in devising that plan God chiefly sought His own glory, yet He sought ours also; even our spiritual, moral, and eternal benefit, which constitutes our glory. Indeed, the device of that plan would have failed in its object had not its accomplishment combined, in this sense, our glory with the glory of God. And have we not every reason to be assured, from it adaption to our ease, of its fitness to promote our glory, by promoting our spiritual, moral, and eternal benefit? (A. Jack, D. D.)The wisdom of God in mystery Light and darkness are here mingled together. It is wisdom, but wisdom in a mystery. We may know from it enough to make us wise unto salvation, but the gospel never proposes to give answers to the catechism of curiosity. Consider-- I. The mystery which lies in the crucifixion of Christ. It is entirely a mystery to us--1. How it could comport with the justice of God to lay the punishment of our sins on the head of an innocent Being. He has done it. There is no mystery about that. But we know no more. 2. How justice could be satisfied through such an infliction. We cannot tell. All we know is that Divine justice positively did receive there the very last item of her demands. 3. How Christ could render satisfaction to Divine justice, while, at the same time, He was the Being to whom satisfaction was rendered, and the very Being who rendered it. 4. How it came to pass that, while the Divine nature is utterly unsusceptible of pain and death, nevertheless the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ have all their value and efficacy from the Divine nature of the Victim. We know it is so, but we know nothing further. 5. How there could be, in the “ one person” of Christ upon the Cross, such a wonderful union of grandeur and humiliation--of complaining and omnipotence--of immortal Deity and expiring humanity! They are truths, but they are mysteries--Divine mysteries of Divine truth. 6. How that Son on the Cross, in whom the Father was well pleased, could have been abandoned at such a moment, and left to wail, “ My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” . How the love of God should ever have brought Jesus Christ to the Cross. II. The demonstration that all this mysteriousness is no greater than we ought to expect on the subject-matter before us. It perfectly accords with all the facts and all the other arrangements of the plan of redemption. In this accordance beams out the wisdom of God.1. Sin was the great evil which brought our Saviour into the world and took Him to the Cross. And the existence of sin is just as mysterious a matter to us as its expiation. If sin is a mystery, the expiation of it ought to be a mystery also. And so it is. Great is the mystery of godliness, &c. 2. Why did the Son of God select this world as the theatre of His redeeming wonders? Spirits as precious as ours had fallen. Why did God pass angels by when He rescued us? No answer comes, except, “ Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” There we must leave it. And if it be a mystery how God came to select this apostate world, it accords with God that that work itself should be a mystery also. 3. There is an entire correspondence between the doctrines of Christ’ s expiation of sin and satisfaction of justice, and all the other information we have about the Saviour Himself. The incarnation of Jesus ,Christ is just as mysterious to us as His atonement. That Jesus Christ should be able to give strength to the poor cripple’ s bones, and yet be Himself weary and wayworn--that He should feed thousands of men, and yet be a man of hunger--that He should please the Father, and yet the Father be pleased to bruise Rim, these are things before which faith and love may wonder and adore, but which reason can never explain! 4. There is something truly amazing in the mode of the redemption of sinners. If it were so, that Jesus Christ were coming into this world to ransom sinners, we should naturally have expected that He would come in the chariots of His omnipotence! But He was a poor man, and at the end of His work, instead of receiving any signals of triumph, He was mocked as an impostor and crucified as a malefactor. This is the mode in which God treated His Son! It corresponds with the mysteries of its design. 5. Through this Christ some sinners are brought into favour with God. They are believers. They are adopted into God’ s family, and He loves them with an unequalled tenderness and strength. But how does He treat them? The very pathway by which they travel to heaven corresponds in wonders with all the rest of their redemption! (L S. Spencer, D. D.)Christianity the wisdom of God in a mystery I. Mystery primarily signifies a secret, and Christianity is the wisdom of God in a mystery, because of its having been long a secret. “ It was ordained before the foundation of the world” it was a Divine plan formed in the mind of God, but, from eternity to the point of time when it was needed, it remained a secret there. But at the moment of man’ s fall then came the wisdom of God out of this long mystery. And whilst justice shut the gates of paradise, mercy opened the new and living way to reconciliation and friendship with God. But the apostle speaks of God’ s purpose to call the Gentiles as a mystery. The wisdom of God had retired behind the impenetrable cloud for ages till our Saviour gave the charter of salvation to all nations--“ Go ye into all the world,” &c. II. A mystery is an emblem, and Christianity is the wisdom of God in a mystery, because it has delighted in all ages to array itself in emblem. The parables of our Lord were called mysteries for this reason, and “ the golden candlesticks” and “ the stars” in the Book of the Revelation. But the object of a mystery, in this respect, is not so much concealment as to test whether men love the truth sufficiently to investigate the figures under which it is presented. The wisdom of God chose the ancient types for the manifestation of itself. All nature is made use of in this respect. The sun is the established emblem of Christ, the light of the world. In the shadows of evening the voice of heavenly wisdom admonishes us that the night cometh in which no man can work. Dews and rains remind us of the great promise of the fertilising and life-giving Spirit. It was for this very reason that the sacraments were anciently called mysteries. Baptism teaches us the washing away of sin, and the Lord’ s Supper that we live by His death. III. A mystery is a deep and dark enigma, and Christianity is the wisdom of God in a mystery, because it is by the most perplexing circumstances that it has often accomplished its designs. Take--1. The humiliation of our Lord. The great pretensions of all the prophets were that He was to save and redeem and reign. Well, this Saviour is seen in the form of an infant--is placed in entire obscurity for thirty years. He was despised and rejected by the people at large, and His character and designs often perplexed His immediate followers. By and by we see this universal sovereign and Saviour expiring on a Cross, and provoking the taunt, “ He saved others, but Himself He cannot save.” Yet, however deep that mystery, there was wisdom behind it, and on the morning of the resurrection the wisdom of God came forth from the mystery. There seems to be an allusion to this in the words of St. Paul: “ Great,” says he, “ is the mystery of godliness,” &c. 2. The history of the Church. There have been so many manifestations of the wisdom of God in the mystery that certainly there is something for faith to rest upon with respect to the grand result as to the Church; and yet how deep and portentous are the clouds which arise before the mind of him who contemplates the apostasies of the Church, &c. IV. A mystery is a proceeding which contradicts the notions which men ordinarily form of fitness; and Christianity is the wisdom of God in a mystery, because it employs, for the accomplishment of its proposes, means which contradict all the notions of men.1. There was nothing agreeable to human wisdom in the agents appointed for the conversion of the world; but Paul tells us that the wisdom of God had proved stronger than the wisdom of men, and that God had chosen the weak things to confound the mighty, &c. The mystery was to the men of the world; the wisdom in the mystery was manifested in the end. 2. There is the soul of a man immersed in worldliness and sin to be made sensible of its sin and danger--to have produced within it a new train of emotions which shall lead to God. What is the instrumentality which the wisdom of God employs in producing this effect? Is it the work of an angel? Verily it were worthy of such an agency. But now the wisdom of God veils itself in mystery, and makes use of a fellow-man, and by the secret influence which God gives, the work is done. 3. A soul reconciled to God is to be matured in grace and to be qualified for glory. How often does the wisdom of God, in accomplishing this great end, wrap itself in mystery! One object is to cure the spirit of worldly care, and a load of additional care is laid upon it. Another object is to teach reflectiveness of spirit, and the subject is plunged in most perplexing circumstances. Another object is to increase the peace of the soul; and yet the soul is placed in the midst of the turbulent storm. Another object is to excite a higher love, and yet the heavier stroke of the Lord is laid upon him. Here is the mystery; but we know the wisdom notwithstanding this, “ for tribulation worketh patience,” &c. 4. A nation sunk in ignorance and immorality is to be raised into a better state. How is it done? Never by means which are at all taken into the calculation of statesmen. God raises up His own instruments--they may be few in number--from the lower class of society, and the work goes on, principles are secretly spreading, and the scene changes. It is amusing to read the theories of the worldly wise on these changes, whereas the whole proves that the wisdom of God has been proceeding in a mystery to them. 5. And so it is with respect to foreign missions. V. A mystery is as unfathomable subject, and Christianity is the wisdom of God in a mystery, because the subjects with which it is conversant are of this kind. There are many persons who object to our religion because of its mysteriousness. But what would a religion be that had no mysteries? What view could you have of God if you could comprehend Him? God is eternal--can the creature of a day take in the idea of eternal duration? God’ s plans must be like Himself; must they, then, not be incomprehensible by the necessity of nature to creatures like ourselves? The subject is clear, but our minds are clouded by reason of darkness, We cannot perceive the beauty and the proportions of an extended landscape, not because the objects in themselves are indistinct, but because they are distant. VI. Christianity is a mystery of love. Great has been the manifestation of the goodness of God to His people. Christ has come--the Holy Spirit has been poured out--the ordinances of Christianity instituted; but there is a period coming of still greater glory for the Church. They whom Christ has redeemed are to be with Him for ever and see His glory. (R. Watson.)The mystery of the gospel I. In its principles. It reveals reconciliation with God,1. By sacrifice.2. By the sacrifice of His own dear Son. II. In its spirituality.1. It is revealed by the Spirit of God.2. To the spirit of man.3. By faith. III. In its design.1. To manifest the glory of God.2. Secure the glorification of man. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The mystery of the gospel The gospel-- I. May well be mysterious--for it is the wisdom of God. II. Must be acknowledged to be mysterious. For its doctrines--1. Transcend human thought.2. Are spiritual in their nature.3. Are in opposition to our common modes of thinking, III. Is wisely mysterious.1. To command our reverence.2. Humble our pride.3. Provoke our inquiry.4. Awaken anticipation of a brighter revelation in another life. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Mystery The word has four meanings which may be arranged almost in chronological order. I. That which it is forbidden to divulge except to the initiated. Such were the secrets of the political and religious festivals held in most cities of Greece. We have a trace of this meaning in Matthew 13:2. In 2 Peter 1:16 it is said that the apostles did not follow the false track of rationalised myths, but were eye-witnesses by initiation of Christ’ s majesty (Colossians 2:3). II. That which cannot be known except by revelation (cf. Romans 16:25; Ephesians 3:3-4; Colossians 1:26). III. Sacred ceremonies that have a symbolical or spiritual significance; sometimes restricted to denote the Eucharist. After the time of Tertullian this is its prevailing signification, and its Latin equivalent is sacramentum. IV. A truth that transcends the human intellect to comprehend, and this may be absolute impossibility or impossible till the Spirit of God gives an inward revelation. In the present passage the word includes somewhat of all these meanings except the third. The word “ perfect,” while it signifies “ full-grown,” contains an allusion to initiation into mysteries. (Principal Edwards.)Mystery no obstacle to faith Each human being at his birth has everything to learn. The child is apt to imagine that those who are older than himself, and whom he has found able to answer his first inquiries, know almost everything, and he is surprised and disappointed when he finds, in many instances, that no sufficient explanation of his difficulties can be given, and he is inclined to disbelieve whatever offers itself as a mystery to his mind. In this vulnerable point, scepticism in reference to subjects of a religious nature is wont to assail the mind. It would have it believed that mystery is something peculiar to religion, and then insists that what is so incomprehensible cannot rationally be believed. But neither is true. We purpose to show the contrary. I. There is mystery in everything.1. Of nothing can we feel a greater certainty than of our own being and personal identity. But what am I? I can no more understand the essence of my conscious self, than I can that of God the Infinite Spirit. The philosopher here is no wiser than the child. 2. Turn to nature in any of her various departments. Look, e.g., at-- (1) The facts presented in the animal kingdom. Explain the nature of instinct. Observe that spider, which has spread her gossamer across your window. How did she learn to construct that octagon as perfect as if drawn by the nicest geometrician? Or watch the robin; that nest is the first she ever built: yet see how perfect--the most practised of her kind has never formed a better. Where did she gain her skill in architecture? (2) Animal life and the functions of the vital economy. What is it that prevents the decomposition of the flesh of animals so long as the vital principle is there, while decay commences the moment it is gone? Tell us how it is that the gross substances taken in the form of food are converted into the beautiful carnation of the human cheek, and the gorgeous and variegated dyes of birds and insects. Show what it is that keeps the heart for ever throbbing, and the lungs perpetually heaving, without any effort of the will. (3) The vegetable world. There is the rose blushing crimson by your window. What elements have been concerned in its production? Light, heat, moisture, and the common earth. But by what means have the petal, the odour, and the hues been elaborated from such materials? How has the same sap been made to produce the hard stalk, the sharp thorn, the green leaf, and the admirable flower? There, too, is the lily by its side. It springs from the same soil, is warmed by the same sun, watered by the same showers, yet instead of having the same colour it is white as the virgin snow. Again, there is the grass and the violet that both spring from one common mould, and yet, one is a soft and lively green, and the other an imperial purple. (4) Inorganic matter. You have here the laws of chemical affinity and repulsion. You find that certain substances when reduced to a fluid state and then placed in given conditions, return to solids by the process of crystallisation; and that in doing this one always takes the cubic form, another always that of an octahedron, another always that of a parallelopiped, and so on. But of these, and a multitude of other plain and unquestionable facts, you cannot by the nicest observation detect the cause, or the mode of its operation. Nature veils it in deep mystery. (5) Those subtle yet efficient agents that produce the more general and grand phenomena of nature. Put an end to the conjectures of mankind, by telling us what light, and heat, and electricity, and magnetism are. That mighty universal force, to which, by way of concealing our ignorance, we give the name of gravity, which brings the pebble to the earth, and chains revolving worlds about their centres; search out the secret and instruct us in relation to its nature. You cannot answer our inquiries. You see, then, that mystery is written all over the universe of God. II. That the truths of revealed religion are confessedly mysterious, is a confirmation of its Divinity.1. A system of religion which professed to be from God, and yet claimed to have no mysteries, would prove it to be false. For such a system would be anomalous, and we should justly reason that if earthly things are found to be beyond our comprehension, much more ought heavenly things to be expected to be so. To the Omniscient only are there no dark and hidden things. 2. There may be many other reasons besides that of our want of capacity to comprehend Him, to render it fit that God should withhold from us many kinds and degrees of knowledge which might without difficulty be imparted. It might, for example, only perplex us to have our minds excited to yet higher inquiry by further disclosures as to things that have no immediate relation to our duty or our happiness for the present. Life is so short, so full of engrossing occupation, that very little time is allowed us for merely speculative thought. Then, further, it is no less obvious that this living in the midst of mysteries may prove a most salutary moral discipline. By contact with the as yet unopened secrets of the universe our pride receives a salutary check. Both as regards the ends of practical life and the development in our souls of sentiments of humility, of veneration, and of worship, there are great advantages to be derived from the present withholding of many parts of Divine knowledge which might possibly be revealed. 3. Instead, then, of suffering ourselves to be perplexed because we encounter mysteries in the Christian revelation, it is much wiser, as well as more becoming, that we cultivate a humble, docile spirit. How exceedingly limited, at best, is our horizon! What an infant, in a sober view, does the wisest man on earth appear on the scale of universal being! 4. We ought likewise to consider, for the enkindling of a heartfelt gratitude, that the mysteries of our being had been far deeper and darker than they are, but for the partial light which God has afforded in His Word. By the help of this, where the wisest heathen, in all ages, have groped their way, we are able to see distinctly; and though we are able to know so little comparatively, yet let us devotedly praise God that He has enabled us to know enough to enable us to discern and keep the path of duty and of life. 5. For the rest it may content us that we can confidently anticipate the future increase of our knowledge. (Ray Palmer, D. D.)Christianity mysterious, and the wisdom of God in making it so The reasons of this may be stated upon these two grounds. I. The nature and quality of the things treated of.1. Their surpassing greatness to the mind of man. God is an infinite being, a world in Himself, too high for our speculations and too great for our descriptions. Heaven enters into us, as we must into it, by a very narrow passage. But how shall the King of glory, whom the heavens themselves cannot contain, enter in by these doors? How shall these short faculties measure the lengths of His eternity, the breadths of His immensity, the heights of His prescience, and the depths of His decrees? and those mysteries of two natures united into one person and of one nature diffused into a triple personality? 2. Their spirituality. When we read that God is a Spirit, and that angels and the souls of men are spirits, we cannot frame any notion or resemblance of them. We can fetch in no information from our senses. Imagine a man born blind, able upon hearsay to conceive all the varieties of colour, to draw a map of France, &c. But as it would be extremely irrational for a blind man to deny that there are such things as colours, &c., because he cannot form any mental perception of them, so would it be superlatively more unreasonable for us to deny on the same grounds the great articles of our Christianity. 3. Their strangeness and unreducibleness to the common methods and observations of nature. Take, e.g.-- (1) Christ’ s satisfaction for sin. That He who was the offended person should provide a satisfaction and concern Himself to solicit a needless reconciliation, that a Father should deliver up an innocent and infinitely beloved Son for the redemption of His enemies, are transactions such as we can find nothing analogous to in all the dealings of men. (2) Regeneration, concerning which men wonder by what strange power it should come to pass that any one should be brought to conquer inveterate appetites and desires, and to have new ones absolutely contrary planted in their room. So that when our Saviour discoursed of these things to Nicodemus, he asked, “ How can these things be?” (3) The resurrection. II. Some of its principal ends and designs. But may it not be objected that the grand design of religion is to engage men in the practice of its commands, and that the way to obey a law is to know it, and the way to know it is to have it plainly propounded? To this I answer, first, that it is as much the design of religion to oblige men to believe the credenda as to practise the agenda of it: and secondly, that there is as clear a reason for the belief of the one as for the practice of the other. They exceed indeed the human reason to comprehend them scientifically, and are therefore proposed, not to our knowledge, but to our belief; but since God has revealed them we may with the highest reason, upon His bare word, believe them. But then, as for those things that concern our practice, they indeed are of that clearness that being once proposed to us, need not our study, but only our acceptance. In sum, the articles of our faith are those depths in which the elephant may swim, and the rules of our practice those shallows in which the lamb may wade. But as both light and darkness make but one natural day, so both the clearness of the agenda and the mystery of the credenda of the gospel constitute but one entire religion. I come now to show that the mysteriousness of the credenda, or matters of our faith, is most subservient to the great ends of religion.1. Because religion in its prime institution was designed to make impressions of awe and reverential fear upon men’ s minds. God, who designed man to a supernatural end, thought fit also to engage him to a way of living above the bare course of nature, and for that purpose to oblige him to a control of his mere natural desires. And this can never be done but by imprinting such apprehensions of dread as may stave off appetite from its desired satisfactions, which the infinite wisdom of God has thought fit to do, by nonplussing the world with certain new and unaccountable revelations. To protect which from the encroachments of bold minds, He has hedged it in with a sacred obscurity in some of the principal parts of it, inasmuch as “ familiarity breeds contempt.” 2. Because religion is delivered by God to humble the pride of man’ s reason. Man fell by pride, founded upon an irregular desire of knowledge, and therefore Divine wisdom contrived man’ s recovery by such a method as should abase him in that very perfection, whereof the ambitious improvement first cast him down from that glorious condition. 3. Because He would engage us in a more diligent search into the articles of religion. No man studies things plain and evident. We are commanded by Christ to search the Scriptures, and whosoever shall apply himself to a thorough performance of this high command, shall find difficulty enough in the things searched into to perpetuate his search. For they are a rich mine which the greatest wit and diligence may dig in for ever and still find new matter to entertain the busiest contemplation with, even to the utmost period of the most extended life. Truth, we are told, dwells low, and in a bottom; and the most valued things of the creation are hidden from the common view, so that violence must be done to nature, before she will produce and bring them forth. 4. Because the full know]edge of it may be one principal part of our blessedness hereafter. All those heights and depths which confound the subtlest apprehension shall then be made clear to us. (R. South, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 2:8-9 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Spiritual ignorance, evil, flood I. The cause of immense evil. These princes of the world, through ignorance, “ crucified the Lord of glory.”1. A greater crime than this was never perpetrated. It involved-- (1) The grossest injustice. He was embodied virtue. His enemies and judges bore testimony to His innocence. (2) The basest ingratitude. He not only did no evil, but “ went about doing good.” (3) Most heartless cruelty. They put Him to a death the most ignominious and excruciating that infernal malignity could desire. (4) Most daring impiety. Whom did they thus treat? “ The Lord of glory” (Psalms 24:8). It is impious to trifle with His laws and rebel against His throne, but how much more so to crucify the universal Lawgiver and King! 2. That this ignorance was the cause of this immense evil is evident. (1) Because it is itself an evil, and like will produce like. There are two things necessary to knowledge--mind and means. When either of these is absent, ignorance is a calamity, but when they are present it is a crime. These princes had both--they were not idiots, and riley had means by which they could know Christ; the Old Testament Scriptures, John the Baptist, Christ Himself. They need not have been ignorant. Their ignorance was a sin, and sin, like virtue, is propagated. (2) Had it not existed, such an evil could never have been perpetrated. II. The occasion of immense good. This crucifixion introduced things that “ eye had never seen,” &c., viz., God’ s love to the world and His method of saving it; Divine pardon, spiritual purity, immortal hopes. Conclusion: From this subject learn--1. That the sinner is always engaged in accomplishing that which he never intended. These “ princes-- (1) Ruined themselves. It brought upon them and their country in this world tremendous judgments--and what in the world to come? Sinner, what are you doing? You are ruining yourself, but you do not intend it; but you are nevertheless doing it in the commission of every sin. (2) Executed the plan of the great God. “ Him being delivered,” &c. God overrules for good. So now, we have not to determine whether we shall serve God or not; we have to determine how--by our will or against it. 2. Whatever good a man may accomplish contrary to his intention is destitute of all praiseworthiness. What oceans of blessings come to our world through the crucifixion! Yet who can ever praise the crucifiers? 3. That no man should act without an intelligent conception of what he is doing. How many act from prejudice, custom, blind impulse! How few have a right conception of what they are doing! (D. Thomas, D. D.)Ignorance of the truth I. Its awful prevalence.1. It has abounded in all time.2. Pervades all classes. II. Its injurious effects.1. It occasions the worst crimes.2. It led to the crucifixion of our Lord. III. Its fatal issue destruction of both body and soul. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The guilt of man in crucifying the Lord of glory. Consider-- I. The deed. II. Its aggravation.1. He was the Lord of glory.2. Came from glory.3. Conducts to glory--dwells in glory. III. Its unmitigated guilt. A sin of ignorance.1. Not therefore relieved, because the ignorance was wilful.2. Not inevitable through the purpose of God, because had they known they would not have done it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Christ the Lord of glory I. The essential glory of Christ, which He hath as God from everlasting; which is unspeakable and inconceivable glory (Philippians 2:6). He has a peerage or equality with His Father in glory (John 10:30). And again, “ All things that the Father hath are Mine(John 16:15), the same name, the same nature, the same essential properties, the same will, and the same glory. II. The mediatorial glory of Christ is exceeding great. This is proper to Him as the Head of the Church, which He hath purchased with His own blood (Philippians 2:9-10).1. The fulness of grace inherent in Him. The humanity of Christ is filled with grace, as the sun with light (John 1:14), excelling all the saints in spiritual lustre and gracious excellencies. 2. The dignity and authority put upon Him. He is crowned King in Sion; all power in heaven and earth is given unto Him (Matthew 28:18), He is a Law-giver to the Church (James 4:12). 3. Jesus Christ shall have glory and honour ascribed to Him for evermore by angels and saints, upon the account of His mediatorial work; this some divines call His passive glory, the glory which He is said to receive from His redeemed ones (Revelation 5:8-10). Inferences; 1. How wonderful was the love of Christ, the Lord of Glory, to be so abased and humbled as He was for us vile and sinful dust! 2. How transcendently glorious is the advancement of believers by their union with the Lord of Glory! 3. Is Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory? Then, let no man count himself dishonoured by suffering the vilest indignities for His sake. 4. Is Christ the Lord of Glory? How glorious then shall the saints one day be, when they shall be made like this glorious Lord, and partake of His glory in heaven! (John 17:22.)5. How hath the devil blindfolded and deluded them that are frightened off from Christ by the fears of being dishonoured by Him! 6. If Christ be the Lord of Glory, how careful should all be who profess Him that they do not dishonour Jesus Christ, whose name is called upon by them! 7. What delight should Christians take in their daily converse with Jesus Christ in the way of duty! 8. If Christ be so glorious, how should believers long to be with Him, and behold him in His glory above! (John Flavel.)Eye hath not seen … the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.-- Spiritual blessings I. Lie beyond the researches of the unregenerate mind. They are--1. Not seen by the observation of nature, providence, grace.2. Not heard by the report of the preacher, &c.3. Not conceived by reason, speculation, inquiry. II. Are revealed to those who love God.1. Much depends on the heart.2. The revelation is glorious.3. Is effected by the Spirit.4. Is completed in glory. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The excellency and blessings of the gospel I. The superlative excellency of the gospel.1. Its discoveries and blessings far exceed all human knowledge or conception. (1) “ Eye hath not seen.” And yet by the eye we have surveyed many of the works of God; and if we look upon ourselves, we discover displays of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness. All these are glorious discoveries; but they say not how, when, or why they were formed. (2) “ Ear hath not heard.” When sight is exhausted, we can still drink in knowledge. But we never heard how the spring of moral conduct might be purified, life and heart made holy, and man be fitted for the society of God. We never heard of such powerful motives as the love of Christ, or such rich blessings as the beatitudes on the mount. (3) “ Nor hath entered the heart of man,” i.e., man never imagined. Every man carries about with him an ideal world of his own. How often have we attempted to paint to ourselves a character just such as we should approve! But it never entered into the heart of man to conceive of true dignity of character, or of the sources of real happiness as suited to the nature of man. 2. The peculiar excellency of this gospel will appear from-- (1) The sublime and interesting truth which it discovers. Briefly, the design of the gospel is to raise man from the ruin of the fall--to wash him from sin--to adorn him with righteousness--to inspire him with sublimity of thought and holiness of affection--to lead him in all the paths of obedience, and finally to exalt him to the society of angels and fellowship with God. But who could have barely thought of such a purpose? Who could have admitted the possibility of the fact? The Divine Being was under no obligations to redeem man. All the motive is revealed to us in the gospel, and is to be found in His own unfathomable love. “ God so loved the world,” &c. And who would ever have conceived of such a simple plan of communicating such blessings! “ Believe on the Lord,” &c. (2) The pure and intense happiness it imparts. Even the speculative knowledge of these truths raises man in the scale of intelligence. But the gospel does more. The gospel calms the tumult of passion, reconciles man to God, and makes him to be at peace with himself. Now, “ eye hath not seen,” &c. Some have had every advantage and opportunity of knowing this subject, but they are still natural men. They cannot conceive how a man can know his sins forgiven, nor of the joy and peace in believing. The natural man doth not comprehend these things; and even believers do not form conceptions sufficiently noble. (3) The happy and glorious prospects which it unfolds. Philosophy never found out a remedy for the fear of death. It points to a few instances of apparent calmness and confidence. But it never fully met the evil. Death, to it, has ever been dissembled. But Christianity reveals the immediate consequences of death, and then supplants the fear of death. Where will philosophy show anything like the death of Stephen? And how is this to be explained? (Acts 7:55.) And all in whom is the spirit of Stephen have the like glorious prospects. But what are they? Nay, “ Eye hath not seen,” &c. The grandest description is, that it is beyond all description. If we cannot know all that God has prepared for us here, how can we conceive of the joys of heaven? (John 3:12.) “ We walk by faith, and not by sight!” We could not possibly understand it; we have no powers of perception suited to such knowledge. Eye hath not seen so glorious a body as that of the Transfiguration, the model of ours; or so glorious a city as “ that great city, the holy Jerusalem,” &c. Ear never heard strains so melting as those John heard--“ the voice of harpers harping with their harps.” It never entered into the heart of man, the pure and unsullied bliss of the redeemed (Revelation 7:15-17). II. The characters for whom these blessings are prepared. For “ them that love Him.” Consider the love of God as--1. A necessary principle. Mere admiration will not suffice. The infidel may admire the character of the Creator as impressed upon His works, and be without even a desire to enjoy these blessings. Nor will a mere transient impression of the passions be sufficient, such as is frequently felt whilst contemplating gospel truths, even as a matter of speculation. A consideration of the love of God, the sufferings of Christ, &c., produces no permanent effect, but is obliterated by the next consideration. Now this love of God is necessary. “ Without holiness no man shall see Him.” Holiness is the image of God, and “ God is love.” These things are prepared only for them that keep His commandments, &c. But the whole law is comprised in this, “ Thou shalt love,” &c. Hence, “ this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” It is only the love of God that gives us the true knowledge of Him. “ He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.” This love of God is essential to our enjoying God. No man can enjoy what he hates. 2. A Divine principle. No man loves God by nature. Nothing less than Divine love can conquer this enmity of the human heart. A manifested principle. The love of God is the love of holiness, for God is holy. And if we love God we shall keep His commandments. This love cannot possibly exist without influencing the practice, and thus manifesting itself. (F. A. West.)The gospel a revelation The “ things” are the gospel in the wealth of its blessings, not only for another world, but also for this. The eye has seen much, the ear has heard much more than the eye has seen, the heart pictures creations more wonderful still; but such truths as the gospel declares belong to a higher world; they are the fruit of God’ s hidden wisdom, His deepest thought. They are thus of necessity a mystery to man. It never entered the heart of man that these things would come-- I. From the source they did--from God. Man’ s ideas of God, apart from revelation, sprang rather from his own heart than from the teaching of nature, and therefore to imagine our salvation would flow from the source it did was impossible. After man sinned he changed God into his own image and likeness. The gods of the heathen consequently were perfectly destitute of those properties from which the gospel blessings could flow. They were destitute of holiness--heathenism has its heroes, but it has no saints. They were destitute of love, and were notorious for their cruelty and their lack of tenderness. II. In the way they did. “ As the heavens are higher than the earth,” &c. The way God took to save the world--by the incarnation and death of Immanuel--was so strange, that no one could imagine or dared imagine it but Himself. Not only is it so great that man could not in his own strength discover it, but so great that, after being revealed, it baffles man to comprehend it. The gospel is so Divine a conception that it dazzles the wise of this world into blindness. God’ s smallest thoughts, His thoughts in nature, perplex man. What then about the thought He conceived in the silence and solitude of eternity? III. To the degree they did. Paul considered the fact that Christ was preached to the Gentiles a sufficiently great mystery to be put side by side with the Incarnation. Sin makes man selfish. The Romans deemed all others enemies, to be vanquished and made slaves; and once made slaves, they were of less value in their eyes than the beasts which perish. The Greeks judged all others barbarians, who ought to be robbed and slain. The Jews likewise were animated by the spirit of exclusiveness--they deemed all others unclean and worthless. Though our advantages are numerous and important, yet this truth is not properly understood by many in our day. All are not willing, even in this age, that the dew of God’ s blessing should fall outside their little garden. The old objections are being revived, that to attempt to evangelise the heathen is sheer waste. Such blind fatuity! The man who would try to stop the clouds to rain and the sun to shine outside the fences of his tiny farm would be looked upon as a lunatic. But his conduct were wisdom itself compared with that of those who in the vanity of their speculations would leave certain races outside the pale of civilisation and salvation. God’ s provision for the world is worthy of the high source whence it emanated, and the strange instrumentality whereby it was brought about, at once worthy of the infinite love and the precious sacrifice. To provide for only one nation would not be worthy of Him. Indeed, to provide sparingly for even the whole world would not be according to His custom--plenteousness characterises all His acts. With such fulness of grace in store, no one, be he who and where he may, need be lost. (W. Morris.)God’ s revelation of heaven Note-- I. The inability of the lower parts of human nature--the natural man--to apprehend the higher truths.1. Eternal truth is not perceived through sensation or science. “ Eye hath not seen.” (1) There is a life of mere sensation. (a) The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. The Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of beauty. They read the apostle’ s letter, surrounded by the purest conceptions of Art. Let us not depreciate what God has given. There is a joy in contemplating the manifold forms in which the All Beautiful has concealed His essence. It is a pure delight to see. (b) But the eye can only reach the finite beautiful. It does not scan “ the King in His beauty, nor the land that is very far off.” And the visible is perishable beauty--not the eternal loveliness for which our spirits pant. Therefore Christ came not in the glory of form; “ He had no form nor comeliness,” &c.; “ there was no beauty that they should desire Him.” The eye did not behold, even in Christ, the things which God had prepared. (c) This is an eternal truth. This verse is quoted as if “ the things prepared” meant heaven. But the world of which Paul speaks God hath revealed, only not to eye nor ear. In heaven this shall be as true as now. The pure in heart will see God, but never with the eye; only in the same way, but in a different degree, that they see Him now. (2) Again, no scientific analysis can discover the truths of God. Science proceeds upon observation. Experiment is the test of truth. Now, you cannot, by searching, find out the Almighty to perfection, nor a single one of the blessed truths He has to communicate. 1. It is in vain that we ransack the world for probable evidences of God, and idle to look into the materialism of man for the revelation of his immortality; or to examine the morbid anatomy of the body to find the rule of right. If a man go to the eternal world with convictions of eternity, the resurrection, God, already in his spirit, he will find abundant corroborations of that which he already believes. But if God’ s existence be not thrilling every fibre of his heart, if the immortal be not already in him as the proof of the resurrection, if the law of duty be not stamped upon his soul as an eternal truth, science will never reveal these, the physician comes away from the laboratory an infidel. Eye hath not seen the truths which are clear enough to love and to the spirit. 2. Eternal truth is not reached by hearsay--“ Ear hath not heard.” (1) No revelation can be adequately given by the address of man to man. For all such revelation must be made through words, the mere coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the coin and the bread it purchases, as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin, the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him an idea, or if it does, it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who cannot distinguish colours, what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. For instance, what means justice to the unjust, or purity to the licentious? What does infinitude mean to a being who has never stirred beyond a cell? Talk of God to a thousand ears, each has his own different conception. The sensual man hears of God, and understands one thing. The pure man hears and conceives another thing. (2) See what a hearsay religion is. There are men who believe on authority. Their minister believes all this Christianity true; therefore so do they. He calls this doctrine essential; they echo it. They have heard with the hearing of the ear that God is love, that the ways of holiness are ways of pleasantness. But the Corinthian philosophers heard Paul; the Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear convey? He alone believes truth who feels it. He alone has a religion whose soul knows by experience that to serve God and know Him is the richest treasure. 3. Truth is not discoverable by the heart--“ neither have entered into the heart of man” the power of imagining, and the power of loving. (1) It is a grand thing when thought bursts into flame, or when a great law of the universe reveals itself to the mind of genius, or when the truths of human nature shape themselves forth in the creative fancies of the poet. But the most ethereal creations of fancy were shaped by a mind that could read the life of Christ, and then blaspheme the Adorable. Some of the truest and deepest utterances ever spoken came from one whose life was from first to last selfish. The highest astronomer of this age refused to recognise the Cause of causes. The mighty heart of genius had failed to reach the things which God imparts to a humble spirit. (2) The heart of man has the power of affection. The highest moment known on earth by the merely natural, is that in which the mysterious union of heart with heart is felt. Yet this attains not to the things prepared by God. Human love is but the faint type of that surpassing blessedness which belongs to those who love God. II. The nature and laws of revelation.1. Revelation is made by a Spirit to a spirit. Christ is the voice of God without the man--the Spirit is the voice of God within. The highest revelation is not made by Christ, for He said, “ The Spirit shall take of Mine and shall show it unto you.” And therefore it is written here--“ The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.” Now the Spirit of God lies touching, as it were, the soul of man. They mingle. The spiritual in man, by which he might become a recipient of God, may be dulled, deadened, by a life of sense, but in this world never lost. All that is wanted is to become conscious of the nearness of God. God has placed men here to feel after Him if haply they may find Him, albeit He be not far from any one of them. 2. The condition upon which this revelation is made to men is love. These things are “ prepared for them that love Him,” or revealed to those who have the mind of Christ. (1) Love to man may mean love to his person, or it may mean simply pity. Love to God can only mean love to His character: e.g., God is purity. And to be pure in thought and look is to love God. God is love--and to love men till private attachments have expanded into a philanthropy which embraces all, is to love God. God is truth. To be true--to hate every form of falsehood--to live a brave, true, real life--that is to love God. God is infinite--and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, and rising upwards ever to see the ideal still above us, aiming insatiably to be perfect even as the Father is perfect--that is love to God. (2) This love is manifested in obedience. (a) “ He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me,” &c. We remember the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy, and the transgressor was his own son. He accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, slew, spoiled him, and then in triumph carried the spoils to his father’ s tent. But the Roman father refused to recognise the instinct which prompted this as deserving of the name of love--disobedience contradicted it and deserved death: weak sentiment, what was it worth? So with God--strong feelings, warm expressions, varied internal experience coexisting with disobedience, God counts not as love. (b) To love, adoring and obedient, God reveals His truth. As in the natural, so in the spiritual world. By compliance with the laws of the universe we put ourselves in possession of its blessings. Obey the laws of health and you obtain health. Arm yourselves with the laws of nature, and you may call down the lightning from the sky. In the same way there are laws in the world of Spirit, by compliance with which God’ s Spirit comes into the soul with all its revelations. “ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” “ No man hath seen God at any time.” “ If we love one another, God dwelleth in us.” “ If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” (c) These laws are universal and invariable. There is no favourite child of nature who may hold the fire-ball in the hollow of his hand and trifle with it without being burnt; there is no selected child of grace who can live an irregular life without unrest; or be proud, and at the same time have peace; or indolent, and receive fresh inspiration; or remain unloving and cold, and yet see and hear and feel the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him. And if obedience were entire and love were perfect, then would the revelation of the Spirit to the soul of man be perfect too. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Heaven Every prophet who has stood upon the borders of a new dispensation might have uttered these words. Abraham might have looked forward to the Mosaic dispensation, &c., and have turned to his brethren who lived in the patriarchal age, and said, “ Eye hath not seen,” &c. At the close of the Levitical dispensation the prophets might have thus spoken of the coming glories. And now we stand on the borders of a new era. But persons are curious to know what kind of dispensation the millennial one is to be. Will the temple be erected in Jerusalem? Will the Jews be positively restored to their own land? &c. We cannot answer. “ Eye hath not seen,” &c. And this brings us to make the application of the subject to heaven itself. I. What heaves is not.1. It is not a heaven of the senses. (1) “ Eye hath not seen it.” What glorious things the eye hath seen! Have we not seen the gaudy pageantry of pomp crowding the gay streets? We hear of the magnificence of the old Persian princes, of palaces covered with gold and silver, and floors inlaid with jewels; but we cannot thence gather a thought of heaven, for “ eye hath not seen” it. We have thought, however, when we have come to the works of God, surely we can get some glimpse of what heaven is here. By night we have turned our eye up to the stars, and we have said, “ If this earth has such a glorious covering, what must that of heaven be?” At another time we have seen some glorious landscape, and said, “ Surely these grandeurs must be something like heaven.” It was all a mistake--“ Eye hath not seen” it. (2) “ The ear hath not heard” it. Have we not sometimes heard the sweet voice of the messenger of God when he has by the Spirit spoken to our souls! We knew something of heaven then, we thought. We have heard music, whether poured from the lungs of man--that noblest instrument in the world--or from some manufacture of harmony, and we have thought, “ This is what John meant by the voice like many waters, and the voice of harpers harping with their harps.” But we made a mistake. “ Ear hath not heard” it. (3) Others look upon it as a place where they shall be free from bodily pain, and where they will eat to the full and be satisfied. What a mistake! We can get no conceptions of heaven through the senses; they must always come through the Spirit. 2. It is not a heaven of the imagination. Poets let their imaginations fly with loosened wings, or the preacher weaves the filigree work of fancy, and you say, “ It is sweet to hear that man speak; he made me think I was there.” But imagination, when it is most sublime, and freest from the dust of earth, and kept steady by the most extreme caution, cannot picture heaven. “ It hath not entered the heart of man,” &c. Your imaginary heaven you will find by and by to be all a mistake. 3. It is not a heaven of the intellect. Men describe heaven as a place where we shall know all things, and their grandest idea is that they shall discover all secrets there. But “ It hath not entered into the heart of man.” II. “ He hath revealed it unto us by His spirit.” This means that it was revealed unto the apostles by the Spirit, so that they wrote something of it in the Holy Word. We think also that it means that every believer has glimpses of heaven by the influence of the Spirit. A Christian gets a gaze of what heaven is--1. When in the midst of trials and troubles he is able to cast all his care upon the Lord, because He careth for him. Heaven is something like that--a place of holy calm and trust. 2. In the season of quiet contemplation, for the joys of heaven are akin to the joys of contemplation. 3. At the Lord’ s table. You get so near the Cross there that your sight becomes clearer, and the air brighter, and you see more of heaven there than anywhere else. 4. When we assemble in our meetings for prayer. 5. In extraordinary closet seasons. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Heaven The city of Corinth has been called the Paris of antiquity. Indeed, for splendour, the world holds no such wonder to-day. The commerce of all nations passed through her ports; the mirth of all people sported in her Isthmian games, and the beauty of all lands walked her porticos, and threw itself on the altar of her stupendous dissipations. Column and statue and temple bewildered the beholder. And the best music from the best instruments in the world resounded in her theatres. It was not to rustics who had never seen or heard anything grand that Paul uttered this text, and it was a bold thing for him to stand there amid all that and say, “ All this is nothing; eye hath not seen,” &c. We can in this world get no idea of-- I. The health of heaven. When you were a child you had never felt sorrow or sickness. Perhaps later you felt a glow in your cheek, and a spring in your step, and an exuberance of spirits, and a clearness of eye, that made you thank God you were permitted to live. You thought that you knew what it was to be well, but the most elastic and robust health of earth, compared with that of heaven, is nothing but sickness and emaciation. Look at that soul standing before the throne. On earth she was a life-long invalid. See her step now, and hear her voice now. Health in all the pulses! Health of vision; health of spirits; immortal health. No racking cough, no consuming fevers, no exhausting pains, no hospitals of wounded men. That child that died in the agonies of croup, hear her voice now ringing in the anthem. That old man that went bowed down with the infirmities of age, see him walk now with the step of an immortal athlete--for ever young again. To have neither ache, nor pain, nor weakness, nor fatigue. “ Eye hath not seen it--ear hath not heard it.” II. The splendour of heaven. John tries to describe it, and as we look through his telescope we see a blaze of jewellery, a mountain of light, a cataract of colour, a sea of glass, and a city like the sun. John bids us look again, and we see thrones; thrones of the prophets, patriarchs, angels, apostles, martyrs, throne of Jesus--throne of God. John bids us look again, and we see the great procession of the redeemed passing. “ Eye hath not seen it, ear hath not heard it.” Skim from the summer waters the brightest sparkles, and you will get no idea of the sheen of the everlasting sea. Pile up the splendours of earthly cities and they would not make a stepping-stone by which you might mount to the city of God. Every house is a palace. Every step a triumph. Every meal is a banquet. Every day is a jubilee, every hour a rapture, and every moment an ecstasy. III. The re-unions of heaven. If you have ever been across the seas, and met a friend in some strange city, you remember how your blood thrilled, and how glad you were to see him. What then will be our joy to meet in the bright city of the sun those from whom we have long been separated. In this world we only meet to part. It is good-bye, good-bye. But not so in heaven. Welcomes in the air, at the gates, at the house of many mansions--but no good-bye. IV. The song of heaven. There is nothing more inspiriting to me than a whole congregation lifted up on the wave of holy melody. But, my friends, if music on earth is so sweet what will it be in heaven! They all know the tune there. All the best singers of all the ages will join it--choirs of white-robed children! choirs of patriarchs! choirs of apostles! Harpers with their harps. David of the harp will be there. Gabriel of the trumpet will be there. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)The things which God has prepared I. Their nature.1. The mysteries of the gospel salvation.2. Extending into the eternal future. II. Their transcendent value.1. Worthy of God.2. Surpassing all human comprehension. III. Their participation--depends on love to God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The things prepared and their enjoyment I. The things prepared. Suggesting--1. The Divine forethought, and the infinite fulness and carefulness of God’ s love for His children. Remember: (1) How the world was prepared before man came upon it. (2) How God prepared a body in which Christ should be one with us, die to be our Saviour, and ascend to hold the sceptre of the universe. (3) How Christ reminded His disciples that the dignities of the kingdom were only for those for whom it is prepared of the Father. (4) How He went to prepare a place for us, and sent the Spirit to prepare us for the place. 2. The Divine treasury. The figure suggests a vast building over whose portals we read, “ Ask and it shall be given,” &c. a building divided into so many stores of Divine love. Let us open their doors. (1) One contains the “ purposes” of the Divine love, delivering mercy, sustaining grace--purposes that no need can exhaust, no opposition thwart, no eternity unfold. (2) Another “ promises” Divinely-- (a) Simple, little children can understand them. (b) Profound, angels cannot fathom them. (c) Certain, for “ heaven and earth shall pass away,” &c. (d) Sweet and rich, “ sweeter than a honeycomb,” and “ more precious than gold.” (3) Divine “ provisions” the mercy-seat where we obtain grace to help; the Cross, its cleansing fount, infinite ransom, Divine righteousness; the Lord’ s Table. (4) The “ fulness” that is treasured up in Christ--fulness of grace to pardon, of merit to atone, of strength to sustain, of glory to reward. (5) Things prepared in the ministry of the Holy Spirit--regeneration, comfort, sanctification. (6) Glories that await us hereafter--the “ crown” of triumph, the “ harp” of praise, the “ mansion” of repose and blessing, the “ living fountain” of joy. II. The revelation of the Spirit in which these things are made manifest to us.1. Striking thought! God takes men into His confidence about matters that human reason could never fathom. It was so with Abraham. “ Shall I hide,” &c. Amos declares that the Lord will hide nothing, but will reveal His secret unto His servants. In proportion to our intimacy with God the Divine purposes will be made plain to us. “ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” The disciples pleaded with John, who reclined on his Master’ s bosom, to ask Him a secret which they did not venture to ask themselves. He lived so much nearer to Christ, and therefore had more of His secret. We deprive ourselves of unspeakable blessings in regard to God’ s dealings in providence from our failure to recognise God’ s hand in every gift. And God’ s children should feel that in regard to the mysteries of the world around they shall have light resting on their path, and truth revealed by the indwelling Spirit which enables them to trust where others cannot. The man that is nearest the sun will have most of light, and the man who lives nearest the throne will have deeper draughts of the water of life that proceeds therefrom. 2. As to the revelation by the Spirit of Divine things, take the case of Simeon, unto whom it had been revealed by the Holy Ghost that he should not die until he had seen the Christ. How long he waited for the consolation of Israel! But at last it came. So God may have revealed to you in His Word and by His Spirit truths that have yet to come in their Divine significance and power. Wait patiently; God’ s time is always the best. Take the case of Peter who, when all were dumb before “ Whom say ye that I am?” received at once a revelation that Jesus was the Christ, &c. You may say “ We are not Simeons or Peters.” No; but remember how Christ thanked God that the things withheld from the wise and prudent were revealed unto babes, i.e., babes in spiritual experience. But even to your children, who shall say at how early an age God, by His Spirit, shall reveal the truth? Remember Samuel. III. The condition essential to the reception of the blessing. “ Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us” there is the origin of all Christian love. “ The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” that is the next step. Then we are the children of God, and the Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, &c. Then the circle is complete. And the Divine love thus enjoyed must manifest itself in self-sacrificing love to men. (J. P. Chown.)The things prepared for a prepared people The apostle here is quoting from Isaiah 64:4, and only intends to give the general sense of the passage. Both passages are generally used as referring to the heavenly state, but we can only apply them thus by accommodation. Yet this is a legitimate application. For if the text is true of our imperfect condition of privilege in this life, much more will it be true as applied to that perfection of bliss that awaits us in the life to come. You cannot judge of the real merits of a story till you see how it ends. You cannot decide about the value of a casket till it is opened and you see the jewels which it enshrines. You cannot pronounce on a campaign till you see what fruits result from its hard-fought battlefields. And so, in estimating the real worth of redemption, we can only form an approximate judgment of it in this life. There are three points of view from which we may contemplate our portion for the future, as set before us in the text. I. The plain and positive view. “ Things prepared.”1. “ Things” plural--not one element of joy, but many. It is a caricature of heaven when psalm-singing is represented as its chief occupation. A wonderful variety marks the imagery of the Bible as to the heavenly state--“ a city that hath foundations,” “ the marriage supper of the Lamb,” being “ present with Christ, and beholding His glory,” is being made “ like Him,” &c. These varied expressions suggest that our heaven will be a condition of being in which the mind, with its large desires, its deathless cravings, and the soul, with all the warmth of its affections and sympathies, will find the fullest scope for their development. As the vine puts forth its tendrils, and finds something to cling to for its support and growth; so, doubtless, will all the innocent tastes and longings of our renewed nature find in the heavenly state that which answers to their wants, “ prepared,” as a trellis, to which they may cling, and in clinging to which they will find their delight. 2. And these are not things thrown together at haphazard. They are “ prepared things.” How eloquent all nature is as to the teachings of this word! Note the wonderful care with which God has “ prepared” for the wants of every tree, animal, bird, and fish; yea, for every worm; just that which will best meet its wants and minister to its comfort. Then, when we think of the souls God has redeemed at the price of His Son’ s death, to whom His love has flowed out in a deeper channel than to any other of His creatures, whom He deigns to say that they are to be His portion; when we think of “ the things prepared” for them in their final home, what shall we say? How shall we put limits to the extent to which His power, wisdom, and goodness will go in seeking to promote their happiness? II. A negative or comparative view. Heaven’ s happiness is such as “ eye hath not seen,” &c., or to which all the eye hath seen, &c., bears no proportion.1. It is clearly the inferential teaching of the text, that “ the things prepared” exceed in glory all that we are familiar with in this outer creation. (1) And the eye sees wondrous beauty as it ranges through the world of nature. But there is no comparison between what the eye sees here and “ the things prepared” for God’ s people in the future. (2) And then the ear opens an avenue to another world of enjoyment peculiarly its own. Yet the highest rapture of the most gifted musician through the organ of hearing bears no comparison to the joy the redeemed will experience in “ the things which God has prepared for them.” (3) And then the imagination has a wondrous power to call into existence worlds of beauty and loveliness all its own. But when you put these things together--all that the eye can see, &c., of that which is beautiful or grand--they will be infinitely surpassed by “ the things prepared” by God as the future portion of His people. 2. And there is something very sweet in the thought of this instituted connection, between these glories spread over the face of nature and that blessed home which Jesus is preparing for us. It shows how God means that the one should remind us of the other. The Jewish Rabbis inform us “ that when Joseph had gathered much corn in Egypt he threw the chaff into the Nile, that so flowing down to the neighbouring cities, and nations more remote, it might bear witness to them of the store of good things garnered up in the treasure cities of Egypt.” And so God, to make us know what glory there is in heaven, has thrown some husks to us here, that we might draw out our inferences. If we find so much of glory spread over earthly things, what may we expect to find in those that are heavenly? If He give us so much in the land of our pilgrimage, what will He not give us in our own country? If He can lavish so much on His enemies what will He not reserve for His friends? III. The personal view. “ For them that love Him.” These things are designed for a “ prepared” people. The preparation on the one side is just as necessary as that on the other. What is the use of preparing a feast unless you know that the guests those who are to be admitted to it can see; of preparing a grand concert unless will have appetites; of arranging the paintings of a splendid gallery unless the audience can hear? The glorious things of the future are prepared for a people who love God. The planting of this love in the heart is the great personal preparation for heaven that we need. The necessity for this is absolute. “ Except a man be born again, He., he cannot see the kingdom of God.” These two things--love to God, and a new birth--always go together. (Richard Newton, D. D.)Love is the eye that sees, the ear that hears, the heart that realises the things of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:8; 1 Corinthians 13:12; Ephesians 3:18). (Principal Edwards.) 1 Corinthians 2:10 But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.The things of God revealed by the Spirit When a telescope is directed towards some distant landscape, it enables us to see what we could not otherwise have seen; but it does not enable us to see anything which has not a real existence in the prospect before us. It does not present to the eye illusive imagery, neither is that a fanciful and factitious scene which it throws open to our contemplation. The natural eye saw nothing but blue land stretching along the distant horizon. By the aid of the glass there bursts upon it a charming variety of fields and woods, and spires and villages. Yet who would say that the glass added one feature to this assemblage? It discovers nothing to us which is not there; nor, out of that portion of the book of nature which we are employed in contemplating, does it bring into view a single character which is not really and previously inscribed upon it. And so of the Spirit. He does not add a single truth or a single character to the book of revelation. He enables the spiritual man to see; but the spectacle which He lays open is uniform and immutable. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)The revealed communications of the Spirit are I. Transcendent in character.1. The deep things of God. Reason suffices in other matters; these can only be revealed by the Spirit, who teaches us to cry “ Abba, Father.” II. An absolute around of certainty and confidence.1. He knows all things.2. Reveals that God is love.3. This truth is as unchangeable as God Himself and becomes the immovable ground of our happiness. III. Sufficient for all our spiritual necessities, We want nothing more when this love is revealed in us because--1. His gracious purpose is disclosed.2. All the miseries of our nature are met in Christ.3. Christ is revealed as a new source of life and happiness. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The wisdom of God I. The relation of intellectual knowledge to the wisdom of God. In the apostle’ s presentation of this question there are two things very manifest, viz., that the true Wisdom involves a very large and important element of intellectual conception, and yet that, on the other hand, it must be radically distinguished from merely intellectual operations and discoveries. The former of these two positions is clearly seen in the way in which He presents the wisdom of a perfect Christianity as competing with, and transcending, the philosophic wisdom of the Greek. This side of the apostle’ s position is condemnatory of the modern craze to recklessly ignore important differences in the intellectual conceptions of truth held by Christian people, and to talk at random about oneness of spirit. In the mature Christian life the spirit largely determines, and is largely determined by, the central conceptions of truth. Essential differences in the “ wisdom” we hold must be a sign of serious spiritual divergence, though it may be difficult to detect it in the moral life. To take an extreme case, there is a vast difference between the spiritual state of an atheist and a Christian man, even though the moral life of the former may be unimpeachable. But, as we have said, the apostle also maintains that the wisdom of God is far more than a system of thought, so much so that it is impossible to attain it by the mere force of intellectual power, however great its sweep and however large its results. The senses cannot discover this wisdom, nor can thought evolve it. The seat of the highest wisdom is not intellect, but spirit. But the spiritual consciousness of which we speak must not be confounded with the more superficial element of emotion. The latter sweeps over the surface of the life, the former is fixed deep in the centre of it. The latter is transient and uncertain, the former is set in the heart of eternal relations. The latter is fickle and untrustworthy, the former affords the most trustworthy testimony concerning the truths to which it testifies. Clearly enough, then, Paul excludes from participation in the true wisdom all that have not entered into a spiritual relation of life and love with God; and, more explicitly still, all that fail to apprehend God in Christ. A love of scientific investigation and an apprehension of spiritual realities do not necessarily go together; and without the latter even the elements of true wisdom are absent. II. What is the relation of philosophic moral and religious systems to the Biblical system? Can we claim for the Christian Scriptures an inspiration which cannot be claimed, say, for the moral systems of Greek philosophy? The principle laid down in our text seems to me to state clearly the truth of the matter. It is not my intention to deny that the Greek received a revelation from God, for I believe he did receive e. Divine revelation, and that a revelation of considerable range and grandeur. Further than this, I affirm that, wherever there has existed any degree of moral and spiritual consciousness, God has necessarily manifested Himself through it. “ The Word is the light that lighteth every man.” But there was this essential difference between the Jewish prophet and the Greek philosopher, a difference that revealed itself more fully as their several histories developed: the apprehension of truth by the former was predominatingly spiritual, by the latter intellectual. The Greek reached his conclusions by elaborate processes of thought; the Hebrew received his revelations in the Spirit, and spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. It is to this unique experience that we give the name of “ inspiration.” The unique revelation which this experience involved is asserted clearly enough in the principle laid down in the text; for it asserts this, that the revelation received through the Spirit of God transcends every other, and covers a sphere into which no other can enter. III. The relation of spiritual development to the wisdom of God. The apostle clearly lays down the principle that the development of spiritual apprehension accompanies the development of spiritual life. It is to the man of mature spiritual life that the apostle reveals the higher wisdom of the gospel. Spiritual things are revealed by the Spirit of God, and are therefore apprehended in the proportion that we possess this Spirit. But, if this be so, if a clearer vision of truth must be ever coming to developing spiritual life, does it not follow that the New Testament Scriptures may be superseded, and that we must look for the latest revelation of truth to the spiritual man of to-day? When Christ came, and when, in the full light of His teaching, the central facts of His life and death, and the central significance of these facts, had been recorded, the book of God’ s revelation closed. The glorious opportunities for the conveyance of final and complete truth to men were such as could not recur. If we cannot find the certainty of truth here, then there is no rest for the sole of our foot for ever. But we must distinguish between the finality of the revelation and finality in the comprehension of it. I see no difficulty at all in admitting that even the apostles were wiser than they knew, that their teaching contained vast possibilities of unfolding and latent grandeurs which they but dimly apprehended. The truest theology is that which, like a growing child, maintains its identity, not through stagnation, but through development. God help us to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! But the most deep-lying development in the Christian life, deeper than thought-articulation of truth, is spirit-apprehension of it. Underneath the grandest thought-apprehension of truth there is a still grander spiritual consciousness of it. Truth in its deepest origin is life. In the full life which holds in its bosom the full truth consists man’ s highest heaven. This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. (John Thomas, M. A.)True religion a revelation I. Religion is the fruit of a revelation from God. There are those who tell us that there is no such thing as a supernatural light to guide man through the maze of his soul’ s life. The little sparrow has that within itself that, like a luminous flame, guides it in all that pertains to its existence. In seeking its food it is able to distinguish between that which will nourish and that which will poison; it can also choose its own home: “ Yea the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.” The sun in the heavens guides man in all this lower life. Is it possible that he has been left without a light to illumine his mind and spirit? There was need of a revelation; for those who had seen the greatness and glory of nature had failed to see, hear, or to conceive the things God had prepared for the soul. “ The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.” But why be content with merely carnal senses? Why not receive the light and grace of the Holy Spirit, that you may by spiritual discernment understand the things of God prepared for you? II. Religion is a revelation to love. We must not forget in our study of these words that they speak of a revelation which has been made; it is not something we are to look forward to. “ God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” The state of mind to which God makes known the things which He has prepared is love. God is love, and love can only make itself known to love. The subject must be in sympathy with the object. The strange conduct of the Jews towards Christ can only be explained on this principle. The Saviour’ s life was in the truest sense really beautiful, as it is admitted by the most pronounced unbelievers in these days. And yet the people of His age esteemed Him as a “ root out of a dry ground: He had no form nor comeliness” ; when they saw Him, “ there was no beauty that they should desire Him.” God reveals His love to love. “ We love Him because He first loved us.” The infinite kindness of God is to be seen in the method of His dealings with the world. If His method of saving men were mainly intellectual, few comparatively would be redeemed; for the plan would ,of necessity be so cold and formal, that only the few gifted minds would be interested by it. The many can only be reached by a direct appeal to their feelings, and hence the religion of Christ addresses the minds of men through their hearts; and the apostles laid emphasis, not on the great thoughts of God, but upon His infinite love in the gift of His Son. It is clear, then, that the religion of heaven is a revelation of love to love. God cannot reveal Himself to any other temper. We have sometimes gone into gardens, and observed plants that should be in full bloom still unopened. The green bud appeared full, almost to bursting; it was least the time for it to send forth its fragrant blossom, and still it was completely inclosed in its natural shield and entirely hidden from view. The reason of the delay was the state of the air; it was cold and frosty, and they could only reveal “ themselves to a bright sun and in a genial atmosphere; were they to open in the frosty air they would endanger their lives. A cold critical spirit is fatal to the revelations of love, it freezes the channels to the heart; and makes it impossible even for the love of God to find its way into it. But where a loving disposition exists, the love of God is sure to reveal itself. III. Religion is the fruit of a complete revelation.1. The Holy Spirit has revealed the great truth that “ God is light.” God is the light of the soul, it is from Him we obtain the light that enables us to solve spiritual problems. 2. Another important truth has been revealed by the Spirit, that “ God is love.” This is done in a most effectual manner. “ Because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which was given unto us.” 3. The Spirit has revealed the truth that ,God is life: “ For with Thee is the fountain of life.” He in the first instance breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man. (D. Rhys Jenkins.)Divine revelation I. Its indispensable necessity to the knowledge of God. Because--1. God stands alone, and is known only to Himself. 2. He is infinitely less comprehensible than men who cannot, though of the same nation, comprehend each other. II. Its possibility and sufficiency. The Spirit--1. Is as intimately one with God as the spirit of man is one with Himself. 2. Knows all things perfectly. 3. What He knows He can reveal. III. Its contents and operation.1. It contains a revelation of the Divine purpose, of Christ, of the things prepared for us in eternity. 2. He who teaches these things awakens desire, produces faith, confirms and comforts the heart in the knowledge of them. (R. Watson.)The Spirit as a Teacher On entering a cavern you inquire for a guide who comes with his lighted flambeau. He conducts you down to a considerable depth, and you find yourself in the midst of the cave. He leads you through different chambers. Here he points you to a little stream rushing from amid the rocks, and indicates its rise and progress. There he points to some peculiar rock, and tells you its name, then takes you into a large, natural hall, tells you how many persons once feasted in it, and so on. Truth is a grand series of caverns. It is our glory to have so great and wise a conductor as the Holy Spirit. Imagine that we are coming to the darkness of it. He is a light shining in the midst of us to guide us. He teaches us by suggestion, direction, and illumination. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Spiritual sight restored A little boy was born blind. At last an operation was performed--the light was let in slowly. When one day his mother led him out of doors and uncovered his eyes, and for the first time he saw the sky and the earth, “ Oh, mother!” he cried, “ why did you not tell me it was so beautiful?” She burst into tears, and said, “ I tried to tell you, dear, but you could not understand me.” So it is when we try to tell what is in Christ. Unless the spiritual sight is opened by the Holy Spirit we cannot understand. The office of the Holy Spirit The Rev. E. Hopkins, in showing the importance of knowledge to the Christian, told as an illustration what had happened to a friend of his in Yorkshire, who, though practically a poor man, owned an estate in that county. One day a geologist told him there was in his estate an abundance of iron ore. Believing this to be true he felt at once that he was no longer poor but rich. Even so it is the office of the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the boundless riches that are treasured up in Christ. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.--The agency of the Holy Spirit I. He searcheth the deep things of God.1. His purposes of grace.2. His particular dealings with individuals.3. The glorious issue of His dispensations. II. He reveals them to man.1. To us and in us.2. With saving power. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The deep things of God We walk in a daily wonder, ourselves the strangest of mysteries. Our knowledge is only the glimmer of light upon the surface of the ocean of existence. Beneath are the deep things of God. We need not go far to stand on the shore of the deep things of God. Our science has not gone to the root yet of a single blade of grass. I. Consider some of these mysteries.1. To begin with the lowest, what do we know about the nature of matter? You can tell me as easily what the angels’ wings are as tell me the ultimate constitution of a single particle of matter. Common oxygen and- hydrogen, and all elemental principles, belong by nature to the deep things of God. The very dust of the earth upon which we tread is in its real principle as unknown to us as the nature of God Himself. 2. But if the common earth is thus the wonder of science, much more is that dust a mystery when, by unknown forces, it is taken up and woven dexterously after a predetermined pattern and organised into a thing of life. Sometimes investigators, pressing hard after the molecules of matter, have thought they had almost won the secret of life; but, just as our science seems about to put its finger upon that fugitive thing, life, it flies from its hand and we are no wiser than before. Life is one of the deep things of God, whose, origin no man can discover, and of whose future what we call death is only our ignorance. Perhaps to see the spring of life would be to see the living God Himself. 3. But if the life which colours the petal of the flower, and finds wings in the bird, and culminates in the form of man, is a mystery, what shall we say of that life when it has become conscious and is a thinking, willing mind? The human soul is one of the deepest of the deep things of God. 4. What then shall we say of all those further problems of life of which these things are, as it were, but the terms or elements? Our thoughts flutter over these deep things of God as the seabirds dip their wings in the ocean’ s waves. They only shake from their feathers the spray of the surface. Yet we cannot help thinking of the deep things of our soul’ s past, of the deeper things of its future. Whence came the evil that gives the good a bitter taste? How did death ever gain dominion over us? How did this hard, poisonous core of sin ever grow in the midst of this fair life? And who thus shall lift the veil for us from the future? We can see signs all around us of a great system of retribution. There is no doubt but that what a man sows that shall he also reap. The present retributive tendencies of things no sane man can deny. And they extend into the future; they work on and on. We can follow them out until they disappear in the unknown depths of futurity. II. We are ready now to draw from such reflections some useful and pertinent conclusions.1. We may infer that-- (1) There are some people who know more than their Creator ever intended that they should know. There are some, e.g., who know that the Bible is false, and religion a superstition, because, in this cast-iron world, a miracle seems impossible, prayer folly. Before they can be sure of that, however, they should know vastly more of the structure of this material universe than any mortal eye has as yet ever seen. Possibly this may not be a “ cast-iron” universe; possibly it may be something more than a mere museum-world of biological specimens; and yet, for all we know to the contrary, this material system may be as permeable to Divine influences as this earth, which seems a globe so solid, is supposed to be open as wicker-work to all movements of the ethereal waves. “ There,” said Lacordaire, as he overheard in a Paris restaurant St. Beuve saying, “ I cannot believe in God, because I believe only in what I understand--there is St. Beuve, who does not believe in God because he does not understand Him; nor does he understand why the same fire melts butter and hardens eggs, and yet he eats an omelet.” (2) There are people who know there can be no such place as hell, because God is good. I could trust better their assurance if only they could prove that there never could be such a place as Sodom, because God is good. Surely it is the part of a wise man not to dogmatise, but so to live as not to pitch his tent toward any Sodom, either in this world or in the world to come. (3) There are persons so wondrous wise as to know that God cannot exist as a Trinity, because three are not one. We, too, ever since we learned to count our fingers, have known that three are more than one; but there is a puzzle of arithmetic which we have not solved yet, and that is, how I can be at one and the same time the subject and the object of my own thinking--these three in one. When I cannot as yet hardly comprehend my own imperfection, I will, at least, allow God to exist in a perfection which passes my knowledge; and if revelation leads me to worship Him as a unity, complete in Himself, and not as a mere lonely, loveless unit, that needs something else to make it blessed, surely it is; a better wisdom to believe in, though we can but dimly comprehend, the unity of three eternal distinctions in the ineffable society of one blessed God. 2. But my main object is to remind you, by these questionings, of what our errand in this life really is. (1) It is very evident that the deep things of God are intended for finite minds to search. God has given us great problems for our mental exercise, and we have found out a vast deal. Truth opens new vistas to us at every turn. (2) But it is just as clear that to gain knowledge is not our chief errand here. This mortal stage is arranged for scenes of probation; it is fitted out for the formation of character. Our object is salvation. And so God follows through all man’ s history this supreme moral purpose, and to this end everything else in His providence seems to have been subordinated. This appears clearly enough from the reflections which we have just been pursuing; for God gratifies our love for knowledge only in so far as it seems to be for our moral good. How easy it would have been for Him to have granted us revelations of some of these mysteries! Let us remember however, that while the shadows lie over many a field of knowledge, the light does fall directly over the narrow path of duty; and though we may not see far into the shadows of the forest on either side, yet, if we will, we can keep with resolute feet the narrow path of duty, and that is the path which leads up into the open day. Conclusion: Let us remember, then, that the great duties of life are the illuminated texts of Scripture: “ Repent,” “ Believe,” “ Be converted,” “ Strive,” “ Pray,” “ Have the Spirit of Christ,” “ Set your affections on things above.” These commandments of the Lord are “ plain, enlightening the eyes” of whosoever wishes to see. There are many things which, as Jesus said, we shall know hereafter. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)The deep things of God are 1. Unfathomable in their nature.2. Comprehended only by the Spirit of God.3. Partially revealed to us. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel school Here the student is-- I. Instructed in the sublimest realities. “ Deep things of God.” Things, not words, not theories, “ deep things,” deep because undiscoverable by human reason, and deep because they come from the fathomless ocean of Divine love. They are the primary elements of the gospel, and the necessary condition of soul restoration, and are--1. The free gifts of heaven. “ Freely given to us of God.” 2. Freely given to be communicated. “ Which things also we speak,” &c. He who gets these things into his mind and heart is bound to tell them to others. II. Taught by the greatest teacher. “ The Spirit of God.” This teacher--1. Has infinite knowledge. “ The Spirit searcheth all things.” “ The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” He knows them in their essence, number, issues, bearings, relations, &c. 2. Is no other than God Himself (verse 11). The implication is that this Spirit is as truly God as man’ s mind is mind. III. Must develop his higher nature (verse 14). Man has a threefold nature--body, soul and spirit. The first is the animal, the second is the mental, and the third, the moral or spiritual. This is the conscience with its intuitions and sympathies, and this is the chief part of man, nay, the man himself. Now this part of the man alone can receive the “ things of the Spirit of God.” Set these things before the “ natural man,” his mere body, they are no more to him than Euclid to a brute. Set them before the mere psychical or intellectual man, and they are “ foolishness unto him.” Sheer intellect cannot understand love nor appreciate right. It concerns itself with the truth or falsehood of propositions, and the advantages and disadvantages of conduct, nothing more. Moral love only can interpret and feel the things of moral love, the “ deep things of God.” Hence this spiritual nature must be roused from its dormancy, and become the ascendant nature before the “ things of the Spiritcan be “ discerned,” and then the man shall judge all spiritual things, whilst he himself will not be judged rightly by any “ natural man(verse 16). Who thus uninstructed can “ know the mind of the Lord” ? (D. Thomas, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 2:11-12 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. The narrow limits of human comprehension in spiritual matters I. Without help man knows--1. Very little of himself.2. Still less of his fellow-man.3. Least of all about God. II. This should teach him--1. Modesty in his judgments.2. Humility in his inquiries.3. Confidence in the Word of God, for the Spirit knoweth all things. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The imperfection of human insight and sympathy 1. There is an outer world in which all of us are living: and so far as regards that world, one human being may know “ the things of other.” Indeed, in a quiet country town it is a proverb that everybody knows the things of everybody else. In such a place it is all but impossible for any one to keep anything about himself a secret. 2. But under this outward living another and a deeper being lies. Those around you may know just as well as you do, the externalities of your life, and yet be profoundly ignorant about all that concerns your real, inward life. And it was of this inner world that St. Paul was thinking. In one short solitary walk, just think how many thoughts pass through your minds of which your nearest and dearest can never know. And nothing more illustrates the truth of the text than to think how differently the same scene may affect different persons, according to the associations linked with it. 3. This great ignorance of the inner life of those around us-- I. Should teach us to be charitable in our judgments and estimates of those abound us. You cannot penetrate into the soul of your fellow-sinner, and know for certain what is passing there. Beware, then, how you think or say concerning him what may be cruel injustice. Let us think the best we can of our brethren in sin and sorrow. II. Should comfort those who mourn the loss of friends. It is sometimes a cause of grief and anxiety to the relatives of the dying, that they will not be brought to speak of their religious faith and feelings in that frank way which some would wish. Ah, you do not know what solemn thoughts pass in the unseen world within your departing friend’ s breast. Where a Christian profession gives good hope of a Christian end, you may well use this text as it were to eke out the humble trust of the happiness of one departed which you may fail to derive from his own brief and reserved words. III. Should teach us our great need to have Christ for our Friend. For the text suggests to us the very awful thought that each one of us, by our make and nature, is a solitary being. Even in the case of those who know us best, there is a most imperfect knowledge day by day of our most real life. Our awful gift of personality parts us off from all created beings. Our spirits live each in its own sphere: and we cannot explain to one another. Do you want a friend, who, without your needing to tell him, will know your every shade of thought, of anxiety, of weakness, of sorrow, and who will discern the heartiness that glows through your every prayer, your every act of faith and love, the sincerity of your every struggle with temptation, the thousand things which you could not if you would confide to those you love best, and which if you could you would not. If you want all this--and every Christian does want all this--then come to Jesus. (A. H. K. Boyd, D. D.)The personality of life The consciousness of another is impenetrable. We cannot reach it; we cannot even conceive of it. But in our own is our existence; our existence and our personality are the same; and, therefore, we shrink from the extinction of our personality, because it implies the extinction of our existence. Christianity teaches, in a variety of ways, the doctrine of a strict spiritual personality. It is not the least remarkable characteristic of Christianity that, being of all religions the most social, it is likewise, of all religions, the most individualising. We shall look at this Christian doctrine, concerning the personality of life, in a variety of aspects. The spirit of the doctrine we take from the gospel; illustrations of it we shall seek everywhere. If we look into life, in itself as each of us finds it circumscribed in his individual consciousness, we become aware of a principle in our being by which we are separate from the universe, and separate from one another. We become aware that, by the power of this principle, we draw all the influences which act on us into our personality, and that, only as thus infused, do they constitute any portion of our inward life. It is by the power of this principle, which is, properly, myself, modifying all that is not myself, that I live, and that my life is independently my own. But some say that man has no inherent spirituality, no spontaneous energy, no sovereign capacity. Such say that man is never the master, but always the creature of circumstances. These are assertions to which no logic can be applied, and if a man, on consulting his own soul, is not convinced of their falsehood, there is no other method of conviction. No matter what may appear to be the external slavery, we still feel that we have a principle, an individuality of life, that is separate from our circumstances and above them. Take this feeling once away, and we are no longer rational, and we are no longer persons. We do not, certainly, deny the influence of circumstances. In a great degree, circumstances are the materials out of which the life is made; and the quality of the materials must, of course, influence more or less the character of the life. But the influence of circumstances on life does not loosen the inviolability of its interior consciousness. This doctrine of circumstances affords no aid even for the interpretation of that in life which may be interpreted; because for a true interpretation you should know all the circumstances that acted on the life, and you should know in what manner they acted. Bat who knows this of any one? Who knows it of one with whom he has been longest and nearest? Who can know the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him? Race, country, era, creed, institutions, family, education, social station, employment, friend, companions, these are but vague data when a soul is to be judged; and, be it only a judgment on the merest externals of character, such data afford, even for this, but uncertain inference. Perhaps things of which no one takes heed are the most important. A word heard in childhood, a kind or cruel look felt in youth, a tune, a picture, a prospect, a short visit, an accident, a casual acquaintance, these, and a thousand like, may be the chief constituents of many an impulse that begins a destiny. We behold the streams of individual life as they bubble out upon the surface, but we do not see the fountains whence they spring. Every life has combinations of experience, of which another has not an idea, or the means of forming an idea. Every life has treasures of which others know not, out of which, and often when least expected, it can bring things new and old. How is it that events, incidents, objects, changes, alike in outward semblance, enter into millions of minds, and in every one of them assimilate with a different individuality. How one man is a poet, where another man is a sot; how one man is in raptures, where another is asleep; how one man is improved, where another is corrupted. Thus, whatever the visible appearances, within them there is a central self, in which the essence of the man abides. Your life is yours, it is not mine. My life is mine and not another’ s. Human faculties are common, but that which converges these faculties into my identity, separates me from every other man. That other man cannot think my thoughts, he cannot speak my words, he cannot do my works. He cannot have my sins, I cannot have his virtues. Each must feel, therefore, that his life must be his own.1. Life is first unfolded through outward nature. In that rudest state of humanity, which seems almost instinctive, we might imagine individuality as nearly impossible, but so it is not; and monotonous as the ideas and experience may appear, they become incorporated with a distinct life, in the personality of each soul. But does not outward nature afford manifest evidence that it is intended to unfold life through higher feelings than sensation? Is there no other purpose for sight than discernment of our position and our way? Is there no other purpose for hearing than the simple perception of sound? Why are there flowers in the field? Why are blossoms on the trees? Why is the rainbow painted with hues so inimitable? Or, why, also, do the waves make music with the shore? These are not necessary to feed, or lodge, or clothe us; they are not necessary to mere labour or mere intercourse. They afford nutriment to the inherent life of rational creatures. The life is indeed but narrowly unfolded in which the sense of beauty in outward nature is dull or wanting. Not to mark the seasons, except by the profit or the loss they bring; to think of days and nights as mere alternations of toil and sleep; to discern in the river only its adaptation for factories; to be blind, and deaf, and callous, to all but the hardest uses of creation, is to leave out of conscious being whatever gives the universe its most vital reality. Such a life may be called a prudent life, and, for its object, it may be an eminently successful life; but its object is paltry, and its success on the level of its object. Not that men are expected to be poets or artists, or to have the peculiar temperaments that characterise poets or artists. Not that men are expected to talk of their experience of enjoyment in nature, or to affect it if they have it not. I merely insist that the sensibilities be open to every influence of natural beauty; and I hold that if these sensibilities belong not to the individual constitution, there is a deficit in it. If the world has deadened them, the world has done the being a serious injury; if education or religious culture has not been such as to incite them, each has failed in one of the most vital offices of a true spiritual culture. Outward nature, also, unfolds life by exercising thought; not thought which is busied only about wants, but thought which delights to seek the end of creation’ s laws and mysteries. But life is unfolded in its loftiest capacities when everywhere in outward nature the soul is conscious of God’ s pervading presence; when it sees the goodness of God in all that is lovely, and the wisdom of God in all that is true. Every man, whether he knows it or not, is an incarnation of the immortal; and through his immortality all things that connect themselves with his soul are immortal. In every loving soul, therefore, according to the measure of its power, God re-constructs the heavens and the earth. 2. The individual being of man is also unfolded by society. It is born into society, and by society it lives. Existing at first in passive and unconscious instincts, it finds protection in the care of intelligent affections. The home, therefore, is the first circle within which personality opens, and it is always the nearest. Beyond this, the individual is surrounded with circumstances more complex. He is cast among persons whose wills are not only different from his own, but constantly antagonistic to it. And thus in society, as in nature, the unfolding of his being will be by resistance as well as by affinity. The most self-complete personality can have no development but by means of society. Intellect works by means of society. Thinkers the most abstract have not all their materials of reflection in themselves. The studies that belong purely to the mind as well as those that belong to matter, and to the active relations of life, require observation, comparison, sagacity, variety of acquisition, and experience. No man can be a thinker by mere self-contemplation. He might as well expect to become a physiognomist by always gazing in a mirror, or to become a geographer by measuring the dimensions of his chamber. A man is revealed even to himself by the action on him of external things, and of other minds. Imagination works by means of society. For society it builds and sculptures, paints, forms its concords of sweet sounds, and puts its dreams into melody and measure. But for society, virtue could neither have existence nor a name. Society, by its occupations and injunctions, by the contact in which it places will to will, by its excitements and its sympathies, elicits the power of the moral nature: society it is that trains this power, tries it, strengthens it, matures it; is the arena of its contest, is the field of its victories. But if in society the moral nature has its contests, in society also it has its charities. But while society, whether in calm or conflict, unfolds life, to this its agency should he bounded. It should not be allowed to absorb the individual life, or to crush it. With the strength, the freedom, the integrity of thought and conscience; with honest and unoffending idiosyncrasies, it has no claim to interfere. Men in our age live gregariously; and if the aggregation were for exertion and for work, this might be a benefit; but men think, men feel conventionally, and this is an evil. It enfeebles, it impoverishes the life; it depresses, nay, it denounces originality, it takes away all stimulus to meditation, reflection, or any strong mental effort. I do not impeach the value of public opinion, but I do not bow to it as an authority, nor accept it as a guide. Life in our age is too much in the mass for any thorough spiritual culture; and life is too much in the outward for any intensity of individual character. If those who use efforts for others, and use them seriously, would first use them to the utmost on their own spirits, society would advance more quickly towards regeneration. There is a mawkish tendency in some to charge their failings on this or that cause out of themselves. They were tempted, the evil was placed in their way, and they could neither pass by it nor bound over it. This is a cowardly spirit which, after all, absolves not from the transgression, while it pulls down the soul into the deepest pit of degradation. It is just as far from genuine repentance and humility as it is from honesty and heroism. When we judge others we must make every merciful allowance; but we must not teach themselves to do so; nor must we do so when we judge ourselves. I have said that we should hold every man’ s personality sacred, as well as our own, and I repeat it. Why should I wish to compel any man, if such were possible, to live my life, think my thoughts, accept my opinions, believe my creed, worship at my altar. If such desire were not utterly foolish, would it not be the climax of presumption? Some one may object that the personality which I defend is an obstinate egotism. Not at all. Nor is it combative or exacting, but charitable and liberal. The absence of a true individuality produces many of the gloomiest evils with which society is deformed. Why else do people consider the meat as more than the life, and the raiment more than the body? Why else do they so esteem that which is not their being, and so little that which is? Why else do people ape the talents of others, and neglect those which are their own? Why do they so abortively attempt the work they cannot do, and overlook the work they can? Let a man be satisfied to be himself, and he will not be dissatisfied because he is not another. He will not, then, be hostile to that other for being what he is; nay, he will rejoice in all by which that other is ennobled; he will lament for all by which he is degraded. For a man, therefore, to be himself, fully, honestly, completely, does not circumscribe his communion, it makes it wider. But a man should not be content to be only roughly himself. A man ought to labour to beautify and harmonise in his interior personality; and if that be done, there will be no confusion in his exterior relationships. And what a glorious work is this! If the sculptor spends years in toil to shape hard marble into grace, and then dies contented, what should not a man be willing to bear and do, when it is a deathless spirit that he forms to immortal loveliness? After all, there is much of one’ s life that is not unfolded; much that remains uncommunicated, or that is incommunicable. The very medium, language, by which spirit holds converse with spirit, is inadequate to transmit the plainest thought as it is in the mind of the speaker. Language is not representative, but suggestive, and no merely spiritual idea is exactly the same in any two minds. How much of life passes within us, that we make no attempt to impart, that we have no opportunity to impart. If we find such to be our ordinary experience in life, what shall we say of its more solemn passages? Can any man, and let him be of surpassing eloquence, communicate an absorbing thought, and the interest with which it fills him? No; we try in vain to express an overflowing joy; as vainly go we attempt to put into utterance a deeply-seated grief. Even bodily pain we cannot make the most sympathising understand. And then death--death always in shadow, always in silence, always absolute in isolation! Who, then, can know the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him? What misgivings, what memories, what darkening fears, what dawning hopes, may then agitate the breast, and none can know, and none can share them! We shall not seek to pierce the mystery. These solemn isolations we ought not to forget; they must, sooner or later, come to us all, and it is but common prudence to gather strength to meet them. The view that I have given in this discourse of life, some, I doubt not, will consider lonely. A great part of life must indeed be lonely. In a pure and reflective loneliness there is strength, and there is depth in it. There is great enrichment in it. To get at the meanings and mysteries of things we must converse with them alone. So the thinker is lonely; the poet is lonely; the hero is lonely; the saint is lonely; the martyr is lonely. Social affection has, indeed, great beauty; public spirit much worth: energetic talents have abundant utility; but it is by habits of independent and solitary meditation that they are matured, deepened, and consolidated. (H. Giles.)The perfect knowledge of God I. How it is possible.1. Only the spirit of man knows what is in man.2. So the Spirit of God only knows the things of God.3. Hence the things of God can only be known by him who has the Spirit. II. How it is obtainable.1. Not by him who has the spirit of the world.2. But by him who receives the Spirit by a new birth, and consequently by the Spirit understands the things that God has freely given in His Word. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The indwelling Spirit 1. There are certain instincts in our common humanity by which every man has a sympathy with his fellow-man. No other creature but man can possess it. Mind strangely echoes mind. 2. Again every one is conscious of secret thoughts and depths in his own soul which only himself can fathom. He has feelings within feelings, which no other person can ever thoroughly understand, but which, to his own consciousness, make his individuality and his whole being. 3. Put these two truths together, and you arrive at a double analogy. As only “ man” knows “ man,” and as only one’ s self knows one’ s self, “ even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” I. Only God knows God. ‘ The Holy Ghost is God. Therefore the Holy Ghost “ Knows God.” But he who is “Born of Godhas the Holy Ghost in him, and he, and he only, can “ know God.” It is not your reading, reasoning, listening, philosophy, piety, or prayers that will enable you to know God, but only the Holy Ghost in you. We live in the midst of two worlds, equally real, equally definite. The one is that material universe which we see, and feel, and touch. The other is--1. A veiled world till a touch of Omnipotence opens it. You may walk in the midst of it all your life, and yet never know that it is there. To another--at your very side--these things are, at this moment, more real and more distinct than your world is to you. 2. A spiritual world, made up of spiritual pleasures, pains, conflicts, tastes, friendships, services. It is here. But it wants a new faculty to see it. Suppose, at this moment, another bodily sense were added to your five senses, what new channels of thought and enjoyment that sixth sense would add to you! And this unseen system requires a new sense before it can be perceived. 3. A much higher world. The natural world is very lovely; but it is only the shadow of that spiritual world. What if you should find, at last, that all along you have been contented with the shadow, and that you have never grasped the substance of life, because your eyes were never opened to see it? II. If, then, everything in spiritual knowledge depends on the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the great question is, how can i enjoy it? Only by union with Christ. Only the grafted branch can get the sap. Only the united member partakes of the life’ s blood. The first act of union takes place by the free working of the grace of God. This is conversion; the new life. After that, many things will promote its increase--specially the Word of God, and prayer, and good works. Then, through union, comes the Holy Ghost; through the Holy Ghost, the knowledge of God; through the knowledge of God, the image of God; through the image of God, God; and through God, heaven. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The necessity of the Spirit to the understanding of the things of God The Scripture cannot be perfectly understood except by the guidance of the same mind that inspired it. It is an outward revelation, and we need, in order to make it plain, an inward revelation also. It resembles a sundial, which is in itself perfect, but the indispensable condition of whose usefulness is light. The Scripture is the chart to glory, on which everything necessary is marked with unerring accuracy; but the one indispensable condition of its answering its end is that the Spirit, while we read it, shall be shining upon it (Psalms 43:3). Or to put the matter in another way: Without some kind of sympathy with the mind of a poet, without the poetical turn, it would be impossible to appreciate poetry. And each distinct species of poetry can only be so far understood as the reader finds in himself some taste for it. The literature may stimulate the taste, but there must be the taste in the first instance. So then it would not be consonant even with reason that Holy Scripture should be exempted from the operation of a law which applies to poetry, and indeed every class of literature; that it should be feasible to enter into its significance, without having inherited their spirit. (Dean Goulburn.)Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. The spirit of the world and the Spirit of God The Spirit of God is-- I. A Spirit of truth. By witnessing to the truth He condemns--1. The errors of the world.2. The hypocrisies of the world.3. The false judgments of the world. II. A Spirit of love. He inspires--1. Love to God. Gratitude takes the place of cold thoughtlessness, sympathy with the redeeming work of Jesus takes the place of selfish isolation. 2. Love to our neighbour. One great form in which the world’ s selfishness finds expression is covetousness. The Spirit of God destroys it, and fills the heart with its opposite, benevolence. III. A Spirit of zeal. His descent was accompanied with mighty rushing winds and cloven tongues of fire. These manifested--1. The mystery of His nature.2. The efficacy of His grace.3. The majesty of His presence.4. The facility and promptitude of His operations.5. The impression which He would make upon the apostles. He came to change the whole aspect of society. The world was absorbed in love of the visible, occupied in things present, was indifferent to the future. The darkness of superstition and infidelity had again covered the face of the deep. The disciples, timid, feeble, and unlettered men, when inspired of God, became courageous, powerful and victorious. The Spirit of God inspires us with zeal--(1) To confess our religion.(2) To practise it. (Bp. Adam Flechier.)The two kinds of spirit The spirit of anything is that vital principle which sets it a-going; which keeps it in motion; which gives it its form and distinguishing qualities. The spirit of the world is that principle which gives a determination to the character, and a form to the life of the man of the earth; the spirit which is of God is that vital principle which gives a determination to the character, and a form to the life of the citizen of heaven. One of these spirits actuates all mankind.1. The spirit of the world is mean and grovelling; the spirit which is of God is noble and elevated. The man of the earth, making himself the object of all his actions, and having his own interest perpetually in view, conducts his life by maxims of utility alone. The citizen of heaven scorns the vile arts, and the low cunning, employed by the man of the earth. He condescends, indeed, to every gentle office of kindness and humanity. But there is a difference between condescending and descending from the dignity of character. From that he never descends. 2. The spirit of the world is a spirit of falsehood, dissimulation, and hypocrisy: the spirit that is of God is a spirit of truth, sincerity, and openness. The life which the man of the earth leads is a scene of imposture and delusion. Show without substance; appearance without reality; professions of friendship which signify nothing; and promises which are never meant to be performed, fill up a life which is all outside. The citizen of heaven esteems truth as sacred, and holds sincerity to be the first of the virtues. He has no secret doctrines to communicate. He needs no chosen confidents to whom he may impart his favourite notions. What he avows to God, he avows to man. He expresseth with his tongue what he thinketh with his heart. 3. The spirit of the world is a timid spirit; the spirit which is of God is a bold and manly spirit. Actuated by selfish principles, and pursuing his own interest, the man of fine earth is afraid to offend. He accommodates himself to the manners that prevail, and courts the favour of the world by the most insinuating of all kinds of flattery by following its example. He is a mere creature of the times; a mirror to reflect every vice of the vicious, and every vanity of the vain. He is timid because he has reason to be so. Wickedness, condemned by its own vileness, is timorous, and forecasteth grievous things. There is a dignity in virtue which keeps him at a distance; he feels how awful goodness is, and in the presence of a virtuous man he shrinks into his own insignificance. On the other hand, the righteous is bold as a lion. With God for his protector, and with innocence for his shield, he walks through the world with a face that looks upwards. He despises a fool, though he were possessed of all the gold of Ophir, and scorns a vile man, though a minister of state. 4. The spirit of the world is an interested spirit; the spirit which is of God is a generous spirit. The man of the earth has no feeling but for himself. That generosity of sentiment which expands the soul; that charming sensibility of heart which makes us glow for the good of others; that diffusive benevolence, reduced to a principle of action, which makes the human nature approach to the Divine, he considers as the dreams of a visionary head, as the figments of a romantic mind that knows not the world. But the spirit which is of God is as generous as the spirit of the world is sordid. One of the chief duties in the spiritual life is to deny itself. Christianity is founded upon the most astonishing instance of generosity and love that ever was exhibited to the world; and they have no pretensions to the Christian character who feel not the truth of what their Master said, “ That it is more blessed to give than to receive.” (J. Logan.)Spiritual qualification for the reception of the spiritual There are many free gifts which one man seeks to present to another, which the other cannot receive without spiritual sympathy with the giver. Sometimes the recipient has no spirit to understand the kindness that has dictated it, or to appreciate the gift itself; and so the gift is thrown away. I. There are many things freely given to us by God. “ The great things of His law” are “ free gifts.” Pardon, holiness, “ heaven upon earth,” are free gifts. Christ is “ the unspeakable gift,” and “ eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” II. These free gifts must be known and appreciated, or they will not be received by us. Allowing that some free gifts of Providence can be physically received by the thankless and fleshly mind, they are only partially received by such. If I do not understand, or appreciate, the labour of the artist, he may have given me some sheets of canvas and some ounces of paint, but he cannot give me his picture. The musician may freely give me the treasures that have enriched his soul, and yet my inner self, through my lack of knowledge, fail to receive a single emotion: so, the Divine Harmonist may freely give the harmony of heaven, but these joys are only received by those who know them. “ This is life eternal, that they may know Thee,” &c. “ We know that the Son of God is come.” III. The knowledge of God’ s free gift is dependent on the spirit that we have received. It depends on the spirit of a man what is the truth that is forced upon him. Imagine the truths conveyed to a group of men before any given scene. There are the scientific spirit, the spirit of the historian, of the politician, of the artist, of the soldier, of the philanthropist; each receives different things, because perceiving different objects. The same thing occurs in respect of spiritual life. If our spirit is haughty or selfish, how can we know, or receive, free gifts that require for their appreciation self-condemnation and self-forgetfulness? If our spirit is false, how can we receive, or know, that which depends on the faithfulness and truthfulness of God? “ The natural man receiveth not,” &c. If there is no spirit of self-dissatisfaction, how can we appreciate the promise of pardon and life? The spirit of a man is open to influences from other spirits. One man may pour his spirit into another’ s, communicate it to society, enshrine it in the common motives and aspirations of the race. And, just as every man has a spirit of his own, so societies, communities, nations, the world itself, may have a spirit which reacts upon the individual spirits which compose them. We speak correctly of the spirit of the age, of a system, of a class, and of the world. IV. The spirit of the world is utterly insufficient for the purpose here indicated. This spirit has differed at different times in the world’ s history. Some day the spirit of the world will be the Spirit of God. Ignorance identifies them now, and philosophy tries to prove it. The apostle was not deluded by the false philosophy of Greece. We must not be deceived by the dicta of either France or Germany. Note some characteristics of this spirit in the days of Paul.1. Sensuality. If not sensual now, still it is sensuous and materialistic. But the things given by God are spiritual and eternal. “ Therefore,” &c. 2. Selfishness. This blinds the eye to God’ s gifts. We suffer as much from the selfishness of trade, politics, religion, art, and even philanthropy, as Paul did, though it may be more subtle in its manifestations. “ Therefore,” &c. 3. Cruelty. The harsh repression of natural instincts--parental, filial, conjugal; e.g., the amphitheatre, modes of warfare, court intrigues. The spirit of the world is materially changed in this respect, but its traces are still to be seen, and they war with God’ s free gifts. 4. The love and lust of conquest. 5. The love of money. 6. Enterprise. But in all these respects, in proportion as we catch and embody the spirit of the world, we incapacitate ourselves for knowing or receiving the things freely given to us of God. V. The reception of the Spirit of God will strike a relation at once between our understanding and the truth--between our hearts and the Divine appeals to our feelings--between our wills and the calls of duty and self-sacrifice. “ The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” We may have this Spirit if we will; we have quenched and resisted more of this Spirit than is enough to do for us all we want. Receive the Spirit. Pray for an abundance of it. “ If ye, being evil,” &c. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)The peculiar spirit of Christians I. The peculiar spirit which God has given to Christians. He has not given it to the world, and it is directly opposite to the spirit. If the latter is selfish, then the former must be benevolent. And according to the Scriptures, the spirit which God gives is the spirit of benevolence, which is the moral image of the Deity. “ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And the reason is, “ that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And that spirit which is the fruit of the Spirit is love. “ Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God.” II. This peculiar spirit gives Christians a peculiar knowledge of spiritual and Divine things. “ That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”1. The spirit of love which Christians receive from God removes that ignorance of spiritual and Divine things which is peculiar to sinners. As the removal of scales from a blind man’ s eyes will remove all the blindness, so love must certainly remove all that blindness or ignorance which arises from selfishness (1 Corinthians 2:14-15; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; 2 Corinthians 4:6; 2 Corinthians 3:14-18). 2. The way in which God enlightens the minds of men in the peculiar knowledge of Himself is by changing their hearts, or giving them a pure, benevolent spirit. “ I will give them an heart to know Me.” As their ignorance of God arose from the blindness of their hearts, so in order to remove that kind of ignorance, He determined to give them a wise and understanding heart, or a spirit of true benevolence. 3. There is no other possible way by which God can give Christians the knowledge of Himself and Divine objects, but by giving to them His own Spirit, or shedding abroad His love in their hearts. He cannot convey this peculiar spiritual knowledge by mere inspiration. He inspired Saul, Balaam, Caiaphas, but this did not remove the blindness of their hearts. And Paul supposes a man may have the gift of prophecy, &c., and yet be totally destitute of the true love and knowledge of God. Inspiration has no tendency to change the heart, but only to convey knowledge to the understanding. For the same reason, God cannot give men this knowledge of Himself by moral suasion, or the mere exhibition of Divine truth, nor by mere convictions of guilt, fears of punishment, or hopes of happiness; the only way in which He can give it is by giving them a benevolent heart. For-- (1) By exercising benevolence themselves, they know how all benevolent beings feel--God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, angels, &c. So the apostle argues in the text and context. As one man knows what his rational faculties are, or what his own selfish feelings are, so he knows what another man’ s are. Just so, says the apostle, we who have received the Spirit which is God, know the things of God. (2) The peculiar spirit which they have. (3) This spirit necessarily gives Christians a peculiar knowledge of the distinguishing truths of the gospel. The whole scheme of the gospel was devised and adopted in, is carried on, and will be completed by benevolence. Benevolence, therefore, prepares Christians to understand it (Ephesians 3:17-19). Conclusion: If the peculiar knowledge which Christians have of God and of Divine things arises from benevolence, then--1. There is nothing mysterious in experimental religion. Christians have experienced no other change, but from sin to holiness, or from selfishness to benevolence. There is nothing more mysterious in loving God than in hating Him. The men of the world love to hear experimental religion represented as mysterious, because they are ready to conclude that they are excusable for not understanding it. All experimental religion consists in disinterested benevolence. And is this a mystery which sinners cannot understand? By no means; they can fully understand and oppose it. 2. There is no superstition or enthusiasm in vital piety, or experimental religion, for benevolence leads those who possess it to hate and oppose all superstition and enthusiasm. 3. They who are real Christians may know that they are such. The Spirit which they have received from God, bears witness with their spirit that they are the children of God. “ We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 4. They may always be able to give a reason of the hope that is in them, though unable to exhibit all the external evidences of the Divinity of the gospel. They know the gospel is Divine, by the Divine effects it has produced in their hearts. 5. Sinners may know that they are sinners, by the spirit of the world, which reigns within them, and governs all their conduct. (N. Emmons, D. D.)Apostolic inspiration I. Not the inspiration of this world.1. Learning.2. Reason.3. Genius. II. But the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.1. Divinely communicated.2. Divinely acting upon their minds.3. And thus enabling them to know the things freely given them of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Paul’ s protest against worldliness I. The curse of the Church. The spirit of the world. This worldly spirit had wrought terrible mischief at Corinth. It is--1. The evil element that surrounds the Church.2. The insinuating guile that ensnares it. 3. The espionage that betrays it; like Delilah, it ensnares with flattery and song, deprives of the secret all strength, and delights in the discovered weakness. II. The cure of the Church. The Spirit which is of God.1. It is found in a Divine gift. The Holy Spirit that enlightens, regenerates, sanctifies, comforts, and strengthens, is received as a supernatural deposit by every one who repents of sin, believes in Christ, and practises holiness. 2. This is the royal amulet of the Church. It protects the Church with the “ love of the Spirit.” It conducts the Church by “ the Spirit of truth.” It commends the Church by the Spirit of purity. 3. It is the infinite resource of the Church; obtained by the intercession of Christ it is to “ abide with us for ever.” III. The Crown Of The Church. The highest point of Church life--“ that we might know the things,” &c. (J. Odell.)The efficient minister I. Whence he derives his knowledge.1. Not from worldly sources.2. But from the Spirit of God.3. Through the medium of the Word of God. II. How he imparts it.1. Not according to human wisdom.2. But in dependence upon the Spirit of God.3. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Spiritual knowledge attained I. The things to which it refers. These are expressed under a variety of names (1 Corinthians 2:9-11; 1 Corinthians 2:14). They are--1. Spiritual in their nature (1 Corinthians 2:13). They relate to God, who is a Spirit; to the soul and its spiritual concerns; to heaven, its society, employments, and pleasures, which are purely spiritual. 2. Divine in their origin: “ given to us of God.” All the great and good things of the gospel are in Him and come from Him. 3. Free in their communication; clearly made known, but “ freely given to us.” They flow to men, irrespective of human worthiness; communicated “ without money and without price.” II. The knowledge of these things is--1. Personal. In order to its answering any useful end we must have it for ourselves. 2. Scriptural. Our acquaintance with “ the things freely given to us of Godmust be according to the truer nature of these things; it must agree with the gospel. 3. Accompanied with faith. Let his views be ever so Scriptural and correct, they are of no saving worth unless he give credit to them with his whole soul. 4. Productive of fruit. Faith is known by its fruit, and the value of knowledge is determined by its influence and effects. III. The way in which this knowledge is attained. “ We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God.”1. What this spirit was not. The spirit of the wise of the world was not friendly to the gospel. It was a spirit of pride, of self-sufficiency, of prejudice, and conceit. The spirit of the world is (1) “ The spirit of error.” It cannot therefore be friendly to our knowledge of the truth. (2) “ The spirit that lusteth to envy.” (3) “ The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” If we are true Christians we have not received but have renounced this spirit. It is “ from beneath.” 2. Who this Spirit was--“ the Spirit which is of God.” This is a good Spirit, the reverse of that which we have noticed and producing opposite effects. Observe-- (1) His names: The Holy Spirit and Spirit of holiness; the Spirit of wisdom, of grace, of truth, of Christ. (2) His offices--to teach, guide, enlighten, enliven, comfort, purify. The text suggests His office as a Teacher; for He is received “ that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God.” The Father teaches by the Spirit; and His teaching invariably leads to faith and hope and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:13-14). Conclusion: What is the knowledge which you are seeking? Is it, or is it not, the knowledge of “ the things which are freely given to us of God” ? Acquaintance with other things is lawful and proper, but what can compensate for ignorance of the things which belong to our peace? The season of youth is most friendly to the acquisition of knowledge; and this applies to the knowledge of the gospel; but how rarely are young persons in earnest in this concern! 2. What is the proficiency which you are making? This question particularly concerns aged professors. You have long been planted in the house of the Lord, but what is your growth? Does your progress keep pace with your years? 3. What is the spirit which you have, and under which you live? Is it “ the spirit of the worldor “ the Spirit which is of God” ? (T. Kidd.)Divine knowledge I. Its source.1. The Word of God--2. Which contains a revelation of Divine truth.3. Freely given.4. Of God. II. Its means.1. The Scriptures are to be understood not by the help of mere learning or criticism--2. But by the assistance of the Holy Spirit--3. Which we receive by faith and prayer. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Divine benefactions I. The gifts. “ Things.”1. Real, not ideal; not to be imagined, admired, but “ known.” The gospel scheme is of surpassing beauty, but its aim is not to enchant the fancy, but to enrich the experience. 2. Many and various “ things” not single or stereotyped. Our Father has more than our blessing for His children, and those blessings differ according to the object to which, or the circumstances under which, they are given. 3. Practical, not speculative. True, there are “ things which angels desire to look into” in the gospel; but in the main it is not a thing to be reasoned about but to be enjoyed in the heart and exhibited to the life. 4. Divine not human. Man never saw, heard, or imagined them, much less invented or created them. II. The giver--“ God.”1. Infinite in resources, and therefore “ able to do exceeding abundantly.” “ Enough for all, enough for each,” &c. 2. Loving in disposition, and therefore willing and ready to supply all our need. 3. Wise in administration, and therefore suiting the gift exactly according to the requirements of the recipients, and so augmenting their values. III. The manner. “ Freely.”1. Without restriction. The gifts are needed by all, and are therefore given without respect to nation, class, rank, &c. 2. Without cost. The water of life is offered freely because none could purchase it. 2. Without regard to merit, because above all merit. (J. W. Burn.)Spiritual things I. Their reality. It is remarkable how often the word “ things” occurs in this chapter. This gives reality and something like shape and touchableness to the spiritual world. Thing is a wide word; it is the short way of saying thinking; thinkings are the true things; things visible are valuable only as they express thought. Thus the universe is the thinking (or thing) of God; every star is an expression of His mind. We must indeed stand back, nor come too near. When I was a child I thought as a child, foolishly supposing that he who gave me a penny gave me something real, and that he who gave me a thought had simply given me nothing. But now I am a man I see that to think is to have. Had I known it properly the penny actually was a thought, a thought of love or care. The picture was a thought before it was a mystery of colour. The cathedral was a thought before it rose to heaven in tower or pinnacle or swelling dome. The book was a thought before it was embodied in paper or ink and binding. Go back from shapes and colours and find your way into things, thinkings--in the beginning was the Word! When you are told that this is practical and that is metaphysical or even sentimental, what is meant by the definition? It is equal to saying, this is the outside and that is the inside--no more! It is unhappily quite possible for a man to be satisfied with the outside, and, indeed, to contend there is nothing but outside. He forgets that the tabernacle was built for the ark; that the outward exists for the sake of the inward. Suppose a child so demented as to be satisfied with the outside of his father’ s house, to say, “ When I have discussed every mystery connected with the stone, the wood, the glass which I do see, it will be time enough to open the door and pry into the unknown and the unthinkable. They tell me that is my father’ s face at the window, but let me settle the mystery of the window before troubling myself with the mystery of the face. They say he wants me; when I have settled the geology of the doorstep, I may pay some attention to the fanatics who suppose that my father is so idling away his time.” We should see the lunacy and impiety of this, and it is possible to repeat this substantially in the concerns which lie between God and the soul of man. II. Their freeness. They are given lavishly, abundantly, and without price or tax, so that the poorest may have equal chances with the rich. Every man may find a hundred ways leading straight into the King’ s presence; the grassy way, open to humblest men; the starry way, trodden by loftier minds; the providential way, studied by the patient in their retirement and suffering, so that neither the blind nor the weak shall be lost for want of an open road to heaven. This is Godlike. “ He that spared not His own Son,” &c. “ Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” God giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. But here is a peculiar temptation. The very largeness of the inheritance is a temptation to neglect or extravagance. Let us watch ourselves, or we may turn the bounty of God into an occasion of sin. III. Their revelation (1 Corinthians 2:10). Even the things that are seen require to be made clear by revelation. How much more the testimony which is addressed to an understanding perverted and a heart poisoned by sin? The Bible is revelation, ,but the revelation itself needs to be revealed. “ Open Thou mine eyes, that I may ,behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” “ Then opened He their understandings that they might understand the scriptures.” The inspiring Spirit must make plain She book He hath inspired or it will be a letter hard, cold, friendless: but with the Spirit it will show you its beauty, its unsearchable riches. Is it enough to snatch it up and hastily peruse the dead print? Not so did the saints of old study the lively oracles. “ O how I love Thy law, it is my meditation all the day.” IV. The disadvantage of having to put them into human words (1 Corinthians 2:13). To show our own cleverness in the use of words has been at once the temptation and the curse of Christendom. Fewer words, plainer words, the better; more thought, more feeling, more devotion, that is what we want (1 Corinthians 2:1). All the Christian preachers whose fame is immortal in England at least have been, from a scholastic point of view, more or less rude in expression, so that in their case it was not by might nor by power, but by God’ s Spirit, that the great victories for Christ were won. Worldly wisdom is the curse of preaching. (J. Parker, D. D.)Capacity of regenerate men to understand the Scriptures In regeneration men become able to understand and appreciate the Holy Scriptures. Of course this proposition implies that unrenewed men are incapable of a true knowledge of Divine truth. The things of the Spirit of God are beyond the reach of the natural man; he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned. The history of the world, using both terms history and world in their broadest sense, has two aspects. We will endeavour to discern between them, and to point out their true, mutual relations. That view of the world which is almost universally taken may be designated as the natural one, in opposition to the spiritual one. The world is contemplated as a vast system of causes and effects curiously linked in together, and susceptible of analysis into distinct series arid orders, emanating perhaps in the first place from an intelligent, holy, and benevolent first cause, and pointing to some indefinable harmony and concentration far off in the future. It is the work of science to perform this analysis. The plain matter-of-fact man sows and reaps, buys and sells, manufactures and operates, produces and consumes, untroubled by matters in which he has no direct concern. The shaking of kingdoms affects him only as it affects his markets. Or if he is aroused to a momentary excitement, he never forgets the main chance. If his plans succeed he magnifies his own wisdom and skill, and rejoices that the sun shone, and the rain fell, and the winds blew all in their season. Or if his plans fail, he regrets his undertaking and laments over the occurrence of unfavourable events. Everything is material and according to sense. The more reflecting and philosophic men of the world entertain essentially the same views, only refined, and generalised, and lifted above the grossness of mere appetite and calculation. In their silent retreats or their dignified assemblies they theorise, and speculate, and affect to decide upon the past and prophesy concerning the future, while the multitude, with little reflection, does the acting that is the counterpart and occasion of their thinking. They discover and announce the laws of moral, and intellectual, and natural science as they are gathered from history, and observation, and consciousness. But alter all, something is wanting of which science gives no account. What she has told us is of the earth and has an earthly savour. It may be true, but it is not all the truth. No scientific man however skilful, no philosopher however profound, ever get beyond the world and above it. Their views are sensuous; such as they might entertain were there no Bible; such as they do entertain with the Bible but without the enlightening Spirit of God. Now there is another view of the world which we may call spiritual in distinction from natural. It includes the natural, the whole of it. It discards no genuine science. It rejects no philosophy that is not falsely so called. It interferes with no personal, domestic, or social duties. It is ready to investigate all the processes of matter and of mind. It will dig with the geologist into the bowels of the earth, and with the astronomer scan, through the telescope, the nebulae that whitens the heavens. It will discuss the law of nations with the statesman, and urge the individual and the community to personal and social reform as boldly and zealously as any reformer of them all. It is a view of the world as a whole and in all its parts; omitting nothing, and unjustly condemning nothing. But it is not a view of the world alone; as if the object of its creation, and the assurance of its continuance were in itself. It sees something before the world, out of which it came; and something after it to which it tends. It sees a harmony between this beginning and end, that is unbroken by the intermediate time. Nay, it sees in time but the confluence of the eternities, and in matter and sense the vesture and energetic working of the Infinite Spirit. It sees the world as it is. And, what is the world? Why was it made? Why is it continued? What is the motive power of all this vast and varied machinery? Whence these compensating forces that keep the solid globe and its sister planets balanced and moving in their orbits? What keeps the river channels full, and agitates the restless sea, and stirs the viewless winds, and brings out from the unpromising soil the tinted flower, and the leafy oak, and the nutritious grain? What is the meaning of history? What intend all these records that are carved on the mural faces of mountains, or deposited in the strata that compose the earth’ s crust, and scattered everywhere both on and beneath the earth’ s surface? What may we learn from the annals of our race imperfectly kept though they have been? What will become of Europe? What will become of the Jew, and what of the Gentile? How will the connection between them result? Such questions as these suggest themselves in numbers without number. We want an answer disclosing the spiritual and true idea of the world and of human affairs. And there is an answer to them. The mystery of life has its solution. The confused and jarring course of events has its order, and has had from the beginning. There is one grand idea, one primal truth, that pervades the entire system of the universe. Every thing, every event, every mode of existence, refer directly or indirectly to it. This truth is the truth of Christ. Of Him and for Him are all things; by Him they were created, by Him they stand, and to the manifestation of His glory they tend. No man is a scholar who does not study Christ as the essence of all knowledge, and the embodiment of all truth. All history is the revelation of Christ; and all histories which do not present this fact are partial and inconsequent. The age to come is the Christian age; and whoever puts a sensuous and worldly interpretation on prophecy, or ventures with uninspired lips to predict a state of society and the introduction of a new era, in which Christ shall not be all in all, will find his prediction falsified and his interpretation scattered like chaff before the wind. It is in Christ, then, that we find all the strange and, complicate phenomena of the world resolved. There is no other light than that. The light of nature, the light of science, the light of reason, the dim light of antiquity and the glare of modern times are illusory and vain, mere ignes fatui, will-o’ -the-wisps that lead those who follow them ever deeper and deeper into the mire. This Divine light shines only from the Word of God. What is the Bible to an unbeliever? Perhaps a moral treatise; perhaps a story, or a song, or the rhapsody of an enthusiast; perhaps a treasure-house locked up and barred, in which he, knows there is treasure, but to which he has no key. But it is no word of Christ, condemning, convincing, converting, sanctifying, saving. It is not the truth, living and brilliant, and able to raise the dead. In his unbelief he seeks no life there, but hunts for it in the weak and beggarly elements of this world. What is the Bible to the believer? It is his all. It is light in darkness, joy in sorrow, life in death. It is the communication, the embodying of the Holy Ghost, proceeding forth from the Father and the Son. It is the touchstone of all wisdom. Tell me, does not regeneration teach men that Word which is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation? And can any one who has not tasted of this good Word, and been enlightened by the Spirit of God, attain this knowledge? Does any such one believe in Christ? Does not every unregenerate man believe in the world, and in himself, and in his personal experience, and in his reason, and in his arithmetic, and his science, and his philosophy, and refuse to believe in Christ and the Scriptures which testify of Christ? And in conclusion, let me ask you, do you sufficiently appreciate your privilege of knowing the Word of God? Do you subordinate all other knowledge to this, and regulate all other knowledge by this? The Bible must be everything or nothing. It is the chart of redemption, and everything in creation and providence is subservient to redemption. It is the inspired record of Christ; of what He was, and is, and will be. Let it dwell in your hearts. Let it control your lives. Let it animate your affections. Let it stimulate your devotion. (J. King Lord.)The things freely given us by God I. The doctrine contained in the words, “ freely given to us,” and “ we have received.” Whatsoever we have is of God’ s free gift; and as in the department of nature it is the Lord that giveth life, and all things, so in the department of grace it is the Lord that blesseth us with every spiritual blessing.1. Let us observe the simple word “ given,” a word so simple that one would think it impossible to be mistaken. (1) Let it stand by the side of the word “ offer.” For there are some that say God merely offers grace and salvation in the gospel. But God says that He gives grace and salvation. The offer only comes half way, and there stops, but the gift comes home. So it is in the things of God. When God intends grace for any poor soul, He does not stop half way and wait for our closing with His offer, but He comes home to our very soul, and makes a sure lodgment of the blessing. (2) Further, if to give means to offer, it certainly means much more than to sell; for there be some who tell us that God gives upon conditions, or, in other words, sells grace; into which error they have been drawn by their inability to perceive that the “ ifs” of the New Testament are not conditional, but evidential. I know of no other condition on which sinners are saved but the death of the Son of God. 2. Lest we should make a mistake concerning the matter or manner of God’ s giving, He hath added another word here to clear it up; we read of the things “ freely” given to us of God. We know the miserly disposition of some men, who in order to preserve a decent appearance in the world lay out some of their money in charity, yet have so niggardly a way of doing it, and such an ungracious manner in bestowing it, that an honest man would rather go without than accept anything at their hands. Now, God would have us know that He is not one of these niggardly people, and therefore tells us that what He gives, He also freely gives. But in order to constitute it a free gift two things are necessary; it must be done without compulsion, and without condition; either of these destroy the freeness here spoken of. 3. Again, let us remark how God’ s free giving is further illustrated by another word which stands contrasted with it in the sentence: “ We have received.” Now this expression takes away all idea of any merit, power, or wisdom in the favoured objects of God’ s bounty, as completely as does the former; and when both are viewed together, they give a twofold testimony to the truth of the grace of God. II. The things themselves which are freely given to us of God. What is there which God hath not given us? for the apostle in the next chapter tells the believers in Jesus, “ All things are yours,” &c. But sweet as this description is, what would all this be, what would heaven be to him that loves God in His beloved Son, if the object of that love formed no part of the heavenly enjoyment? Therefore also God hath abundantly revealed it to us, that of these “ all things” we speak of, He hath given Himself both as the cause and the substance; so that we may know that as all blessings come from God, so all blessedness is centred in God. Now to show this from Scripture that God gives Himself to us, we may observe that single sentence more than ten times repeated in the Bible, “ I will be their God!” There is a twofold meaning in these words. First, I will give Myself over to them in covenant characters. All this is expressed in those words of Hosea (chap. 2:19, 20). Having thus made Himself over to us, He becomes bound to us to deal with us in lovingkindness and tender mercies. But there is another meaning of it which comes nearer to the point. God gives us Himself most truly when He gives us His Christ, for He is over all God blessed for ever, Amen. God in Christ, and Christ in God, shall be the Sun of heaven; a Sun that shall no more go down. If God thus makes over Himself for our eternal consolation and blessedness, how can we doubt whether or no He hath also given all things together with Him. Having given the greater, how could He withhold the less? (Romans 8:39). So, then, we need argue that matter no further; but of the “ all things” here spoken of I would merely select one as being most important to be known, which is our complete justification, called by the apostle the gift of righteousness (Hebrews 9:26). Now a word or two more shall be added to show that we are really righteous before God by the presence of righteousness. And, first, it will appear from many parts of Scripture, that where there is an absence of sin, there is and must be the presence of righteousness; in short, that one cannot be without the other. This is shown plainly by Daniel 9:24, where he enumerates the blessings to be brought upon the Church by the advent of Messiah, at the expiration of the seventy weeks; for He was not only to “ finish transgression,” and make “ an end of sin,” but to bring in “ everlasting righteousness.” Here both the one and The other are attributed to the same event; and therefore he that believeth in that Messiah hath not only his sins put off, but an everlasting righteousness put on. Again, David saith (Psalms 32:1). But what is the Holy Ghost’ s comment on those words by the pen of Paul? David, says he, “ describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works(Romans 4:6): so, then, what can be clearer than this, that where sin is not imputed righteousness is imputed, and this makes the believer doubly blessed. Again, this truth may be made to appear yet more clearly by comparison. There are some things in nature so completely contrary that the one cannot exist where the other is, and the absence of the one plainly indicates the presence of the other. The absence of sickness is health; the absence of darkness is light; the absence of filth is cleanliness. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 2:13-14 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’ s wisdom teacheth.The true evangelical preacher speaks I. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit.1. He has received the Spirit.2. Is instructed by the Spirit.3. Speaks with the demonstration of the Spirit. II. After careful study of God’ s Word. Comparing, selecting, with much humility and prayer. III. He cannot, therefore, accommodate himself to the wisdom of this world--1. Either by modifying his doctrine to please worldly men--2. Or adopting a worldly method of address. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The illumination of the Holy Spirit To teach, to enlighten, and to illuminate, have equivalent meanings. I. Its need. The natural condition of the mind is spiritual darkness: hence illumination is necessary to the apprehension of spiritual things (Luke 11:36; 1 Corinthians 2:9-14; Ephesians 1:18). II. Its author. It is ascribed to each person of the Trinity.1. God (2 Corinthians 4:6).2. The Son (John 1:9; 1 Corinthians 4:5).3. The Holy Spirit (John 14:26). III. Its instrument. The revealed Word of God (Psalms 119:105). IV. Its agency. The ministry of reconciliation. Preaching may awake men to their need of spiritual illumination (Ephesians 3:9). V. How obtained.1. By the careful reading of the Word.2. By prayer (Psalms 119:18). (L. O. Thompson.)The dispensation of spiritual truth I. How spiritual things are to be dispensed.1. Not according to human rules.2. But under the teaching of the Spirit.3. In conformity with the Word of God. II. By whom they are to be dispensed.1. Not by unconverted men, for they cannot understand them.2. But by those who are spiritual, who are indifferent to the judgment of man, and have the mind of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Various meanings have been attached to this expression. I. Adapting spiritual words to spiritual things, and not language incongruous, as we should be doing if we spoke the things of God in words taught by human wisdom. But the apostle has already said this in effect, and according to this view there is a play on the word “ spiritual” which is not in his manner; for “ spiritual words” can only mean words taught by the Spirit (Ephesians 5:19), but “ spiritual things” must mean things that reveal God. II. Adapting spiritual things to spiritual men. But this is the direct opposite of what Paul declares, that spiritual men understand spiritual things, so that no adaptation of them to their capacity is needed. III. Interpreting spiritual things to spiritual men. But it is only in reference to dreams and visions that the word συγκρίνω means “ to interpret,” and that with few exceptions in the LXX. In no passage are the things of God represented as dreams to be interpreted, or allegories of which the apostles have the key. IV. Interpreting spiritual things by spiritual words is open to the same objection. V. Proving the truth of spiritual things (whether Old Testament types or the teaching of the Spirit) by the demonstration of the Spirit. But the word does not elsewhere signify “ to prove.” VI. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual is satisfactory. Christianity is a Divine wisdom. But this means from the side of teacher and of learner that revealed truths are combined so as to form a consistent and well-proportioned system of truth in their correlation. The higher Christian training resembles Plato’ s criterion of dialectical power, the faculty to see the relation of the sciences to one another and to true being. (Principal Edwards.)The Spirit’ s work The Holy Spirit is the source and standard of all spiritual things. Wherever found, in heaven or in earth, in time or eternity, they all come first from the Spirit of Life. In the New Testament sense, spiritual things are just the things of God; does that convey any thought to you? These are altogether different things from those we have been born into, live in, and take to so naturally. This is our misery, that we are antagonistic to the things of the spiritual world. No one had so much of God’ s Spirit as our Lord; and there is nothing so suited to receive the Spirit as the soul of man. No spirit was more receptive than Christ’ s. His heart was full of the Holy Ghost; and His words and works were less from Him than from the Spirit. The next best example of the Holy Ghost’ s workmanship is the Bible. All parts are not equally full of Him; Job is not so full as John, nor Ruth as Romans; but he who is most spiritual will dwell most in those parts which reveal most of the mind of the Spirit of God. The Old Testament is penetrated with the Spirit even in its most secular and legal parts; and the spiritual mind can find spiritual meaning even in its laws, ordinances and ceremonies. But as Christ was most spirit-filled, so the New Testament is richer, and those hooks are most to be prized which hold most to New Testament doctrines. A preacher should be much in the New Testament, and if he is led into the Old he should always take the New back with him. His people have not a thousand years to spend in discovering its meaning, and it is not fair to keep them always in the elements, to the retarding of spiritual growth. Could you tell why you are a member of your Church, or are you ashamed to tell the reason? Did spiritual reasons take you there, and are spiritual results coming from the change? There is nothing we do on earth so spiritual and which demands so much spirituality as prayer. (A. Whyte, D. D.)But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,… because they are spiritually discerned.-- St. Paul’ s trichotomy This may be roughly compared to a cathedral: the body corresponds to the nave, the spirit to the chancel, the soul, which divides and unites the body and the spirit, to the transept, which divides and unites the nave and the chancel. The cathedral is one consecrated building with three main compartments, and man is one person in three natures, all consecrated in baptism to the Triune God. Furthermore, the human spirit is the highest and noblest of the three natures, and akin to the Divine, and therefore that which is immediately controlled by the Holy Spirit, who through it acts upon the soul, and through the soul upon the body. In like manner the chancel is the highest and holiest compartment of the cathedral, in which also is the altar or table of the Divine Presence. This illustration must not be pressed, but it may serve to smooth the way for some apprehension of the difficult question of man’ s trichotomy. A psychical man, the mere soul-man--animalis (Vulgate) from anima, not animosus “ full of spirit from animus--is one in whom the psyche, or lower principle of life dominates. He moves not in the sphere of Divine light and truth, but in the world of sense. If he is intellectual, he delights in a mental activity purely human, and exerted on objects merely mundane, and is attracted by worldly philosophies that fail utterly to lead the mind up to the high truth of God. The mental side of the psychic man comes to view in this text; the intellectual rather than the ethical, not to the exclusion however of the latter, for between the moral and the mental there is a mutual relation and interaction. In this homo animalis the higher principle of life, the human spirit illuminated and quickened intellectually and morally, does not dominate, has no activity, is dormant. He is one, as St. Jude says, “ not having [in his own consciousness] spirit.” Such a one does not receive, indeed cannot admit into--that which he has not--a prepared spirit anything that is of the Spirit of God. He is psychic, not pneumatic: how can he entertain truths that are purely pneumatic? They are an absurdity to him. His habits of mind, modes and centres of thought, aims in life, lust of fame, pride of intellect, are all soul-like and sensuous, all of the cosmos and to the cosmos. Thus he is simply incompetent to apprehend what is extra mundane and supernal; indeed, he is not in a position to do so, for there must always be a correlation and mutual congruity between that which perceives and that which is perceived. Wherefore spiritual truths are “ foolishness unto him,” because they are spiritually estimated, i.e., are tested and sifted by a process spiritual in the court of the human spirit, enlightened by the Divine, and there subjected to an anacrisis, or preliminary scrutiny ere they are admitted. (Canon Evans.)The natural man I. His character described. Assumes three phases:1. The prejudiced, who oppose the truth.2. The indifferent, who do not trouble about it.3. The unenlightened, who cannot understand it. II. His sad condition. Naturally without--1. Knowledge.2. Concern.3. Hope. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The natural man I. Here are two objects set before us.1. The natural man in contrast with the spiritual man. Note Paul’ s classification. (1) The carnal man “ lives after the flesh.” His whole nature is the servant of sin. (2) In the natural man the ethical element may be predominant. He may be a man of culture, sympathy, and a believer in the objective facts and formal sanctities of religion; and yet so long as he is only all that, he “ cannot discern the things of the spirit.” (3) The spiritual man is such by virtue of a new creation. He has “ put off the old man and his deeds.” 2. “ The things of the spirit.” (1) They are spiritual things. Religion deals with supernatural objects--God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, &c. These are spiritually discerned. There are windows in the soul of the spiritual man through which he looks into the mystery of invisible worlds. “ The Spirit searched,” &c. “ God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” (2) They are revealed to faith. They occupy a sphere and deal with realities which “ eye hath not seen,” &c. They are emphasised as “ the things of God,” they are the product and expression of His thought. We have no faculties by which to apprehend a Being whose attributes are infinity and eternity. But what cannot be discerned may be revealed. That is what has taken place, and the verifying power of this revelation is a spiritual discernment, a faculty of faith, inwrought by the Spirit in the soul; and “ the eyes of the understanding being enlightened,” we “ know what is,” &c. (3) They become real in the consciousness of the believing man, who is translated into a new order of being, is born again. God and the soul touch. II. Some illustrations of the apostle’ s teaching.1. There is a class of outward things which we can only know by the senses. There is no rainbow to the blind man, no music to the deaf. So it is with the things of the spirit. 2. The senses bring in their report of things, but they know nothing of the science or philosophy of things. This is the work of trained intellect. (1) To the ordinary man nature looks like a jumble of accidents; to the scientific there is a place for everything and everything is in its place, from the atom to the sun. To ninety men out of a hundred the pebble, or bit of coal or chalk, is merely a thing for use; to the trained eye it is a revelation of cycles of duration, in which now vanished dynasties of animated beings sported. Nature is a book of hieroglyphics which only science can interpret--it is scientifically discerned. (2) Look at the Bible, at the seemingly discordant but really concatenated departments of revealed truth. But the Bible as a harmonious whole only yields itself up to the discipline and culture of the student. 3. Another class of realities we can know only as they come through experience. They are, in the strictest sense, “ spiritual things(verse 11). (1) The things of a man--his joys, hopes, fears, griefs, &c. what man can know these, save the spirit of a man that is in him? Language is a system of signs for the expression of “ unknown things” ; but there are things of which it can be neither the sign nor the expression Thoughts lie deeper than speech, feelings than thoughts: consciousness the deepest of all, is the only witness of what passes in the mysterious world of mind. Sin, remorse, &c., have no sign and can never be interpreted but by the reality which calls them forth. (2) So the things of God can be known only by the consciousness created by the Spirit of God. Coleridge speaks of a philosophical consciousness lying behind the ordinary consciousness before he can be a philosopher. To know what the reality of life is, we must live, not dissect it. To feel the bitterness of sin we must repent, not speculate about it. To taste the sweetness and power of Christ’ s forgiveness we must believe in Christ, not just catalogue or canonise His virtues. These things belong to the “ new name written, which no man knoweth,” &c. (3) Hence the reason why so many unspiritual though gifted minds miss the entrance to the kingdom of God. They are “ natural men” and “ cannot discern,” &c. They are as blind men groping in the dark. Let us be consistent. I, as a non-scientific Christian, am warned off the ground of scientific induction as a territory on which I have no factor of investigation. My religion is not the organ of physical discovery. Very well: the scientist is warned off the ground of spiritual consciousness as a territory on which he is equally at fault. Conclusion: Note-- 1. The limit which these considerations set to the possibilities of mental culture, and the rebuke which they administer to the audacity and irreverence of the unsanctified intellect.2. The need of regeneration.3. “ If any man will do God’ s will he shall know of the doctrine.(J. Burton.)The natural man I. His character.1. Earthly.2. Sensual.3. Devilish. II. His spiritual obliquity.1. Moral. “ He receiveth not.”2. Intellectual. “ He cannot know.” III. His hopeless condition without Divine help. The things of God--1. Are foolishness to him.2. Must be spiritually discerned. (J. Lyth, D. D.)A natural man’ s ignorance of spiritual things I. The character of the unrenewed man.1. He follows the dictates of his own appetites. 2. He is under the control of his passions. 3. Being chiefly occupied about the perishing things of this world, he is dead to a future state. 4. Though man too much resembles the animal in many things, yet in this he differs widely from every other creature--he will be responsible for his conduct at the judgment-seat of Christ. Whatever be the sinner’ s moral inability, his natural powers qualify him to serve God; and it is sin only that prevents him from using those natural powers in a manner in which he would please God. While the natural powers remain, though the inclination be absent, his accountability is continued. “ We say, God actually treats the want of disposition, not as an excuse, but as a sin; and we take it for granted that what God does is right, whether we can comprehend it or not. Howbeit, in this case, it happens that with the testimonies of God accord those of conscience and common sense. Every man’ s conscience ‘ finds fault’ with him for the evils which he commits willingly, or of choice; and, instead of making any allowance for any previous aversion, nothing more is necessary to rivet the charge. And with respect to the common sense of mankind in their treatment of one another, what judge, or what jury, ever took into consideration the previous aversion of a traitor or a murderer, with a view to the diminishing of his guilt?” II. The dispositions of the sinner’ s mind towards God. He does not receive the things of the Spirit.1. What the Spirit reveals. These things are found in the Holy Scriptures, which are the “ lively oracles of God.” If the Spirit had made known a plan of salvation which had flattered the pride of the human heart, his testimony would have been cheerfully received. 2. What the Spirit imparts. Man, as a fallen creature, requires something done in him as well as for him. How much soever men may boast of their reason, their intellect, and their discernment, they must be Divinely illuminated before they can rightly understand the things which the Spirit either reveals or imparts. The natural man does not believe this. If you were to examine the opinions of a very large majority of those who are called Christians, they are either careless about the renovation of their own hearts, or they reject the doctrine altogether as a useless, unmeaning dogma. They fancy themselves virtuous and good, and that they are capable of making some amends for their disobedience of the law of God; they think that they will at some future time do some good thing that they may inherit eternal life, though their conscience often reproves them, after their best efforts, till they are ready to believe themselves but unprofitable servants. 3. What the Spirit requires. He requires of all men “ to turn from darkness to light, from the power of sin and Satan unto God.” The animal man may love his sin and persist in committing it, but this he cannot do with impunity, for God will bring him into judgment! There is a method by which that sin can be forgiven, its dominion destroyed, and its love eradicated from the soul; and that is by the atonement of Christ. If he refuse this means of repentance and sanctification he must die in his sins; there remains no other sacrifice for sins. The Spirit requires that men should receive Christ. All the information which He imparts to the mind concerning the purity, spirituality, and extent of the holy law of God; every conception which He enables the mind to form of the holiness of God, exhibited in that law; and all the humbling convictions which He produces upon the soul in a state of penitence, are intended by the Holy Spirit to prepare the sinner for the reception of Christ as a suitable and all-sufficient Saviour. The natural man does not receive these “ things of the Spirit of God.” He does not believe them. He calls them the words of God; but it is the language of the lip, not of the heart. III. The reason which the apostle assigns. “ They are foolishness unto him.” What dreadful havoc sin has made of the human soul l What haughty conduct towards God! How proud, how ignorant, and how unfeeling is the heart of man! This revelation was given to him for his instruction, to correct his errors and to remove his ignorance. After the divinity of this revelation had been fully and rationally ascertained, it was the duty of this rational being to submit to its teaching and decisions, without hesitation, thankful that God would condescend to instruct the undeserving and the sinner. The Spirit has revealed the infinite perfections of the Deity, so far as that revelation was connected with man’ s duty and happiness, in a manner likely to excite him to fear, venerate, love, and worship Him as the ever-blessed God. What the Spirit has revealed must limit his inquiries and check his presumption. Let him regard what the Spirit of the Lord declares in His Word, and seek an experimental knowledge of those “ heavenly blessings” which are provided in the new covenant for the penitent and believing. He does not understand them because they are “ spiritually discerned.” But the Spirit can and will restore the spiritual faculty if he will ask Him. Let him not call them “ foolishness” ; for the preparation of them was the highest manifestation of the wisdom and love of God. His not perceiving them is not to be considered as a reason why they are not good in themselves and suited to relieve his misery. This is to be traced to his want of spiritual vision, “ for sin has blinded his mind! (Wm. Jones.)The natural man blind to the things of the Spirit of God Set a man down on one of the jutting crags of the Andes, and with the shadows of midnight or the scarf of a morning mist hanging around him he sees nothing of the shaggy fantastic grandeur with which he is environed. He stands on one of the “ altar thrones” of creation, with the sweep of the firmament above him, and the jewelled earth beneath him; but until the sunshine sifts its radiance on his sightless eyeballs, darkness confused and confusing shuts him in on every side. So with the spirit world in its relation to the natural man. That world envelopes him like an atmosphere or sea of life, touching him at every avenue of soul and sense with its glory; but the perceptive faculty is wanting and he cannot behold it. The flashing skies are dark to his closed eyes. Neither can the dark mind see God. (J. Burton.)The ignorance of the natural man I. Explain the truth affirmed.1. Who is the natural man?2. What are the things he cannot receive nor know?3. Whence his incapacity? II. Confirm it.1. It was so in our Lord’ s day.2. In the times of the apostles.3. Is so now. III. Improve it. Learn--1. To appreciate Divine knowledge.2. How to seek it. 3. How to employ it. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Natural or spiritual The apostle knows of only two classes of men--natural and spiritual. Under “ natural,” he includes all who are not partakers of the Spirit of God, no matter how excellent they may be. On the other hand, all into whom the Spirit of God has come he calls spiritual men. I. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, but counts them foolish.1. Some oppose them violently, and do their best to put down such folly. 2. A greater proportion secretly despise and condemn. They dare say that religion is a good thing for old women, &c., but utterly repudiate it as a thing worthy the attention of wise men. 3. The great mass are indifferent. “ For forms of faith let graceless zealots fight, he can’ t be wrong whose life is in the right.” II. There is nothing whatever in the things themselves to justify such an estimation. You do not know what you say when you declare that the gospel of Christ is absurd. It is generally pretty safe to ask a man who rails at the Bible, “ Did you ever read it?” These learned gentlemen are like those critics who, when they meet with a new volume, take the knife and cut the first page, smell it, and then condemn or praise. The mightiest intellects confess that the truths of this book are above their highest flights. Even Newton said there were depths here which no mortal could fathom. As these things of the Spirit of God are wise and profound, so they are most important, and if not received, it is not because they are uncongenial with our necessities. There are some speculations which a man need not enter upon, but the doctrines of God teach you your relationship to your Maker; your condition before Him; how He can be just to man, and yet be gracious; how you can approach Him, and become His child; how you may be conformed to His image, and made a partaker of His glory. III. The reason for the rejection of the gospel.1. Want of taste. You have sometimes seen an artist standing before a splendid picture. “ What a fine conception!” says he, “ I could stand a week and admire that.” Some bumpkin, however, says, “ It looks to me to be an old decayed piece of canvas that wants cleaning.” Then leaving the gallery, he notices on the wall outside a picture of an elephant standing on his head, and a clown performing in some circus, and he says, “ That’ s more to my taste.” Just so is it with the natural man. Give him some work of fiction--a daub upon the wall--and he is satisfied. But he has no taste for the things of God. 2. Want of organs. Just as a blind man cannot appreciate a landscape nor a deaf man music; so the natural man lacking the eye and ear of faith cannot appreciate the beauties and music of the gospel. 3. Want of nature. The brute cannot appreciate the studies of the astronomer because he lacks an intellectual nature; and so the mere man of intellect cannot appreciate the things of the Spirit because he lacks a spiritual nature. IV. The practical truths which flow from this great though sorrowful fact.1. The absolute necessity for regeneration, or the work of the Spirit. You may educate a nature up to its highest point, but you cannot educate an old nature into a new one. You may educate a horse, but you cannot educate it into a man. You may by your own efforts make yourselves the best of natural men, but still at your very best there is a division wide as eternity between you and the regenerate man. And no man can help us out of such a nature into a state of grace. “ Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 2. If any of us have received the things of the Spirit, we ought to look upon that as comfortable evidence that we have been born again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Man’ s mortal inability to understand the things of the Spirit Note-- I. Some of those sublime and interesting truths which the natural man does not receive.1. The equity and goodness of the law of God, and the evil and desert of every transgression of it. 2. The suitableness and excellency of the method of redemption by Jesus Christ. 3. The necessity of union to Christ by faith as the source of holiness and strength. 4. The necessity of reconciliation to God and conformity to the Divine image to all true happiness both here and hereafter. II. The alarming extent to which this want of spiritual discernment prevails, and the inadequacy of the highest advantages to communicate it.1. We see some men endowed with great strength of mind, and their natural powers much improved by a liberal education, but they do not receive the things of the Spirit of God. 2. We observe other men who have great discernment and assiduity in the concerns of this life, and who discover a particular tact in the management of business, and considerable ability in improving the advantages afforded them of amassing wealth, but they receive not the things of the Spirit of God. 3. We see other persons favoured with the advantages of a religious education, but they have not received the things of the Spirit of God. 4. Some men have an undoubted conviction of the truth of the gospel, and their passions are occasionally moved with its important discoveries. Still, except a Divine change takes place in the heart, they do not receive the things of the Spirit of God. III. The important reflection which the subject suggests.1. That the disaffection of man to God is not accidental, or the result of some circumstances in which he is placed, but is an evil principle, natural to the whole species, and the consequence of the fall. 2. The great gratitude we owe to God for the gospel of His Son, as a discovery of enlightening and renewing grace, as well as of pardoning mercy. 3. The indispensable necessity of Divine influence in general, and in respect to our own personal experience in particular. 4. The importance of accompanying the means of grace with humble and earnest prayer. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)Spiritual discernment Not only have excellent photographs of the heavenly bodies been obtained, and an absolutely accurate picture of the skies obtained for permanent examination, but it has been found that the camera reveals stars invisible even with the aid of the most powerful telescope in existence. This is due to the fact that the camera is able by continued exposure to obtain an image of an object which may be so faint that a shorter exposure would give no image. This, of course, is a power the eye does not possess. It is equivalent to being able to see plainly by long gazing what cannot be seen at all by a brief inspection. A notable instance of this power is seen in photographs of the Pleiades, the group of stars mentioned in Job 36:31. Here a nebula is shown in the photograph which the eye cannot perceive in the sky, but which undoubtedly exists. Astronomers believe in the revelations of the camera, though they are not confirmed by actual observation. Their example may be commended to men who reject the inspired revelation of the Bible, and refuse to exercise faith when they are asked to accept spiritual truth not perceptible to the senses. (New York Sun.)Spiritual discernment I. There is nothing here which is not acknowledged and insisted on in every-day life. There are things that are only instrumentally discerned.1. Here is a large brilliant diamond, and you pronounce it to be without fault; but the lapidary gives you a magnifying glass of great power, and bids you look at the centre of the stone; and there sure enough you see a black spot. The lapidary says the naked eye can neither receive it nor know it because it is microscopically discerned. And nobody arises to say, “ Sir, you have introduced a painful mystery into human thought and inquiry.” People are rather glad that a medium has been supplied by which the hidden truth may be brought to light. 2. Yonder are two shining surfaces, and you say there must be a great fire there. The scientist who overhears you, however, says, “ One of those surfaces has no light at all.” “ But can’ t I believe my own eyes?” “ No,” he says, “ just look through this instrument--the polariscope--and now you see that the one surface was primary light and the other but reflected. The naked eye can neither receive nor know it because it is polariscopically discerned. And you thank him for the information.” 3. Yonder are two men who have undertaken a mineral survey. One is a mineralogist, the other a man who believes that if he cannot find things out with his naked eyes and fingers that nothing can or shall be found out. The former walks slowly over the ground holding in his hand a little crystal box, watching the instrument within. Presently the needle dips, and he says, “ There is iron here.” Can you see it, touch it? No. But the scientific man digs for iron and finds it, and then turns round to hear what the other has to say, and remarks, “ The senses cannot receive or know it, for it is magnetically discerned,” and then receives the confidence he deserves. 4. Look at this ruddy-faced boy. You cannot walk out with him, but he challenges you to leap a five-barred gate; and you say, “ What a vigorous lad! There will be a long life and a happy one.” A physician, however, drops in on your return, and hearing your verdict, applies an instrument to the region of the boy’ s heart, and then, taking you aside, says, “ He will never see five-and-twenty. He has had rheumatic fever and contracted valvular affection of the heart.” The untrained ear can neither receive it nor know it because it is stethoscopically discerned. Now in all these things we confess our need of instruments. Suppose that everything were taken away that cannot be discovered or read by the naked eye! Shut up the heavens, for astronomy must go; cover up the fields, for botany tells little to the naked eye. All science indeed would be impoverished and degraded. Yet the man who cannot read his own mother’ s letter without an eyeglass insists upon reading the infinite and eternal God by his unassisted powers. 5. The same principle holds good in spheres where instruments are not required. (1) Here are two men listening to the same piece of music. The one is inspired, enraptured, and says, “ I would this might go on for ever.” The other says, “ I wonder when they will be done.” The best ear cannot receive these things or know them, for they are musically discerned. The one man would be tormented if one note were the thousandth part of a shade wrong; but all the notes might be wrong so far as the other man knew. (2) Here are two men looking at the same picture. The one is chained to the spot; the other, with a thick shilling catalogue, does not see much in that, and hastens on to something that has superficies, no matter what the superficies may be: only let it be extensive enough. Paint for such men with a broom, II. The application of these things is to the things of God as accessible to the spirit of man. There are blind minds as well as blind eyes. “ Except a man be born again he cannot see.”1. As ministers, therefore, we are not to be discouraged because some people cannot understand us. There will always be men to whom the best preaching will be foolishness, because they have not the spiritual faculty. 2. Do we wish for this discernment? “ If ye being evil,” &c. “ If any man lack wisdom,” &c. (J. Parker, D. D.)Spiritual insight in possible to unspiritual men 1. No painter was ever yet so unwise as to submit his work to the criticism of a committee of blind men, however learned such men might have been in history, logic, or law. Igor has any company of blind men assumed to sit in judgment upon Murillo, Raphael, or Titian; still less that they have fallen to raving because their censorship in art had not been accepted as final. The men in the Patent Office in Washington, who examine the thousand models that yearly come to them, are men who have an eye for machinery. Men who did not know a wheelbarrow from a spinning-wheel could scarcely get an appointment to such a place. In general it matters not how much a man may know nor how keen his power of discernment in some other line of human thought or knowledge, men give little heed to his talk unless he has capacity and culture in the very things of which he assumes to be a critic and a judge. 2. The elements of our complex nature are many; and a man may be strong in some things and weak in others. Lord Macaulay was almost a blockhead in mathematics. Sir Isaac Newton had hardly patience enough to read the “ Paradise Lost” and only asked contemptuously, “ What does it prove?” Milton might very likely have asked the same of the “ Principia.” Many a great scientist has never been able to distinguish between the highest strains of music and any mere jargon of discordant sounds. Eminent lawyers and judges have been utterly blind to the beauties of the most perfect machinery, and many an inventive genius would have been utterly swamped in the commentaries of Blackstone. 3. Why, then, should it be thought any argument against the reality of spiritual things that here and there a man--with large genius for invention; for oratory; for science; for philosophy; for music; for art--has no appreciation for things unseen and eternal? It weighs less than a feather to him who revels in the demonstrations of geometry to know that hundreds of college students have never fully comprehended a single demonstration I “ Poor fellows!” is all he can say, “ I pity their obtuseness!” In like manner it weighs less than a milligramme to any Christian believer, whose soul has been illuminated from on high, that Darwin lived and died blind as a bat to all the glories of the spiritual universe. But unlike many another blind man, Darwin did, in a measure, realise his condition. He recognised the fact that his spiritual nature had died out! He calls it “ atrophy.” In his boyhood he had a consciously religious nature; in later years it was starved to death! He tells us, also, that in early life he had a poetical nature. That, too, had been famished. His soul had died--“ at the top!” Alas! how many another soul has died in the same way! Shall the Christian believer find his faith disturbed because of these great men whose souls have been lopped off? No! He still knows in whom he has believed. A blind man may tell me that he sees nothing in the glory of the evening sunset, or in Raphael’ s Transfiguration. “ Poor man!” I say, with deepest pity; that’ s all. I do not forthwith put out my own eyes, because he has put his out; or, peradventure, may have been born blind. God forbid! I only cherish my eyesight with the more thankfulness and care. When even Humboldt, Darwin, Ingersoll, and Renan tell me that they see nothing of the spiritual and Divine in this revelation of the Divine life and glory of the Christ of God among the sons of men--Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, Paul, John, and Luther, Knox, Wesley, Bunyan, and the unnumbered hosts of the Lord Almighty, will still continue to enjoy the seraphic vision and know whom they have believed. 4. A legislator may wisely study the Bible to help him in making laws. The historian may ponder its incomparable histories. The sociologist may turn over its leaves to find the profoundest teachings known to the world in his department. The lover of sublime and beautiful poetry may discover here some of the rarest gems that can be gathered from all the seas and from all the lands. But only the spiritual man can discern within these lids their choicest treasures of spiritual truth, and it would be passing strange if it were otherwise. What would your five-year-old boy think of conic sections, or your ten-months-old baby of a treatise on optics? “ I wonder what grandfather can find in that old book!--it’ s a very dull book to me.” So said a young man just entering college many years ago. But when the Spirit of God had opened his eyes, the young man marvelled no more at the absorption of his grandsire in the study of the old book, and himself lived to revel in its pages more than in all things else. Had sin never come, our vision had been clear. Oh, that every soul might cry out as Bartimeus, “ Lord, that I may receive my sight!” 5. “ What is the Bible?” Only Christian experience can fit any person to answer that question. I see a cherub of three short years over the way, and I ask, “ What is that child?” The analytic chemist will tell me how much oxygen, and hydrogen, and nitrogen, and phosphorus enter into the forty pounds of avoirdupois of that beautiful form. The anatomist will tell me the number of bones and muscles and the names of them all that enter into her perfect body. But you are the child’ s mother. And I ask you to tell me what she is. While I speak the angel of death has come, and she lies by your side a corpse. Her sweet face has a heavenly smile upon it, for she has had a vision of the Son of God, who has taken her into His arms. “ What is that child?” You need the gift of tongues to tell me. The lips cannot utter it; your tears even can scarcely suggest it. The love of father and mother alone can conceive the answer. “ What is the Bible?” Only he who has learned to love the Christ that shines through it can answer that question. And then his answer will grow as he grows, through all his years. He will find more in it as his experience deepens. The only proper test of the gospel of Christ is the trial of it. No soul was ever yet made worse by believing it. No Christian ever yet, as he came near to death, regretted his faith or recanted his trust in Christ. (E. B. Fairfield, D. D.)Unsanctified men cannot read the Bible to profit If you bring me a basket full of minerals from California, and I take them and look at them, I shall know that this specimen has gold in it, because I see there little points of yellow gold, but I shall not know what the white and the dark points are that I see. But let a metallurgist look at it, and he will see that it contains not only gold, but silver, and lead, and iron, and he will single them out. To me it is a mere stone, with only here and there a hint of gold, but to him it is a combination of various metals. Now take the Word of God, that is filled with precious stones and metals, and let one instructed in spiritual insight go through it, and he will discover all these treasures; while, if you let a man uninstructed in spiritual insight go through it, he will discover those things that are outside and apparent, but those things that make God and man friends, and that have to do with the immortality of the soul in heaven, escape his notice. No man can know these things unless the Spirit of God has taught him to discern them. (H. W. Beecher.)The ignorance of the natural man “ Suppose,” says an old divine, “ a geometrician should be drawing outlines and figures, and there should come in a silly, ignorant fellow, who, seeing him thus employed, should laugh at him; would the artist, think you, leave off his employment because of his derision? Surely not; for he knows that his laughter is hut the fruit of his ignorance, as not knowing his art, and the ground upon which it goes: and therefore he holds on drawing, though the fellow should hold on laughing.” The natural man’ s view One may be a diligent student of science and have a large acquaintance with the facts and forces, processes and laws of the physical universe, and yet be insensible to all by which its higher meanings are revealed. The man of this spirit may cultivate his fields with judicious husbandry, but all the harvest goes into the barn, or to market; none is for the soul He may note the season’ s circling course, but finds no meaning in their storied succession, save calls to a varied round of toil and use; no pulsings of a life Divine, no ebb and flow of supernal tides, bearing outward the flow of a Divine energy, and then with refluent flood coursing backward to the infinite deeps. He may view the stars, perhaps know their names, orders, distances, and seasons, but catches no glimpse of the Hand that moves them, nor hears the resonances of their silent song. He may climb the mountains, but it is only as tourist, or engineer, not as worshipper, or to find the uplands of God. (J. W. Earnshaw.)Spiritual discernment impaired Darwin gives an account of two blind men with whom he was in the habit of conversing for some years. They both told him that “ they never remembered having dreamed of visible objects after they became totally blind.” So, when men give themselves to lower and meaner things, the higher and nobler faculties of the soul come in to trouble them less and less. By and by the spiritual and the unseen is to them as though it were not. The natural versus the spiritual man Different persons shall stand before that Nature’ s wonder of wonders, the mighty cataract of Niagara, and how differently they will regard it and be affected by it! To one it will be simply an immense volume of water rushing down swift rapids and leaping a tremendous precipice, with stunning effect to the observant senses, but with no glory in its gliding, gleaming, plunging mass, and no music or meaning in its rhythmic roar. Another will be mainly impressed with the probable energy of the descending mass, and occupied with the problem of its utilisation. He will measure it according to the principles of hydro-dynamic science, and estimate what engines it would move, what machinery impel, and what work perform, if properly yoked, or what cities it would illumine, if converted into electricity, but find in it no power to draw the soul to God. Another, bringing to it a more aesthetic sensibility, will be impressed with its beauty and grandeur; but the beauty will be soulless, the grandeur only that of physical magnificence. But another shall bring to it a true spiritual sensibility, and to him it will open all its meaning, and become a wondrous revelation of the mighty power, grand designs, and sovereign laws of the infinite Creator, an apocalypse, through Nature transfigured in her own process, of Him who is Nature’ s God and soul; and awed into silence, or thrilled with adoring wonder, he will stand as before the Holy of holies of Nature’ s vast and solemn temple. The difference of impression and effect appears not only in relation to Nature’ s more majestic scenes, but to all, from the greatest and rarest to the lowliest and most common. Dull sensibility passes unheeding, but to a Cowper, a Wordsworth, a Bryant, or a Ruskin, the very heath hath a voice, and the desert shrub becomes aflame with God. And so, too, with those works of art in which God speaks to us as it were by an interpreter. Different persons shall view some masterpiece of painting. To one it will be but a representation of sensible forms, beautiful or unbeautiful as the case may be, and with pleasant or gruesome effect according to the subject. Another shall note its fidelity to nature or history, and feel the charm, life, and dramatic movement of the piece. But another shall catch the very meaning and spirit of the work, and see what the artist has not painted yet could not but represent; could not treat his subject faithfully and not bring into view the great white throne. And so with a poem, a piece of music, or a sermon. One shall catch but the thunder of the sound and sensuous effect. To another it shall have a certain articulate coherence, as it were the voice of an angel, sweet perhaps, perhaps sublime, but its meaning unresolved. While to yet another it shall penetrate the soul as a voice from the unseen, holy, touching responsive chords of spiritual sensibility, and quickening, uplifting, and purifying the very inmost life of the soul. (J. W. Earnshaw.) 1 Corinthians 2:15-16 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.The spiritual man I. His character.1. Enlightened.2. Born of God.3. Endued with the Spirit. II. His privileges.1. He judges all things.2. Is exalted above the judgment of others. III. The source and security of his happiness.1. Not natural.2. But Divine. He has the mind of Christ. (J. Lyth D. D.)The spiritual man I. His condition. “ Spiritual.” II. His discernment.1. Wherein it consists.2. To what it extends. III. His immunity from the judgment of others; because natural men--1. Cannot appreciate Divine things.2. Are incompetent to form a correct judgment upon them. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The spiritual man I. His power to judge--1. Arises out of an enlightened understanding.2. Extends to all matters affecting his religious well-being.3. And if not infallible, is guarded by the disposition to prove all things and hold fast that which is good.4. Hence he is preserved from all serious error. II. His immunity from judgment. He can despise the judgment of worldly men because they have no spiritual apprehension and their decisions are worthless, being over-ruled by the testimony of the Spirit within him. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Authority in matters of religion The religious or spiritual man, then, is characterised not by taking his religion from other men, not by living on a decision formed by others, but by a personal, private judgment of his own. Religious truth, like other truth, nay, much more than other truth, is a personal conviction, and not merely a conviction, but a judgment, part of man’ s own rational being--the very life of his rational being--that in which he looks out upon and judges of men and things, when he is most conscious of exercising his own faculties. Nay, more than this, he holds this truth, not merely on his personal private judgment, but with a certain strenuous insistence upon its independence in the face of other men, even within the Christian society.1. What is the antithesis to this tenure in conscious, personal, and rational judgment of religious truth? It cannot be what is impossible that we should hold a body of truth on the external authority of the Church, while it does not commend itself to our own deliberate judgment. We cannot disbelieve a thing in our own mind and accept it on an authority external to us. The most that is possible is that a man should take a body of truth as summarised in Church formulas, and without letting his mind work upon it at all, simply passively accept it, and externally laud it and conform to it. And no man can for a moment suppose that such an attitude towards religious truth is the attitude of the Christian. No religious truth, then, is held rightly “ as a spiritual man” should hold it, which is held as a mere external dogma positively accepted. It is held only then in a way worthy of our personal responsibility when it is held with active personal apprehension, as that which is an indelible and irrefutable part of our own deliberate conviction, in the light of all the facts of experience. 2. But it is only in our shallowest moments that we shall suppose this repudiation of absolute and unconditional authority, which leaves room for an exercise of our judgment, to involve in any sense the repudiation of authority at all, or the denial that truth should be held finally on mere external authority, to involve the rejection of external authority from its proper place in the formation of our mind. Indeed, those portions of the truth which do not come under the verification of our own faculties, must permanently be held on external authority, but the authority itself must then come under verification. In no part of our life do we live so much by authority and legitimately in its own sphere as in scientific matters. I accept, for example, with no hesitation, a body of truths in physics which are considered well established, the evidence for which I not only could not produce myself, but though I believe it exists, I am, through want of sufficient training and capacity in mathematics, incapable even of understanding and appreciating. But I accept the results because on other grounds where scientific reliability is put to a test intelligible to the uninitiated, I am able to verify it, The verifications general and particular open to ordinary men appear to be quite as valid of their kind in the sphere of religion as in the sphere of science. But in religion, as in science, the authority verified in general must cover particulars beyond the scope of our personal verification. It is, for example, only reason to take on the authority of Christ truths about the future which cannot come under our present cognisance, if we have reason to believe that they come under His. But the true relation of authority and private judgment, in matters of religion, appears more clearly on a more cognate subject, the subject of morals. In morals there is a commonly recognised standard from which a man could not differ without being looked upon with almost universal suspicion--say, on the subject of personal purity and truthfulness. We hold up before each generation as it rises this authoritative standard, this “ norma” of moral truth. We do not tell a man as he grows up not to think on moral subjects, not to exercise his own private judgment, but we do tell him that if he exercises it in every way aright he will arrive at an agreement with the authoritative “ norma,” though the norma is a very old one, which has not materially varied since Christianity first illuminated the moral conscience of mankind, and though on non-theological ground, the basis of this moral dogma is not easily formed and stated--and if a man comes to a conclusion on morals counter to the established dogmas of purity and truth, we condemn him, not for having exercised his private judgment, but for having exercised it wrongly, conformity to the highest standard of mankind on a particular subject being taken as the test of right thinking on that subject. Indeed, unless we are prepared to identify self-will with the exercise of will, and license with liberty, and eccentricity with strength of character, we have no justification at all for putting private judgment as a contradiction to orthodoxy. The place of authority, then, is primarily and mainly in helping us to form our own judgment, We ought to bring our thoughts and feelings, our desires, into the light of the established and recognised authority, which may provisionally, and in the light of common experience, be regarded as expressing the collective wisdom, and setting the standard on the subject, whether of taste, knowledge, or religion. Our judgment ought not to be formed in an isolated, individualistic manner. It is out of committing ourselves to authority that right reason normally and naturally grows. Behind holy teachers, behind our mother’ s influence, there should be the great mother, the “ mother of us all.” To receive in the Church of Christ in earliest years--in education, at the time of our confirmation--a body of truth, a system of practice emphasising and embodying holiness of life, to receive it on her loving authority, and to grow up, as our faculty develops, into the intellectual recognition of her truths and practices on our own judgment--this is the moral growth of man. 3. The general principle of authority admits of a great variety of applications in matters of religion. Let us apply it to one particular state of mind. There is a very widely spread fear of committing oneself in matters of religion. A man is often deeply impressed with the need of religion. He has little doubt that the Christian life is what he wants, and to his practical judgment it appears reasonably clear that the Christian life is indissolubly bound up with the Christian motives, and that Christian motives derive their only force from positive and supernatural facts. Why, indeed, should anybody deem that the life can be severed from the truth which has moulded the life? Christian holiness has reigned supreme and final in the world of morals since its origin. And it has come down indissolubly bound up with its environment of doctrines, sacraments, ministries in the Christian society. In the strength, more or less, of these thoughts, there is many and many a man who feels the attraction of the Christian Church: its appeal. It seems the true home of what is best in him and those about him. But it is so much to commit oneself to--is it all true?--Crede ut intelligas is the Church’ s reply. The understanding of spiritual things can result only from experience, and experience involves faith as its basis. “ If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” “ This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.” The self-committal of faith must precede and be the basis of the satisfaction of the intellect. Well, is this unreasonable? Does it not appear on a little reflection that taking things on trust does in every department of life precede verification? The pure Pyrrhonist who professes to regard certainty about anything as unreasonable is the only person in theory who rejects the ultimate basis of faith. In the commonest knowledge of external nature is involved the taking on trust an objective reality which corresponds to the imitations of sensation. “ It was pointed out,” Mr. Spencer says, “ when treating of the data of philosophy, that we cannot take even a first step (in knowledge)without making assumptions, and that the only course is to proceed with them as provisional, until they are proved true by the congruity of all the results reached. Apply this principle to the sphere of religion, where its application is more complete, and it gives just what we want, the crede ut intelligas. And do we suppose that we are in danger of really dwarfing our capacities for originality, our faculties of criticism, by such temporary suppression of them? On the contrary, is not the principle which Hegel used to inculcate in regard to education profoundly true--that we empoverish and reduce our faculties by a premature exercise of criticism, judgment, originality? Will, not intellect, is the basis of life. Self-conscious intellect belongs to the second stage, not the first. Faith is as legitimate a faculty of man as intelligence. It has its special exercise in realising man’ s moral and spiritual being. Why should we be ashamed of it? Why should it be apologised for? Thou shalt understand, but thou must first believe. 4. The scheme of Christian truth coheres. To a Christian believer who has advanced to any measure of understanding the whole is one and indissoluble. He recognises that it would be unreasonable to pick and choose; he recognises the coherence of the same sort of means by which we recognise the similar connection, far beyond our personal knowledge, in the department of science. Thus he abides under the shelter of the whole creed. He takes it on trust as a whole. The Christian Church seems to his spiritual faculties eminently trustworthy. He waits while the “ Spirit leads him into all the truth.” That is, he waits while in the growing experience of life, in the vicissitudes of failure and success, of joy and suffering, of growth and manhood, point by point, the truth becomes realised to his experience and his understanding. What was obscure is cleared up. What might have seemed at one time unnecessary is seen to have been wanted. If anything remains yet outside the sphere of his own personal verification, the processes of his past life warrant him in believing that the future will give it its place. There comes to hand--at this moment in a recent biography--a beautiful instance of the way in which one who stood wholly outside the Christian creed, and, as far as can be judged, by little or no fault of her own, came gradually within the bosom of the Church of Christ, and knew her Lord. Ellen Watson was a brilliant mathematician. When at the age of twenty she was a pupil of Professor Clifford, at University College, in London, and loved with the deepest respect and affection to speak of him as “ the Master,” he in his turn had a high admiration of her abilities, “ believing,” as we are told, “ that she possessed the rare faculty for doing original work in his science; indeed, he even looked forward to her becoming known some day as a discoverer or originator in mathematics.” Her position in regard to religion at that time is thus described: “ The one absorbing passion of her mind was the love of positive truth, and this love was guarded by an almost severe morality of the intellect, which made her fear, above all things, every kind of illusion and self-deception. She dreaded, as an intellectual sin, the giving to a wish or a hope or a dream of the imagination the subject and influence of a conviction. Mathematics, by its strictly logical conclusions, and natural science, by its severe experimental tests, commended themselves to her high intellectual integrity as the greatest and best of all teaching, while at the same time they best satisfied the craving for positive truth which filled her soul, so that she delighted in resting on their conclusions as on an immovable basis. ‘ I do not need religion,’ she often said at that time; ‘ science thoroughly satisfies me.’ For, judged only as to the satisfaction afforded to the reason, religion appeared, by the side of positive science, as a collection of dim, uncertain facts mixed with conceptions of the imagination.” The certainty of science “ gave peace to her intellectual conscience; all else seemed misty--delusive.” Within five years she died at Grahamstown, but with words very different on her lips, the words of triumphant faith and praise which make up the Church’ s “ Gloria in excelsis,” and with the Church’ s viaticum for her journey into the unseen world. The biography is mainly an account of the converson of her mind. It was a progress without a break. She lost nothing she had ever had. No part of her hold on scientific truth, her trust in scientific method, ever vanished. She did but, as she described it, gradually wake up in a larger world and found that the spiritual truths which she held by faith, though reached, it is true, by a different process, were still the “ crowning knowledge of all that she had won before, perfecting and completing what was otherwise rudimentary and broken.” The premature death of her master, Clifford, and the discipline of sorrow and suffering, rudely shattered the completeness which she had at first assigned to the life in the mere visible world. The imparious exigencies of an awakened spirit forced her into the sphere of spiritual and supernatural facts. The recognition of the Divine Fatherhood came slowly but surely upon the mind. Through Divine Fatherhood came the belief in the Divine Sonship manifested in Christ, and while she was yet far off any clear grasp of the accuracies of the Christian faith, the Christian Church presented itself to her as embodying the truth, and satisfying man’ s obvious need for order, for spiritual shelter, for unity. She had none of that intellectual vanity which keeps clever people from confessing themselves wrong; none of that pride which makes us preserve our isolation. She desired to have perfect fellowship with the common Christian life. She accepted the Church in practice. She presented herself for confirmation. She sought and found in South Africa the fellowship of the saints in the Church. Authority presented itself to her, and was accepted by her just in the shape of something which embodied what her soul wanted. She recognised the truth, so hard to the natural will, that we must surrender ourselves, merge ourselves, if we are to find our true selves. (C. Gore, M. A.)Spiritual judgment The epithet pneumatikos as applied to believers is significant and comprehensive. It does not mean rational as opposed to sensual. It is the indwelling of the Spirit that gives character to the believer. The Spirit has an illuminating power, so that new discernment is imparted to the soul. This does not arise from light shed on the object, but from the effect produced on the mind. Its faculty of vision is restored; its eyes are opened. Before it was blind--not rationally so as not to perceive truth in its logical relations, nor morally so as to be insensible to moral distinctions, but spiritually so that it cannot discern the things of the Spirit. The case of the Jews in their judgment concerning Christ is an example. They saw that He was a wise man, that He was just, benevolent, and kind. They understood His words, but had no such discernment of His character as enabled them to see the glory of God as it shone in Him. The effect, therefore, produced in the mind is the ability to discern the things of the Spirit. Hence-- I. There is a coincidence of judgment between the believer and God. What God declares to be true the believer sees to be true. He acquiesces in the judgment of God as to sin, the method of salvation, the person of Christ, the doctrines of grace, the reality and importance of eternal things. So in his judgments of men. Those whom God approves the believer approves. This is the ground--1. Of the unity of faith among believers.2. Of the unity of fellowship; so that all Christians recognise each other.3. Of the authority of the Church, and of the only legitimate authority of tradition.4. Why schism is a sin. II. There is also a coincidence of feeling, i.e., the spiritual love what and whom God loves, and hate what and whom God hates. The friends of God are their friends. This is the reason why they have a common experience, and why they love each other as brethren. III. There is a conformity in the life of the believer with the will of God. He does what is in accordance with the mind of the Spirit. This is the ground of the community of worship. They all walk by the same rule and worship the same God and Saviour. IV. All relievers are united so as to form one body. (C. Hodge, D. D.)Spiritual judgment its range. I. “ He that is spiritual judgeth all things.”1. It is not said that he judges all men, or any man; he has his opinion as to their views; but in regard to their persons, “ to their own Master they stand or fall.” “ Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Spiritual judgment, then, has to do not with persons, but with things. Still, does it absolutely judge all things? It is clear that it will not make a man acquainted with the truths of science, or the facts of history, or the details of business. Many a great statesman has had very little spiritual judgment. It will not make a man a skilful Biblical critic, nor a profound theologian. 2. Paul speaks of those things which come within the sphere of the spiritual nature. The Spirit of God reveals to the soul a world which lies both within the present and outside it. It is in a hidden chamber whose existence we dimly felt, but which God’ s Spirit makes known to us; and this chamber has in it a window which looks out on a new and infinite universe. We do not know ourselves, our fall and possible rise, our sin and salvation, until we are taken in there. This world may seem to those who have not been in it a narrow and poor and almost non-existent thing. But to those who have lived in it, it grows in certainty as its life grows, and it deepens and expands and rises, until it penetrates and comprehends the natural world on every side. II. Its independence--“ he himself is judged of no one.”1. This does not mean that the spiritual man is beyond the judgment of others when he has contravened human law. Nor is he exempt from judgment in his spiritual life. He can never be freed from the judgment of God, and his fellow-Christians may have it in their power to instruct and correct his judgment. And then, again, any man of the world can judge a Christian man’ s conduct, so far as it comes before the outward eye; he can approve it or he can condemn it, and he has a right to do so. 2. What, then, is meant by “ he is judged of no man” ? (1) The apostle is speaking of an inward, spiritual region into which the Christian man has been introduced by God’ s Spirit, and of the judgments which natural men, who have no experience of it, may form of it, and of him as he lives in it. (2) Perhaps the best way of illustrating this is to take Paul himself, and see how he had a whole world within him removed from the judgment of natural men around. Take (a) the great truth of salvation by grace without the works of the law. It was looked on by many then and since as an immoral doctrine. But they could not understand that in receiving this free grace there is a new nature received, the motions of which are always saying, “ How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (b) Neither could he be judged as to the way his new life was supported. Men saw the persecutions, &c., to which he was exposed. The world could not understand how the spirit in him was sustained, and rose up in fresh flames of consuming zeal. (c) The mere natural man could not understand the happiness of his life. Let us only think of this chain which begins with hope and ends with it, like two golden nails fixed to the gate of heaven, while the links hang down into all the trials of life, which are touched and turned to gold by their Divine fastenings (Romans 5:2-5). Now this was not peculiar to the apostle. The experience of most Christian men will fall very far short of that of the apostle, but it is the same in kind; and they have a right to set this inner world, in which their spirit is living and moving, against all the arguments which the outer can advance. III. Its guidance and tests.1. It must never separate itself from its source--God’ s Spirit acting through God’ s Word. The spiritual judgment, if it is to be sound, can never be cut off from this fountainhead. “ The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple,” &c. But in order to this there are two things to be observed. (1) We must not form our judgment on single texts, but on the breadth of Scripture--the letter may kill, the spirit gives life; and I know no better way of reaching the breadth of Scripture than by carrying it up in its final issue to the Lord Jesus Christ. Many things that are doubtful become simple when we ask, What would the example and spirit of Christ lead us in this case to say and do? (2) We must ask the guidance of the Spirit which gave the Word, and which kindled any light in us that we may possess. To ask the Author of the book to explain it is the true way of being guided aright (Psalms 25:6). 2. After this guidance from the Source, there is that which we may receive from the new nature formed within, and from the growth of it in obedience to God’ s will. (J. Ker, D. D.)The spiritual man unknown to the world We have here-- I. A spiritual character. The “ natural man” is man in his unregenerate state, under the power and influence of those principles and affections which are natural; the spiritual man is man renewed by the Spirit of God.1. Spiritual men have-- (1) Spiritual appetites: they hunger and thirst after righteousness. (2) Spiritual senses, which are exercised to discern good and evil; spiritual eyes--they can see Him on His throne; spiritual ears--they can hear His voice. (3) Spiritual lips--they show forth His praise. (4) A spiritual taste--and therefore they can savour the things of God. 2. Let us particularise, and lay down a few tests by which the spiritual may be known. As regards-- (1) The thoughts. They cluster around the Cross. Evil thoughts may enter, but they enter either by fraud or force. But they enter the mind of the natural man as friends and acquaintances. (2) The desires. “ There be many that say, Who will show us any good?” They seek their happiness in the things of time and sense only. But “ the spiritual” pray, “ Lord, hit Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon me.” These desires in the Christian may not arise so high as he could wish; but this is the current in which they flow, the end to which they move. (3) Gratitude. If ever a natural man feels anything like gratitude it is for some temporal favour. Now a spiritual man overlooks none of God’ s mercies. He blesses Him for his daily bread, but much more for heavenly bread. He blesses God for his civil freedom, but above all for the freedom with which the Son hath made him free. (4) The use of creature possessions. A natural man only uses them as bodily gratification; or, if mentally, as objects of curiosity and science. But a spiritual man sees God in everything. (5) Association. While here, we must have to do with the world; otherwise we must needs go out of it. But a spiritual man, when he is entirely free, will say with David, “ I am a companion of all them that fear Thee, and of them that love Thy name.” (6) Conversation. Spiritual discourse to a natural man is always uninviting, and even irksome. But the spiritual man encourages it and is at home in it. (7) Devotional exercises. The spiritual man does not draw nigh to God with his lips while his heart is far from Him. II. An attribute attached to this character. “ The spiritual judgeth” (i.e., discerns)“ all things.” This must be qualified by being taken with four limitations. “ All things” mean religious things, and apply--1. To religious things only. True religion tends to make men wiser in other things--by arousing their faculties, by exciting their energies, by inducing them to redeem their time; but Paul does not refer here to the knowledge of nature, arts, science, &c., but to “ the things of the Spirit,” the things which are of God.” 2. Only to religious things that are revealed. “ Secret things belong to God,” &c. 3. To religious things only of importance. Everything in religion is not equally momentous, though it is equally true. What you are required to know is not the decrees of God, but His commands; His promises, rather than His prophecies. A man may be spiritual and yet not able to judge what kind of creature the leviathan was; or know where is the locality of Ophir, or the length of a Jewish cubit. A man may be able to open the seals and blow the trumpets--that is, in his own imagination-and be no nearer to the kingdom of God than before. 4. Only to the knowledge of these comparatively; not absolutely and completely. For who by searching can find out God--who can find out the Almighty to perfection? Paul, after knowing so much of Christ for so many years, says, “ That I may know Him.(See also Ephesians 3:18-19.)III. A distinction. “ Yet he himself is judged of no man.”1. This distinction must be exemplified. (1) You have, perhaps, acquired a certain art, and a person, ignorant of the art, calls in question your proficiency in it, and you say, “ I am not to be judged of by such as you.” How could Handel be judged of properly by a novice in the principles of music? How could a statesman, in executing the complex concerns of a whole nation, be judged of by a man not able to manage his own family, or even himself? (2) It is always difficult to judge a man religiously. For we are ignorant of the heart and of a thousand things which may tend either to extenuate or condemn. For a man may be conscientious in certain things in which he is condemned. Therefore our Saviour says, “ Judge not,” and afterwards applauds judgment. “ Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (3) But the spiritual is absolutely inexplicable to the natural man. “ He is a new creature,” and not, therefore, to be judged of by the old rules and principles of natural men. He knows them, but they know not Him! He has been in their condition, but they have not been in His! 2. The spiritual are, therefore, said to be “ men wondered at.” (1) Others may think it strange that we “ run not with them to the same excess of riot” ; but they know not what it is that has weaned us from it all, viz., the discovery of something infinitely superior. (2) They wonder, that you, should find such delight in the exercises of the Lord s day. While they say, “ What a weariness it is!--when will it be over?” you are “ made joyful in the house of prayer.” (3) Their experience under affliction often perplexes the people of the world. They see their afflictions, but they do not see their consolations. (4) Their conduct is often equally puzzling to them. They wonder to see them following a course which exposes them to endure reproach and self-denial. They know not the lever that moves them, and are unacquainted with the machine--the love of Christ--that sets all in motion. (5) Neither can they judge of the system of doctrine which they hold. It may seem to them as though they may “ continue in sin that grace may abound.” But no, they hate the very “ appearance of evil.” How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?” Conclusion:1. Our subject accounts for Christians not being very ready to communicate to men of the world of their religion and experience. They would not understand it. David said, “ Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul.” They could relish it, but others could not. 2. Christ accounts for the divers misrepresentations of Christians by men of the world. “ The world knoweth them not,” although they are very free in speaking of them. Let us learn, then, to be indifferent as to the judgment of the world. 3. But is there nothing by which the people of the world may judge you who are spiritual? Yes. They can judge of-- (1) Your talents. They may, perhaps, be able to say to you, “ You think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” (2) Your outward condition, and know that you live above your income, and that you had better lower some of your sails. (3) Your consistency as professors of religion. “ What do ye more than others?” You profess more than others, and you are to be judged of by your own pretensions. (4) The moral and practical effects of your feelings and experience. You should, therefore, seek to abound in all the fruits of righteousness, and to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. (W. Jay.)The spiritual faculty Nothing seems at first sight more reasonable than to expect that a revelation which is intended for all mankind should rest on such evidence as can be appreciated by all men. How otherwise can it be universal? Surely the evidence ought to be such as to bear the fullest and strictest investigation by all sound intellects; it ought to be impossible for any one who reasons exactly to fail to reach the right conclusion. Nay, there seems to be not only truth but justice in this claim. The revelation professes to be made not to perfect but imperfect men, not to the holy but to the sinful. To send such a revelation to men who have some peculiar power of appreciating the evidence for it, and to make the reception of it depend on their exercise of that power, seems to contradict not only rational expectation but the demands of equity. How are sinners to be saved if the means of their salvation cannot reach them on account of something in the very sinfulness from which it is the purpose to deliver them? Ought not religious knowledge to be treated as all other knowledge is treated? Ought it not to be considered a branch, in fact, of natural science? Ought not its evidence to be subjected to the same kind of investigation; ought not its basis to be observed facts, handled by strict reasoning; ought not its truth or falsehood to be decided in precisely the same way as the truth or falsehood of any other assertions. Nevertheless, in spite of all this, which is undeniably weighty, we find the revelation which we have received distinctly declining to submit its claims for recognition to these conditions. It appeals to a distinct faculty from those which decide on the truth or falsehood of assertions concerning the laws of nature. It insists that the spiritual man who accepts its teaching, while still keeping all his natural faculties and capable as ever of judging all questions which those natural faculties can handle and determine, has in him a faculty of judging of spiritual truth which is either wanting or dormant or possibly dead in others. It declares with St. Paul that if the gospel be hid it is hid to those who are blinded. How, then, can we call this reasonable or fair? Now, as regards the reasonableness, it must be plain that even in regard to natural phenomena there is a vast difference between one observer and another, and that not only as between the trained observer and the untrained, but between the capacity of one man for being trained and the capacity of another. There are men who cannot see for themselves the facts on which the inferences of science are based, and some cannot even see them when aided by having them pointed out by men of clearer sight than themselves. The conclusions rest on observations in the making of which men differ in power from one another, and, nevertheless, no man is allowed to plead that because his faculties cannot discern the fact, therefore the fact is no fact at all. Now, the same thing is unquestionably true as regards the fundamental facts of all real religion. The claim that the intellect and not the spiritual faculty shall judge of the truth or falsehood of a religious revelation is a claim that bad men and good men, men with aspirations to holiness and men content with their own moral and spiritual condition and desiring nothing higher, shall be on precisely the same level. And this is not so, and never can be so. The man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness sees truths which are not seen by men who have no such hunger nor thirst. He not only knows better what is meant by the beauty of self-sacrifice, of holiness, of unearthliness, but he knows too and sees as others do not see the eternity and supremacy of these things. And the perception of these facts makes an enormous difference in the inferences which he perpetually draws from the sum total of the facts before him. He draws different inferences because he takes into account different premises. He sees that the inferences drawn from the partial premises which alone are within the reach of bodily observation are of necessity incomplete, and be cannot be content with them. The question, whether there is a God at all, whether the Bible comes from Him, whether the history told in the New Testament is a true history, have to be determined with due regard to the insight which he ever has within himself into the eternal nature, into the absolute sovereignty, into the more silent but imperative command of the great law of duty. This will demonstrate to him the existence of God; this will largely determine his judgment on the true nature of the Bible; this will never be forgotten in his estimate of the historical truth of the New Testament. The value which he attaches to particular human testimony, the degree in which he will allow the possibility of exceptions to those generalisations which we call the laws of nature, but which after all are nothing but generalisations, must be and must rightly be gravely affected by his looking at the evidence taken as a whole from the point of view which belongs to his spiritual character. If his premises are different, it is inevitable that his conclusions must be different also. So true is this and so sure is the operation of the spiritual character upon the hold that a man has on religious truth, that we can trace it not only in the decision of the great question of all, Shall we believe in a God or not? but in the acceptance of particular doctrines contained in the revelation we have received. Thus, for instance, the doctrine of our Lord’ s Atonement is grasped with a strength by some Christians which is not to be traced in the convictions of others. And if we search for the reason we always find it in the conflict which these men have had to pass through which others have not known. St. Paul, from the agony of his struggle with his own lower nature, came to the Cross with a passionate conviction of his need of a Saviour which we cannot find expressed with the same fervour in any other writings than his. The man whose inner life has been comparatively calm and who has known nothing of such violence of battle, will not see with the same vividness that the Cross of Christ is his one hope, and while accepting the doctrine will not place it at the very height of all his faith. The varying spiritual characters give an insight into varying aspects of spiritual truth, but without the spiritual character such insight cannot be. When, therefore, it is seen that religious men decide differently from other men questions which have to be decided on evidence, there is nothing in this that is contrary to reasonable expectation. They are, of course, liable to make mistakes in the inferences, just as all men are liable to make mistakes. But the difference in their conclusion is not due to the fact that they reason differently from others, and set aside the ordinary canons of inference. It is due to their taking into account certain premises which others disregard and cannot help disregarding. But to deal with the other demand, namely, that a revelation to sinners ought to be appreciable to sinners: it is to be observed that the revelation was never intended to work mechanically without any demand on the moral action of those to whom it was made. It was intended to be effectual on those who were willing to use it, and, therefore, it was made to be appreciated in accordance with that willingness. It was offered to all, but it was offered without relieving or being intended to relieve any from responsibility for his own life. The responsibility of every individual moral being is a fundamental religious truth, never to be set aside. And in order that this responsibility may be complete, it must extend not only to action in obedience to revelation when accepted, but to the act of acceptance itself. Men shall not be prevented from accepting it because they have sinned; provided there still remain the power of longing for higher things, even though that longing be of the faintest and the feeblest. The revelation of God meets the aspiration of man. Where there is the upward spring of the soul, even though that soul be in the very blackest depths of evil, there shall penetrate the power of the voice of God, and shall give force to the effort, and shall touch the heart, and shall clear the insight, and shall revive the conscience, and shall make the will the master of the life, to go on ever and to go on upwards, in spite of falls and failures many, to the very presence of God Himself. But if now it be asked what judgment can be formed of those who, notwithstanding, have come to the conclusion that the revelation is not true, the answer is plain, no judgment can be formed by us. We are speaking all this time not of the application of the laws of the spiritual world to individual men, but of the laws as they are in themselves. It is conceivable that a man’ s spiritual faculty may be palsied by the concentration of his mind on the phenomena of sensible things. The possibilities travel beyond our conceptions, and leave us unable to say what exceptions to His general rules our heavenly Father may make. Of this we are sure, to begin with, that His justice is absolute, and we are told expressly that when all secrets are revealed this also shall be plainly seen. But until that day we must be content, in spite of apparent contradictions, to leave all judgment on men’ s souls absolutely to Him. These arguments are not to enable us to judge others, but to enable us with strong certainty to live in our own faith, and to show us in what direction we are to seek for that which will confirm that faith in us and aid the formation of that faith in others. There is nothing which will help either others or ourselves more than the perpetual reiteration of the majesty, of the eternity, of the supremacy of that which is the very essence of the nature of God Himself, the law of duty. (Bishop Temple.)For who hath known the mind of the Lord?… But we have the mind Of Christ. The mind of God is I. Unfathomable. His thoughts are--1. Vast.2. Unsearchable.3. Unbiased. II. Disclosed to His servants.1. In Christ.2. By His Spirit.3. Through faith. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The mind of Christ We may have the mind of Christ--1. Representatively. The minds of great men represent themselves-- (1) Through the character of their disciples. Jesus put His disciples in possession of His mind--both its great ideas and governing sympathies. They faithfully represented His mind to others. They died; but their followers, in their turn, transmitted the mind which they received. We look at the true Church, and we can see in it the mind of Christ. (2) Through literature. A man’ s book is a kind of second incarnation of himself. Thus the mind of Jesus has come down to us in the New Testament. (3) In their historic influence. Christ’ s mind has come down to us in this way. 2. Personally. Christ has distinctly assured us that He--not His mere influence, but Himself--is with His Church always, even unto the end, to enlighten, sanctify, guard, and strengthen it. This fact gives the Bible a wonderful advantage over other books. I take up the work of a departed author, and I find many things which I cannot understand, but I have no help. But when I take up the Bible--though it has been written for centuries--its Author is by my side. If we have the mind of Christ, then-- I. Whether we rightly act in relation to that mind or not, our obligation is immense. Our obligation is ever regulated according to the powers and privileges with which Heaven has endowed us. “ Unto whom much is given, of them much will be required.” In connection with this principle note--1. That the most precious thing in the universe is mind. Matter, in all its forms of life and beauty, is but the creature, symbol, and servant of mind. One human soul, though tabernacling in poverty, is of more essential worth than the sun. The sun has no feeling, thought, volition; it can neither form an idea of itself, nor of its Author. But the feeblest moral mind has all this, and can do all this, 2. That the most precious mind in the universe is the mind of Christ. (1) All human minds are not of the same relative value. The minds of such men as Newton, Bacon, Milton are worth the aggregate mind of their age. But he who is instrumental in restoring one soul to moral truth and God, may do a greater work for the universe than he who corrects a hundred inferior minds. But the most majestic intellects bear no comparison with the mind of Christ; His mind was “ the image of the invisible God.” (2) Now nothing enhances our responsibility so much as connection with minds of a high and holy order. But contact with the mind of Christ enhances our responsibility a thousandfold. “ If I had not come, and spoken unto them, they had not had sin,” &c. “ This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,” &c. II. If we act rightly in relation to that mind, the effects on our character will be most glorious. There are three great blessings which will result.1. Mental vivacity. Mind is the quickener and developer of mind. The amount of vital energy and impulse, however, which one mind is capable of imparting to another will, perhaps, generally depend upon two conditions. (1) The character of the subjects of intercourse. Where they are tame commonplaces or vague abstractions, but a small amount of impulse will be imparted; but where they are of an opposite character, a powerful effect may be expected. (2) The native vigour of the mind that presents these subjects. The most moving subjects will produce little effect when presented by a lifeless mind; but where there is great native energy in the soul of the communicator, in any case, there must be a powerful effect. Now you have just these two conditions in the highest form in connection with the mind of Christ. His mind is life and light--condensed energy and focal flame. His mind broke the mental slumbers of humanity, put the world in action, and gave it an impulse that shall go on accumulating for ever. He, therefore, who is rightly connected with the mind of Christ must be a man of mental earnestness. A sleepy-minded Christian is a solecism--a contradiction. 2. Moral assimilation. “ He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.” Fellowship with a pre-eminently spiritual, holy, humble, benevolent, and devout mind is eternally incompatible with worldliness, impurity, pride, selfishness, and impiety. 3. True happiness. Christ’ s mind does two things towards human happiness. (1) It removes all obstructions. Sin is the great obstruction, and the great work of Christ is “ to lint away sin” ; to put it away in its-- (a) Idea form--the intellectual errors of men are sources of misery. (b) Disposition form--the wrong and conflicting dispositions of men are sources of misery. (c) Guilt form--the sense of guilt upon the conscience is a sore element of distress. (2) It supplies the necessary condition of happiness. A suitable object of supreme love. Our supreme affection is the fountain of our happiness; but for the supreme affection to yield perfect happiness it must be free from all moral defects, capable of helping us in all the contingencies of our being, ever reciprocating our affections, and one which will continue with us for ever. In Christ we have all this, and nowhere else. If, then, we are in right connection with the mind of Christ, we are happy. Melancholy and gloom are foreign to Christianity. (D. Thomas, D. D.)“ The mind of Christ” A wonderful property, even for an apostle! And if it is within our reach that man must be a fool who does not give his mind to consider what it is, and how it is to be obtained. The expression is a full one--for you may take the words and actions of a man, and still fall short of his mind. For that is his spirit, the motive which actuates him, the feeling which moulds his conduct, the inner life which gives tone and character to his outer being. So you might copy Christ’ s example, and speak and act like Christ--but all the while be unable to say, “ I have the mind of Christ.” Note-- I. What the constitution of “ The mind of Christ” was.1. It was altogether human. It is an idle thought that the body of Christ was human, but the spirit or mind of Christ, was Divine. That which is Divine, being always infinite, is incapable of any growth or increase. But Christ “ increased in wisdom.” So complete was Christ’ s emptying of Himself here for our sakes that His mind became subject to all the laws by which our intellect is governed. 2. This is necessary for the truth of the history, to the integrity of His humanity, for the perfectness of His sympathy and power, for His being an exemplar that we may imitate. II. How did the human mind of Jesus become that sublime and perfect thing it was? He had “ the Spirit without measure.”1. This thought is the connecting link which unites our little minds with His. For this is exactly Paul’ s reasoning. “ The spirit which is of God” is identified with the mind of Christ. That soul of Jesus, then, infinitely stored with the Holy Spirit, becomes a fountain from whence that Spirit is always pouring out into His own people; so that “ out of His fulness have all we received.” And this it is which makes a gift of the Spirit so very sweet to a Christian. 2. And, as that process goes on, every fresh communication of the Holy Ghost, passing as it does from the bosom of Jesus, enables us to say with greater and greater truth, “ We have the mind of Christ.” III. The advantages which belong to those who have “ the mind of Christ.”1. As respects that great search after truth, no man can really understand the Bible who does not bring to the study of it “ the mind of Christ.” Now mark the apostle’ s reasoning. He says, no man can tell what is passing in any man’ s mind except that man himself. In like manner he says, no one can know what is passing in the mind of God but God only. But if only God knows God, how can we know God? By having “ the mind of Christ.” Thus, then, it is, by bringing the mind of Christ in our souls to “ the mind of Christ” in the Bible that we can understand the mind of God. 2. The possession of “ the mind of Christ” is a wonderful clue to the intricate windings of the labyrinth of life. There are thousands of points which require instantaneous decision. The juncture gives little space to go to some friend, or even to the Bible. At such moments a rapid perception of the right is an inestimable gift, and we shall have that if we have “ the mind of Christ.” 3. They have the benefit of “ the mind of Christ” who wish to pray rightly. God has given us the license to “ ask what we will, and it shall be done.” But may not a man inadvertently ask and obtain a curse? Our security in that dangerous privilege is in the knowledge of the Bible--an acquaintance with God’ s promises. But we want something quicker. Those who bring Christ in them to their knees, having “ the mind of Christ” in asking, know what is “ the mind of Christ” in giving. And it is surprising to what an extent this may control and guide prayer. The Syrophenician woman had it, when she would not cease till she had obtained what she wanted. Abraham had it equally when he stayed his supplication for Sodom at “ the ten.” And doubtless Paul also, when he ceased to deprecate “ the thorn” at the third petition. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The Christly spirit (Philippians 2:5, and text):--Let the thought, the aim, the spirit of Christ be in you and be yours. All that He did, wills, approves, and blesses, even in the details of every-day life. Observe here the Christly spirit-- I. Urged as the supreme pattern of self-renunciation. Mark--1. Voluntary humiliation. “ He emptied Himself,” became obedient unto death.” He who would study the grand pattern for the Christly life must begin in the valley of humiliation. 2. Absolute surrender for others--the perfection of self-sacrifice. “ He came not to be ministered unto,” &c. 3. Disinterestedness in benevolence--“ Looking to the things of others.” 4. The grand law of Christian discipleship. Though we may never be able to equal the incomparable humility, gentleness, and self-sacrifice of Christ, yet we may follow His example. II. Possessed--as the Divinest inspiration to the higher life. No man that would ascend to the loftiest moral excellence but must possess “ the mind of Christ.” By the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ there is imparted into us--1. Strength to fight against sin and to achieve a victory.2. Inspiration to spiritual power, beauty, excellence, and holiness.3. Harmony of heart with the heart of God. III. Realised--as the crowning endowment for the noblest service. “ We have the mind of Christ.” The conscious possession of the mind of Christ has led thousands to make the highest sacrifice and to render the noblest service--Luther to attempt the Reformation; Robert Raikes to establish the Sunday-schools; Charles of Bala to originate the British and Foreign Bible Society, &c. Lessons: The attainment is--1. Possible.2. Certain. “ We have.”3. Let us all seek it afresh, for the glory of God, for the good of others, and our own happiness. (J. Harries.)The certainty and solidity of the experience of Christian believers I. We have the mind of Christ.1. Enlightening the understanding.2. Assuring the conscience.3. Informing the judgment.4. Renewing the heart. II. We are thus fortified against the objections of all unbelievers. Because--1. They do not know the mind of God.2. Are incompetent to judge of spiritual things.3. Much more to offer any instruction to those who have the Spirit of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.). 1 Corinthians 3:1-12 And I… could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal … babes in Christ.Incapacity in hearers I. That the ignorance and sinfulness of a people are a just cause why faithful and wise ministers of the Word do not sometimes preach of the more sublime and excellent points in Christianity. Paul desired not only to lay a good foundation, but also to build an excellent superstructure, but the ignorance of his hearers restrained him. Even as the husbandman does not sow his best seed, wheat, and the like, because his ground is so barren that it will not bear it. As the schoolmaster teacheth not his choicest notions, because the scholar cannot receive them. To open the doctrine, consider that in Christianity, and so in our preaching, there is a twofold kind of matter.1. That which is fundamental, plain, necessary, and easy, being the first principles of religion, the total ignorance whereof damneth.2. There are admirable consequences and conclusions to be deduced from and improved out of these, unto which the godly are to grow, not resting in the former, but greedily desiring the latter. This is to show you that Christ’ s school hath many forms, and it is a sin and a shame to be always in the alphabet. For further prosecuting the doctrine, consider, first, how ignorance doth restrain the minister’ s abilities. And ignorance is an impediment to our preaching, in these particulars: first, the more eminent and sublime mysteries of the gospel about Christ and His righteousness we cannot so frequently preach upon, but these things which may be known of God by the natural light of conscience and by the works of creation. There are things known of God partly by natural light of conscience, especially if furthered with education, and things by supernatural revelation and authority of the Scripture merely; such is the old doctrine about Christ and His offices. Now this later sort of matter, which is the marrow end life of all preaching, many of our congregations, as they now stand corrupted with blindness and ignorance, are not prepared to receive it. Secondly, as those sublime mysteries cannot be often preached on (though sometimes we must, because we are debtors to the wise as well as the foolish, and there are spiritual as well as carnal in our congregations), so likewise that growth in knowledge, and increase more and more in heavenly light and knowledge, cannot be pressed where gross ignorance is. Can we expect any increase or fruit when men are not so much as plants planted by God? Alas! the ministers of God have far higher and larger degrees of knowledge and grace to press you to if once the foundation were laid. Thirdly, there are many choice and excellent duties in the exercise whereof a Christian would have much joy and bring much glory to God; but the ignorance of a people makes the minister not so frequently urge those, because other things must be done first. The duties are these: Let the Word of God dwell plentifully in you, teaching and admonishing one another (Colossians 3:6). Fourthly, the ignorance of a people restraineth the ministers of God, that they cannot so powerfully press at first the pure and sincere worship of God, and the leaving of all superstitious and traditional ways of worship; but they must by degrees, here a little, and there a little, as they are able to bear it. Thus much for ignorance. Then the sinfulness of people makes them incapable of many precious truths in religion. As, first, the minister’ s labour is most spent in discovering the damnable nature of gross sins, taking them off from their brutish ways; and as for spiritual sins, unbelief, diffidence in the promises, carnal confidence in themselves, &c. These they cannot so much press against, because such auditors come far short of civility, and therefore much less reach to piety. Secondly, to a people living in gross sins we cannot so frequently and gloriously preach Jesus Christ in the offices of a Mediator. We cannot make it our work to set forth the promise of the gospel in its glory. We cannot preach of joy and peace in believing. Thirdly, the performing of duties in a spiritual and gracious manner, so as to have communion with God and to enjoy Him. This also is too high for wicked men. Use: To awaken people out of their ignorance and sinfulness. If Aristotle thought a young man no fit auditor for his morals because he was subject to unruly affections, how fit can people blind in mind, corrupt in affections, be to receive the truths of God! How much of the study, labour, parts, and godliness of a minister may be lost through the indocibleness of hearers! Though we preach not Latin, yet the matter we preach may be so spiritual, heavenly, that it may be as unintelligible as an unknown tongue. II. That even among those who are truly and indeed of the visible Church of God, there is a vast difference; some are spiritual, some are carnal, some are men, some are babes. Though God created Adam and Eve in their full perfection, :yet He doth not regenerate us into a full stature in Christ. The apostle in the text speaks of two degrees only amongst the godly--the spiritual and the carnal, the men and the babes. These Corinthians are said to abound in all utterance, and they came behind no Church in any gift; yet no Church so carnal. Here were gross heresies, divisions, and several gross practices; so that a spiritual people is not a people of parts and knowledge and abilities only, but of grace and raised sanctification also. Now as there are these degrees in the truly godly, so there are peculiar duties required of them. The spiritual man is, first, to be charitable and indulgent to those that are weaker, not to despise them. Secondly, the spiritual man is to walk humbly, and to be always in an holy fear and trembling. Thirdly, the spiritual man is to consider God requireth mere of him than of others; his account will be the more terrible. Then as for the carnal or babes, two things belong to them. First, that they be not dejected, or quite out of hopes, because they are babes. Fathers have naturally tender affections to those children that are most infirm and weak. Secondly, take heed of resting in low things. To be always weak, to be always carnal, doth highly provoke God and grieve a faithful ministry; to grow in grace and bring forth much fruit are made necessary to our continuance in the state of grace. Use 1. To confute that proud and arrogant doctrine that will have none members of a Church but who are perfect, and those also who arrogate perfection to themselves. Where can such be found? Use 2. If those that are truly godly, yet imperfect, retaining some ignorance and some infirmities on them, are such a trouble unto the godly ministers, how unsufferable then are such as are altogether carnal! If wheat, because of some blemish in it, be to be blamed, what then is cockle and plain weeds? If imperfect fruit displease the gardener, what then do brambles and weeds? (A. Burgess.)The comparative carnality of Christians I. Christians are decidedly, though not wholly, spiritual. The marks of their spirituality are these:--1. A freedom from wilful and habitual subjection to any sin.2. The measurement of their obedience by the perfect law.3. The ascribing of all the excellences attained by them to a Divine source.4. Union among themselves. II. But they have the remains of an opposite character still existing within them, in the midst of which this new one has sprung up. They remain too much carnal and become too little spiritual.1. They bear not affliction well.2. Their behaviour in the Church is not good; they quarrel and contend.3. They pay too much attention to the pomp of this world. This state must be altered. Be no longer carnal, but walk ye in the Spirit. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)Reflections for Churches I. The graduating method of teaching (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). Truth is to be administered with regard to the receptive powers of the student, just as the administration of bodily food must have regard to the digestive capacities of those who need it. Though men might live on milk, strong meat would kill children. There are truths in the gospel of such an elevated character, requiring so much intellect and culture to appreciate them, that to enforce them on the attention of mental and moral children would be positively to injure them. Christ practised this method of teaching. He had many things to say which His disciples could not bear. This method of teaching shows--1. That a minister that may be useful to one class of men may be unprofitable to another. 2. The necessity of all who would enjoy the higher teaching to cultivate their mental and moral powers. II. The carnality of churchisms (1 Corinthians 3:3-4). By churchisms I mean sectarianisms, denominationalisms, &c. Paul says this is “ carnal.” Carnal because it engrosses the soul--1. In the human rather than the Divine.2. In the personal rather than in the universal.3. In the selfish rather than in the self-denying.4. In the transitory rather than in the permanent. III. The unity of all true ministers (1 Corinthians 3:5-8).1. One, notwithstanding the diversity of talents and kinds of labour. 2. One in grand practical aim. What were they working for? The spiritual cultivation of mankind. One planting, another watering, &c. Different kinds of labour, but still one. 3. One in their connection with God. (1) Whilst all depended on God for success, God gave the “ increase.”(2) All were co-workers with Him. “ Labourers together with God.” 4. One in their ultimate reward (1 Corinthians 3:8). Each from the same God, each according to his work. (D. Thomas, D. D.)St. Paul’ s spiritual treatment of the Church whilst in a state of faction Note-- I. His economic management of truth. Economy in a household means frugality in opposition to extravagance. In the dispensation of truth it means that prudent distribution which does not squander it uselessly, but which apportions to each age and capacity the amount it can turn to good account. For different ages, different kinds of food. For childhood, or “ babes in Christ,” milk, &c.; but reverse this, and what is strength to the man is injury to the child--it cannot bear it. 1. The doctrine which the apostle calls “ strong meat,” if taught at first, would deter from further discipleship. “ No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment, &c. Now “ strong meat” does not mean high doctrine, such as election, regeneration, justification by faith, but strong demands on self, a severe, noble life. St. Paul taught the Corinthians all the doctrine he had to teach, but not all the conceptions of the blessed life which he knew of. He showed them that, leaving the principles of doctrine, they were to grow up unto Christ in all things, but by degrees. From a child we must not ask sublime forgiveness of injuries. That which would be glorious in a man might be pusillanimity in a boy. You must content yourself at first with prohibiting tyranny. Do not ask of your child to sacrifice all enjoyment for the sake of others; but let him learn first not to enjoy at the expense of another. 2. Another reason for this is the danger of familiarising the mind with high spiritual doctrines to which the heart is a stranger, and thus engendering hypocrisy--e.g., self-sacrifice, self-denial, are words easily got by rote; and while fluently talking of these high-sounding words, and of man’ s or woman’ s mission and influence, it never occurs to us that as yet we have not power to live them out. Let us avoid such language, and avoid supposing that we have attained such states. It is good to be temperate; but if you are temperate, do not mistake that for self-sacrifice. It is good to be honest; but when you are simply doing your duty, do not talk of a noble life. The danger of extreme demands made on hearts unprepared for such is seen in the ease of Ananias. These demands were not, as we see, made by the apostles; but public opinion, which had made sacrifice fashionable, demanded it. And it was a demand like strong meat to the weak, for Ananias was “ unable to bear it.” II. His depreciation of the part played by man in the great work of progress, and his exhibition of the part of God (1 Corinthians 3:5).1. In all periods of great social activity there is a tendency to exalt persons and means of progress. Hence, in turn, kings, statesmen, parliaments: and then education, science, machinery, and the press. Here, at Corinth, was “ minister-worship.” 2. St. Paul’ s remedy was to point out God’ s part and ours. “ Ye are God’ s husbandry,” we are only labourers. We execute a plan which we only slightly understand--nay, not at all, till it is completed, like workmen in a tubular bridge, or men employed in Gobelin tapestry, who cannot see the pattern of their work until the whole is executed. Conceive the labourer saying of some glorious piece of architecture: “ Behold my work!” or some poet, king, or priest, in view of some progress of the race: “ See what I have done!” Who is Paul, but a servant of higher plans than he knows? (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)The ministerial once As their dissensions had reference to their religious teachers, the apostle endeavours to correct the evil by presenting the ministerial office in its true light. I. Ministers were not heads of schools or rival sects, as were the Grecian philosophers, but mere servants, without any authority or power of their own. One may plant, and another water, but the whole increase is of God (1 Corinthians 3:5-7). II. Ministers Are One. They have one Master and one work. They may have different departments in that great work, but they are like fellow-labourers on the same farm, or fellow-builders on the same temple (1 Corinthians 3:8-9). III. In the discharge of their respective duties they incur a great responsibility. If they attempt to build up the temple of God with the rubbish of their own wisdom, they will be severely punished. If they employ the materials which God has furnished, they will be rewarded (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). The Church is the temple of God, and ministers will be held to strict account for the doctrines which they preach and for the way in which they execute their office (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). IV. No minister need deceive himself in this matter. He cannot preach a higher wisdom than the wisdom of God; and to learn that wisdom he must renounce his own (1 Corinthians 3:18-20). V. Therefore the people should not place their confidence in ministers, who belong to the Church, and not the Church to them. To the interests and consummation of the Church all things, visible and invisible, are made subservient (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). (C. Hodge, D. D.)Prod an example to Christian ministers I. His wisdom1. He discriminates the spiritual condition of his charge.2. Unfolds it. 3. Adapts himself to it. II. His humility.1. He repudiates all the glory of his success.2. Claims no superiority over his brethren.3. Ascribes all honour to God. III. His exalted views of his work1. Co-operation with God.2. God’ s husbandry.3. God’ s building. IV. His deep sense of his responsibility.1. He would build on the right foundation.2. With solid material.3. Under the solemn conviction that his work must be tried by fire. (J. Lyth, D. D.)I have fed you with milk and not with meat.--Milk for babes This second verse is a further amplification of Paul’ s complaint: they were babes, and not strong men. Wherein did this appear? By the meat he did provide for them. He compareth himself to a nurse, who does not provide strong meat, but milk for babes; for that were to kill them rather than to nourish them. Now this action of Paul’ s does denote the great skill and prudence which the apostle used, considering what was fit for his hearers, and condescending thereunto. He that was rapt up into the third heavens, what sublime mysteries might he have preached upon! But he preaches not to show his learning, but to do good to them. I. There is a great deal of prudence and wisdom required in the ministers of god so to preach as that it, may be profitable to the hearers. The nurse is carefully to observe what meat the child may eat; the shepherd, what are the fit pastures for to lead his sheep into; the husbandman, what is the proper seed for such ground; the physician, what is the proper physic for such constitutions. To open this doctrine, consider that a minister’ s duty of feeding his flock lies in two things--his teaching of them and his governing of them--and both these require great prudence. If Solomon, above all things, prayed for wisdom to govern the people in civil things, how much more have we cause to pray for wisdom in the administration of spiritual things? How easily may we give you poison for bread without wisdom I1. For information. There is required judgment and a sound mind to separate truth from falsehood; to know which is gold and precious stone, and which is hay and stubble; to winnow the chaff from the wheat. 2. As wisdom is required to choose out true and sound matter, so to proportion it to the capacity of the hearers. (1) To preach the nature of God and His attributes; of original sin, of conversion, of justification; as also about Christ and His offices. (2) To preach comfort, and dispense the grace of God in the gospel. But here is much wisdom required that he doth it not to impenitent sinners. (3) To rebuke and reprove for sin. Now how great a skill is it wisely to reprove, to have zeal and knowledge together! Some must be reproved sharply (Titus 1:13), cuttingly. We must not spare. Thus John called some a generation of vipers (Matthew 3:7), and our Saviour, “ Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites,” many times repeating that, upbraiding of them. Others, again, are tender, tractable; meekness will do more than austerity. As for Church government, the wise management of that is far more difficult than political. Let us consider the reason why this doctrinal feeding requireth such skill and prudence. First, because Divine truths are not to be managed by human, worldly wisdom, but by spiritual wisdom. As it is God that teacheth people to profit (Isaiah 48:17), so it is God that teacheth the minister to preach profitably. Secondly, therefore, is wisdom necessary in our preaching of Divine things, because the miscarriage of these precious truths is a far greater loss than any earthly loss. It is pity for want of skill in any calling to miscarry in a man’ s worldly affairs, but much more in heavenly; there needs not only faithfulness, but wisdom. Thirdly, therefore is wisdom necessary, because of the untowardness and unteachableness of people which have sundry humours, sundry appetites, sundry affections and desires. Use: To show people’ s duty, how much they are to pray unto God for their teachers, that they may be directed into all good thoughts for their soul’ s good. The second doctrine remaineth to be amplified, which is-- II. That it is very necessary to have a people instructed with the principles of religion before they make further progress in religion. Consider, first, and bewail the miserable atheism, ignorance, and blindness that every man naturally is born in about religion and Divine truths. Darkness covers our congregations, as it did the chaos at first. Secondly, as people are thins naturally ignorant of Divine truths, so also their wilful slothfulness about them is much more damnable. Thirdly, because naturally we are thus like a wilderness full of briars, therefore God hath strictly commanded this duty of instructing and informing those that are rude and ignorant in the ways of God. Fourthly, the two principles of religion are reduced to several heads, and are both short and easy, but necessary to be known. The doctrine about God, and Christ, and ourselves, which is the Credendum; the doctrine about faith and repentance, which is the Agendum; and about things to come, which is the Sperandum. But now, when we say these Divine principles are easy, you must take heed of two mistakes.1. We do not mean that the Divine faith and belief of them is easy to flesh and blood. No; but they are easy supposing the grace of God in respect of other particulars in religion. The principles of religion are easy and plain to the mind enlightened, but they are either foolishness or absurdities to the greatest scholar, that is, if his heart be not opened. 2. We do not mean that the bare saying of the principles of religion by heart and rote is the true believing and knowing of them. As the child is not said to be fed with milk unless it swallow it down and be nourished by it, so neither can they be said to believe the principles of religion unless they do with understanding apply them and receive them into their hearts. Now the grounds for instruction in these principles are, first, because God accounts of no zeal nor devout affections if they be not the fruit of knowledge. Thus Christ told the woman that was so zealous for her Father’ s worship, “ Ye worship ye know not what” (John 4:22). Secondly, the principles are foundations, and are the root. Now, he would be an unwise artificer that should intend to rear up a house and lay no foundation. So that, so long as we preach to a people ignorant of these, we have no bottom to stand upon. Thirdly, without this good foundation laid, no preaching or duties can have any spiritual effect. Fourthly, conversion cannot be wrought without some knowledge of the principles. We cannot believe in Him we do not know. We cannot love Him we do not know. Fifthly, the knowledge of these principles is necessary to salvation. You that are ignorant totally of them cannot upon any just grounds hope for salvation. “ This is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent (John 17:2). “ They are a people of no understanding, therefore He that made them will not save them” (Isaiah 27:11). God would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7). Sixthly, none can pretend excuses for their ignorance herein. That it is a great sin and just reproach to a people that have lived long under the means of grace if they have not got the true profit by it. The Word preached is commended in Scripture for several and Divine operations. Now if thou hast many years been under these droppings, and yet art a dry wilderness, how unsufferable is it! In other things of the world you think it not to be endured. I. For opening this, let us consider what are those choice and noble effects of the ministry for the defect whereof a people may be severely blamed. First, illumination and enlightening of the understanding to believe the first principles and foundations of religion. Every science, and so that of Divinity, hath its first principles, which are easy and plain. They shine with their own light, as the sunshineth with its own light; you need not another sun to see it. So, though the sun be never so visible, if the eye be not prepared all is in vain to a blind man. What do such bats and owls in the sunshine of the gospel? Oh, if thou hadst lived in Sodom or Egypt, it had not been such a wonder; but in Jerusalem to be so blind argueth thy case damnable! Secondly, the Word preached expects this effect, not only to lay a foundation, but to build upwards; not only to plant, but to grow. Thus Ephesians 4:13, the offices in the Church are to bring us to a full stature in Christ. Where God gives talents, He looks for increase. The ministry is a talent of which God will require a strict account. As Paul doth sharply reprove the Hebrews for this want of growth (Hebrews 6:1-20.). Oh, then, sit not down at the lower round in the ladder, stay not at the bottom of the hill! Christianity is a race. There is work, and work enough for thee. Let all the world see there is a vast difference between living under no ministry, or a negligent ministry, and an instructing one. If corn should grow no better in improved grounds than in the barren heath it would be very strange. To a blind man the day and night is all one; he seeth as well at one time as another. Oh, fear thyself in a state of blindness, to whom preaching and no preaching, the ministry and no ministry, is all one; for thou makest no more progress! Thirdly, a third effect of the ministry is to establish and settle in the truth, to give a sound mind. For through men’ s corruptions, pride, and vainglory, the ministry, as it may increase men’ s parts, so accidentally increase their errors. As April showers that make the flowers fresh and sweet, so cause many croaking frogs also. Lastly, it is a shame to a people living under the ministry of the gospel a long while if they are not thereby furnished with abilities for those several personal duties that God requireth of them. Oh, the many duties God looks for at your hands which will not be expected from others! II. In the next place, let us observe what a sin it is if people are not able to bear or receive the practical operations of the Word. For all knowledge, if it be not after godliness, is a tinkling cymbal. The Word is not only the tree of knowledge, but the tree of life also. If ye would receive the Word in the light and efficacy of it, keep not any compliance with carnal lusts. The truth is above your natural understanding, and the duties above your corrupt lives and affections. Sore eyes cannot bear the light. Festered wounds cannot bear salt; and yet the ministry is both light and salt. (A. Burgess.)The distinction between milk and meat I. Negatively. This distinction is not--1. That between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God. Paul did not preach the wisdom of the world to babes in Christ, and the wisdom of God to advanced Christians. 2. Not that between the Disciplina Arcani, or doctrine of the hidden essence of Christianity, which was introduced in later times. For the sake either of conciliating the heathen, or of preventing beginners from forming false notions of the gospel, it became common deliberately to conceal the truth. This is the foundation of the Romish doctrine of reserve--inculcating a blind faith and keeping the people in ignorance. 3. That which prevailed in the early Church between truth as the object of faith and as the object of knowledge. This is a distinction true in itself, but, as then understood, it meant nothing less than the difference between the doctrines of the Bible and the speculations of men. Philosophers of our own and of every other age have been willing to allow the people the truth as presented in the Scriptures, provided they themselves were allowed to explain them away into philosophic formulas. The true nature of the distinction is to be learnt-- II. Positively.1. From the import of the figure, which leads to the conclusion that the difference is rather in the mode of instruction than in the things taught. The same truth in one form is milk, in another strong meat. “ Christ,” says Calvin, “ is milk for babes, and strong meat for men.” Every doctrine which can be taught to theologians is taught to children. We teach a child that God is a Spirit, everywhere present and knowing all things, and he understands it. We tell him that Christ is God and man in two distinct natures and one person for ever. This to the child is milk, but it contains food for angels. The truth expressed in these propositions may be expanded indefinitely, and furnish nourishment for the highest intellects to eternity. The difference between milk and strong meat, according to this view, is simply the difference between the more or less perfect development of the things taught. 2. From parallel passages. In Hebrews 5:11-14 the reference is to the distinction between the simple doctrine of the priesthood of Christ and the full development of that doctrine. The important truth is that there are not two sets of doctrine, a higher and a lower form of faith, one for the learned and the other for the unlearned; there is no part of the gospel which we are authorised to keep back from the people. Everything which God has revealed is to be taught to every one just so fast and so far as he has the capacity to receive it. (C. Hodge, D. D.)The doctrines of the gospel the food of Christians I. What doctrines the apostle preached to the Corinthians. In all teaching it is necessary to begin with essential and fundamental principles. The same holds good in preaching the gospel to those who never heard it, and 1 Corinthians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 3:10 show that this was the apostle’ s practice in Corinth, and the contents of his two Epistles bear this out.1. The moral depravity of man lies at the foundation of the gospel, otherwise he would not need that salvation which it offers. Accordingly we find the apostle bringing this into view (1 Corinthians 2:14). 2. This sentiment is intimately connected with regeneration. For if natural men are under the dominion of sin, then their hearts must be renewed before they can become heirs of the kingdom of heaven (2 Corinthians 4:6; 2 Corinthians 5:5). 3. The immediate effect of regeneration is love, which is the essence of all true religion (chap. 13.). Love to God produces love to Christ; and love to Christ is the very essence of that faith, which is connected with eternal life. Accordingly the apostle exhorted the Corinthians to embrace Christ as the only ground of salvation (2 Corinthians 5:18-21). 4. After men have become reconciled to God, they still need the Spirit of promise to carry on a work of sanctification in their hearts (2 Corinthians 3:18). 5. The doctrine of perseverance is a consequence of sanctification (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:5; 2 Corinthians 5:8). 6. As God begins and carries on a good work in whom He pleases, so Divine sovereignty is an essential doctrine of the gospel (1 Corinthians 3:6). Which leads up to the doctrine of the Trinity (2 Corinthians 13:14). II. Why he called these doctrines milk. Hebrews 5:12-14 throws light upon the metaphor. The doctrines which Paul preached to the Corinthians may properly be called milk, because--1. They are easy to be understood. Milk is much easier to digest than meat. So the first principles of the oracles of God are plain to the lowest capacity. They require attention rather than deep penetration. 2. They are highly pleasing to the pious heart. Peter represents all Christians as “ new born babes” who “ desire the sincere milk of the word.” 3. They are nourishing. The converts at Corinth made swift advances in knowledge and holiness, while they were fed by the doctrines according to godliness (1 Corinthians 1:4-7). III. Why the apostle preached such plain and practical doctrines rather than any others.1. Their internal state required such plain preaching. They were Genthes who had never been favoured with the knowledge of Divine revelation (1 Corinthians 1:21). 2. Their external state required the same mode of preaching. The heathen philosophers opposed the pure truths of the gospel, and endeavoured to persuade the Christians to renounce them and return to their former superstition. Nor were they altogether unsuccessful, for they overthrew the faith of some. By clearly unfolding the fundamental doctrines of the gospel, the apostle took the best method to guard them against the plausible arguments of infidels. IV. Improvement.1. If the metaphor of milk has been properly explained, then by meat Paul means some other sentiments less plain and necessary to be known by common Christians. Such as-- (1) The rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation. We can hardly suppose that he would teach the Genthe Corinthians these dark things, because they were not prepared to understand them. (2) The types and predictions respecting the character and coming of Christ. It would have been very difficult to explain these things intelligibly to a people who were without the Old Testament. (3) The predictions in the New Testament concerning the great apostacy; the rise and fall of the man of sin; the calling in of the Jews; the millennium; and the state of things to the end of the world. 2. It appears from what has been said, that Paul’ s doctrines have been greatly misrepresented. How many ministers have quoted his own words against himself, and employed the text to justify themselves, not only in neglecting to preach the doctrines which he preached, but in stigmatising those doctrines! 3. This subject affords an infallible criterion, by which to determine who are the plainest preachers in point of sentiment. Those who preach the doctrines which Paul called milk are the plainest preachers, and the easiest to be understood by every class of hearers. There never was, and there never can be, any false scheme of religion so easy to explain and understand as that which Paul taught. 4. If the foregoing observations are just, then there is no reason to think that any people are unable to bear the doctrines which Paul preached to the Corinthians. The inability lies in the heart, and not in the understanding. 5. It also appears that now is a proper time for ministers to feed their people with milk, and not with meat. Our congregations, in general, are in a situation very similar to that of the Corinthians. (N. Emmons, D. D.)For ye are yet carnal … and walk as men.--Carnality The two ideas of the text are--Men, as men, are carnal; Christians, as Christians, ought not to be carnal. Note-- I. What it is to be carnal, and how far the charge may be made good against humanity.1. The word is of the same kindred as “ flesh,” “ fleshly,” &c. Flesh, however, is sometimes used in a good sense, as “ the heart of flesh,” and sometimes in an indifferent sense, as “ all flesh is grass.” Mostly, however, it expresses what is bad. Perhaps the terms “ carnal” and “ fleshly” have become the equivalents of depraved humanity from the fact of man’ s being in the body, and therefore from the evil in him being more openly manifested by the lustings and corruptions of the animal appetites. There might have been sin without the body, but in that case men would not have been stigmatised as carnal. Having thus got the identity of “ carnal” and “ fleshly,” observe the kinds and gradations of their manifestation. (1) The first sphere is that known as “ fleshly lusts” --irregular animal appetites. Everything that partakes of brute impulse; gluttony, drunkenness, lust. (2) “ Fleshly wisdom,” by which is meant not only falsehood and cunning to gain one’ s own ends, but thought which has no regard for God or duty, but which may be quite moral. (3) The “ fleshly mind” --the actings of the intellect and heart in relation to truth and love which are irregular or defective. Note the forms in which it displays itself. (a) The form in which the intellect rejects truth altogether and turns away from God’ s revelations in nature and the Bible, to its own systems and philosophies. (b) Or the revelations may be admitted, but so corrupted by hypotheses as to make the Divine in nature and the Bible merely the occasion for filling the invisible with monstrous creations, turning the truth of God into a lie. (c) There may be a holding of the truth simply and uncorrupted; but they who hold it may be so little instructed in it as to know nothing but its first elements, and remain babes. 2. To be carnal in any of these forms is characteristic of man as man. In illustration take-- (1) The history of man as connected with civilisation. Begin with a nation in a state of barbarism and we see disgusting outbreaks of appetite and lust. Elevate them a stage. Let the nation rise into a really civilised society, and understand the nature of prosperity, social comforts, arts, arms, science and commerce; when all the energies look no further than the present life. You know what develops then--pride of prosperity, graspings of avarice, lust of power. Then, when things have advanced further, and minds appear with high spiritual capacity, they surround themselves with forms of beauty, and school themselves in philosophy. But speculation runs rampant, “ professing themselves wise they become fools.” They are as far from God as when given up to the gratification of animal passion. (2) Sacred history. Soon after the Fall, with abundant testimonies of God’ s character before it, the world got so corrupted that it had to be purified by the flood. The little church preserved in the ark had a fresh earth to begin upon, and erected its first altar to the true God. But in a very short time all was wrong again. Next, for the maintenance of the Divine idea, out of the mass of idolaters one man was taken, and Abraham’ s seed were separated from the world and shielded from corruption. Alas! their constant effort was to break away and get back to the carnal. And when by afflictions and successive revelations the national mind was improved carnality broke out in Sadduceeism and Pharisaism. Then, when Jesus appeared and revealed His truth and established His Church, came the man of sin, and all men worshipped him. (3) The history of the individual. He begins as the slave of his appetites. By and by he awakes as if another soul were given him, and becomes respectable; he now serves his passions instead of his appetites: a mere man instead of an animal. But some go farther. They get tired of their passions, as they did of their appetites, and take themselves to philosophy, taste, and science, vainly puffed up with their fleshly mind. (4) Society and literature for the last two hundred years. At the close of the seventeenth century English literature and manners were licentious in the extreme. The latter part of the eighteenth century was an improvement; people got prudent, calculating, and respectable. Their’ understanding was developed; but there was a want of all high perception of the spiritual and the Divine. To come to the present day, men talk differently from the moralists of the last century. They speak of the Divine and of the vast things for which man was made, and there is a warmth and grandeur about their speculations. But, with all their grand thoughts, and their respect for Christianity and Christ, they have no idea of sitting at the feet of Jesus. It is just the worship of taste, beauty, and mind. II. The reasons inherent in Christianity why Christians are not to be carnal. Because--1. Christianity claims to be a system of supernatural dogmatic truth. The gospel meets man at the highest point in the development of the carnal mind, asking, “ What am I, whence and whither?” and says, “ I can tell you; I can discover to you the unseen and the eternal. Listen to me with unhesitating faith.” All who will do this will find there is not a single question respecting God, man, wants, duties, prospects, which it cannot answer, and by answering put an end to the intrusions of the fleshly mind. 2. The truth thus revealed aims at the purification of our spiritual nature, and must necessarily counteract carnality. It is “ the grace of God which bringeth salvation,” and under it men “ live soberly,” putting away carnality from the body, the first sphere of its manifestation; “ righteously,” putting it away from social life--the second sphere; and “ godly,” putting it away from the spirit--the third sphere. 3. Christianity as a system of influence forbids it. (1) It is contained in a Book. I come to that Book that it may meet me in my spiritual condition as a sinner and teach me how to be reconciled to God; and if rightly studied it will be the instrument of constant development of intellectual and moral strength. (2) It employs, in addition, the preacher, whose office it is to cause men to grow in righteousness and true holiness. (3) It is a system of worship. Christians approach the Infinite. What an influence for purifying the heart, raising man above the carnal, inspiring him with the Divine. (4) And all are under the influence of the Holy Spirit. 4. The opposite of this--the temper and habits of a spiritual life are essential to their character and preparation for a life to come. 5. They cannot give any other satisfactory evidence of their being Christians. 6. The work they have to do forbids it. They are “ the light of the world,” “ the salt of the earth.” The tendency of man as man is to darkness and corruption, which have to be counteracted by the strenuous efforts of the life of faith and spirituality. III. General observations.1. Christianity, whether true or false, contains those things which, carried out, would care all the disorders of the world, and make society everywhere virtuous and healthy. There can be no question that carnality in its grosser forms is the enemy of all purity, health, and joy; and in its higher manifestation tends to degrade and disorganise humanity. 2. The nature of Christianity demonstrates its truth. It would be a greater miracle for “ carnal” man to have been its creator, than for it to be the supernatural thing it is. 3. He that hath this hope purifies himself even as Christ is pure. (T. Binney.)The remains of corruption in the regenerate I. That the relics of corruption, which do abide in the godly, ought to be a heavy burden to them, against which they are daily to strive and combat. Though the tree be cut down, yet here is the stump and root in the godly. To open this, consider--1. That even the most spiritual that are, the Christians of the first magnitude, even those that shine like suns in the world, have yet blemishes in them. But the best gold will have some dross; the best garden will have some weeds. 2. Yet there are other Christians who have sin more prevalent over them, and are easier overcome, and these deserve more to be called carnal than the former, their corruptions are more visible than their grace. Oh, take heed that thy life be not as the sluggard’ s field, all grown over with briers and thorns. 3. As corruption doth thus abide in all the godly, and worketh differently, so it doth sometimes flame out into open fire; so that it is no longer the lust and motions of sin within, but the gross operations without. In Peter you see what a leak there was ready to drown the whole ship. II. Whence it is that the godly do not fully conquer sin. For if you respect Christ He is greater than the devil; and if you respect grace, that is more efficacious than sin. How, then, should any lusts, passions, or motions abide in us? Now the efficient grounds are these: and then the final grounds shall be mentioned afterwards.1. The efficient, because original corruption, which is the fountain of those streams, is not wholly dried up. So that there cannot but be those sinful affections and corrupt desires stirring in thee; these noisome vapours cannot but exhale as long as that filthy lake or bog is within thee. 2. The Spirit of God by which we come to mortify these corruptions doth not put forth its full power. 3. Therefore doth corruption remain, because the instrument of sanctification and mortification, that also is imperfect and weak. Faith purifieth the heart (Romans 11:1-36). So that if our faith be weak, the effects of it also will be weak. Lastly, therefore doth corruption abide in us, because the Law of God is spiritual, pure, and exact. This is not an efficient ground, so much as occasional, to discover and manifest that this sour leaven still is in us. In the next place, observe the final grounds.1. Because God intends in this life to glorify evangelical grace, and the righteousness of the gospel by faith, as the Epistles of Paul abundantly witness. Take the advantage to glorify the grace of the gospel; say thou needest Christ’ s robes all the day long for thy nakedness. 2. God suffers these relics in us, that there may be daily exercise for faith, patience, and other graces, so that these are left to increase the crown of glory, not to diminish it. Tempests and winds discover the skill of the mariner. Thou mayest turn these clods of earth into chains of pearl. 3. That we might not he puffed up in ourselves, nor others lift up by admiration. Lastly, These thorns are still in thy side, that heaven may be the sweeter. Lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. (A. Burgess.)For whereas there is among you envying, strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal?--Envying The apostle generally declared the ground of their incapacity of heavenly truths. Now he enumerates the particulars, whereof envy stands in the front. I. That envying, wheresoever it is, is a fruit of the flesh, and such a sin that a godly man should especially watch against. Are ye not carnal because of this envying? To open this doctrine, consider--1. That the original and fountain of this envy is the same with the other great impieties that are committed in the world, viz., the flesh, or corrupt part in a man. So Galatians 5:1-26. and James 4:1-17. 2. This sin of envy may either be in the full predominancy of it, or only in motions and combats; or if breaking out into act, bewailed and repented of. In the former manner it is in wicked men; in the latter sort it may be even in the godly. The Church of God would always abide like an ark, compacted so close together that no waters could enter in; did not envyings and evil eyes upon one another dissolve the cement and soldering whereby they are united. We shall find the disciples of John and of Christ, even those sweet roses, to have these worms breed in them. 3. Consider that envy is accompanied with a grief and a trouble, that others are indeed, or in an apprehension, in a better condition than themselves. Now, the good that is in others, for which this envy may work, may be of several natures. As--1. Because of the riches, power, greatness, and outward prosperity of others. And shalt thou be bad to thy own soul because God is good to others? 2. It may be because of the applause and honour, or esteem others have. 3. It may be still higher because of the parts and abilities that others have better than theirs. And it is a greater sin to envy others because of their religious parts and abilities than for any outward mercy, because these are the free gift of God’ s Spirit. Now for this were the great envyings amongst the Corinthians. It is far more happy to have sanctifying graces than enlarged gifts; far more glorious to have love than large knowledge. Lastly, that is the highest wickedness that can be in envy, viz., when it is for the graces and godliness of others. How many men are reproached, envied by their neighbours and others, merely for their godliness! Thus much for the object of envy. In the next place let us consider the subject, who are prone to it and--1. Those that are of weak, ignorant, and narrow spirits (Job 5:21). Envy slayeth the silly one. It is the fruit of weakness in a man, his very envy betrayeth his thoughts, that he thinks others are above him. 2. Those are subject to this sin of envy, who are in a similitude of condition, estate, trade, or profession, or where there is any competition for one thing, and both cannot have it. One tradesman envieth another of the same trade. These were teachers, and they thought Paul like themselves, ambitious of glory. 3. Such are subject to envy who, because they cannot abide the good of others, they therefore study all the ways to disparage, and obscure the name and excellency of such. Thus where charity covereth a multitude of sin envy covereth a multitude of graces. (1) Of all envyings take heed of that which is against men, because they are godly, because they live more holily than thou dost. (2) You that are godly especially take heed of this. How contrary is this spirit of envy to that love Christ hath put into you! Let us, in the next place, consider the aggravation of this sin. 1. The wickedness of this sin may be excellently illustrated by that admirable good it is opposite to; for this is a rule, that privation is the worst whose habit is the best, that is the greatest evil which is opposite to the greatest good.2. It opposeth that admirable goodness in Christ. Oh, come with admiration, and read, and consider the life of Christ and His death, and you will see envy is as direct contrary to Him as the serpent to the dove. 1. The grace of love and charity is often prayed for, and that by Christ Himself, that His people might have it. He prayeth for nothing so earnestly as that. It is made the sign of Christ’ s disciples, not by miracles, not by prophecies, but by love, shall all men know Christ’ s disciples. 2. There is still further abomination in this sin; for it is the very lively image of the devil. 3. This sin of envy is a mother-sin, a fountain-sin. There is no wickedness in the world but this sin will conceive it and bring it forth. 4. This sin is a just torment to him that commits it. 5. This sin of envy doth deprive Christians of all exercise and comfort of common graces. Lastly, it is a tenacious inbred sin. These worms will breed in the sweetest roses; these moths in the finest garments. So that the more contumacious and inherent this sin is, the greater cause to be afraid of it. Well, if it be so dangerous a sin, what remedies may be used against it? 1. Turn envy into pity; and this is an excellent cure. Nothing breaketh envy so soon as pity. He hath received more talents, and so greater increase is expected; so that he is more to be prayed for. He having a greater treasure is more obnoxious to thefts and dangers. 2. Consider that if instead of envy thou wouldst bless and praise God for the gifts and graces bestowed upon others, they would thereby be made thine. Lastly, be contented with thy condition. Envy commonly comes from discontent at what is ours. (A. Burgess.)Strife.--Contentions We are come to the second sign specified. This thorn argued them to be brambles, not figs. In a great measure carnal, not spiritual. Observe that strifes and quarrelling contentions among Christians argue them to be so far carnal. Consider--1. That the true ground of all love and peace, all concord ,and agreement, can only be upon a motive of godliness and honesty. Only godly men can truly love one another, because the motive of it is the image of God. The cause of it is God’ s command, and the end of it is to do good, temporal and spiritual, to one another. Hence this is called love in the faith (Titus 3:15), and in the Spirit (Colossians 1:8). And therefore, if the people of God at any time quarrel, and strive with one another, there is so much manifestation that their love was not because they were godly, but for other ends. In the second place, take notice there is a twofold striving or contention. 1. That which is good and laudable. Thus Jude commands to contend for the faith once delivered. To be in an agony for it (verse 4). 2. There is a sinful and ungodly striving, And that may be about a twofold object. Either in civil worldly things quarrelling and wrangling about them, or in religious matters. (1) Show the sinfulness of the causes. (2) The effects wherein they manifest themselves, and-- (3) The aggravation of the sin. The cause in the general is that bitter poisonous fountain of corruption within every man. Man by nature is a spider, a toad. He can spit nothing but venom. He is a bramble that tears every one that cometh near him. Thus Galatians 5:1-26.; strifes and contentions are made the manifest works of the flesh. But the particular lusts are--1. Pride. Where pride is there is contention (Proverbs 13:10). A proud man, he cannot but strive, no more than fire cannot but set all on a flame where it is. The chimney that is higher than other parts of the house, puts out all the smoke and dark vapours; and those sometimes that would exalt themselves above others, they must needs evaporate their loathsome stomach against others. 2. Ambition and vain-glory, which comes near to pride. Absalom’ s ambition for the kingdom, what a terrible shake did it make in Israel! 3. Malicious froward dispositions. There are some of that rancorous, turbulent nature that they cannot be quiet but in the disturbing of others. Salamanders that can live nowhere but in tire, never at rest but when they are in brawlings or contentions. 4. Covetousness and sinful love to the things of the world that makes men quarrel and brawl. Lastly, impatience, when men know not how with patience and godly wisdom to pass by many injuries and wrongs. Now the sinful effects 1. Of striving about worldly things is discovered-- (1) In passionate and railing speeches. Let all clamour and evil speaking be laid aside (Ephesians 4:31; Matthew 5:22). (2) It is seen in backbiting, slandering, inventing of lies against others, whispering, and secretly reproaching of others where they are not present to justify themselves. (3) A delight to go to law, and to implead others at the courts of judicature (chap. 6.). (4) Lastly, this civil or uncivil contention, rather, is seen in the procuring of all that hurt and mischief to others we can, either in name or estate. 2. As for striving in religious matters, that is seen two ways. (1) When men are given to cavil and contradict the truth, though never so evidently discovered, especially because of the purity of it, because it convinceth and arraigneth thy lusts, greatly condemning them. (2) When men dote about questions and disputes that have no profit, or if profit, yet attend not to them in their place (Titus 3:9). 3. I come to the aggravation of this sin of contention. (1) This striving temper is directly opposite to many commands that vehemently press love, brotherly kindness, peaceableness (Romans 12:18; 1 Peter 3:8). (2) These strifes and quarrellings make all our prayers and religion in vain. (3) The relation we are in commands peace and unity. There is one God, one Christ, one Spirit, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5). (A. Burgess.)Divisions.--Discord That divisions and factions do quickly creep into the best and purest Churches. This Church of Corinth was a garden planted by Paul, and, notwithstanding all his care, his constant inspection, yet these weeds grow up in it. 1. Divisions or factions may be either-- (1) Civil or ecclesiastical. Civil are all those rents and ruptures that are made by the lusts of men in a commonwealth. Thus Jeroboam made a division, he rent ten tribes from the other two. The other divisions are in the Church, and they are of two sorts, either when different doctrines or opinions are maintained, and these are called heresies. Or when there is a soundness of doctrine, yet men break the bonds of love, and live in malice and uncharitableness, and this is called schism. (2) Factions or divisions are either personal, between godly men particularly, or more public between societies and societies, Churches and Churches. Between persons. Thus Paul and Barnabas, they were in a bitter dissention one with another (Acts 15:39). So Paul and Peter; Paul reproved Peter, and withstood him to the face (Galatians 1:1-24.). Or more public. Thus many Jews that believed raised great dissensions about circumcision, and the retaining of the customs of the law. 2. In the next place, what makes division or faction? And-- (1) That is, when men promote any false or wicked way against truth and godliness. (2) Faction and division is seen when though the matter be true or good they strive for, yet they do it not in a godly, orderly way. A good intention, even in a good matter without good order, is not warrantable. (3) A third thing in division is when men do not keep to their proper places, to their offices. (4) Thus it is division and faction when the affections and passions of men are embittered with any carnal distempers; so that this sin doth affect the heart and spirit of a man, and then it breaks out into actions. 3. In the next place, what are the causes that make these the efficient causes? (1) The ignorance of men, as long as men know but in part, have not perfection in the understanding; and this breedeth difference of opinions, and difference of opinions difference of affections. (2) Self-confidence and arrogancy. (3) The last efficient are worldly hopes and desires of carnal advantages. (4) Lastly, there is an occasional cause, but not efficient, and that hath been the tyranny and scandalous lives of Church officers. This hath many times made sad rents. (A. Burgess.)And walk as men.--Walking as men The apostle in this phrase, “ To live as men,” or, “ According to man,” may imply these things.1. Mere men have no Divine faith in the matters of religion, wrought in them by the Spirit of God, but walk according to the natural dictates of conscience and education, and so are for that religion which they have been brought up in and accustomed to, whether it be right or wrong, whether good or bad. This our Saviour cleareth, when Peter made that excellent confession of faith, that Christ was the Son of God. Our Saviour graciously accepts of it, and tells him, “ Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to him” (Matthew 16:17). 2. To walk as a mere man is to propound some outward inferior comforts as the ultimate end and chief felicity of our souls. Take a man, as a mere man, and the utmost end for which he labours and strives in this world is some earthly advantages. Oh, but what saith the apostle of true Christians? “ We walk not by sense, but by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). 3. To walk as mere men is to put confidence and hope only in second causes and visible instruments, not trusting the promise of God or believing His power, that He reigneth and ruleth in heaven and earth, doing what He pleaseth. 4. To walk like men is to be full of falsehood, deceitfulness, or hypocrisy, to have no truth in heart or word one to another. 5. To walk as men is here in the text to be in anger, hatred, and revengeful thoughts one against another; whereas all beasts agree among themselves, even the savage bears and tigers, yea, the devils are not divided one against another. Man naturally finds nothing so sweet as revenge upon others. 6. To walk as men is to make a man’ s self the Alpha and Omega, the centre wherein all the lines must meet. “ All seek their own, and not the things of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 2:21). 7. Lastly, to walk as man is to commit any sin rather than to be persecuted for the truth of God. To swear, or foreswear, to turn into all shapes, to avoid danger. How are all our congregations? How live they? How walk they? Do they not live as men? Yea, how many like brute beasts? (A. Burgess.) 1 Corinthians 3:4-8 For while one saith, I am of Paul … are ye not carnal? The carnality of Churchisms In the Church at Corinth there was a variety of elements; the Roman democratic independent in thought and action; the Greek--cultured, philosophic, and aesthetic; the Jewish--craving for signs and wonders. Here consequently there was diversity of thought, and discussions which would lead to divisions. The Corinthian Christians, therefore, instead of being united by having Christ as the supreme object of thought and love, were divided by certain forms of religious thought. No two men will have exactly the same views on the same subject. Paul would not give out the same views in the same way as Apollos or Peter, and their auditors would therefore have their preferences. Herein we have the philosophy of existence of various Churches. Note-- I. The nature of Churchism. The Corinthians who said, “ I am of Paul,” “ I am of Apollos,” had such an exaggerated estimate of their particular favourites as led them to depreciate the merits of the others. To the Paulites there was no teacher equal to him, &c. This I call Churchism. To become members of institutions called Churches, and advocate the peculiar views they represent, may be right and useful. It affords opportunities for mutual counselling and spiritual stimulation. But when our communion becomes the centre and circumference of our souls it is sectarianism. One says, I am of the Catholic Church; another, I am of the Greek; another, I am of the English, &c. There is only one true Church, and that is composed of those only who have a vital and practical faith in Christ Himself. “ I determined,” says Paul, “ to know nothing amongst men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” II. The depravity of Churchism. “ Are ye not carnal?” This bodily part of man’ s being possesses desires, tendencies, and appetites, which our corrupt imaginations nurture and inspire with sinful propensities. Hence to this Paul seems to trace nearly all immoral conduct (1 Corinthians 3:3). That man is carnal who allows his mind to be engrossed--1. In the human rather than in the Divine. The walk of the spiritual man is with God, he sees Him who is invisible; the “ carnal” man lives in the human, never rises above the cloudy atmosphere of human opinions. How some men are chained to their little sects! With them it is all “ our Church,” “ our body,” “ our principles.” Instead of climbing up the breezy heights of Divine ideas, they live down in sectarian glens, breathing the fog of human crotchets, and with souls half suffocated, they exclaim, “ I am a Churchman,” “ I am a Nonconformist,” &c. 2. In the selfish rather than in the benevolent. The spiritual man lives not to himself, but to God, and for others; to the “ carnal” man self is the object of his supreme interest and aim. Churchism often cuts the soul away from all but the members of its own little community. 3. In the transitory rather than the permanent? The spiritual man labours not supremely for the bread which perishes, but is ever more in quest of eternal life or eternal goodness. Not so the “ carnal” man, he is ever in pursuit of temporary pleasures, possessions. Now Churchism lives in the temporary. “ Our little systems have their day, they have their day and pass away.” Human thoughts, even the best of them, are only as the “ grass that withereth,” God’ s thoughts alone endure, the “ word of the Lord shall stand for ever.” (D. Thomas, D. D.)Partisanship in the Church I. Its phases.1. Undue partiality for certain ministers.2. The offensive exaltation of party names. II. Its evils.1. It does dishonour to God.2. Occasions strife in the Church.3. Damages God’ s servants.4. Neutralises their work. III. Its occasion--carnality of heart--consequently implies a weak babyish (1 Corinthians 3:1) Christianity. (J. Lyth.)Thinking too much of ministers The apostle’ s scope is to repress the pride and contentions that were in the Church of Corinth. That although it is the duty of people to have a great and high esteem of the ministers of the gospel, yet they are not sinfully and inordinately to admire or rest merely upon any man’ s person. I. That great and high respect is to be showed to the faithful ministers of the gospel.1. Highly to account of the office and the work of the ministry as being the Divine institution and appointment of Christ in His Church. Thus the apostle--“ Let a man account of us as the stewards of Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:1). 2. Your spiritual respect lieth in the hearing of the Word preached and the receiving the Word with all gladness of heart. Thus Christ saith, “ He that heareth you heareth Me” (Luke 10:16), and therefore they are compared to ambassadors, that do in Christ’ s stead entreat you to be reconciled unto God (2 Corinthians 5:20). 3. You are not only to give them respectful hearing and diligent waiting upon their ministry, but to obey and submit unto that work of the Lord, which they enjoin you out of God’ s Word. 4. All this bearing, love, and obedience, must be to them for the work’ s sake. This the apostle urgeth, and there is a greater matter in that: “ Have them in all respect for their work sake” (1 Thessalonians 5:13). 5. You ought to show your spiritual respect and entertainment to the ministry, in avoiding all those evil and wicked ways which may grieve and make sad the hearts of godly ministers. When Jeremiah saw his people walk so disobediently, he said his soul should mourn in secret for them (Jeremiah 13:17). Did not Christ weep over Jerusalem? II. Now let us consider when this respect may degenerate into sinful admiration.1. When we set up the gifts and persons of men, so as to neglect Christ working in and by them. If it be so great a sin in temporal and outward things to take of the glory due to God, and attribute it to instruments, how much more is this in spiritual things. 2. Then men sinfully admire when they set up the gifts and abilities of one to the contempt of others. 3. Then men sinfully admire when their failings and errors they will follow and defend. If these Corinthians that were for Peter should have been led aside, as he did many to circumcision, this was their infirmity. (A. Burgess.)That it is not lawful for Christians to call themselves by the name of any men, though never so eminent, so as to build on them. Christ and His truth are the foundation we must build upon. The apostles, indeed, are called the foundations (Revelation 22:14), but they were immediately inspired; and they were but secondary foundations. So that we are not believers in Paul or Peter. We are not the apostles’ believers, much less the fathers’ , or any doctors and teachers in the world. For the opening of this, let us consider, first, the names that Christians have had in the New Testament, and afterwards in the Church. For by wise names we come to know the nature of things.1. Christ did often call those that followed Him His disciples. Thus, he that would be His disciple must hate father and mother for His sake. Lean not to thy own understanding. Lean not to others; for only Christ is Truth. Another name, and that most frequent, was believers. Christians are often called by this title; none more frequent. And this also doth difference Christians from all other sects in the world. All the philosophers they affected to be knowing men, not believing. Faith of assent would breed faith of fiducial adherence. Another name often attributed to Christians is saints. “ The saints at Corinth,” and in many places. But the most famous and distinguishing name of the people of God is Christians. There are pregnant reasons for this.1. Because as our faith in regard of the efficient cause is the gift of God, so the object and motive of it must be God’ s authority, because He speaks and revealeth such things. Human faith is because a man saith such a thing; Divine faith, because God saith so. Now see how careful the apostle was that the Church’ s faith should not be in human wisdom, but in the mighty power of God. 2. Therefore we may not be called after men, to build on them, because we are not baptized into any man’ s name; and we are only to possess those whose name we are baptized into (1 Corinthians 1:13). 3. The apostle presseth another argument: “ Was Paul crucified for you? Did Paul die for you” (1 Corinthians 1:13)? His meaning is, In Him only are we to believe who is able to make our reconciliation with God, who hath wrought our redemption for us. 4. Our apostle urgeth a further argument in the same chapter, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord; and Christ is made unto us wisdom. So all boasting in men is to be excluded, as well as boasting in works. 5. The Scripture makes it a great sin in matters of religion and the worship of God to be servants of men (1 Corinthians 7:23). 6. The ministers of God, though never so eminent, have been afraid of this, they have prohibited such restings upon them. That it is the property of godly ministers not to bring men to themselves, but to Christ. (A. Burgess.)Partiality for preachers to be avoided A Christian hearer, meeting an acquaintance who had been to hear a sermon, said, “ Well, I hope you have been gratified.” “ Indeed I have,” replied the other; “ I wish I could have prevailed on you to have heard him. I am sure you would never afterwards have liked any other preacher.” “ Then,” replied the wiser man, “ I never will hear him; for I only wish to hear ministers who show so high an esteem for the Word of God, that their hearers shall love it, hear it from whom they may. For ‘ who is Paul, or who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?’” Who then is Paul?--Party spirit unbecoming and injurious Note-- I. Some of those cases in which party spirit is blamable.1. The case of those who look on their connection with particular parties as serving of itself to insure their salvation. No party distinction can assure any man of God’ s favour, or heaven. It is not Church membership, but union with Christ that warrants the hope of salvation. “ Neither circumcision availeth anything,” &c. 2. The case of those who confine their attachment to particular ministers, and think more highly of them than they ought to think. Not that hearers are wrong in feeling for their own ministers more esteem than for others (1 Thessalonians 5:12), nor in esteeming those most through whom they receive most benefit. But blamable they are when even to these they confine their attachment, and when they do not sincerely esteem all whose preaching and practice prove that they are the servants of Christ. II. That ministers can only be useful and successful so far as God blesses the means they employ.1. Paul here speaks of means being used. In allusion to husbandry he speaks both of planting and of watering as preceding the increase; and, indeed, without both, the hope of an increase would not be authorised. Now, does this not teach that unless we be diligent in using the means we cannot expect to be instruments of good? 2. But means, although of God’ s appointment and furnishing, can only by Himself be rendered effectual. (1) In the nature of things it cannot be otherwise. If, in reference to the body, God only can open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, loose the tongues of the dumb, how can it be supposed that any less power than the power of God is sufficient to effect such changes as these with respect to the soul? With counsels the most friendly, warnings the most solemn, arguments the most persuasive, we may labour to reclaim men. But although we had the zeal and learning of Paul, and besides the eloquence of Apollos, yet sinners will remain in the gall of bitterness, unless, as accompanied with the blessing of God, the efforts we make be crowned with success. And it is no less evident that of God only is also the progressive improvement of the saints. If the life of the body be dependent on God, how can any but God preserve and nourish the life of the soul? (2) I may also appeal in evidence of this to your own observation. It cannot but be obvious-- (a) That the means and instruments most likely to be useful often fail, while good is often done by means and instruments which are known to be far less promising. (b) That persons most likely to be profited by ministers, not unfrequently remain unedified; while those who are less likely to be profited by them often make much improvement. (c) That effects, too wonderful to be the effects of mere human power, are often produced by the ministry of the gospel. (3) Nor is it more confirmed by observation than it is by experience, that Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but it is God alone who giveth the increase. (4) Turning to this blessed book, how plainly do we find this doctrine uniformly taught by the sacred writers! It is said of Lydia that “ her heart the Lord opened in attending to the things which were spoken by Paul.” It is said of the converts in the house of Cornelius, “ Then hath God also unto the Genthes granted repentance unto life.” It is said of the Ephesians, “ You hath He quickened, you who were dead in trespasses and sins.” “ No man,” says the Saviour, “ can come unto Me, except the Father who hath sent Me draw him.” And the regenerate are “ born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” III. Improvement. Is it so that the success of ministerial labours is wholly of God?--then--1. Ministers should look upon themselves as only instrumental in the doing of good. Melancthon, when he was converted, thought he should be able to make people soon see what he saw, and feel what he felt; but the want of success soon led him to say that he found old Adam too powerful for young Melancthon. 2. That God should be viewed by the hearers of the gospel as He who alone can effectually profit them. 3. Ministers and hearers ought to pray to God for His effectual blessing. (A. Tefler, A. M.)Undue partiality to God’ s ministers I. Ignores their true character1. As mere instruments.2. Possessing different qualifications.3. Yet all used of God.4. For the benefit of them that believe. II. Dishonours God--because it--1. Transfers to man the honour due to Him alone.2. Puts contempt on some of the instruments whom He has chosen.3. Refuses the benefit which might be received through them. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The true estimate of the ministers of Christ I. Their office--all alike instruments in the hands of God.1. He chooses them.2. Qualifies them for some special department of toil.3. Gives them success.4. Rewards them, each according to his own labour. II. Their work--co-workers with God.1. The sphere, ye are God’ s husbandry, God’ s building.2. Their separate departments, one lays the foundation, another builds.3. Their particular duty to work in harmony with God’ s plan. III. Their solemn responsibility.1. In the selection of material.2. Every man’ s work must be tested by fire in that day, and abide the issue. (J. Lyth. D. D.)Unprofitable hearing Its cause:--A lady who was present at the Lord’ s Supper, where the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine was assisting, was much impressed with his discourse. She went again the next Sabbath to hear him. But she felt none of those strong impressions she experienced on the former occasion. Wondering at this, she called on Mr. Erskine and asked him if he could account for it. He replied, “ Madam, the reason is this--last Sabbath you went to hear Jesus Christ; but to-day you have come to hear Ebenezer Erskine.” (W. Baxendale.)The success of the gospel entirely of God I. God not only sends and employs, but qualifies all whom He employs for promoting His service. From this it is evident that the glory of the whole work, and the success of every particular servant, is entirely owing to their great Lord and Master (1 Corinthians 4:7).1. All the endowments of mind which fit a man for common or special service are the gift of God. He only endows them with knowledge and comprehension to understand His sacred truths, and enables them to communicate their knowledge to others in an acceptable manner (Exodus 4:11-12). Further, as it is the inspiration of the Almighty that giveth understanding, so the improvement of natural parts by acquired learning is no less to be ascribed to Him. As He gives the disposition and ability, so it is He who, by the course of His providence, furnishes the means and presents the opportunity of making progress. Let human efforts be what they will, if God do not smile upon them they will infallibly be blasted. 2. It is God who endows His ministers with holy and gracious dispositions, which serve to turn their other talents into the proper channel, and to give them force and influence (2 Corinthians 4:5-6). II. God gives efficacy to the instructions even of the most eminent and best qualified ministers, by the immediate supernatural operation of His Spirit and grace. With every other advantage they shall not be able to make one sincere convert, unless Almighty God be pleased to open the way by His Divine grace into the heart and conscience of the sinner. The husbandman may manure and dig the soil, and sow his seed with the greatest diligence and care; but he hath not so much as begun the great process of growth. How many things must necessarily concur which are beyond the reach of his power! The enlivening heat of the sun, the refreshing dews and rain, are wholly under the direction and disposal of the omnipotent Jehovah. Just so in spiritual husbandry. “ So then neither is he that planteth anything,” &c. III. God exercises much of His own sovereignty in the manner of bestowing success. He takes care to show that it is from Himself, by the measure in which He proportions the success to the nature and sufficiency of the means He sees proper to employ. But when there is a regular proportion always observed between the means and the end, men are ready to overlook or forget the great and first cause of all. For this reason He sees it often meet to work without means, or by the weakest means, or even contrary to means, and blasting the effect of those that were most excellent and promising in human judgment. When the gospel was first preached, the apostles were indeed fully furnished for their work, but it was by a miracle. They were originally poor illiterate fishermen, quite unequal in themselves to their astonishing undertaking. But that proper respect might still be had to the qualifications of ministers, and that none might be justified in pouring contempt on human science, the Apostle Paul was the most active, useful, and successful of all the apostles. At the same time there were such circumstances in his calling as made him one of the most illustrious monuments of the sovereignty and riches of Divine grace that any age has produced. IV. Improvement.1. A deep and lively impression of this truth will be to those who preach the gospel an excellent preservative from many temptations. It will preserve them from trusting in themselves, it will engage them to maintain a continual intercourse with the Father of lights, and the author of every good and perfect gift. It will also particularly be an excellent mean of preserving them from the dangerous extremes of ostentation and sloth. 2. A deep impression of this truth will be an excellent preservative to the hearers of the gospel from many temptations which often render their attendance on ordinances as fruitless as pernicious. It will purify their views and motives in attending on ordinances. It will deliver them from a sinful attachment to men, and carry them more immediately into the presence of the living God. It will preserve them from hearing the gospel merely as critics, in order to pass their judgment on the soundness or ability of their teachers. It will settle their esteem of and attachment to their pastors upon the best and most immovable foundation. It will make them in a great measure lose view of the creature, and hear the gospel, not “ as the word of man, but as it is indeed, and in truth, the Word of God.” 3. Let me intreat the prayers of this congregation, that we may be abundantly qualified for the discharge of our important trust in all its parts. The Apostle Paul never fails to ask the prayers and intercessions of the faithful in his behalf (Ephesians 6:19). (J. Witherspoon, D. D.)Preachers in their relations In these verses the apostle gives a fourfold view of evangelical preachers. I. To the people (verse 5). As against the foolish and heedless cry raised by the Corinthians, “ I am of Paul,” &c., the apostle raises this pertinent question: Who are these men? &c.1. Ministers. At the root of the word there lies the idea of voluntary and responsible service. We have in St. Paul’ s own writings a full answer to his own question: “ Who then is Paul … but ministers?” Ministers of what? (1) “ Of the New Testament” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6).(2) Of “ the gospel” (Colossians 1:23).(3) Of “ the mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-7).(4) Of “ the Church” (Colossians 1:24-25). (5) “ Of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:23).(6) “ Of God” (2 Corinthians 6:4). 2. “ Ministers by whom ye believed.” When the Corinthians believed, there were three factors directly contributing to that result: the minister of God, the Spirit of God, and the Son of God. And so it is still; the minister sets forth the need and the nature of faith in Christ; the Holy Ghost applies the truth and inspires trust; the Lord Jesus is Himself the Object of saving faith. Ministers are instrumental in bringing together the sinner and the Saviour, even as men brought Bartimaeus to Jesus. They could not give sight to the blind man, but they led him unto One who said, “ Receive thy sight.” II. To each other (verse 8). The Corinthians had spoken of the apostles as rivals. The apostle shows that Paul and Apollos are one, and illustrates the oneness of the workers by the unity of the work. Through the circling seasons there runs a notable unity m all the operations of husbandry. As soon as the harvest is gathered in, preparations for the next are commenced. In the time between the first plough’ s entering the field and the last waggon’ s leaving it, many hands are at work--men, women, lads; and many kinds of work were done, skilled and unskilled; but it is all for one master, and all for one end. He that plougheth and he that soweth and he that reapeth are one. And this oneness among farm-workers is never felt so keenly as when the last sheaf is pitched, and the cry is raised of “ harvest-home!” A Christian Church is made and maintained on this same principle: manifold operations and many workers. In carrying on this spiritual husbandry, ministers are not alone in the field. We look to Sunday-school workers, to local preachers, &c., and say, “ We are labourers together.” It is a partnership in holy toil. The farm-servant who guides the reaping-machine in the harvest-field does not disown his fellow-servants who, in the chilly days of later autumn, did the ploughing and the sowing. He knows that, but for their work, he would not have found any employment in reaping. And those who reap in the Church thankfully recognise as fellow-labourers the men who broke up the fallow-ground, and put in the seed-corn, and cared for the crop in early spring. III. To present success (verse 6). “ I have planted” ; this lies at the root of all good. Paul must plant before there can be anything for Apollos to water; and until man put in something, God cannot give increase. But while recognising this fact he says, We are nothing. That which the two apostles contributed toward success was labour. They had, so to speak, no capital. The very truth they taught was not their own; it was the truth of God. That mysterious force which we call growth belongeth only unto God; and were it not for the secret influence of His Spirit, the good seed of the kingdom scattered broadcast would in no case take root and spring up. Increase is of God, and wholly of Him. IV. Preachers is relation to final reward (verse 8). True, he that planteth and he that watereth are one; but “ every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.” In order to reward, there must be not only work, but labour, and every man shall receive his own reward not according to--1. His success. Visible and numerical success is not always in proportion to labour. 2. His reputation. Whilst some sermons win for the preacher a name and a place in public opinion beyond their merit, there are others which are too full of thought to be appreciated by the many; and so it comes to pass that, now and then, a preacher’ s reputation is in inverse proportion to the quality of his preaching. 3. His position. For a time the position of a man in the ministry may be above his deserts, or below. A good place may be secured by favouring incident, and a lowly one through inadvertence. 4. His gifts or talents. We are not responsible for the number of talents given to us; and God does not make our reward depend upon a circumstance over which we had no control. 5. But every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. (J. Bush.)God’ s husbandry and building I. Our praise for any good we have received should be given, not solely to men, but mainly to God. The Corinthians felt that gratitude was due somewhere, but Paul was afraid lest they should give it to himself and Apollos instead of to God. II. It is to God we must look for all further growth. We must conscientiously employ such means of grace as our circumstances permit; but, above all, we must ask God to give the increase. III. If we are God’ s husbandry and building, let us reverence God’ s work in our-selves.1. It may seem a very rickety and insecure structure that is rising within us, a very sickly and unpromising plant; and we are tempted to be disappointed at the slow progress the new man makes in us. But different thoughts possess us when we remember that this transformation is not a thing to be accomplished only by ourselves through a judicious choice and a persevering use of fit means, but is God’ s work. 2. For the same reason we must hope for others as for ourselves. It is the foundation of all hope to know that God has always been inclining men to righteousness and will always do so. IV. But Paul’ s chief inference is the grave responsibility of those who labour for God in this work.1. As for Paul’ s own part in the work, the laying of the foundation, he says that was comparatively easy. “ Other foundation,” &c. Any teacher who professes to lay another foundation thereby gives up his claim to be a Christian teacher. He who uses the Christian pulpit for the propagation of political or socialist ideas may be a sound and useful teacher; but his proper place is the platform or the House of Commons. The question at present, says Paul, is not what other institutions you may profitably found in the world, but how this institution of the Church, already founded, is to be completed. Other foundation no Christian teacher is proposing to lay; but on this foundation very various and questionable material is being built. In Corinth itself huge slabs of costly and carefully chiselled stone lay stable as the rock on which they rested, but now the glory of such foundations was dishonoured by squalid superstructures. The picture in Paul’ s mind’ s eye of the Corinthian Church vividly suggested what he had seen while walking among those heterogeneous buildings. The foundation, he knows, is the same; but he sees the teachers bringing, with great appearance of diligence, the merest rubbish, apparently unconscious of the incongruity of their material with the foundation they build upon. What would Paul say did he now see the superstructure which eighteen hundred years have raised on the one foundation? How obviously unworthy of it is much that has been built upon it; how many teachers have laboured all their days at erecting what has already been proved a mere house of cards; and how many persons have been built into the living temple who have brought no stability or beauty to the building. How careless often have the builders been, anxious only to have quantity to show, regardless of quality. As in any building, so in the Church, additional size is additional danger if the material be not sound. 2. The soundness of the material which has been built upon the foundation of Christ will, like all things else, be tested. The Corinthians knew what a trial by fire meant. They knew how the flames had travelled over their own city, consuming all that fire could kindle on, and leaving of the slightly built houses nothing but charred timber, while the massive marbles stood erect among the ruins; and the precious metals, even though molten, were prized by the conqueror. Against the fire no prayer, no appeal, prevailed. Its judgment and decisions were irreversible: wood, hay, stubble, disappeared: only what was solid and valuable remained. By such irreversible judgment are we and our work to be judged. Fire simply burns up all that will burn and leaves what will not. So shall the new life we are to pass into absolutely annihilate what is not in keeping with it, and leave only what is useful and congruous. The work that has been well and wisely done will stand; foolish, vain, and selfish work will go. 3. Paul accepts it as a very possible contingency that a Christian man may do poor work. In that case, he says, the man will be in the position of a man whose house has been burnt. He may have received no bodily injury, but he is so stripped that he scarcely knows himself, and the whole thought and toil of his life seem to have gone for nothing. To many Christians it seems enough that they be doing something. If only they are decently active, it concerns them little that their work is really effecting no good. Work done for this world must be such as will stand inspection and actually do the thing required. Christian work should not be less, but more, thorough. 4. There is a degree of carelessness or malignity to be found in some Christian teachers which Paul does not hesitate to doom (verse 17). A teacher may in various ways incur this doom. (1) He may in guiding some one to Christ fit him obliquely to the foundation, so that firm rest in Christ is never attained; but the man remains like a loose stone in a wall, unsettled himself and unsettling all around him. Any doctrine which turns the grace of God into licence incurs this doom. (2) To lift stones from the mire they have been lying in and fit them into the temple is good and right, but to leave them uncleansed and unpolished to disfigure the temple. 5. But we are responsible as well as our teachers for the appearance we present in God’ s temple. Would it not make a very obvious change in the appearance and strength of the Church if every member of it were at pains to set himself absolutely true to Christ? Some persons are prevented from resting satisfactorily on Christ because some pet theory or crotchet has possessed the mind and keeps them unsettled. Some will not rest on Christ until they have such repentance as they judge sufficient; others so rest on Him that they have no repentance. But, alas! with some it is some worldly purpose or some entangling and deeply cherished sin. One sin consciously retained, one command or expression of Christ’ s will unresponded to, makes our whole connection with Him unsettled and insecure. 6. And more must be done even after we are securely fitted into our place. Stones often look well enough when first built in, but soon lose their colour; and their surface and fine edges crumble and shale off. So do the stones in God’ s temple get tarnished by exposure. One sin after another is allowed to stain the conscience; one little corruption after another settles on the character, and eats out its fineness, and when once the fair, clean stone is no longer unsullied, we think it of little consequence to be scrupulous. Then the weather tells upon us: the ordinary atmosphere of this life, with its constant damp of worldly care and its occasional storms of toss, and disappointment, and social collisions, and domestic embroilment, eats out the heavenly temper from our character, and leaves its edges ragged; and the man becomes soured and irritable, and the surface of him, all that meets the casual eye, is rough and broken. 7. Above all, do not many seem to think it enough to have attained a place in the building, and take no step onwards during the whole remainder of their lives? But it is in God’ s building as in highly ornamented buildings generally. The stones are not all sculptured before they are fitted into their places; but they are built in rough-hewn, so that the building may proceed: and then at leisure the device proper to each is carved upon it. This is the manner of God’ s building. Long after a man has been set in the Church of Christ, God hews and carves him to the shape He designs; but we, being not dead, but living, stones, have it in our power to mar the beauty of God’ s design, and indeed so distort it that the result is a grotesque and hideous monster, belonging to no world, neither of God nor of man. (M. Dods, D. D.)I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. Gospel planting That it is God’ s unspeakable goodness sometimes to send His Word and plant His gospel among a people that never heard or knew anything of it before. To amplify this doctrine many things are observable. First, That when the apostle saith that he planted the gospel, it doth suppose all people to be a wild, barbarous people till the gospel both civilised and sanctified them. To plant is properly of orchards, and gardens, and vineyards, and supposeth the great care and skill of him that plants. Thus God is said to plant Eden (Genesis 2:8). It is a great mercy to be born in such times, in such an age, and in such places, where the name of Christ is published; for this is wholly in God’ s disposal; He hath determined to all men the times of their life and habitations. Secondly, That in the Old Testament God did limit His gracious preference to the Jews only. Thirdly, Therefore, that there might be spiritual plantations and holy colonies, the Lord Christ appointed extraordinary officers, furnished with extraordinary abilities, to propagate the gospel. Fourthly, God’ s severity and mercy hath been observable about the first planting of the gospel. For when a people have lived rebelliously under it a long time, then He takes it away and gives it to another nation. Fifthly, In planting of Churches, commonly their infancy and beginning hath been more pure and godly than the successive ages. Lastly, Because of that proneness to degenerate, and from gold to become dross. (A. Burgess.)Spiritual watering I. Let us consider wherein this spiritual watering consists. First, It lieth in a more explicit and distinct instruction about the principles of religion already received. Secondly, This watering lieth not only in advancing our knowledge, but in giving further and clearer arguments to confirm our faith and to make us unshaken and steadfast. Thirdly, This watering containeth direction about the beauty and order of Churches in the government thereof when once planted. Fourthly, This watering lieth in the stirring up of men ¢o fruitfulness in their places and relations. The end of watering is to make fruitful; and thus all the spiritual plants in God’ s garden, though they have deep root, yet need this outward watering. II. Let us consider why there is such daily need of these quickening means of grace. First, It doth arise from the heart, which is an unnatural soil to grace and supernatural things. Secondly, The temptations that are so frequent and many do likewise wonderfully destroy and wither all if this constant watering be not. As there are Pauls to plant and Apollos to water, so there are also the devil to plant and his instruments to water men in wickedness. Thirdly, There needs watering because of that indispensable duty to grow. (A. Burgess.)Spiritual increase Consider--First, That though God only gives the increase, yet it is only in and through the ministry. We must not make such cavils: What use is there of preaching? Secondly, As God giveth the increase only, so the time when, and the persons on whom, is wholly at His good pleasure. Now let us consider why God only giveth the increase; and then the ends that God hath in this. First, God only can give the increase, because He only hath a sovereignty and power over the heart. No potentate, no emperor, can say, I will give a man another heart. He may force the body, but not change the heart. Hence it is that the Scripture attributes all the work of grace; to believe, to repent only to God. Oh, then, lift up your hearts on high in every sermon! Secondly, God only can give the increase, because the increase is of spiritual and supernatural consideration. It is altogether heavenly. Now there is no proportion between human abilities and heavenly graces. Thirdly, Therefore God only giveth the increase because of the deep pollution that is in every man, who is not only blind and deaf, but dead. Now to what purpose is an eloquent pathetical oration to a dead man? Let us consider the ends, why all increase must be of God only, and that is, to preach humility both to the preacher and to the people. The apostle carrieth it wholly for this end, that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord. And that no flesh should glory in His presence. First, the minister. That Peter, who had so many thousands converted by his sermon, that Paul, who was so exalted by God that he might not be lifted up above measure. For, alas! what have they done? It is God that gives the increase. Secondly, It teacheth the people also to glorify God, not to rest in the parts and gifts of men. As Michal said, “ Now God will bless me, because I have a Levite in the house.” So we are Apt to say, “ Now we shall go to heaven; now we shall have salvation, because we have such preaching.” It is not enough to be affected with and admire the gifts of ministers. Thirdly, Therefore God only gives the success that so we may seek and pray to Him and do all those things that God may be pleased with. Now, that God may give increase, do these things. First, Bewail bypast unthankfulness and unfruitfulness. O Lord, how often have I been a hearer! Yet what a barren wilderness is my heart! Secondly, Love that preaching which will more discover thyself to thyself. Which will acquaint thee with thy own deformities. As sore eyes are afraid of the light, so many men have so much guilt within and live in so many secret corruptions that they dare not have the Word come with all its might upon them. No wonder then if God bless it not with increase when thou lovest it not and bringest it not home to thee. Thirdly, If thou wouldst have God give the increase come not prepossessed with thine own righteousness, with thine own good heart. Our Saviour’ s preaching had no such, though in Him were the treasures of all wisdom, because His hearers were those that justified themselves. Use1. Is it God that giveth the increase? Then we ministers are not to be inordinately cast down if people receive no Divine stamp on them. Use 2. To the people. Sigh and mourn unto God in earnest prayers for this increase. How terrible will it be if the want of profiting be in yourselves! You do not what God would have you. If the patient distemper himself wilfully all the physic in the world cannot cure him. To clear this, consider--Wherein this work of God to give increase doth consist. And first, In that spiritual revelation and illumination or opening of the eyes whereby the mind understands and perceiveth the things of God. The Word is compared to light, only God by this works above all light. For the sun, though it gives light, yet it doth not give a blind man eyes. Secondly, God’ s giving increase lieth in removing the negative incapacity and the positive contrariety in all men’ s heart to the word preached. As the husbandman, he first prepareth the ground by stocking up all those briers and thorns and removing all the stones that lie in the way which would hinder the corn’ s growth. So it is here. God takes away all that cursed and serpentine nature which is in thee. Thirdly, God giveth the increase when He makes the Word preached to take root and settling in men’ s hearts. Fourthly, God giveth increase when He makes this rooted word to grow. For as there is in corn, first the blade and then the ear, it comes to perfection by degrees. Now this growth that God giveth it may be either intensive or extensive. Intensive so God giveth increase when those graces that are already planted in the soul are made more lively and fervent. This may be called a particular, personal increase. Art thou made more believing, more holy, more humble than before? Oh it is a sad thing to see the decays and abatements that are even of godly men’ s graces! When God is the same God, the Word is the same Word, there is as much cause to grow as ever. Now the grounds why God only giveth increase may be, first, Because even in natural blessings and outward mercies success is attributed to God, not to men, much more in spirituals. Thus the Psalmist attributes to God that the ridges are full of corn, that cattle are fruitful and do not miscarry. God, He keeps the key of heaven and gives earthly blessings as He pleaseth (Proverbs 10:22). Secondly, God only can give increase, because He only hath the supreme power and dominion over men’ s hearts. We are teachers to the ear, God is a teacher of the heart. Object: But you may say, If God gave the increase, why then doth not the Word bear fruit in every place? Are any hearts too strong for the Lord? I answer, a people by their sins may provoke God to depart from His ordinances. Secondly, You may ask, If God only gives increase, what means may we take to have God bless us in this manner? (A. Burgess.)Farm labourers I. The Church is God’ s farm.1. The Lord has made the Church His own. (1) By His sovereign choice. (2) By purchase. It is God’ s freehold, and He holds its title deeds. (3) By enclosure. It lay exposed aforetime as part of an open common, covered with thorns and thistles, and the haunt of every wild beast. Hath not the Lord declared that He hath chosen His vineyard and fenced it? (4) By cultivation. What more could He have done for His farm? He has totally changed the nature of the soil: from being barren He hath made it a fruitful land. 2. This farm is preserved by the Lord’ s continual protection. “ I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” If it were not for this her hedges would soon be thrown down, and wild beasts would devour her fields. 3. Inasmuch as the Church is God’ s own farm, He expects to receive a harvest from it. Barrenness suits the moorland, but to a farm it would be a great discredit. Love looks for returns of love; grace given demands gracious fruit. Ought not the Lord to have a harvest of obedience, of holiness, of usefulness, of praise? 4. See, then, the injustice of allowing any of the labourers to call even a part of the estate his own. When a great man has a large farm of his own, what would he think if Hodge the ploughman should say, “ Look here, I plough this farm, and therefore it is mine: I shall call this field Hodge’ s Acres.” “ No,” says Hobbs, “ I reaped that land last harvest, and therefore it is mine, and I shall call it Hobbs’ s Field.” What if all the other labourers became Hodgeites and Hobbsites, and so parcelled out the farm among them? I think the landlord would soon eject the lot. The farm belongs to its owner, and let it be called by his name. Remember how Paul put it: “ Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?” II. The Great Husbandman employs labourers.1. By human agency God ordinarily works out His designs. He can, if He pleases, by His Holy Spirit get directly at the hearts of men, but that is His business, and not ours; we have to do with such words as these: “ It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” The Master’ s commission is not, “ Sit still and see the Spirit of God convert the nations” ; but, “ Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Observe God’ s method in supplying the race with food. 2. Our Great Master means that every labourer on His farm should receive some benefit from it, for He never muzzles the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn (verse 8). 3. The labourers employed by God are all occupied upon needful work. Notice: “ I have planted, Apollos watered.” On God’ s farm none are kept for ornamental purposes. I have read some sermons which could only have been meant for show, for there was not a grain of gospel in them. They were ploughs with the share left out, drills with no wheat in the box, clod-crushers made of butter. I do not believe that God will ever pay wages to men who only walk about His grounds to show themselves. Many Christians live as if their only business on the farm was to pluck blackberries or gather wild flowers. They are great at finding fault with other people’ s ploughing and mowing; but not a hand’ s turn will they do themselves. Come on! Why stand ye all the day idle? The harvest is plenteous, and the labourers are few. 4. On the Lord’ s farm there is a division of labour. Even Paul did not say, “ I have planted and watered.” And Apollos could not say, “ I have planted as well as watered.” No man has all gifts, and therefore instead of grumbling at the honest ploughman because he did not bring a sickle with him, you ought to have prayed for him that he might have strength to plough deep and break up hard hearts. 5. On God’ s farm, there is unity of purpose among the labourers. “ He that planteth and he that watereth are one.” One Master has employed them, and though He may send them out at different times, and to different parts of the farm, yet they are all one in being used for one end, to work for one harvest. Planting needs wisdom, and so does watering, and the piecing of these two works together needs that the labourers should be of one mind. It is a bad thing when labourers are at cross purposes. How can I plant with success if my helper will not water what I have planted; or what is the use of my watering if nothing is planted? 6. All the labourers put together are nothing at all. “ Neither is he that planteth anything,” &c. The workmen are nothing at all without their master, and all the preachers and Christian workers in the world can do nothing unless God be with them. 7. The labourers shall be rewarded. God works our good works in us, and then rewards us for them. Here we have mention of a personal service, and a personal reward: “ Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.” The reward is proportionate, not to the success, but to the labour. Many discouraged workers may be comforted by that expression. You are not to be paid by results, but by endeavours. 8. Unitedly the workers have been successful, and that is a great part of their reward. When Paul plants and Apollos waters, God does give the increase. We do not labour in vain. III. God himself is the Great Worker. He may use what labourers He pleases, but the increase comes alone from Him. You know it is so in natural things: the most skilful farmer cannot make the wheat germinate. What can you and I do in this matter? We can tell out the truth of God; but to apply that truth to the heart and conscience is quite another thing. Equally it is the Lord’ s work to keep the seed alive when it springs up. IV. Practical lessons. If the whole farm of the Church belongs exclusively to the Great Master Worker, and the labourers are worth nothing with Him--1. Let this promote unity among all whom He employs. If we are all under one Master, do not let us quarrel. 2. This ought to keep all the labourers very dependent. Man is vanity and his words are wind; to God alone belongeth power and wisdom. 3. This fact ennobles everybody who labours in God’ s husbandry. We are mere labourers on His farm, and yet labourers with Him. 4. How this should drive us to our knees. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Moral increase I. All increase is of God. The nature of the thing, Scripture and Christian experience alike show that God alone can give it. II. The moral increase which He gives is most glorious in--1. Itself.2. Its adaptation.3. Its extent.4. Its perplexities.5. Its benevolence. III. He gives it all on a fixed principle. There must be--1. Personal.2. United.3. Believing.4. Earnest.5. Prayerful.6. Persevering--labour. (B. Ward.)So, then, neither is he that planteth anything … but God that giveth the increase.-- Human instrumentality useless without God I. This may re argued from--1. The condition of all mankind by nature, viz., dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore moral suasion or education can never reach the evil.2. The change which is contemplated, which is nothing less than to create man anew, to implant new principles into his soul. 3. The statements of Scripture itself. “ Neither is he that planteth anything,” &c. 4. The history of the Church in every succeeding age. II. But the Lord and Giver of life ordinarily works by human instrumentality. Would not the husbandman tempt God’ s providence if he should say, “ I need not sow or culture the ground, for I have no power to cause the seed to grow, and therefore I will remain quiet, and leave it to God” ? Would he not justly be left without a harvest and suffer for his own folly and madness? And so will it be in grace. Therefore, it is ours to use the means, while we remember that conversion is generally attributable to the Word of God. How fearful, then, the responsibility which attaches to the preaching and hearing of God’ s holy Word! Conclusion: The subject teaches us--1. That we should regard all human instrumentality in its proper place. 2. That the Word of God, spite of all the opposition that may be made to it by ungodly men, will be the grand instrument of the renovation of our fallen world. 3. That to God we are to ascribe all the praise and all the glory. (J. Haslegrave, B. A.)God the giver of increase Christianity had made rapid advances amongst the people of Corinth. Numbers and success had produced the alas! too commonly attendant evils. Party spirit had developed itself. St. Paul writes, seeking to correct all this. He bids them think of the source of the gospel they had received, of the power by which it was propagated, of the life by which it was sustained. They would find all this, not in the wisdom or the eloquence of their teachers, not in the completeness of their Church organisation; but in the presence, the grace, the love of God. God gives the increase. I. We naturally and rightly look for increase. We want fruit, as the product of our toil. We all work with a distinct aim (1 Corinthians 9:7). The fact of increase is at once one of the greatest inducements to labour, and one of the greatest rewards of it. Who would continue to work if the work proved altogether barren and resultless? We should look for increase also in higher things. There is the Church with its work. We should desire to see it grow under our fostering care. We should look for growing numbers and increasing usefulness. We should look for increase also in the personal soul. What is our Christianity? Not a creed only, not a theology only, not a piece of social organisation only, but a life. Growth is a characteristic of life. The apostles could say to many of the Christians of their age: “ Your faith groweth,” “ Your love groweth.” Can it be said of us? II. If we want the increase, we must take the proper means. This is true, not only of the great matters of which the apostle is speaking, but also of the commonest things of daily life. It is one of the great lessons of the harvest. So is it in business. Sedulous care is one of the secrets of success. So is it in education. There is no royal road to learning for any man. In every domain of life God blesses human forethought, and toil, and faith. God had given the increase in the Church at Corinth. But how earnest had been the labour of which this growth was the reward. St. Paul had planted with all his zeal. Apollos, with his renowned eloquence, had laboured too. These were the antecedent conditions on the human side to which that growth was to be ascribed. III. Paul may plant, Apollos may water, but god giveth the increase. This is so, even in the commonest things of daily life. Take the ordinary annual produce of the earth. The ultimate causes of productiveness are altogether beyond our power to reach. So is it in business life. Two men start together; the conditions which promise success, such as neighbourhood, the conduct and industry of the men, and so on, seem precisely equal. Yet while one man prospers in largest measure, the other goes his way to poverty. But this only states the fact without explaining it. The question at the root of the matter is: What is it that determines a man’ s action at the critical moment in his history? What gives the insight and the courage which enable him to grasp the happy chance? What sends him bounding on the flood to fortune? May not this be God, the ruler of all, who “ doeth according to His will,” who setteth up one and putteth down another? Toil is ours, but increase is in the hands of God. “ Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” God does give the increase in all the many regions of human life. God blesses all honest humble toil. He crowns the ploughing and the sowing with the golden harvest. Study is rewarded with growth both in our stores of knowledge and also in our mental power to grasp the truth. So also all real spiritual work is largely blessed by God. God is ever near. God labours with us. May we ever bear it in mind in all our work. God crowns our work with His all-sufficient blessing. It is true in all ways. In the personal soul our religious acts in public works and in sacraments, as well as in private devotion, are planting and watering; but faithfully used a richer Divine life will possess us, for God will give the increase, and there will be a sure growth in righteousness. (Ralph Williams.)That the best ministry is nothing without God’ s power giving the increase I. Let us consider--what the apostle doth not mean in saying the ministry is nothing. First, he doth not mean as if the officers of the Church were not, in their way and place, necessary; for then the apostle in the same tongue should contradict himself, for he saith, “ We are workers together with God” (2 Corinthians 6:1). Secondly, when the apostle calls the ministry nothing, the meaning is not as if it were not sufficient in its kind to work those things for which it is appointed, otherwise this would reflect upon the wisdom of God. Thirdly, when the apostle saith they are nothing, this is to be understood of the ministers of the gospel and preaching of it as well as the ministers of the law and preaching that. What he positively meaneth or inferreth are, first, that it is not in the power or choice of the minister to make it effectual. Secondly, the apostle by this intends that both the ministers and the people should keep themselves in their due bounds. Lastly, in making the ministry nothing and God all, the apostle would have both minister and people in their ministry to have our hearts and eyes up to heaven. But how may we address ourselves to hear and to the ministry so that God may make them something to us? To be made something is when the Word doth greatly wound thy heart or comfort thee. First, make it a real and conscientious matter to pray unto God to give increase. As to the woman our Saviour said, “ According to thy faith so be it unto thee,” So according to thy prepared prayer, saith God, this sermon and this duty shall be blessed upon you. Secondly, exercise strong and divine acts of faith; this will make the ministry something to thee. The Word profited not, because it was not mingled with faith (Hebrews 4:2). Thirdly, “ lay aside all superfluity of naughtiness” (James 1:21). Labour to find the ministry something, some great thing, some terrible thing, some comfortable thing to thee. (A. Burgess.)The success of the ministry owing to a Divine influence I. Such is the present degeneracy of human nature, that all the ministrations of the gospel cannot remedy it without the concurring efficacy of Divine grace. The gospel is designed to reclaim men from sin; but they are obstinately set upon it. It is intended to bring apostate rebels back to God and the universal practice of holiness; but we love estrangement from Him, and have no inclination to return. Instructions may furnish the head with notions, and correct speculative mistakes; but they have no power to sway the will, and sweetly allure it to holiness. Persuasions may prevail to bring men to practise what they had omitted through mistake, carelessness, or a transient dislike; but they have no effect where the heart is full of innate enmity against the things recommended. II. The promises and declarations of the Word, which appropriate all the success of the gospel to God alone. Jehovah is not fond of ostentation and parade. The doctrine of the necessity of Divine influences to render the administrations of the gospel effectual for saving purposes, is a doctrine familiar to the sacred oracles. III. That the different success of the same means of grace in different periods of the Church, sufficiently shows the necessity of gracious assistances to render them efficacious. We find that religion has flourished or declined, not so much according to external means as according to the degree of Divine influence. Alas! what could Noah, that zealous preacher of righteousness do, during the 120 years of his ministry? He might warn, he might persuade, he might weep over a secure world, in vain: they would rush upon destruction before his eyes. How little could Moses, the favourite messenger of God, prevail to make his people dutiful! Alas! after all the astonishing wonders he wrought before their eyes, they continued obstinate and rebellious; “ For the Lord had not given them an heart to understand,” &c. (Deuteronomy 29:4). What inconsiderable success had that zealous prophet Elijah, the eloquent Isaiah, or that tender-hearted, mourning, weeping prophet, Jeremiah! Surely many feeble servants of Christ, in all respects inferior to them, have been crowned with more extensive success! IV. Our own experience and observation furnish us with many instances in which this great truth has been exemplified. Sometimes a minister who is a universal scholar, a masterly reasoner, and an accomplished orator, and withal sincerely engaged for the conversion of sinners, labours in vain; while another of much inferior accomplishments is the successful instrument of turning many to righteousness. Sometimes we have seen a number of sinners thoroughly awakened and brought to seek the Lord in earnest; while another number, under the very same sermon, and who seemed as open to conviction as the former, have remained thoughtless as usual. And whence could this difference arise but from special grace? Your own experience proves the same thing. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are labourers together with God. Labourers together with God I. The immediate application of the text.1. Believers though they were, Paul could not address the Corinthians as spiritual persons, for they moved in the lower, earthly region of man’ s nature, where strife and division have place, and into which it was impossible to introduce exalted subjects. 2. He then proceeds to show on what a mistake this party feeling proceeded. The different teachers were but humble instruments in the hand of one and the same God, who commissioned each with spiritual gifts, and who alone prospered their work. Paul might have taken a different course. He might have urged on his own party to more determined action. But, instead of that, he deprecated the existence of any parties, and bade all rise into that higher region in which they would discern that different spiritual teachers were working together with one God, and for the same spiritual results. 3. Oh, that these words had been heeded by the Church since! They would have rendered impossible most of the divisions which have been, and are still, its weakness and its curse. All of us “ labourers together with God!” No thought could be more exalted. Well might anybody who felt it protest against what else might be deemed the honour of leading a party. II. The wider application. For is it not profoundly true that, since we ale Divinely made, and since we live in a Divine world, all the work we any of us do here is for Divine purposes, and by Divine energy, and so is a “ labouring together with God” ?1. It may be said: On this view all other things work for God. True; for “ fire and hail, snow and vapour, stormy wind, fulfil His Word.” It would be a healthy Christian thing to see God’ s ministers in all the forces of nature, whether silent, like those at work in an opening flower and decaying leaf, or imposing, like those revealed in earthquakes and volcanoes. It is a deeply Christian and a deeply scientific thought, too, to see God at work in these law-abiding and universal changes; and unchristian and unscientific is the too common thought that, in general, things go on of themselves, hut that sometimes, in answer to prayer, God steps in to interfere with them and work special providences. That idea sets God apart from His universe, supposes it can go on without Him, and sees His presence only in irregularities. The other belief supposes God at work always and everywhere, and recognises His intelligence as displayed in the glorious order of His works. The unconscious energies of nature, then, are working together with God. The universe “ is God’ s husbandry and God’ s building.” 2. But, if so, the same may be said, with much higher emphasis, of men. On what a far higher level of being do they live and work, possessed of spiritual faculties resembling those of their Maker, and entrusted by Him with a certain independence in little spheres of activity! So that they can delightfully feel that they are co-operating with Him, or idly neglect to do so, or wilfully oppose His will. The region in which we can help or hinder God’ s plans is a narrow one indeed; but, to have such a power at all, how wonderful and great! There is work for us to do--no grand, famous work, but sacred daily duty. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)Labourers together with God I. In spiritual husbandry. Now it is the province of the husbandman to plant and to water, but neither dexterity in planting can ensure the striking of the root, nor diligence in watering command the ripening of the fruit. In the spiritual husbandry of the Church all is God’ s; the field--the world; the plants--men; the instruments wherewith the clods are broken--the appointed ordinances Of grace; the plan for the direct combination of labour--His Word; the water--the purifying influence of His Spirit; the sunbeams--the quickening and cheering manifestations of His love. As in nature the husbandman “ waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth, and hath long patience, until he receive the early and latter rain,” relying implicitly on the Divine pledge, so the faithful minister of Christ pursues his spiritual husbandry in patience and in faith. II. In spiritual building. Here, too, the labour is of man, but the power of God. In the spiritual temple of the Church the foundation is of God’ s laying, the material of God’ s preparing, the plan of God’ s contriving, the proportions of God’ s adjusting; and if ministers of Christ may be said, in the gathering or the raising, in the cementing or compacting, in the edifying or carrying up, m the roofing or covering in, to “ build up lively stones into a spiritual temple, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” yet the quickening, pervading power of God is continually recognised throughout. For what could impart life to the stone except a miracle of grace? Conclusion: From this, then, it will follow that while, with St. Paul, we exalt the office of the Christian ministry, at the same time, with St. Paul, we abase the individuals who exercise it. Let them be, like Apollos, “ mighty in the Scriptures” ; let them be, like St. Paul, mightier still in “ signs and wonders,” &c., yet, like Paul and Apollos, in themselves they are nothing. (T. Dale, M. A.)Working together with God We are delighted with the sweet invitation, “ Come unto Me, all ye that labour,” &c. We sometimes forget that the same Saviour invites us also to labour. “ Go, work in My vineyard.” I. Work--1. Strengthens faith (John 7:17). Christian experience fortifies against infidelity. The man of scientific ability cannot convince me, against my years of experience, that water is unwholesome, or that its Creator is a blunderer. 2. Strengthens spiritual life. The little child craves activity quite as much as food. Such a child may be never so well fed, and clothed, and sheltered, yet, if it have not opportunity to exercise, it will be a dwarf. So work is a means of spiritual development and growth to every child of God. 3. Purifies the life. Society is kept pure by activity, just as the ocean and atmosphere are kept pure by the winds and waves. The Church in which all minds and hands are busy planning and executing will not have time to criticise, complain, or gossip. 4. Employment and enjoyment go hand in hand. The working Church is the happy Church, and the happy Church helps to keep members from backsliding. II. Together. We may say this is the difficult problem. There are so many wills and tastes--so great difference in culture and habit--that “ working together” is almost impracticable.1. And yet when we look at the Christian at the time of surrender, it will not seem so difficult. Every true convert begins the service of the Lord with the question, “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? “ and this becomes the first, middle, and ending question of the converted man’ s life. He becomes a member of the body of which Jesus Christ is head. As the members of a human body are controlled by the will--the head--so must be also the members of Christ’ s body. No jealousies between such members. No complaining one of another, but each bearing the burden assigned. 2. And then nothing will help to unite workers so much as a high appreciation of the work to be done. One soul is worth more than all the world beside, and millions perish daily for lack of the bread of life. 3. In view of the fact that Jesus prayed that His disciples might be one. III. With God. No man has a right to engage in a work in which he cannot ask God’ s presence and blessing. Much more must we realise God’ s presence and blessing in the advancement of His kingdom. We may be sure that God will not allow the Son’ s mission to fail. “ Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” (R. Moffett.)God’ s co-labourers I. The basis of this co-operation is the high and holy relation between the Christian heart and God. The Christian is united to Him as a child is to a parent, more by affection than by mere external ties. He is united to God, likewise, by a fervent sympathy with the Divine character. God’ s holiness is exceedingly attractive to him. Besides, a Christian has truly and persistently submitted his will to God’ s will, feeling that the Divine will includes all that is wisest, purest, noblest. A Christian, furthermore, holds his soul and his thoughts in daily communion with God, so that affections are interchanged with Him. II. Its nature. The Christian accepts--1. The Divine idea of his own development of character, and labours to produce in himself those things which God seeks. 2. The Divine order in this world, and endeavours to secure among men that intelligence and goodness for which God endlessly works, and causes nature to work. 3. All his powers and affections in stewardship, and undertakes to use himself for God’ s work, His personal influence, his property, his children, his friends--all these he throws in, as it were, to the common stock, and administers them for God, and not for himself. 4. The duty to love all that which God loves, to promote all that God is seeking to promote, to hate what God hates, and to destroy it if he can. III. Practical lessons.1. This view consoles in our conscious weakness. There is no man that, when he looks upon the courses of God in the world; the results that he is to achieve in himself; to seek among his fellows, that does not often come to a consciousness that he is weakness itself. Sometimes it makes one feel utterly worthless, discourages endeavour, and leads one to desire to fly away and be at rest, because they think it will make no difference whether they live or die. What is a drop of water of itself? What is weaker? But when God has marshalled the sum of the weakness of myriad drops together, they lift the mightiest ship as if it were but a feather, and play with the winds as if they were mere instruments of sport. And yet that very drop is there, and has its part and lot in the might of the whole vast; unbounded sea. 2. He who unites himself to any great truth which God has established may be sure that he will go forth from conquering to conquer; not by reason of any might or skill in himself, but because he is a labourer together with God. The man that adopts any Divinely appointed truth, no matter what the world thinks of it, rides in God’ s chariot, and has God for his charioteer. He always wins who sides with God. On the other hand, no man in this world is safe or victorious unless he feels that he is going with, and not against God. 3. No life can be barren or insignificant that is a part of God’ s life. A woman that seemed to be endowed with everything calculated to fit one for the most eminent service, was called, in God’ s providence, to marry a man that was not her equal. She was placed in an obscure position. While she might have been listening to the chime of the spheres she was occupied with rocking the cradle, darning, sewing, washing, and cooking. And sometimes, perhaps, she thought to herself, “ Woe is me! To what end am I living?” Her child developed under her care, and learned to call her mother; and then she thought God spoke, so sweet was its voice to her, and in that child she expected to reap her reward for all that she had done and suffered. But just as he was touching manhood, in a moment the wave closed over him, the labour of her life was ended, and, stranded on the shores of despair, she cried out, “ Why was I born? and to what end have I lived?” A hundred had marked her fidelity, and she had been schoolmaster to every one of them. A hundred had witnessed her patience, and all the sermons they had ever heard had not preached such a lesson to them as her silent example. Multitudes that had learned of her, in turn became teachers of others. Her influence spread wider than what she dreamed. It was not until she had gone up to the end of life in obscurity, and God had caused the light of eternity to shine on her work, that she understood how glorious little things might be. The good deeds of this life are dewdrops, innumerable, lying unseen among men; but when God shall pour the revealing light of the other world upon them, how it will kindle them and make them sparkle! Imagine how Solomon’ s temple was built. In the forest of old Lebanon many and many a day-labourer worked in obscurity, and wondering of what consequence all his work could be. In another place were workers in metal. Some did one thing and some another, but none knew the plan of the temple, none knew what they wrought till on a certain day, when they all trooped to Jerusalem. Then they stood entranced, and wondered that out of things so insignificant in the mountains there should come such glory in Jerusalem. God had sent some to the cedar forest, some to the stone quarry, some to the dark and dank places of this world; but He is collecting materials which will glow with untold splendour in the temple that He is building for the New Jerusalem. (H. W. Beecher.)Man a worker with God God a labourer, a labourer with men, God a labourer with men for men, are the facts stated in this passage. I. God works alone. We are not wont to consider God in His wonderful activities, but more accustomed to think of Him as having created the universe, and complacently beholding its wondrous workings and results. Nevertheless, the God referred to in this passage is not only glorious in holiness, but also a God doing wonders. This activity of the Infinite One is involved in--1. The doctrine of providence. The preservation of the action, harmony, and stability of nature requires His constant oversight and direction and application of nature and of its laws. This is also true of all the beings which God had created. Every one of them lives in Him. The seraph before His throne, and the men upon His footstool, are each of them the objects of His ceaseless care. So is every sun and star as well as every plant and flower. How wondrous, how inconceivably glorious must be the activity of the Divine mind! 2. The doctrine of the final judgment. We shall be summoned to the Divine presence, the Omnipotent Judge, who has known our motives and all the circumstances under which we have acted, and we shall receive from Him, from His personal knowledge, the decisions of that day. How wonderful must be the presence, and perception, and memory of this Infinite God, who is thus our judge! 3. The reception of worship. How necessary, in order that God may properly regard our approaches to Him and our devotion, that He should understand everything that affects thought or feeling at the time that those services are rendered! And when we consider how great is the number of His worshippers, how wonderful must be the exercise of His intelligence and of His love! There are two things which render it difficult for us to rightly appreciate these activities. (1) The one is that God is invisible. (2) The other is that in most of His works God operates independently of rational agencies. (a) In making the universe He employed no agents. On the contrary, He spake and it was done. (b) In the conservation of the universe none of the beings that occupy it have an agency in holding it in its orbit. (c) In legislating for mankind He has no legislative assembly. The laws by which we are governed emanate from His mind, are promulgated by His authority, and He will execute His own sentence. II. Nevertheless, there is one of the Divine enterprises in which God is pleased to associate men, and that is the work of human salvation.1. But there are several departments of it in which God acts alone. (1) This was true in devising this scheme of mercy; there were no consultations. (2) And in making the atonement that was necessary to accomplish this purpose God acted by Himself. He so loved the world, &c. Jesus Christ alone is the Redeemer and Saviour of the children of men. (3) It is equally true that in the transformation of the human soul it is a Divine work; it is the work of the Holy Spirit. 2. Still there are departments in this enterprise in which God has been pleased to employ men. (1) He did this in inaugurating Christianity in the earth. By prophets and priests He prepared the world for the reception of the coming Messiah. (2) And then when the fulness of time was come the shepherds of Bethlehem listened to the announcement of the fact from the heavenly host; wise men from the East came to witness His incarnation. (3) Disciples were with Him during His ministry, and just before His ascension they received from Him His great commission. And on the day of Pentecost they received the power to go forth and preach the gospel which had been committed to them. You will see in every step of its introduction and inauguration it became needful that human instrumentality should be employed. (4) And now that it is inaugurated God requires His people to promulgate it. He has made it the business of the Church to give these Holy Scriptures to all men, and in this there is a very large service to be rendered. When in every community upon the earth there shall be a Christian, a Christian pastor, and Christian disciples, it will be their duty to employ every possible influence and agency to prevail upon men to heed the call of Divine mercy. By our Christian character, our constant watchfulness, and every influence that God gives us, we are to beseech men to be reconciled to God. III. Practical lessons. If our views of this subject are correct, we may infer--1. The greatness of the work of human salvation. It is the only enterprise in which God is engaged in which He has taken into the fellowship of labour with Him either angels or men. 2. The dignity of activity in the cause and for the sake of Christ. We are not acting upon physical, material things; we are not seeking to promote mainly temporal interests or present happiness merely. We are seeking to recover lost spirits, redeemed by Christ, for whose restoration there is provision made by the power of the Spirit. 3. The certainty of success in these spiritual enterprises. If we were to do this work in our own wisdom and strength we might well hesitate and fear as to the result, but if we are labouring with God who can doubt the success? (Bishop Janes.)The work of man and the work of God I. We are God’ s fellow-labourers.1. Men rush into the ministry or into similar positions without a doubt about their ability. But if they pondered the words, “ We are God’ s fellow-workmen,” they might see some reason to question their fitness. Every workman has two things which must not be wanting in God’ s fellow-workman. (1) An object. This in our case is the final happiness and perfection of each in heaven, and the attraction of each toward that Person who can bring him there. How ought we to ask ourselves whether this is substantially our object! (2) A method. Every artisan not only knows what the particular result he designs is, but he knows also the process by which he must arrive at it. Now we who undertake to teach others ought to be quite sure that the gospel is true in its two great parts, the offer of forgiveness of sins through Christ, and the offer of the Holy Spirit’ s presence to transform, direct, and sustain: these things we ought to have experience of in ourselves, and so be able to declare, as of our own knowledge, that those who listen to us may attain the great object if they will only use the proper means. 2. It is in carrying on this work in this way that we are God’ s fellow-workmen. God has the same object that we have, and God is co-operating with us in our endeavours after it. II. Ye are God’ s husbandry, with regard to the state of your hearts and characters at any particular time.1. By nature the soil is cold and hard, shallow and barren. It bears some things which look good and beautiful, waiting, as it were, for the Holy Spirit to turn them from natural gifts into spiritual graces; but not yet receiving, because we prefer having them as they are, and shrink back from prayer, which is the connecting link between the soul and God. Now, when we see how slow we all are to take this little step in earnest, we feel that nothing can give us any hope at all but the assurance that God is here engaged, and that He can work with us, preparing the stony ground to receive the good seed of His Word, that it may take deep root and spring up into an abundant harvest. 2. And as it is with the ground, so it is with respect to the weeds which grow so rankly. Long experience teaches us to expect them. We say to ourselves, It must go on so to the end; no care or pains of ours will ever root them up. Perhaps not: and yet it may be not only our duty to labour on as if we might succeed; but more than this; the fault may be in great part ours for not having remembered that we are God’ s husbandry, and for not having prayed to God more earnestly to do for us that which for ourselves we could not do. III. Ye are god’ s building.1. This is especially true of young people. Your characters are forming now; soon they will be (what we call) formed: then habits of good or evil will have become a second nature, and change, if it come at all, will be a difficulty beyond anything that you have yet known of. Every day is adding something to the building: something of good, or something of evil, some accession of knowledge, of self-control, of practice of good and conquest of evil, or else of carelessness and indifference, of self-indulgence or vanity or forgetfulness of God. 2. Yet, blessed be God, He has not left us (strictly speaking) to build. Ye are God’ s building. O how gracious an assurance; that, while that formation of character is going on, to all appearance, so easily and almost casually. Still all the time God is working, God is building; if we will only seek Him and trust Him and not thwart or counteract His work, He is carrying on, in the secret of the soul, a process of formation, and the finished thing will be His own temple, in which He will abide for ever and be satisfied with His travail! But, indeed, we must seek Him. (Dean Vaughan.)The union of Divine and human agency in the kingdom of Christ I. What the work includes in which God and His people are labourers together.1. The spread of the gospel through the world.2. The conversion of sinners.3. The increase and prosperity of the Christian Church. II. The spirit in which the work under consideration should be prosecuted. In the spirit of--1. Humility.2. Love to God.3. Love to men.4. Holy zeal.5. Prayer and of faith. (S. Brawn.)Self-creation The Creator does a part, and the chief part, but He kindly gives us a part, as considerate parents let their children join them in their works, though they could often do it better themselves. Creation is not finished, nor ever will be, but is always proceeding. In this progressive system man can put in his hand and make or mar. I. Look at the material creation.1. The elements are in a rude state. The rivers run waste to the sea; the ocean rolls a vast desert of waters round the world; the forests grow and decay, and furnish nourishment for new generations of the same species; the fire is a hidden force, and the lightning plays apparently at haphazard among the clouds. But God has delegated to man, as His vicegerent on the earth, the power and skill, within certain limits, of using these unwieldly and fearful agencies, and, carrying out the plan of their creation. 2. So with the animals. They are created in kind, but the type may be improved. Man can cross and perfect their breeds. He can tame the wild, multiply their number, and, by better shelter, food, &c., develop new excellences. 3. So flowers, fruits, and vegetables all require to be improved by human skill and ingenuity. Compare the dinner of a savage under his native palm with a horticultural exhibition, and we see the endless room for man to work in, and the effects of his science and experiments. 4. The forests were given to his hands uncut, the ores buried in the earth undug and unworked, the pearls in the sea, the fire in the flint, the steam in the water, the temple and the palace in the quarry. The arts, useful and beautiful, are thus a species of creation. Man was sent, not to destroy, but to fulfil. II. It is a great thing to learn distinctly and impressively this duty of a man to be a co-worker with God. Some nations have not learned it yet. The savage tribes still linger on the animal plane. But even the civilised nations do not yet fully comprehend that a new moral and spiritual, as well as material creation, is to be called forth by man. The conquest of matter is not enough, Christianity is to be superadded. Man has not done his work when he has built a house and woven a suit of garments. He can co-work with God in the building of his body and his mind--a Divine carpentry.1. Physical education is a part of this sub-creation. The body is to be unfolded, invigorated, and kept as a pure temple for the soul, with nothing to do it sacrilege. 2. Guided by the rules, and animated by the spirit of Christianity, man is to be a co-worker with God in the building of his character. The Creator necessitates no holiness. Even Jesus learned obedience. The materials of this higher architecture are given in abundance. There is reason for the truth, understanding for practical affairs, conscience for the right, love for the good, hope for progress, so that our own nature is a forest, quarry, and mine, containing all the needful means for our great work. But beside these native faculties society and Christianity give us the tools to work with, the motives, books, teachers, to aid us in the sub-creation. We are called to be labourers with God, in no meagre plan and for no trivial results. The plan is Divine and the results are eternal. The problem runs somewhat in this wise: Given, passion, energy; required, a spirited character and an active life. Given, a soft infant; required, a sturdy, well-formed, intelligent, and virtuous man. Given, conscience; required, righteousness. Given, affections: required, love to all in heaven and earth. Given, instinct, reason, the gospel of Jesus; required, a new human race, a new moral and spiritual creation. The end and emphasis of all things is formation of ourselves on God’ s idea of a human being. The gospel of Jesus is yet but in its infancy in this respect. It has done little compared with what it is to do. It has only begun its work in the soul and among the nations. It is slowly becoming a power in the earth. Conclusion: Let us not forget the lesson and application. This creation is a self-creation, this formation is a self-formation. God gives us means, materials, motives, guidance, and, to let nothing escape us that would be of help, He has presented the exquisite figure and spirit of a Divine Man. The danger is in turning off on some by-path of your own, instead of following the way God has marked out, in fulfilling some little, worthless, and short-lived plan of your passions or pleasures. (A. A. Livermore, D. D.)Co-operation with God One is something overwhelmed by the thought of the manner in which good old honest words occasionally lose their primitive meaning and become attached to some separate part of daily life, and in such a manner as to become terms rather of reproach than anything else. You talk of a labourer in ordinary conversation as a man who is doing day by day unintelligent, mechanical toil; but, after all, labour such as that is the very basis upon which the happiness of the world is built. All labour is Godlike; and the single test which you may apply to see whether labour is successful or not is the test which St. Paul applied in these words when he said, “ For we are labourers together with God.” I want, then, to look upon the harvest as the fruition of successful labour with God. The fact that harvest comes year by year to a successful result is simply an evidence of the truthfulness of the test which St. Paul applies. Man does his work, then there comes side by side with his work the work of God. His work would altogether fail if it were not labour with God. Now let us suppose for a moment that the husbandman were to labour upon the assumption that he would work by himself and not labour with God. Suppose he said: “ I don’ t believe that the seasons will come round in their accustomed succession, and I will labour as for seasons of my own.” Every intelligent man knows the result of labour such as that would be complete disaster so far as the harvest is concerned. For the only way in which the wondrous things in the world of nature are brought to their perfect beauty and fruition is because you have on the one hand the hard toil of the man, and on the other hand the hard, unceasing, unremitting toil of God. Now what is true of the harvest of the earth’ s fruits is certainly true of every work which man undertakes in daily life. The rule of success is labour with, not labour against, God. The man who has to work can only labour successfully by working with God; and by working with God I mean working just as the husbandman works, in conscious subordination to the law of God. If a man will not obey the law of God his physical work cannot be successful as it might be successful if he worked in subordination to the will of God. If a man breaks down his physical frame by indulging in sin, that man, by disobeying the will of God, is rendering the harvest of his daily work uncertain. It is precisely similar with a man engaged in business. He who will labour with God must labour according to God’ s law, and where there is that obedience to the will of God there will be ultimate success. The harvest may not come as the harvest of some of the transitory things in nature comes, very quickly, and remain only a short time, but it will be substantial and solid, and will give perfect happiness and perfect peace, because it will be success which has been honestly won, and prosperity which has been rightly gained. Such a labourer can see, even in the success of his business, his own handiwork co-operating with the handiwork of God, and in all the good fortune which has befallen him he can recognise the directing providence of his Heavenly Father. “ Labouring together with God,” that is the grand secret of successful work. There is one other thought that I would like to leave with you from the consideration of this truth, and that is this: that just as there is labour with God, and just as the conditions of successful labour are to be with God, so after labour there comes rest, and the conditions of successful rest are also to be found in the rest with God. (J. R. Diggle, M. A.)Workers together with God This ninth verse is a further amplification of Paul’ s intent, which is to press unity against factions and divisions; and it is a declaration of his argument before, which was “ The planters and waterers are one, but God gives the increase.” This he further illustrates in the beginning of this verse--“ For we are workers together with God.” We are all in God’ s vineyard, and labour unto Him. In what sense they are workers with God; not by immediate producing of any spiritual effects, but by the external application of the ministry to the people. As Gehazi carried his master’ s staff and touched the child with it, but that did no good till Elijah came himself. In the first place, consider what reasons may be for this, why God will use such workers with Him, He needeth not the parts or gifts of any. First, this is a fit and an accommodated way to our natures. When God sends men of the same mould and subject to the same affections, this may the more easily draw us. When God delivered the law Himself, it was with such terror and majesty, that they desired that God would not Himself speak any more to them, so that mere men would not be able to bear the immediate approaches of the Divine majesty to them. As the fowler catcheth many birds by one decoy a bird of the same feather, thus it becometh us to have such to bring us home unto God, that are affected with our estates, that have the same temptations in them as other men. Hence the more experience God’ s ministers have of the work of grace, the temptations of Satan, the deceitfulness of sin, the more fit they are to comfort others, or to deliver them out of snares. Secondly, He may do it to oblige us and tie us to His instituted means. It is a great caveat in the Scripture, and frequently urged: “ No man must follow the imagination of his own heart.” Now God would prevent such loose principles, and bind us up to His instituted way; He will bind us, though He is not bound. Thirdly, hereby God would exercise the humility, meekness, and obedience of men. Oh, it is a great matter for men to submit to God’ s institution! Fourthly, that men might be the more inexcusable. For if thou art not now turned from thy sin, who shall plead for thee? Fifthly, God will hereby declare His power so much the more. Now to this there needs one caution to be added, viz., that this connection between the labour of the minister and God’ s working is not natural, necessary, and perpetual. We may work, and yet neither the presence or power of God be therein. It is not here as in the works of nature; there God hath made a perpetual and unalterable decree. Now if you ask when may it fall out that though the ministry laboureth, yet God doth not work with it, reasons may be on God’ s part, the minister’ s, and the people’ s. First, work with God in prayer, that He would work with the ministry. Secondly, take heed of such sins as may provoke God not to he with the ministry. (A. Burgess.)Ye are God’ s husbandry, ye are God’ s building.--God’ s husbandry and building The metaphor of the field describes the raw material on which God works; that of the house describes the result of the work. The field represents the individual Christian in his secret power of life and endless growth; the house represents the Church in the unity of plan, in the beauty and strength of its structure. The metaphor of the building lends itself more easily than that of the farm to the apostle’ s purpose in the subsequent verses, and leads naturally to the highest conception, that of God’ s temple in 1 Corinthians 3:16. (Principal Edwards.)God’ s husbandry I. The first condition of the soil--its wilderness condition--is not without growths. It is overgrown with forests, choked with underbush, and cumbered with falling and decaying materials. The sun is always hidden from its interior. It is apt to be a lair of beasts. This is certainly the state of the human soil before religious culture is applied to it. Men are in a state of wilderness in the beginning. II. The first step of husbandry is to relieve the soil of these wild growths, and prepare it for tillage. The trees are felled and burned, so that the ground may be disencumbered and laid open to the sun. But some, for expedition, are only girdled. All connection between the sap at the roots and the top is severed by a line of sharp cuts around the trees; and so girdled, they will stand for a while, but they will never leaf again; so that, little by little, more and more ground is susceptible to the plough. The first work of religion is analogous to this. Many of the things which men practise in an unregenerate state are, by the power of God’ s grace at their conversion, cut down peremptorily and taken out of the way. But there are a great many things which are only girdled, and only little by little brought to the ground. III. When this preliminary process is complete, the pioneer farmer is ready for the next stage, which is that of seed-planting. It is not smooth sward that the plough is now to turn; but rough soil, full of the green stumps of trees but just disappeared. And, worse than this, roots are matted all over the ground; but the ground is, at any rate, open to the sun, and every year and every ploughing will rip up and throw out some of these roots. And so it is with men. Their first efforts at goodness are very crooked and shallow. When men first begin to let go the lower forms of wickedness, and to sow the higher seeds of virtue, it is often like the sudden taking away of the forest, and the laying open of the soil to the sun. The first crops are very unsatisfactory; yet these incipient mistakes must be taken, if you are going to have a good farm by and by. IV. Having got thus far the home-lot is cleared. The stones are cleared away, the stumps rooted out, and the ground fenced round where his house is to be. Then he gives the ground a more thorough farming, and so the house-lot is got into a better condition. So men usually begin to smooth down those traits of their character which lie next to themselves, as it were, and which are in the family. Then one and another habit is attacked, and trait after trait is added. And so they enlarge, more and more, every year, their husbandry. V. Hitherto the farmer has only sown the grains and roots absolutely needed for sustenance; but now a garden and orchard are planted. And so in spiritual life. At first it is a tough, hard fight for life. By and by times of richer gladness come--more liberty, more hope. Prayer grows out of duty into pleasure. God’ s Word opens, and Christians walk amid beds of flowers. Clusters of fruit are gathered--richer experiences--the fruits of the Spirit. VI. Eventually it is resolved upon to bring in every acre. All outlying lots are to be cleared. So, eminently, is it with advancing Christians. After a time many men experience a second conversion, as it seems to them. They are aroused to a sense of the largeness and symmetry of Christian character. And their purpose is to subdue every thought and every feeling to the will of God. VII. The farmer, as his last step, applies to his soil, thus brought forward, the most scientific methods of ascertained husbandry. He underdrains deep the whole estate; and when all those stagnant pools and chilling springs that deluge the roots of tender-growing plants are carried away, then he subsoils. He puts down the plough as far as iron can go, and mellows the soil and the subsoil down deep in the earth. Then he begins to select better herbs than before. And just so it is with Christians. As they grow in grace, and as God, the great Husbandman, perfects the work of clearing up and bringing into a condition of complete tillage the human heart, the religious feelings grow deeper. Many of those causes which obstructed their growth are now drained and carried off from the soul. Men give themselves more thorough religious cultivation. And the later periods of Christian experience are by far the most assiduous and the most faithful Conclusions: Note--1. Some practical lessons we may perceive from what has been said. (1) The difference between instantaneous beginnings and gradual developments. No man ever suddenly cleared up forty acres of land. A man may and does begin suddenly, but the doing requires a long period. And so no man ever began to be a Christian without an instantaneous volition; but the mere volition is only a beginning. The evolution of Christian character is gradual. (2) The meaning of succession in Christian experience. We know that in husbandry, until some things are done, other things cannot be reached. And so there must be an order of development in Christian life. We cannot anticipate those graces which come only after the ripening of preceding graces. Graces grow just as grains do; first the sprouting under the ground, &c. (3) That the hardest part in both kinds of husbandry is apt to come at the beginning; but that, if well met then, it grows easier and easier every successive year. How hard was it at first to bring the soil to such a state that you dared to think “ plough!” and how hard is it for a man at first to bring himself into such a state that he dares to think “ prayer!” How many men who would like to be able to get their graces just as they can get an old, well-cultivated farm; but, though you can do that in natural husbandry, you cannot do it in spiritual husbandry. 2. The various kinds of spiritual husbandmen and husbandry. (1) There are shiftless and lazy farmers who raise just enough grain to keep them through the year. That is all they ask, and therefore they have no ambition to seek for more. And how many men there are who, after having been in the Church ten or twenty years, are just about where they were when they first entered it! (2) Scheming, changeable farmers who, instead of laying out their strength upon well-ascertained processes, are bewitched with new schemes and experiments. And there are just such spiritual farmers. One is running after new promises, another after a new faith, and another after new solutions of miracles. One has got a new doctrine, another some new idea of Church organisation, and another some new way of putting this or that religious truth. They see their old farms left untilled. (3) Pedigree farmers, whose fruit bears the highest-sounding names, but is the poorest in the neighbourhood. Their oxen are lean, their cows are milkless, but what a line of blood they sprung from! Did you never see just such husbandmen in the Church?--men who had no greater morality, or piety, or spiritual experience, but who went back through a long pedigree. (4) Chaff farmers. Suppose you should find a farmer who said that he was satisfied that farmers had been doing injustice to many kinds of seeds; and that he felt assured that if a man would sow cockle-seeds; and do it sincerely, God would give the increase: so He would--of cockles. Suppose a man should sow that detestable Canada thistle, and say that it was wheat. Would any amount of botanical sincerity on the part of this fool secure to him a harvest of anything better than the seed sown? Now a great many persons say, “ Why do you teach us such doctrines? What matter is it whether we believe in the Bible or not, so that we live about right, or that we are sincere? Is not that enough?” No, it is not enough. There is the same connection between spiritual seed and the result. Sincerity is a very good thing, but it cannot make grain out of chaff; neither can it make Christian graces out of worldly affections and worldly estates. (5) Fence farmers. What would you think of a husbandman who neglected everything because he was giving his whole time to the building of his fences? And, oh, such fences! The best and highest that could be built. Oftentimes, when he has got them all built up, he goes to work and pulls them down again. And what for? Why, just so that he can build them up again! And did you never hear of spiritual husbandmen that were for ever defining the great points of doctrine; for ever running boundaries round the kingdom of God; rebuilding the middle walls of partition, but never sowing and never reaping? There never was a fence that would keep vermin out of a man’ s farm, nor a fence that would keep hawks off from it. The best thing a farmer can do is to take such care of his soil as to have a harvest so rich that he will be able to spare a little to vermin and birds. The only safe way is to have so much spiritual culture in the Church that such minor troubles make little difference with its prosperity. (6) Nimrod farmers--hunting farmers. There are in the Church heresy-hunters. They are searching for foxes, and wolves, and bears, that they suppose are lying waste God’ s husbandry! They never do anything except fire at other folks. I have no doubt that Nimrod was a very good fellow in his own poor, miserable way; but a Nimrod minister is the meanest of all sorts of hunters! (H. W. Beecher.)God’ s husbandry The harvest is passed; the corn is housed. Is the farmer’ s labour done? No, the plough is even now at work again; the seed must soon be sown for next year’ s crop. So continual is the round. But, as the work of husbandry goes on, is there no lesson to us in these things? Yea, all nature speaks to us if we would hear, and the words of the text call us to listen to its voice. Let these words teach you-- I. The care which God has had for you.1. In choosing you to be part of His own field--the Church of Christ. You are plants set in the Lord’ s garden, branches grafted into the living Vine; your heart is the soil on which God deigns to bestow culture, and from which His grace is able to bring forth fruits, meet for the paradise of God. 2. In the price He gave for this field. “ Ye are not your own,” &c. 3. In enclosing you with the design of making you holy to Himself. Have you ever seen a piece of ground taken in from a common? While all around it is still barren and wild, is not that one spot fair and goodly to the eye? This is what God would have you be in the midst of a world that lieth in wickedness. 4. In that He is ever seeking to improve the ground of your hearts. But, as the farmer does not use the same management to all kinds of soil--the stiff, stubborn clay must not be treated like the light, dry sand-so God now tries to win us by mercies; now to frighten us by judgments. Perhaps your heart clings to the love of this world; then He shakes it loose by storms of trouble. Perhaps He sees you indulging in sinful pleasures; then He makes you taste their bitterness and gall. 5. By employing labourers in His field, for your sakes. He sends His ministers to labour among you, if, by any means, they may save your souls alive. II. The return you ought to make to him. What is this? Surely, to take care that you do not receive the grace of God in vain. When a farmer has bestowed much care and management upon a field, does he not expect some increase? How few soils are hopelessly bad, as not to be made better by good management! The earth is no insolvent debtor; you do not put into its bank to receive nought again. Shall the very ground we tread on put us to shame? Ask, then, yourselves, are you bearing fruit to God? (E. Blencowe, M. A.)God, a husbandman As such--I. He is thoroughly acquainted with the soil. He knows--1. Its original state; the soul with all its pristine powers. 2. Its present condition; its barren and wilderness state--stony, weedy, and thorny. 3. Its tillable capabilities--what can be made of it. Some can become the majestic cedar, whilst others only the shrub. II. He has all necessary instrumentalities. This stony, weedy ground requires certain well-contrived implements to work it into a fruitful condition. There must be the ploughshare, the pruning-hook, &c. He has them.1. In the events of life. All the dark and painful circumstances in life are His implements to break up the fallow ground. All the pleasant and propitious are instruments for mellowing the soil. 2. In the revelations of truth. There is law and love, Sinai and Calvary. III. He possesses the proper seed. His Word is seed in many respects.1. Vitality. Every seed has life in it. His Word is spirit and life. 2. Completeness. The seed is complete in itself. Nothing can be taken from it, nothing can be added to it, any alteration injures it. 3. Prolificness. One seed in course of time may cover a continent and feed nations. The word of God is wonderfully fruitful. IV. He commands the culturing elements. The best agriculturists who understand the soil possess the best implements and the best seed, are thwarted in their efforts, because the elements are not propitious. God has command over the elements. The heat, the cold, the dew, the shower, the sunshine, and the air, are all at His disposal. (D. Thomas, D. D.)God’ s husbandry The Scripture doth delight to compare the Church to many similitudes, all which show the tender respects it stands in towards God. Sometimes to a wife, sometimes to a body, sometimes to the branches of a vine; at other times to a garden, to a vineyard, and here to a field, and a house. We will first handle these two similitudes jointly, and then severally. Jointly, in that they are God’ s husbandry and house. It implieth these things--First, the power and goodness of God in making them so. A building is not of itself; everybody that seeth a house, presently concludes the house did not make itself; so if you see a field well husbanded, we all know of itself the earth would not do, but rather its curse is to bring forth briers and thorns. So when you see a people leaving their sins, walking according to the rules revealed in Scripture, you must necessarily conclude, this men have not of themselves, they cannot have this by flesh and blood. Hence, God, speaking of the Church of Israel, said: “ He planted a vine” (Jeremiah 2:21). Secondly, it doth imply dominion and absolute sovereignty over us. Even as the master that buildeth the house appointeth what customs and orders shall be in the house, the husbandman appointeth what seed he pleaseth for the ground. This point is of great consideration, for how durst men in all ages have brought in such superstition, such heresy, such tyranny in the Church of God, if they had remembered there is but one master in the house of God--one lawgiver. All officers are but servants, and not masters. Thirdly, it denoteth propriety and interest that God hath a right to us, that we are His, and not our own. The house is the owner’ s, he hath the propriety of it; so that by this means they who are, indeed, of this building, of this field, they are more happy than all others in the world, for God is in covenant with them. To them only God is their God, and they His people. Fourthly, it supposeth care, love, and protection. Propriety causeth care and love among men. What cares a man for another man’ s field, another man’ s corn, but he looketh to his own? He weedeth that, he fenceth that, he keepeth that from all violence. It makes for God’ s praise, that thy heart be a room swept and kept clear for Him to lodge in. Oh, urge this in prayer! O Lord, am I not Thy husbandry? Is not my soul Thy building? Why, then, lieth it thus ruinous? Why is it neglected by Thee? It is not only my comfort, my happiness, but Thy glory and honour is interested in this. Come we in the next place to consider the several similitudes, and--First, ye are God’ s husbandry. Take notice that He doth not here speak of the invisible and mystical Church of Christ, but as they were a visible Church at Corinth. This relation of being God’ s husbandry implieth something on His part, and many things on ours. On His part: First, that He finds all people of themselves like a barren wilderness and fruitless desert. The curse upon the ground is fulfilled in them--to bring forth nothing but briers and thorns. All the things of grace and godliness are not only above our natures, but contrary to them. Secondly, it supposeth that grace and godliness is wholly planted by God in their souls, for this floweth from the other. Seeing we are such a barren wilderness, what fruit can ever be expected from us? Thirdly, this supposeth that God likewise giveth all the seasons and opportunities of growth and fruitfulness. As the gardener, He looketh to His times when He must water the plants, lest they die. The season of the year helpeth to grow, as well as the nature of the soil. Oh, then, know that as the natural seasons and times are of His appointment, so much more the gracious ones. On our parts, who are the field to be tilled, there are these things: First, a willingness to have the Word of God prepare and wound our souls; even tearing our hearts to pieces, that so the Word as seed may fructify. This is what the Scripture calls, “ Ploughing up the fallow ground” (Jeremiah 4:3). Oh, expect not healing and peace and comfort, till you have been thus disquieted! Do not then quarrel at the Word of God, but rather bless Him for the power of it, when it changeth the whole face of a congregation. Secondly, this implieth that you should answer the satisfaction of that husbandman whose husbandry you are. Who will bear that ground which, after much labour and cost, brings forth no fruit at all? Thirdly, it supposeth a careful improvement of all those means which God useth for our spiritual good. If we be God’ s husbandry, we are patiently to receive and fruitfully to improve whatsoever may make for our fruitfulness. Now the means are of two sorts, either essential, and entire and perfect, such as the hearing of the Word, praying, godly communion; or, accidental and occasional, such as afflictions, troubles, and persecutions. They need a winter as well as a summer. Lastly, consider how near such a people are to utter ruin; while you are but near it, there is some hope of escaping, if you seek out; who after all God’ s husbandry, are the same ignorant and profane people still. Thy soul is God’ s field. Oh, what fruit, what reformation shouldst thou show forth? Thus, not only the Sabbath day, but every day may be a Sabbath day; every field thou goest into; every goodly crop thou seest on the ground, it may teach and preach unto thee. (A. Burgess.)God’ s building is Divine-- I. In its plan. II. In its structure.1. Christ, the foundation.2. Living stones, the superstructure. III. In its workmanship. Each stone by God is--1. Polished.2. Adjusted.3. Cemented. IV. In its purpose.1. For His glory.2. For the inhabitation of His Spirit. (J. Lyth, D. D.)God’ s building There have been many splendid structures which, in their day, have been the wonder and admiration of the world, but this infinitely transcends them all. The colossal palaces and hanging gardens reared by Nebuchadnezzar must have presented a gorgeous spectacle; while the fame of Solomon’ s temple has filled the earth in every age. But what is all this material splendour, which has long since passed away, to this temple whose stones are immortal spirits--whose foundation is the rock of ages-whose walls no revolutions can ever shake--whose fair proportions shall be fully developed, amid the ruin of all the mightiest and loveliest works of human ingenuity and power--whose top-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings when the “ heavens shall have passed away.” In surveying this building, note-- I. The foundation. This is the most important part; if this be defective, all the cost and labour of the superstructure will be in vain. But the foundation upon which this edifice is built is such as an Omnipotent hand alone could lay, and for which no other can be substituted. Christ is the foundation of the Christian Church, as He is--1. The source of her being. The Church could have no existence but for Him. The spiritual stones that constitute the edifice are sinners ransomed by His blood, and renewed by His Spirit. Were it possible for the connection between the stones and the foundation to be dissolved, the whole edifice would become a heap of ruins. 2. The author of her creed. In regard to her doctrines she rests on no human authority, but takes them as they flow pure from Christ and His inspired apostles. 3. The founder of her discipline. His laws are few, and the principles on which they rest are equity and love. “ One is your Master,” &c. “ A new commandment give I unto you,” &c. 4. The guarantee of her stability and perpetuity. “ Upon this rock will I build My Church,” &c. These were His words--this was His pledge; and “ all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth,” in this capacity, and for this very purpose. II. The materials.1. Immortal spirits, redeemed and regenerated men, lively stones, or what Paul denominates “ gold, silver, precious stones” ; the accredited and the durable materials which ministers are the instruments of placing in the Church. But in the visible Church there are materials of another kind--mere professors, hypocrites, formalists, “ the wood, hay, stubble” ; but they form no part of the true Church, but shall ultimately be removed from the edifice. 2. Whence are the materials taken? See these “ living stones,” as in successive courses they rise to constitute and adorn the edifice. They are of various colours--from the white of Europe to the jet of Africa; every rank--from the monarch to the labourer. “ They shall come from the east and from the west,” &c. “ They shall come” from the eastern Brahmins--from the western savages--from the Southern Isles--from the northern Esquimaux; “ they shall come” from the patriarchal and the prophetic ages--from the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. David, with the harp, shall be there; and Isaiah, with his evangelic songs; and Ezekiel, with his prophetic visions; mingling with the malefactor from the cross, and the poor beggar from the rich man’ s gate. “ They shall come” from every denomination: the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, &c,; all forgetting, or lamenting, that they should ever have been otherwise than one. III. The instrumentality and agency. The instrumentality is human; the agency Divine. Yet the instrumentality is of Divine appointment; and, for the most part, inseparably connected with the agency. Though it is God who “ giveth the increase,” yet Paul musk “ plant” and “ Apollos water.” Ministers are not architects, but simply workmen, employed under the guidance of the Divine architect. Nor can any one stone boast against another in respect of “ the rock whence it was hewn,” “ the hole of the pit whence it was digged,” for all alike are hewn out of the quarry of a common depravity. However much as they may vary in other respects, all are on a level here--alike “ dead in trespasses and sins” ; whilst it is “ God who has quickened them together with Christ,” &c. I know that it is not with us to “ limit the Holy One of Israel,” nor to say by what avenues He shall or shall not obtain access to the human heart. It may be affliction, &c.; but the ministry of the gospel is the main and ordinary instrumentality. Was it not by this that Peter “ pricked to the heart” three thousand; that Luther shook the throne of papal tyranny; that Whitefield and Wesley aroused the slumbering Churches of Great Britain and America. What is it that has caused the Rose of Sharon to bloom amid the snows of Greenland? What is it that has gathered the savages of Kaffraria and New Zealand around the Cross? It is the preaching of the gospel in its simplicity and purity--and nothing less--that God will own and honour for this great and glorious purpose; Christ, in the sufficiency of His atonement; in the prevalence of His intercession, &c. (T. Raffles, D. D.)God’ s building I. God is our builder. If we climb some high hill near the sea on a fine day, we behold on one side hills and valleys; and on the other the tremendous ocean stretching to the horizon. Then we feel that our Father is a grand God to make such things. There are great buildings which men have erected, but there is no building which is so great as the splendid planet on which we live. But far more wonderful than the world is the body of man; but a grinder thing still is the soul, which God created to dwell in. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 According to the grace of God … as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation … But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.All of grace Now when we say a godly man acknowledgeth all to grace, consider--First, he doth it heartily, seriously. No fountain doth run more sweetly, fully, and purely than he doth. Oh, his heart is a happy spring from whence comes such rivers of living water! Secondly, this acknowledgment is accompanied with a renouncing all his own works. His own strength, his own duties, he doth not so much as think of them, nor mention them. Thirdly, this acknowledging it must be from an inward sense of our own sin and unworthiness, how ill we have deserved at God’ s hand. No man can ever praise grace that hath not felt the sting of sin, the power of the law. Fourthly, he must wholly and solely acknowledge grace. He must not give some piece to grace and the rest to his own free-will. He must not by grace mean the outward manifestation and revelation of it, but the inward efficacy of it. Lastly, he must set up this grace of God in a Scripture way. Not to oppose godliness or holiness, or to sin more securely and boldly: this is not to acknowledge grace, but to abuse grace. In the next place consider why the godly are so sensible of God’ s grace. And first, this is the final cause of all the good that God doth enable us unto. This is all He looks for. Secondly, the children of God are endowed with an ingenuous, free, and excellent spirit; therefore they cannot but confess by whom it is they have obtained grace. Thirdly, the real sting, smart, and danger they have been in makes their heart full and mouth full of the grace of God. Fourthly, they are an humble debased people in themselves. They have low thoughts of all that they do. And therefore it is that they are so precious with God. Fifthly, they must needs acknowledge grace, because they have the experience how hard it is to do anything spiritual and upon heavenly grounds. And therefore if they are ever enabled thereunto they cannot but exalt grace. Sixthly, to praise and exalt the grace of God, it is a very profitable and advantageous duty also. It is two ways profitable.1. It procures more grace and mercies from God: “ He giveth grace to the humble” (James 4:6). 2. This acknowledging of grace will enlarge a man, and make a man more willing and ready in all the ways of God. It is like oil to the wheel; it is like wings to the bird. Duties done with the spirit of praise and thanksgiving have great life and vigour in them. Now I shall add one caution: corrupt doctrines and opinions in religion may much cool this duty of giving thanks. I shall instance some. As first, the denying of original sin is a great engine against the grace of God. Secondly, the maintenance of free-will doth much detract from free grace. Thirdly, that the law is not to be preached; no, not for direction or obligation. Whereas Christ and Paul do often press this. (A. Burgess.)A good foundation This Paul makes the principal part of his wisdom, that he began with a good foundation. The point therefore in hand is of great consequence, both to the preacher and to the auditor, to consider what foundation his religion and godliness is fixed upon. For the opening of this, consider that divines do ordinarily make a twofold foundation. The one they call the foundation of our knowledge and faith in matters of religion; and this is the Scripture only. We can lay no other foundation for the matters of faith but the Word of God. Secondly, there is the foundation of the being, or existence of all our glory and salvation, and that is only Jesus Christ. I shall instance in four unquestionable foundations, which are the four main pillars that support our Christian building, for the necessary things of religion are these four. Either--1. The matters to be believed.2. The worship and necessary service of God.3. The spiritual benefits and mercies, justification and salvation.4. The things to be done by us in our way to salvation. We will begin with the first, the foundation of our faith or Divine assent in matters of religion. What is that which every man must build his faith upon? And that is the Word of God. As God at first put all the light into the sun, and the stars shine by a borrowed light from it, so God hath now put all supernatural light into the Scripture, and all guides are to shine by that. Now that the written Word of God is the only foundation of our Christian faith, appeareth by these reasons--First, a Christian faith ought to be a Divine, supernatural faith, not a bare human faith. Now nothing can be the ground of a Divine faith but a Divine authority. Secondly, the Scriptures are only the foundation because they are the immediate verity or truth coming from God, who is the first essential truth. They have not only a Divine authority, but evident infallibility. Take a tree from the river side and plant it in a wilderness, what can you expect but withering? And thus it is if you take a man from the Scripture; his seeming faith, graces, godliness will all presently vanish. Thirdly, the Scriptures only are the foundation of faith because they are only immutable and unmovable. They abide always the same, they are not subject to changes, to perturbations of affections, as men are. Councils consisted of men carried by passions and- interests. Lastly, the Scripture is only to be laid for a foundation because this only is strong enough to support and bear up in sad hours of temptation and dangerous times of persecutions. Our Saviour quelled Satan’ s temptations by arrows out of the Scripture quiver. Now for the matter of doctrine to be believed, some men lay four rotten and weak foundations; others may be reduced to this. The first is that of the papist, the authority of the Church and the Pope, being wholly ignorant themselves, but resting all on their authority. The second foundation men lay is the authority of the civil magistrate. This is a mere political faith. The third is private revelation and enthusiasms. Fourthly, another false foundation is mere human reason. (A. Burgess.)Foundations The foundation therefore of every good duty or work we do hath these parts. First, there is a foundation by way of a direction or rule, to which everything we do must be commensurate, and by which it must be regulated, now that is the Word of God. For God’ s Word is not only a rule of faith but of manners. And as thou must be of no other religion than the Word directs to, so thou must do no other actions or live any other life than that guides thee too. A second part of that foundation we must lay for the practice of holiness is the justification and reconciliation of our persons with God through Christ. Thirdly, another foundation we must lay is to receive power and strength from Christ only, both in the beginning and progress of al1 good actions. Fourthly, the last part of this foundation is a renewed and sanctified nature. Now let us consider why we are to be careful about laying this foundation. First, because it is very dangerous, and it is very easy to miscarry in this matter, if the foundation be not well laid thou art undone for ever. In matters of men’ s estates, or of their bodily life, how careful are they to go upon a sure foundation. Only they wilfully venture their ruin in the matters of their soul. Thou wouldst be unwilling to live in an house whose foundation is rotten! Consider, then, am I in the right? Fear would make thee jealous and suspicious. Secondly, we mistake easily. We see the greatest part of Christians never attend to these things. And withal the difference between true and false foundations is spiritually to be discerned. Oh then say, I do the outward works of religion, I am careful to discharge them! But how easy may I build all upon a false foundation! Thirdly, therefore we must look to our foundation because of the great confusion that will be at last on those who have failed therein. Fourthly, therefore lay a good foundation, for if that be wanting, thou doest nothing but sin in all thou doest. In the third place, let us take notice what are those weak and rotten foundations that many men build upon in regard of their practice. First, a conformity to the life of others; they do as most do, they shall speed as well as they; what would ye have them to be singular, to be different from others? This is a most rotten foundation. Secondly, others build upon a partial practice of good things. The hypocritical Jews they rested upon their temple, their sacrifices, their outward worship of God; in the meanwhile their hands were full of blood, of unrighteousness and injustice. Thirdly, another rotten foundation is the mere work done. They consider no more than the external act of religion, of justice, of charity, and so they think they have obeyed the commandment. This was the Pharisees’ foundation. Fourthly, another rotten foundation is the goodness, yea, supposed perfection, of the work they do. (A. Burgess.)Building on the foundation To amplify this, consider, there may be a twofold building or addition to the Word of God, either destructive and corruptive, such as wholly overthroweth the true meaning and sense of the Holy Ghost. And this is a very dangerous sin. Or else perfective and explicative. Thus the New Testament was added to the Old as a perfective addition, not corruptive; though it could not have been added as Scripture, but that the authors thereof had a Divine infallibility. And now what the ministers of God in their ministerial labours do, it must be an addition explicative of the foundation, though it be not with Divine infallibility. Secondly, the Word of God, which containeth the foundation that the apostles have laid, may be either considered in respect of the words only, or in respect of the sense clothed with words. In the next place, let us consider why we ought so to take heed, and that is to be manifest in many respects. First, from God Himself, His glory and honour is greatly concerned herein. Secondly, on God’ s part we are to take heed because He hath so severely threatened all those that add or detract to His Word. Any that shall alter these foundations or change these bounds. Secondly, on the people’ s part. Therefore we ought greatly to take heed. For--1. The Word of God in the true sense of it is the only food and nourishment of the soul. 2. If we build not on this foundation, the preaching of the Word loseth those glorious and excellent effects for which it is appointed. 3. On the people’ s part we had need to take heed, because they are more prone and ready to receive any corrupt sense than the pure meaning of the Scripture. Lastly, on the minister’ s part it is necessary theft he should take heed. For--1. He hath not a magistery but a ministry committed to him. 2. He is accountable for all the sin and error people run into through his neglect. 3. He must take heed because, though a man do preach the substantials and the necessary things of salvation purely, yet if he add or mix any corrupt opinions, though of a less nature, that man’ s salvation is very difficult. (A. Burgess.)The spiritual foundation I. The foundation.1. Is laid.2. Is one.3. Is sure. II. The superstructure.1. Is in course of erection.2. Is variable in character. III. The test is--1. Certain.2. Severe.3. Decisive. The foundation of faith I. The text establishes a distinction between fundamental doctrine and that which is not fundamental. It speaks of the foundation which must be laid in all Christian teaching. It speaks also of the superstructure, which varies according to the disposition or knowledge of the individual teacher. II. Christian teaching may legitimately be carried beyond the limits of fundamental doctrine. There have certainly been seasons in the history of the Church in which its secondary doctrines have usurped the first place. Times of re-action, in which the Christian mind was recalled to the foundation, have in some cases promoted the development of other secondary doctrines, which have overshadowed the foundation no less than those which obtained acceptance before. One phase of the Reformation was a return to the heart of Christianity from the intricate subtleties of scholasticism. Yet Calvinism in its extreme development is at least as barren, and as subversive of all place and keeping in the mutual relation of doctrines, as any part of the scholastic system. It is no wonder that men are tempted from time to time to cast aside all but the most elementary doctrinal teaching, as to content themselves with accepting the bare letter of the Bible, denouncing every inference from it as a corruption of Evangelical simplicity. Far different was the teaching of the apostle. “ As a wise master-builder I have laid the foundation,” he does not add “ Let no man build thereupon;” but “ Let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.” While he disparages the “ wisdom of this world,” he congratulates his converts that they “ are enriched … in all utterance, and in all knowledge,” and declares his intention to “ speak the wisdom of God” not indeed to the “ carnal babes in Christ,” but “ among them that are perfect” and able to bear the highest teaching. The Hebrew Christians also are reproved, as those of Corinth are, for their backwardness in the school of Christ (Hebrews 5:12-13). III. “ Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”1. To preach Christ is the chief office of God’ s messengers. The leading events of the gospel history, the doctrine of Christ’ s nature which is a necessary inference from and the only consistent explanation of those events, and the efficacy of His redeeming work which rests on the truth of His nature, make up one complex whole, the due and proportionate exhibition of which is preaching Christ. This is presupposed in all farther Christian teaching. 2. All more advanced teaching must rest upon this. (1) It must not be inconsistent with it. For the superstructure may not merely overshadow, it may disturb and destroy the foundation. Doctrine which comes into collision with fundamental doctrine is a virtual denial of the foundation. (2) It must stand in a definite relation to it and grow out of it. Thus the doctrine of the Sacraments cannot be duly taught, except as it is taught in connection with those of the Incarnation and Atonement. IV. “ let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.”1. There may be teaching which is not inconsistent with the leading Christian verities, and which nevertheless is false or worthless. Those who promulgate it will have to answer for it before God. “ The day shall declare it.” Paul was thinking mainly of vain, subtle, and barren questions such as those against which he frequently warns Timothy and Titus (1 Timothy 1:4-7; 1 Timothy 4:7; 1 Timothy 6:3-5; 2 Timothy 2:16; 2 Timothy 2:23; 2 Timothy 4:4; Titus 3:9). But the words apply to every form of teaching which is in itself false and groundless, which is barren and unprofitable, and which ministers questions, rather than godly edifying. 2. If men are answerable for teaching which is not inconsistent with the foundation of the faith, how much more for that which directly or indirectly overthrows it. If vain and unprofitable religious questions cannot be raised with innocence, how can men teach heresy without guilt? If an unwise builder injures the Temple of God by unskilful workmanship, a judgment is pronounced against him: how then shall he escape, who has either never laid the foundation at all, or who (when it has been laid) has succeeded in disturbing it? (Bp. Basil Jones.)Building the true life I. Christ is the foundation of Christian trust and character. No other King and Saviour of men is possible to those who know and understand what He was and taught. Great teachers of religion, and great examples of conduct, have been in the world: but in comparison with Christ, they are but stars in the firmament of the world’ s night, which become lost to sight when the glorious sun has risen. He stands unique and preeminent in all history, the only true Saviour of mankind. A Congregational minister once said to a Unitarian minister, “ Can you conceive of anything greater and higher than the life and teaching of Jesus Christ?” and the Unitarian minister frankly answered, “ No.” “ Then what is the difference between your conception of the character of God and the character of Christ?” and he as frankly said again, “ That it was a very fine point.” The apostle, as a wise master builder, had laid this foundation as the basis of the new life; not himself, or Apollos, or Peter. The Corinthians were to be rooted and built up in Christ, and in no other. But they were to take heed how they built themselves up on Him. II. Two structures are possible even upon Christ. A Christian life must have Christ as the model as well as the foundation. The gold and silver, and precious stones, that constituted the glory and beauty of Christ’ s character, must constitute the glory and beauty of theirs. But it was possible for men holding some connection with Christ to build up a pile of perishable rubbish, a hut instead of a temple. They might mingle doctrines and practices which had no necessary connection with Christ and Him crucified; and they were doing it.1. Some men never think of building up anything, but take life just as it comes. They have no plan of life to work at. Indeed, nothing is so irksome to such men as to live by rule. They live on impulses, come from where they may, from inward passion or from outward circumstances. Dreadful, indeed, is the fate of those who have tried to make this life a holiday. 2. Others live for a purpose; but they are building only for this world, and not for eternity. Their foundation is on the very surface of things, and as the building rises it tapers off into nothingness. A man may bring to it intellect, will, energy; and all for what? Perhaps to have it said of him, “ That man started with half-a-crown, and he has made a fortune.” But the Divine soul within him has not been built up; his nobler nature has lain despised and neglected; he has been building up his circumstances, but he has not been building up himself. 3. I once watched the building of a new church, and remember what trouble they had in getting a foundation for the tower, and how long they were in reaching down to a solid basis of stone that would bear the immense mass of weight that was to rest upon it. I remembered also when the foundation was laid, how carefully the plan of the building was studied and followed by the workmen; how every principal stone was selected and measured, and chiselled to a nicety. It was all done by faithfully working according to the plans of the architect; and when the building was complete, it was but a transcript of what had been in the architect’ s mind before a stone had been laid. It was a parable in stone of the manner in which a human life must be built. We must get down beneath the surface and rubble of things before we can reach Christ as our foundation, as the rock upon which our eternity of life is to rest. Hearing and doing His sayings is trusting to Christ; nothing more and nothing less (Matthew 7:24, &c.). He drew with a Divine hand and an unerring pencil the plan of a human life, not only by His words but by His deeds, to show what God meant in creating man. To believe in Christ is to believe that His plan is to be our plan, faithfully worked out after the living pattern He exhibited. But our mistake and disaster is, that we mix up the wood and the gold, the stubble with the silver, and the hay with the precious stones. One man has great gaps in his character because he thinks God regards faith as the transcendent virtue; and if faith meant the prompt and active loyalty of the mind to all Christ’ s commandments, he would be right; but if faith is taken to mean an indolent confidence, such a notion will arrest the progress of the building up of the soul. Another man says that prayer is the principal thing. Now, though Christ says that we ought always to pray and not to faint, He says also that it is he who does His will who is most eminent before God. What would be otherwise gold, becomes wood or stubble when we put it out of its place, and make it a substitute for other equally essential things. The doors of a house are necessary things; but if we put them at the top instead of on the floor, they are useless and absurd. It is this jumbling of things which often makes the spiritual structure of our lives unsightly and unprogressive. We want symmetry, III. If we could follow the Divine order in the building of the soul, how beautiful our lives would be! If the first act of the new life could be an act of faith, grandly receptive and grandly active at the same time; and if to such a faith we could add virtue or mental valour--an enterprise of soul that would launch us forth upon every difficult work with enthusiasm; and if to such valour we could join knowledge, &c., &c. (2 Peter 1:5, &c.). These are the gold and silver and precious stones of the Christian life, if we could but build them into our characters with symmetry and beauty. IV. We are like men who are building in the night, who cannot see exactly what they are doing, but every man’ s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, the full daylight shall show the true value or worthlessness of that which we have been building. A great part of the building that is going on is an unconscious operation, or nearly so. That which we knowingly build into ourselves is but a small part in the structure of our lives. A habit steals upon us with furtive steps, and embraces us with arms which are as soft as velvet but as strong as chains. We forget the work that has been wrought upon us in the past, because we were never distinctly conscious of its kind and extent. And so each man is a mystery to himself, an enigma in his own eyes. He feels that there is in him such a strange mixture that he is doubtful of himself, doubtful whether the gold or the alloy is in the larger proportion. Therefore the apostle exhorts us to take heed, to be vigilant, and as far as possible to know how we are building. For the daylight will break, and this compound structure which we call ourselves shall become more clearly defined by and by. (C. Short, M. A.)Building men St. Paul here calls himself a builder; and nothing could be more significant of the specific end he has in view than this word. The word “ build” means work fitted to set up, to strengthen and establish. In this sense we see it illustrated in all the business and varied occupations of human life. The apostle, in his sphere as a preacher, was as much a builder as a carpenter, or a mason; for the work of an apostle was a most assured reality. It implied all the deep intensities of a most zealous soul in order to save and to bless. I. What is a builder? A builder is one who brings together materials and adjusts them properly, in order to secure symmetry, strength, coherence, and beauty. A wise master-builder in God’ s Church seeks soul after soul; its rescue from sin; so that each godly soul may take its proper place in the spiritual temple of the Lord Jesus. This process sets before us the vocation of a spiritual builder. He has two aims before him. His work is first to get hold of souls, and then, second, to fix them, as permanent parts or members of the Church of God.1. This getting hold of souls is a great work, and success therein in the test of a real builder for God. For so great is the subtilty of Satan, and such is the hardness of the heart of man, that to effectually resist the one and to prevail with the other is the surest proof that the preacher is sent of God. No mere human learning, sense, skilfulness, or eloquence, can make a master-builder for God. No! He must have that spiritual magnetism by which one soul, strong in the might of God, can go out to another soul, and grapple with its guilt and hate, and overcome it by the love of Christ. 2. But souls, when saved, are to be fixed into the temple of God, as permanent parts or members thereof. Thus St. Paul tells the Ephesian Christians: “ Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of faith; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom,” adds the apostle, “ all the building, fitly framed together, groweth into an holy temple in the Lord.” Here we have this permanent abiding of saints, their fixedness in God’ s Church, graphically set forth. So much, then, with regard to the qualities of a builder. II. Let us now consider what is the obligation of being builders of souls. Surely, it is to be this, or else to be destroyers! In the universe of God there are two great principles ever antagonistic, one to the other; that which conserves, and that which destroys. And to one of these two classes every one of us belongs. There are, indeed, differences of character and degrees of depravity. See the singular light which comes upon this point from the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus. When you examine the character of Dives you can discover nothing prodigious in immorality. But during his lifetime he was not a builder for God. Self, and not God, was the mainspring of his being. His life work was not to save and bless. Hence he was ranked with the class of destructives in time, and sent to keep company with them in eternity! It is your duty not to be destroyers, but to be builders, consciously and with purpose. Note here what God is--a Builder; ever since, as a great Architect, he laid the foundations of the universe, and built all the great fabrics of His creation: the globe, beasts, birds, fishes, and man, the crown of all! And if this is the fashion of the Omnipotent being of God, what then should men be, who are His image and likeness? Ought we not to be builders, as God is? How otherwise shall we show our similitude to Him? The new creation, in Christ Jesus, for what is it wrought in us, if not to make us co-workers with Him? Join to this the testimony of your own nature. Look into your spiritual framework, and see that in every way, the soul of man was fitted in every attribute to be a builder of souls. What is the power of thought but a power formative in all its activities? What is reason but a constructive force? What imagination but a creative faculty? Our physical members are also formed for creative action. Take the hand, and mark its wonderful adaptedness to operations creative and fashioning. It can demolish. But every one sees that that is not its special vocation. It was made to construct. Hence, naturally from the functions of the hand have sprung up the divers formative trades of men, in clay, wood, leather, stones, and metals. But the hand of man, of itself, had no skilful cunning, no ingenious art. No more than the claw of a bird, or the foot of a squirrel or a rat. But the hand is the instrument and agent of the soul. And because the soul of man is a builder, therefore it is that there are carpenters and wheelwrights, blacksmiths and machinists, ship-builders, stonemasons and architects, painters and sculptors. But what are all these functions and faculties of men, compared with the grand creative power of God? God made man in His own image. But man fell into ruin; and then God began again the refashioning of humanity out of the ruins of the Fall. And ever since He has been building up man, by all the operations of the kingdom of grace; by the workings of the Spirit. But angels, and men too, are workers together with God, to the same gracious end. Jesus died to build men. For this purpose the Holy Ghost descended on the day of Pentecost. So again, to build men, the ministry was commissioned, and the Scriptures were given. As God is a builder of souls, so are all His disciples. And although ministers are set apart to special duty in this grand work of soul-building, the laity of the Church, in a subordinate way, are likewise called the same solemn vocation. III. And now, lastly, let us consider the classes of persons we should build up.1. First, of course, ourselves. It is a great trust to have souls. Broken and impaired as are the spirits of men, they show, even in fragmentary powers, the skill of a Divine architect. 2. Next to ourselves, are our kinsfolk and relatives to be built up in the faith of Jesus. It is our duty to strive to build up parents and children in the most holy faith; by all the several means of training and teaching, by admonition, by prayer and spiritual example. In the family relation this is, without doubt, the most obvious of all duties to train up our children and servants. Build them! that is the word; not tear them down to ruin by indifference, by carnal indulgence, by foolish vanity! 3. But besides kinsfolk and family, there is a further outer circle of human beings separate from ourselves, for Whom it is our duty to live, and our aim to build up in the temple of the Lord. So, then, it seems quite apparent that our life-work among our fellow-men is primarily, constructive and restorative. Christ came to seek and to save the lost. Learn:1. Do not destroy! Keep from ruining souls for whom Christ died! Do not destroy little children! Do not ruin women! Boys and girls, baptized into Christ, do not destroy! Nay, strive to save other boys and girls. Yea, all of you, do not destroy! Do not destroy by whisky or by wine! Do not destroy by cursing, nor by oaths! Do not destroy by scoffing or by filthy speech, or carousing. 2. Build! Strive to mould, to compact and strengthen the immortal spirits around you, that they may become powerful for Christ. Endeavour to root and ground every soul you meet in the truth. Labour to build men in the knowledge and love of Christ. Make it the aim of your life to strengthen and uphold, and build immortal souls. Build men! by speech, by influence, by godly example. Use every possible instrument and agency, both small and great, at all times, and in all places, in your families, in the world, at the workshop, on the highway or in the street, to save men, and to glorify Christ. (A. Crummell.) 1 Corinthians 3:11 Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.The one foundation I. Men often try to lay another foundation.1. Reason.2. Self-righteousness.3. The goodness of God. II. They will all fail. Because--1. Unauthorised.2. Insufficient.3. Delusive. III. Christ is the only foundation.1. Divinely laid.2. Suitable.3. Strong. (J. Lyth, D. D.)No other foundation I. In building, the first thing essential is the foundation.1. A foundation should be broad and deep enough for the structure.2. God Himself has appointed such a foundation (Isaiah 13:16).3. There is but one foundation, and it is laid for all men. II. Christianity is something more than a foundation--it is a building.1. Christianity provides for regeneration of character.2. The building is of gold, silver and precious stones.3. Or it is of wood, hay and stubble. III. Every man’ s work will be tried.1. The trial is to be “ as by fire.”2. There will be most astonishing revelations at this time of trial. Some whom you haven’ t counted as amounting to much in this world-behold how their buildings loom up in the light of that day. Others shall suffer loss--wood, hay, stubble, all consumed. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)The one foundation. Christ is the sole foundation I. Of all saving knowledge. II. Of all acceptance with God. III. Of all holy obedience. IV. Of all true happiness, and this both in the present world and the future. (W. Romaine, M. A.)The one foundation I. The foundation. Christianity stands opposed to every system that has entered into the mind of man. It is an original system founded upon Christ Himself. So distinct is it from all that existed before, that it changed the whole system of public worship, and overthrew the altars of heathen idolatry. And if men deny that it was done by Divine influence, the onus rests upon them to show how it was effected. Christianity is intended as that which is to lay at the foundation of all our hopes, to the overthrow of all the imaginations and discoveries of man when left to himself. II. The laying of this foundation.1. The public way is to simply lay down the doctrines of salvation. 2. A personal way consists in my bringing Christ, by faith, to my own soul, and saying, with Thomas, “ My Lord and my Odd!” III. The sufficiency of the foundation. No foundation is laid, if this be omitted; and if this be laid, all the doctrines of the gospel are brought into harmony. Is man a ruined creature? “ Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Is man enslaved and lost? Jesus Christ is “ made wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” Conscience condemns, and the law aggravates the condemnation; but Christ is “ the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” How many have built their immortal hopes on this foundation, and not one of them has ever sunk! And I appeal to your own experience. Is not this the foundation which has supported, and succoured, and sustained you? IV. The unity of the foundation. It is absolutely indivisible. In vain shall any man attempt to separate it. All the good works of the Christian are the fruits of his union to Christ, the foundation. All “ holy desires, good counsels, and just works, proceed” from Him: and it is impossible to mix up anything human with that which is wholly Divine. (W. B. Collyer, D. D.)The one foundation There cannot be two of the kind, for--1. God from all eternity has made His only-begotten Son to be the foundation. Of whom else is it written that verily He was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world? 2. It is Divine, and it is as impossible that there should be two foundations as that there should be two Gods. 3. Otherwise there must be two redemptions. There is-- I. No Church but what is built on Christ. Whatever community may call itself a Church, or even the Church, if it is not built upon Christ it is not a Church at all. A foundation is--1. The first portion of a building; and so is Jesus first with His Church, for His people were chosen in Him (Ephesians 1:4). 2. The support of all, and there is no Church but that which derives all its support from Christ. Call the community a religious club if you like, but it is no Church-- (1) Where the atonement is denied or ignored. (2) Which places its dependence for its present power and future progress anywhere but in Christ. If we depend upon the secular power, education, eloquence, prestige, or our own zeal and ardour, we are leaving the rock for the sand. 3. Has the shaping of the building, and the true Church forms itself upon Christ as its ground-plan and outline. His law is the law of the Church. All the decrees of councils, synods, &c., and all the ordinances of men, if they at all differ from the law of Christ, are treasonable insults to the majesty of King Jesus. Steadfast is that Church which carefully follows His guiding line, but that which departs from it has left the foundation, and therein ceased to be a Church. 4. Indispensable. You could do without certain windows, you might close a door, and remove parts of the roof, and still it might be a house, but you cannot have a house at all if you take away the foundation; and so you cannot have a Church if Christ be not the foundation. If any people find their joy in a teaching which casts the Lord Jesus into the background, they are not His Church. The Church is not formed-- (1) By the union of men with men. The best of men may form a league, for good and useful purposes, but they are not a Church unless Christ be the basis upon which they rest. (2) By a mere union to a minister. The Church is not built on Paul, nor upon Apollos; we are not to be believers in Luther, Calvin, or Wesley, but in Christ. (3) By the following of any particular form or rite. II. No gospel but what is built on Jesus Christ. For--1. There is but one Mediator, by whom God speaks words of grace. If, then, any man say, “ God hath spoken to me, and bidden me say other than what Christ has said,” receive him not. 2. The true gospel has Christ’ s Divine person as its glory, and there can be no gospel without this. 3. Christ is the essence of the gospel. (1) If, then, you hear a gospel in which free-will, good works, or the forms and ceremonies, are set up as being fundamental things, it is not the good news from heaven. (2) The teaching of doctrines is not the teaching of the gospel if those doctrines be taught apart from Christ. Paul’ s body of divinity was the life and death of that only embodied divinity, the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:1-5). (3) Some preach experience, and experience is admirable when Christ is set forth in it; but if you take up an experimental vein of things, whether of human corruption or of human perfection, and Christ is put in the background, you are marring the gospel. (4) So, too, with practice. By all means let us have practical preaching; but merely to denounce vice and to extol virtue is a mission fit enough for Socrates or Plato, but does not well beseem a minister of Christ. His example shames vice and encourages virtue. III. No hope of salvation but that which is built upon Christ. Some think it must be well with them because their parents were excellent Christian people. But if this is your only hope you are lost, for “ Except a man be born again,” &c. “ Ay, but,” saith another, “ I had all the ceremonies of the Church performed upon me.” Yes, but they cannot bear the weight of your soul. “ Ah,” saith another, “ but I have diligently performed a great many good works.” Abound in good works, but do not trust them. Human merit is a foundation of sand. “ But I have had spiritual feelings,” says one. Yes, but there is nothing in feelings and excitements which can be a ground of hope. “ Why,” says another, “ it has troubled me that I have not had these feelings.” Do not let it trouble you, but go to Jesus Christ and rest in Him. IV. No Christian but the man built on Jesus Christ. Here is a Christian, and of one thing in him I am sure: I cannot tell whether he is an Arminian or a Calvinist, but if he is a Christian he has no foundation but Christ. Every man to be a Christian must--1. Rest his whole soul upon Christ as to eternal salvation. 2. Have Christ for his model. 3. Grow up in Christ, for the temple of God grows. Nor need we wonder, for it is a living temple. An ordinary, clumsy bit of work displays the mason and the carpenter, but perfect architecture looks as if it grew. But all our up-growing must come out of Christ. 4. Live for Christ. Christ’ s glory must be the great object of his being. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The one foundation St. Paul had described himself as a master-builder, whose office was the laying of foundations. The Corinthians thought any man could do that; the skill of the architect was shown in the building he raised upon it. A teacher who was fit for them could not be a mere teacher of elements. Those who only spoke of Jesus Christ and Him crucified might be very useful amongst barbarians. Men who had been used to hear the most various wisdom from Pagan professors, were prepared for the most advanced Christian instruction. This opinion probably was not confined to one of the sects into which their Church was divided. Those who called themselves after Apollos supposed that he had brought a lore with him from Alexandria which would fill up the imperfect outline that St. Paul had drawn. Those who used the name of Cephas thought that; circumcision would initiate into the highest privileges those who had been made novices by the rite of baptism. And the Pauline school will have indignantly disclaimed that their master preached a simple gospel. Had not he as much Rabbinical knowledge as Peter? Was not he better acquainted with Greek poets and philosophers than Apollos? Did he not make light of ceremonies to which they, in their infantine faith, still clung? Had he not been seeking for deep principles, while they were reverencing forms? The praise of seeking for principles, if it had been accompanied with no disparagement of his fellow-labourers, St. Paul would not have disclaimed. That was his aim; and therefore he was as much offended with the conceit of his admirers as of those who despised him. They, as well as the others, were missing that which was dearest to all three--that which they most cared to make the Church aware of, a foundation lying far beneath Paul and Cephas and Apollos, to a rock against which the gates of hell could not prevail. St. Paul, therefore, had to persuade these wise Corinthians that they were the stones of a glorious and Divine temple; that God was hewing and shaping them into their fit places in that temple; if they would know whereabouts they stood, they must give up disputing about the theories and opinions of this doctor or of that; they must ask, “ What holds us all together?” This being the case, it was necessary for St. Paul to define more carefully than he did, when he was merely speaking of his relation to other teachers, in what sense he called himself a master-builder. He could not lay the foundation. All which teachers can do is to say, “ There it is.” All which believers can do is to recognise it. That Christ, the Son of the Living God, of whom Cephas spoke in his great confession; that Word of God, whom Apollos and the Alexandrians declare to be the Teacher of all; that Jesus, the crucified, whom I have set forth in weakness and death; He it is on whom the edifice rests, by whom it alone consists. St. Paul’ s conversion cannot be described more accurately than by saying that it consisted in his awaking from ignorance of this foundation to a full, clear apprehension of it. He had thought that there was something of his own which be could stand upon; some wisdom, or righteousness, or exclusive privilege, appertaining to him. That belief made him hard, narrow, savage. But the righteousness and wisdom which became so truly his own when he had renounced his own, this was the foundation which he could tell the Corinthians was lying for them as much as for him, the foundation which they were denying and setting at nought by their Greek factions, as he had denied it through his Jewish pride. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)The one foundation 1. Every wise man should sometimes look at his “ foundations,” and especially at the “ foundation” on which he is building his eternity. 2. Perhaps the chief danger is of treating as “ foundations” what are part of the superstructure. And therefore you should take it as a first principle that the “ foundation” is nothing which you have laid, or can lay. Your faith, love, change of character, good works, have nothing in the world to do with the “ foundation.” They may be evidences that there is a foundation, and may be a test of how firmly we are attached to it, but they are not the foundation itself. 3. What, then, may I ask, is at this moment the “ foundation” of your hope, of your eternal life? You perhaps say, “ The love of God.” But that is not all you want. Can you find your foundation in the justice, in the truth of God? Has net God said, “ The soul that sinneth, it shall die!” And love can never cancel truth. 4. Is there, then, a “ foundation” deeper and more sound than the love of God? Is there a “ foundation” which shall reconcile and combine all the attributes of God? Yes. His love makes Him, as a Father, longing to forgive all His children, and His justice makes it to be unjust to punish what He has already punished in the Substitute. There, then, is safety. 5. But what has led me to that position of safety? Simply the act of believing, and as the Holy Spirit puts it into your heart to believe, we come to our conclusion that our “ foundation” lies in the Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They are all united to us in Christ. 6. Do any object, “ It is too easy?” The grandest things of the universe are always the simplest. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The soul’ s foundation Christ is the foundation of all-- I. Gospel doctrine.1. All gospel doctrines centre in Christ.2. All the gospel titles arc taken from Christ. From-- (1) His names.(2) His perfections.(3) His Word. II. Evangelical preaching. The object on which every minister--1. Directs the eye.2. Delights to dwell, must be Christ. III. Acceptance with God. Christ is--1. The atonement for our sin.2. Our only way to God.3. The remover of sin away from us. IV. Experimental knowledge. He is the foundation of both--1. Theoretical; and--2. Experimental, knowledge. V. Holy practice. All our holiness is derived from Him. Application:1. How destructive to the souls of men must those preachers be who lay other foundations than Christ.2. Rejoice that the foundation of Christ is laid already.3. Is Christ your foundation? (J. Sherman.)The alone foundation I. The foundation.1. We justify the appellation here given, and the situation thus assigned to Christ by a reference to-- 1. His precedency. The foundation stone of a building is that which is first laid. Christ is called the “ Ancient of Days.” In this appointment we have the richest displays of the everlasting love and wisdom and power of Jehovah. 2. His strength and stability (Isaiah 28:16; 1 Peter 2:6-7). 3. The strength which He imparts to His people. That which imparts stability to the superstructure is the foundation, and all the strength which the believer can boast he derives from Christ. It is by virtue of the union between believers, “ the lively stones,” and Christ, “ the foundation,” that the Church has, in all ages, been sustained amidst the storm. II. The laying of this foundation.1. When was it laid? “ Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were formed.” 2. By whom was it laid? “ Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone.” 3. How is it yet laid? (1) Officially (1 Corinthians 3:10) in the preaching of the gospel. Hence-- (a) The minister himself must have an experimental acquaintance with the truths he promulgates. How can he recommend to others a “ foundation” he has never tested and proved to be secure? (b) He must be endued with the Holy Ghost. He may himself be truly established on this “ foundation,” but this is not sufficient to enable him to lay the same “ foundation” in the heart and experience of others. “ Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts!” (2) Personally. This consists in the response which your heart gives to the message which we bring. III. The exclusiveness of this foundation.1. Were we to attempt to lay any other among you, how direful the denunciation to which we were exposed (Galatians 1:8-9)! Laying another foundation, we act as traitors to God, handle the Word of God deceitfully, and basely betray the best interests of those of whom we may receive oversight, professedly in the Lord (Acts 20:28). 2. And as it is important that your ministers should continually bear this in mind, so it is no less important that you should carefully and habitually examine yourselves as to the ground on which you are resting your faith and hope. Remember, there is no other foundation needed, there is no other appointed. “ A Saviour! ’ twas all that earth could want, ’ twas all that heaven could give!” (J. Gaskin, M. A.)Christ, the only foundation I. Under what view Jesus Christ is the foundation.1. It is not His person merely, nor any views of His person abstractly, that constitute the foundation of which Paul speaks. 2. In attending to the subject before us, it is important to inquire who was Jesus Christ? This inquiry the New Testament fully answers. Not because He is God, but because He is the Christ, Jesus is the foundation. 3. It may be asked, Are we then to build our faith and hope upon a mere man? By no means. As it is not as God, neither is it merely as man, that Jesus is the foundation; but as the Christ, the Divinely commissioned messenger of God. 4. That it is as the Christ, as a Divinely commissioned person, Jesus is the foundation, appears from the plain declarations of the New Testament (Matthew 16:13-18; Romans 10:9; 1 John 5:1). 5. Christians are to build on the foundation of what Jesus revealed and taught. We can build upon Jesus Christ, or upon tits mission, only so far as we build upon the truth and grace of God which came by Him. 6. But is not the death of Christ, as a satisfaction for sins, the true foundation? However important the death of Christ may be, it is not the foundation; for when Peter confessed the truth which Jesus declared to be the rock on which He would build His Church, He did not know that it would be necessary the Messiah should die. II. How God hath laid this foundation.1. God laid Him as the foundation in His eternal purpose and counsel. 2. God laid this foundation in His ancient promises and declarations. 3. God laid this foundation by actually raising up Jesus as a teacher and Saviour, by giving Him His Divine mission, and all the qualifications necessary to execute it. 4. This foundation was firmly established by the miracles which God wrought by and in behalf of His Son Jesus, and by the apostles in confirmation of their testimony concerning Him. 5. By raising Him from the dead and exalting Him to glory. 6. In the ministry of the apostles God placed Jesus Christ before Jews and Genthes, before the whole world, as the foundation on which mercy is built and salvation prepared before the face of all people, on which He will establish the habitation of holiness, that all the earth may be filled with His glory. 7. This foundation was fixed in its place by all the Divine perfections, and hath remained unmoved through all succeeding ages, though exposed to hosts of assailants who sought to remove it. III. Of what Jesus Christ is the foundation.1. Jesus Christ is the foundation of Christian faith. What He taught, His disciples are required to receive; but nothing else ought to be made an article of faith. 2. He is the foundation of Christian privileges. 3. He is the foundation of Christian redemption. His gospel and resurrection are the only ground of an assured hope of redemption from death and the grave. 4. He is the foundation of evangelical righteousness. He hath furnished the principles and motives which will produce it: and no other principles but those contained in the gospel, nor any weaker motives, can produce true evangelical righteousness. 5. He is the foundation of our hope. 6. God hath laid in His Son Jesus the foundation of universal happiness. IV. Let every man take heed how he buildeth upon this foundation.1. Take heed how and what doctrines you build upon Jesus Christ: that they be not contrary to reason; for to reason, He and His apostles appealed; that they be not inconsistent with the character and perfections of God as plainly revealed in the Scriptures; that they clash not with those plain facts and declarations of the New Testament which compel universal assent. 2. Take heed in what spirit you build upon Christ. You can neither build doctrines nor anything else aright upon Christ, any further than you do it in His disposition in a spirit of seriousness and piety, of meekness and humility, of purity and love. 3. Take heed what life and conduct you build upon this foundation; that it be such as becometh the gospel of Christ. 4. Take heed how you build upon this foundation, because your all is depending; consequences of the utmost moment are involved. A day of fiery trial will come. Try your own work of what sort it is. (J. Wright.)Jesus Christ the foundation I. Jesus Christ as the foundation of the Church. II. Some peculiarities characterising this foundation.1. It is notable for its strength (Psalms 31:2-3).2. It is remarkable for its suitability (1 Corinthians 1:30).3. It is renowned for its perpetuity (Hebrews 13:7-8). III. The folly of attempting to lay any other foundation. The way wherein other persons attempt to lay unjustifiable foundations are--1. By relying on the directions of carnal reason (1 Corinthians 2:5).2. By placing affiance in our own righteousness (Romans 2:5).3. By trusting to God’ s mercy without regarding the Saviour’ s merits (1 John 5:10).4. This folly appears from the sufficiency of the foundation laid (Hebrews 7:25).5. It is a reflection on Jehovah’ s wisdom and goodness (Revelation 7:12).6. It involves the soul in remediless woe, to despise Christ (Acts 4:12). This foundation then is--1. Invaluable.2. Necessary.3. Most costly.4. And eternally saving. (T. B. Baker.)The gospel the only foundation of religious and moral dut y:-- I. Jesus Christ is the foundation on which we are to build, inasmuch as it is from Him alone that we procure a knowledge of our duty. Look to the opinions and practices of man not blessed with the light of revelation, and you will perceive how imperfect is the knowledge of duty possessed by the natural man. Not such are the instructions as to the duty of man which are vouchsafed us by the gospel of Jesus Christ. The lives of professors must correspond with Christ’ s commandments, that the building may be worthy of the foundation! II. “ Other foundation can no man lay than Jesus Christ,” because by Him alone are we instructed in the right principle on which our duty is to be performed. A sense of affectionate gratitude to God is the principle on which the whole duty of a Christian is established. This is the foundation of His religion: this is no less the foundation of His morality. Can any principle be so firm? can any be so pure? Honour may dazzle, custom may mislead, expediency may perplex us, and neither honour, nor custom, nor expediency will at all times support us in the discharge of our duty: but his “ feet are set upon a rock,” whose “ goings are ordered” by a desire of doing the will of a perfect and unchangeable, of an infinitely wise and holy Being. Again, unlike the principles of the world in another important respect, what motive of human conduct can be so pure as a grateful affection towards God? “ God is love.” And human nature is never more exalted and improved than when it partakes most largely of the quality which is identified with God, when with the most devout affection “ we love Him, because He first loved us.” III. Jesus Christ is the only foundation on which we can build, because, as we are indebted to Him for the knowledge both of our duty and of the principle on which it is to be done, so also we derive from Him the power of doing it. IV. Jesus Christ is the only foundation on which we can build, inasmuch as it is He who renders our services acceptable to Almighty God V. Christ Jesus then being the foundation, the only foundation on which we are to build, let us inquire whether we build upon Him in the several particulars that have been now passing under our view.1. Is our practice regulated by that perfect law of religious and moral duty which Christ hath set before us in the gospel? Do we submit ourselves--our souls and bodies--our thoughts, words, and deeds--to the Christian commandments? Do we yield to their authority an unreserved, an unqualified, an universal obedience? 2. What is the principle which we choose as our actuating motive? Is it love for our heavenly Father? 3. In the execution of our duty, on what foundation do we build our hopes that we shall be able to perform it? Do we rely upon our own imaginary strength to support us in the hour of trial, or do we humbly depend upon the Divine grace? 4. After all that by the grace of God we have been enabled to do, on what foundation do we rest our hopes that our services will be accepted by God? Is it upon any value which those services possess of themselves, or, renouncing all claim to merit on our own parts, do we trust our cause to the perfect righteousness of Christ? (Bp. Mant.)The sure foundation I. The foundation. In building, it is essential to begin with a good, solid foundation. If we have not that, we may take ever so much pains afterwards, but our labour will be all in vain. Now, there are many false foundations. Our selection of ground that will give way under the weight of what we put upon it is quite unlimited. But there is only one true foundation. “ Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” All that teachers can do is to say, “ There it is!” All that believers can do is to recognise it. It is God Himself who has laid it there for us. Wheresoever else than the love of God in Christ we repose our chief confidence and affection, it wilt sooner or later repent us and shame us, either happily in time while we may yet have recourse to Him, or miserably when it is too late. It is on this present world, on its pleasures, its riches, its honours most men try to rear the fabric of their happiness; but this world and all we can have in it will slip from under our feet like the sand. But let us remember that it will not avail us that a foundation has been laid, or that it has been already pointed out to us, if we do not make choice of it and use it. II. The superstructure, or what is built on the foundation. St. Paul knew that the foundation was most important, and that, save on the one sure foundation, no lasting building could be raised; but he knew also that the foundation was not the house, that the discovery of a good foundation does not dispense a man from the necessity of building his house. We must build. We must not only rest on Christ, and Christ alone, for salvation, but must also “ work out our salvation with fear and trembling.” We must build, and to build is to labour. If we cannot build even the smallest cottage without the exertion of putting each stone in its proper place, still less can we, without exertion, build up our lives into temples of God. To do so is the grandest of all works, and for that very reason it is one which needs the most thought and trouble. It demands a constant putting in of what is solid and true, and a constant casting out of what is hollow and false. He who would build up his own self, his own mind, and heart and soul gradually into a perfect manhood, must see to it that every day, every hour contributes somewhat towards that result. Some accession of knowledge, of self-control, of practice of good, and conquest of evil. Six kinds of material for building are mentioned in the text, but they may be reduced to two--good materials and bad: those which will stand the fire, and those which will not. Gold, silver, precious stones--the fire will not burn these; wood, hay, stubble--it will burn these. The various good materials may be of very different degrees of goodness. The various bad materials are not equally bad. A house, not so very uncomfortable for a while, may be constructed of wood, but not even a tolerable hut can be made out of hay and stubble. Yet all are bad; for even wood, if fire come near it, will be speedily reduced to ashes. All this is perfectly applicable to our own lives. We may build with different degrees of diligence, and what we do day by day may be most unlike in a thousand respects; but all we build must have its source either in love to God and holiness, or to self and sin, and will either be approven or condemned. The very best of worldly lives will be found then as miserably insufficient as a house of wood, however well built, however commodious, however imposing without, to resist the fury of the flames; and, on the contrary, no life which has been prompted by love to Christ and a sincere endeavour to do the will of God, however far it may have fallen below what it ought to have been, will be proved by the fire to have been other than enduring and precious. Let us live, then, as nobly and sublimely as we can; but, oh, at least let us live sincerely and righteously. III. The day which will try the building of each one of us. “ Every man’ s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’ s work of what sort it is.” The apostle, I think, refers here in part to any time of peculiar trial, any day of testing. There is many a day of this sort, and they often make strange revelations. Either adversity or prosperity, for instance, may serve to test the work of our lives, and both often find far more wood, hay, and stubble therein than either we or others suspected. Every day of sore affliction is a day of fiery revelation. A man is living altogether for this world, wholly engrossed with his farm or merchandise, so as to have no thought beyond that; but God lays him on a bed of sickness, brings him to the very verge of eternity, reminds him of his sins and of the condemnation which awaiteth sin, and, oh, how clearly he then sees that he has been living like a fool and judging like a fool, that this world which he thought so real and so important is a shadow and a vanity, while that other world, which he never thought of, is alone substantial and eternal;, that he has been preferring wood, hay, and stubble to gold, silver, and precious stones. It is, however, mainly to a greater and more terrible day than any of these that Paul refers; it is mainly to that awful day on which there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known--that day into the light and heat of which no work, however subtle, or obscure, will not be brought, so that its true character may be made manifest--that day which, as we are told by a prophet, will burn like an oven, so that not one wicked life, not even one bad feeling, or one base act, will pass successfully through it. Since there is this day coming, it surely well becomes us to habituate ourselves, to bring our conduct, to bring our most secret feelings to the test of that law by which they will then be judged, and, through the grace God never denies to those who sincerely seek it, conform ourselves to that law now as far as we can, that it may have the less to condemn in us then. (R. Flint, D. D.)The foundations of life I. The foundations include almost all that we call life, in a large view. The individual is like an apple-blossom at the top of some tall and spreading monarch of the orchard. The entire tree is to that flower a foundation, out of which the blossom unfolds. The flower cannot change its place, cannot develop into anything but an apple. Its destiny is bounded, its efforts limited to a very narrow place. It is mainly so with a man. He is a consummate flower on the tree of humanity. For his personal development all the foundation facts are inevitable and irrefragable. The physical, intellectual, and moral worlds he cannot alter by the breadth of a hair. He can only build upon them. A century of progress has tended to bewilder some minds into the hope of new foundations. To such men progress seems a thing of changing the bases of life, but it is nothing of the sort. It is simply and only the uncovering of eternal foundations, that we may build more broadly. The widened palaces of civilisation are wider, because we have found more of God’ s unchangeable foundations. Every improvement, every application of an invention, is made possible by uncovering a little more of the unbreakable rock. Look at social and political changes in the same light. A vast number have been proposed in this century of ours. A few have succeeded, because they struck solid foundation. They rose upon the basal facts in the nature of man and his social and moral conditions. The dreams of idealists and utopians have come to naught, because they had no granite undergirding of eternal law. You might as well try to change the constituents, or their proportions, of water or air, as to attempt to vary by a scruple the moral order of the world. You might as well try to defeat gravitation as try to abolish one jot or tittle of any of the Divine order. Nearly everything is settled. It is ours to find out how it is settled, and to rear our house on that solid ground. We are on a foundation. God’ s fire, God’ s waves, God’ s tempests, will always keep their steady ways: it is ours to make ourselves secure against the fire, the waves, the storm-wind. So is every moral law, every and unchangeable fact in our nature, every invincible barrier in our liberty. We must uncover this bed-rock if we would build securely. II. All forms of unbelief resolve themselves into incredulity respecting fundamental law. Men are incredulous about law, because a merciful provision postpones the penalty. “ Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the hearts of the children of men are fully set in them to do evil.” Nature seems to the careless to be infinitely tolerant of law-breaking. Her process of punishment, like her processes of growth, are slow, and are so concealed that the children of men are snared as birds are snared. If every carelessly caught cold should kill, consumption would not reap its awful harvests. If one glass of liquor caused death, there could be no alcohol habit. In none of these cases is nature tolerant or indifferent; the penalty is delayed just as the maturity of a fruit is delayed, but it comes in “ the evil time.” We sin by inches and die by inches, because we refuse to see the penalties of vice, gluttony, carelessness, or drunkenness. Because sentence is not executed speedily, men build cities over the ruins wrought by earthquakes; and the sides of Vesuvius bloom with gardens and are green with olives, and villages sleep in the lava paths below; and on our streams towns sleep in fancied security, where floods work periodical desolation. Men caught in the net of their physical sins are apt to have the courage of confession. They admit that they ought to have believed in the fundamental law. But when snared in the evil nets of passion or vice, they are apt to regard their conviction and punishment as an accident or injustice. No man violates one of the Ten Commandments with impunity. The very act of sinning inflicts a punishment. III. We must build upon the eternal foundations. We cannot build at our caprice the foundations themselves. But it is of much moment to remember that our own work becomes fundamental to further work. On God’ s rock we lay our own foundations. The walls above are imperilled by the weakness of the walls below. Poor materials in the basement crack the roof overhead. The tall towers rock and reel because the undergirding is unsound. There are gifts of speech which Jack the support of the gifts of wisdom. There are capacities for action made useless for lack of capacities for reflection. There are mature manhoods which are inefficient because they are not built upon an industrious youth. There is an old age mourning over a life of neglected opportunities. There are souls that have repented of pleasant vices too late to recover in this world the joys of innocence. IV. The individual man has more conspicuous need of building on what is noblest in his past. This personal past is characterised by what we call the law of habit. The thing once done tends to be done again. The good and the bad in the past have a common interest in this foundation. We cannot unmake the law. We are at each new step influenced by the path we have travelled. It has brought us here; it has set up a tendency to go right on. But our past has good to be selected from. If the immediate last steps were wrong, still our feet have known the other path. Some one may ask what I make of that doctrine of grace which lies so close to my text. I reply that grace is as much and as fully a foundation under moral life as gravitation is a foundation of physical life. We do the men of our generation infinite damage when we speak of grace as though it were a matter of Divine caprice. God helps men who seek His help as truly as He helps men who sow and reap. There is no wait of more contingency in the one case than in the other. Grace is the inspiring name for the Divine co-operation with man. V. To suggest the importance of making our noblest past the material for building our future, let me call your attention to our present business. In short, we can build. Our building is on God’ s land and up towards His skies. All that distinguishes our personality comes out of personal aspiration and endeavour. One man’ s life is a filthy hut, another is a stately palace. The bed-rock below every fixed fact of material or season is the same for both. The builders have made the enormous difference in the results. (J. Wheeler, D. D.)The Christian foundation Christ is the foundation of-- I. Christian doctrine.1. If it be of man we reason, of his sinfulness, his corruption, his mortality; even here shall our foundation be laid in Jesus Christ. For in His Word is our fall most plainly set down, and by the necessity of His sacrifice is the enormity of our guilt most plainly proved. How deep must be that sinfulness which no less a sacrifice than one so precious could atone for! 2. If it is of God we speak, of His nature, His attributes, His dealings with mankind; here must our foundation still be Christ Jesus (John 1:18). II. Human duty. If we consider what line of conduct men ought to pursue, as most tending to their own happiness, either on earth or in heaven; the same reference is made to the will and grace of Christ. In the gospel only can we find any sufficient rule of excellence. There only can we learn how to become pure in heart, lowly, meek, kind, and charitable. There only are we taught sufficient motives for doing what we ought to do, or avoiding what we ought to avoid. III. Eternal hope. Without His revelation and His merits how dark and dreadful had our future been. Or if aught we could suspect of any further existence, it was an apprehension of punishment. But in the gospel of Christ “ life and immortality are brought to light.” IV. Church ordinances. If hither you resort to pray remember it is because Christ is in the midst of you (Matthew 18:20). If here you offer praise, it must be above all for the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ. If hither you bring your children to be baptized, it is because Jesus Christ ordained this holy rite (see Matthew 28:19). If hither your dead are borne to burial, it is because Christ is the resurrection and the life (John 4:25). And here also should you apply this rule to the celebration of those holy mysteries, in which Christ is Himself set forth before us, His very body and blood received through faith, and made effectual to the strengthening and refreshing of the soul. (C. Girdlestone, M. A.)Christ the foundation I. The properties of Christ as a foundation.1. He is a laid foundation (Isaiah 28:16). Christ did not take upon Himself this honour. He that could best tell what would best serve pitched upon His own Son for that purpose. 2. A low foundation. Foundations are wont to be laid low, the lower the surer. So the Lord Jesus (Philippians 2:6-9). There were several steps of His humiliation. (1) Into the human nature.(2) Into subjection under the laws.(3) Into poverty and persecution, contempt and contradiction.(4) To death itself.(5) To the grave. 3. He is a foundation of stone (Isaiah 28:16). A stone is the fittest thing for foundation, because it is hard and firm, and yet easily hewn. Now Christ is a rock (1 Corinthians 10:4). 4. He is a foundation out of sight. All foundations are so. Christ is out of sight, not below, as He once was, but above, in glory. (1) His person is out of sight, yet we love Him (1 Peter 1:8). (2) His presence is with us everywhere, especially in His ordinances, but in an invisible way (Matthew 18:20; Matthew 28:20). (3) His proceedings are invisible--those of His grace within; of His providence without (Psalms 77:1-20, ult.). 5. He is a precious foundation (Isaiah 28:16). Though all stones in their place be useful, yet they are not all precious stones. Few buildings are built upon precious stones, but the Church is. Christ is precious-- (1) In Himself. “ The chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.” (2) In the account and esteem of His disciples. To others He is a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence (1 Peter 2:7). 6. He is a permanent foundation (Isaiah 26:4)--the rock of ages, from everlasting to everlasting. The saints have been building on Him from the beginning, and will build on Him to the end of time. He is “ the same yesterday,” &c. His righteousness, His promises are unchangeable. 7. He is an elect, or chosen foundation (Isaiah 28:16; Isaiah 42:1). 8. He is an experienced or tried foundation. He was tried-- (1) By God, who laid upon Him the iniquities of us all. (2) By men and devils, who did their best against Him, bus all to no purpose. (3) By the saints, who have had occasion to make use of Him, and He has never failed them. II. Our duty in reference to this foundation.1. To believe all this concerning Him. 2. To see our need of Him. We have each of us a building to rear, and what foundation have we? None in ourselves. 3. To renounce all other foundations. They are but sand (Matthew 7:24). 4. To repair to Him. In the way of faithful and fervent prayer tell Him you are sensible of your need of Him, and that you are undone without Him. 5. To build upon Him. (1) In the great business of justification.(2) In all our perils and dangers (Psalms 46:1; Psalms 62:1; Psalms 26:2). 6. To beware what we build upon this foundation, in opinion and in practice (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). If we build loose, careless walking, our hopes built will be accordingly wood, hay, stubble, &c. (Philip Henry.)Christ the foundation When the immense stone piers of the East River bridge were begun, some years ago, the builders did not attempt to manufacture a foundation. They simply dug down through the mud and sand, and found the solid bed rock, which the Almighty Creator had laid thousands of years ago. It is a wretched mistake to suppose that you need to construct a foundation. “ Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Your own merits, however, cemented by good resolutions, will no more answer for a solid base than would a cartload of bricks as the substratum of yonder stupendous bridge. God has provided for you a corner-stone already. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)Christ the only foundation I. Of the Christian Church. It was already built upon Him as its historical foundation. He was the reason and account of its existence, so that if He had not lived and died, its existence, as Paul found it, would have been inexplicable. Some hold that Paul, not Christ, was the founder of Christendom--a theory he by anticipation contradicted. “ Was Paul crucified for you?” &c. If the Church is built on she labours of apostles, apostles themselves rested on the Chief Corner Stone. II. Of Christian thought and life.1. Christ Himself is the only foundation on which the soul can build, and not merely-- (1) Doctrines abort Him. Not that Scripture texts, or the creeds are to be disparaged. We prize both for His sake but not Him for theirs, and to rest upon them as distinct from Him would be like building on a measuring rule instead of on the granite of which it has given us the dimensions.(2) Feelings about or towards Him. These are great aids to devotion; yet what so fugitive and unreliable. And after all they only point to Christ; their root is in ourselves, and we cannot supply the foundation stone out of the exhausted quarries of unrenewed human nature. (3) His work. For this can only be appreciated in the light of His person. His death is at best heroic self-devotion, if it be so much as that, unless His person is superhuman; and no more reliance can be placed upon it than upon the death of Socrates. (4) His teaching. For the persistent drift of this is to centre thought, love, adoration on Himself. Relatively to Himself, it is part of the superstructure. His disciples learnt devotion to His person through listening to His words; we believe His words because we know whose words they are. (5) His sacraments. These are only picturesque unrealities, unless He who warrants them lives and is mighty. Apart from Him they have no more validity than our armorial bearing or a rosette. (6) His example. Take only the pattern of humility (Philippians 2:1-30.). If He is only the Son of Mary His condescension is but one acceptance of natural circumstances. His example in this and in other respects is only a power on Paul’ s hypothesis. 2. In modern times an effort has been made to put His power in the shade, as if it did not affect the essence of the gospel. What Christ was, or is, men say cannot matter if we profit by His teaching and example. And that is true, if Christ was merely man. And a high-minded, disinterested man, after doing his best for his fellow-creatures, will withdraw as far as possible from their notice, But we know that Christ imposed His person, and not merely His maxims upon the thought and heart of the world, and this departure from the ordinary instinct of high human goodness must have depended on the fact that such a course was necessary. It implies that Christ’ s person was in His own deliberate estimate of more importance than His teaching or philanthropy. But all is sufficiently explained, if we believe with Paul that Christ is God. Otherwise to make Him the foundation of the soul’ s life would be to substitute a creature for the Creator. A purely human Christ might be the architect, and even the scaffolding of the spiritual temple; He could not be its own foundation. (Canon Liddon.)Christ the only foundation I. The nature of this foundation. It is to the atonement, principally, that the apostle refers.1. It was prepared from eternity.2. It was made known by revelation.3. It was finally laid at the death of Christ. II. Its peculiarity. Christ is the only foundation--1. That God has appointed.2. That the Scriptures will warrant.3. That the righteous have in every age relied upon. III. The advantages of trusting on it.1. It promotes the glory of God.2. It produces evangelical obedience.3. It secures safety, honour, and happiness. (1) In the season of adversity.(2) In the hour of dissolution.(3) In the day of judgment. Conclusion: Let us--1. Seek to obtain correct views of our true condition as sinners in the sight of God.2. Beware of building on any false foundation.3. Allow nothing to move us from this blessed hope. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)Christ the sure foundation of 1. The Church.2. The Christian congregation.3. The Christian life.4. The sinner’ s hope.5. The hope of men. (W. F. Stevenson, D. D.)Christ the strong foundation I. The “ foundation” is that from which everything springs, while itself bears all the weight. So from Christ all that is beautiful in the whole structure of the Church starts; and back to Him every part throws its heft and burden.1. Christ was the “ foundation” of the material world. For His sake, chiefly, this world was made--to be the scene of the display of His exceeding power and love to the glory of the Father (Proverbs 8:23-31). 2. So that when this world fell to ruin, there was the eternal Son of God ready to be the beginning of a new and better creation. As the promised Messiah, at the gate of Eden, He stayed the hand of universal death; and this earth and everything that is in it lived on, for “ He was before all things, and by Him all things consist,” i.e., hold together. 3. After that, all along, underlying the whole Jewish dispensation, there was that expected One, the “ foundation” a thought of every Jew till, in due time, He came. And the cradle of Bethlehem was the “ foundation” of a throne before which every throne shall crumble into dust--of a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. 4. Of this kingdom of grace and glory the threefold fundamental principal is-- (1) The person of Christ, that He is God and man--man to constitute Him a representative; God to give efficacy to the representation. (2) The work of Christ--that He paid the debt of the whole world, and wrought a righteousness which can make the whole world good in a holy Father’ s sight. (3) The glory of Christ--that He is occupying heaven for us, and there exercises all regal functions for His people’ s sake. II. Foundation presupposes superstructure. And with the superstructure you have to do. And the height of the superstructure will be according to the depth of the strength of the “ foundation.”1. The foundation of all prayer is the Christ that is in it. Realise that your prayer is made prevalent by His intercession, that whatever you ask in the name of Christ shall be done. 2. Works are good and acceptable to God just according as they proceed from love--the love of God. But you cannot love God till you are in Christ, Good works are sweet evidences; the pinnacles and the decorations of heavenly architecture; but no foundation. 3. Is there any one in this church who has not peace? It is because Christ is not in His proper place. He is not laid deep enough in that poor heart of yours. Nothing else can bear the weight of that sin of yours. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The true foundation of character I. There is as analogy between the formation of character and the erection of a building.1. In the variety of its materials. Moral character is built up by impressions, the emotions, thoughts, volitions; by all, in fact, that in any way affects us. 2. In the unity of its design. Every building, however varied its materials, is formed on some plan. The master-purpose of the soul, whatever it may be, gives unity to the whole. 3. In the function it fulfils. Buildings are generally residences of some kind or other. The soul lives in the character. In some cases the home is the mere stye of the animal, or the shop of the barterer, or the prison of the guilty, or the temple of the saint. II. Christ is the only foundation of a true character. There are sometimes splendid edifices and poor foundations, and the reverse. All characters are based upon some one idea.1. Some on the sensual idea. Such as that on which the prodigal son started; such as that on which Dives built his all. Millions now do the same. What shall we eat, what shall we drink? is the grand inquiry. 2. Some on the secular idea. On this Judas, the young lawyer, and Demas built; and on this thousands build now. 3. Some on the ambitious idea. Absalom, Haman, Herod, are examples of this. Such, too, are the Alexanders and Napoleons of general history. 4. Some on the Christian idea. Supreme sympathy with God, and this requires Christ for its existence. Christ is its foundation, for He does the two things to generate this sympathy. He-- (1) Demonstrates to man the propitiableness of God.(2) Reveals to man the moral loveliness of God. Thus He is the true foundation. III. To Christ as a foundation men bring worthless as well as valuable materials. There are edifices--1. Partially formed of “ wood, hay, stubble.” (1) The mere creedal character is worthless. There are those whose Christianity is a mere thing of idea. (2) Mere sentimental character is worthless. There are those whose Christianity is a mere thing of frames and feelings. (3) Mere ritualistic character is worthless. There are those whose Christianity is a mere matter of form. All these are things of no solidity, value, duration. 2. Entirely formed of valuable materials brought to Christ. They are formed of “ gold, silver, precious stones.” The heart is in vital sympathy with Christ as the Atoner for sin, the Exemplar of holiness, the Saviour of the world. The profoundest thoughts, the strongest sympathies, the gold and silver of the soul, are connected with Christ. IV. There is an era to dawn when all the edifices built on this foundation shall be tried. Individually, it is the day that dawns at the end of our mortal life. Universally, it is the day that dawns at the end of this world’ s history. The fire of absolute justice and truth will burn to the centre of all souls, consuming all that is worthless.1. This day will be injurious to those who have built on this foundation with worthless materials. (1) They will suffer loss. There will be the loss of labour, of opportunity, of position. (2) Though they suffer loss they may be saved. Their favourite theories and cherished hopes shall burn like wood and hay, yet they themselves may survive. 2. This day will he advantageous to those who have built on this foundation with right materials. (D. Thomas. D. D.)Fundamental truths explained, and popular errors exposed We have-- I. A striking figure. Christ is compared to a foundation. There are four ideas connected with Christ as a foundation.1. Selection. A foundation stone is not taken at random--wisdom and care are required in the choice of it. The motto inscribed on this stone is, “ Chosen of God and precious.” When any great building is about to be erected, it is customary for some person of eminence to lay the foundation stone. “ Therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone.” (1) How striking was the description which represents Him as a “ tried stone.” He was tried in His humiliation, tried by the lapse of ages, by the malice of devils, by the opposition of His enemies, and in the experience of His friends. 2. Suitableness. The Divine and human natures which meet in Him render Him suitable for the work He undertook. 3. Strength. The Saviour has strength to sustain. He sustains millions who are now in glory, and multitudes who are on their way, and the whole universe cannot furnish one instance of an individual being confounded who reposed here. But there is strength to destroy (Daniel 2:34-35; Matthew 21:42-44). 4. Stability. This is well represented by a stone; yet, however durable, the elements have power over it. But “ time that doth all things else impair,” has no power over the foundation of the Church. Eternity claims it as its own--it shall stand unshaken amidst the shock of judgment--and when all nature shall sink in ruins, “ verily the foundation of God standeth sure.” II. A solemn fact. Christ is the only foundation. The apostle plainly intimates that attempts would be made to lay other foundations. Let me take you to three spots where men have tried to build their hopes for eternity.1. Carnal reason. I mean the reason of man set up in opposition to, and in defiance of revelation. We would not undervalue reason, nor condemn its use in religion, for religion itself is a reasonable service. In all the doctrines of Christianity there is nothing contrary to reason, though there is much that infinitely surpasses it. There must be some standard by which to guide our views and feelings in reference to the interests of the soul, the claim of God and the solemnities of eternity. Where shall we find such a standard? Pride of intellect has set up reason; the wisdom of God revelation; and to make the latter bow to the former would be as preposterous as to make the sun acknowledge his inferiority to the glimmering taper. 2. Self-righteousness. This error assumes a variety of forms all of which are fatal. Here is a benevolent individual who wishes well to all around him. The acts of his liberality we cannot but admire, but we deplore the principles by which he is prompted to do what he does; he prides himself on his generosity, and imagines that God will accept him, though the general tenor of his conduct is opposed to Christianity. Let him come to the temple of Christianity, and read on the stone which unites and sustains the whole--“ Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Let him enter the building, and there read for himself--“ Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,” &c. Here is another individual strictly moral, a respectable and respected member of society, a good husband, a kind father, a generous master, and a sincere friend. Now all this is well and praiseworthy, so far as it goes, but all these excellent traits may be found in their fullest extent while the heart is estranged from God. The man prides himself on his morality, and is attempting to make of it a bridge over which he shall pass to heaven. But here is another individual who makes a considerable profession of religion, his creed is sound, his life regular, his attendance on the means of grace punctual, &c., but he knows nothing of the power of grace or the experience of religion. How many seek to make a ladder of their religious duties that shall reach to heaven! 3. The general goodness of God. Many wish to be saved, but in their own way. They will not comply with the terms proposed in the gospel--they would have salvation, and yet retain their sins--they desire heaven, not because they love holiness, but that they may escape hell. We must take it as a gospel axiom, that if the salvation of Christ is in the soul, the dominion of Christ must be set up in the heart. Conclusion: Let me seriously inquire whether I am building on this foundation. It was laid in the eternal counsels of the Sacred Three--in the fulness of time in the person, work, suffering, and sacrifice of Christ--and is now laid in the preaching of the gospel. (Ebenezer Temple.)Christianity ultimate and absolute truth 1. What we know of the way of the world hitherto prepares us to believe that a great many things which are now serving their purpose will be superseded. And that we cannot see how, gives us no assurance that certain things shall not be got beyond. In travelling, there may be something beyond railways. In communication, no one can say that the telegraph is the ultimate wonder. And in all the arts and conveniences of life, the case is so too. 2. There is one thing, however, which will never be superseded. The world has seen various religions; but the truth, as it is in Jesus, is absolute and ultimate truth. We may have to learn, perhaps, that things which we think to be part of Christianity, are not, and to give them up as our fathers had. But, in the face of all possibilities, we turn to the comfortable assurance in the text. There is no “ Christ that is to be” : the One Christ has come, once for all. Among the ultimate and unchangeable truths are-- I. The way in which each of us must be saved. A vital thing, which cannot go amid all coming changes, is salvation through the atonement of Christ. We are sure of nothing if we are not sure that “ Christ died for our sins.” And no theory of the way of salvation but that which is familiar to us can bear being calmly looked at by any man who feels it his duty to accept the Word of God as decisive. We do not think that it is in any way profitable to push revealed doctrine into minute details; but we cannot regard it as other than vital part of that foundation besides which there never can be another, that Christ is a Saviour: that His sufferings were sacrificial, and borne for us: that by His obedience and death He reconciles us to God, satisfies Divine justice, and secures sanctification as well as forgiveness: that His atoning work is complete, and that its benefits are offered freely to all who will receive them. II. The rule of duty and help in duty.1. You are not more sure of your own existence than that the requirements of Christianity as to duty will never grow less and can never grow greater. You cannot conceive of anything beyond perfection. Nor can you recall anything that lies outside of “ whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,” &c. And there is set before us for constraining example the life of One who was sinless in humanity, perfect in Godhead; and we are bidden to grow like Him. 2. Then, as for the help for all this there can be no change. As for the grace, guidance, vitality of the Holy Spirit--these, too, will be needed and are guaranteed to the end. Conclusion: There may be other things nearly associated with the scheme of Christian belief which will endure. Christian worship, surely, must always abide, though the accessories may greatly change. Surely there must be prayer, and praise; and even preaching must in some shape last. “ Till He come” again, too, the sacramental commemoration of the Great Sacrifice, and the feeding upon it by faith, is appointed to continue. Yet it is rather doctrine than ritual that is pointed to in the text. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)Religion illustrated under the form of a building I. The foundation. Christianity is threefold. Its doctrines are the walls which enclose and preserve the interior parts of the building, its duties are the beams and rafters which keep its several parts together, and are its strength and firmness. Its privileges are the furniture placed in this edifice. Now, Christ is undoubtedly the foundation of each.1. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 Now if any man build on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. Classic buildings and their materials In such cities as Ephesus, where this letter was written, or Corinth, to which it was addressed, there was a signal difference (far greater than in modern European cities) between the gorgeous splendour of the great public buildings and the meanness and squalor of those streets where the poor and profligate resided. The former were constructed of marble and granite; the capitals of their columns and their roofs were richly decorated with silver and gold; the latter were mean structures, run up with boards for walls, with straw in the interstices and thatch on the top. This is the contrast on which St. Paul siezes,… not, as sometimes the passage is treated, as though the picture presented were that of a dunghill of straw and sticks, with jewels, such as diamonds and emeralds, among the rubbish. He then points out that a day will come when the fire will burn up those wretched edifices of wood and straw, and leave unharmed in their glorious beauty those that were raised of marble and granite and decorated with gold and silver, as the temples of Corinth itself survived the conflagration of Mummius, which burnt the hovels around. (Dean Howson.)The perishable from the imperishable One man writes a big book about baptism, and says it means “ immersion,” and winds up by thanking God that, whatever other men have thought fit to believe, he has had grace enough to take up his cross and follow Christ! Another man writes another big book and says it is not immersion, and thanks God, if he has only been sprinkled, he is not so uncharitable as some people! And then they read each others’ books, and “ vain janglings” follow, as the apostle calls them, “ whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings.” “ Stubble!” Every inch of it. For all purposes of profit to the kingdom of Christ--worthless. The fire shall consume their books and the injury will be, not to Christ, depend upon it, but to themselves. “ If any man’ s work shall be burned he shall suffer loss,” &c. I was asked if I thought Roman Catholics would be saved. “ Saved!” Assuredly, if they believe Christ died to save them. “ But they practise auricular confession; they offer prayers for the dead; they celebrate the mass; they invoke the saints; they pay homage to the Pope.” Undoubtedly; and as we believe, unhappily and unlawfully, they do. But if they believe in Christ, is all this to imperil their salvation? Is not this the “ wood, hay, and stubble” of their false systems in God’ s estimation, and useless for every purpose of progress or consolidation in the operations of the Church? These, with other phases of error--some of them peculiar to Protestantism--the “ fire” will reveal; and they shall perish, and their removal will prove them to have been human in their origin, and innovations upon the truth of God. But the “ truth,” and the one embodiment of that truth as it shall be seen in a purified and finished Church, shall remain unmoved. Gold, silver, precious stones! Faith, love, zeal! No fire shall effect these. They are invulnerable. The removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made shall prove the strength and solidity of those things which could be shaken and which shall remain. “ Therefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be removed, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” (S. Holmes.)The doctrine and truths of Christ are very precious and excellent To open the doctrine, let us consider, What is implied in this when the truths of Christ are thus called gold and precious stones? First, the preciousness of them is hereby declared. They ought to be esteemed and desired by us as much as the covetous man desires his gold and silver. This made the holy martyrs willingly die for it; they thought it more precious than life. The apostle calls it “ that good thing committed to thee.” “ To you that believe Christ is precious” (1 Peter 2:7). Secondly, it doth denote the rarity of it. It is hardly and difficulty obtained. Gold and silver is not so common as the stones of the street. There are but few mines of gold to the mountains of earth. And thus for the most part the Churches of God have been so corrupted with errors that very little gold did appear. It was a rare thing to have any one truth of God made known. In the Old Testament, under many kings, idolatry and superstition had so prevailed that the book of the law of God in Josiah’ s time was a rare thing; and in Asa’ s time “ they had been without the law and a teaching prophet for a long while” (2 Chronicles 15:3). So that it is not so easy a matter to obtain the truth, that is found out with much prayer, humility, holiness of life, and industrious using of all means appointed by God. So that the Scripture is the mine where all the gold and silver is; there we must dig, thence we must replenish ourselves. Thirdly, there is implied the durableness and constancy of it. Gold will not melt away in the fire or be consumed as hay and stubble will. So that the truths of God are so constant and abiding that when a man comes to be afflicted, to be persecuted, to be undone for the truth of God, this will abide. Fourthly, the truths of Christ are compared to gold and silver because of the solidity and ponderosity of them; they are weighty and heavy; whereas errors are compared to hay and stubble; what is lighter than these? Whatsoever opinion then is accompanied with vanity, levity, and emptiness, it is not solid, grave, and substantial; refuse that. Fifthly, they are compared to gold because of the purity and sincerity of them. The truths of God, they have an holy simplicity and sincerity, and therefore false teachers are said to corrupt the pure Word of God, as hucksters do their wine (2 Corinthians 2:1-17.). David compareth God’ s Word to “ pure gold, even seven times refined” (Psalms 19:1-14.). And hereby it becomes a very dangerous sin for any to counterfeit it or corrupt it. Sixthly, it is compared to gold for the efficacy and choice virtue thereof. Seventhly, they are compared to gold and silver for the usefulness and profitableness to all things. Many outward comforts in this world may be had for gold and silver; you may have friends, food, raiment. The truth of justification by faith in Christ, is not that more worth than the gold of Ophir? What precious and powerful operations hath it upon the hearts of the ungodly? Eighthly, the truths of Christ are compared to gold and precious stones because they are able to enrich a man with all graces. In the second place, to build gold and precious stones on this foundation is not only to preach sound and pure matter, but this matter in a pure and exact way. First, in preaching of them after Scripture authority, when they are conveyed unto you, as having the stamp and authority of God. Secondly, it is to preach them with Scripture gravity and solidity. As the oracles of God (1 Peter 4:11). Thirdly, they are to be preached with Scripture simplicity in respect of aims and ends. For though a man should build gold and silver, yet if it be for human glory and earthly greatness he builds hay and stubble, though this be known to God only. But this fire will discover the secrets of men’ s hearts. With what delight and holy covetousness you should receive the truths of Christ; they are no less worth than gold, than precious stones. The tabernacle was covered all over with gold, and they brought precious stones to it; and thus is the Church of God still to be built (Revelation 21:19). (A. Burgess.)The losses of the saved 1. You all hope in some way to be saved at last. The mercy of God is so all but exhaustless; He has such a marvellous variety Of saving contrivances; and the thought of being shut out for ever in hell is so horrible, no wonder that you hope to be eventually saved. But hopes amid carelessness, worldliness, or sin are no good sign, for they are hindrances to salvation, and to that fear with which the apostle tells us to work it out. But be it as we wish, viz., that these hopes will not imperil, but secure, our salvation--that will be gain indeed; but be it as we wish, that this hope will not, by the mercy of God, wreck the salvation of any one, it will also be infinite, eternal loss; for it will be a loss of that measure of the capacity of the infinite love of God, which the soul might have gained, but would not. 2. Here we are in the province, not of God’ s mercy only, but of His justice. It is by His mercy in Christ that we are saved at all; but when we have been saved, the reward is according to our works. What, then, I wish you to dwell upon is not the risk of hell, which a careless or worldly ambitious life involves, but the certain sufferings of the day of judgment to some who shall be saved, and the irremediable loss which they have brought upon themselves. 3. And this pain and loss will not come to us through sins which separate men from Christ. Day by day, and year by year, men will have gone on, laying tier after tier of their spiritual building, which, on account of their real belief and trust in Christ, they thought enduring. They built on and on; whether they had, from time to time, misgivings is not said. But if they had they stifled them. For they builded on unto the end. And they must all the while have been earnest in their way; perhaps they were praised, and the praise blinded them the more. Some of them may “ have left names behind them.” Oh, if the departed still know of what passes on this our earth, what a hideous mockery must that posthumous fame be when the temple has collapsed in ashes. A life-long labour perished! It is piteous, even when the temporal end, for which a man has toiled all his life, crashes at last. But remediless! And for eternity! Plainly, there must have been self-deceit about it. For not without a man’ s own will and his own fault would God have allowed such an one to remain so deceived to the end. 4. What, then, are things which shall not be burned--gold, silver, costly stones, which represent something costly and something very pure? They are of different values, but all agree in this, that they are pure. All done for Christ, from the cup of cold water to the martyr’ s chariot of fire, have their several values; but all spring from the one pure motive, love of Him. What else can we even imagine that God will reward? Why should we look hereafter for a second reward from God for doing what our own natural dispositions prompted us to do, and which brought their own reward? True, all things, even eating and drinking, if done to the glory of God, have their eternal recompense, because in each one of these ordinary things we may please God and gain greater grace and larger capaciousness for His infinite love. But what so common as to have mixed motives for our actions, or, rather, what so rare as to have any one motive for any one action, unless, indeed, it be a lower one? 5. But the day of judgment must clear up all this, and then, as shall be the issue, so “ shall every man have praise of God.” And since nothing can receive praise from God which is not more or less purely done for God, then the day of judgment will, I fear, to very many of the saved, who now stand well with themselves, be a terrible discovery, how very little, in their whole lives, they have really done for love of God. And this is what the apostle means by those things which shall be burned up. Things they are of different degrees of lightness, by which different minds imposed upon themselves, as though they were of value when they were of none. But the most plausible will not leave a rack behind, more than the most openly worthless. 6. Nothing but a continued active habit of directing our actions to God, such as results from offering them to God, with continuous prayer for grace, will rescue some fragments of our acts from the unclean contact of our besetting faults. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)Loss through little sins You know well what would become of a house of wood or of a rick if fire was kindled around it, on however good and solid a foundation of stone it might be raised. The foundation upon which it was built would not save it. So then there are works, done by those who do not yet forsake Christ, which shall not stand in the fire of the great day. What are they, then? Are they great, deadly sins, such as the apostle elsewhere speaks of, “ Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, hatred, drunkenness, revelling, and such like” ? No. Such works are not and cannot be built upon the foundation; they, as far as in us lies, destroy the foundation, and the soul itself. They who do these things do not build upon “ the Rock which is Christ” ; they “ build their house on the sand; and the ruin of that house,” our Lord says, “ is great.” What, then, are these things done by a Christian which bring upon him such terrible loss for eternity? They are heaps of little sins; little self-indulgences against the law and will and mind of God, which do not extinguish the love of God in the heart, yet chill it exceedingly; little vanities; little envies; little self-seekings or selfishnesses; little detractions of a neighbour; little unseriousnesses; little contemptuousnesses; idle imaginings; petty angers; little deceitfulnesses or self-praise. Sins they are of which people make very little, because one by one they think them little sins, but which, weighed together, become very heavy. These encrust the soul, as it were, with habits of mind, in thought, word, and deed, with which they cannot enter heaven. In heaven there cannot be the slightest thought of vain-glory; no petty repugnance or mislike of one another; no suspicion; no comparison of ourselves with others; no discontent; no repining; no thought that we are not cared for enough or loved enough; no grudge; no remembrance of unkindness. And if all these things must be left and laid aside at the very portals of heaven; if none of these things can stand the fire of the day of judgment; if the slightest feeling of unlove would be a dark spot, seen through the whole brilliancy of heaven and unbearable in its transparent purity and brightness; what are any of us doing if we are not using our utmost strength, all the power of our souls, to lay them aside now? (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)Every man’ s work shall be … revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’ s work of what sort it is.--The revelation and test of fire The nature of every one’ s work or superstructure shall sooner or later be known; for the great day of the Lord shall dawn in a flood of fire. The house of gold and silver shall be lit up by its dazzling brilliancy; but the house of wood and thatch shall be burnt up. And not only so, but whereas the builder whose house is consumed will lose his reward, having nothing to show, and though he himself, as having built on a true foundation, will be saved, yet he will come out singed and scorched as by an escape out of a burning ruin. It is possible that this whole image may have been suggested or illustrated by the conflagration of Corinth under Mummius; the stately temples standing amidst the universal destruction of the meaner buildings. (Dean Stanley.)That all errors in religion, though not fundamental, are no better than hay and stubble Consider, first, though all errors in opinion and religion have no better a name and no better a nature, yet those that build them do not think so. They judge what they build gold and silver; they think their monsters beautiful and comely. The false prophets in the Old Testament, they would presumptuously call their dreams and imaginations the word of the Lord. Secondly, when the apostle calls these errors hay and stubble, he doth not speak of fundamental errors neither, but such as are consistent with and built on the true foundation. They do not damn the author of them, but they make his salvation difficult. “ He shall be saved, but by fire.” So that as all sins are not alike, so neither are all errors. As in sickness some are mortal and deprive of life immediately, others are not so. In the second place, let us consider why the apostle calls errors by such names--wood, hay, and stubble. First, because of the vileness and contemptibleness of them. Men, if they understand the Scripture and walk by that rule, would no more regard them than the straw under their feet. Secondly, it is compared to hay and stubble for the levity and uncertainty of it. Now the lightness and uncertainty appeareth in three things. It cannot abide the touchstone; it cannot endure to be tried. Straw cannot endure the fire. Thirdly, errors are compared to hay and stubble for the uselessness and unprofitableness of them.(1) They do not truly inform and enlighten the mind. (2) The truths of Christ are profitable to sanctification and holiness. “ Sanctify them by Thy truth” (John 14:1-31.). (3) They are unprofitable for any sound comfort and joy. “ That we through the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4). (4) They are not profitable for duration or continuance. This straw will not keep off the rain of God’ s tempests. To show the folly either of such teachers or hearers that dote on errors, that admire hay and stubble, as if it were gold and precious stones. Oh, try and prove things by the Word ere you rejoice or boast in them! What makes a Church truly glorious, even when it is pure from errors and heresies? A Church embracing the truth is like a goodly edifice of all beautiful excellencies; but where errors are there is dishonour to it. In all the matters of religion, see what solidity and profit there is in the thing thou believest. (A. Burgess.)That all the ways and works of wickedness, though acted in never so secret a manner, shall be made manifest I. We shall show what kind of hidden wickedness shall be made manifest. First, all the secret and hidden thoughts, affections, and purposes of the heart, God will one day make manifest to the whole world. That as there are a world of flies and motes in the air which we never see till the sunbeams arise, so there are thousands of proud, unclean, covetous, and malicious thoughts and purposes lodging in men’ s hearts which the world never knows, but God will one day have heaven and earth take notice of them. Oh, then, what a curb should this be to thy heart, to thy thoughts! Secondly, all the impure and unclean works of the flesh committed in secret, these also shall be made manifest. Thirdly, the hidden works of thieving and stealing and unjustly taking away of other men’ s goods will one day be manifest. Fourthly, there is a hidden work of unrighteousness which is not plain stealing, but it is crafty and artificial cosening in thy trading and commerce with others. Fifthly, carnal and worldly policy to have earthly greatness and power and honour in the world: this is a very deep and secret work, but God will manifest it. Sixthly, dissimulations and inconstancies in matter of religion. II. In the next place, consider the aggravation of those sins that are secret and hidden.1. It argueth a man hath more consciousness to himself that he doth not well, therefore he would not have the world know. 2. This secret sinning puts far more respect and fear upon men than God. 3. The more secret any wickedness is, it argueth the heart is more studious and industrious about it, how to contrive it, how to bring it about. Take heed of secret hidden sins, God will one day manifest what thou hast been. (A. Burgess.)That all the hidden and secret ways of false doctrines God will one day make manifest I. God will manifest all those hidden causes and ends of thy false doctrines. Now the Scripture gives these causes.1. Pride and self-conceit, or overweening of thy own abilities and sufficiency; such a man is in the highway to all errors: “ For the humble and meek God will teach” (Psalms 25:1-22.). The valleys are fruitful when the high mountains are barren. 2. Ignorance and weakness of judgment. And truly this is the most innocent cause of errors when men, through ignorance and weakness, go in a false way; yet this doth not excuse (2 Peter 3:16). 3. Hypocrisy. The Scripture brandeth that for a heavy cause sometimes of the errors in religion. 4. Ambition and affectation of high places in the Church of God, and to be above others. This hath made men build hay and stubble. 5. Discontents and impatiencies at some things which have fallen out in the Church hath been a great cause to make divisions and to sow tares amongst the wheat. 6. Envy and sinful emulation to the gifts and abilities of others that have been above them. This hath made men bring in strange doctrines. So then, as some sharp thorny bushes have pleasant blossoms on them, so many specious and fair opinions that are set out with much glory may yet grow upon such thorny and corrupt causes. 7. A contemplative delight in a man’ s own notions and conceptions he hath. This hath caused more errors than anything, especially in learned men. II. The nature of every man’ s doctrine, and, if false, then the mask will be pulled off. It will appear counterfeit coin, and you know to be guilty of that is a capital crime. God’ s authority and stamp will not be found on it. Rehoboam, when the golden vessels were taken out of the Temple, he put brass ones in the stead. III. God will manifest every man’ s work in the cunning subtilty he hath managed it with. For the Scripture speaks of the crafty ways men use that they do adulterate the Word of God. For--1. Before hearers are publicly prepared for them, they go privately and secretly vent their wares. They are said to creep into houses (2 Timothy 3:1-17.). They are the moles that creep under ground, whereas Christ said He taught nothing but what He did publicly; all did hear. 2. Their craft is seen in mingling some truths with their error, that while we take one we may swallow down the other. 3. This craft is seen either in sweet and winning words, full of love and kindness, or else in pretence to deep and sublime mysteries. 4. Their circumspection to observe the fit seasons to disseminate their errors. Thus, while all were asleep, tares were sown upon the fittest subjects--women, as being more affectionate. “ They lead captive silly women” (2 Timothy 3:6). Take we heed how we build, and that is by avoiding the causes of error, pride, ambition, envy, discontent. Alas! thou hast cause enough to be humbled; the more thou knowest, thou wilt see thy ignorance the more. A poor man thinketh a little stun of money great treasures. (A. Burgess.)That God hath His time when He will discover the errors of men’ s doctrines First, in that the Scripture calls the time of manifestation a “ day,” wherein is light and the sunbeams; it doth excellently imply that all the while there are corruptions in doctrine and worship that time is a time of darkness. Let them never so much rejoice in them, and count them happy times, yet the Scripture calls them dark times. Secondly, there are no foolish builders that thus deform God’ s temple but they are by God’ s permission; in His wrath and anger, because men have abused His truth and waxed wanton under it, therefore hath He sent the spirit of delusion and errors amongst men (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Thirdly, as the corrupt errors of men came from God’ s anger, so in mercy He hath appointed times wherein He will purge and take away their dross. Fourthly, this day of God’ s revealing may be a long while as to our expectation. You may see only chaff and no wheat; and this may be a long while, so that the ungodly do even languish under their expectations. These things thus explained, let us consider the reasons why God will have a day to declare men’ s works in matter of false doctrines. And first, because the truth of God is dear and precious to him. Christ Himself makes it one main reason why He came into the world to bear witness to God’ s truth. Secondly, it is necessary there should be a time, because of the people who belong to God’ s grace, that they may see their errors and bewail them; that they may redeem the time by pulling down their hay and stubble and building gold and silver. Lastly, in respect of men hardened in their errors, that their obstinacy may appear the more; that when they will not see, though the day appear, who then can justify them? To embrace those days of light and revelation which God brings into the world. (A. Burgess.)That God useth to bring people out of errors and false ways by His Word and afflictions To understand this, consider that though the Word and afflictions both help to bring a man out of false ways, yet far differently. For, first, the Word of God is of itself sufficient, in a way of light, to inform and instruct, and hath threatenings also to be like a goad in the side; but afflictions of themselves do not inform, do not teach. God’ s Word is able to reduce without afflictions, but afflictions cannot do anything without God’ s Word. Secondly, there is a difference between the Word and afflictions, because though afflictions have a voice as well as the Word, and the rod speaks as well as God’ s Word, yet the Word of God doth it distinctly and plainly, afflictions in a general manner. Thirdly, though the Word of God be thus only able to instruct and convince, being a perfect rule, yet that doth not exclude other helps, especially the ministry; for ministers are called the lights and guides. Let us see how God by the Word reduceth the wandering sheep. First, the Word of God is instrumental to open the eyes, to enlighten the dark understanding. Secondly, the Word of God is fire to try men’ s works, because it containeth all matter necessary to salvation. Thirdly, the Word of God will be a fire to try, because it doth direct to all those means whereby we may come out of all errors. But you will say, “ How is God’ s Word a fire? How doth that reveal?” Answer1. The defect is not in the Scripture, but in men themselves. The owl and bat are made blinder by the sunbeams, not through any defect in the sun. Secondly, men swallow down first the sweet poison of errors from false teachers, and then they think every place in the Scripture makes for them. Thirdly, they do not attend to the whole Scripture. Lastly, it is not enough to have Scripture, to have many texts, but we are also to make use of those helps for the understanding of them which God hath appointed. 2. Afflictions are God’ s fire; they will discover men’ s works by preparation and fitting the heart to receive. (A. Burgess.)The test of Christian teaching Many of us have watched that fascinating but awful sight--the progress of a great fire. We have marked how the devouring element masters first one and then another department of the building which is its victim; but especially we have noted what it consumes and what it is forced to spare, the resistless force with which it sweeps through and shrivels up all the slighter materials, and only pauses before the solid barriers of stone or iron, thus trying before our very eyes the builders’ work of what sort it is. Now of whom was the apostle thinking when he wrote the warning words about the spiritual builder who employed wood, and hay, and stubble in his work? The eager adherents of Apollos had been powerfully impressed by the brilliant Alexandrian, by his knowledge of what was being said and thought in the Greek world; by his skill in setting out what he had to say to the very best advantage; they were, after the manner of disciples, more eager to imitate their master’ s methods than careful to be true to the end he had in view. “ Take care,” St. Paul seems to say to the young men who were trading on the great name and authority of Apollos--“ take care what you are doing with those souls at Corinth. Are you only interesting and amusing them for a few of the passing days of time, or are you building up in them a faith which will enable them to pass death and eternity? What are the materials of the structures within those souls which you are raising? Are they the gold, the silver, the precious stones of the Apostolic faith? No doubt they are; but do they not also include materials of a different kind--less valuable, less durable--wood, hay, and stubble? If this be so, a time is coming when all the precious and worthless alike will be submitted to a serious test. “ The fire shall try every man’ s work of what sort it is.” But He who at the end will judge us once for all is now and always judging us, and His perpetual presence among us as our Judge, constantly probing, trying, saving us, is revealed by events and circumstances which have on our souls the effects of fire--they burn up that which is worthless, they leave that which is solid unscathed. There is the searching, testing power of a new and responsible position, of a situation forcing its occupant to make it a critical choice, or to withstand a strong pressure. Such a new position discovers and burns up all that is weak in a man’ s faith and character. History is strewn with illustrations of this truth. The virtuous, though weak, emperor, who was floated to power on the surf of revolution, is by no means the only man of whom it might be said that all would have judged him capable of ruling others if only he had never been a ruler. How often does early manhood open with so much that seems promising--with intelligence, courage, attention to duty, unselfishness, what looks like high principle--and then the man is put into a position of authority--it is the fire that tests the work which he has done in his character. Suddenly he betrays some one defect which ruins everything: it may be vanity, it may be envy, it may be a shadow of untruthfulness, it may be some lower fierce passion which emerges suddenly as if unbidden from the depths of the soul, and wins over him a fatal mastery. All is good is turned to ill, all is distorted, discoloured; he might have died a young man amid general lamentations that so promising a life had been cut short. He does die as did Nero or Henry Tudor, amid the loudly-expressed or the muttered thanksgiving of his generation that he has left the world. The fact was, that the position in which be found himself exposed him to a pressure which his character could not bear. You remember how the old Tay Bridge, before that fatal winter night, was believed to be equal to its purpose. It needed, no doubt, a mighty impact, a terrific rush of wind from one particular quarter, in order to show that the genius and audacity of men had presumed too largely on the forbearance of the elements. But the moment came. We many of us remember something of the sense of horror which the tragical catastrophe left on the public mind; the gradual disappearance of the last train as it moved on its wonted way on into darkness, the suddenly observed dislocation and flickering of the distant lights, the faint sound as of a crash rising for a moment even over the din of the storm, and then the utter darkness as all, train and bridge, together sank into the gulph of waters beneath, and one moment of supreme and unimaginable agony was followed by the silence of death. And we see these truths at work in associated as well as in individual human life. Any one will recall the names of empires which have appeared to possess the elements of unconquerable strength until they have been subjected to the test of new conditions--the empire of the Great Alexander, the empire of Attila the Hun, the empire of the first Napoleon. Alexander subdued all the nations which spread from the Adriatic to the Indies. No sooner had he passed away than the unity of his work was shattered by the ambition of three generals. Attila’ s kingdom at one time reached from the Volga to the Loire; the vast host at his disposal was attended by a bevy of subject kings and chiefs: the emperors of the East and West were both his obsequious tributaries; and the men of his day expressed the terror which his apparently boundless power inspired when they named him “ the scourge of God.” Yet he had scarcely been discovered dead on his couch after a drunken revel, when his sons, greedy for high place, turned their arms against each other, and so within some fifteen years the Buns had sunk to be the dependents and tributaries of the very race which but now they had ruled. And there is Attila’ s great counterpart in modern Europe--Napoleon. His vast, motley hosts swept along over much the same ground as Attila’ s though in an opposite direction. Like Attila’ s, they passed over ancient and prostrate thrones; like his, too, they went on the errand of an insatiable ambition; but before he died, as we all know, Napoleon’ s work had been tested with a severity which revealed its weakness, and left behind it nothing but a million of tombs and the dying echoes of a vast catastrophe. And as with States, so with particular branches of the Christian Church. A Church may be, to all appearances, highly favoured; it may have leaders conspicuous for holiness or learning; it may reckon its multitudes of devout communicants, its flourishing missions at home and abroad, and its many works of benevolence and mercy; and yet it may have admitted to its bosom some false principles, whether of faith or morals, which will find it out in the day of trial. In the early centuries no Church was more highly favoured than that of Northern Africa. It had, it is said, almost innumerable Churches, which produced saints and martyrs; its intellectual and practical activity was tested by the long series of Councils of Carthage; it was the first Church, so far as we know, certainly it was earlier than any in Italy, to translate the New Testament Scriptures into the languages of the West; it held its own in debate with the greatest Churches of Europe, and with Rome itself; but the day of trial came on it with the invasion of the Vandals, as Augustine lay dying in Hippo. It came again, and more decisively, with the Moslem conquest. There are Churches in the East which have suffered as much as or more than the Church of Northern Africa--Churches which have never ceased suffering, yet which in their weakness are still instinct with life and hope; but the Church of Cyprian and Augustine perished out right. We may guess at the cause--we cannot determine; it may have been a general lax morality among its people; it may have been a widespread spirit of paradox among its teachers; it may have been some far-reaching weakness or corruption which the day of account will alone reveal. But there is the fact. No Church in primitive Christendom stood higher than the Church of Africa: none has ever so utterly disappeared. Let us of the Church of to-day be not high-minded, but fear; for if prominence and success do not discover what is weak in faith and character, there is an agent who comes to all sooner or later, and who will surely do so--there is the fire, the searching, testing power of deep affliction. Many a creed that will do for the sunny days of life will not serve us in its deep shadows, much less in the valley of the shadow of death. The truths which strengthen and brace character, and enable it to pass unscathed, like the three holy children through the fiery furnace of deep sorrow, are the great certainties which were ever to the front in the apostle’ s teaching about God and men, about life and death, about sin and redemption, about nature and grace, and, above all, about the boundless power and love of Jesus Christ our Lord and God. (Canon Liddon.)Two builders on one foundation In the vivid imagination of the apostle two workmen are building side by side. One builds a palace, the other a hovel. The materials which one uses are gold and silver for decoration; and for solidity costly stones--not diamonds, emeralds, &c., but valuable building material, such as marbles, granites, and alabaster. The other employs timber, dry reeds, straw. Suddenly there plays around both buildings the fire of the Lord coming to judgment. The marbles gleam the whiter, and the gold and the silver flash the more resplendently; but the straw hovel goes up in a flare! The one man gets wages for work that lasts, the other man gets no pay for what perishes. He is dragged through the smoke, saved by a hair’ s breath, but sees all his toil lying there in white ashes at his feet. It is a grim picture. Note-- I. The two builders and their work.1. The wood, &c., are clearly not heresies, for the builder who uses them is on the foundation, and had they been so Paul would have found sharper words of condemnation. They are misplaced learning; speculation; preaching one’ s self; talking about temporary, trivial things; dealing with the externals of Christianity, and with its morals apart from that one motive of love to a dying Saviour which makes morality a reality. All that kind of teaching, however it may be admired, and thought to be “ eloquent,” “ original,” and “ on a level with the growing culture of the age,” and so on, is flimsy stuff to build upon the foundation of a crucified Saviour. There is no solidity in such work. It will not stand the stress of a gale of wind while it is being built, nor keep out the weather; and it will blaze at last like a thatched roof when “ that day” puts a match to it. The solid teaching is the proclamation of Christ and His great salvation. On that rock-fact we calmly repose. In that great truth are wrapped up, as the plant in the seed, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So let all teachers take the warning that well-meaning men, building on the foundation, may, if they do not take care, be building with rubbish instead of with the indestructible truths of God’ s Word; and see to it that they do not carry chaff in their seed-baskets, but only the pure seed of the Word of God. 2. But the principle may be extended to the whole Christian life. The life of a Christian man is a building, suggesting slow and continuous progress and a homogeneous result. It is possible for two men, both of them being Christians, to be building two very different structures in their lives. Many a true follower of Christ may pile much upon the foundation which is unworthy of it. As you may see in the wretched huts in which wandering Arabs house amongst the ruins of some historical city, that half a man’ s house shall be of fluted marble and the other half shall be of crumbling clay, so, alas! many Christian men and women are building their lives. With what are you building? and what are you building? A palace, a temple, a shop, a place of sinful amusement, a prison--which? We build inconsistently, and in our own persons combine these two builders. Look, then, for yourselves into your building, and see how much, and what, of it is likely to last, and how much of it is sure to be burned up when the fire comes. II. The twofold effects of the one fire. The day is the day when Christ shall come. And the fire is but the symbol that always attends the Divine appearance.1. When Christ comes to judge, light comes with Him, and the light pours in upon the actions of men and reveals them for what they are. The builders have been working, as you see builders sometimes nowadays night-work, with some more or less sufficient illumination. The day dawns, and the building stands out disclosed in all its beauty or deformity. Its true proportions are manifest at last. And how many surprises there will be. Many a man who thought that he was building gold, &c., will find out that he was pleasing himself, and not preaching his Master; that he was talking about trivial, transitory things, and not about eternal truths that nourish and save men’ s souls. “ Lord! Lord! have we not prophesied in Thy name? And He shall say unto them, I never knew you” ! Many an humble and timid builder who did not know what he was doing will see that he has built gold, &c., according to that blessed word, “ Lord! when saw we Thee … in prison and visited Thee? And He shall answer,” &c. One of the most precious diamonds in Europe, that blazes now in a king’ s crown, lay on a stall in a piazza at Rome for months, labelled, “ Rock crystal, price one franc.” And many of the most noble deeds that ever were done on earth have been passed unrecognised by the crowd that beheld them, and forgotten except by Him. 2. Not only is there this revealing process suggested, but the one class of service, teaching, life, is glorified by the fire, and the other is burned up. The gold, &c., are glorified because revealed, and heightened in beauty by being brought into contact with Christ Himself, as a fair jewel is fairer for its setting, and flashes in the sunshine. And, on the other side, how much of all our lives will be crushed into nonentity, made as if it had never been at all, by the simple revelation of Christ! The selfish, God-forgetting deeds, the lust, the greed, will all vanish and go up in foul-smelling smoke. And what is left will be all holy desires, self-sacrificing service, devout aspirations, and pure Christlike character. III. The twofold effects on the builders.1. The one gets the consequences of his services. We do not need to shrink from admitting the idea of a reward. Christ perpetually speaks to us about heaven as being, in a very deep sense, a reward; not because men deserve heaven, but because the heaven which they get only by His merits and through faith in Him, is given in the measure of their capacity, which depends on their character, and is largely determined by their habitual conduct. 2. The inconsistent Christian’ s inconsistencies shall be burned up. Thank God for that! What better could happen to them or for him? Instead of the hovels he may build a palace. The fire of London finished the plague, and statelier streets took the place of the fetid alleys. But still that imperfect Christian “ shall suffer loss” --the loss of what he might have gained. He shall lose remembrances which are true wealth, tie shall lose, in that he will stand further from the Lord, and possess, because he can contain, less of His glory. His crown is far less resplendent than the others, His seat at Christ’ s table in the kingdom is far lower. His heaven is narrower and less radiant. These two are like two vessels, one of which comes into harbour with a rich freight and flying colours, and is welcomed with tumult of acclaim. The other strikes on the bar. “ Some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, all come safe to land.” But ship and cargo, and profit of the venture, are all lost. “ He shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Good qualities seen in the fiery day The best qualities of the Christian--patience, gentleness, and forgiveness of injuries--are written by the Spirit of God in the heart of a Christian, out of the sight of the world, and come only to be seen in the day of fiery affliction and trial, just as words written with invisible ink come only to be read when submitted to the heat of the fire. (T. H. Leary, D. C. L.)Severely tested Call it by what name you please--dream, vision, or reverie--we found ourselves in a large room, the walls of which were concealed by well-packed shelves of books, from the ponderous folio to the minute thirty-two-me, and in all the variety of dress which a skilful handicraft could devise. While cursorily gazing on these intellectual stores, our attention was arrested by the entrance of two personages of mild and venerable aspect, who very courteously introduced themselves, and stated the object of their visit. They bore the significant names of Time and Posterity, and intimated that they had come to pay their semi-centennial visit, to weigh the merits of authors, and determine their destiny. The task seemed to us an herculean one, where the volumes were numbered by thousands; and we were curious to know by what process they were to ascertain the character of so many candidates for fame. We might, however, have spared our surprise, had we reflected that Time was a gentleman who had seen much of the world, and professed great experience, and Posterity was no less distinguished for the solidity of his judgment. They were well prepared for an expeditious performance of their work, and, in truth, we felt no small degree of horror in witnessing the results of their essay. By the way, we should have mentioned that they were provided with a capacious crucible, under which was burning a large and steady flame. Into it volume after volume was thrown, and the ordeal through which they had to pass was one of fire. “ Goodly volumes, these,” said Time, taking up a brace of octavos on metaphysics, “ let us test their quality.” Placed in the crucible, they were instantly converted into cinders. “ Dust and ashes,” said Posterity. This was the doom of many an ostentatious volume, whose promising title availed as little as its interior embellishments. Time rather soliloquised than addressed Posterity, while subjecting volume after volume. He would remark, “ Deadborn this; its claims for perpetuity died amidst the types.” “ An old heresy under the slight disguise of a new dress.” “ Nonsense, fustian, bombast.” A whole row of poets succeeded each other in their descent into the heated crucible, with no more sympathy on the part of the executioner than a contemptuous exclamation. What is called “ light literature” could scarcely be kept in the crucible long enough to be converted into thin smoke. Whole tons of periodicals and reviews shared the same fate. Occasionally we observed an unscorched leaf or two remained in the crucible, which Posterity carefully gathered and deposited in his portefeuille. At intervals, a whole volume would escape--this, however, was very rare; for in the instances in which they preserved their original shape, large portions of these fortunate volumes were burned out. For the most part, the large books fared worse than the smaller ones, from which we were led to infer that facility in writing was quite a different thing from ability, and that a lumbering ship may be dashed on the rocks over which a small boat may safely ride. Whole piles of periodicals (our own did not entirely escape) were soon converted into ashes. “ Fabrications,” said Time, as he hurled volume after volume of history into the crucible. Some leaves, however, of most of them escaped, out of which Posterity remarked he would make up a small volume of true history worthy of preservation. Many books of religious controversy, and many more of worldly controversies on all subjects went in with the ominously expressed doom, “ Dust and ashes,” and so they came out. We perceived a most offensive effluvium arise as certain “ Philosophical Disquisitions,” and “ Light of Reason” were submitted to the fiery test. Thus went forward the process, the further details of which might be tedious to enumerate, and in a very brief time the great library had so far disappeared that Posterity carried off what was left in a small but beautiful cabinet, made of enduring materials. (Presbyterian.)If any man’ s work abide … he shall receive a reward.--Successful and unsuccessful builders I. The successful builder.1. His work. (1) Well founded.(2) Well built. 2. Its durability. (1) It stands the test of time.(2) Of investigation.(3) Of fire. 3. His reward. (1) In the successful issue of his toil.(2) In the approbation of God.(3) In the abundant recompense. II. The foolish builder.1. His folly. (1) He had a right foundation.(2) Selected corruptible materials. 2. His loss. (1) His work consumed.(2) His labour lost.(3) His reward forfeited. 3. His narrow escape. Saved--yet so as by fire. (J. Lyth, D. D.)God’ s truths are of a durable nature, notwithstanding trial First, there are Divine truths, such as are revealed in God’ s Word, most of which human reason could not comprehend; but, as Zacchaeus, of a low stature, got up into the tree to see Jesus, so reason, being too low, must ascend up into the Scripture to behold these truths. Now these are more certain and durable than those natural truths. Secondly, this good building of truth doth not only abide the fire, but desireth the fire; it is willing to come to the touchstone. Thirdly, the truths of God, built by a spiritual builder, do not only abide the fiery trial, but they grow more illustrious and glorious thereby. All the heresies and persecutions that ever have been were like the waters to the ark, they lifted it higher to heaven. The truth about grace had not been so clear had not Pelagius maintained free-will. The Divine nature of Christ had not been so fully evidenced out of Scripture had not the Arrians opposed it. But for the doubt of Thomas Christ’ s resurrection was more confirmed unto us. Fourthly, not only the truths of God in their nature, but also in the proper and genuine effects upon the hearers, they also abide and will endure the trial. (A. Burgess.)If any man’ s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.--That every man will be altogether a loser in any error or false way that he hath maintained; he shall suffer loss In the first place we shall show wherein they shall be losers. First, if they thought by erroneous ways to better themselves in an outward condition in this world, in this they are sure to lose. Oh, that this were well thought of by those who think to better themselves by those ways that are not of God! Secondly, if they looked for outward honour and dignity, to be applauded and esteemed, this also they shall be losers in. For by the judgment of those Churches or persons that are orthodox they shall fall from all that repute and esteem they had. Thirdly, they lose all their ministerial labour and study they used in building such stubble. And truly this loss should much affect every man whether minister or private Christian. The wise mad observeth great vanity in all worldly labour, but especially in matters of religion; to labour in vain, there to lose all thy nights and thy days, and thy study, and thy pains, is beyond expression miserable. Fourthly, they will lose their inward peace and comfort of conscience. Fifthly, they lose, though not the total seed of grace, yet the degree and fervency of it; yea, in regard of outward appearance all seemeth to be lost. They have not that tenderness, that strictness they once had. Yea, lastly, men lose their parts and gifts; they have not that clearness and soundness of understanding as they had. (A. Burgess.)That every godly man, though never so eminent, yet is with difficulty saved Now the grounds of these truths are--First, from the exactness and strictness that is in the way to heaven. Secondly, the difficulty doth appear from that remainder and relic or corruption that is in every man, which is in danger to break out. Thirdly, there are many afflictions and tribulations which God brings on His people, and they do much endanger. (A. Burgess.) 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? The two temples Two points comprehend the apostle’ s teaching in this chapter.1. The foundation of Christian life and doctrine (1 Corinthians 3:11). 2. The form of Christian life and doctrine built thereon. It is to be worthy of the foundation (1 Corinthians 3:10; 1 Corinthians 3:12, &c.). Christian teachers have a covenant engagement--to erect a temple on a previously laid foundation. According to a specification, they are to use “ gold,” &c. Paul’ s complaint is, that they appear not to have known the terms of their contract (text), and hence had departed from the true foundation, and consequently had developed a form of Christian life contrary to the form and Spirit of Christ. Note-- I. The Divine dwelling.1. The Christian heart under the figure of a “ temple” points back to God’ s visible dwelling-place in Jerusalem. (1) The former temple was the dwelling-place of Trinity. In the holy of holies the cloud was the memorial of the enduring mercy of the Father; in the outer courts the sacrifices typified the atonement of the Son, while the incense pointed to the sweet influence of the Spirit. (2) The former temple was the treasury of sacred truth. All that symbolised the religious life of the Jews was kept in the ancient temple--Aaron’ s rod that budded, indicating the perpetual freshness of the gospel; the golden pot of manna, indicating the nourishing properties of the gospel; the original copy of the law of Moses, indicating that the gospel is our directory. The gospel rod of God’ s strength is treasured up in the Christian heart. The gospel food of God’ s providing for the wilderness is received into the soul. The gospel, the perfect law, is hidden in the secret places of the heart. “ Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage,” &c. (3) The former temple was but a partial revelation of the Divine glory. Sin explains all that earlier worship; sin, too, explains all our later worship. And not till sin is destroyed will the Christian heart be a perfect temple, and full revelation of the glory of God. 2. Compare the Christian heart with the future, or heavenly temple. (1) The central figure in the heavenly temple is Christ. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne, is the chief subject of their song, “ Worthy is the Lamb.” He is the object of their highest worship, “ They cast their crowns at His feet.” “ Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” Jesus “ in the midst” of the throne of your affections; Jesus the object of your worship. (2) In that heavenly temple “ there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3); so in the Christian heart “ there is now no condemnation” (Romans 8:1). (3) In the heavenly temple there is no particular spot consecrated for worship (Revelation 21:22), no set times, but it is all temple; so also in the human heart (John 4:21). Every place, season, faculty consecrated to worship. II. The Divine indwelling. From the figure of the temple the apostle passes to the life of it, that which gives it its vitality. Observe the various methods of the Spirit’ s manifestations in the Christian heart.1. He is the Spirit of the new birth (John 3:6). 2. To the worker in the Kingdom of God He is the Spirit of new strength (Ephesians 3:16; Ephesians 1:17-18). 3. To the broken-hearted He is the Spirit, the Comforter. He is the Spirit to seal the covenant of the soul with its God (2 Corinthians 1:22). 4. He dwells in us-- (1) Through faith. (2) By prayer. “ The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities.” (3) By obedience to the Divine will, “ He makes us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” (4) By the assurance of faith, “ the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God.” (5) By fruit-bearing, “ the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” &c. Conclusion:1. The oneness of the Christian Church. Paul in the last chapter complained of divisions. In this he speaks of them all as built on one foundation, and growing up into one temple, having one source of life, &c. 2. Its sacredness (1 Corinthians 3:17). (D. Y. Currie.)Temples of God I. Every Christian is a dwelling-place for God. That God dwells in us is only possible from His dwelling in Christ, through whom we touch Him. II. Christians, as temples, are to be manifestors of God. The meaning of temple is that there the indwelling Deity shall manifest Himself. God dwelling in our hearts reveals Himself--1. To us ourselves.2. To others around us by our conduct. III. Christians, as temples, should be places of sacrifice. What is temple without worship? What is worship without sacrifice? IV. Christians, as temples, are to be holy. Holiness is separation to God’ s service--dedication. The idols of covetousness, idolatry, intolerance, drunkenness, &c. When God enters, all Dagons fall to the ground maimed and destroyed. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)God’ s spiritual temple The ancient temple was not more glorious and admirable to the human eye than such societies should be to the eye of faith. And learned men think that latter part of Ezekiel’ s prophecy, though very obscure, concerning the measuring of the temple, is nothing but the promise of the building of the Church in the New Testament in an heavenly and glorious manner. First, the materials for the temple were to be polished and fitted by art ere they could be made part of the building. We of ourselves have not faith, have not preparedness for such Church duties, till God doth enable us. Look we, therefore, how we come into the Church of God? How is it brought about that we are so? If there be nothing but nature and custom, or because we are born in such places. Thus it is here, whatsoever our societies and meetings are in reference to God it is wholly of His making. Secondly, the materials of the temple were very excellent and precious, of gold and silver, &c., not hay and stubble. The best stone, the best wood that would not putrify, and all things were covered over with gold, and the gold was to be pure gold; even the very snuffers were to be of gold. Now what did this represent, but to show what kind of people those should be who were of the Church of God? Thirdly, the temple was full of external glory. A magnificent place, admired by heathens. Now the glory of Christians is likewise great, but in a spiritual and heavenly way. The Church is all glorious within (Psalms 45:13). The gospel that is preached is styled a glorious gospel (1 Timothy 1:11); and the Spirit of God the Spirit of glory (1 Peter 4:14). It is promised that the glory of the second temple should far exceed that of the first (Haggai 2:9). Now how was that made good? not in any outward glory, but because Christ in a spiritual manner did reform all those corrupt doctrines, and did sit as a refiner to purify the sons of Levi. This was glory to have the spiritual worship of God. Fourthly, the temple was in a peculiar manner holy in respect of other buildings. Now when we say it was holy, we do not mean an holiness inherent, as angels and men are holy, but of dedication and consecration, a relative holiness, being set apart by God’ s special command to such a use. Fifthly, because of this relative holiness it was a capital crime to defile this temple. There were porters set at the gate to keep out all unclean things (2 Chronicles 23:19). Lastly, that which was the glory of the temple and the life of it was God’ s gracious presence. (A. Burgess.)The Divine Spirit dwelling in the Church I. That the Spirit of God is God. II. That the Spirit of God dwells in His Church, And now to open this let us consider--First, what the phrase to dwell in the Church implieth. Now this phrase, to have the Spirit dwell in us, denoteth--First, the propriety that it hath to us, that we are His possession, as an house is a man’ s own, where He is Lord and Master. And this is worthy of consideration, that we who once were the devil’ s, he dwelt in us, he ruleth in the hearts of the disobedient (Ephesians 2:1-22.), have now him expelled from us, and the Spirit of God taken us for His possession. So that herein is a wonderful change when the Spirit of God comes and takes possession of a people who before were captives to Satan, and led aside according to his will (2 Timothy 2:26). Secondly, when it is said the Spirit of God dwells in a people, it supposeth that He doth fashion and prepare them for Himself. For every lodging is not fit for so noble a guest, but as great men carry their rich furniture with them to have convenient lodgings, so also doth the Spirit of God raise up a people by illumination and sanctification to be a fit habitation for Him. Thirdly, when it is said the Spirit of God dwells in us, it denoteth the familiarity and condescending communion that God vouchsafeth unto His children. Fourthly, in that the Spirit of God is said to dwell, it denoteth a permanent and constant abode in His people. For this you must know, the Spirit of God is many times working where yet He doth not dwell. There is a great difference between transient motions and constant mansions of God’ s Spirit. Fifthly, the Spirit dwelling in us doth denote the intimateness and inward efficacy it hath. It doth not only dwell with us, but in us, which denoteth great intimateness. III. Now let us proceed to show how the Spirit of God dwells in His Church. Now several ways we may consider of the Spirit’ s dwelling in the people of God. First, there is an essential dwelling, or a gracious dwelling, by a special manifestation of more peculiar favours; we do not speak here of an essential dwelling, for so the Spirit of God is everywhere (Psalms 139:7). Secondly, when the Spirit of God is said to dwell in His Church, it may not only be understood of the gracious effects thereof, but also of His person likewise. Lastly, the Spirit of God dwells two ways in His Church--1. In respect of wonderful and miraculous operations.2. In respect of saving and sanctifying graces. IV. In the next place, let us consider the special works and effects of God’ s Spirit in His Church. But to the particulars. First, the Spirit of God dwells in us after a saving manner in the general, by way of sanctification of the spirit, soul, and body, even the whole man (1 Thessalonians 5:1-28). But more particularly, the Spirit of God dwells in a saving manner. First, by illumination, and opening of the dark mind of every man. Secondly, the Spirit of God quickens and reviveth those graces that by regeneration were infused to us. Thirdly, the Spirit of God doth enable us to kill and mortify sin (Romans 8:1-39.). Fourthly, the Spirit of God doth bestow a filial and ingenuous spirit upon believers, whereby they are carried out upon evangelical and gospel grounds in their obedience to God. Fifthly, the Spirit of God works comfort and joy in the hearts of the godly. Hence He is called the Comforter (John 15:26). Sixthly, that we may have this boldness and joy. The Spirit of God hath another effect, which is, to witness and seal unto our spirits that we are the children of God. Seventhly, the Spirit of God worketh wonderful support, and even glorious rejoicing, in all afflictions and tribulations. Lastly, the Spirit of God doth work the prayers of God’ s people. (A. Burgess.)The believer a temple of God Consider-- I. The people of God indwelt by God. “ The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”1. We must accept that as literally true. The Spirit of God is a person, the attributes of personality are ascribed to Him. The Old Testament prepared for this teaching. “ I will put My Spirit within you.” Then, in the New Testament, our Lord says, “ I will pray the Father,” &c. As God the Father pardons sin, and God the Son atoned for sin, God the Spirit dwells in us to cleanse from sin. 2. This is granted to the lowliest spiritual condition. Indeed, “ if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.” Many spiritual blessings we have to wait and even strive for, but this is given at the beginning. “ I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit,” and that is the first stage of Christian life. 3. This represents a permanent state. God comes not to tarry for a night, but “ This is My rest for ever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” What a vision all this gives of infinite condescension. II. This indwelling makes each of God’ s people a temple. That implies--1. Divine consecration. Other buildings might be put to other use, but everything under the shadow of the shekinah was inscribed “ Holiness unto the Lord.” And that is the Divine emblem of the redeemed man; he is to be amongst men like a church in a city, the mirthful tide may beat against its gates, and the stream of business ever pass its doors, but it were pollution for either to cross its threshold, it and all within are God’ s. The less distinction we make between the Church and the world the further we go from God’ s purpose concerning us. 2. Divine testimony. For the temple stands amid the din and strife of the streets a silent witness for God. Such is the Christian amongst men; he is a church in the world. “ If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His,” and do you think He can dwell in a soul and the world not know it! 3. Divine revealings. God in the soul. What spiritual visions, what views of the King, what subtle voices, what inward brightness does it not suggest! “ The King’ s daughter is all glorious within.” And if He be there, the angels, His attendants, are there; angels of holy thought and affection and desire, making sacred melody, and reverently listening for their Lord’ s will. III. The fact of this indwelling is often forgotten by God’ s people. How often do we need the Divine appeal, “ Know ye not,” &c. For example--1. When we doubt the Divine care. “ What! know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” Will He not care for His own; will He dwell amid our needs and not meet them? 2. When we mourn an absent God. “ Know ye not,” &c. He has not gone, He is in your soul, you carry within you the “ well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Only unmourned sin has hindered His manifestation, and that hindrance can be removed and the shining of His face appear again. 3. When we shrink from setting holy example. 4. When we make light of sin. (C. New.)Humanity the temple of God Let us look at man as-- I. A Divine temple. A temple is a special--1. Residence of God. God is in all material objects, but especially in moral minds. 2. Manifestation of God. God is seen everywhere, but never so fully as in the mind of man. “ We are all His offspring.” 3. Meeting place with God. The temple at Jerusalem was specially such. “ There will I commune with thee.” Man can meet God in nature, but not so fully and consciously as in mind, II. As a Divine temple that might be destroyed. The destruction of a temple does not mean the destruction of all its parts, but the destruction of its use. Man might live for ever and yet be destroyed as the special residence, manifestation, and meeting-place of God. But this destruction is not by God. “ If any man.” Alas! men are destroying this temple--their natures. An awful work this! III. As the destroyer of that which will be destroyed by God Himself. Destroy, if not his existence, all that makes existence worth having, or even tolerable. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The Christian Church the temple of God the Holy Spirit I. The Christian Church is God’ s temple.1. The temple of God is a phrase used to signify something dedicated to Jehovah, whether a material or a spiritual building. (1) The temple in Jerusalem.(2) The human nature of Christ (John 2:19-22; Colossians 2:9).(3) Heaven (Revelation 7:15).(4) The Christian Church. This is the spiritual house of God, composed of all faithful souls. 2. In writing to the Church at Corinth, the apostle remembered the pride that city had in its temples whose glory fired all its people with delight. All of this grandeur was displayed for what? For senseless idols who could hear no prayer nor impart any blessing. The gospel came to destroy all false systems of religion, and to build up a more glorious temple of God than any heathen or Jewish temple ever was before. 3. Now, if the Christians in Corinth lost much delight and cherished associations in forsaking their temples, if the Jewish converts, too, lost all their pride in the glory departed from their temple, the apostle’ s argument is that God hath His own glorious temple still on earth. 4. Although this glorious work is sometimes invisible to man’ s eye, yet it is all comprehended by the Divine mind, and is daily extending in the world. 5. Now this good work is God’ s and not man’ s. Human skill may rear classic temples, but no power less than Divine can take a rough block of human sinfulness, purify it from its defilements, and gloriously prepare and polish it for some fitting place in the spiritual temple of the living God. II. The holy Spirit dwells in the Christian temple. Heathen classics believed that their divinities resided in their temples. Advancing a step nearer truth, some of the wise men of old taught that a good man himself was a temple in which the divinity dwelt. Now these were glimmerings of Divine truth.1. It might well be argued that to dwell in any place denotes a living being and a distinct personality. Man’ s soul dwells in his body, and this constitutes him a real living person; the Spirit of God dwells in the Christian soul, and animates by Divine power all the living Church. 2. God clearly taught this truth to the Hebrew Church (Ezekiel 36:25-28), though its fulness of blessing was only bestowed in Christian days. If any man of rank or power sat down familiarly in some poor cottage how the world would marvel! Especially if in his condescension he bestowed on it some of his own treasures as gifts of his power. How much more, then, ought we to be astonished and delighted that God, the Eternal Spirit, visits earth’ s dwellings of dust. 3. But the infidel theories of the day banish God from all His own works. Yet if I behold some great building, I naturally inquire who was the architect, and who dwells or acts there? Apply this illustration-- (1) To creation. Will any man, then, tell me that this glorious temple is the mere work of chance, that no Almighty Spirit regulates or minds it? (2) To a living Church. Can it be possible that this is no work of God? Has not God’ s Spirit dwelt in it, creating its life, diffusing its light, and commanding its heavenly power, love, peace, and joy, and making it the centre of rich blessing, humanity, charity, and civilisation to the world? (3) To the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Christian soul. III. The obligations and blessings of these important truths.1. As you are bought with the price of Christ’ s blood, and sealed as His by the Holy Spirit, you are called to glorify Him both in body and soul. As Christians are God’ s temple collectively as “ the body of Christ,” and individually as “ members of Christ,” how then ought they to live in holiness, peace, and love! 2. Who can tell the invaluable blessings and gifts of the Holy Spirit thus dwelling in the heart? In short, they are Divine light, guidance, help, and comfort. (J. G. Angley, M. A.)The house beautiful Taking the idea of the text and looking upon the “ human form divine” as the “ house beautiful,” we would remark that-- I. The house should give signs of its superior occupant. We judge of the inmate by the residence. If everything around is disorderly, we attribute it to the character of the tenant. If the paths are clean and the flower-beds are trimmed, we know that there is taste and cultivation of the spirit of beauty on the part of the occupier. So we judge regarding the human house. Sin makes its marks upon the countenance. Care traces its wrinkles on the face. The house should be--1. Kept clean. Sanctification is spiritual cleanliness. Christ will cleanse. And the soul made pure will manifest that purity in the outer life. The light of God in the soul will illumine the darkness around. 2. Well furnished. The Christian needs to be ready to account for his faith. He must be furnished for every good word and work. His mind should be stored only with remembrance-pictures upon which he can look with tranquility and delight. II. We are not freeholders or absolute possessors of that house--we only have it on lease. It is but a temporary temple. The beams and rafters will be taken down, and the tenant will depart. III. The tenant is more precious than the house he lives in. The soul is of infinitely more worth than the body. Fair though the house may be, more beautiful still is the tenant, radiant with the love that God bestows. (Homiletic Monthly.)The nature and offices of the Holy Spirit I. His personality. To dwell in a temple is a personal act. We understand by person a distinct, subsistent, intelligent being, as distinguished from a mere property or attribute. It is quite necessary to draw this distinction, otherwise we might imagine the Spirit of God to be nothing but a Divine power, virtue, or efficacy, resident in God, or derived from God. There are, certainly, attributed to the Holy Spirit faculties and operations which can only be attributed to a person, and not to a quality. He possesses understanding, “ The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” Affections are ascribed to Him, when we are bidden not to grieve Him, and when the Israelites are said to have provoked Him. He teaches men; guides them into all truth; can be blasphemed, and Christians are baptized into His name equally with that of the Father and the Son, whose personality are not disputed. II. His divinity. If it be a personal act to dwell in a temple, there must, it would seem, be Deity in the person who, by His indwelling, makes the temple the temple of God. But we have clear evidence in abundance that He must be actually God. What inherent property and perfection of the Divine nature is there which is not attributed to the Holy Spirit? What operation is there, transcending that of a finite and created thing, which the Spirit is not said to perform? III. His offices. If the residence of the Spirit in a man convert him into the temple of God, it is evident that the Spirit must be a renewing and sanctifying agent. Man being naturally inhabited only by what is evil, therefore a work of regeneration must be effected ere he can be dwelt in by One infinitely holy. Here we may observe that the office of the Spirit, in the economy of redemption, is a fresh proof of His Divinity. Man having been “ born in sin, and shapen in iniquity,” it is the office of the Holy Ghost to effect such a change that the sinner may be described as born again, and made a new man in Christ Jesus. It were even nothing that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, if there were no supernatural agency to apply to ourselves the expiatory virtue of Christ’ s sacrifice. It is the office of the Spirit to translate us from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God’ s dear Son; and having once made us fellow-citizens with the saints, He equips us for spiritual conflict, enables us for every spiritual duty, and furnishes us with every spiritual consolation. Indeed, it were little to be brought within the circle of the family of God, if we were not also kept in it by the power through which we were first introduced. But this power never deserts those who give themselves to its guidance. (H. Melvill, B. D.)The Spirit’ s dwelling I. The fact. “ Ye are the temple,” &c. In three ways 1. By building. No one is by nature a temple. The Holy Ghost quarries the stones, shapes the pillars, constructs the edifice. 2. By furnishing. He supplies the good thoughts, good motives, good principles, which actuate the Christian’ s life. 3. By inhabiting. The Spirit does not build a house for the devil’ s home. It is for Himself. II. The inferences. It is implied that there should be, if we wish the Spirit to continue--1. Fitness. The house must be kept in such a condition as is suitable for His presence. 2. Supremacy. God cannot share the kingdom. 3. Unanimity. How can two dwell together, except they be agreed? (D. Thomas, D. D.)The indwelling of the Holy Spirit This indwelling is a profound mystery, but it is the characteristic glory of the Christian dispensation. Our Lord distinguishes between the work of the Holy Spirit before and after Pentecost: “ He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Once He came upon them, now He is in them. And where the Spirit dwells is holy ground. Of that indwelling the temple of Solomon gives us a prophetic glimpse. There shone a heavenly light, the symbol of the Holy Spirit who was to dwell in every true Christian, not as a passing visitor, but as a perpetual guest. And where He comes, He brings a new nature and capacities. He gives a new direction to the heart and will. He opens the understanding, and bestows a new power for holiness and for service. This indwelling is here set forth as an antidote. I. To party spirit.1. The love of faction which marked the politics of Corinth had crept into their religion. They nursed a temper of bitterness which hindered true work for God, injured their inner life, and grieved the Holy Spirit. Therefore St. Paul asks with surprise, “ Know ye not,” &c. Their lack of charity helped to destroy the Church of God. It broke up its unity, it killed its spirituality. It provoked God to judge them. It was a desecration which the Holy God could not ignore. 2. The bane of the Church still is its unhappy divisions. Still Christian scorns Christian in proportion as the differences which divide them are trivial and unimportant. If the remembrance of our great mission fail to move us, at least let the tact that the Spirit of God dwells in us do so. If Moses appealed to the striving Israelites, “ Sirs, ye are brethren,” may not we appeal, “ Sirs, know ye not that ye are a temple of God,” &c. II. To disloyalty to God.1. Some of the Christians at Corinth knew well the freedom of Christ’ s gospel. But there was a danger lest they should grow proud of their light and their liberty, and despise every barrier between themselves and sin. Therefore St. Paul sternly calls them to a life of separation from all evil (2 Corinthians 6:14-16). 2. The warning is not unneeded by English Christians. There are forces at work in society not unlike those at Corinth. Our charity is apt to degenerate into indifference. A feeble and uncertain grasp of truth leads too often to acquiescence in a policy or in practices which the conscience condemns. When we are tempted to take as our friend the godless, simply because they are clever or rich; when we are invited to put our hands to any work upon which we cannot ask the blessing of God, or to join any association which may make money at the cost of the character or the well-being of our fellow-men--let us remember that to touch the unclean thing is to defile that temple and to grieve the indwelling Spirit. III. To impurity. In the foul atmosphere of that heathen city the Christians were exposed to fearful temptations, and needed an adequate motive and a superhuman power, if they were to keep themselves pure. And such they had (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). There are symptoms in the social life of England which cannot but excite the anxiety of every one who loves his country and is loyal to God.1. If our literature is free from the coarseness of earlier centuries, it is too often pervaded by a subtle taint which poisons almost imperceptibly the imagination of its readers; while the silent and deadly effect of the publication in our newspapers of things of which it is a shame even to speak in secret, has corrupted the purity of thousands of souls. 2. The fashion of treating marriage flippantly, and the fact that leading reviews insert articles which deliberately question its sanctity, tend to strike at the very root of morality and home life. 3. The growing luxury which has accompanied the accumulation of wealth, brings with it its own Nemesis in the relaxing of our moral fibre. 4. And, while rejoicing in every honest attempt to remove all the disabilities under which women have suffered, I venture to think that the tendency to destroy the distinction between the sexes must help, in the long run, to rob a woman’ s life of those graces which have been the secret of her highest influence, and her most invulnerable shield. Now to us, exposed to these dangers, the fact of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, when once realised, becomes a great safeguard, and a mighty incentive to a pure and self-restrained life. (F. J. Chevasse, M. A.)The indwelling of the Spirit He, uncreated love, pours out into our souls all our power of Divine love for Him and for each other. He, uncreated wisdom, orders our thoughts secretly. He, uncreated truth, dissipates from our mind the mist which we have gathered round ourselves. He, uncreated strength, instrengthens us to bear or to overcome all evil, and to will mightily all good. He, uncreated holiness, cleanses by His presence an habitation for Himself, and hallows by His abiding the dwelling-place, which He has repaired, that He might enter in; which He has enlarged, that it might contain Him. He Himself, within us, informs our memory that we may remember Him, enlightens our minds that we may know Him, moves our wills that we may choose Him and obey Him. He Himself, within us, quickens our diligence that we may seek Him, gives us wisdom that we may find Him, perseverance that we may attain unto Him. Nor is it our spiritual nature only which He so hallows. “ Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.” Yes, these poor bodies, which hunger and thirst, are heavy and weary; which shall return to corruption, which shall be subject to the dishonour of the grave--these God has chosen to be His dwelling-place; within these He is forming that glorious body which shall be after the resurrection; with these He unites Himself now, that they may be full of His glory hereafter. They shall shine above the glory of the sun, because they shall be filled with the light of His divinity. They shall know no decay; for He shall be their immortality. They shall know no weariness; for He shall be their life. They shall know no suffering; for they shall be made impassible, since He is not subject to suffering. They shall obey, unhindering, every motion of His will, for they shall be spiritual through His indwelling Spirit. How, then, should we reverence this our mysterious being. How should we reverently use the eyes; how keep them from all wrong use and all unlawful sight, which are, through the light of God, to see God! How should we keep the tongue from evil words, which, moved by the Spirit of God, is endlessly to sing the new song! How should we guard the heart from evil affections, which God has claimed as His own, and bidden us to give it wholly to Him; the soul which is capacious enough to “ contain God,” yet not large enough to contain the world and God! (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy … which temple ye are.--The human soul God’ s truest temple I. The human soul God’ s truest temple. This truth expresses one of the great changes introduced by Christianity. Why has Christianity abolished the one local house and consecrated man himself as the dwelling-place of God? Because--1. God is equally present everywhere. Though recognised in Judaism, this never broke forth into its wonderful glory until Christ appeared. Men feared God, and the shadow of that fear led them to fancy Him far away. The whole tendency of Christ’ s life was to wear down the barrier between God and man. He showed that nature was but the living work of an ever-present Father. But although equally present, God is not equally manifested everywhere. Thus God is revealed in His worship, but who sees Him? Not the careless or the carnal; but to holy men spiritual emotion has hallowed strange places, and made them temples. To Jacob, the stones became a temple. To Peter, the mountain where Christ’ s glory shone became the Holy Mount. Nathaniel would never pass the fig-tree without feeling it to be a place of prayer. Perhaps we all have our holy places; the chamber where we first really prayed, &c. These are our earthly temples, because there God has been most clearly manifested to us. 2. God is most clearly manifested in humanity. Christ, pre-eminently, was the glorious temple in which God dwelt, and through whom the Divine glory was revealed to the world. There was the holy of holies; there the altar which made every other altar fire grow pale and expire. II. The manner of realising this. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (verse 16). Assuming that, how may we attain more of the full presence of God in our souls? In man there is a trinity of power, and in order to become a temple all these must be consecrated.1. Intellect to realise God’ s presence, To awaken the soul to energy you must think on Him. Go, then, and stretch every faculty of your souls to realise His glory and His presence. 2. Emotion. Thought is vain apart from this. 3. Action. Thought and feeling are both vain without this. Work from your emotion, and ultimately you may do all from it. Thus man becomes a temple of God--intellect the holy place; the heart’ s emotions the altar of sacrifice; the actions of life the revelation of both. III. The results of the realisation.1. God manifested to the world. They say our temples are being deserted; that the young and the labourer are, going away. Is not this because we are not temples? It is vain to build stone temples to God unless we become His living ones. 2. Elevation of life above the sinful, trifling, earthly. His is no vain life who has, through the Spirit, become a temple of Jehovah! In the temple at Jerusalem there was a veil; at the death of Christ that veil was rent. In the temple of every human heart there hangs a veil; death will rend it, and will reveal either the glorious image of the Father, or the image of the demon-god for which it has lived. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)Defiling the temple of God Why false doctrines are a defiling. First, from the pure nature of God’ s truth, and His worship, which falsehoods do stain and take away the glory of. Oh, then, how humble, tender, and careful ought men to be! Are the truths and ordinances of God by institution, and in their original so pure? Come not, then, with thy foul hands to handle such precious things. Secondly, they are called defilements and pollutions, because the truths and Church of God are not only pure, but dedicated and appropriated to Him, as the only object. Thirdly, errors and heresies may well be called defilements, because they are a disease, and so spread over the Church. Fourthly, they are defilements, because they pollute the conscience, mind, and heart, and whole life of a man. Hence you have that phrase, “ Men of corrupt minds” (1 Timothy 6:5; 2 Timothy 3:8). Lastly, Corrupt doctrines are called defilements, to show how loathsome and abominable they should be to us. We have despatched the sin supposed, we come to the punishment proposed--“ Him shall God destroy.” Let us consider the aggravation of this destruction. First, it is an eternal destruction; a destruction that is always destroying, and yet the party is not extinguished. Secondly, it is a universal destruction in a moral sense. There is not the least mixture of any joy, of any hope. Thirdly, it is an inevitable destruction. God will destroy; who can stop God’ s hand? (A. Burgess.)The mystical temple There was, under the law--1. The outward court, where the people did stand, and the inner temple, into which none but the priests did enter. So with a Christian; there is the outward temple of his body (1 Corinthians 6:19), and the holy of holies, his soul, where none but Christ our High Priest must come. I. The resemblances between a believer’ s soul and a temple.1. All the materials were fitted for the building of the temple: the timber was to be sawn, the stones to be hewn and polished. So by nature we are not qualified for a temple, we are unhewn and unpolished. So far from preparing ourselves for a temple, we indispose ourselves; but God hews us by His prophets (Hosea 2:5), and cuts and carves us by afflictions, and so makes us meet for a spiritual temple. 2. The temple was very magnificent (1 Kings 6:32). So the soul of a believer is an illustrious temple. God Himself brings His glory into it (Psalms 45:13). Christ never admired the goodly stones of the visible, but admired the glory of the spiritual temple (1 Peter 3:4). 3. The temple was a place set apart for God’ s peculiar worship; it was separated from all other places. So a believer’ s heart is consecrated ground, and set apart for God’ s service (Psalms 4:3; Psalms 119:38). 4. The temple was a place of God’ s special presence: He did there command His blessings. So in a spiritual heart God wonderfully manifests His presence: there He gives forth the influences of His grace, the communications of His love. 5. The temple was adorned with curious pictures; so the temple of the heart hath God’ s image in it (Colossians 3:10); is drawn by the pencil of the Holy Ghost. 6. The temple had a fire burning on the altar; so a believer’ s heart is the altar on which there is a sacred fire still burning (Romans 12:13; Psalms 119:97). 7. The temple, being an hallowed place, was to be kept clean (2 Chronicles 29:15; 2 Chronicles 23:3). So must this (2 Chronicles 7:1). II. This Divine temple of the soul differs from other temples, and hath a transcendent excellency above them.1. Other material temples, though of a beautiful structure, yet have no life in them; but a believer is a living temple (1 Peter 2:5). Hypocrites who have only a name to live (Revelation 3:1), are not temples, but tombs. 2. This is an heavenly temple; other temples are constituted of earthly materials. The believer’ s soul was breathed from heaven, and that which is in heaven is to be found in Him. In heaven there is-- (1) Light (Colossians 1:12), so in a saint there is the light of knowledge (Ephesians 5:8). (2) Love (1 John 4:7), so a saint’ s heart is a temple of love (John 21:15). (3) Joy (Matthew 25:23), so a saint hath joy in believing (Romans 15:13). 3. He is an everlasting temple; other temples are of a perishable nature. God will not demolish His own temple. Christ’ s blood cements all the stones together, and as long as the foundation and cement hold, so long this temple shall last, and that is for ever. III. Uses. 1. Of information. (1) See the difference between the godly and the wicked: the heart of the godly is a temple; the heart of the wicked is a cage of unclean birds (Revelation 18:2). (2) See wherein a great part of the nation’ s safety lies; namely, in having store of these spiritual temples. In ancient times temples were places of safety. The saints are England’ s sanctuaries. (3) If the saints are the temples of God, then how dangerous is it for any to abuse and injure them! 2. Of examination. All God’ s temples are made in some measure like Him. (1) God is a spirit. Are we spiritual? (2) God is pure. Have we holy and chaste affections? (3) God is merciful. What shall we say to them who have no mercy? 3. Of exhortation. You who are the temples of God. (1) Do not defile God’ s temple (verse 17). (a) By intermixing with the wicked. Bad company is defiling (1 Corinthians 5:9). (b) By uncleanness. This sin defiles both the outward temple and the inner. (c) By error. Heresies are as the leprosy, which defiled the house in which it was (Leviticus 14:39). (2) Be as temples. (a) Do temple work. Offer up spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5)--of prayer; of a broken heart (Psalms 51:17); of praise (Psalms 50:23). (b) Study temple purity. The temple was very holy. So Christians. Holiness beautifies God’ s temples, and is the cherisher of a Christian’ s peace. 4. Of consolation. (1) Such as are God’ s spiritual temples shall have much of God’ s company (2 Corinthians 6:16). (2) Such as are gracious temples shall one day be glorious temples. (T. Watson.)The holiness of God’ s temple Take the figure in connection with any of the kinds of habitation spoken of in Scripture--1. The home.2. The tent.3. The palace.4. The temple--it exhibits a most comforting truth to us. To be God’ s home or dwelling, His tent or tabernacle, His royal palace, His chosen temple, of which that on Moriah was a mere shadow, how solemn the admonition as to personal holiness conveyed to us by this! In God’ s temple there is the blood, the fire, the smoke, the water, the lamps, the incense, the shewbread, the cherubim, the glory--all consecrated things, and all pertaining to what is heavenly! I. What intimacy with God. Acquaintanceship with Him who has made our heart His home is the least which could be expected. He must be no stranger to us. There must not merely be reconciliation--for that may consist with some degree of distance--but intimacy, peaceful friendship, loving acquaintanceship. If God be our inmate, how intimate ought we to be with Him in all respects! Of an old Scotch minister it is said (as the finishing stroke in his character), “ He was one very intimate with God.” So let it be said of us. II. What calmness of spirit. In all false religion there is excitement, in true religion calmness. Man is never more truly and deeply calm than when filled with the Spirit of God. The tendency of much that is called religion in our day is to agitation, bustle, noise, unnatural fervour. God keeps His temple in perfect peace. III. What solemnity of soul If God be inhabiting us as His temple we ought surely to be solemn men--called to a solemn life, speaking solemn words, manifesting a solemn deportment. Should the world’ s rude laughter echo through the aisles of the Divine temple? or its uproarious mirth ring through the holy of holies? IV. What recollectedness of thought and feeling. With God dwelling in us, shall we allow wandering thoughts or forgetfulness of the Divine presence to prevail. Let us gather up our thoughts and keep them gathered. V. What spirituality and unworldliness. “ God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” We need the spiritual heart, shutting out the world from a shrine which Jehovah has entered and made His own. If we are temples of the holy Ghost, and if His temples are holy, then are not such things as the following shut out?--1. Vanity. How inconsistent 1 2. Pleasure. Can a lover of pleasure be a temple of the Holy Ghost? 3. Politics. What have the poor party politics of this world to do with the worship of this glorious temple? Can the smoke and dust of the world commingle with the incense of the golden altar? 4. Covetousness. Absorption even in lawful business is inconsistent with our being temples of God. Let us not grieve that Spirit whose temple we are. Let us allow Him to fill us wholly, and to cast out all that is unbefitting the holiness and glory of His habitation. 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 Let no man deceive himself.If any man … seemeth to he wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may he wise. How to avoid self-deception I. The danger.1. Is common.2. Arises out of ignorance and self-conceit.3. Leads to the most disastrous results. II. How to avoid it.1. Distrust yourself.2. Distrust the wisdom of this world.3. Be content to be thought a fool, that you may be enlightened with the wisdom that cometh from above. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Self-deceit We abhor the character of one who deceives us by fair promises m our ordinary intercourse with the world; but we are not equally prepared against those specious delusions which are cherished in our own breast. It will require all the aids of a power from above to detect the specious illusions which are interwoven with the history of man. I. The general causes of self-deceit. Had human nature retained its original innocence the love of truth would have been its unvaried feature. But--we are fallen. The faculties of the mind are blinded by prejudice.1. Hence the treachery of the heart is one of the first causes of self-deceit. The enemy in our own bosom deludes us into a secret approbation of our vices, and flatters us with the hope of eluding any future punishment, or of avoiding a rigorous investigation of our past lives. 2. Another cause of self-deceit is an inordinate love of pleasure. When we rather seek to be amused than to be improved, we can have no leisure for the scrutiny of thought or a proper inquiry into our own character and conduct. 3. Another fruitful source of self-deceit is thinking too highly of ourselves. Flattery blinds the eye of the judgment, and prevents our discovering the errors which we constantly indulge. We cry peace to our souls when there is no peace; and we dream of security amidst the most formidable enemies. 4. We are further exposed to the danger of self-deceit by making too light of sin. He who lessens the claims of virtue must be a stranger to the purifying influence of sanctifying grace--no error will so effectually delude us into a fatal indifference to our own security. 5. A conformity to the world in our manners, maxims, and pursuits, is another prolific source of self-deceit. This is not the school wherein we shall learn to obey the strictness of our holy religion. Outward appearances are more studied than inward piety in this region of gaiety, business, and perpetual delusion. 6. Again a levity of temper that precludes thought is another common occasion of self-deceit. The mind requires a discipline no less regular than the body. 7. Again, this fatal delusion may be often ascribed to ignorance of our fallen condition by nature and practice. Men who are unacquainted with the depravity of their own hearts and the depth of iniquity within, are not aware of the imposing forms which even their vices will assume. 8. Another way in which we deceive ourselves is in calling vices by the name of virtues. Thus the miser veils his avarice under the name of prudence. 9. Many are also deceiving themselves by mistaking a theoretical acquaintance with the doctrines of the gospel for the power of vital godliness. II. The extreme danger of being lulled in a state of carnal security through the imposing influence of self-deceit. The principal evil is that whilst we are entertaining a high opinion of our own goodness, we are taking no pains to avoid the dangers which are coming on us. We are also apt to think every man our enemy who tells us the truth. In the hurry of business, or in a vortex of pleasure, we have no inclination to pause and consider the end of our ways. No dangers can be so great as those which we take no pains to avoid. They come on us in a way utterly unexpected. The danger of carnal security is great, because we are hereby led to neglect the remedy provided in the gospel. Man has too much at stake to trifle, securely, with his chief interest. III. The best means to avoid the dangers of self-deceit, with the benefits attendant on a proper knowledge of ourselves. 1. The first step in this important business will be to maintain a holy jealousy over our own hearts. To avoid self-deceit we must beware of self-love, and be on our guard against the natural proneness of our deceitful hearts to excuse our errors and extenuate our vices. We must judge of our own conduct not by the partial opinion of our friends, but by the frequent declarations of our enemies. We must not merely compare our conduct with others, but reflect on what it ought to be when compared with what it is. 2. The benefits attendant on a proper knowledge of ourselves will be humility, under a consciousness of our guilt, and depravity; caution, under a due impression of our weakness; a constant attendance on the means of grace, from a view of the blessings annexed to them; and an anxious solicitude to have a well-grounded interest in Christ, from a thorough persuasion of the dangers that await us. (J. Grose, A. M.)On deceiving ourselves That men should deceive themselves, and still more, that they should use means for that purpose, we should believe to have been impossible were it not a fact of daily observation. Several causes lead to this irrational and dangerous practice. The first and most powerful is an inordinate love of ourselves. Pride also often lends its aid to our selfishness it inspires a contempt of other men and too high an opinion of our own rights. The desire to maintain our own esteem contributes to our self-deception. We have a desire of the approbation of our fellow-creatures, and feel mortified when this approbation is withdrawn. But to appear worthless in our own eyes deprives us not only of the pleasure of conscience, but inflicts the stings of remorse. Such mortifying sentiments must be banished, and our self-esteem in some way must be regained. Hence guilty men have recourse to the artifices of self-deceit. Let us guard against the influence of principles which lead to so fatal a conclusion. And for this purpose let us proceed to consider some of those cases in which self-deceit is most frequently practised. I. The first of these to which I request your attention is that in which our sins are mingled with some apparent good. Whence, for example, is profusion called generosity, vanity and folly a high and liberal spirit? while, on the other hand, the most narrow selfishness is called prudence; avarice, frugality; the exclusive pursuit of gain, diligent and honest industry? Whence are fraud and low cunning sometimes boasted of as the achievement of superior talent; and crimes fitted only to inspire the deepest disgust are openly related in expectation of applause? Whence is it that restlessness and discontent are confounded with the desire of improvement--subtilty called depth--audacious and hasty decisions, clear and prompt judgments? Whence also do you find blind and intemperate zeal confounded with a supreme love of God; while, on the other hand, insensibility and indifference are honoured with the names of liberality and rational religion? Whence arise these and such-like dangerous perversions of judgment, but from that fatal self-deceit--that unfairness of mind and subserviency of the understanding and the conscience to our passions and indulgences which are so often to be seen in the judgments and conduct of men? II. Another case in which self-deceit is apt to be practised is that in which we judge of those duties or indulgences, the proper bounds of which cannot be precisely defined. No duty is more obligatory upon Christians than the relief of persons in distress; but you cannot lay down, either for yourselves or others, the time, the occasion, and the extent in which that relief is in every case to be given. Here, then, is a wide field for a dishonest mind to indulge its propensities, and to deceive itself in the formation of its judgments. Similar observations may be made on the neglect of personal devotion. Are there not many who never employ a portion of their time in serious meditation or private prayer? Deeply engaged in the toils and pursuits of business, they find many excuses for their negligence. The fit season, they say, is frequently interrupted by unexpected occurrences. At length a habit of procrastination is formed. The proper season no longer reminds us of our sacred duties. The world now occupies our thoughts and our inclinations. A similar process of self-deception often takes place in reference to pursuits and indulgences which may be innocent in themselves, but which, in special circumstances, or when frequently repeated, become dangerous and guilty. Under this class may be ranked the undue pursuit of the amusements, and what are called the pleasures, of life. They may interfere with that time which belonged to important objects: they may produce such effects on your temper and state of mind as to unfit you for those special duties to which you are dedicated: or they may be unsuitable to your circumstances and condition in life; and may associate with you ideas and feelings which are injurious to your character and usefulness. III. Men are specially liable to self-deceit in those cases where they are led to consider and estimate their own general character. It is of the highest importance that we form just notions of ourselves. This would save us from many unwise and ruinous undertakings, and from doing much injury both to ourselves and to our fellow-creatures. The knowledge of ourselves would also render us humble and mild in our intercourse with one another, modest in our judgments, diligent in the means of knowledge and improvement. But I pass from minor considerations to the higher concerns of the soul and our eternal well-being. The foundation of Christianity is laid in a just sense of our ignorance, sinfulness, and lost estate; and till this be in some degree known and felt, we cannot justly estimate the salvation of the gospel. How important, then, is it for us to guard against that self-deceit which conceals from us the knowledge of our own character, and prevents us from seeking reconciliation with God and rising to that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Behold a man retired into his closet with the professed design of considering his ways and inquiring into the nature of his character. How astonishing, then, is it to behold this same man using every means to defeat the object of his inquiry. By some sophistical argument he finds that his sins are not so bad nor so dangerous as they have been commonly represented; or he discovers that in the case of persons like him such sins are attended with many circumstances of palliation; they are young, and cannot be expected to have all the wisdom and virtue of age; or they are aged, and being long accustomed to such indulgences, it would be dangerous, perhaps death at their time of life, to reform: or they find that they are peculiarly exposed to temptation, from the nature of their occupations and the persons with whom they are obliged to associate; other men are not better than they, but only not so much exposed to temptation. They rise from their meditations more hardened and ignorant of themselves than before. IV. Similar causes will lead men to deceive themselves in judging of their state of favour with God and their prospect of future happiness. We have seen the manner in which sinful men deceive themselves into false conceptions of their general character: they have only to carry their self-complacency one step farther, and to fix on some tests of an interest in Christ which are agreeable to their own inclinations, in order to persuade themselves that they are in a state of favour with God and secure of future happiness. How many, for example, satisfy themselves with a splendid profession! Another class of self-deceivers lull themselves into a fatal security by the general decency of their lives; while no action, pursuit, or plan, has ever proceeded from Christian principles. Did not the Pharisee whom our Lord contrasts with the humble publican thus deceive himself? But not to men professing some regard for religion is this self-deceit confined. Strange as it may seem, there are men utterly void of the Christian profession who assure themselves of heaven. Their vices have laid asleep their conscience. Their sense of good and evil is lost, and they see not the gulf which lies before them. V. Let me beseech you, then, to guard against an evil so subthe, so dangerous, and to which we are so perpetually exposed. Watch, then, over yourselves; inquire often into the state of your principles and lives; and bring them to the test of the law and the testimony. Turn not away from the consideration of your errors and sins--bear to look at them as they are. Though to probe the wound may be painful, thus only can it be cured. But even in self-examination we are in danger of deceiving ourselves. Lay therefore your hearts before God. (S. MacGill, D.D.)Human wisdom in opposition to the Divine I. Human wisdom.1. Is more seeming than real.2. Is mixed with much of error.3. Busies itself with matters of temporary importance.4. Excludes those that are of higher moment, or else judges them by false standards; II. To attain to Divine wisdom. A man must--1. Acknowledge his own ignorance.2. Become a fool in the eyes of the world.3. Submit his reason to the teaching of Divine wisdom (J. Lyth, D. D.)Worldly wisdom The wisdom here referred to is what Paul calls elsewhere “ fleshly wisdom,” the “ wisdom of the world,” or of the age (1 Corinthians 1:20). It may be regarded as mere intellectual knowledge applied to secular and selfish ends, however vast and varied its attainments. I. It is self-deluding. “ Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world,” &c. This worldly wisdom deceives a man, inasmuch as--1. It leads him to overrate the value of his attainments. He imagines that this kind of knowledge, “ wisdom,” is everything for a man. Hence the enthusiastic promotion of schools and colleges. But all such knowledge is of no value to man as man, and beyond his brief and uncertain earthly life. 2. It leads him to overrate his own importance. He is “ vainly puffed by his earthly mind” (Colossians 2:18). Such a man imagines himself to be very great, he becomes a priggish pedant, he “ struts and stares and a’ that.” II. It is spiritually worthless. A man with this worldly wisdom must “ become a fool that he may be wise.” Two things are here implied.1. That with all his wisdom he is already really a “ fool,” for he looks for happiness where it is not to be found. Happiness does not spring from a man’ s brain, but from his heart; not from his ideas, but from his affections. 2. He is a “ fool” because he practically ignores the chief good, which is love for, resemblance to, and fellowship with God. Hence “ the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” The most illustrious scholar, sage, orator, who is considered by himself and his contemporaries to be a man of wonderful wisdom, to the eye of God is a fool. III. It is ultimately confounding. “ He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” It must confound a man sooner or later either--1. Here in his conversion, or2. Yonder in his retribution. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Human wisdom a hindrance to the things of Christ Now the holy and heavenly things of Christ may be reduced unto three heads. In all these you shall see a man with no more than the natural human wisdom to be the greatest adversary thereunto; yea, and the more parts, and the more wisdom he hath, the more indisposed he is to receive or believe supernatural truths. We must not understand to believe, but believe to understand. I. Let us consider what an enemy to the doctrine delivered the fleshly, human wisdom of a man is. First, this human wisdom puffeth a man up with pride, that he will not entertain such Divine mysteries. And this swelling or puffing up is immediately contrary to an act of faith; for faith hath an obediential assent, namely, because God saith it, let my understanding cavil and argue never so plausibly. So that faith is a kind of mental martyrdom, it puts to death those lofty thoughts men naturally have. Secondly, human wisdom as it doth immediately oppose faith in its obediential assent, so also humility which is the instrumental grace to receive all the mysteries of Christ. Humility is not only a grace itself, but a vessel to receive other graces (Psalms 25:9; Matthew 11:25). The valleys they receive the drops of heaven, and are more fruitful than the mountains, though high but barren. So that human wisdom is as great an hindrance as humility is a furtherance. Thirdly, human conceited wisdom must needs hinder the entertainment of Christ’ s truth, because it sets itself on the throne to be judge, and to determine truth or falsehood according to her own principles. It makes weights and a standard of its own, and will weigh even what God and the Scripture saith by its own self. It is true a man’ s reason or wisdom may be considered two ways (1) As corrupt and darkened through original sin; and in this respect only we speak of it, as such an adversary to the mysteries of religion. (2) As enlightened and sanctified by the Word and the Spirit of God. Now, in this latter respect, though it be not a judge, but is to be judged, yet it is an excellent instrument to faith. When faith had first laid its foundation, then reason is wonderful serviceable for the confirmation of Divine truths. Fourthly, human wisdom is such an opposite to heavenly truth, because of its subtilty to find out cavils and excogitate arguments against the truth. Lastly, the more wisdom and knowledge men have the more busy the devil is to make them on his side. The doctrine observed is, that human and earthly wisdom is a great enemy to the things of God. II. The next thing in order is the manner of declaration and publication of it in the Scripture. And here we shall find worldly wisdom to be a great adversary; but I shall instance in one thing only about that, and that is, the simplicity and plainness of the style. That whereas there are two things that are exceeding apt to take with the world; the one with rational men, the other with affectionate men. The Scripture seemeth to be furnished with neither. For with rational men strong demonstrations and scientifical probations prevail exceedingly. Now, many times men of strong reason are no ways rhetorical, as the earth, where mines of gold are, is barren of grass and flowers. This the Scripture hath not, for that dictateth, not argueth, which is indeed most suitable to the Divine Scripture. Some, then, look for learned demonstrations; others are ravished with the sweet music of human rhetoric. It was the saying of an atheistical critic, that he esteemed one of Pindar’ s odes before all David’ s psalms. Thus you see, as it was with Christ Himself, many looked for an outward stately, pompous Messiah; and because He came not in that outward way He was a stumbling-block to many. First, for learned men who expect demonstration, consider, that it being the Word of the most High God, it is most decent and graceful that there should no other argument be used but authority. All scientifical demonstrations are far inferior to Divine authority. Secondly, while learned men seek for such rational demonstrations, let them take heed lest while they seek for reason they lose faith. There is greater reason to believe the Scripture than to assent to any demonstration. So that though faith be not reason, yet there is the greatest reason for faith. And for those who look for rhetorical flourishes and fanciful expressions let them consider. Some places of Scripture have strong and masculine eloquence; not indeed that light and meretricious habit of human oratory, but a grave, matron-like clothing: such is the prophecy of Isaiah and other places. If we have a jewel or precious pearl its own native lustre is better than any painting of it. So Divine matter the more plain and clear it is the more admirable it is. It is the matter, not the words that do convince and convert. Words may please the fancy, but it is matter that woundeth the heart. III. The third remaineth, and that is, earthly wisdom is a great enemy to those spiritual and practical duties that God requireth of us. Practical godliness hath a great deal of seeming foolishness in the eyes of the world.1. The whole doctrine of self-denial is a very foolish thing to carnal wisdom. 2. The duty of faith in relying upon Christ only, and renouncing our own righteousness, is the great gospel command, yet nothing is more foolish and absurd to human reason than this. All the philosophers thought of no other righteousness but that of works. 3. The duties of humility and meekness, especially forbearing of one another and loving our enemies, is esteemed high folly in worldly men’ s esteem. The heathens thought it a very justifiable thing to hate their enemies. (A. Burgess.)Scripture wisdom excels speculative wisdom Let us show wherein the faith of a Christian, commanded by the Scripture, doth far surpass all human knowledge and science which men by nature do glory in. First, faith doth surpass all human sciences in the dignity of the subject. The matter about which a Christian’ s faith is exercised doth far transcend all that about which human knowledge doth exercise itself; for the highest that they could reach unto is only to the knowledge of natural effects produced by natural causes. And if any could prove these by the former, this they called a demonstration, though some men say no man ever yet gave a demonstration. So, then, all the excellent wisdom of the world hath been only to consider the nature of sublunary things; and if they did arise to consider of a God, the Maker of these, it was in a very uncertain, doubtful way. This is all our human wisdom can help us to, but now by faith we have the supernatural mysteries of salvation revealed unto us. The Scripture tells us of a God in Christ reconciling man to Himself; of man’ s original misery; of Christ the Mediator. Alas! how poor and contemptible are the highest notions even of Plato, though called Divine, when you come and read Paul! Secondly, faith differs from all their human science in respect of the excellency of the end; for the end of all Scripture wisdom is to bring us to eternal life (2 Timothy 3:15; John 20:31). There was never any human knowledge could teach a man to be eternally happy. Plato’ s divinity and Aristotle’ s morality, though they have the words of happiness anti have large discourses about it, yet wanted the thing itself. Thirdly, faith doth surpass all human knowledge in its certainty and infallibility; for the object of faith being God’ s testimony and His Divine authority, it is as impossible for faith to be deceived as it is for God to lie. Hence it is called the full assurance of hope (Hebrews 10:22). And we believe, therefore we speak (2 Corinthians 4:13). How could the holy martyrs witness those Divine truths even to death, had they not been possessed with sure knowledge of them? Fourthly, faith doth more establish and quiet the heart of men than all human wisdom. Solomon observeth a vanity and vexation of spirit even in all human knowledge; but now faith doth satisfy the soul (Hebrews 11:1). Oh, the anxiety and perplexities that mere human knowledge hath cast men into! Lastly, the Christian faith is above all philosophical knowledge, because of the strong and mighty effects it hath to convert the heart and reform the life (Acts 15:9). Never did human knowledge make such wonderful converts, and work so great a reformation as the Christian faith had done. In the next place, the moral or practical wisdom of the world cometh far short of Scripture wisdom; for--First, the most knowing men were ignorant of original sin, which yet is the fountain of our calamity. Secondly, all human wisdom and prudence knoweth not how to mortify and forsake sin upon true grounds, because they were ignorant of God’ s Spirit. Thirdly, all earthly prudence cometh short of this wisdom, because it is circumscribed within the bounds of this world and this life. It looketh out no further, whereas the Scripture giveth directions for the world to come and for eternity. (A. Burgess.)That true Christian wisdom is nothing but folly in the world’ s account I. For the things to be believed, there are these seeming follies--First, the very way of Christianity, that it is not a knowledge but believing. Secondly, the matter believed, that hath appeared a great folly to the wisdom of the world is, that God should be made man, that He should die--be crucified--and by this means work salvation for the poor sinner. Thirdly, the manner of propagating and spreading this faith through the whole world was very contemptible and foolish in the world’ s account, though mighty powerful and confounding the wise things of the world. II. The matter of a Christian’ s hope, that also is very foolish. A man must be the world’ s fool that doth part with all for this hope, even the resurrection of the dead to eternal glory. III. The duties required by Christ, and all that practical way of godliness which He enjoineth, carrieth with it a great show of folly. First, Christ requireth of all His disciples to live contrary to the wicked ways of the world. Secondly, it is a folly in the world to be so fervent, zealous, and active in matters of religion. Thirdly, that part of Christianity seemeth a foolish thing, which presseth the life of faith and not of sense. Lastly, to acknowledge Christ and His ways, though to our outward undoing. This seemeth great folly. (A. Burgess.)That only in the Church of God, or in Christianity is true wisdom That, therefore, only true wisdom is in the Church of God appeareth several ways--First, here we have the only rule of wisdom which is the Scriptures; so that all people without this sit in darkness, and want the star to bring them to Christ or happiness. Secondly, only in the Church is true wisdom, because this cometh from God above and is by Divine infusion into us. Thirdly, in Christianity there is only true wisdom, because there is only true godliness (Proverbs 1:7). Fourthly, Christianity teacheth the true wisdom, because that only instructeth about the true and proper end of all our actions, which is happiness. How did the wise men of the world stagger up and down like giddy men in this point; or, like the blind Sodomites, went groping up and down for the door and could not find it. They knew not where or what blessedness was, And, in Christianity we have not only the true end propounded, but the right means also whereby we may attain it. For prudence lieth in the choosing of fit and conducible means to such an end; as in any art no man can by his art produce artificial operations without fit tools. Fifthly, by Christianity we are only taught to avoid that which causeth repentance and grief of mind after it is done. Oh, then, what happy wisdom is it so to live and so to do, that a man afterwards shall have no cause to roar out for the guilt upon him, that in the time of sickness and hour of death thou mayest not cry out, Oh, foolish and wretched man that I am! Oh, that I had been wiser, but now I fear it is too late! Sixthly, Christianity teacheth this wisdom, not so much to regard the present as to provide for the future, to remember our latter end, to provide for eternity. Seventhly, herein doth Christianity teach us true wisdom, because thereby we are enabled to improve the seasons and opportunities of grace. It is accounted a great piece of worldly wisdom to know the fit seasons of buying and selling. Eighthly, Christian wisdom is seen in caution and circumspection, to refuse all the snares and temptations of sin, and to find out all the devil’ s methods and subtilties; for there are the depths of Satan and the devices of Satan, and sin hath its pleasant baits and charms. Ninthly, herein Christianity giveth wisdom, because it helps to conquer and overcome all unruly passions which, while they rage, bereave us of all wisdom. Lastly, it is excellent to instruct us to bear afflictions and how to abound. Only by that we can tell how to be rich and how to be poor. (A. Burgess.)The folly of wisdom I. Even truth or true knowledge becomes folly, if employed to accomplish an end for which it is not adapted. If a man attempts to make men holy or happy; if he undertakes to convert the world by mathematics, or metaphysics, or moral philosophy he is foolish, and his wisdom, as a means to that end, is folly. He must renounce all dependence on those means if he would accomplish that end. II. Much that passes for wisdom among men is in itself, and not merely as a means to an end--foolishness. Both these ideas are evidently comprehended in the apostle’ s statement. He means to say that human knowledge is entirely inadequate to save men, because that end can only be accomplished by the gospel. And he means also to brand as folly the speculations of men about “ the deep things of God.” (C. Hodge, D. D.)For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.-- The wisdom of this world By this, so called by an Hebraism for “ worldly wisdom,” is taken in Scripture for--1. That sort of wisdom that consists in speculation called philosophy which, as Stoicism, Epicureanism, &c., was professed for the grand rule of life and certain guide to happiness. But its utter insufficiency is expressed in Colossians 2:8; 1 Timothy 6:20; 1 Corinthians 1:21. It is a wisdom making men accurately and laboriously ignorant of what they were most concerned to know. 2. The policy which consists in a certain dexterity or art of managing business for a man’ s secular advantage. This is the wisdom here intended in the text; namely, that practical cunning that shows itself in political matters, and has in it really the mystery of a trade or craft. So that God is said to “ take the wise in their own craftiness.” Note-- I. Its rules or principles.1. That a man must maintain a continued course of dissimulation and profess himself to be what he is not, and employ all the art and industry imaginable to make good the disguise. This dissimulation is the very groundwork of all worldly policy. In the language of the Scripture it is “ damnable hypocrisy” ; but of those who neither believe Scripture nor damnation it is voted wisdom. It is looked upon as weakness and unfitness for business for a man to be so open as really to think what he says, and when he makes any promise, to have the least intention of performing it. 2. That conscience and religion ought to lay no restraint upon men when it lies opposite to their interest. The great patron of this tribe, Machiavelli, laid down this for a master rule in his political scheme, That the show of religion was helpful to the politician, bat the reality of it hurtful and pernicious. 3. That a man ought to make himself, and not the public, the chief, if not the sole end of all his actions. He is to be his own centre and circumference too, and is not only not to love his neighbour as himself, but to account none for his neighbour but himself. The general interest of the nation is to be nothing to him, but only that portion of it that he either does or would possess. It is not the rain that waters the whole earth, but that which falls into his own cistern that must relieve him: not the common, but the enclosure that must make him rich. Let the public sink or swim, so long as he can hold up his head above water; let the ship be cast away, if he may but have the benefit of the wreck. 4. That in showing kindness, or doing favours, no respect at all is to be had to friendship, gratitude, or sense of honour; but that such favours are to be done only to the rich or potent, from whom a man may receive a further advantage, or to his enemies, from whom he may otherwise fear a mischief. Our politician having baffled his greater conscience must not be nonplussed with inferior obligations; and having leaped over such mountains, at length poorly lie down before a molehill; but he must add perfection to perfection; and being past grace, endeavour, ii need be, to be past shame too; and accordingly, he looks upon friendship, gratitude, and sense of honour, as terms of art to amuse and impose upon weak, undesigning minds. II. The folly of these principles in relation to God. Foolishness, being properly a man’ s deviation from right reason in point of practice, must needs consist in--1. His pitching upon such an end as is unsuitable to his condition. “ The wisdom of this world” looks no farther than this world, and if it makes a man rich, potent, and honourable it has its ends and has done its utmost. But now that a man cannot rationally make these things his end will appear from these two considerations-- (1) That they reach not the measure of his duration or being; the perpetuity of which surviving this mortal state must needs render a man infinitely miserable and forlorn, if he has no other comforts but what he must leave behind him in this. For nothing can make a man happy, but that which shall last as long as he lasts. And all these enjoyments are much too short for an immortal soul to stretch itself upon, which shall persist in being, not only when profit, pleasure, and honour, but when time itself shall be no more. (2) They fill not the measure of his desires. The foundation of all man’ s unhappiness here is the great disproportion between his enjoyments and his appetites. Let a man have never so much, he is still desiring something or other more. Alexander was much troubled that there were no more worlds for him to disturb; and, in this respect, every man living has a soul as great as Alexander; and put under the same circumstances would own the very same dissatisfactions. Now in spiritual natures, so much as there is of desire, so much there is also of capacity to receive. Man seems as boundless in his desires as God is in His being; and therefore nothing but God Himself can satisfy him. And then in all these worldly things that a man pursues with such eagerness, he finds not half the pleasure in the possession of them that he proposed to himself in the expectation. 2. His pitching upon means for the acquisition of these enjoyments, that are no ways fit to acquire them, and that upon a double account. (1) That they are in themselves unable and insufficient for them. Let politicians contrive as accurately, and pursue as diligently as possible; yet still the success of all depends upon the favour of an overruling hand (Deuteronomy 8:18; 1 Samuel 2:30). And so upon full trial of all the courses that policy could either devise or practise, the most experienced masters of it have been often forced to sit down with that complaint of the disciples, “ We have toiled all night, and have caught nothing.” For do we not sometimes see that traitors can be out of favour, and knaves be beggars, and lose their estates, and be stripped of their offices, as well as honester men? (2) That they are frequently opposite to the accomplishment of such ends; nothing being more usual than for these unchristian fishers of men to be fatally caught in their own nets; for does not the text expressly say, that “ God taketh the wise in their own craftiness” ? Haman wanted nothing to complete his greatness but a gallows upon which to hang Mordecai; but it mattered not for whom he provided the gallows, when Providence designed the rope for him. (R. South, D. D.)That all the admired wisdom of a mere worldly man is nothing but contemptible folly before God The world’ s wise man is God’ s fool. I shall first begin with that active foolishness, demonstrating by several particulars, that all worldly wisdom is mere folly. First, that is abundantly seen in all that idolatry and superstition which the wisest of men are prone unto, and wherein they do greatly applaud themselves. Secondly, worldly wisdom is mere foolishness, because such men contrive and plot and think to accomplish all their counsels by their own strength and way. Now this is a very foolish thing, for the thoughts of a man are in some respect from man, but the ordering and disposing of all things is from God (Jeremiah 10:23). Thirdly, all worldly wisdom is folly, because it is only attentive to get the good things of this world, and never looketh to the world to come. Give them the pleasures, the profits, the contents of this world, and they never regard the world to come. Oh, foolish men and unwise! Will thy wealth avail thee in the day of God’ s wrath? Fourthly, they are actively foolish, because they are conceited of this wisdom and boast of it. Fifthly, it must needs be folly, because it is directly contrary unto God and His ways, which are only wise (Romans 8:7). Sixthly, all human and earthly wisdom is foolishness, because it makes a man a sad loser in the latter end. To pull off that mask or painting which is put upon the wisdom of the world. Is he not a fool that leaveth a treasure of gold for coals? Is not he a fool that forsaketh a fountain to go to a broken cistern? Is not he a fool that would be in great pomp and honour for one day to be a perpetual tormented slave for ever after? Yet thus foolish and unwise are all wicked men. Pray, then, for wisdom from above. You have heard that this worldly wisdom is foolishness actively. I shall now proceed to show its foolishness passively, such which God turneth to folly; so that there are no men whom God doth more set Himself against than such proud, worldly wise men. First, therefore, God makes this wisdom foolishness in a passive sense, in that He did not vouchsafe to use it as an instrument to propagate the gospel. Secondly, herein God makes it foolishness, that as He doth not use it for the enlargement of His gospel, so He taketh very few of such men to bestow on them spiritual and soul-saving graces. Thirdly, herein also God will make it appear to be folly, in that He takes the foolish things of the world and makes them confound the wise things. Fourthly, herein cloth God make the wisdom of the world foolishness, because all that wise men do is a vain work. They are not able to accomplish their ends, especially those which are to overthrow the kingdom of Christ and rooting out His Church and people. Fifthly, God makes the wisdom of the world foolishness, because what they work is not only a vain work but a deceitful work. So that the wisdom of man must needs be made great folly, when it shall be forced to bring about those things which it hates so much. Sixthly, herein the wisdom of the world is made foolishness, because it doth not only work a vain deceitful work but also a destructive one to itself; so that all the wisdom they have is only to destroy themselves. Thus, like fools, they run their swords in their own bowels. Seventhly, the wisdom of the world becometh foolishness, because God many times infatuateth and blasteth the parts and abilities of the wise men of the world. He takes away their understanding from them. That as we read of Nebuchadnezzar, God bereaved him of his wisdom and judgment so that he became like a beast. Eighthly, herein God doth also make their wisdom folly, because by their pride and haughtiness they undo themselves. God lets them prosper, and the wisdom of the world seemeth to flourish a great while, but it is that their destruction may be the greater. Use--1. How vain a thing to trust in human policy and worldly wisdom.2. To judge that wisdom which the wise God judgeth so. (A. Burgess.)The wisdom of this world is-- I. Foolish, because-- 1. Fallible. 2. Partial.3. Shortsighted.4. Often built on false premises.5. The mere offspring of reason. II. Vain. Often--1. Exploded by time.2. Exposed by revelation.3. Overruled and confounded by Divine providence.4. Fully dissipated by the light of eternity. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The wisdom of the world Wisdom is justly considered as the guide of conduct. If one shall mistake that for wisdom which at bottom is mere folly, such a mistake will pervert the first principles of conduct, and be perpetually misleading a man through the whole of life. I. Let us consider the nature of that wisdom which is reprobated in the text as foolishness with God. It is styled the wisdom of this world; that is, the wisdom which is most current in this world. Its first and most noted distinction is, that its pursuits are confined entirely to the temporal advantages of the world. Spiritual blessings or moral improvements the man of this spirit rejects as a sort of airy unsubstantial enjoyments; he reckons the only solid goods, the possession of riches and power, together with the pleasures which opulent rank or station can procure. In pursuit of these favourite ends he is not in the least scrupulous as to his choice of means. If he prefer those which are the fairest, it is not because they are fair, but because they seem to him most likely to prove successful. He is sensible that it is for his interest to preserve decorums, and to stand well in the public opinion. He is, for the most part, composed in his manners and decent in his vices. Let me here remark in passing, that this character is less likely to be reformed than that of those men given to pleasure. With them vice breaks forth in occasional fits and starts; with the other, it grows up into a hardened and confirmed principle. In the midst of the gross irregularities of pleasure, circumstances often force remorse on the sinner’ s mind. But the cool and temperate plan of iniquity on which the man of worldly wisdom proceeds allows the voice of conscience to be longer silent. The man of the world is always a man of selfish and contracted disposition. Friends, country, duty, honour, all disappear from his view, when his own interest is in question. The more thoroughly that the spirit of the world has taken possession of him the circle of his affections becomes always the narrower. Candour, openness, and simplicity of manners are ridiculed by the man of this description, as implying mere ignorance of the world. Art and address are the qualities on which he values himself. For the most part he would choose to supplant a rival by intrigue rather than to overcome him by fair opposition. Indeed, what men call policy and knowledge of the world is commonly no other thing than dissimulation and insincerity. I have dwelt the more fully on the delineation of this character that each of us might learn whether there be any feature in it that applies to himself. Let me now ask whether such a character as I have described be in any respect an amiable one? Is the man of the world--polished, and plausible, and courtly, as in his behaviour he may be--one whom you would choose for a companion and bosom-friend? Of what real value, then, let me ask, is that boasted wisdom of the world which can neither conciliate love, nor produce trust, nor command inward respect? At the same time, I admit that the man of the world may be a man of very considerable abilities. You see in this instance that the most distinguished human abilities, when they are separated from virtue and moral worth, lose their chief eminence and lustre, and are deprived of all valuable efficacy. They dwindle into despicable talents which have no power to ensure the respect of mankind. Having now considered the nature and effect of worldly wisdom with respect to men let us inquire-- II. How it stands with respect to God. It is said in the text to be foolishness with God. It is so in three respects.1. It is contemptible in God’ s sight. Pleased and satisfied as the wise man of the world may be with himself, and honoured as he may fancy himself to be by the multitude, let him be mortified with reflecting that, in the eye of Him who is the Supreme Judge of all worth, his character is mean and wretched. That which God declares Himself to love and honour is truth in the inward parts; the fair, sincere, and candid mind. But it is not only from the declarations of the Scripture, but from the whole course of Providence, that we learn the contempt in which God holds the wisdom of the world. Who were they on whom were conferred the highest marks of distinction which ever honoured man, He singled out to be the companions of Christ, the workers of miracles, the publishers of everlasting happiness to mankind? Were they the wise men of the world, the refined, and the political, who were employed as the instruments of God on this great occasion? No; He chose a few plain, simple, undesigning men. To this day God in the course of His Providence bestows those external advantages which the men of the world so earnestly pursue with apparent disregard of worldly wisdom. He allows no fixed connection to subsist between an artful, political conduct, and riches, reputation, or honours; He does not always give the race to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor riches to men of understanding; but, on the contrary, scatters the advantages of fortune with a promiscuous hand; and often allows them to be attained by the vilest and lowest of men, who neither by worldly wisdom, nor any other talent whatever, had the smallest title to deserve them. 2. The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, because it is baffled by Him. Some triumphs He has occasionally allowed it to gain in order to carry on some special purpose that His Providence had in view. It is true that the justice of heaven is not, in the present state, fully manifested, by rendering to every man according to his deeds. But I believe it will be found by attentive observers that there are two cases in which, perhaps more than in any other, the Divine government has, throughout all ages, rendered itself apparent and sensible to men. These are humbling the high imaginations of the proud, and taking the wise in their own craftiness. As He will not permit any greatness to lift itself up against His power, so neither will He permit any art to prevail against His counsels. While the crafty project many a distant plan, and wind their way most cunningly, as they think, to success, how often does the Almighty, by means of some slight and seemingly contingent event, stop the wheel at once from farther motion, and leave them to the bitterness of humbling disappointment (Psalms 2:4-5). 3. The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God; because, though it should be allowed by Providence to run, without disturbance, its fullest career, and to compass successfully whatever it had projected, yet it can produce nothing in the issue worthy of the pursuit of a truly wise man. It is a wisdom which over-reaches and counteracts itself; and instead of expected happiness ends in misery. If the existence of another world be admitted, can he be accounted wise who frames his conduct solely with a view to this world, and beyond it has nothing to look for but punishment? For what is the amount of all that this wise man hath gained, or can gain, after all the toil he has undergone, and all the sacrifices he has made in order to attain success? But how is all this success enjoyed? With a mind often ill at ease; with a character dubious at the best, suspected by the world in general, seen through by the judicious and discerning. For the man of the world flatters himself in vain, if he imagines that by the plausible appearances of his behaviour he can thoroughly conceal from the world what he is, and keep them ignorant of the hollow principles upon which he has acted. He finds himself embarrassed with cares and fears. He is sensible that by many he is envied and hated; and though surrounded by low flatterers is conscious that he is destitute of real friends. Compute now, O wise man, as thou art! what thou hast acquired by all thy selfish and intricate wisdom, by all thy refined and double conduct, thy dark and designing policy? Canst thou say that thy mind is satisfied with thy past tenour of conduct? Are thy days more cheerful and gay, or are thy nights more calm and free of care than those of the plain and upright man whom thou hast so often treated with scorn? From what has been said of the nature and the effects of worldly wisdom you will now judge how justly it is termed foolishness with God. Opposite to it stands the wisdom that is from above, which is described by an apostle as good, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy (James 3:15; James 3:17). This, and this only, is that real wisdom which it is both our duty and our interest to cultivate. It carries every character of being far superior to the wisdom of the world. It is masculine and generous; it is magnanimous and brave; it is uniform and consistent. The wise man of the world is obliged to shape his course according to the changing occurrences of the world; he is unsteady and perplexed. But the wise man in God’ s sight moves in a higher sphere. His integrity directs his course without perplexity or trouble. (H. Blair, D. D.)Taketh the wise in their own craftiness.--That God delights to take the earthly wise men of the world in their own craft These spiders are hung in their own webs (see Isaiah 19:13). Now many ways doth God take the wise ones of the world. First, in dissipating their counsels that they cannot attain their ends. They attempt again and again, and are always repulsed. Secondly, God when He doth ruin them He doth it no other way but by their own wisdom, by their own craft. And this is the greatest conquest that can be, when God overcometh them by their own weapon, as it was said of Goliath’ s sword. None like that, because by that he cut off Goliath’ s head, whose sword it was. So there are no providences of God so glorious as those which make the very craft and wisdom wicked men have to bring about their confusion. Thirdly, He takes the wise men of the world so that they are entangled in their own counsels, and are brought to such snares that they cannot go forward or backward. There is no great wit without some mixture of madness. I might instance in more particulars, hut the next words will have the same occasion; I come to answer an objection. How is this true, you will say, that God taketh the wise in their craft? And doth not the experience of all ages, both in profane and sacred histories, show that earthly, crafty, and wicked policy hath accomplished many destructive things, and that to God’ s own Church and people? All this must be granted, and yet the observation is true. First, this is many times done, and we, through our ignorance, take no notice thereof. Secondly, we limit God to time and places and persons; and so because He doth not at such a time, in such a way, as we think, therefore we are apt to think God hath forsaken the earth, and regards not what is done below. Thirdly, if God let worldly wisdom prevail and prosper awhile, it is that the overthrow and confusion of it may be greater. As Pharaoh was suffered to go into the sea, and the waters did not immediately overflow. Come we, then, to show the ground why God doth thus delight to infatuate and blast all earthly wisdom. First, it is that hereby His sovereignty and ruling power may be the more manifest. Secondly, God doth it hereby to vindicate His own glory and cause and name; for all the worldly wisdom that ever was, hath either mediately or immediately set against God.1. How secure the people and Church of God may be.2. Not to fear anything but God, for He is the only wise God. (A. Burgess.)The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.--That the chiefest and best thoughts of the wisest men are vain We may consider man in a threefold capacity.1. Politics, as a political creature endued with civil wisdom, and so is part of a society, and thus his thoughts are vain. 2. Ethics, as he is to walk according to the rules of reason, which sound and rectified nature doth guide a man in, and thus he is vain. 3. Theology, as he is to look up to heaven, to obey God, and to aim at supernatural happiness. And in this sense especially he is a most vain, empty man; and to this the apostle relateth. Let us consider in what sense the Scripture useth the word vain.1. That is said to be vain which is empty and void of that worth and excellency which ought to be within. Thus a fool is called often a vain person because he is empty of that solid judgment and reason which ought to be in a man. Hence foolish persons are compared to empty straws that are blown up and down with every wind, because they have no weight in them. 2. That is said to be vanity which seemeth to have great happiness and content in it, but indeed it is the clean contrary. A vain thing is that which hath a goodly appearance, but inwardly hath no profit. Thus it is with the best and choicest thoughts and projects of the wisest men; they have a goodly lustre. You would think such wise men could not but be happy; their expectations are raised, but the issue doth deceive them. 3. Vanity in the Scripture is often applied to a lie. Every man speaks vanity to his neighbour, that is a lie (Psalms 12:2). They are full of falsehood and dissimulation; there is no truth or sincerity in men, as David complaineth (Psalms 12:1-8.). 4. Vanity is often in Scripture used for that which is unprofitable, without any benefit or success. Hence is that phrase, To labour in vain. Oh, this is a sad thing to consider, when thou art dying, I have lived in vain, laboured in vain, thought in vain, spoke in vain; I have no true good abiding by me of all that ever I did. 5. Vanity is often used for that which is unstable, uncertain, and fading. And thus the thoughts of wise men are vain, subject to changes, contradictions, and at last vanish into nothing. 6. They are vain because they work nothing but vain and absurd things. What do vain thoughts produce but vain words, vain gestures, vain attire and fashions, vain discourse in communication, vain opinions, and a vain worship. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (Matthew 15:19). They are the first sparks that fly out of this forge, and from these vain thoughts cometh all the vanity that is in men’ s words, gestures, apparel, yea, and their religion. Lastly, they are vain because they are wholly wicked. Use of instruction:1. That God doth not only take notice of vain actions, but vain thoughts.2. Are all our thoughts vain? Learn, then, Scripture wisdom, get Scripture thoughts. (A. Burgess.) 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 Therefore let no man glory in man. That it is a great sin to glory in men This sin is not often preached upon, yet no question political and civil idolatry, making men as gods to us, hath done a great deal of hurt, as well as religious idolatry. Now these ways we glory in men.1. When we join them with Christ as mediators, and make them co-partners, as it were, in spiritual effects as well as temporal. This is to glory in men, even blasphemously. 2. We glory in men when we make our own, or other good works meritorious, and our sufferings satisfactory unto God. This Pharisee is a greater enemy to Christ, and further off from the kingdom of heaven than many publicans. 3. We glory in men when we rejoice in their favour, and are more glad of that than we are of God’ s favour. 4. We glory in men when we desire to please them, and to accommodate ourselves to their humours more than to please God, and to walk according to His will. This sinful pleasing of men is not consistent with a servant of Christ’ s (Galatians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 7:13). 5. We, then, glory in men when we put our trust and confidence in them, resting and hoping in them, and not depending on God only. As the ground of Divine faith must be some Divine testimony and authority, so the motive of a Divine hope must be only the promise and power of God. It is a sin that all are very prone unto, to trust in earthly power and greatness, and not to eye God above all. Lastly, we glory in men when we boast in anything that is human or earthly, anything that belongs to man. Thus to boast of beauty, apparel, riches, nobility, parts, and learning; all this is a vain and sinful boasting (1 Timothy 6:15; Jeremiah 9:23-24). In the next place, we are not to glory in the doctors and teachers we have, which we do--1. When we are affected more with their parts, and gifts, and earning, than with the powerful demonstration of God’ s Spirit in them, and by them. 2. Then we glory in men when we rest on the ministry and their labours, thinking it enough to enjoy them, but never look up to God for success and a blessing. What is Paul or Apollos but ministers by whom ye believe? at the fifth verse. Therefore the principal work is from God. 3. Then we glory in men when we have the persons of some teachers in such admiration, that whatsoever they say or maintain, without any search or dispute, we believe. The disciples of Berea are commended for their noble disposition, that they would search the Scriptures, whether the things were so or not (Acts 17:11). 4. Then we glory in men when we prefer one before the other, so as to make differences and schisms in the Church. He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Yea, saith Paul, “ God forbid I should glory in anything save in the Cross of Christ” (Galatians 6:14). (A. Burgess.)For all things are yours.--All things are yours The one theme of the beginning of this Epistle is man’ s glorying, lost through sin and recovered in Christ. In chap. 1. Paul brings the human race with its wisdom, righteousness, and strength into the presence of the Cross, and shows that its boasting was vain, and bids them take salvation as the free gift of God, and give to Him alone the glory. But he is careful to add that man’ s ground of boasting is restored to himself: “ Let him glory.” Whereas before he had denied everything to human nature, now he cries, “ All things are yours.” Retrieved in Christ, the Church has an unlimited prerogative. I. The prerogatives of Christ’ s people are based upon their relation to Him. “ All things are yours” because “ ye are of Christ.”1. The union between Christ and His people gives the highest illustration of our text. Whatever belongs to the Redeemer belongs to the redeemed. But this requires to be carefully guarded. (1) These words apply only to the mystical company of the faithful, who are united to Christ by faith and have become one Spirit with Him. The spiritual body of Christ is distinguished both from the race and from the individuals of whom it is composed. And it is of the whole company that Paul speaks, not any separate member. It was for that mystical fellowship that our Lord prayed in words that give Paul his argument. “ Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those,” &c. (2) Now to this body united to Himself Christ gives an unlimited interest in all His prerogatives. “ All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine,” and for these He prays that “ the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them,” &c. (John 17:1-26.). The answer to this is our text. As the husband and wife are one flesh and have all things common, so Christ and His Church have one Spirit, &c. 2. Our possession of all things in Christ may be referred to the mediatorial supremacy of the Head of the Church, making all things contribute to our welfare. (1) When the apostle dilates upon the lordship of Christ he brings all the powers of the universe under His sway; sometimes to magnify Christ’ s glory, but oftener to set forth the absoluteness of His supremacy over all things for the Church. He governs the principalities and powers of the other world for the accomplishment of His designs in this, and they become ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. The hosts of evil with their prince are governed for our advantage. The world, with all things present, is under His sway for the well-being of His Church. This is the key to all history, and Christ’ s mysterious but most certain sway is bringing politics, science, civilisation, into subordination to the spread of His kingdom. (2) He is also the Head of a visible community which is governed for the salvation of its spiritual members. “ Paul, Apollos, and Cephas” --the organised ministry of the visible Church is the servant of the Church invisible. The order has been inverted. The saints have been brought into bondage to the Church instead of the Church being the servant of the saints; and this error has produced a sad reaction--the visible Church has been sundered from its close connection with the Church invisible. But let both grow together. Believers are of Christ, not of the Church; but calling Him Lord they rejoice in the order and service of His Church as a rich inheritance. 3. All who are Christ’ s have such a place in His heart, and such an interest in His resources, that in virtue of His special favour they possess all things. (1) “ All things are yours” is the charter of personal prerogative. Christ is the personal Friend of those who love Him, and gives the treasures of His grace to every individual believer. “ Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name I will do it.” (2) But here is a necessary limitation which only seems to restrict the privilege--the Redeemer reserves to Himself the decision how much of the all things shall be imparted, when the gift shall be bestowed and when desired. The spiritual position He is more willing to give than we are to ask: our other portion may be more slowly bestowed; reserved from us though our own, for reasons the wisdom of which we cannot always understand. II. The apostle blends the high statement of Christian privileges with the practical exhortation to rejoice in them.1. The starting-point of this exhibition is the warning to glory is nothing but our inheritance in Christ. Once before he had uttered it to claim for the crucified Redeemer His sole honour; now he repeats it to claim for the Christian inheritance its rights. The Son receives us into His Father’ s house; and to each one He says, “ All that I have is thine.” Henceforth we are servants to none but Himself in God. This leaves no room for self-complacency, for all is of Christ. 2. Paul literally brings the whole compass of things into the believer’ s inheritance. (1) Life is ours. In its deepest meaning none live but those who are in Christ. We know, indeed, that our life in the flesh will cease; but it is our own while it lasts, to be spent in the care of our souls and in the discharge of our duties; and then we shall pass into more abundant life. (2) Things present. (a) The creaturely world. So long as we are of the world, the world is our master; but when we become Christ’ s free men, the whole economy of the creature pays us tribute. But possessing all things we must show that we are really masters of the creature, by our temperate, thankful, and spiritual use of all things. (b) All the events that make up the course of this world. Not that Christ gives us control of passing affairs. He keeps the direction of our lives in His own hands, and does not always admit us into the reasons of His dealings. But He sanctions our freedom of action, allows large latitude to our prayers, gives us the discretion to make all events contribute to our welfare, and causes all things to work together for our good. (3) Death and things to come. Christ has the keys of the other world, and our eternal destiny is in His ever faithful hands. (a) Death, the last enemy, is translated into a ministering angel. (b) Things to come--the disembodied waiting for the great day, the day itself, the resurrection, &c. 3. Let us hear the apostle’ s exhortation, not expressed, but pervading the whole passage--“ He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” (W. B. Pope, D. D.)All things are ours It expresses richness--this “ All things are yours” ; a broad and confident hold on life: a large liberty of mind. To have “ all things ours” ; to have, as it were, the freedom of the universe; to feel nowhere hemmed in, excluded, limited, whether in the sphere of truth or of sympathy, is a magnificent prospect, a splendid promise. To a great extent, we are compelled to acknowledge, our primary needs are needs of limitation and restraint, and Christianity presents itself as limiting and restraining. We come out to make our way in the world with good intentions, and around us there are ringing in our ears numberless voices--theories of life--denunciations--schemes--hopes--fears--doctrines--denials--doubts, and we feel anything but the consciousness that “ all things are ours.” We feel no sense of mastery, only of bewilderment. To be free--to give our sympathies on all sides--to trust all voices alike, is to leave our moorings, to be free to wander on a shoreless sea. Or again, careless indiscriminate sympathy, fellowship with human life in all its forms, may present itself to us as an ideal of conduct, “Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto.” But there is that at once must give us pause. For humanity as it is is a strangely mixed thing. To say that my pulses beat in sympathy with all that is human is to state a fact of my being, but it is a fact suggestive as much of horror as of self-congratulation. For it means that there is no disordered passion, however vile, of which I cannot trace at least in some horrible moment the capacity in my own blood; no craft, no guile to which I can claim to be by nature utterly a stranger. Thus out of the surging sea of conflicting theories--out of the seething of this common manhood which I cannot trust--out of this indiscriminate life which might indeed master me, but which certainly I do not master--in which certainly “ all things are not mine,” I look up for some Hand from above to lift, some Voice to guide, some standard and criterion of life. And lo! there is One who knows life’ s secret, One who loves my humanity, who believes in its capacities as none else ever did, and yet distrusts its impulses. One who in our flesh, “ in the likeness of flesh, of sin,” yet restores life; sums it into Himself, and claims to purge it and to reconstruct it. I come to Him--I will be taught by Him. I would have the key to life--I would feel myself under His instruction. He turns upon me, He speaks to me. But it is not first of freedom. A secure life--a strong life, that is the first thing. It must be strong before it can be free--strong at the centre ere it can be free at the circumference, and to make it strong there must be concentration, and that means for the moment mutilation--the cutting off of occasions of sin, of whatever hinders the progress of the true self. If there is a theory which puzzles me, which I cannot refute, which perhaps has some attraction for me, yet seems to militate against my spiritual growth, which is to go--the spiritual growth or the intellectual?” “ Thy intellectual interest,” the answer of Christ seems to come, “ is not thy primary self. Behind thine intellect is thy will--thy spirit. The centre of thy being where conscience speaks, where will acts, where prayer rises and God is known--that is thyself. It conditions all else. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness--at all costs, limit thyself as you mayest to do so.” Thus the first claim of Christ is a claim upon us for concentration of faculties upon the pursuit of holiness. All things are yours; but not till ye are Christ’ s, then, as Christ is God’ s. But so, if in blind surrender the sacrifice has been made and remade and made for ever,--is the reward sure. What is this vaunt of the Christian life? In what sense does the “ slave of Jesus Christ” find that “ all things are his” ?1. He finds it first in the moral sphere. Self has been cut at the roots, and it is selfishness which is the source of narrowness, the impoverishment of life. Party spirit (that is St. Paul’ s point) narrows your privileges. To make one great teacher of the Church your patron in such sense as that you exult exclusively in what he taught, exalt his special adherents and depreciate the work of others, is to narrow your Christian heritage. Yours is not what one teacher only was given to teach, but what all were given. All are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas. Argument, it has been said, is often most effective when it is most one-sided. The Christian Church in like manner may gain a certain sort of effectiveness by ignoring half her mission, and dealing with half human nature, but “ all things are ours.” The heritage is not meant to be impoverished and narrowed into ever closer channels as it comes down the ages. Meant for Catholic humanity, it remains in its Catholicity. We believe in one holy Catholic Church, one in its Divine authority, one in the truth it teaches in common, one in the grace which flows in its channels and makes its inner life the same, one in its common organisation, one in its sacred books, and to no part of that one whole do I limit my faith. By no corporate self-assertion would I have a part of that society strive to be the whole. “ All things are ours.” 2. But it is not only within the area of the Christian Church that the Spirit of Christ, by cutting the roots of self-assertion, realises in us the richness of our heritage. “ Not only Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas,” but the world, the κοσμος, is ours. The Christian realises his freedom in all truth, his kinship with all nature. It is not only that the good man is at peace with nature, that he is in league with the slaves of the field and the beasts of the land are at peace with him; there is a deep ground for such kinship. He has learned to recognise in Christ (in the latter days Incarnate) the eternal Word of God, the expression and counterpart of his being. His mediation in grace is based upon an unceasing mediation in nature. “ Through Him all things were made.” “ Without Him was not anything made.” “ Whatever has been made, in Him was life.” And as the Christian must lay his claim to be utterly at home in the modern scientific conception of nature, so must he also be in the world of universal humanity. The great Greek theologians of the epoch of the great general councils never let their students forget the largeness of the Christian claim. God’ s special dealings with the Jews (St. Athanasius reminds us) are given only to prevent us forgetting His universal providence in all history and nature. For He who came into our territory (he tells us) in the Incarnation, came not as a stranger nor as having been far off before. For no part of creation had ever been left void of Him. He had filled all things through all. He was through all the ages “ coming into the world.” He was the light which lighteneth every man--the same Jesus Christ. “ Dream not,” says St. Justin (meeting a difficulty by anticipation), in his apology to the heathen, “ that persons who lived more than a century and a half ago, before Christ was born in the flesh, escape His judgment. For we have been taught” (it is not a private opinion of his own) “ and have explained before that He is the Logos, in which the whole race of man shared. And those who lived with reason up to their lights, are Christians even though they are reckoned Atheists among men, as among the Greeks were Socrates and Heracleitus, and among the Barbarians Abraham and Elijah, and many others, and those who lived of old without reason, were ever the enemies of Christ and the murderers of those who lived with reason. But they who lived or live with reason (i.e., up to their lights)are Christians and can live without fear.” It ought to have been the instinct of Christianity always to recognise this. Christianity supersedes all other religions not by excluding but by including. In part indeed they represent merely man’ s bewilderment and ugly perversions of the truth. But in part they also represent that natural revelation of God which is involved in the light shining in darkness, so that the darkness could not suppress it. Everywhere there was something of a witness to God. And Christian faith stands to all other teachings, as that which supersedes them, by containing and elevating the truth they taught, and illuminating and satisfying the human need that they expressed. They become foes only when they become rivals, as even the good may ever be the enemy of the best, as the twilight is darkness by comparison with the sunlight. “ There are many noble things,” says Origen, “ in the Oracles by those not of Christ’ s part, but with us only are their Oracles complete and pure.” 3. All things are yours--“ Life and death,” the world of human nature. It is the privilege of Christian faith to give us the freest access to human hearts. For the wants that Christ came to evoke and to satisfy belong to man, as man, to men equally in every age and in every class. The capacity for prayer, the sense of sin, the need of pardon, the reality and force of temptation, the vicissitudes of spiritual feeling, the moral discouragements and encouragements of life, the moral perplexities from conflicting duties--these things belong to people of utterly different positions in life and with scarcely any reference to degrees of education. 4. “ All things are ours, whether things present or things to come.” The great poet of human nature in our time constantly gives expression to the conviction that the problems of human character demand an immortality for their solution. Human characters he feels, in proportion to their worth, need an environment to develop them larger than this world; need a vaster field to work out their issues. “ On the earth the broken arcs: in the heaven the perfect round.” “ God’ s task to make the heavenly period--perfect the earthen.” Now this conviction of immortality in which the Christian lives gives him a leverage for action, and makes him the minister of hope. He can believe in the small beginnings who believes in immortal growth. He can believe in the perfect victory for all who do not finally and obstinately cling by choice to evil. He again has a rational doctrine to hold out to man of human perfection--a doctrine rational because it takes account of experience. Make this world the only sphere of progress, obliterate from men’ s eyes what we heard of last week as “ the world as little like Whitechapel as possible,” in which, “ after death men shall wake up,” and you certainly have no rational doctrine of hope to present to mankind. Where is the experience that justifies us in expecting that the progress of knowledge and civilisation really means for “ the sacrificed classes” the progress of happiness. Does not experience rather give us a doctrine that nations have their periods of climax, and then their periods of decay? and is there any real ground for believing the later period for a particular race, happier than the earlier? Or have great social convulsions (though they have taught great lessons to humanity at large) been (except under certain conditions not now existing in England) productive of happiness to the nations who were the subjects of them? Does civilisation or knowledge any way tend to minimise the selfishness which is the root of all social evils? Behind the veil, under the feet of the great Head of a redeeming humanity, the Christian knows that the race of man who will consent to have God when He is offered them in His love, is being gathered into an ever developing perfection. (C. Gore, M. A.)Christ’ s servants lords of all I. How Christ’ s servants are men’ s lords. “ Paul, Apollos, Cephas” were all lights kindled at the central Light, and therefore shining. Each was but a part of the mighty whole, a little segment of the circle-- “ They are but broken lights of Thee. And Thou, O Lord! art more than they.” And in the measure, therefore, in which men adhere to Christ, and have taken Him for theirs; in that measure are they delivered from all undue dependence on, still more, all slavish submission, to any single individual teacher or aspect of truth. If Christ be our Master, if we take our creed from Him, if we accept His words and His revelation of the Father as our faith and our objective religion, then all the slavery to favourite names, all the taking of truth second-hand from lips that we honour, all the partisanship for one against another which has been the shame and the ruin of the Christian Church, and is working untold mischiefs in it to-day, are ended at once. “ One is your Master, even Christ.” “ Call no man Rabbi! upon earth” ; but bow before Him, the incarnate and the personal Truth. And in like manner they who are Christ’ s are delivered from all temptations to make men’ s maxims and practices and approbation the law of their conduct. “ They say. What say they? Let them say.” The envoy of some foreign power cares very little what the inhabitants of the land to which he is ambassador may think of him and his doings; it is his sovereign’ s good opinion that he seeks to secure. The soldier’ s reward is his commander’ s praise, the slave’ s joy is the master’ s smile, and for us it ought to be the law of our lives, and in the measure in which we belong to Christ really it will be the law of our lives, that “ we labour that whether present or absent we may be pleasing to Him.” II. Christ’ s servants are the lords of the world. That phrase is used here, no doubt, as meaning the external material universe. He owns the world who turns it to the highest use of growing his soul by it. If I look out upon a fair landscape, and the man that draws the rents of it is standing by my side, and I suck more sweetness and deeper impulses and larger and loftier thoughts out of it than he does, it belongs to me far more than it does to him. The world is his who from it has learned to despise it, to know himself and to know God. He owns the world who uses it as the arena, or wrestling ground, on which, by labour, he may gain strength, and in which he may do service. Antagonism helps to develop muscle, and the best use of the outward frame of things is that we shall take it as the field upon which we can serve God. III. Christian men who belong to Jesus Christ are the lords and masters of “ life and death.”1. The true ownership of life depends upon self-control, and self-control depends upon letting Jesus Christ govern us wholly. So the measure in which it is true of me that “ I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” is the measure in which our lower life of sense really belongs to us, and ministers to our highest good. 2. Animals expire; a Christian man may yield his soul to his Saviour, who is the Lord both of the dead and of the living. If thus we feel our dependence upon Him, and yield up our wills to Him, and can say, “ Living or dying we are the Lord’ s,” then we may be quite sure that Death, too, will be our servant, and that our wills will be concerned even in passing out of life. Still more, if you and I belong to Jesus Christ, then Death is our fellow-servant who comes to call us out of this ill-lighted workshop into the presence of the King. IV. Christ’ s servants are the lords of time and eternity, “ things present or things to come.”1. The whole mass of “ things present,” including all the events and circumstances of our lives, over these we may exercise supreme control. If we are bowing in humble submission to Jesus Christ, they will all subserve our highest good. The howling tempests of winter and its white snows, the sharp winds of spring and its bursting sunshine; the calm, steady heat of June and the mellowing days of August, all serve to ripen the grain. And so all “ things present,” the light and the dark, the hopes fulfilled and the hopes disappointed, the gains and the losses, the prayers answered and the prayers unanswered, they will all be recognised if we have the wisdom that comes from submission to Jesus Christ’ s will as being ours, and ministering to our highest blessing. We shall be their lords, too, inasmuch as we shall be able to control them. We need not be like the mosses in the stream, that lie whichever way the current sets, nor like some poor little sailing boat that is at the mercy of the winds and the waves, but may carry an inward impulse like some great ocean-going steamer, the throb of whose power shall drive us straight forward on our course, what ever beats against us. That we may have this inward power and mastery over things present and not to be shaped and moulded and made by them, let us yield ourselves to Christ, and He will help us to rule them. 2. And then, all “ things to come” ; the dim, vague future shall be for each of us like some sunlit ocean stretching shoreless to the horizon; every little ripple flashing with its own bright sunshine, and all bearing us onwards to the great throne that stands on the sea of glass mingled with fire. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)That all things are for the spiritual good and advantage of the godly man I. In how many respects all things may be said to be the godly man’ s, both in the Church and the world. And first, thus, in that there is nothing which would be for their good that God denieth them. Whatsoever is in all the world, if it be good for the godly man, he shall have it (Psalms 84:11). There is no man that feareth God, though he may say, I want riches, I want health, I am without this or that, that can say he is without Christ, and justification, and the covenant of grace.2. There is a limited good, that which in itself is good, but doth not make good those that have it, yea, it may be turned to evil. As wine is good, but give it to the feverish man you hurt him. And thus it is with all the temporal good things of the world; they do not make the possessors good, yea, they may be turned to sin, and increase thy corruption. And then it is no wonder if God, out of His love to thee, withhold these things from thee. If they were as necessary and as good as Christ is, and heaven is, thou wert sure to have them (Romans 8:32). Now this very particular should rebuke all the winds and waves of fears and discontent within thee. Art thou repining thou hast not this, thou hast not that ? Oh, look! Hast thou godliness? Hast thou the fear of God in thy heart, then thou hast all things, because there is nothing that is good for thee that God keeps from thee? Secondly, a godly man may be said to have all things, because he hath a right and a claim to the covenant of grace, wherein is a deed of gift of all things both spiritual and temporal. Therefore godliness is said to have the promise of this life and the life to come (1 Timothy 4:8). All heavenly and earthly things are by promise made to the godly, only heavenly things absolutely, earthly things conditionally and with subordination. So, then, it is with thee, as some man, who hath all his estate lying in bonds and covenants, though for the present he cannot command such a sum of money, yet he is rich in bonds. Thirdly, all things are the godly man’ s because he hath God for his God, who hath all things. He that hath the sun hath the light of all the stars; he that hath the ocean hath all the streams. Hence our happiness is said to be in this if we have the Lord for our God. David, in all his exigencies, supported himself with this, that God was his portion and his inheritance. Though a child hath not money and raiment at his command, yet because he hath a rich father, who can procure all these things, therefore he may be well said to have them all. Fourthly, a godly man may be said to have all things because godliness worketh such an holy contentation and satisfaction of spirit, that in what estate he is, he is as well pleased as if he had all things, as if he had the whole world (1 Timothy 6:6). Thus all things are theirs, because through contentation they have all things. Fifthly, all things are the godly man’ s because they were made finaliter for him. They are all for his spiritual use. Every gift is given to profit withal (1 Corinthians 12:7). II. Let us now consider why God should make all heavenly and earthly things for the godly. First, we need not wonder at it, if we consider that Christ Himself took our nature upon Him, and did undergo that shameful death, and those terrible conflicts with God’ s wrath for His Church, He gave Himself for His Church. So that Christ being theirs, no wonder if all things else be theirs. If ever God would have denied anything, would have withheld anything, it would have been His only Son, in whom He was so well pleased. Secondly, because all things in the world are ordered by His providence only; but the whole work of God about His children is the effect of His predestination. III. Having asserted a comfortable doctrine out of these words for the godly, we proceed to make some objections or doubts about it. First, the doubt may be, How are all things the godly man’ s for his use and spiritual edification, when many times we see the godly man gets no good by these? To answer this, first, we must distinguish between God’ s intention in giving these, and the godly man’ s actual improvement of them to that end. When the apostle saith, “ All things are yours,” his meaning is, on God’ s part. His love is so great that for the godly only all things in heaven and earth were created. If so be, therefore, at any time these things turn to thy hurt, blame thyself. The physician will tell the patient sometimes, all these potions and all these cordials, they are yours; you are to take them; you may expect much good and ease by them. But if the patient be wilful, and disorder himself, it is his fault, not the physician’ s, that they do hurt. Therefore, secondly, the godly man, through his weakness and sinfulness, not walking up to God’ s order, may make that a hindrance which God intended a furtherance. Thirdly, though the godly may for a while make these things against their end, and not for it, yet this will not be always. Fourthly, when we say all things are the godly man’ s, you must take them in their collective cooperation, as Romans 8:1-39., “ All things work together.” The next doubt is, If all things be the godly’ s, why, then, are they so uncomfortable, so dejected, complaining of wants, as if nothing were theirs? Answer: It is true it should be so, but we are weak in faith, we do not live upon Scripture principles and privileges. It is by faith only. A quiet resting and reposing of the soul upon God’ s promise puts us into the possession of all these things. Secondly, as they want faith, so a heavenly prudence and skill how to improve them spiritually. Though all things be for their good, yet they must have wisdom to know how to use all things. What is a fountain sealed up, or a book that cannot be read, though it hath never such admirable matter? Thus are all things, though never so useful, if thou hast not Christian wisdom. There is no condition, affliction, or event, but thou mayest say, if I had heavenly wisdom I might make excellent use of it. The last doubt is, How are all things the godly man’ s, seeing for the most part they are most wanting, they are in the greatest necessities? Answer--1. This place doth not so much speak of the possession of all things as the spiritual serviceableness of them. Those things which they have no possession of may yet serve for their soul’ s good. 2. If the godly have not all things they would, that want is good for them. The want of any outward mercies may sometimes be better than the having of them. 3. Thou hast what is best for thee, and that according to the wise God’ s ordering. Let this silence thee always. (A. Burgess.)All things are yours You remember the fable of the beautiful fairy who always appeared to turn evil into good, and you have sometimes wished it true. Paul believed that Jesus had power to make everything that happened turn out for the best welfare of His people. The apostle seems to say, “ If you serve God, everything in the world shall minister to you as much as if it were really your own.” God did not make you for the earth; He made the earth for you. As a father values his children more than the house he has built for them, so the Lord values you more than the world in which you live. Do not think you are of secondary importance, created only as an offshoot of the earth, to grind away at your labour and care and pain for a number of years, and then die. No; the apostle believed that God made everything for us, and that as workmen are employed to construct a beautiful palace, so God employs the earth and life and death, and all things as workers and materials to build us. What more comforting doctrine can you imagine? Every tribulation, and all our worries, crosses, and losses are as workmen governed by the Lord for the good of His people. (W. Birch.)Owned, but not explored “ A dear uncle of mine, an Indian chaplain, made the acquaintance, at Singapore, in 1852, of a Christian widow lady, who told him her story. In 1848 her husband’ s death had left her, at Manilla, in much reduced circumstances. She owned a little land in Australia, and she now asked an Australian friend to sell it. He did his best; but one barren little field he could not sell, and the widow seemed the poorer for such a possession. Then, in 1851, gold was discovered in Australia; a mine was found in that rough field; and the widow was secured for life from poverty. What was, and had been, her position? In respect of provision, she had owned every nugget, “ all the fulness” of the field, all along. In respect of fruition, she had it all to discover; it was all new wealth. So with you, so with me, in Jesus Christ. We have the fulness of the Spirit--in Him. Have we come to have it--in us? If not, let us be animated by the fact that the gold is in the field, is on the property.” (H. C. G. Moule.)All things are yours when you are Christ’ s A great gulf is fixed between God and man by sin. The Bible reveals a chain depending from the throne of God stretching across the void and holding up the dislocated world. I. Christ is god’ s: that is the highest link. The Creator rejoices in all His works, but He has a special and peculiar interest in man.1. When the work of creation, as to its bulk, was nearly done, the Creator was not yet satisfied. He found no point of sympathetic contact between Himself, a spirit, and the material world which He had made. Then was held that council in which humanity was planned. “ Let us make man in our own image.” Allied to God by an intelligent mind and an immortal spirit, yet wedded to matter by his body, man was added to the upper edge of creation, a link of communion between the Maker and His work. 2. The mystery of the fall came on and the connecting link was broken. But Satan was not permitted to triumph. When the creature called into being as a son has become an alien, where shall God now find a man, holy as Himself, to be His companion and reciprocate His love? 3. Here is the mystery revealed: Christ is God’ s. “ Behold the man” ! He dwells in the bosom of the Father, and yet is bound in brotherhood to the human family. This is the plan of redemption. The Father cometh to no man; no man cometh to the Father but by Him. The Father’ s delight in the Son incarnate (Psalms 42:1-11.; Matthew 3:17) is the uppermost link of the chain whereon all our hope for eternity hangs. How strong and sure it is! Satan tried in the wilderness to separate between this Man and God, as in the garden he had separated between the first man and God. The Tempted triumphed and the tempter fled. II. Ye are Christ’ s: the next link. It is not that He is your portion, but that ye are His. In actual experience, however, the union is mutual. The vine holds the branch, and the branch holds the vine. “ My beloved is mine” --there lies my present happiness; but “ I am His” --there lies my everlasting safety. A very slight temptation may break asunder your love to Christ; but all the powers of darkness cannot overcome His love to you. Who shall separate? A British subject may be safe although surrounded by enemies in a distant land, and his confidence in his queen may rebuke the feeble faith of a Christian. Note--1. How He obtains His property. (1) By the sovereign gift of God. “ Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me” (John 17:1-26.). (2) By the price of His own blood. Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price. (3) By the renewing of the Holy Spirit. God the Father gives you to Christ, and you give yourselves. This latter is the effect of the Spirit working repentance and faith in a human heart. 2. How He will use His property. (1) As objects to exercise His kindness on. The good delight in doing good. Christ in giving grace to His people is getting delight for Himself. (2) As servants to do His work. He desires your service and deserves it. To work willingly is a mark of a true disciple. (3) As living epistles in which the world may read the riches of His grace. (4) For company at His coming, and for portion evermore, III. All things are yours: the lowest link. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily has been treasured up in Christ expressly that it may be within the reach of His people.1. The ministry. The full-bodied doctrinal teaching of Paul, the melting and arousing eloquence of Apollos, and the abrupt, fiery energy of Peter--all are gladly recognised as a wisely mingled provision from the hand of that Father who paints the rose and the violet of different hues but equal loveliness. But, besides the bounty of the Giver, the liberty of the receivers also is signalised in this text. Paul and Apollos and Cephas are yours--not ye theirs. In Rome the ministers have the people; here the people have the ministers. The ministry is an article in the inventory of a Christian’ s goods. They are the Lord’ s gifts to the heirs, not lords over the heritage. 2. “ The world.” The world, under direction of its god, wars against the soul. But our Father in heaven holds that enemy and compels it, in His own time and way, to serve His sons. 3. “ Life.” The natural life is indeed corrupt, but over its corrupt root the new nature is engrafted, and so this lower earthly life becomes the root of a spiritual life in heaven. 4. “ Death.” Through Christ it is only the dark, narrow door in the partition wall between time and eternity, through which the children are led from the place of exile into the mansions of the Father’ s house. 5. “ Things present or things to come.” All things are yours in virtue of your union to Christ, whether they lie within the horizon of time or beyond it in the unseen eternity. We have reached now those things that no ear hath heard, and no tongue can tell. I once heard a father tell that when he removed his family to a new and ampler residence his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran round every room and scanned every article with ecstacy, calling out in childish wonder at every new sight, “ Is this ours, father? and is this ours?” The child did not say “ yours” ; and the father was not offended with the freedom. The infant’ s confidence in appropriating as his own all that his father had was an important element in his satisfaction. Such, I suppose, will be the surprise and joy and appropriating confidence with which the child of our Father’ s family will count all his own when he enters the infinite of things to come. (W. Arnot, D. D.)All things ours “ All things mine? Oh, how delightful that would be if only it were true!” But it is true. “ All things mine that I may make them Christ’ s? But that is hardly so delightful as having all things for my own.” It is more delightful. Nay, to give all to Christ is the only way to make all things yours. So we might talk on this wonderful passage, finding much that seems incredible, but nothing so incredible as the assurance that all things are ours. Even this incredible assertion, however, may grow credible to you if only you approach it from the apostle’ s point of view. I. All things are yours. 1. All ministers are yours. “ Oh, yes,” you say, “ that is true enough; but what are we the richer for that?” But I am by no means sure that all ministers are yours. I am quite sure that, if they are, you are much the richer for it. 1. St. Paul’ s general principle is that the teachers are for the Church, not the Church for the teachers. But the intention of God is one thing and the intention of the Church, as shown by its conduct, is often another. (1) God intended eloquent Apollos, learned Paul, and sagacious and enthusiastic Peter for the Church at Corinth; but some said, “ We are of Apollos.” They were charmed with the eloquence of the mighty expositor of Scripture, but they did not care for the learned Paul or the plain Peter. Others attached themselves to Paul, but thought Apollos too rhetorical and Peter too rustic, &c. Thus this ancient Church flung away two-thirds of its treasure. (2) All the ministers of the Church universal are yours in the design and intention of God; but do you permit them all to be yours? What, all the ministers of the Apostolic, Patristic, Mediaeval, Roman, Episcopal, Presbyterian, &c., branches of the one Catholic Church? All are yours, and yet how few of them are yours! 2. But here you may object: “ We have neither the means nor the opportunity of learning from many of Christ’ s ministers.” But do you learn as much, and from as many of them, as you might? Do you study the apostolic preachers with the devotion they deserve? When wise and holy men of other communions than your own publish a volume of choice discourses, do you take as much pains to get it as you take for the last new novel, and read it with even as much interest as you bestow on your daily newspaper? There are those in our Churches who so attach themselves to one minister that, like the Corinthians, they care to hear no one but him. Now I do not say that if you find a minister who can most effectually touch the springs of spiritual thought and emotion within you you are not to love and to addict yourselves to his ministry; but I do say that if you so addict yourselves to one that you can hear no other you are flinging away the greater part of your spiritual heritage. But not only all ministers, “ all things” are yours, in precisely the same sense, viz., to use and to profit by. 2. The world. If a deed of gift were placed in your hand which made over a whole country, or even a whole cosmos to you as your private estate, you might be the worse and poorer for it. So vast an estate would entail responsibilities under which the strongest and wisest must faint. If you cared only to make a personal and selfish use of it, and if your possession of it robbed you of all stimulus to labour, to mental and moral culture, you would simply sink into the most astounding sot and sinner under heaven. Property is what we can appropriate. And what in the world is there of which, with due pains and trouble, you cannot get the best it has to give? The splendour of sunrise and sunset, the glory of the seasons, the beauty of flower and herb and spreading tree, the starry canopy of heaven, do they not become yours in proportion as you have power to appropriate their teaching, their value? Any house or piece of land that you have bought you may lose by a thousand accidents, and at the best you will soon have to leave it behind you; but the culture wrought into your very spirit by your love and admiration of the natural world, this will never leave you. 3. What is there in all the forms and varieties of human life which you may not so observe as to learn its highest lessons, as to work the very essence of it into the very substance of your mind? What have men ever done, what great and noble thoughts have they uttered, of which you may not so read as to make all that is so permanently valuable in them your own? Christ has thrown open to you the whole domain of history and of human life; and it rests with you to determine how far you will go up into it and possess yourselves of it. 4. And He has made “ death” your friend and servant; for if you believe in Him what is death to you, or to those whom you love, but a transition to more life and fuller? 5. So with “ things present,” with which we are so seldom content, and “ things to come” which we are so apt to fear. All are yours in proportion as you make them yours. II. All are yours because you are Christ’ s, and that you may make them Christ’ s and God’ s. Nay, we can only make all things ours as we give them all to Christ and God.1. All ministers are yours; but when do you make them all yours in fact? Only when you make the best use of the best that is in them, and suffer it to minister to your highest and most enduring welfare. And when you do that, do you not both take them as God’ s gift to you and give them back to Him? 2. And in the same way you make “ life” yours, viz., as you yield to its nobler influences and suffer them to mould and reform you. That is to say, all life becomes yours as you give your personal life to God. 3. So, again, with death. Only those who believe that Christ has overcome the sharpness and taken away the sting of death, only those know that death is a minister of God for their good. And who are these but those for whom to live is Christ and to die gain? Who but those for whom to depart is to be with the Lord? Death is ours only as we are Christ’ s and God’ s. 4. And only on the same terms are things present ours and things to come. (S. Cox, D. D.)The Christian’ s possessions I. The general scope of the declaration. Of course all things are not the Christian’ s in the sense of actual right or control. A man possesses that which he turns to his own account. A miser, though abounding in wealth, is a very poor man; although he has all things he possesses nothing. So all things in creation and providence shall as certainly minister to the Christian’ s present and eternal welfare as if they were absolutely his own. “ All things work together for good to them that love God.” II. The several particulars. 1. All ministers are yours. Whatever their talents, zeal, piety, fruit, you have an interest in them all. Christ thought of you when He gave some apostles, &c. Feel that you have a personal property in your ministers, not only in their time, talents, prayers, but also in their spiritual prosperity and their growth in grace. 2. The world is yours. The world is created for the saints, and for their sakes is it preserved. It is a mere stage of action for them, and when of these the last has obtained his crown it shall be burned up, having fulfilled its mission in preparing man for a higher condition of existence. The earth hath God given to the children of men, but in an especial sense to the redeemed. It belongs not to men of the world to whom providential gifts are often a ruin. 3. Life is yours, i.e., as it is a blessing, as it serves us for doing the work of God. He lives twice who lives for life’ s great end. Only use it rightly, and life is yours. 4. Death is yours; because to the Christian to die is gain. III. The solid ground upon which these assurances rest: because “ ye are Christ’ s.” Ministers, &c., are not yours by any right of your own, not yours for your obedience, your prayers. And therefore remember that if you are not Christ’ s, then none of these things are yours. Ministers are not yours, for they shall rise as a testimony against you; nor the world, for it is a master by whom you are held in bondage; nor life, for its things are not blessed to you; nor death, for he comes as God’ s executioner, to drag you from your tenacious hold on things present, and to make you view your forfeited interest in all the joys of things to come. Oh, see to it, then, that ye are Christ’ s by a good confession, by a choice of service, by faith, by love. (D. Moore, M. A.)The Christian’ s riches I. Wherein do these riches consist?1. It was not without intention that the apostle placed at the head the great apostolic personalities. For the highest of man’ s possessions is man. What would this whole creation be but for man, the image of God? (1) But it is man who appears to be least of all ours. How many a man would have given thousands to rescue the life of a beloved child, or have cheerfully laid aside his dignities to lengthen a beloved partner’ s life, or have sacrificed a portion of our own life to redeem that of a friend? How then can we say that men are ours, if we cannot hinder their being snatched away from us? (2) It is true that what is earthly and perishable in man does not belong to us; of that we must be deprived. But all that is imperishable and holy in human nature is ours, and cannot be snatched from us. Centuries have passed since the great apostles passed away; but have they ceased to be ours? The word of repentance which they preached, has it not awakened us? The testimony they bore to the grace in Christ, has it not converted us? The example of love which they have set forth, has it not enlightened us? This Paul, this Peter, &c., are ours. And not only they, but all who walk in their footsteps. Yes, they too are ours who seem to be far removed from us. Paul had been a persecutor of the Church, and became its protector. Peter was a shaken reed, and became like a rock. Apollos was a disciple of the false Greek wisdom (Acts 18:24), and became a scholar of Christ. We will not despair, then, of those whom we cannot call ours in reality. 2. All other created things. (1) On few things do we seem so dependent. There is the lightning, the hailstorm, the flood, the pestilence, war. These forces, which neither the mind nor the will of man can tame or control--are they ours? That wonderful power that carries men across the country, as on the wings of the wind, that still more wonderful power which multiplies thought with lightning speed; that gold which rules the hearts of men; the spirit of inquiry--do these powers belong to us, Christians? Even the gentle gifts which summer scatters over the trees and fields, will not misuse desecrate them, will not sin poison them? (2) But we must not be misled by appearances. The apostle’ s statement is true. For can misfortune touch us when we know that all things work together for our good? When we know that we are not the sport of chance, but that an almighty and all-loving hand sends these trials to us; when we have the experience, too, that we are purified by them as gold by the fire? It is true that the commercial activity of the day may serve the purposes of sin; but does it fail to serve the purposes of the kingdom of God? It is true that a prolific press forges weapons of falsehood and ungodliness; but does it fail to forge the weapons of truth? It is true that gold enters many a house with a message of hatred and hostility; but does it cease to be an angel of love and comfort when we carry it into the dwellings of the poor and wretched? It is true that the spirit of inquiry kindles a fire-brand and casts it into the very sanctuary of God; but does it not also kindle the flame of wisdom and throw light into the sanctuary of Divine truth? 3. But, says the doubter, there is one thing you cannot make your own. It is all-embracing time with life and death, the past, the present, and the future. (1) We will not dispute that there is nothing on which men seem so dependent as time. (a) What are we to say of life--is this ours? We devise a plan of life to-day, to-morrow it lies in ruins at our feet. We build to-day on our health, to-morrow we are stretched on our bed. (b) And how about death? When we shall die we do not know; that we shall die is certain. There are some who during life never cease to be in bondage to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15). (c) And is the past ours? What we have done, we have done and cannot recall. (d) And how can the present or the future belong to us? At the present moment is not the future dark before us? What will happen in the next hour or day we cannot tell. (2) Amid these apparent contradictions we hold immovably to the apostle’ s word when he calls time ours. (a) Of course the empty, perishing, earthly life is not ours. But what does this signify? On the other hand, eternal life, whose pledge for us is the resurrection of Christ, will after this life first attain its full perfection. This eternal life is ours, and death cannot rob us of it. For death is ours in Christ. (b) The past, too, is ours. The centuries have swept away a hundred signs of human devotion; one is left, it is the Cross. Thousands of words of human wisdom have been forgotten; the Word of God remains. Names that once shone brightly in the firmament are now never mentioned; one name remains, it is the name Christ. Numberless hopes have vanished like the morning mist; one hope remains, is ours--the hope of eternal life. The past is ours: all that is worthy and imperishable in it. (c) And therefore are the present and future ours too. Let men set up new signs, the Cross alone will remain. Let them utter wondrous words, they will all cease to be heard; the Divine Word will remain. Let new names rise into favour, they will all disappear like meteors, while the name of Christ will be like the sun. Let new hopes delude men, our hope is an anchor sure and steadfast. II. The conditions to be fulfilled that this may be so. The natural man cannot inherit the kingdom of God; therefore, cannot say “ all things are mine,” but must rather confess “ I belong to all things.” The context shows how freedom may be gained, and with it the assurance that all things are ours. The apostle is not addressing the unbelieving, but (verse 16) those who have received the Holy Ghost. This is the condition. The way to become possessed of the Christian’ s wealth is the way of repentance which leads us to the knowledge of what sin is before the Father; the way of faith which causes us to find in God the Son reconciliation and redemption from sin; the way of regeneration-we are renewed and sanctified by God the Holy Ghost. (D. Schenkel, D. D.)Christian riches “ Give me a great thought, that I may live upon it,” said a noble man in his dying hour; but even in life there is often need of a great thought to expand and elevate the soul. Such a thought we have in our text. I. The world has often used these words to deck out a gospel of the flesh. Do we not hear men calling out, “ All is yours” ? Lordship over the earth is yours; therefore seize, rule, and enjoy. And because all is yours, ye must all equally rule and enjoy; therefore demolish the old distinction between masters and servants, rich and poor. We know, indeed, that in the early Apostolic Church there was a short time when the word, “ All is yours,” was quite literally fulfilled (Acts 2:44), but this state of matters had of necessity very soon to disappear. The providence of God is not uniform, and in different ways will lead different men, setting some as stewards over much, others as stewards over little. But-- II. The highest good is common to all. In the sense of faith, and hope, and love, we say with the apostle, “ All is yours; for ye are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.” What can be more my own than what I possess in best thoughts and feelings? Name anything in the whole world, and I ask whether it is not mine if it may serve my inner man and serve me for growth in wisdom and grace. Wert thou ever so poor, art thou Christ’ s, then the whole world must serve thee, for Christ is God’ s; but wert thou so rich that thou wouldst have to pull down thy barns and build greater, &c., the days of thy riches are soon numbered. Here, however, are riches which moth and rust cannot corrupt and which cannot be counted. “ All is yours.”1. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas belong to thee, with their varying gifts. For thee the evangelists write, apostles preach, the sacred poets unfold the depths of their soul. For thee is the exhortation and the promise. 2. The world. Yes, not only the kingdom of grace, but also the kingdom of nature, and the lilies of the field and the birds of the air reveal to thee the glory of God. 3. Life or death. How poor would we be if death, too, did not belong to us. The gospel of the flesh leads its adherents up to the gates of death, and just there death, as it were, calls out, “ Nothing is yours!” But art thou Christ’ s, then “ to die is gain.” 4. And whosoever can speak thus can also say, “ things present or things to come.” Many perhaps will say, “ Yes, no doubt the present is ours--these misfortunes and sufferings--but where are our joy and peace?” But art thou Christ’ s, then these times contain a great wealth of Divine exhortations, warnings, appeals, which also belong to thee for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. And if thou yieldest to these, then also the great word belongs to thee: “ We are saved by hope,” hope in the brighter morning of eternity, when all the children of God will reap with joy, for they bring in the fruits of righteousness. III. If the Lord is to be able to give us all, then must we be able to give the Lord all. “ Lord, we have left all and followed Thee.” Luther sang, “ Everything may go … To us the crown remaineth.” This we too must learn if we would obtain the promise. Let all go that is now thine own; the earthly, selfish desires which hold thee back, because thou thyself holdest them so fast; and many a thing which, though it has had a noble origin, yet turns thee from the riches of God, if thou wilt hold it fast against the will of God. Let go, therefore, the vain dreams of a happiness which knows neither sufferings nor the cross. Perhaps thou hast thyself already experienced the disappointments of this life. There were perhaps some dear ones whom thou couldst truly call thine own! The grave covers them, and why wilt thou still cling to the earthly possession? In the name of Jesus, let it go. For in Him we know that we should not seek the living among the dead; we know that what is sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption, &c. And the better we learn to say from the heart, “ Let everything go, to us the crown remaineth,” the freer, the more joyous, the richer will we be. For then that dies in us which ought to die, and then that lives in us which ought to live. And then we feel that all is ours. (Bp. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas. The gospel ministry as a property I would say to the Church, in relation to this property-- I. Appreciate it. What on earth so valuable as a true gospel ministry? In it you have, as a rule, the most richly cultured intellect, the highest order of genius, the most disinterested services, the most sanctified sympathies. II. Protect it from worldly cares, secular embarrassments, social slanders. Take care of it--it is more precious than gold. III. Use it. You have eternal treasures in these earthly vessels. Take care, and get from them the “ pearl of great price.” IV. Thank God for it. It is given to you in trust. You must give an account at last. (Caleb Morris.)Christ and thought The text must be regarded as a warning against-- I. Intellectual levity. 1. It was far from the intention of the apostle in this Epistle to speak slightingly of knowledge, or of those gifted men who are its mouthpieces. True, he speaks depreciatingly of a certain wisdom; but there was another wisdom, on account of which he was prepared to suffer the loss of all things. Paul knew that Christ had put us into a fresh attitude of reverence towards the whole intellectual world. Christ taught us-- (1) The reality of truth. “ What is truth?” asks the scoffing sceptic. It is an illusion in his view. But when Christ showed us the Father, He taught us at once the reality of truth, and the truth of reality. (2) The supremacy of truth. “ Art Thou a King, then? To this end was I born … that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (3) The accessibility of truth. That the search for truth is not a vain search. 2. And it was no part of Paul’ s purpose that the Corinthians should think lightly of their great teachers. In fact, he gives those teachers a very high place. “ The world” is unquestionably a magnificent thing, and the apostle puts great teachers into the same category. “ The heavens declare the glory of God,” &c. Intellectual men also declare the glory of God, and with an eloquence surpassing that of the stars. (1) Let us not, then, lightly esteem our intellectual teachers. All the great thinkers, and writers, and scientists are ours. A ship at sea is directed from two points of view--there is the man with the lead taking soundings from below, and there is the man with the glass taking the bearings from above; so our race is indebted for its guidance alike to the science which concerns itself with the physical world beneath us, and to the theology which contemplates the world above and beyond us. And ours in this matter is a day of exceptionally high privilege. Our easily accessible libraries bring all the gifted teachers close to us. Do not neglect or despise this splendid privilege. (2) Let us not despise our religious teachers. It seems very probable that “ the Christ party” in Corinth was in danger of doing this. This is a mistake. Each generation has its gifted teachers, and these are to be reckoned as God’ s choice gifts to His Church, and every lowlier teacher who speaks living words has a real value to his age. A while ago somebody suggested, with a touch of scorn, that preachers ought to be “ paid by results.” “ Paid by results!” How the money would roll in upon us! To speak the word, at a critical moment, which shall turn a faltering young man or woman into the path of life--how much for that? To utter thoughts which widen and purify a man’ s soul, and which save him from lapsing into a sordid, sensual life--how much for that? To inspire with fresh hope one sinking into grief and unbelief and despair--how much for that? No, payment by results must be left to the great Paymaster. II. Intellectual servility.1. Whilst one party amongst the Corinthians set little store by any of the great teachers of the Church, the other three parties were in danger of paying these teachers exaggerated homage. Says the noble apostle: You do not exist for them; they exist for you. The apostle has just been remarking that the greatest sages have been guilty of the most serious errors; he then proceeds: “ Therefore let no man glory in men.” The most gifted men are not infallible, and consequently they are to be followed with caution. The greatest teachers are only instrumental. There is a certain respect to be paid to the husbandman who brings forth precious fruits, but we reserve our full wonder and reverence for Him who alone gives the increase. There must, then, be no servility of soul in any of the congregation of the saints. No thinker must be permitted to coerce your intellect, no theologian to dictate your creed, no ecclesiastic to bind your conscience. God endows men that they may help and not enslave one another. 2. Here is a lesson for us to-day. Intellectual men are very prone to lord it over their less-gifted or less-cultured brethren. Sometimes they turn the republic of letters into a tyranny; sometimes they set up lordship in the Church. We see this despotism in philosophy. We are soon overawed by, and accept as gospel, what Carlyle says, or Arnold, or Ruskin, or Huxley, or Spencer. And we see this despotism in religion, and in the Roman Church in a very pronounced form. Now, our text warns us against such ignoble submission. “ We are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.” We do not stop with Paul, &c.; we are thankful for the stars, but it is still our privilege to have access to the Central Luminary; and all believers, even the humblest of them, share the illumination. It was given to tentmakers and fishermen to see truths not seen by prophets and kings; it was given to a peasant’ s son to find for Christendom the Divine doctrine it had lost; it was given to a tinker in Bedford to have visions of God as Isaiah and Ezekiel had; it was given to Wesley’ s “ ragged regiment” to see truths of life hidden from the wise and prudent; it was given to a Northamptonshire cobbler to seize afresh and to give practical efficacy to the magnificent truth of the universality of salvation in Jesus Christ. Evils may arise out of an exaggerated individuality, but the right of the individual to be taught of God is too clear and too precious to be relinquished on any pretence whatever. III. Intellectual partiality. These four sects were mutually exclusive, but Paul declares that all the great teachers belong to the whole Church. It has been said that an intellectual man ought to have preferences, but no exclusions; the Christian may have sundry preferences, but he ought to be prepared to get light from all who can give it. He must recognise the special truths insisted upon by philosophy on the one side, and by theology on the other, and joyfully concede the preciousness of the work wrought by the several denominations. Why should we shut ourselves up to one meadow, when the whole land is ours; to one tree, when the forest is ours; to one constellation, when the whole firmament is ours? (W. L. Watkinson.)Or the world.--The world is yours It is-- I. The Christian’ s temporary lodging place until God translates aim to a better world. This is the patriarchal view; they lived as pilgrims and strangers. II. The Christian’ s library. There are the books of nature--astronomy, geology, &c.; books of providence--history of nations, individuals--his own history. III. The Christian’ s spiritual mart. He has much to do both with earth and heaven. He is one of Christ’ s agents for extending His cause and kingdom in this world. A Christian cannot be talkative; he has too much to do. IV. The Christian’ s school-room. In this school he is taught, especially on the Lord’ s Day. Ministers are teachers. The Spirit instructs by the Word. Providence is a great teacher, so arc children. Christ placed a child in the midst of His disciples to teach them humility. He places sluggards under the tuition of the ant; and the ungrateful must take lessons from the ox and the ass. V. The Christian’ s battlefield. No battlefield in heaven, it is a palace; no battlefield in hell, it is a prison. This world to Christ was a battlefield. It is only in this world that Christians have to “ fight the good fight of faith.” VI. The Christian’ s place for moral cleansing and adornment. He who has to stand in the presence of God and the Lamb, must be washed and properly dressed. Priests, Levites, washed in the laver outside the holy place, were robed and dressed before officiating in the presence of God. “ Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.” There are no means of saving, justifying, and cleansing sinners, but in this world. VII. The Christian’ s road to heaven. Two roads in this world--the broad road leading to destruction, the narrow way that leads to life everlasting. Let us fear lest we should miss the way. Alongside the Christian’ s way there flows the river of life; be constantly drinking its waters, and rejoicing you will go on your way to the heavenly world. (J. Robertson, M. A.)That the whole world, with all things therein, is for the spiritual advantage of a godly man He may say of the whole universe, all this is mine for the advantage of my soul one way or other. Come we, therefore, to show in how many particulars we may say the whole world is a godly man’ s; it is for his use--First, it is the godly man’ s school or academy; it is his study or library. The heavens and all things therein are so many books, whereby he admireth the wisdom of God (Romans 1:1-32.). Secondly, the world is a godly man’ s, because everything therein is given him for his necessary use. Though he hath not everything, yet he hath as much as is needful to him. If you take a man into your house and bid him call for what he will, he may command everything in the house, though he doth not call for all things, but what is for his use--that is, as if he had all. And thus the whole world is for a godly man. What wealth, what honours, what health, is necessary and needful, he is sure to have. He that dwelleth by the ocean, he hath all the water in the sea for his use, though it is not necessary he should make use of it all. He that hath the use of anything, hath the thing. Thirdly, the world is a godly man’ s, as his shop and place of service. It is that wherein he works and labours for God. It is the great shop for mankind to do that work God hath appointed them. It is the great vineyard, in which God hath set every man to work. This world is for doing; the world to come for receiving. Fourthly, the world is a godly man’ s inn or lodging place, It is a provision God makes for a season, till they are ripe for heaven. Thus the godly are often compared to pilgrims and strangers. Fifthly, the godly have the world as the stage or artillery-yard--a place of exercise, wherein all their graces are to be drawn out by the opposition therein. To be quickened to the height of all thy graces, by how much more the combat and conflict thou hast, is exceeding great. The greatness of the tempest will discover the great art of the pilot. Sixthly, the world is a godly man’ s, because all things therein are sanctified and made clean to his use. The objection, then, is, why have the godly the least possession of it, if they have the sanctified use of it? Doth not David complain that wicked men have the fatness of the earth? To answer this you must know that even those wicked men, who are said to have the world at their will, yet they have net the world indeed, they have it not as the godly men. “ The little that the righteous hath, is better than great treasures of the wicked” (Psalms 37:16). First, whatsoever the wicked man hath, he hath it in wrath; it cometh from God’ s anger. God is angry with the wicked all the day long. Secondly, wicked men have not the world, because they are overcome by it; the world hath them rather. Thirdly, wicked men have not the world, because they do not own and acknowledge God as the Giver of all; neither do they live to Him, but the things of the world are instruments to draw out their lusts, to make them the more wicked. They take the good creatures of God, and abuse them to wickedness. The very air, the very earth, is weary of them; yea, the timber in the house, and the stones of the wall do witness against them; they are, by the things of the world, made more wicked. Lastly, they have not the world, because they have not an holy contentation of mind; they are not quiet or satisfied in their condition. (A. Burgess.)That godly men do only live, or the godly only do make a spiritual use of their life I. That only godly men live. First, the godly man only liveth, because he is united to God and Christ, the fountain of life. David doth often style God “ the fountain of life” (Psalms 36:9). And in His favour there is life. And in the New Testament, especially by John, Christ is made the Author of all life. Secondly, only the godly man liveth, because he hath a spiritual and a new life added to his animal life. Thirdly, the godly man only liveth, because he only hath the true blessedness and comfort of this life. He only hath true joy and peace of conscience, and this only the Scripture calls life. Fourthly, the godly only live, or life is theirs, because they only know how to improve the days of their life for God. Fifthly, life is only the godly man’ s, because he hath an interest in eternal life. He hath passed from death unto life (John 5:24). He shall never die that liveth this life. Sixthly, the godly man only liveth, because he taketh his life from God, and referreth it to His glory. “ Whether we live, we live to the Lord,” said Paul (Romans 14:8). Seventhly, the righteous only live, because they mortify and subdue those sins that kill our bodies, that take away our lives. Lastly, the godly man only liveth, because, even in the last breathings of this life, his hopes and comforts do most remain. “ The righteous hath hope in his death” (Proverbs 14:32). And this hope is called a lively hope. II. How can it be said that the wicked do not live, when they are said to have their portion chiefly in this life? 1. They are dead in their sins, and hereby their faith, their religion, their Christianity is all dead. 2. They do not live, because they are in a condemned estate; they are appointed to wrath. 3. They do not live, because all their time is lost, so all the time of a man’ s unregeneracy is no life. 4. They make everything an instrument of death--their health, their wealth, their honours, are all deadly herbs in the pot; their tongue speaks the words of death; their hands work the works of death. (A. Burgess.)The world is yours 1. It is useful as well as curious to observe under what different aspects the world is surveyed by different persons. The politician considers it as the scene of political changes; the soldier, as the field of war; the man of business, as the place for the acquisition of wealth; the gay and dissolute estimate it by its pleasures. 2. But each of these estimates is essentially erroneous. The Word of God affords the only criterion by which we can form a just judgment of the world. Instructed, therefore, by the light of Scripture, the Christian looks upon the world as fallen, and under a curse; but by the same Divine light he discovers that God, in His great mercy, has sent His Son into the world to save and raise it. 3. Every Christian, therefore, views the present world not merely as it is in itself, but as it is connected with this great plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. Its aspect is thus totally changed; it becomes a school of discipline, in which God places the heirs of salvation for their improvement and growth in grace; a theatre of instruction, in which are continually exhibited striking, examples of the truth and excellency of God’ s precepts, the vanity of earthly pursuits, and the folly and evil of sin; a scene for the display of the bounty and goodness of God to those whom Christ has received as His disciples. 4. Thus “ the world is yours.” It is intended for your use; it is adorned for your enjoyment; it was never formed to gratify the purposes of ambition, to satiate the lust of wealth, to be a scene of dissipation and unhallowed pleasure. The world is abused whenever it is used for these purposes. But yours is the world who use it for those ends for which its gracious Creator formed it; who survey its scenery, its mountains, &c.; and feel that they are yours because they were made by your Father. The world is yours who receive the bounty of Heaven with a thankful heart, and employ it, as God has intended, to your own lawful advantage and the good of ethers. The world is yours to enjoy it with moderation, thankful for the conveniences it affords you while a pilgrim and a stranger in it, in your way to a better and heavenly country. The world is yours who enjoy the blessing of God upon all your possessions and occupations in it, and possess in your souls “ the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” (J. Venn, M. A.)Christ and nature I. Let us seek to establish the truth of the text--that the world is ours. Many ridicule this assertion. The conception that the earth was the centre of the universe has been entirely disproved. Now, man imagines himself to be the centre of the universe of things, the end for which the whole creation has groaned and travailed through countless ages, and groans and travails still. This view is declared to be an insane egotism. Let us see.1. The world is realised only in man. It was only a mass of dark force, a dance of atoms, a whirlpool of vibrations, until Adam came. The universe is revealed only in the sense and in the thought of humanity. 2. The world is comprehended only by man. Geology makes the world of the past ours; astronomy makes the worlds above our head ours; a score of sciences make the world at our feet ours. The world is ours, for we comprehend its laws, perceive its unity, mark its developments, rejoice in all its wonderful movements and manifestations. A thing is pre-eminently made for the mind which comprehends it. 3. The world is claimed only by man. Man instinctively acts as if the whole world belonged to him. Ages ago the Psalmist celebrated the splendid sovereignty of man: “ Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.” And the fact is not less apparent to-day. Each living creature keeps within its narrow world, but men with telescope, microscope, spectroscope, go forth to claim the wide universe. If men acknowledge that the material realm has a centre, a master, an end, they are compelled to recognise that humanity alone meets the requirements of the case. If you take away man you must put what is inferior in his place. II. Let us show how in Christ we realise our property in created things. “ We see not yet all things put under” man. He has dropped the sceptre, or it has been wrested from him. But in Christ the government of the world is being restored to us. To illustrate this, look at--1. The Christian creed. (1) About God. In Egypt, in Greece, in Rome, the powers of nature were regarded as Divine, and the God that is above was denied (Job 31:26-28). Now, Christianity delivers us from this tyranny of superstition, by making manifest to us “ the God that is above.” “ You are the world’ s,” says a sceptical science, reducing us to a sad idolatry, a sad slavery. The world, like fire, is a grand servant, but a bad master. “ You are God’ s,” says Christ. He fixes our eye on the God of heaven; He tells us that God made the world for us, that He rules it for us, and just as we hold to that doctrine and serve God, so shall the world be ours, ministering to our utmost satisfaction of soul and sense. (2) About man. Some of our teachers love to exalt nature at the expense of man. They remind us of the vastness, force, and duration of the universe, as against our limitation, weakness, and mortality. And when they have done this, it is easy to add: “ You are the world’ s; it is everything, you are nothing.” But Christianity asserts with mighty emphasis the dignity of human nature. There is an element in us that is not in the universe; an element vaster, for it dreams of infinity; stronger, for it forces nature to do its bidding; more abiding, for it claims immortality. The dignity of man has been demonstrated by the fact of the Incarnation. God will see a sun go out as we see a spark, but Bethlehem and Calvary declare that the redemption of the soul is precious. 2. Christian character. What humanity has lost of authority over nature through ignorance, lust, pride, sloth, covetousness, violence, cruelty, it shall recover through Christ in humility, kindness, wisdom, earnestness, truth, and love. Through righteousness shall we become heirs of the world. More righteousness, and our dominion shall extend over the vast, wild, mysterious forces of the material universe; more righteousness, and the birds of the air, the beasts of the field shall become our loyal subjects as we do not now dream; more righteousness, and desert places shall blossom as the rose. 3. Christian civilisation. (1) How does it come to pass that science should have attained to such perfection in Christendom? Science sprang up ages ago in China, but it soon became an aborted, arrested thing; it flashed out with the Moors, only to sink again into the darkness of paganism. How is it that it is not found where Buddhism reigns, or Confucianism, or Mohammedanism? Christ has girded our scientific men, although some of them know Him not. The glorious science which is making the world ours, is ours because Christ is ours. (2) How does it come to pass that the commerce, which is realising the riches of the world, should have sprung up and come to such wonderful perfection in Christendom? It is because Christ has set up amongst us the kingdom of God and His righteousness that all things are being added unto us. Conclusion-- 1. If the world is ours, let us carefully claim it. There would be less “ godless science” if religious people more directly and fully put in their claim to nature. If you notice a piece of unclaimed ground anywhere, somebody will shoot his rubbish there; and so if we neglect to claim nature for God, an atheistical science will soon accumulate its rubbish there. Be sure you realise all that creation will give and teach. Enjoy all its physical fruits and treasures so far as they may be given unto you. Then, remember its intellectual ministry. It is to enrich thought, to exalt and expand the mind, to kindle the imagination and feeling. But, above and beyond all this, nature has a ministry to our spirit. Our Lord showed us this. What lessons He found in the lily and in the bird! &c. “ The world is ours.” It is a magazine of instruments for our service; it is a school full of diagrams for our instruction; it is a sanctuary whose grand symbols, properly interpreted, are sacraments indeed. Man was not made for the world, but the world for man, and we must be careful to realise all the wealth and blessing of our great inheritance. 2. Does any one object, “ But this proprietorship is all visionary--how can a man without a foot of land say, the world is mine?” To say that the fields and hills are ours only when we have certain parchments made out in our name, and locked up in our iron safe, that is the artificial proprietorship. That is truly ours which enlarges our mind, rejoices our heart, purifies our life. (W. L. Watkinson.)Or life, or death.--Life and death are yours I. Life is yours.1. It is obvious that St. Paul does not mean that any one is supreme over the events or circumstances of his life. Save in so far as virtue conducts to health and prosperity, there is, in this sense, but one end and course to the righteous and the wicked. 2. St. John wrote in Patmos, “ He hath made us kings.” This royalty was untouched by transportation and imprisonment. This is a sufficient commentary upon the text. Life is yours still, whatever its condition. You are not its slave because it is adverse. The man who can say, “ I have learned the great secret, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” ; “ I am in the hand of God, and God is my Father” --is a king in reference to that life, and every part of it. But this empire of the man over his own life is the privilege of him alone who recognises Christ’ s empire over him. “ Life is yours, and ye are Christ’ s.” Give yourself to Him, and then life is yours. (1) For enjoyment. A Christian living his Christianity is a happy man. He has a sense of safety, of independence, of dignity, and of tranquility, in his life; and those two other delightful things, the sense of being cared for, and the sense of having a secret “ For the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him” --a secret of explanation, and (better still) of confidence, between himself and One “ whom to know is eternal life” --which must give a joy to the most sorrowful of his experiences, and fully justify, in point of happiness, the apostle’ s saying to him “ Life is yours.” (2) For improvement. If to be conscious of growth in anything, knowledge of a language, or skill in a game, or insight into a science, &c., is one of the purest pleasures of which this human nature is capable--what must it be to know oneself the recipient of Divine grace, for illimitable progress in all that is beautiful and lovely and of good report? (3) For communication. When once the thought has entered, “ I am not my own, I am Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s,” with it there comes the recollection, I am not only the recipient, I am also the transmitter of life. You can help others to live. Your very look and voice may be a help to them. Your happiness, strength, integrity, loving and holy influence, may, through grace, quicken into newness of life some dead soul. II. Death is yours.1. Who shall echo this? Who that has seen death can do so with any feeling of truth? No, rather we say, as St. Paul (in a different connexion) says, Death reigns. Death is the limit of our free action, as well as the terminus of our long journey. All may be ours up to death, but not further. 2. How shall we interpret this which is here written as to our ownership of death? (1) Your own death is yours. (a) Death is the master of the fallen being, as fallen. It makes every plan precarious. How soon must this right hand lose its cunning! There is not a purchase which can be more than a few years’ possession, because of this reign of death over the individual. Hence that feverish eagerness in crowding two years’ work or ten years’ work into one. (b) It is into existences thus circumstanced that St. Paul bears the startling explanation of the gospel, “ Death is yours.” Instead of thus cowering and grovelling before the grim phantom, play the man. Death is yours. Take it betimes for your possession, and it shall be great gain. Look to it as the goal and prize of your being; expect it as the admission into a presence which is the fulness of joy, and you will find its very name and nature transfigured. See it as the gate of life, and it shall be yours, not you its, while you live; and it shall be yours, not you its, when you come to die. (2) The death of others is yours. (a) We are apt, by fallen nature, to see ourselves cruelly vanquished by the onslaught of death upon those we love. Many who could face their own death with something better than fortitude, are yet conquered by death when he assails them through another. (b) Yet in Christ we still own the dead. They are ours, not in hope only of reunion, but in possession too and fruition. Our richest stores of all must surely be those which are the most safely garnered. Our most real heirlooms are the memories and the affections of the dead. Death has set his seal upon them. What they were, in faith and patience, in wisdom and beauty, in grace and love--that are they for ever, that are they to us. (Dean Vaughan.)Christ and life We maintain that life is ours as against-- I. The fatalist, who teaches that we are the slaves of time, place, organisation, and circumstance. Our personal life is sacrificed to the exigencies of nature and humanity; just as the Egyptian tyrant made slaves of the Israelites, and compelled them to build the pyramids, so we are simply tools in the hands of necessity, building strange structures which at last are sepulchres. In opposition to this, the apostle declares that “ life is ours” --our servant, with a hundred hands, enriching us with measureless blessings. Christ liberates us from the bondage of the outside world. Science is man asserting his liberty as against nature; history is man asserting his liberty as against the despotism of climate, situation, and material fortune; and Christian life is man asserting his personal liberty as against hereditary influences and current circumstances, and using these in such a way that they build up his character in the full power and beauty of righteousness. Man apart from Christ is too often the manifest creature of circumstances--success inflates him; failure crushes him; darkness makes a worm of him; and sunshine a butterfly. But in Christ life becomes ours, and we use it towards the attainment of that ideal moral perfection which is the mark of the prize of our high calling. You are not the poor vassals of outside forces, you are not sacrificed to the type, you are not insignificant as the coral worm which builds the reef and perishes in the depths, you are free to use the world, and to be served by it in the very largest and grandest sense. The bee does not find honey in every flower, nor the diver a gem in every shell, but in Christ all things are yours, and every emotion within, every action and circumstance without, shall strengthen and refine. II. The pessimist, who holds that life is our foe, that to live is a misfortune. It is little matter whether you are rich or poor; life is weeping; the rich man wipes his eyes with a silk, the poor man with a cotton handkerchief, and it doesn’ t much matter. It is little matter whether you are wise or ignorant; perhaps it is better to be ignorant, since he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Froude writes of Carlyle, “ Every day he told me he was weary of life, and spoke wistfully of the old Roman method. Increasing weakness only partially tamed him into patience, or reconciled him to an existence which, even at its best, he had more despised than valued.” John S. Mill says his father “ thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by … He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having; but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility.” Miss Martineau says, “ You will feel at once how earnestly I must be longing for death--I, who never loved life, and who would any day of my life have rather departed than stayed. Well! it can hardly go on very well much longer now. But I do wish it was permitted to us to judge for ourselves a little how long we ought to carry on the task which we never desired and could not refuse.” That is, she wishes that suicide were permitted. “ The world’ s winter is going, I hope, but my everlasting winter has set in.” Thus sadly wrote George Eliot. Now, in opposition to all this, the text declares that in Christ “ life is ours.” The New Testament everywhere holds human life as a precious and blessed thing. Not that Christianity fails to recognise the sad element in human life. Yet, in face of a groaning and wailing creation, it maintains that life is the crowning benediction, to be prized by us all, to be held fast with gratitude and wonder and hope. And living in Christ we prove that life is a blessing. Christ makes man to rejoice in life--1. By discovering a great purpose in it--the perfection of our immortal spirit, through the love of God and the keeping of His commandments. Here is something to live for. 2. By putting a great strength into it. “ I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.” 3. By putting a great love into it. The great curse of life is egotism, selfishness. If our pessimists would only leave their selfish moonings and lay themselves out to help, and bless all who are about them, it would soon change their philosophy. III. The sensualist. There is an idea abroad that life belongs to the man who lives to the end of self-indulgence. To see the world of animal indulgence is spoken of as “ seeing life.” One following a course of licence is said to be “ fond of life.” Such life is called “ fast life,” “ gay life,” and those who live it say to the Christian, “ You have some advantage now, you have also great expectations beyond, but surely this life here and now is ours.” This we deny. Life, here and now, is ours--it is our inheritance who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. A man who merely lives on the carnal side misses the real depth and fulness of life. You may say that the Greenlander is alive, and that he enjoys life; but what a different thing from the life of Europe! And the spiritual life of man goes still beyond. Now, the man who knows not this life, knows not the true life of man--living for meat and drink and raiment, he is dead while he liveth. To be carnally minded is death--the death even now of the finer faculties of the living soul. Christ enables us to realise life in all its fulness.1. The life of the senses is ours in Christ. He is “ the Lord of the body,” and as we live to Him the sensational life becomes ours. The very restraint and moderation which the Christian creed imposes on all material enjoyment only puts us in fuller possession of that enjoyment. We lose our life to find it. 2. Christ leaves us free to expatiate through the whole intellectual world. 3. And, most of all, He brings out that Divine nature of ours in which we most truly and gloriously live. As the summer shines on the landscape, and brings green leaves out of the barren stems, full flowers from the sleeping bulbs, singing birds from the silent woods, a world of sweet smells and bright colours and rich music, so Christ acts upon human nature, realising its instincts, its faculties, its powers, making it to blossom as the rose, to stretch its wings like the eagle, to thrill with joyous feeling as the harp with many strings. Our modern poet tells that “ more life and fuller” is what we most need. Surely we find this in Christ. He came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. IV. The ascetic, who denies to the Christian the pleasures of life; he considers that the more meagre, starved, and sad our life is, the safer and better it is, and the nearer to the true ideal. Let us remember that in Christ “ life is ours” --all good, bright, glad things. And life shall be ever brighter with us to the perfect day. True life implies constant renunciation, but it implies also constant acquisition. We do not so much put away joy and gladness, as we keep changing one joy for a higher, one glory for a fuller, one gift for a more excellent gift. Christian life often involves self-denial; but every act of renunciation is followed by the acquisition of a strength and treasure, a beauty and blessedness, altogether more deep and precious. (W. L. Watkinson.)Death is yours Death is the property of the Christian-- I. As bringing a conclusion to all his sorrows. It is, to the Christian, the Red Sea, where all pursuing enemies are arrested and perish--the confines of Canaan, where the wilderness, with all its privations and perils, terminates--the perfect sleep, in which the toils of the day are all forgotten, not a dream even, or floating reminiscence, disturbing its composure. II. As forming the introduction to his heavenly joys. When Hannibal was conducting his troops through Alpine heights, before deemed impassable, and they were ready to yield in despair amid the snows and crags and gulfs which surrounded them, he found it sufficient for their reinvigoration to tell them of the fertile Italy they were triumphantly to subdue. Be the boundary of life, then, ever so steep, frowning, and unproved, should not the prospect of Canaan suffice to sustain us amid all its wilds and terrors? We must not judge of what death is to the departing soul by what it is to the survivors. Elisha prayed that his servant’ s eyes might be opened to see the defence by which they were encompassed. Were a similar prayer to be heard on behalf of Christians lamenting the departure of friends, a sight would be exhibited superior at once in its glory and its efficacy. III. As itself contributing to his present and future well-being. 1. The Greeks and Romans had an adage that no man should be accounted happy till he was dead--thus indicating that a desirable end was a chief element of happiness. But in the connection of our text we have death classed with the present possessions of the Christian, subordinated to his interests, and enhancing life itself by augmenting holiness, usefulness, and reward. Paul says (Acts 20:24), “ But none of these things (trials, &c.) move me; neither count I,” &c. And so the last stage, anticipated and realised, gives energy to prior stages; and life, while it lasts, is turned to account, and rendered more vital and vitalising, through that solemn change beheld in the vista (2 Peter 1:13, &c.). 2. Death is serviceable to the Christian not only in prospect, but also at the time it befalls him, in affording him occasion for the greatest of victories. There is not, indeed, always the same manifestation of triumph; but it comes effectually and seasonably. “ Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory,” &c. In case entrance to heaven be abundant, then indeed is grace specially magnified, and the soul in which it dwells is blessed in its commendation. We have not many accounts of death-bed scenes and experiences in the New Testament. Still examples are given us which verify the exclamation, “ Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace!” Nothing in all Stephen’ s foregoing service was so serviceable to the cause of the gospel as his martyrdom, and on the very border of sealing his testimony with his blood Paul said, “ I am now ready to be offered,” &c. Come, ye devotees of pleasure, and witness such spectacles; and say if all your cravings for delight can find anything to equal this transport! Welt may it extort from a very Balaam the aspiration, “ Let me die the death of the righteous.” It will be eternally good for the Christian to have died. He will thereby be made more like to the Saviour. Think, too, what eternal life will gain by contrast with this. Conclusion: The practical lesson of all is to make sure of death being ours. With multitudes the great aim is to secure benefits of which death will despoil them. By all their acquisitions they are only extending the ravages of the King of Terrors. Be it your aim to coerce hostility into friendship, and make the very spoiler yours. (D. King. LL. D.)Death is yours I. The forerunners of death are for our advantage. These, indeed, are often not joyous but grievous at first, but afterwards yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. In common life we often consider those things which are attended with a very considerable degree of pain, as advantageous, because they are so in their results. For instance, a man suffers the amputation of a limb, because he hopes that the operation will be productive of good: and so it is eventually; life is spared. Now, on the same principle, but on higher grounds, we should learn to submit to those afflictions, whatever they may be, that are the precursors of death, to put us in mind that the great destroyer is on his way. “ Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,” &c. II. All the circumstances of death are for our advantage--time and place and manner. “ My times are in Thy hand.” And we know that God’ s time is the best; and the place, too, in which we shall expire, and the manner of our death--both will be of Divine appointment, and will prove to be the best. The manner of your death--whether it be natural or violent--whether it be a sudden death, or preceded by a lingering and distressing illness--all these things are ordered by the Lord. III. The consequences of death are for our advantage. I do not wonder that people are unwilling to think of death who have not a good hope through grace; but the heir of eternal life can look forward beyond all the dark clouds that intervene between him and the consummation of his happiness, and “ rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” “ Death is yours,” if you are members of Christ, for your advantage 1. Because there will then be an end of all evil--not only moral evil, or sin, but all natural, inward suffering. 2. Because as soon as it takes place, your happy spirits, disentangled from the encumbrance of these tenements of clay, enter into eternal rest. (J. Entwisle.)Death an advantage to the Christian Death is ours-- I. As the means of deliverance from all the inconsistencies and sinfulness of time. Select any of the people of God whose lives are recorded in the Word of God, and how often have we reason to deplore their inconsistencies! But for death this would be the eternity of their history. II. As the means of delivering us from all weakness and imperfection, whether of body or of mind. III. As the means of relieving us from the isolated position which we occupy in this world. About the angels we know nothing; we are separated from them. What do we know about the immediate presence of God; the joys of a glorious immortality; the power of the fellowship that is formed around the everlasting throne? By death we enter into the universal region of the good. Conclusion: Sinner, death is not yours--he brings you no benefit. You are his victim. He comes as the messenger of justice to lead you to the judgment seat, to hear the doom which you are to undergo, world without end. Painful as your pilgrimage on earth may be, it is your highest happiness. Your happiness must terminate with its close. You are death’ s, and when death seizes you, instead of delivering you from your sins and imperfections, all your sins and imperfections are confirmed for ever. (J. Burnett.)Death, the privilege of the believer “ Death is yours” if you look at it-- I. In reference to others.1. It is so when you seriously regard its universal appointment. There are multitudes who acknowledge this mournful fact, but who derive no advantage whatever from the solemn occurrence. It is otherwise with the Christian; he beholds a number of lessons which, by Divine grace, he is enabled to learn. (1) He sees the evil and malignity of sin; for there is no rational explanation of the cause of death, but as a penalty due to the violated law of God. (2) He discovers, also, that “ the creature is made subject to vanity” ; for it is not the old and decrepid alone who die. 2. It is so when you are impressed by the deaths of particular characters. (1) When “ the wicked is driven away in his wickedness,” he is shocked to reflect on their awful doom, and makes the earnest appeal, “ Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men.” (2) When he hears of the righteous who have expired in the expression of a firm faith and joyful hope of immortality, he pours forth the fervent petition, “ May I die the death of the righteous, and may my last end be like his.” There is also something in the aspect of the death-bed experience of many a fellow-Christian which has a tendency to banish the fears and animate the holy courage of the fellow-believer. II. In reference to ourselves. “ Death is yours,” as it is--1. A complete deliverance from sin.2. A final termination of suffering.3. A retreat from injurious and distressing associations.4. Secures your admission to the enjoyment of all possible good. (J. Clayton.)Death for the advantage of the good Let us consider in how many particulars death is a godly man’ s; it is for his benefit and comfort. And first, in this respect, because by death he gaineth, he is invested with greater glory, joy, and happiness than this world can afford. All the while a godly man liveth in this world he is a loser, he is kept from his best treasures, he is not enjoying his best blessings, which will be vouchsafed to him. The apostle doth fully express it (2 Corinthians 5:4). We would gladly be clothed with immortality, yet to put off this mortal body is grievous; as little children cry for their new garments, and yet cry while they are putting them on. Secondly, death is a godly man’ s, because it putteth a period to all those miseries and troubles he was here exercised with. It is the haven, after all the tossings he had in this world. Thirdly, death is theirs, because it is the finishing of all their works and service, and by that they come for their wages. How doth the labouring man long for the end of the day, or the week, that he may come to receive his wages? Fourthly, death is the godly man’ s, because the meditation and thoughts of it are sanctified to him. He liveth as one that expecteth it daily. Fifthly, death is the godly man’ s, because he only knoweth how to die well, as we told you. Life was his, because he only could tell how to live. So death is his, because he only knoweth how to die. Simeon saith (Luke 2:29). Sixthly, the godly man hath death as an advantage, if you respect the time and season of his death. His death is not only mercy, but the time of his death is mercy. The term of every man’ s life is appointed by God, “ To Him belong the issues of death” (Psalms 68:20). Now God in great wisdom and mercy hath determined the time of thy death. Lastly, even the violent death of martyrdom, which cometh by the cruel and bloody oppression of implacable enemies, that is theirs. It is a mercy, a gain, and honour. The apostles rejoiced that they were accounted worthy to lose what they had for Christ’ s sake. (A. Burgess.)Death of rude appearance, but welcome to the good Many a man has an ill-favoured countenance, is lean and haggard, pale and sallow, and mean in his attire, who yet, under an ungainly exterior, conceals great talents and virtues. Such is the case with death. Ah me! how much of what is good and sweet and blessed is concealed beneath its sour aspect and transient bitterness! It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery. As often as I think of death I figure to myself that I see a messenger coming from a distant land, bringing the good news of nay Saviour, the Bridegroom of my soul, and of the inheritance which He has purchased with His blood, and reserves for me in heaven. What care I although the messenger may have an ugly face, be armed with a long dart, wear a tattered coat, and knock rudely at my door? I attend less to his appearance than to his business. (Gotthold.)Death a blessing I congratulate you and myself that life is passing fast away. What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea, this delightful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. Oh, the expectation of living here and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair! But thanks be to that fatal decree that dooms us to die; thanks to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life; and thanks, above all, to that Saviour Friend who has promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of paradise and everlasting delight. (J Foster.)Death brings freedom to the good Mr. William Jenkyn, one of the ejected ministers in England, being imprisoned in Newgate, presented a petition to King Charles II. for a release, which was backed by an assurance from his physician that his life was in danger from his close imprisonment; but no other answer could be obtained than this: “ Jenkyn shall be a prisoner as long as he lives.” A nobleman hearing some time after of his death, said to the king, “ May it please your majesty, Jenkyn has got his liberty.” Upon which he asked, with eagerness, “ Ay! who gave it him?” The nobleman replied, “ A greater than your majesty--the King of kings” ; with which the king seemed greatly struck, and remained silent. (Scripture Doctrines Illustrated.)The Christians mastership over death Development in our life on earth is limited, as is the development of the bird in the egg. The bursting of the egg-shell is no disaster, but a relief and a profit. That breaking of the shell brings the bird into a world that is unspeakably more glorious. Death is our servant, not our master--through Christ an immeasurable blessing. Because-- I. It restores us more nearly to our friends who have gone beyond. II. It brings us nearer to Christ. III. It places us in a position more favourable for soul growth. IV. It increases our capacity for usefulness. Those who are faithful in this life in a few things, will be made in the life to come rulers over many things. V. As a consequence our happiness will be greatly augmented. (Homiletic Monthly.)Christ and death Christ makes death ours-- I. As He gives us assurance of the life beyond. If we consider death with the eye of the materialist we feel that we are death’ s. We are delivered helplessly into its cruel hands, and it strips us of everything. But Christ makes death ours by giving us the assurance of immortality.1. Men have an instinct of immortality. It has been found in the lowest savages, and in the most intellectual races. Very strange and diversified are the manifestations of this instinct, but that it exists in the human heart is beyond question. And this instinct we are bound to respect. “ But then,” says Mr. Darwin, “ arises the doubt, Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” Here he does his own theory injustice. Are not the instincts of the lower creatures on the whole marvellously correct? And, may we not ask with confidence, if the instinct of the caterpillar pointing to the butterfly, if the instinct of the swallow discerning far beyond the sea a land of sunshine and flowers, if these instincts prove no mockery, why should the instincts of human nature, pointing to a grand perfection in a world above and beyond, prove untrustworthy? 2. And reason has a powerful verdict to give on this question of our immortality. Even sceptical philosophers cannot do without this great doctrine. George Sand felt that without immortality there is a painful “ deficiency of proportion.” Darwin felt it “ an intolerable thought” that after such long-continued and costly progress we should all be annihilated. And Edgar Quinet concludes “ that, whilst the human race pursues on earth its career of perfection, the individual continues its parallel march in some place and in some form already prepared for it by Providence.” 3. But whilst human instinct and reason thus declare for immortality, the subject at last is left in deep uncertainty. It may be nothing more than guess-work and illusion. But when Christ comes all is changed. He makes eternity a fact. You cannot come into contact with Him without tasting the powers of the world to come. He brought life and immortality to light. It is the same change that we witness when we see alchemy changed into chemistry, astrology into astronomy, speculation into science. In Christ the dream becomes a reality, the inference a certainty, the desire knowledge and experience. Christ has shown us that through death we find “ more life and fuller,” even length of days for ever and ever. II. As he gives us fitness for the life beyond.1. We are sometimes disposed to consider the question of immortality as altogether an intellectual one; we think if we can only succeed in establishing it on logical grounds, that we have nothing more to do than to surrender ourselves to the mighty comfort. But the moral element enters very largely into it. It is conscience that makes death terrible, the unknown world so dark and dreadful. This Epistle goes to the depth of the thing: “ The sting of death is sin.” Without sin we might view death with the uneasiness with which we might suppose a caterpillar to view a chrysalis; but a wounded conscience brings in another element, and we shrink from death with sore amazement (see also Hebrews 2:14-15). If it had not been for sin we should have feared death only as a young bird fears to try its wings, but we fear death now as the bird fears the barbed arrow which drinks up its life. 2. It is very easy for us to see what a vast difference is made in our estimate of death whether we bring in or leave out the idea of guilt. Look at the death of a malefactor. How truly repulsive and terrible is death in such a case in all its circumstances! Consider, on the other hand, the death of a martyr. Here the material adjuncts are pretty much the same; but how different is the effect of the whole spectacle! The very same spectacle of death is a horror or a triumph according as you bring into it the idea of guilt or innocence, of infamy or glory. The consciousness of sin makes death an enemy. Because we are children of disobedience we are all our lifetime in bondage to the fear of death; we are debtors, there is an execution out against us for arrest, and we are always trembling lest the bony policeman should lay his cold grip upon us, saying, “ You are my prisoner,” and so shut us up in the prison till we have paid that uttermost farthing we never can pay. 3. Here once again Christ makes death ours. He changes death for us from the death of a malefactor to the death of a martyr. He takes away the guilt and power of sin. He satisfies the conscience as He does the intellect. And as He gives peace to the conscience He gives purity and life to the whole personality. Christ becomes the Resurrection and the Life, freeing us from the death of sin, awaking in us the life of righteousness, and so making us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Christ, so far as we gather from the New Testament, never saw any one die; I do not believe that any one else could have died in His presence; death cannot come where Christ is. Let Christ, then, be with you in your last hour, and death shall be swallowed up in victory. (W. L. Watkinson.)Spoiling the spoiler The believer stands with his heel on the neck of the king of terrors. Death is yours as-- I. A conquered foe transformed into a friend. A lion’ s carcass with the honeycomb in it. II. An opportunity to glorify God. The Christian’ s way of meeting death, not that of the Stoic glorifying his firmness, nor that of the sceptic glorifying his shame, but of the believer magnifying the grace of God. Showing forth Christ’ s power perfected in his weakness. III. A redeemer from servitude to the clayey body, and subjection to the discordant, tempting, crippling influence of the physical. IV. A convoy to heaven--a gateway to glory, a herald of coronation. The dawn of “ Graduation Day.” V. A boon. Rest to the tired pilgrim; harbour for the storm-tossed voyager; Sabbath eve to the working man. Conclusion: Faith in Christ is victory over death. (Homiletic Monthly.)Or things present.--Things present We reckon present things at the highest rate: “ A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” The little present, to our apprehension, eclipses the great past or the greater future. In the case of the true Christian-- I. His temporal possessions are his own. The ungodly man for awhile engrosses the good things of this life, but they are sent to him often in anger, and are taken away in wrath. As for you, whatever of earthly good the Lord has apportioned you, is in a most blessed manner your own; because--1. Honestly got. The Christian owns no stolen property or unrighteous gain. Dishonest persons may be rich, but none of their riches are in truth their own; like the jackdaw in the fable, they wear borrowed plumes. 2. Acknowledged to the great Giver with becoming gratitude. Gratitude is, as it were, the quit rent to the great superior owner, and until we discharge the claim, our goods are not lawfully ours in the court of heaven. 3. The due portion which belongs to God has been conscientiously consecrated. The tithing of the substance is the true title to it. It is not altogether thine till thou hast proved thy gratitude by thy proportionate gift to the cause of the Master. 4. We seek to be graciously guided in the use of them. They are not bestowed upon us absolutely; they are ours within the lines of law and gospel, within bounds of sobriety and holiness; not as masters, but as mercies. The benediction of heaven sweetens the lawful use of earthly goods. You are not required to play the ascetic. John came neither eating nor drinking; but the Son of man, who is your master, came both sating and drinking. There is no piety whatever in your accounting the gifts of Providence as necessarily temptations; you can make them so, but that is your folly and no fault of theirs. Vain are those who sneer at nature and the lavish bounty thereof. “ The earth is the Lord’ s and the fulness thereof.” It is no crime to enjoy the beauties of nature, but a sign of idiocy to be unaffected thereby. Fair scenes, sweet sounds, balmy odours, and fresh gales, your Father sends them to you, take them and be thankful. Let us note well, before we leave this point, that any of God’ s saints who have but little of this world’ s goods, may yet remember that all things are theirs, so that up to the measure of their necessities God will be quite sure to afford them sustenance. The Lord is your shepherd, and you shall not want. II. Temporal trials.1. Tribulations are treasures. Saints gain more by their losses than by their profits. Your present trials are yours-- (1) As medicine. You need that your soul, like your body, should be dealt with by the beloved Physician. (2) As means of strength. No man becomes a veteran except by practice in arms. Experience worketh patience, and patience brings with it a train of virtues. (3) As windows, through which we get the clearest views of Christ. Do you understand what it is to come up to Christ’ s Cross, and to be conformed unto His death? It is only as you do this that you will have fellowship with Jesus, and understand what His love was towards you. 2. You who are cross-bearers, I would remind you for your comfort-- (1) That you have to bear the cross, but not the curse. Your Lord endured both. The penal result of sin Christ has exhausted, and now the cross that comes to you is garlanded with love. (2) That your Lord sends you a cross, but not a crush. Your cross is proportioned to your strength. (3) That your cross is not a loss. It shall only be a putting out to interest that which is taken from you that it may be returned anon with usury. III. All our circumstantial surroundings. These are ours as subservient to our usefulness. You wish to win souls, and say, “ I wish I were a minister” ; but you have a family round about you, and you have to keep to that farm, to manage the shop. Now the position you occupy is, all things considered, the most advantageous for doing your utmost for the glory of God. Suppose the mole should cry, “ How I could have honoured the great Creator if I could have been allowed to fly it would be very foolish, for a mole flying would have been a very ridiculous object, while a mole fashioning its tunnels and casting up its castles is viewed with admiring wonder by the naturalist, who perceives its remarkable suitability to its sphere. The fish might say, “ How could I display the wisdom of God if I could sing, or mount a tree, like a bird!” But you know a fish in a tree would be a very grotesque affair; but when the fish cuts the wave with agile fin, all who have observed it say how wonderfully it is adapted to its habitat. It is just so with you. If you begin to say, “ I cannot glorify God where I am, and as I am,” I answer, neither could you anywhere. “ But I have a large family,” says one, “ what can I do?” Train them in the fear of God. “ I work in a large factory with ungodly men, what can I do?” Needless inquiry! What cannot the salt do when it is cast among the meat? “ I am sick,” says another; “ I am chained to the bed of languishing.” But your patience will magnify the power of grace, and your words of experience will enrich those who listen to you. Look at the seaman out at sea! does he sit down and fret because the wind will not blow from the quarter that he would most prefer? No; he tacks about and catches every capful of wind that can be of use to him, and so reaches the haven at last. Look at a good commander, if he occupies a bad position, he turns that to account, and often makes the worse become the better. IV. Spiritual privileges. 1. The favour of God is not for heaven only; it is ours to-day. Adoption into His family is for this present time. 2. Christ is present, and He is ours. We have a “ fountain filled with blood,” which puts away all sin; a mercy-seat where all prayer is prevalent; an Intercessor who takes our prayers and offers them. 3. The Holy Ghost, too, is present, and He brings you present enlightenment, guidance, strength, consolation. 4. And if there be any promise to-day written in the Word of God, any blessing to-day guaranteed to the elect family, any mindfulness of Providence, or any abundance of grace, all these are yours, and yours now. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ and the present That things above, that things beyond, may belong to the Christian is welt understood; the sceptic with a smile will allow this; but that “ things present” are ours in Christ is not so well understood. Observe, however-- I. That the faith of Christ secures to us “ things present.” It is a common complaint of secularism that the tendency of supernatural religion is to withdraw our attention from the immediate practical world, and to waste our time and powers on mere figments of the imagination. And it is a very common thing for secular writers to point to the mediaeval age for the demonstration of their position, and to assert that civilisation was saved only by the Renaissance calling man’ s energies from the unknowable to the knowable, from heaven to earth. Now this is capable of a satisfactory reply.1. We appeal from a corrupt to a pure Christianity. Surely none would compare the positive science of astronomy with the obscure divinations and horoscopes of astrology. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 3:23 And ye are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.Ye are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s I. “ Christ is God’ s.” To understand this high saying we must remember that Christ is God. But Christ is man also. As Man, Christ is God’ s great Agent for man in every respect.1. He is God’ s Messenger, God’ s Witness, to reveal the mind and heart of God towards fallen men. His whole life is an index by which you may read the secret spring of love divine; in Him “ God is love.” 2. He is God’ s Servant--obedient in life, “ obedient unto death.” 3. He is God’ s Priest--the One only “ Mediator between God and men,” who “ ever liveth to make intercession for them.” 4. He is God’ s King, reigning now invisibly in truth, and to reign in due time visibly in righteousness over the whole earth. II. “ ye are christ’ s.”1. By creation, in common with all things. “ All things were made by Him,” &c. 2. By purchase, in common with all mankind. He “ tasted death for every man.” 3. By ordinance, in common with all Christendom. 4. By gift from God the Father. 5. By the secret power of the eternal Spirit working in due season, according to the purpose and plan of God. 6. In the enjoyment of a friendship and fellowship such as no other friendship can equal. (H. McNeile, D. D.)That a godly man in all that he is, or can do, is wholly Christ’ s Where we may observe the apostle in a climax rising higher, “ All things are yours, you are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.” So that the highest round in this ladder teacheth to heaven as Jacob’ s did, and the lowest one is in the earth. “ All things are yours,” there is your privilege; but “ you are Christ’ s,” there is your duty; even to see that whatever you are, or can do, it be in reverence to Him. So all things are for the godly, and the godly is for Christ. I. Let us consider in what respects the godly man is Christ’ s.1. He is bought and purchased by His blood, so that he oweth all his being, comforts, and privileges to Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). So then, well may the godly man be said to be Christ’ s, for he cometh to be His at a dear rate. Never did king get subject, or master a servant, at so dear a price as Christ obtained thee. 2. The godly they are Christ’ s because by His Spirit they are made new creatures. They have a new being. For it cannot be theft any should be Christ’ s who live in the flesh and are carnally minded. 3. They are Christ’ s because He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He is the Alpha; He is the Author and Fountain of all the spiritual good we have; and the apostle calls Him “ the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). It is He that giveth life and motion and all spiritual strength to us. Now every effect is more the cause’ s than it is its own. Seeing, therefore, thou hast no good but what thou hast received from Christ, thou art wholly to depend on Him, as the stream is on the fountain, as the light is on the sun--for take them away and these immediately perish. We are not to live to ourselves, but to Him (Galatians 3:20). All our graces are to carry us out of ourselves to Christ, our faith in Christ, our love and affections to be pitched on Christ. 4. We are Christ’ s in that all our Christian completeness is in Him (Colossians 1:19). It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell. The privileges of justification, and adoption, and sanctification, that we have by Him, are to be more than meat or drink unto us.5. We are Christ’ s because we are wholly to be disposed by Him in all conditions, in all exercises and temptations. For Christ being made a Lord and King over us, He orders us in all things. II. Now in the next place let us consider some characters or properties of such as are Christ’ s.1. They desire more knowledge of Him, more acquaintance with Him; they prize Him above all worldly things (Philippians 3:8). 2. Those that are Christ’ s abhor and have no communion with any sin or wickedness, because that only Christ hateth. 3. Those that are Christ’ s, they live not to themselves but to Him. They please not themselves or others in a sinful way. Exhortation to those who are Christ’ s to be self-denying, to take up Christ’ s cross, to love Him more than all they have; for Christ is not for thee, but thou for Christ. (A. Burgess.)Christ is God’ s Now the doctrine speaks of Christ both in respect of His human nature, and as He is a Mediator--not as God. Let us see, then, how Christ as a man and as a Mediator is God’ s.1. His incarnation and coming into the world, it was not for Himself but for God. 2. That Christ is God’ s appeareth, in that He acknowledgeth His doctrine and truth not to be His, but His Father’ s, taking all off from Himself, and making Himself only a minister or ambassador in His Father’ s Name, and revealing His will (John 8:26; John 8:28; John 7:16). 3. That Christ is wholly God’ s appeareth in that as the doctrine He preached was the Father’ s, so He sought not His own glory, did not exalt Himself but the Father (John 8:29; John 17:4). 4. That Christ is wholly God’ s appeareth in that obediential resignation of Himself to do God’ s will (John 17:4). (A. Burgess.)Ye are Christ’ s means that we are dependent on Him and belong to Him. Note-- I. Christ’ s proprietorship.1. In this is involved the denial-- (1) That we are our own. We do not belong to ourselves in the sense that our own advantage can be the legitimate end of our pursuit, or that our will can be the legitimate rule of our conduct. (2) That we belong to the world, parents, friends, country, mankind in either of the above senses; that their good or their will can be the legitimate end or rule. (3) That we belong to the Church. It is a fatal error to live for and be governed by the Church, and know no higher end or rule or duty. 2. Positively the declaration includes that we are Christ’ s in such a sense that His glory is the end and His will the rule of our life. He, and He alone, has the right to us. To Him, and to Him alone, is devotion and submission due. II. Its basis.1. Not specially creation, for as creatures we belong to the Triune God. 2. But-- (1) Gift. From countless orders of creatures the people of Christ were given Him, in the counsels of eternity, as a peculium, a speciality, in which He was to have exclusive right. God as Sovereign of the universe can give what He pleases, and His will is the only real and stable ground of property or possession. (2) Purchase. (a) This gives the right of property as founded on justice. (b) The purchase involving redemption from infinite evil gives the higher and tenderer obligation of gratitude. (c) The price paid being His own precious blood it gives the highest of all obligations, that of love. (3) Conquest. We were the captives of Satan. Christ has destroyed his power and delivered us who were led captive at his will. III. Its various forms. We are--1. The servants of Christ, which expresses the relation as founded in justice. We are bound as His δούλοι to live for Him and obey Him. 2. His bride. This includes the ideas of-- (1) Exclusive possession.(2) Preference and peculiar love.(3) Perfect community of interest. 3. His friends, bound to Him by mutual love and confidence. 4. His body. Nothing is so intimately a man’ s own as his body. It has a common life and consciousness with him. The pains and pleasures of the body are our own pains and pleasures. It has a common interest and destiny with us. So are we bound to Christ in all these ways. This is the nearest relationship of all. IV. The blessedness resulting from it.1. Security. If we belong to Christ as His servants, &c., we are secure for time and eternity. 2. Participation in Christ’ s excellence, both as to soul and body--in His happiness, glory, and dominion. V. Duties.1. That we should act worthy of this relation. Remember that we belong neither to ourselves nor the world, but only to Christ. 2. Contentment. We may well be satisfied if we are Christ’ s, for all things are ours. 3. Joyful anticipation of Christ’ s coming. (C. Hodge, D. D.)Ye are Christ’ s You are His-- I. By donation; for the Father gave you to the Son. II. By purchase; for He counted down the price for your redemption. III. By dedication; for you have consecrated yourself to Him. IV. By relation; for you are named by His name, and made one of His brethren and joint heirs. Application--Labour practically to show the world that you are--(1) The servant.(2) The friend.(3) The bride of Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The possession A gentleman one day took an acquaintance to the top of his house to show him the extent of his possessions. Waving his hand about, “ There,” said he, “ that is my estate.” Then pointing to a great distance on one side, “ Do you see that farm?” “ Yes.” “ Well, that is mine.” Pointing again to the other side, “ Do you see that house?” “ Yes.” “ That also belongs to me.” “ Then,” said his friend, “ do you see that little village out yonder?” “ Yes.” “ Well, there lives a poor woman in that village who can say more than all this.” “ Ay! what can she say?” “ Why, she can say, ‘ Christ is mine.’” He looked confounded, and said no more. 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. The ministry So keenly alive is Paul to the danger and folly of party-spirit, that he has still one more word of rebuke to utter. I. Paul and the rest were servants and stewards.1. The question therefore was, were they faithful? not, were they eloquent or philosophical? Criticism no preacher need expect to escape. Sometimes one might suppose sermons were of no other use than to furnish material for discussion. But who shall say which style is most edifying to the Church and which teacher is most faithfully serving his Master? 2. With him who is conscious that he must give account to his Master, “ it is a very small thing to be judged of man’ s judgment,” whether for applause or condemnation. A teacher who thinks for himself is compelled to utter truths which he knows will be misunderstood by many; but so long as he is conscious of his fidelity this does not trouble him. And, on the other hand, the applause of men comes to him only as a reminder that there is no finality in man’ s judgment, and that it is only Christ’ s approval which avails to give permanent satisfaction. II. Great difficulty has always been experienced in tracing the similarities and distinctions between the apostles and the ordinary ministry, and had Paul been writing in our own day he would have spoken more definitely. For what makes union hopeless in Christendom at present is not that parties are formed round individual leaders, but that Churches are based on diametrically opposed opinions regarding the ministry itself.1. As in the State a prince, though legitimate, does not succeed to the throne without formal coronation, so in the Church there is needed a formal recognition of the title which any one claims to office. 2. It would therefore seem to be every one’ s duty to inquire, before he gives himself to another profession or business, whether Christ is not claiming him to serve in His Church. III. Paul concludes this portion of his Epistle with a pathetic comparison of his condition as an apostle with the condition of those in Corinth who were glorying in this or that teacher (1 Corinthians 4:8). With the frothy spirit of young converts, they are full of a triumph which they despise Paul for not inculcating. While they thus triumphed, he who had begotten them in Christ was being treated as the offscouring and filth of the world.1. Paul can only compare himself and the other apostles to those gladiators who came into the arena last, after the spectators had been sated with bloodless performances (1 Corinthians 4:9). While others sat comfortably looking on, they were in the arena, exposed to ill-usage and death. Life became no easier, the world no kinder, to Paul as time went on (1 Corinthians 4:11). Here is the finest mind, the noblest spirit, on earth; and this is how he is treated. And yet he goes on with his work, and lets nothing interrupt that (1 Corinthians 4:12-13). Nay, it is a life which he is so far from giving up himself, that he will call to it the easy-going Christians of Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:16). 2. And if the contrast between Paul’ s self-sacrificing life and the luxurious life of the Corinthians might be expected to shame them into Christian service, a similar contrast should accomplish some good results in us. Already the Corinthians were accepting that pernicious conception of Christianity which looks upon it as merely a new luxury. They recognised how happy a thing it is to be forgiven, to be at peace with God, to have a sure hope of life everlasting. As yet they had not caught a glimpse of what is involved in becoming holy as Christ is holy. Are there none still who listen to Christianity rather as a voice soothing their fears than as a bugle summoning them to conflict? Paul does not summon the Church to be outcast from all joy; but when he says, “ Be ye followers of me,” he means that there is not one standard of duty for him and another for us. All is wrong with us until we are made somehow to recognise that we have no right to selfishly aggrandise while Paul is driven through life with scarcely one day’ s bread provided. If we be Christ’ s, as Paul was, it must inevitably come to this with us: that we cordially yield to Him all we are and have. If our hearts be His, this is inevitable and delightful; unless they be so, it is impossible, and seems extravagant. 3. It was Christ’ s own self-sacrifice that threw such a spell over the apostles and gave them so new a feeling towards their fellow-men and so new an estimate of their deepest needs. After seeing how Christ lived, they could never again justify themselves in living for self. And it is because we are so sunk in self-seeking and worldliness that we continue so unapostolic. 4. It might encourage us to bring our life more nearly into the line of Paul’ s were we to see clearly that the cause he served is really inclusive of all that is worth working for. We can scarcely apprehend this with any clearness without feeling some enthusiasm for it. You have seen men become so enamoured of a cause that they will literally sell all they have to forward it, and when such a cause is worthy the men who adopt it seem to lead the only lives which have some semblance of glory in them. Our Lord, by claiming our service, gives us the opportunity of sinking our selfishness, which is in the last analysis our sin, and of living for a worthier object than our own pleasure or our own careful preservation. When He tells us to live for Him and to seek the things that are His, He but tells us in other words and in a more attractive and practical form to seek the common good. We seek the things that are Christ’ s when we act as Christ would act were He in our place. (M. Dods, D. D.)The true estimate of the Christian ministry I. Its undue glorification. The Christian minister may be made an idol of--1. By party worship of the man. This was the particular danger here. Let us take the cases the apostle selects (1 Corinthians 4:6) as specimens of all. (1) Paul and Apollos each taught a truth that had taken possession of his soul, and so with modern teachers. Well, this truth commends itself to kindred spirits; it expresses their difficulties, it is a flood of light on many a dark passage of their history. No wonder that they view with gratitude and enthusiasm the messenger of this blessedness. And no wonder that the truth thus taught becomes at last the chief, almost the sole, truth proclaimed by him. Because-- (a) Every man has but one mind, and must, therefore, repeat himself. (b) That which has won attachment from his congregation can scarcely be made subordinate in subsequent teaching without losing that attachment; so that ministers and congregations often narrow into a party, and hold one truth especially. And so far they do well; but when they hold that truth to the exclusion of all other truths it is not well; and then, when with bitter and jealous antagonism, party-men watch all other religious factions but their own, the sectarian work is done: the minister is at once the idol and the slave of the party.(2) Now St. Paul meets this with his usual delicacy (1 Corinthians 4:6). Think you that he knew nothing of that which is so dear to many a minister in our day--the power of gaining the confidence of his people, the power of having his every word accepted as infallible? Yet hear him--I am a minister, a steward only. I dare not be a party leader, for I am the servant of Him who came to make all one. 2. By attributing supernatural powers and imaginary gifts to the office. When one claiming the power of the keys, and pretending to the power of miraculous conveyance of grace in the sacraments; or, declaring that he has an especial power to receive confession and to forgive sins; then, grave men, who would turn contemptuously from the tricks of the mere preacher, are sometimes subdued before those of the priest. And yet this is but the same thing in another form; for pride and vanity sometimes appear in the very guise of humility. Who would not depreciate himself if, by magnifying his office, he obtained the power he loved? Bernard, professing to be unsecular, yet ruled the secular affairs of the world, and many others have reigned in their sackcloth with a power which the imperial purple never gave. II. Its depreciation.1. There is a way common enough in which the minister is viewed simply as a very useful regulation, on a par with the magistracy and the police. In this light his chief duty is to lecture the poor, and of all the texts which bear on politics to preach from only two, “ Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’ s,” and, “ Let every soul be subject to the higher powers” ; to be the treasurer of charitable institutions, and to bless the rich man’ s banquet. Thus the office is simply considered a profession, a “ living” for the younger branches of noble houses, and an advance for the sons of those of a lower grade. In this view a degrading compact is made between the minister and society. If he will not interfere with abuses and only echo current conventionalisms, then shall there be shown to him the condescending patronage which comes from men who stand by the Church as they would stand by any other old time-honoured institution; who would think it ill-bred to take God’ s name in vain in the presence of a clergyman, and unmanly to insult a man whose profession prevents his resenting indignities. Now it is enough to quote the apostle’ s view (1 Corinthians 4:1), and at once you are in a different atmosphere of thought. 2. The other way is to measure, as the Corinthians did, teachers by their gifts, and in proportion to their acceptability to them. Men seem to look on the ministry as an institution intended for their comfort, for their gratification, nay, even for their pastime. In this way the preaching of the gospel seems to be something like a lecture, professional or popular; a free arena for light discussion and flippant criticism. Now St. Paul (1 Corinthians 4:3) simply refuses to submit his authority to any judgment; and this you will say, perchance, was priestly pride. It was profound humility; he was to be judged before a tribunal far more awful than Corinthian society. Fidelity is the chief excellence in a steward, and fidelity is precisely that which men cannot judge (1 Corinthians 4:4-5). Another Eye had seen, and He could tell how far the sentence was framed for man’ s applause; how far the unpleasant truth was softened, not for love’ s sake, but simply from cowardice; how far independence was only another name for stubbornness; how far even avoidance of sectarianism is merely a proud resolve not to interfere with any other man’ s ministry, or to allow any man to interfere with his. Conclusion: Learn--1. Not to judge, for we do not know the secrets of the heart. We judge men by gifts, or by a correspondence with our own peculiarities; but God judges by fidelity. Many a dull sermon is the result of humble powers, honestly cultivated, whilst many a brilliant discourse arises merely from a love of display. Many a diligent and active ministry proceeds from the love of power. 2. To be neither depressed unduly by blame nor to be too much exalted by praise. Man’ s judgment will not last, but God’ s will. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)The character of gospel ministers I. The character of gospel ministers.1. They are ministers of Christ. (1) They derive their commission from Christ (1 Timothy 1:12; Ephesians 4:8-13; Matthew 28:20). (2) They are under Christ’ s direction and command. They ought not to go until He sends them, and they ought to go whenever and wherever His providence and the voice of His Church call them. (3) They are employed in Christ’ s service, to act under His authority, to publish and enforce His law and His gospel, to keep the ordinances of His house, and by all appointed means to subserve His work of grace and holiness and the interests of His kingdom and glory in the world. (4) Christ Himself is the great subject of their ministrations. They are to preach Christ Jesus the Lord; and all the lines of their ministry are one way or another to centre in Him. (5) They receive their furniture for Christ’ s work, and their assistance in it, from Him. (a) As to their temporal concerns, that they may be subsisted in His service, He has ordained that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel. And He takes care, in His providence, to protect them from the rage of their enemies, so long as He has any work to do by them (Acts 18:9-10). (b) And as to their gifts and graces, He is exalted to fill the officers of His Church with such supplies as are necessary for the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:7); He distributes His gifts with great variety for different administrations by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11); and is with them alway to the end of the world. (6) All the success and reward of their ministry proceeds from Christ. They can speak only to the ear, but He speaks to the heart, and adds such energy to their words as turns them into spirit and life. 2. They are stewards of the mysteries of God. (1) What their stewardship relates to. The mysteries of God. The doctrines of the gospel may be called the mysteries of God on various accounts. (a) They were secret in God till He revealed them, first more obscurely under the Old Testament and afterwards more clearly under the New (Romans 16:25-26). (b) And even after these things are revealed in New Testament light there are mysteries in them still, especially with relation to the manner of their existence or of their operation (1 Timothy 3:16; John 3:8). (c) After all the revelation which is made of them unrenewed souls do not see their excellence and beauty till Christ opens their understandings to understand the Scriptures, and they come to view them in the transforming light of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14). (2) Their stewardship itself. (a) They are not lords of the affairs which are under their management. A steward is but a servant to his Lord, and under Him; and so are all the ministers of Christ (Matthew 23:10). They are not authors of the mysteries they dispense, but are to preach only that gospel which they have received from Him. (b) Their stewardship intimates that what they are concerned in is committed to them as a trust, which they must give an account of to God (1 Corinthians 9:16-17; 2 Timothy 1:13-14). (c) Their stewardship intimates that faithfulness, care, and diligence are to be used in discharging their trust (1 Corinthians 4:2). They must be faithful to Christ, to truth, and to their own and others’ souls. II. The regard that is to be shown to gospel ministers. “ Let a man so account of us,” &c. You should consider them all--1. As servants and stewards, that you may not raise them too high in your account of them. 2. As the servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God, that you may not sink them too low in your account of them. (J. Guyse, D. D.)A true and a false estimate of genuine ministers of the gospel Here we have-- I. A true estimate.1. They are servants of Christ. There are some who regard them as servants of their Church. The Churches guarantee their stipend, and they require that their dogmas shall be propounded and their laws obeyed. He who yields to such an expectation degrades his position. The true servant of Christ will feel and act as the moral leader and commander of the people. “ Obey them that have the rule over you,” &c. There is no office on this earth so dignified and royal as this. 2. As servants of Christ they are responsible. “ Stewards of the mysteries of God.” The gospel is a mystery not in the sense of incomprehensibility, but in the sense of progressive unfoldment. It is a mystery to the man who at first begins its study, but as he gets on it becomes more and mere clear. The true minister is to translate these mysteries into intelligible ideas, and dispense them to the people. As a steward of such things his position is one of transcendent responsibility. 3. As servants of Christ they are faithful-- (1) To their trust; not abuse it, but use it according to the directions of its Owner. (2) To their hearers; seeking no man’ s applause, fearing no man’ s frown, “ commending himself to every man’ s conscience in the sight of God.” 4. As servants of Christ they are independent (1 Corinthians 4:3). Whilst no true minister will despise the favour or court the contempt of men, they will not be concerned about their judgment so long as they are faithful to God Paul indicates three reasons for this independency. (1) His own consciousness of faithfulness (1 Corinthians 4:5). “ Others may accuse me, but I am not conscious of that which should condemn me, or render me unworthy of this office.” (2) His confidence in the judgment of God. “ But He that judgeth me is the Lord.” I am content to abide by His judgment. (3) His belief in a full revelation of that judgment (1 Corinthians 4:5). Do not let us judge one another; do not let us even trust too much to our own judgment of ourselves. Let us await heaven’ s judgment. (a) There is a period appointed for that judgment. (b) At that period there will be a full revelation of our characters. (c) At that period, too, every man shall have his due. II. A false estimate (1 Corinthians 4:6). Paul speaks of himself and Apollos to show the impropriety of one minister being pitted against another. The Corinthians seemed to estimate ministers--1. In proportion as they met their views and feelings. Every true preacher preaches the gospel as it has passed through his own mind, and as it passes through his own mind, it will, of course, be more interesting to the minds most in harmony with his own. Hence, in the Corinthian Church those who preferred Peter’ s preaching thought no one was like Peter, &c. It is so now. Thus it is that some of the most inferior preachers are over-rated, and the most devoted degraded; whereas all true ministers are “ servants of Christ,” the “ stewards of the mysteries of God,” and as such should be honoured. 2. According to the greatness of their natural endowments (1 Corinthians 4:7). Between the natural endowments of Paul, Apollos, and Peter there was a great difference, and, indeed, between all ministers of the gospel. But what of that? There is nothing in those for boasting, for they all came from God. No man or angel deserves credit on account of natural abilities. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The ministerial trust A party in the Church at Corinth said they were of Christ. They pretended to be so much under His immediate influence that they had no need of other teachers. “ What,” said they, “ is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas to us? We are of Christ.” For the reproof and instruction of such, as thus undervalued, as well as for the reproof and instruction of the other parties who were disposed to exalt the ministers of Christ, the apostle says, “ Let a man,” &c. I. Stewards fill an honourable but subordinate office. 1. A steward is set over a certain household for the purpose of superintending its affairs. Sustaining, then, the character of rulers in God’ s house, and representatives of the majesty of heaven, the office with which ministers of the gospel are clothed must be an honourable one. The apostle, humble as he was, magnified his office, and enjoined that it should be respected and esteemed by others. 2. But the office is no less subordinate; it is held under him who is the lord of the steward. In correspondence with this, ministers are but servants of Christ. Sovereignty in the holy hill of Zion is that glory which He will not give to another. From Him they receive their appointment and all those qualifications which are necessary for the effectual discharge of their office. He, too, allots them their respective fields of labour, and assigns the measure of their success. II. Stewards have a trust committed to them. The office of a steward is to take charge of the estate of his lord. Agreeably to this, ministers of the gospel have a trust of all others the most important. Time, talents, opportunities, and spheres of usefulness are a portion of the goods committed to their charge. But the trust delivered to them is the mysteries of God, the whole of Divine truth contained in the Scriptures.1. The gospel is denominated a mystery (Mark 4:11; Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Colossians 1:26). Because-- (1) Its gracious doctrines would have remained hid-in the mind of God had it not pleased Him to have made a revelation of them to man. (2) It was but obscurely and partially revealed under the Old Testament economy. (3) It can only be properly understood through the teaching of the Spirit of God. In the gospel there is a variety of mysteries, and accordingly the word is used in the plural number. There are mysteries-- (a) Which, though disclosed in Scripture as to their existence and reality, are not level to, but far above the comprehension of a finite mind. Such are the doctrines of the Trinity. (b) Which, having been revealed, may in some measure be understood and explained. Such are the doctrines of the fall, the atonement, justification, &c., &c. (c) Which, though not at present comprehended by the believer, will be fully disclosed to him in heaven, to which, “ At that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” “ Now we see through a glass darkly,” &c. 2. Of these mysteries ministers are the stewards. In making known the mysteries of the gospel, they are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish. III. Stewards are required to be faithful to their trust (1 Corinthians 4:2).1. They are not his own, but his lord’ s goods that a steward has in his custody, and therefore he must be careful not to embezzle or squander them, but to lay out the whole to the best advantage. In agreement with this, it is required from ministers to be found faithful. 2. No such thing as faithfulness could be displayed by a worldly steward had he no correct knowledge of the estate, or of the goods that were consigned to his care. In like manner, it is impossible that those stewards of the mysteries of God can be faithful to their trust who do not give all diligence in perusing the Scriptures, to become scribes well instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. 3. It is the duty of a worldly steward to provide food for, and to distribute it among the members of the house over which he is set. In correspondence with this, it is the duty of those who are stewards of the mysteries of God to be attentive to the spiritual wants of those among whom they labour, and to make careful provision of what is requisite for the supplyment of these. Fidelity also requires an impartial distribution of the Word of Life. Saints and sinners are alike to have the Word of Truth rightly divided among them. The former need to be comforted and assisted; the latter to be cautioned and directed by it. 4. It is the duty of a worldly steward vigilantly to watch, and anxiously to protect from spoliation the property which his lord has committed to his trust. In like manner it is the duty of the stewards of Divine mysteries to watch over them, and to guard them against the attacks of their enemies. 5. The steward of the mysteries of God who is faithful to his trust must be decidedly a man of God. IV. Stewards are accountable for the trust that has been committed to them. Both just and unjust stewards may look forward with certainty to a day of reckoning. In agreement with this, ministers of the gospel are accountable for the solemn trust which has been committed to them. An account will be demanded from them of their time, how it was spent by them--of their gifts, how they improved them--of the gospel, how they preached it--and of precious souls as to the concern manifested, and the efforts made by them for their salvation. Conclusion: Who is sufficient for these things? None, in their own strength. Your sufficiency is only of God. (J. Duncan.)Ministers and stewards Ministers here means “ under-rowers,” as pulling together in one galley where Christ sits at the helm, the vessel being the Church, and the passengers the members of the Church. Not only is disunion in the crew fatal to progress and a thing tending to shipwreck, but the fact of Christ’ s presidency and magisterium should exalt high above petty partisanship, especially when the supreme owner of the sacred galley is God. Here the house-stewards of God and dispensers of His mysteries are said to be strictly such, as being servants or underlings of Christ; for between the Father of the household or Church and the distributors of the spiritual goods stands the Son In fact the image is again a stair of three steps. The Father delivers the Divine decrees or eternal ideas, elsewhere called the hidden wisdom of God, to the Incarnate Son. He in turn communicates them to His apostles, selected by Himself to dispense and apportion with wise judgment these secret counsels or mysteries of God to the members of the household. The house of God, an idea latent in the word “ household,” denotes the Christian theocracy (1 Timothy 3:16) of which Christ is the nearer Head, God (the Head of Christ) the more remote. It appears certain from some of the deeper texts of Scripture that all that has taken place in the world through all the ages is but the historical evolution in time of the manifold and marvellous counsel of Triune Deity, willed in a remote eternity. These archetypal ideas, both of creation and redemption, were in part only and by degrees revealed to Paul, and of that part he himself has communicated to the Church a part only: for that he knew more than he wrote is clear enough from his occasional ejaculations of wonder, followed by no elucidations: to such an inspired mind teeming with supernatural mysteries, no marvel that all human science pales and waxes dim before a single ray of Divine wisdom! (Canon Evans.)The steward of God’ s mysteries The Church at Corinth were divided into rival factions, arrayed under party leaders; and unprofitable controversies and unbecoming tempers were the natural results. The idea of the Christian ministry as a Divine institution was lost sight of, while the man who held the office was invested with undue importance. St. Paul endeavours to correct this state of things by showing that the office was distinct from any qualities or attractions which might belong to the man. The apostle himself was both learned and eloquent, but this did not constitute him a minister of Christ. So far as the man was concerned, he was satisfied to be esteemed “ the least,” and even “ the servant of all,” but when the office was brought into view it was a different matter. A hundred men in any county, may write a better hand than the “ county clerk,” and yet his hand and seal are indispensable for the validity of certain acts. Shall so much depend on office, in worldly things, and can it be supposed that the Divine Head of the Church has taken less precaution to secure the interests of the soul? I. “ Ministers of Christ.”1. Derive their commission from Him (John 20:21). The apostles went forth in His name, and never pleaded any authority for what they said, or did, but His. As an ambassador is duly authorised to make and ratify treaties in his king’ s name and to act concerning measures involving the weal or woe of millions, so is Christ’ s ambassador clothed with power to proclaim the terms of reconciliation with God. 2. Are rulers in God’ s kingdom. “ All power” was given unto the Saviour in heaven and earth, and this authority He dispenses to His servants, who are sent forth to execute His will. They are to awe men into obedience, not by implements of temporal dominion, but by weapons from God’ s own armoury. 3. They become the comforters of the sorrowing, and physicians of the broken-hearted. 4. Intercede with God for His people. All Christians of course discharge this duty (James 5:16), but more especially those who are commissioned by the Most High to serve at His altar. II. “ Stewards of the mysteries of God.”1. They are conservators, expounders, and dispensers of all those things once hidden, but now revealed. 2. They are the dispensers of His grace through the ordinances of the gospel. 3. As such it is required of them to be faithful-- (1) To their heavenly Master, not following ways agreeable to themselves, but meekly receiving their Lord’ s instructions and doing their utmost to carry them into effect. Worldly hopes and fears must not influence them, and all they say and do should have reference to their final account. (2) To their fellow-servants. “ Gospel ministers,” says Bishop Hall, “ should not only be like dials on watches, or mite-stones upon the road, but like clocks and larums, to sound the alarm to sinners. Aaron wore bells as well as pomegranates, and the prophets were commanded to lift up their voice like a trumpet. A sleeping sentinel may be the loss of the city.” A dying nobleman once sent for his minister, and said to him, “ You know that I have been living a very wicked life, and yet you have never warned me of my danger.” “ Yes, my lord,” was the constrained and sickening response, “ your manner of living was not unknown to me; but great personal kindness to me made me unwilling to offend you bywords of reproof.” “ Oh, how wicked! how cruel in you!” cried the dying man. “ The provision which I made for you and your family ought to have prompted care and fidelity. You neglected to warn and instruct me; and now, my soul is lost!” Conclusion: Christians--1. Be thankful for the provision which has been made for your instruction and guidance. 2. Be careful to improve it. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)Man a steward Note-- I. The trust implied. Of what are we stewards? All, in fact, that we are and have, but sin. Health, reason, property, influence, &c., &c. “ All things, O Lord, come of Thee,” &c., &c. This trust is--1. Undeniable. The moral reason of humanity binds man to acknowledge that all he has he holds in trust. He is not the proprietor, but the trustee. 2. Ever-increasing. Mercies increase every hour, and with the increase obligation accumulates. II. The trust discharged.1. A good man uses all under a sense of his responsibility to God. 2. In the right discharge of this trust man-- (1) Blesses himself.(2) Serves his generation.(3) Wins the approbation of his God. III. The trust abused. We read of some--1. That waste their Lord’ s goods.2. That are unprofitable servants. “ Many will say unto Me in that day.” (J. Harding, M. A.)Clergy and laity Consider-- I. What the clergy are.1. Ministers. (1) The word in the original signifies an “ under-rower.” Our Lord is the Pilot of the vessel of His Church, and the clergy are the rowers under His command. He from heaven still guides his Church below; but, under His guidance, and by His own appointment, a distinct share of the work is allotted to His ministers. (2) Strictly speaking, the clergy are not the ministers of the congregation, and it is not their primary duty to try and please the people. They are “ ministers of Christ” ; and they must count it “ a very small thing” that they should be “ judged of man’ s judgment,” remembering that “ He that judgeth them is the Lord.” 2. Stewards. A steward is one who is appointed by an owner of estates to deal on his behalf with his tenants, manage his property, rule in his absence, dispense his bounty. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the owner of the estate of His Church, and the clergy are the officers appointed by Him to represent Him in matters affecting His people. As the power of a steward is not inherent, but only delegated, so the authority of “ the stewards of the mysteries of God” has its origin in, and depends for its continuance on, the will of Christ their Lord. Now it is obvious that a steward-- (1) Must receive some external appointment, and must be able to produce his credentials. It is not enough that a man should call himself a steward. “ No man taketh this honour to himself, but he that is called of God.” (2) Must have somewhat committed to his charge, some official acts to perform, and some bounty to dispense. And to the clergy, as “ stewards,” are committed “ the mysteries of God.” It is their business to defend and promulgate the “ truth as it is in Jesus,” not preaching themselves--i.e., their own theories and fancies--but “ the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” (3) Is not only representative of his master to the tenants, but that equally is he representative of the tenants to his master. And so it is the high privilege of the clergy as “ stewards,” to become intimately acquainted with the circumstances, needs, perplexities, and sorrows of Christ’ s people; it is their duty to find out all about them and then, on their behalf, to go to the throne of grace and intercede. Certainly if the dignity of “ the ministers of Christ” is great their responsibility is greater still. II. How the laity should regard them--“ Account of them,” &c. And if you do so you will--1. Esteem them very highly, not for their own, but for their work’ s sake. Lose sight of the man in the office, and prove your esteem by receiving at his hands “ the mysteries of the kingdom of God,” for thus you will-- 2. Encourage them. And probably there is no class of men who more greatly need encouragement. Recognising their difficulties, and wishing to encourage them, you will be led-- 3. To pray for them. (1) That the words spoken by them may have success. (2) That they may be preserved from all the dangers peculiar to the position which they hold. (3) Lest that by any means when they have preached to others they themselves should be castaways! (J. Beeby.)“ The mysteries of God” There can be no doubt that this word “ mystery” rouses a certain feeling of mental discomfort, almost amounting to suspicion and dislike, in the mind of an ordinary Englishman when he first hears it. In the ordinary use of language, too, the word has got into bad odour by the force of bad association. A mystery is frequently understood to mean something that will not bear the light; something that is wanting in the qualities of straightforwardness and explicitness; something that belongs to the region of charlatanism, intrigue, ignorance, superstition. It would be curious to ascertain the idea which the word “ mystery” suggests to the first five men whom we meet in the street. One man would probably say, “ I mean by mystery something confused and unintelligible” ; and another, “ Something involving a plain contradiction” ; and another, “ A statement which is chiefly distinguished by its defiance of reason” ; and another, “ Some physical or even moral impossibility” ; and another, “ That which is believed to be true because there is no real reason for disbelieving it.” And if these, or anything like these, are the ideas which are associated by us with the word “ mystery,” what wonder that the word is regarded with a certain dislike and suspicion when we find it in the region of religious truth? What, then, let us ask, is the true account of this word “ mystery.” The word “ mystery” in the Bible is a purely Greek word, the termination only being changed. In Greece for many centuries it meant a religious or sacred secret into which, after due preparation, men were initiated by solemn rites. At Eleusis, near Athens, to give only one of the most famous examples, there were for centuries mysteries of this description, and there has been much controversy in the learned world as to their exact origin and object, the most probable account of them being that they were designed to preserve and hand on certain truths which formed part of the earliest religion of Greece, and which were lost sight of or denied, or denounced by the popular religion of a later day. A tenet thus concealed and thus disclosed was called a “ mystery,” because, after disclosure, it was still concealed from the general public, because it had been concealed even from the initiated up to the moment of initiation, and because, probably, it was of a character to suggest that, however much truth it might convey, there was more to which it pointed, but which still remained unknown. This was the general sense which the word had acquired at the time when the New Testament was written. Now the apostles of Christ, in order to make their Divine message to the souls of men as clear as might be, took the words in common use which most nearly answered their purpose--did the best they could with them, giving them, so to speak, a new turn, inspiring them with a new and a higher significance. What, then, is the meaning of the word “ mystery” in the New Testament? It is used to describe not a fancy, not a contradiction, not an impossibility, but always a truth, yet a truth which has been or which is more or less hidden. There are some truths on which the mind’ s eye rests directly, just as the bodily eye rests on the sun in a cloudless sky; and there are other truths of the reality of which the mind is assured by seeing something else which satisfies it that they are there, just as the bodily eye sees the strong ray which pours forth in a stream of brilliancy from behind a cloud and reports to the understanding that if only the cloud were to be removed the sun would itself be seen. Now “ mysteries” in religion, as we commonly use the word, are of this description; we see enough to know that there is more which we do not see, and, in this state of existence, which we shall not directly see. We see the ray which implies the sun behind the cloud. And thus to look upon apparent truth, which certainly implies truth which is not apparent, is to be in the presence of mystery. Why, it is asked, should there be in religion this element of mystery? Why should there be this outlying, this transcendental margin traced round the doctrines and the rites of Christianity--this margin within which the Church whispers of mystery, but which seems to provide a natural home for illusion? This is probably what Toland, by no means the least capable of the English deists, thought when he undertook at the beginning of the last century the somewhat desperate enterprise of showing that Christianity is not mysterious. To strip Christianity of mystery was to do it, he conceived, an essential service--to bring it, in the phraseology of his day, “ within the conditions of nature,” within the rules of that world of sensible experience in which we live. Is it, then, the case that the natural world around us is so entirely free from that element of mystery which attaches so closely to the doctrines and the rites of Christianity? Before long spring will be here again, and probably some of you will try in some sort to keep step with the expansions of its beautiful life even here in London by putting a hyacinth bulb into a glass jar of water, and watching day by day the leaves and the bud unfold above, and the roots develop below, as the days get warmer and brighter, until at last, about Easter-time, it bursts into full and beautiful bloom. Why should the bulb thus break out into flower, and leaf, and root, before your eyes? “ Why,” some one says, “ they always do.” Yes, but why do they? What is the motive power at work which thus breaks up the bulb, and which almost violently issues into a flower of such beauty, in perfect conformity to a general type, and yet with a variety that is all its own? You say it is the law of growth; yes, but what do you mean by the law of growth? You do not explain it by merely labelling it--you explain neither what it is in itself, nor why it should be at work here, or under these conditions. You cannot deny its existence, and yet the moment you endeavour to penetrate below the surface it altogether eludes you. What is this but to have ascertained that here is a fact, a truth, hidden behind the cloud that is formed by the surface aspect of nature? What is this but to be in the presence of mystery? The philosopher Locke laid down the doctrine which has been often quoted since his time, that we cannot acquiesce in any proposition unless we fully understand all that is conveyed by each of its terms, and hence he inferred that when a man tells us that any mystery is true, he is stating that to which we cannot assent, because a mystery, from its nature, is said to be a hidden, and, therefore, uncomprehended truth. This, at first, seems plausible enough; but in fact we may, and do, assent reasonably enough to a great many propositions respecting the terms of which we have only an obscure or an incomplete idea. A man born blind may, I take it, reasonably assent to the descriptions of objects which we who have the blessing of sight see with our eyes, although probably no description could possibly give him an adequate impression of the reality. Locke himself, like the strong thinker that he was, admitted, could not but admit, the infinite divisibility of matter; yet had he, has any man, an adequate conception of what this means? It, too, belongs to the sphere of mystery. To treat nature as not mysterious is to mistake that superficial, thoughtless familiarity with nature for a knowledge based on observation and reflection. And the mysterious creed of Christendom corresponds with nature, which is thus constantly mysterious, while both are only what we should expect in revelation. And nature, too, in its way, is a revelation of the infinite God. Suppose, if you can, that a religion claiming to come from God were wholly divested of this element of mystery; suppose that it spoke of a God whose attributes we could understand as perfectly as the character of our next-door neighbour; and of a government of the world which presented no more difficulties than the administration of a small joint-stock company; and of prayer, and rules of worship, which meant no more than the conventional usages and ceremonies of human society. Should we not say--you and I--“ Certainly this is very intelligible; it is wholly free from the infection of mystery; but is it really a message from a higher world? Is it not too obviously an accommodation to our poor, dwarfed conceptions? Does it not somewhere in its system carry the trade mark of a human manufactory?” After all, we may dislike and resent mystery in our lower and captious, as distinct from our better and thoughtful, moods; but we know on reflection that it is the inevitable robe of a real revelation of the Infinite Being, and that, if the great truths and ordinances of Christianity shade off, as they do, into regions where we cannot hope to follow them, this is only what was to be expected if Christianity is what it claims to be. (Canon Liddon.)It is required in stewards that a mall be found faithful.--Ministerial stewardship I. Ministers the stewards of God.1. Divinely commissioned. A call to the ministry is a call from God, or it has in it no worth or authority. Let a man possess the consciousness of this commission, then he will go forth with authority and power. Without it his lips will falter and his heart fail. 2. Divinely qualified. There must be-- (1) Mental fitness. A minister must be “ apt to teach.” (2) Moral fitness. The first condition is conversion of heart; the next, holiness of life. How lifeless and barren a ministry without this! 3. Divinely sustained. With all the help and happiness of such outward encouragements as it is the duty of Churches to give, ministers feel that they need Divine strength. II. As ministers, we are entrusted with the gospel. It is our duty--1. To expound it. Expository preaching has not received sufficient attention. 2. To apply it. It is not sufficient to elucidate the principles of the gospel, they must be enforced. The gospel-- (1) Makes known the pardon which has been provided for sinners; and it is incumbent on the stewards of God to beseech them to be reconciled to God. (2) Is a trumpet-call to Christian perfection. To transform men we must be persuasive--intensely practical. 3. To defend it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The Christian ministry I. The account given in the text of the nature of our office as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.1. The ministry of the word is in all essential points the same ever since it was ordained as an employment. At the same time it is plain that several circumstances attending it are considerably varied. The ordinary call to the office, which now takes place, is very different from the miraculous mission by which men were consecrated to it in former times. Their vocation was more immediate, more striking, attended with more ample powers, as well as more splendid effects. The pastors of the Christian Church, in these later ages, are neither possessed of the immediate inspiration nor of the power of working miracles enjoyed by the apostles. They are now men in all respects like yourselves. When we speak of a faithful minister we speak of the rare and happy union of ability and attention, of zeal and knowledge, of meekness and firmness, in the same character; for all these are necessary to sustain the office with propriety. And are these qualities to be attained with a slight degree of application? 2. But you are not to imagine that while such high obligations are laid on the ministers of the gospel, no duties are, on the ether hand, required of you towards those who hold that station. (1) The same authority which lays such arduous obligations on your pastors, requires of you to entertain a spirit of equity and candour towards them. (2) This rule of equity and candour is transgressed in a still higher degree when you expect of us to preach doctrines accommodated to your passions, or to refrain from delivering those truths which are unacceptable or alarming. II. You are requirer to entertain a just esteem for the office and character which we bear. We claim no obsequious homage, we arrogate no dominion over your faith; but we expect that no man should despise us. III. Make a proper improvement of the truths which we deliver. (R. Walker.)Faithful stewardship Consider-- I. The station which is occupied. The station of a steward--one who has a delegated authority--who acts in subserviency to another--and who is required to account for the manner in which he has conducted himself while holding that responsible station. The term applies originally to the ministers of the gospel; yet we may safely found upon them a general argument and appeal. You have each of you received various gifts, which you are to hold as stewards of God, and for which you have to render a final account.1. Intellectual faculties. 2. Temporal blessings, such as-- (1) Property, and opulence, and rank, and those things which give men such influence in the sphere in which they move.(2) National distinction.(3) Civil and religious liberty. 3. Spiritual mercies. (1) The Scriptures.(2) Holy ordinances.(3) The ministry of the gospel.(4) The gift of the Spirit to convince, convert, sanctify, &c. Every Christian attainment, hope, enjoyment, makes the person who possesses it steward, and involves the highest responsibility. II. The character by which the occupation of this station should be attended. The steward is called upon to “ be faithful” to his Master’ s property, and whatever is committed to his trust.1. Abundant facts prove that men are generally reckless in regard to all the privileges enumerated. 2. Consider, then, in what this fidelity consists. The great basis of all duty is “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” &c. Now, in order to answer to the character described in the text, there must be sincere repentance, an entire reliance on the one only foundation of hope, and an earnest striving for the salvation of the immortal soul by the diligent use of the means prescribed. It is your duty-- (1) To work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There must be employed for this every natural and intellectual power: for this Sabbaths were hallowed, the Book of God given, the ministry instituted, &c. (2) To attend to what pertains to the Divine honour and glory in the world in which we live. While we attend diligently to the common business of life we must not forget what we owe to God, on whose bounty we live, in whose presence we stand, and before whom we must soon appear. (3) This part of the subject may be applied-- (a) To those who occupy private stations in the Church of Christ. What have you done in the way of desire, in the way of effort, in the way of prayer? (b) To ministers. III. The solemn considerations by which the exhibition of such a character may be enforced. A steward must reckon on a day of final account. This will be a day of reckoning--1. For rewards of glory.2. For punishment also. (J. Parsons.)Faithfulness St. Paul accepted the full responsibility of his office. God has nowhere placed on the human heart such a high trust as the ministry of the gospel. We do not think lightly of the responsibilities of the statesman, the warrior, the philanthropist, the teacher; but the ambassador of the Cross stands in the Saviour’ s place, and speaks in His name. On his office depends the salvation of mankind. The minister must feel the responsibility of his office, and so must those to whom he ministers. The congregation that demands topics and forms to gratify taste or emotion cannot be sensible of the fact that God speaks, and not man. Micaiah said, “ As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.” The man who helps sinners to build on a false foundation is a source of greater danger than the company of evildoers. I. Let us do what we can.1. It is possible to fancy what mighty things we would do had we the opportunity. Some thoughts of this nature must have crossed the mind of the man who received only one talent. Exchange these grated probabilities for actual possibilities. God has given us to do what we can, and expects us to do it. 2. “ He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much,” &c. Look into every department of life, and see that he who has faithfully filled the humbler situation, has both fitted himself for, and been promoted to a higher. Joseph the slave became the premier of Egypt. The captive Hebrew youths were made presidents of Chaldea. The history of those men is not more marvellous than “ From Log Cabin to White House,” or from the shoemaker’ s bench to the mission-field of India. Seeing that the Church of Christ is burdened with duties, we long to see the day when every Christian shall be an active worker. II. Let us do every work in its own time.1. To-morrow will not have a moment to spare for duties that are neglected to-day. Duty says--“ Now or never.” Nature, the lives of men of mark, and our own experience are decisive as to this. “ Procrastination is the thief of time.” To put off duty to a more convenient season is done with impunity. “ Boast not thyself of to-morrow,” &c. Every hour has its duty, and every duty its pleasure. 2. To further enforce diligence in this matter, observe that our very safety in time to come is secured by fidelity to present trust. Negligence is a preparation for temptation (2 Peter 1:10). The path of duty is the path of safety. III. Let us do over work in the right spirit. It is impossible to be faithful considering the difficulties in the way, without willingness and love. To be forced to work for Jesus by fear is to destroy the greatest condition of success. IV. Let our work be done under a sense of responsibility. The work is not ours. We do not supply the materials. We are all responsible to God. The day of account is coming. Shall we meet it with joy, or with grief? (Weekly Pulpit.) 1 Corinthians 4:3-5 But with me it is a very small think that I should be judged of you, or of man’ s judgment.Judgment I. Is the prerogative of God.1. It belongs not to man.2. Not to ourselves.3. But the Lord. II. Is premature in this life. Because--1. Many things are hidden.2. There is no universal and absolute standard.3. None capable of applying it. III. Is reserved to the coming of christ.1. To Him all judgment is committed.2. By Him all hearts shall be disclosed.3. From Him every man shall receive his reward. (Family Churchman.)The judgment I. Of man is of title value. Because--1. Without authority.2. Seldom just.3. Always transient. II. Of our conscience is deceptive. Because--1. We are ignorant.2. It cannot justify us. III. Of the lord is decisive.1. True.2. Supreme.3. Final. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Man’ s judgments Many are in the habit of reversing the apostle’ s words; and what is most surprising is that great numbers who would be shocked at the thought are nevertheless really more governed by the opinions of men than by the Word of God. The truth is, the fear of man grows up with us from our infancy, is often encouraged by education, and is disguised under fair names, or mixed up with something allowable, so that we become enslaved to it without suspicion. Combined with this passages of Scripture are passed lightly over, which pronounce it to be a bad sign when all men speak well of us. Let us see-- I. What the case actually is.1. The foundation of a great part of the evil is the want of accustoming children to be influenced by the love or fear of God. On the contrary, they have too often no other motives placed before them than those of pleasing their parents, of being well thought of by their friends. Besides, it is natural to wish to be thought well of by others, because we often derive solid benefits from a good reputation, and great inconvenience from a bad one. This leads to the great evil of substituting an idol for God; and this idol often applauds what God condemns, and condemns what God approves. And rather than sacrifice this idol men will go to great lengths--even to murder and suicide. 2. But it may be said that he who is indifferent to the opinion of others must lose one great check on his vices, and that men, in proportion as they despise the judgment of others, magnify themselves in their own conceits. True, they who are without God can but go from one extreme to another; and indeed it is better to fear other men than to fear no one, and there is worse selfishness and pride in consulting only our own judgment than in following after the praise of others. But all this is excluded if we submit to the judgment of God. Here is a check upon carelessness and hardness to reproof, and here, too, is freedom from all unworthy compliances, and a freedom which can nowhere else be found pure from pride and contempt of our neighbours. II. How far the scripture allows us to desire or care for the good opinion of others.1. It is clear that to gain a good character with men must never be our chief object; if it is, the praise of men will be our only reward. So parents should teach their children to secure the approbation of God first; then they will know that in trying to please them they are obeying God, who has commanded them to honour their parents. 2. The approbation of good and wise men should be received with thankfulness. On secular matters bad men can judge as well as good; but in all matters of right and wrong, no opinion but that of a Christian is worth a moment’ s notice. They have the mind of Christ, and their praise or censure is really our interpretation of God’ s. 3. But the judgment of God is the final appeal. To our own Master we stand or fall. (T. Arnold, D. D.)Judgment of ministers I. Ministers of Christ must expect to be made the subjects of human judgment. They are like a city set on an hill, and every action they perform will be weighed, and every word they speak will be examined. Nor can there be any doubt about the right of men to judge the ministers of Christ. Ministers come to them professing to be commissioned from God, to deal with them about the concerns of their souls, and have they not a right to examine the truth of their statement, their qualifications for their work, and the manner in which they discharge the duties of their high office? That the right of judging ministers is often grossly abused cannot be denied. But this can never be assigned as a reason why they should be deprived of it altogether. Those who hear the gospel are commanded to prove all things, and to hold fast only that which is good. II. Though the judgment of man should not re entirely overlooked, it is a matter of comparatively small importance. Many ministers pay far too little attention to the good opinion of their people. But though the judgment of man should not be overlooked, yet it is a matter of comparatively small importance. The opinions which men form about ministers are often prejudiced, unjust, and fluctuating; and it is not by their judgment that they shall be tried at the last day. Their applause need not flatter our vanity; their condemnation need not make us sad. III. Ministers must not rest satisfied with the favourable opinions which they may be inclined to form of themselves. Paul says, “ I judge not mine own self.” This expression must refer to his ministerial character. As a believer in Christ he knew much of himself, and bitterly bewailed the existence of sin within him. But as a minister of Christ he was not conscious in himself of having been negligent, partial, or unfaithful. He was able to make solemn appeal to the elders of Ephesus (Acts 20:18-21). But though he knew nothing of which he could accuse himself, “ yet,” he says, “ am I not hereby justified.” The opinion which I have of myself does not determine my character, nor shall it determine my condition. But if Paul did not justify himself, how shall we justify ourselves? Who will have the presumption to compare himself in zeal, in faithfulness, in ability, in diligence, in success, with this holy apostle? Are we not commonly blind to our faults? Are we not equally prone to overrate our virtues? But however much we may be disposed to conceal our faults from ourselves and others; however much we may be disposed to overrate our virtues, still the opinion which we may form of ourselves will have no influence in determining our everlasting condition. The Lord shall judge righteous judgment. It is not impossible that we may be proud even of our faults, and may think that a ground of self-justification which in the sight of God is a ground of condemnation. We should tremble at the thought of deceiving ourselves. If men deceive us as to the affairs of this world, future watchfulness and diligence may repair all the damage which we have sustained, but if we deceive our own souls the consequences may be eternally ruinous. IV. We must look chiefly to the judgment of God, and under an abiding sense of its justice and impartiality endeavour to regulate our own conduct.1. He is perfectly acquainted with our character and conduct. What is the judgment of our own mind when compared with the judgment of Him whose “ eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” ? 2. The opinion which He forms of us determines our character. We are in reality what He sees us to be. Prejudice, passion, interest, partiality, can have no influence upon His mind: He sees things as they really are. The world may approve--but what is this if the Lord condemn? 3. His judgment shall fix our everlasting condition. In the present world the wheat and the tares grow together. But when the Lord shall come to judgment, the unclean shall be separated from the clean, the unfaithful from the faithful ministers of Christ; and upon each a different sentence shall be passed. V. It becomes us to regulate our whole behaviour by these solemn and important truths. If we daily remember that we shall be judged by the Lord, we shall be--1. Excited to faithfulness. We must boldly and resolutely publish the whole counsel of God. We must “ reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all long-suffering, and doctrine,” whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. 2. This will prove a powerful antidote to trifling with the concerns of immortal souls. 3. The remembrance of this will render our conduct the more becoming. 4. The remembrance of this will support us under the unjust censures and calumnies of men. The reproach which you bear for Christ will ultimately redound to your glory. “ If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” 5. The remembrance of this will support us under that neglect into which our talents and performances may undeservedly fall. Ministers of the most eminent talents and faithfulness and piety are often neglected. That love of novelty which is so prevalent in the human heart, and which, if not laid under proper restraints, is attended with such serious consequences, is apt to render the labours of the same individual tiresome. When this temper of mind is produced prejudice, and not reason, becomes the judge. But when this happens, and it has happened often and will certainly happen again, a faithful minister rejoices that it is but a light matter to be judged of man’ s judgment, but that He that judgeth him is the Lord. (W. S. Smart.)The judgment of men compared with the judgment of God 1. When two parties meet to adjust their respective claims, the principles on which they proceed must depend on the relation in which they stand to each other; and there is no more fatal delusion than that by which the principles applicable to the case of a man entering into judgment with his fellow-men are transferred to the case of man’ s entering into judgment with his God. 2. blow a man may have the judgment of his fellows, and yet be utterly unfit for contending in judgment with God; and it is possible to build on the applause of man the sandy foundation of a confidence before God. Have we never met with men esteemed in society who find scriptural views of humanity to be beyond their comprehension, and with whom the voice of God is deafened by the testimony of men? And thus many live in the habitual neglect of a salvation which they cannot see that they require. To do away this delusion, we shall advert to the distinction between the judgment of men and that of God. I. Founded upon the claims of God when compared with man’ s.1. People have no right to complain, but are willing, indeed, to applaud if I give to every man his own. In an unfallen world this virtue would not at all signalise me, but it so happens that I live in a world where deceit and dishonesty are common. But again, I may give to others more than their own, and thus earn the credit of other virtues. A man may, without any sensible surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to the eye of others in a blaze of moral reputation. And even when the man can appeal to some mighty reduction of wealth, as the measure of his beneficence, is there not still left to him that without which all is nothingness? A thousand avenues of enjoyment are still open to him, and he is free to all the common blessings of nature, and freer still to all the consolations and privileges of the gospel. 2. Thus it appears, that after I have fulfilled more than all the claims of men, and men are filled with delight and admiration, the footing on which I stand with God still remains to be attended to, and His claims to be adjusted. While not one claim which your neighbours can prefer is not met most readily, the great claims of the Creator may lie altogether unheeded. God is not man, nor can we measure what is due to Him by what is due to our fellows in society. Amid all the praise we give and receive from each other, we may have no claims to that substantial praise which cometh from God only. 3. A just sense of the extent of claim which God has upon His own creatures would lead us to see that we may earn a cheap and easy credit for such virtues as will satisfy the world, and be utter strangers to the self-denial and the spirituality and the affection for the things that are above--all of which graces enter as essential ingredients into the sanctification of the gospel. II. Founded on God’ s clearer and more elevated sense of that holiness without which no man shall see His face, and without which we are utterly unfit for the society of heaven.1. Man’ s sense of right and wrong may be clear and intelligent enough, in so far as that part of character is concerned which renders us fit for the society of earth. Those virtues, without which a community could not be held together, are both urgently demanded, and highly appreciated. And even without any exquisite refinement of these virtues, many an ordinary character will pass; and should he be deformed by levity, or even by profligacy, he may still bear his part among the good men of society. And if such indulgence be extended to the iniquities of the outer man, let us not wonder that the errors of the inner man should find indulgence. What else can we look for than that the man who feels no tenderness towards God will tolerate in another an equally entire habit of ungodliness? And with a man whose rights I have never invaded, and who shares equally with myself in nature’ s blindness and propensities, I will not be afraid of entering into judgment. 2. Man and man may judge each other in mutual complacency. But between man and God there is another principle and standard of examination. There is a claim of justice on the part of the Creator, totally distinct from any human claim; and while the one will tolerate all that is consistent with society upon earth, the other can tolerate nothing that is inconsistent with society in heaven. God made us for eternity. He formed us after His own likeness; and ere we can be re-admitted into paradise, we must be created anew in the image of God. Heaven is the place into which nothing that is unholy can enter; and we are not preparing for our inheritance unless there be gathering upon us the lineaments of a celestial character. Think then of the delight which God takes in the contemplation of what is pure and righteous; think how one great object of His creation was to diffuse over the face of it a multiplied resemblance of Himself; and that, therefore, however fit you may be for sustaining your part in the alienated community of this world, you are most assuredly unfit for the assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, if, unlike unto God who is in the midst of them, you have no congenial delight with the Father of all, in the contemplation of spiritual excellence. Take the case of Job. In reference to his fellows, he could make a triumphant appeal to the honour and the humanity which adorned him. But when God at length revealed Himself, and brought His claims to bear upon his conscience, he abhorred himself and repented in dust and in ashes. It is indeed a small matter to be judged of man’ s judgment. The testimony of our fellows will as little avail us in the day of judgment, as the help of our fellows will avail us in the hour of death. He who judges us is God; and from this judgment there is no escape. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)Public opinion This is the language of a man exposed to sharp and unfriendly criticism. There were some busy persons at work by whom everything that the apostle did or said was misrepresented. Besides this, there was much going on which called for a sharp exercise of the apostolical authority, and we all know that the exercise of authority creates opposition. So St. Paul’ s enemies succeeded in creating a body of public opinion against him. Consider-- I. The nature and authority of public opinion. No sooner are men formed into society than, in order to keep this society together, the members instinctively secrete a certain deposit of thought and feeling about their common interests. To this deposit everybody contributes something, and by it everybody tacitly understands that they are to be bound. Thus every family has its public opinion. Thus every village and every town has its public opinion. Again, classes and professions have a public opinion, which in some cases is tyrannical. And, above all this, arises a larger public opinion, to which they all contribute, and by which they are each in turn controlled, the public opinion of the country. And this, we all know, is a tremendous force. Then, again, as civilisation advances, as nations come to know more and more of each other, there springs up the opinion of the civilised world. This will probably be more felt in days to come than it is now. So Churches have a public opinion of their own. Outside the faith, which rests upon God’ s authority, there is a large margin of questions upon which the opinion of Christians is incessantly taking form; and this is by no means certain to be always well-informed or just. It was with this that St. Paul here stood face to face. II. The apostle’ s independence of it. Not that he had any pleasure in feeling or proclaiming this independence; but as matters stood, he felt that he could not hope to be of service unless he were perfectly candid and independent. It is sometimes assumed that when a man blames public opinion he must necessarily be right, as it is an act of conscience requiring courage and resolution; but an eccentric man may defy public opinion simply to give play to his personal peculiarities. Public opinion often smiles good-naturedly at such, rating them at their proper value. But, again, a criminal is at war with public opinion; for public opinion asserts as much of moral truth as is necessary to keep society together; and a criminal offends against some part of that moral truth which society defends. Looked at from its moral and religious point, public opinion is at best a compromise. It affirms not the whole law of God, but just so much as may be useful for social purposes. It strikes an average from the impulses it receives from above and from below--between the good and bad elements of human society. The criminal makes war upon public opinion because he is below it; the true Christian is at war with it because he is above it. St. Paul was opposed to the public opinion of the Church of Corinth in this latter sense. If that public opinion had been successful the apostle would have had all heart taken out of him; for it denied the virtue of the Redeemer’ s work, and restricted the universal Church of God within national frontiers. St. Paul did not care how he was judged by a public opinion intent upon such purposes as these. III. The considerations that sustained St. Paul in his independence. To a good man it can never be a pleasure to find himself differing from other people; because it means that one side must be wrong. The precept, “ As much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men,” implies that a Christian should do his best to keep in harmony with the common opinion of his fellow men. But there are times and circumstances when such agreement is impossible, and such was St. Paul’ s case. He had heard as it were the hum of unfriendly voices which pronounced him a faithless steward of the Divine mysteries. Not in contempt or scorn did the great apostle say, “ For me it is a small thing to be judged of you or of man’ s judgment.” He spoke out of another world. He was in spirit with God. He did not venture to judge himself. He knew nothing against himself; but he did not feel his ignorance to be a certificate of acquittal. He felt that in his own mysterious being there were unsuspected depths, which God alone could fathom. But the All-seeing he knew was also the All-merciful; and if there were that in His servant which moved Him to displeasure, so also there was in Himself that which would cancel it. God knew the purity of the apostle’ s intention, and it was the sense of this Divine judgment which made him feel the worthlessness of those judgments of the Corinthian Church. There can be no doubt that any man who serves God must expect, sooner or later, to be judged hardly by public opinion. It is the average public opinion which blames those whose crimes would, if they could, destroy society; and so, on the other hand, it condemns those who, not content with so much of moral and religious life, desire to have as much of holiness as they can. So it was with Noah, in his time; so it was with Abraham, Moses, and the great representative prophets. And our Lord warned us that we must not expect the world to change; “ If the world hate you, it hated Me before it hated you” ; and again, “ If ye were of the world,” &c. Thus the apostle concludes that whoever will live godly must suffer persecution. So it has ever happened, from the time of the apostles, that the Church has been at war with public opinion. The history of all the martyrs is a history of this conflict of public opinion pushed to its last extremity. But before a man steels himself against the judgment even of a section of his fellow men, he ought to be very sure of his ground. A man may hold the truth, not as God’ s voice in him, but as a personal prejudice or passion of his own. This spirit will reproduce, not the temper of Paul, but the temper of the Pharisee. But on the other hand, when on the one side there is human error, and on the other eternal truth, then to give way is to be a slave and a coward. Conclusion: St. Paul’ s words remind us of two classes who suffer because of public opinion.1. Take the case of a public man who is convinced that a certain line of legislation is for the true interests of his country. He hopes that his countrymen will share his convictions, but, alas! he is disappointed. The judgment formed of him becomes more and more unfavourable. It may be that there are documents which would at once restore confidence; but these for reasons of public policy cannot be published for years to come, and then only to vindicate his memory. He whispers to himself, “ There is a witness of my intentions--one who hereafter will make my righteousness as clear as noonday. He is my strength.” And as he passes out from public scenes he can say to the nation which is dismissing him, “ For me it is a small thing,” &c. 2. Look at the young man who has just come up to London to begin life. He finds himself among three or four hundred companions of his own age. He is a member of a society which has a public opinion of its own. If he be going to cling unflinchingly to what he knows to be right, he will have to reckon, sooner or later, with that opinion. Many young men would go bravely through fire who cannot stand ridicule; and ridicule is the weapon which a narrow and rude public opinion invariably uses in enforcing or trying to enforce its assertions. Sooner or later that young man will have to say, “ For me it is a small thing to be judged of you or of man’ s judgment” ; but yet let him remember that he may say it in the spirit of the Pharisee or in the spirit of the Christian. I cannot say that he will escape suffering; but he can, like the apostle, turn from the hard words of man unto the love of God. There is an old Latin maxim, “ Don’ t let us say hard things about the dead.” Why not? Because they have already been judged, and have learnt what awaits them at the general judgment. Remember always that there are two judgments--the human and the Divine. Let us not ignore man’ s judgment; but let us not forget that upon the greatest of subjects it is sometimes likely to be mistaken, and that beyond it there is another judgment which cannot err. (Canon Liddon.)Magnanimity Some person reported to the amiable poet, Tasso, that a malicious enemy spoke ill of him to all the world. “ Let him persevere,” said Tasso; “ his rancour gives me no pain. How much better it is that he should speak ill of me to all the world than that all the world should speak ill of me to him!” (C. H. Spurgeon.)I Judge not mine own self.--Self-judgment is I. Fallible. Because--1. Partial.2. Founded in ignorance of ourselves, and of the true standard of judgment. II. Insufficient.1. It may condemn.2. But cannot justify us. III. Without authority.1. The Lord is our Judge.2. He knoweth all things. (J. Lyth, D. D.)For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.--Conscience the approver, but not the justifier of the Christian 1. Man is God’ s masterpiece, but conscience is the masterpiece of man. It is clear, both from Scripture and from the experience of our own hearts, that every man is a partaker of this wonderful faculty. But this natural conscience is in every unconverted man an accusing conscience. It witnesses against him; it condemns him. The sense of sin on the natural conscience is one of Satan’ s strongest chains. While a man is under it he will only run further into sin. We may see how it worked in Adam, the first sinner, directly he had broken God’ s commandment, and his conscience accused him as guilty. It drove him to fly from God, and when called out to appear before his Judge, drove him to excuse himself. And so in every man a guilty conscience leads into more sin; and the more surely he believes God to be a holy God, that hates sin, and a just God, that will surely punish it, like the devils, he believes and trembles. And he never can get peace by any effort of his own. The criminal who knows that he has broken the laws of his country, and that his life is forfeited to the justice of his country, can have no peace while he knows that. The gospel discovers to us the only way by which sin can be pardoned. Thus the tidings which the gospel brings can alone give peace to the conscience of any man. 2. Now St. Paul had found the blessing of this way of peace in the gospel. And from the hour that Christ manifested Himself to him, to his soul, it was his continual endeavour to “ keep a conscience void of offence both towards God and man.” And that, by the grace of God, which was given him, he had not endeavoured after this in vain, our text shows. Observe-- I. That St. Paul had kept a “ conscience void of offence, both towards God and man.” “ I know nothing against myself.” There was no permitted sin allowed in his mind. He had known the deep corruption of his own heart (Romans 7:18). He found that without Christ he could do nothing; that he had no power of himself to think anything of himself” ; therefore by the Spirit he sought strength out of himself, and by that Spirit was enabled to do what his conscience, cleansed by Christ’ s blood and enlightened by Christ’ s Spirit, bade him do, and to avoid what it taught him to avoid (2 Corinthians 1:12). “ His heart did not condemn him.” He knew that he had endeavoured as in the sight of God to speak and to live in Christ; and thus at the very close of his life he wrote 2 Timothy 4:7. II. That notwithstanding this, he was not hereby justified. Now this is the very opposite of what the worldly moral man and nominal Christian say. Their ground of confidence is just that which St. Paul declares was no ground of confidence in him. “ I have done my duty; thank God I have nothing to fear.” Done their duty! St. Paul had done more than them, and yet he did not say what these say. This was not that on which he rested his hope of acceptance before God, though it was a proof that God had accepted him, and, as such, a subject of rejoicing and a ground of thankfulness. He felt, that after all he had done, he was an unprofitable servant, and that he had done nothing by himself, but only the grace of God that was with him. His only ground of hope and confidence was Christ (Philippians 3:8). (W. W. Champneys, M. A.)False peace It is then possible that a man’ s conscience may think that all is well with it; and yet all may be very ill. St. Paul had declined all judgments of men. One only can judge the heart, He who made it. Man can judge from the surface only. In the very plainest cases he may be mistaken. Human praise and blame are mostly valueless, because men know not the whole which they praise or blame (1 Corinthians 2:11). But neither must man trust wholly his judgments of himself. Since even an apostle said, that although he “ knew nothing of himself,” he was not thereby justified, what a vast abyss then must the unexamined conscience of a sinner be! I. There are two sorts of peaceful and of troubled consciences.1. There is a good conscience which is peaceful, because it mourns its past sin for love of Him who loved us; it resists present temptation, in His might who overcame the evil one; it trusts in Him who never fails those who trust Him. This is a foretaste of paradise (Philippians 4:7). 2. But peace, as it is the blessing of the good conscience, so it is the curse of the bad conscience. A troubled, remorseful conscience has life. There is hope of a man amid any mass of sins, if he hates them; but a conscience wholly at peace and yet sinning is not alive, but dead. The eye of the soul is blind; the ear has been stopped; the heart has been drugged (1 Timothy 4:2). II. How then may we know whether our peace is the false or the true?1. False peace needs but that a man should follow his passions; true peace requires that a man should have resisted them. True peace rests on the knowledge and love of God; false peace relies on ignorance of God and of itself. 2. It is something to see that there is such a thing as false peace. It is something to know that all is not, of a necessity, well with a man, because he is at peace with himself. For this is his very delusion. “ I have nothing against myself; my conscience does not reproach me.” Take some instances. (1) How was David at rest for a whole year after his sins of adultery and murder! His conscience was alive as to the injustice of taking away a poor man’ s ewe-lamb; it was dead to his own. (2) How did Balaam blind his conscience! He did speak God’ s words in his office as a prophet; as a man, he gave the devilish counsel to seduce Israel to idolatry by the beauty of the daughters of Midian, and fell in the battle with the people whom, in the name of God, he had blessed. (3) How did Simeon and Levi blind their conscience by their passion in their treacherous vengeance! Yet they themselves had no doubt that they were justified (Genesis 34:31). (4) Esau justified himself by looking away from himself, and calling Jacob a supplanter. (5) Saul, in his first act of disobedience, did violence to himself; in the second he justified himself. When he consulted the witch it was on the plea of necessity, and when he murdered himself, religion was still in his mouth, “ lest the uncircumcised should abuse me.” (6) Samson deceived himself by tampering as to the secret of his strength, making as though he had betrayed it, when he did not, until at the end, when he did betray it. (7) Ahab coveted Naboth’ s vineyard, and held himself justified, while he inquired not how Jezebel would give it to him. 3. But since there has been such a large reign of self-deceit, how may any of us know that we are not deceived now? (1) Men have thought they did God service while they murdered God’ s servants. It is not enough, then, to think that we do God service. (2) A conscience, healthfully at peace, has been kept in peace, through believing in God, loving God, serving God, and, by the grace of God, conquering self for the love of God. A conscience, falsely at peace, arrived at its peace, through ignorance of God and of itself, amid the dislike to look into God’ s Word or to compare its own ways with it, persuading itself that what it likes is not contrary to the law of God, stifling doubts, that it may not be according to the law of God. (3) That is a false peace, which would be broken, if man knew the whole heart and the whole life. Any moment might break it; if not broken before, it will be broken more terribly in the day of judgment. (4) A false peace is founded on false maxims, such as--“ Why should I not do what others do? Why should I be singular?” (5) A false peace is gained by looking at this or that fault of another. “ This thing cannot be so bad, because such an one does it.” These may be tests to you. Has thy peace come to thee, while looking into thyself, or looking away from thyself? by taking up with corrupt maxims of the world, or while looking into the law of God? while listening to conscience, or while escaping from it? while encouraging thyself by the sins of those around thee, or while looking to Jesus to forgive thee the past, to keep thee by His Spirit and give thee power over thy sins? Conclusion:1. Look well then whether, at the beginning, thy conscience followed thy desires, or thy desires thy conscience. Granted that there is nothing about which you reproach yourself, that your desires and your conscience are at one, how was the peace made--which gave way? People begin mostly in little things. They take some little thing which is not theirs, or which seems of no great value to its owner, or which, it is thought, he will not miss. Conscience remonstrates, “ Thou shalt not steal.” And then the will cozens the conscience, and says, it is but “ this and that.” The deed is done again. Conscience again forbids. Then it is put off. “ Only this once; I cannot help it now. I have begun. I cannot draw back,” Conscience is thrust back again, wounded, murmuring. When next conscience forbids, it is put off to a more convenient time, or the passion turns away from it, or tells it to its face, “ I will do it.” And then, to avoid conscience, the soul buries itself amid any tumult of pleasure, or thought, or care. In this way does the soul inure itself to break every commandment. The conscience is first dulled; then drugged to sleep; then stupefied; then seared and past feeling. Look at the first step and the last! Who in the first act of self-indulgence could picture the bloated drunkard? Who could picture the remorseless hardened sinner in the first forced stifling of remorse? 2. But conscience has an inextinguishable life. It cannot be destroyed. It will awake again once; here, or in eternity. Pitiable it is, when it wakes on the death-bed, and says to the dying sinner, “ Behold thyself.” Miserable and pitiable as this would be, it would be a great mercy of God. If the soul is awakened even on the death-bed, it may yet be saved by the grace of God. Too often, if it has slept till then, it seems then to sleep the sleep of death. But miserable and pitiable as this awakening of conscience would be then, at the the last, there is what is more miserable still, that it should not awaken, What would it be if your conscience were to awake first at the judgment-seat of Christ? (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)The only true Judge I. Christ and not man the only judge of human conduct.1. Human judges are imperfect in knowledge and wisdom.2. They are often unrighteous in their purpose.3. Their ability to punish or reward is limited. II. Christ’ s qualifications as a judge.1. He is our Master.2. He is the head of the family to which we as Christians belong.3. He has perfect knowledge of the law by which we are to be judged.4. He knows all about every one of us.5. He has absolute power to enforce His decisions. (Homiletic Monthly.)The terror of the day of judgment as arising from its justice I. Terrible are the outward circumstances of the day of judgment (2 Peter 3:10; Matthew 24:29), because they imply some great displeasure of God. But not against things inanimate could that displeasure be (Habakkuk 3:8). Through that mysterious law whereby the creation is bound up with the lot of man (Psalms 107:34; Romans 8:22), the visitation of this our dwelling-place indicates displeasure against ourselves. But it will be terrible to those only whom the judgment shall condemn. II. The terror of terrors in that day is, that it is judgment. Of all the attributes of God, that which is, above all, terrible is--His justice. Man can bear to look on His holiness, and even on His majesty and almightiness: these are not of necessity directed against him; he can even endure to think of His wrath against sin, His heavy displeasure against the sinner. To be passed over-might imply that God knew the soul to be dross from which the refiner’ s fire could extract no gold. The most awful severity of God were a token of love, that God had not abandoned us. But justice! It is terrible, because God Himself is, as it were, bound by it (Acts 10:34). He cannot show favour, where it is a question of justice. III. The day of judgment, as the summary of all particular judgments on individual souls, is the great justification of God; the unfolding of the righteousness of His judgments. We know that there is to be a final parting between the righteous and the wicked. We know too that they who have made most diligent use of the talents committed to them shall have higher rewards, and that among the lost there will be degrees of punishment. And since all these on both sides will vary with each several soul, so each must come into its own distinct judgment, that it and all besides, men and angels, may know why God assigned to it its place; why He could not, without violating His own justice, assign it to any other. All nations and each individual will be judged (Matthew 25:31-32; Romans 14:10-12; Revelation 20:12-13). Until God brings home to the soul the value of a soul, mankind seems such an uninteresting mass. Those ever-renewed millions of China are born, live, die, and are to us as one man. We think of them as “ the Chinese.” It never even occurs to most of us that they have any individual character. So as to those hordes, who, at any time, overran the world. In God’ s sight they are individual souls, each with its own separate history, by which they have been or shall be judged. But then how fine and minute and appreciating an attribute that justice must be which will allot to every soul of man its own place, its own degree of bliss or of suffering, relatively to every other! For this belongs to exact justice. There can be no ground of complaint there. We could not there wish it otherwise; for it were to wish that God were less just. We shall be judged according to our works; not the works of one period of life only, but all (Ecclesiastes 12:14; Matthew 16:27; 2 Corinthians 5:10); not of one age only, but of all; not good alone, but bad also; nor deeds only, but the “ idle word” ; nor by these alone, but “ by the thoughts and intents of the heart.” IV. The day of judgment will be a great surprise, because most of us, at the best, know so little of ourselves. “ The foolish virgins” will expect that the door will be opened; and they will find it shut. They think that they stand in a relation to Him, as their Lord; He knows, owns them not. They shall be amazed at their exclusion. Even among the saved, St. Paul speaks of what must be the most agonising surprise, short of the loss of the soul itself, the loss of the soul’ s imagined store with God (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). V. The day of judgment will also be a great reversal. “ Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” Every human standard will simply cease in that day; everything, whereby we can estimate our fellow-men; all which is admired, looked up to, idolised, will be of no account. One question alone there will be then, What use has been made of all and each? Every gift of God well used will have its appropriate reward; but one question will anticipate all, “ Whom, according to your light, have you loved and obeyed?” VI. The day of judgment will be a great disclosure. How few outstanding things will even a strict sifting of the conscience disclose! You see the countenance marked with vanity or cunning or contempt or sensuality, &c. how many thousand, thousand indulged thoughts or acts must have gone to stamp that expression on the countenance which was formed to be the image of God. They are forgotten, dead, buried: but there is the terrible resurrection. His sins of omission, who can ever imagine? One has but to name the word “ prayer,” and with what a countless multitude of omissions it encompasses us! Yet even sins of omission are in some degree imaginable, but what about graces neglected or despised! And then the calls of God’ s providence any one of which might have led to a lasting conversion to God, where have they left us? “ To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” What we have had, might have made glorious saints of those who have had less. Who will be able to bear the sight of all his neglected privileges? Embrace them, then, this day, and so prepare for that day. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)Therefore Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come.--Premature judging forbidden The apostle here teaches us that all pretensions to a certain knowledge of other men’ s sincerity in religion are rash and unwarrantable.1. We are in some cases more competent judges of the wickedness than of the goodness of men’ s hearts. Particular acts of sin are incident to good men. But the habitual indulgence of sin is characteristic of the wicked only. But then, on the other hand, we cannot with equal certainty pronounce any man to be holy; for worldly motives may operate on corrupt hearts to produce the appearance of holiness. 2. Though we cannot absolutely determine any man’ s godly sincerity, yet we may form such a charitable judgment concerning our fellow Christians, as is sufficient to religious communion. We may have different degrees of evidence in favour of different persons, arising from their different attainments, or from our different acquaintance with them. But our judgment must always incline to the favourable side. We are to hope every man a saint, till we have conclusive evidence that he is not such. Having stated the doctrine in the text, note some arguments in support of it. I. The knowledge of men’ s hearts is God’ s prerogative. “ I, the Lord, search the hearts,” &c. It is on this ground that the apostle cautions us not to judge anything before the time. For us to judge the heart is to invade His throne. II. It is no easy matter for men to know their own hearts. “ The heart is deceitful above all things,… who can know it?” So the apostle says, “ I judge not my own self,” &c. We are cautioned not to deceive ourselves, nor to be deceived. III. We can judge the hearts of others only by external indications. In conversing with a friend we may be much pleased with his doctrinal knowledge, religious sentiments, and professed experience. This, however, is but external evidence. We know not but he aims to deceive us, or may be deceived himself. Such works as are the proper fruits of faith are more solid evidence; for in these there is less room for dissimulation. But we may misjudge even here; for it is but a small part of any man’ s life which falls under our observation. IV. The scripture gives us many instances of the uncertainty of human judgment in this matter. All the disciples were deceived by the hypocrisy of Judas; and none of the first believers in Jerusalem could discern the sincerity of Paul. What arrogance, then, must it be in us to assume the bold pretension of ascertaining the existence of grace in other men’ s hearts! Wise is the caution given in the text. Conclusion: The subject suggests some useful remarks.1. The spirit and temper of the primitive disciples afford a substantial evidence of the truth of our religion. They were not credulous, but cautious; not hasty in their judgment, but deliberate in their inquiries. 2. Worthy of our imitation is the prudence of the early Christians in regard to those whom they received as teachers of religion. In admitting members into the Church, they were liberal and candid; but in receiving public teachers they acted with great caution. They required, not only a present personal profession, but a testimony from others of previous good conduct. 3. The sentiment entertained by some, that there is in true Christians a kind of sympathy or fellowship, by which they infallibly know one another, appears to be irrational and unscriptural. 4. It is dangerous hastily to pronounce men in a converted state. This is judging before the time. As we cannot know others infallibly, so neither can we form a probable judgment of them speedily. 5. We cannot be sure of forming a pure Church on earth. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)Premature judgments discouraged How necessary it is to make charitable judgments of our fellow-men! We cannot wholly know them now. We see the husk of the man only, the kernel is not yet fully revealed. We must wait. In looking at our fellow-men we are sometimes like as though we were walking through a friend’ s orchard in the autumn. We see a tree with only a few scrawny apples upon it. We have only contempt for such a specimen, and say to the owner, “ Why don’ t you cut that tree down? It does not deserve a place here.” But the owner replies: “ Cut that tree down! Why it is one of my best varieties, but the season has been against it. First of all, the rabbits almost barked it, then it was almost uprooted by a storm, but it is coming round, and next year I will show you some of the finest fruit in my orchard from that tree.” So we, in looking upon a human life, judging from a few imperfect specimens of its character that circumstances largely controlled, may possibly condemn it as being unworthy. But perhaps the Great Husbandman is saying, “ Circumstances have been against him for awhile, but a high quality of life is there; it is growing to something better than now appears, and in spite of adverse influences, it is even now a worthier life than many of loftier pretensions. (S. Pascoe.)Righteous judgment The Church of Corinth was largely turned into a school of ill-natured criticism.1. Each of the parties was occupied in finding fault with the names appealed to by the others; and thus some taunted those who clung especially to St. Paul with the suggestion that their much-loved apostle might be an active teacher and organiser, a great letter-writer, an ingenious disputant; but he was not faithful: he was wanting in that sincerity of purpose which is indispensable in a public servant of Christ. St. Paul here deals with this charge. No doubt a steward must be before all things faithful; but whether the Corinthians or any other men think him faithful or not matters very little to him, since he does not venture to decide even for himself. His conscience, indeed, accuses him of unfaithfulness; but then he does not see very far, and he is judged by One who knows all. Therefore the Corinthians had better give up their habit of judging “ until the Lord come.” 2. This precept often occurs in the Bible. Our Lord says, “ Judge not, that ye be not judged” ; and St. Paul warns the Romans: “ Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest.” I. What is the import of this precept?1. It is not meant that we are to form and express no judgment whatever upon human conduct. For-- (1) Many judgments are inevitable if we think at all. Judgments of some kind issue from us just as naturally as flour does from a working corn-mill. How can it be otherwise? (a) God has given us a moral sense, and if this be alive it must judge with utter antipathy that which is in contradiction with this governing law; not to do this is to capitulate to the forces of evil, and to cancel the law of right within us. (b) God has given us also a law or sense of truth. As to what is true, some of us are better informed than others. We are, e.g., instructed Christians, who know and believe the whole body of truth taught by our Lord and His apostles; and so we approve of agreement and disapprove of disagreement, to what we hold for truth. In our days men sometimes think it good-natured to treat truth and falsehood as at bottom much the same thing; but this cannot be done with impunity. (2) Holy Scripture stimulates and trains the judicial faculty within us. The great servants of God in the Bible are intended to rouse us to admire and to imitate them; the sinners in the Bible are intended to create in us moral repulsion for their crimes. And what is this but an inward judgment? And as the Jewish law, by its higher standard, makes the judicial faculty in man more active than it was in the case of the heathen, so Christianity, with a higher standard still, makes it more active in the Christian than it was in the Jew. A Christian cannot help condemning acts that violate the law of Christ; not to do so is to renounce that law as a rule of thought and conduct. A Christian ought, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, to have his moral senses exercised so as to discern between good and evil. Evidently the apostle wished the faculty of moral judgment to be very active at Corinth in the case of the incestuous person. (3) Human society has always found it necessary to lay upon some of its members the duty of judging others. Every day of term causes are heard and judged in our Law Courts before the time. Is this to contravene the teaching of St. Paul? Is it not clear that without some such officer as a judge associated human life would be impossible? No, a judge, so far from being an unchristian functionary, is the organ, within certain limits, of the judgment of the human and Christian conscience. 2. What, then, is the apostle’ s exact meaning--what is the class of judgments no one of which is permitted to a Christian? Some of the Corinthians undertook to decide what was the character and worth of Paul’ s motive, and therefore he bids them judge nothing, i.e., of this purely internal character, “ until the Lord come.” Our Lord would drag bad motives from their obscurity and show in the full light of day the real motives upon which all before His throne had acted. It is, then, the judgment of that which does not meet the eye, the judgment of the characters as distinct from acts, which is forbidden. If we witness an act of theft, we must say that it is an act of theft, and that Almighty God will punish it. If we are asked to say further what is the moral condition of a thief before God, the answer is by no means so easy. II. The reasons which make it difficult for all of us to judge the characters as distinguished from the acts of other men equitably.1. We have our likes and dislikes; only those who have a very strong sense of justice keep these tendencies well in hand before they speak or act in relation to others. (1) We do not welcome virtues which condemn ourselves. If our tendency be to vanity, we find it hard to do justice to the humble, &c., &c. (2) We assume that the virtues which cost us little or nothing to practise are the most important, and that the vices which contradict these virtues ought to be judged with the greatest severity. A bias like this disqualifies us for equitable judgment and warns us not to attempt to judge character “ before the Lord come.” 2. We are necessarily ignorant of circumstances, which, if they do not decide our action, they do, nevertheless, influence it very seriously. One eye only can take a full account of circumstances. He knew what had been the circumstances of the penitent thief when He said: “ This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” He knew what had been the circumstances of Judas when He said, “ It were better for that man if he had never been born.” As for us we do not know, and therefore we had better “ judge nothing” as to character “ until the Lord come.” 3. We see only the outside of character in those whom we know most intimately. Sometimes, under most unpromising appearances, there is a fund of hidden good. On the other hand, outward appearances may be uniformly fair while concealing some deep secret evil that is eating out the very heart of the soul, like the disease which is at work upon the constitution while the bloom of health still lingers on the cheek. Every man who is trying to serve God must deplore the contrast between his real life and the favourable reputation which he enjoys among his friends, and must experience something like relief when, now and then, he gets abused, it may be quite unjustly, since in this way he feels the appraisement is partly redressed. We cannot anticipate God’ s judgments in either direction. He looked of old on a pagan and He said, “ Lo! I have not found so great faith; no, not in Israel.” He called some who had the greatest reputation for goodness “ whited sepulchres,” &c. He said that the first on earth would often be the last hereafter, and that the last would be first. You may here remind me of our Lord’ s words, “ By their fruits ye shall know them.” Yes; but He is speaking of false prophets, and He tells us that the goodness or badness of human actions is a guide to the worth of the systems which produce them; He is giving us a test of doctrines. As for character it is by no means almost or adequately to be measured by acts. The Pharisee’ s good acts were more numerous and indisputable than those of the publican, but the publican’ s inward disposition was his justification before God. 4. Once more, there is the soul of every action, the intention with which it is done. Apart from this an act is merely the product of an animated machine. Many actions in themselves excellent are corrupted by a bad motive. Prayer is a good action, so is fasting, so is almsgiving; but we remember what our Lord said of those who prayed or gave alms, or fasted to be seen of men. On the other hand, a good motive cannot transform an act in itself bad into a good act. A lie remains a lie, even if we tell it with a pious motive. Oh, what a mysterious unknown world is the world of motives! Human law has little to do with it; it touches the fringe of it, but reluctantly now and then, as when it essays to distinguish between manslaughter and murder. But do we really know about it? and, in our ignorance, how can we possibly undertake to judge the inward life of others before the time? On two occasions St. Paul seems to have violated his own precept: when he denounced Elymas and Ananias. But he was acting under the guidance of an inspiration which discovered to him the real character of these men, but which it would be contrary to humility and good sense in us to assume that we were possessed of. If our Lord said to His hearers, “ Ye hypocrites,” He saw the men through and through, so that there was not a trace of possible injustice in His description. III. When the Lord comes there will be a judgment at once adequate and universal.1. Well it is for us that we have not to trust to any of the phrases that are sometimes proffered us as substitutes for the last judgment--the judgment of posterity. Posterity, the chances are, will know nothing whatever about us. Posterity does judge the few eminences of a past age, but whether posterity is right or wrong what does it matter to those most concerned? They hear nothing of its favourable or unfavourable verdict, they have long since passed before a higher tribunal. And what about the millions of whom posterity never hears? Surely it is well that we may look forward to something better than a judgment of posterity. 2. “ Until the Lord come.” Yes; He can do that which we cannot do; He can judge men as they really are. There is no warp in His perfect humanity that can for a moment affect the balance of His judgment; there is no sin or weakness to which He has a subtle inclination, or of which He will ever exaggerate the evil. He is acquainted with any circumstances that excuse or enhance the guilt of each who stands before His throne. He has had His eye all along upon each one of us. He can form not merely an outward but an inward estimate of us; He is never misled by appearances; and therefore, when He does come, His judgment will be neither superficial nor inequitable; it will carry its own certificate of perfect justice into the inmost conscience of those whom it condemns. (Canon Liddon.)Unrighteous judgment General Grant, speaking of charges of cowardice, says, “ The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place to judge what is going on. The stragglers in the rear are not to make us forget the intrepid soldiers in front.” But how many judge the Christian Church and religion by its worst representatives! (H. O. Mackey.)Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.-- The processes of the last judgment This is a very simple description of the last judgment, only a brief statement of some things to be done by the Judge, without any of those details which address themselves irresistibly to the imagination. I. Christ will bring to light the hidden things of darkness. 1. Now such is the imperfectness of the strictest human legislation that a great deal of crime passes undiscovered. The effect of this is to encourage many to commit it in hope of impunity. If it were certain that every breaker of the law would be visited with its penalties, there would be few violations of its statutes. 2. But this holds good not only in regard to legal offences which cover only a limited range of wickedness. There are many sins which a man may commit without exposing himself to any legal penalty, but not, if the commission be known, without suffering in his good name or reputation. You have only to bring it about, that public odium shall be attached to a certain action, and you may almost reckon on it becoming comparatively unknown. But then public opinion, as well as the law, maybe altogether evaded through concealment. There are so many ways of hiding vice, so many chances against being found out. There is hardly anything so powerful as an encouragement to sin as the expectation of concealment. 3. Yet the very publicity to which we attribute such power may be affirmed in regard of all of us. The moment you recognise the Divine omnipresence you make the very notion of secrecy absurd. And yet so powerful is practical unbelief that the very things which men would not dare to do, if they thought themselves observed by a human being, they do without scruple if observed only by God. 4. But let us see whether it be of any real advantage that the inspection is that of God and not that of man. We will suppose it known that on this day twelvemonth there shall be made a revelation of the actions of every man’ s life: now would not the prospect of this have a vast influence on a man; would not those actions which he would not have dared to commit, had he not looked for concealment, press on his mind and cause him deep agony; and would he not instantly set about the work of reformation, that he might reduce as much as possible what would have to be disclosed? It is not, then, the temporary impunity which induces a man to commit what would bring him to shame if it were but disclosed--it is the hope of escaping altogether. And it is no imaginary case which we thus bring to convict you of the worst infatuation, if you could be content with hiding from your fellow-men what is faulty in your actions; this is the very ease which is actually to come to pass. 5. We do not see why it should practically make any difference to you, that this revelation is not to take place until after death. Except that you should be vastly more affected than if it occurred during your life; for if you dread the revelation because of punishment which may follow, you should dread it the more when the punishment is eternal; and if it be the shame that you fear, where would your exposure be so terrible as in the presence of myriads of angels, and of the whole human race? And now we want to know why the very men, on whom the prospect of such a revelation would tell with awful force, if it were certain to take place during their natural lives, can regard it with the most utter indifference, because not to take place until they have passed into eternity? It must, we think, be that they do not associate such a revelation with the business of the last judgment. We need not suppose there is any one of you who has secretly transgressed the laws of the land, in such sense, that if his actions were exposed, they would bring on him judicial interference; but we may suppose that there are numbers who would be horror-struck with the idea of having their lives laid bare, so that every man might know whatever they had done. Does the merchant allow himself to be guilty of practices not strictly honourable, &c., &c.? Why you would sink into the earth for very shame if this revelation of yourselves were to take place now in the face of the congregation! Oh! then, think, Shall we be able to bear it better when spirits innumerable from every district of the universe shall look with searching gaze on all our hidden doings? If the disgrace of exposure would make you long now to hide yourselves in the depths of the earth, shall you not then be of those who will call passionately on the rocks and mountains to cover them?--passionately, but vainly--for there shall be no more darkness but the darkness of hell, and that is the darkness of a fire which cannot conceal because it cannot consume. II. Christ will make manifest the counsels of the heart. But there are many who might venture to live in public; so high are their morals, so amiable their tempers. These men will not fear exposure. But if there be some who might venture on submitting their lives, who is there that would venture OH submitting his thoughts? Active sin bears hardly any proportion to imagined sin; for whilst a thousand things may put restraint on the actions, there is nothing whatever to control the imagination, save an earnestness to obey, by God’ s help, the injunction, “ Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” Compassed, as we all are, with infirmity, there is no diligence which can keep watch over an ever active fancy; so that almost before we are aware, there will be defilement within, whilst all is yet purity without. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes. Apostolic delicacy and tact St. Paul means that in the preceding passage (from 1 Corinthians 3:5) he has presented, while applying them to himself and Apollos, the principles regarding the ministry which he was concerned to remind them of, in view of certain preachers of the Church which misunderstood them. He did not wish to designate those preachers by name, lest he should shock susceptibilities already awakened. He explains this method, which he felt called to use in the delicate circumstances, by the words “ for your sakes,” which here signify “ the more easily to gain your acceptance of the truth thus presented.” Expressions like “ Paul is nothing, Apollos is nothing,” applied to other leading persons at Corinth, would have seemed injurious, while in the form used by Paul the truth declared lost all character of personal hostility. Hence it follows that “ these things” applies solely to the last passage concerning the ministry, and not at all to the previous passages regarding the nature of the gospel. It is therefore a mistake to find here a proof in favour of applying to Apollos or his partisans the polemic against human wisdom in chaps, 1. and 2. The passage rather shows how thoroughly Paul felt himself one with Apollos, seeing he could treat him as a second self, and distinguish him so pointedly from teachers who opposed him at Corinth. (Prof. Godet.)How the apostle reproves the pride of the Corinthian Church I. By example (1 Corinthians 4:6). II. By argument (1 Corinthians 4:7). III. By sarcasm (1 Corinthians 4:8), IV. By the consideration of god’ s procedure (1 Corinthians 4:9). V. By contrast (1 Corinthians 4:10). VI. By an enumeration of apostolic humiliations and sufferings (Verses 11-13). (Prof. Godet.)That ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written.--The true standard of the gospel ministry The apostle means by “ what is written,” the Scriptures of the Old Testament; not that he refers to any particular passage, but to the general spirit and point of view of the Divine revelation. The facts which he has delivered to the Corinthians are “ according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). He claims the same allegiance to the Old Testament on behalf of Apollos, who was “ strong in the Scriptures.” The words are another undesigned vindication of himself and Apollos from the charge of being party leaders. Both kept close to the teaching of Scripture. The faithfulness of the steward (1 Corinthians 4:2) turns out to be loyalty to the Word of God; and, as the faithful servant fears not the judgment of men, so also the pride of his self-conceit is quelled by the subjection of his spirit to God’ s revelation. Both qualities are the opposite of the tortuous intellectual cleverness of the Corinthians. Both are the surest safeguard of transparent, direct, honest simplicity of character, which, in turn, is the best preservative of Church order, and the only remedy against faction. (Principal Edwards.)That not one of you be puffed up for one against another.-- Puffed up “ Be not puffed up one above another” (comp. in the Greek 1 Thessalonians 5:11). The followers of Apollos exalted themselves over those of Paul, and those of Paul over those of Cephas. One exalted himself above another and against him. He not only thought himself better than his brother, but assumed a hostile attitude towards him. This view is confirmed by the next verse, which is directed against the self-conceit of the Corinthians and not against their zeal for their teachers. (C. Hodge, D. D.)The evil of pride exhibited I. By direct exposure.1. It is an over-estimation of self (1 Corinthians 4:6).2. Ignores its dependence upon God (1 Corinthians 4:7).3. Is inflated with imaginary superiority (1 Corinthians 4:8). II. By contrast with apostolic example.1. Apostles esteemed themselves the least, the proud think themselves the greatest (1 Corinthians 4:9-10). 2. Apostles willingly endured for Christ’ s sake, the proud shun all self-sacrifice (1 Corinthians 4:11-12). 3. Apostles maintained under their afflictions a spirit of forbearance and love, the proud are easily offended, &c. (1 Corinthians 6:13). (Family Churchwoman.) 1 Corinthians 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another?and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Human differences Why cannot we write poetry like John Milton, or paint like Raphael? One man seems to be good without an effort; another man says he cannot be good do what he will. We differ intellectually. There is Jedediah Buxton, a common ploughman; give him the size of a wheel, and he would tell you on the spot how many circumvolutions it would make in going round the globe. Of Streleczki, a Polish count, it is said that “ from the colonial capacities of Australia to the diameter of an extinct crater in one of the Polynesian islands, from the details of an Irish poor taw to the chemical composition of malachite,” he was perfectly at home. How different from ourselves! Let us come around this subject determined to find out what we can of its deep and holy meaning. Let me first address myself-- I. To those who may be inclined to despair. They fix their eye upon brilliant examples, and say, “ How is it that we are not glorious and powerful like these?” Now this thing is really not so bad as it looks. There are compensations. You wish to be like the great calculator I have named. Let me tell you that on almost every subject but numbers Jedediah Buxton was little better than an imbecile. His admirers once took him to the opera, and when he came back he said, “ Wonderful, she took so many steps in so many minutes!” Now will you change with him? And as for the Polish count he knew everything, but he built nothing, was brilliant but not solid. You should set one thing over against another. Every daisy has its own little bit of colour. Remember the tortoise and the hare. Instead of dwelling on your defects dwell on your gifts. If you have little you might have had less. If you stammer you might have been dumb. Though you have no wings you have good strong limbs. II. To those who pride themselves on their gifts and powers. The apostle referred to these, and asks a question of those who are puffed up, which might well make them modest and thoughtful: “ What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” He makes every man a debtor. Strength is from God, so is skill, so is opportunity. But one man has ten thousand a year, and another man can hardly live; what about such contrasts as these? Let me tell you.1. A man may require a ladder ten thousand steps high before he can see any Providence at all, and another man can see God in the raiment of the lilies and the livelihood of birds. 2. One man may be able to bear the prosperity represented by ten thousand a year, and another might be crushed by the golden load. 3. And wholly apart from all such considerations, it still remains graciously true that “ a man’ s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” III. To those who wonder how it is that one man is saved, and another man is lost.1. God is far more concerned for the salvation of the human family than it is possible for man to be. He will do all that can be done. Let me leave the awful problem in His good hands. 2. The judgments of God are founded upon the gifts of God. When much is given, much will be required; where little has been given, little will be required. 3. It is not for me to say who will be saved, and who will not. I may not ask, “ Lord, are there few that be saved? “ or He will instantly answer: Strive to enter in at the straight gate! He will throw me back on my own obligations, and withdraw me from problems too deep for my immature and presumptuous mind. (J. Parker, D. D.)Distinguishing grace Pride is the inherent sin of man, and yet it is of all sins the most foolish. A thousand arguments might be used to show its absurdity; but none of these would be sufficient to quench its vitality. Take for instance the argument of creation. We are the thing formed; shall we say of ourselves that we deserve honour because God hath formed us wondrously? What are we, after all, but as grasshoppers in God’ s sight? But surely if this prevail not to clip the pinions of our pride, the Christian man may at least bind its wings with arguments derived from the distinguishing love and peculiar mercies of God. Observe-- I. Wherein God hath made us to differ.1. Many of us differ from others in God’ s providential dealings towards us. Many of God’ s beloved children are in the depths of poverty, while some of us who are here have all that heart can wish. Let us gratefully ask, “ Who maketh us to differ?” Perhaps none of us can ever know, until the great day shall reveal it, how much some of God’ s servants are tried, and if God hath made our path more pleasant, it is owing only to His grace, and we will not be high-minded, but condescend to men of low estate. The more God has given us the more we are in debt. Why should a man boast because he is deeper in debt than another? But the best way for you to feel this is to go into the hospital; then go round the neighbourhood to the sick who have lain for years upon the same bed, and after that go and visit some of God’ s poverty-stricken children. 2. Many differ in regard to God’ s gracious dealings. (1) Ask yourself, Why am I not at this very hour hearing the Word with my outward ear, but rejecting it in my inward heart? Have I made myself to differ? God forbid that such a proud thought should defile our hearts. The only reason is because He hath made thee to differ. Who are more hardened than those to whom we have alluded? (2) There are some of whose salvation, if it were to be wrought by man, we must indeed utterly despair for their hearts are harder than the most stubborn steel. How is it that my heart is melted, my conscience is tender, and that I know how to pray and to groan before God on account of sin? (3) But the lowest class of sinners do not mingle with our congregations, but are to be seen in our streets and lanes. How frightful are the sins of drunkenness, of blasphemy, of lasciviousness! “ Who maketh thee to differ?” Some of you have experienced redemption from these very iniquities. (4) How is it that the minister has not forsaken his profession? How is it that the deacons have not turned aside unto crooked ways? How is it that so many members of this Church have been kept so that the wicked one toucheth them not? Let Abraham be deserted by God, he equivocates and denies his wife. Let Noah be deserted, he becomes a drunkard. Let David be left, and Uriah’ s wife shall soon show the world that the man after God’ s own heart hath still an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. Then give all glory to the only wise God your Saviour who has kept you thus. (5) Since you and I have joined the Church how many who were once our companions have been damned whilst we have been saved? Oh, why is it you are not already a fiend; who is it that has given you a good hope through grace? II. Now what shall we say to these things? If God has made you to differ--1. You should pray, “ Lord, humble us. Take away pride out of us. O God, forgive us, that we should ever be proud.” 2. Why may He not make others to differ toot “ After the Lord saved me,” said one, “ I never despaired of anybody.” Will you ever give up praying for anybody now that you are saved? Let me serve Him more than others. “ What do ye more than others?” (C. H. Spurgeon.)All blessings come from God I. I begin with reminding you that every blessing we possess is the gift of God, and that we have nothing which we did not receive from Him. That this is the case with respect to natural endowments will readily be admitted. A quick apprehension, a retentive memory, a lively imagination, and other mental powers are favours which the great Author of our being dispenseth to whom, and in what measure, it pleaseth Him; and never was any man so arrogant as to pretend that he bestowed these qualities upon himself. It is no less evident that the light of Divine revelation is an additional blessing which flows immediately from the same fountain of beneficence. We see every day that earthly things are estimated, not by their use, but by their scarcity; though, in fact, the things that are truly precious, because most necessary, instead of being rare, are scattered abroad with the greatest profusion. Thus doth God dispense temporal benefits: the best, that is the most useful, are universally given out in greatest abundance. And it may justly be affirmed that spiritual blessings are dispensed in the same way. The most comprehensive blessing, the unspeakable gift of Jesus Christ, is of all others the most free and liberal. In like manner the great rules of duty, and the truths that are best adapted to purify our hearts, and reform our practice, are dispersed, as it were, around us in the greatest plenty and variety. This affords a glorious display of the wisdom and goodness of our great Lawgiver and Judge. But, alas! we thwart His merciful intentions. Overlooking what is near, we roam abroad in quest of other things that lie at the remotest distance from us, and have the feeblest influence upon out’ temper and practice. To correct this false taste, by recalling men’ s attention to the most simple and practical truths, ought, in my apprehension, to be the principal aim of a gospel minister. Life is short, and souls are precious, and therefore things of eternal consequence ought in all reason to be preferred. II. To select some practical lessons was the second thing proposed, to which I now proceed.1. If all the blessings we possess be the gifts of God, the effects of His free and unmerited bounty, then surely we ought to be humble. 2. From the same principle, with equal ease and certainty, we may deduce our obligation to thankfulness and praise. 3. To humility and gratitude I add resignation to the will of God. Surely if no wrong be done us, we have no right to complain. We ought rather to adore that goodness which at first bestowed the gift, gave us the comfortable enjoyment of it, and continued it with us so long. 4. Did we attend to this truth we should not dare to employ any means that are unlawful for improving our circumstances, or acquiring the good things that belong to a present world, and even in using the means that are lawful, we should constantly look up to God for success, and implore His blessing upon our honest endeavours. 5. The importance of enjoying the blessing of God, with all the gifts which His bounty bestows upon us. From this alone ariseth their value, and nothing else can impart to them that sweetness which renders the possession of them truly desirable. (R. Walker.)The free grace and gifts of God These are questions which strike at the very root of human pride. They teach us the absolutely dependent condition of every one upon earth. Why some should be rich, others poor; why some should be strong, others weak; some blessed with the highest powers of thought and understanding, and others deprived of reason, of this great gift of God; why some should be endowed with many excellent graces of the soul; why some should be cut off in the very midst of their sins, whilst we have been spared--are difficulties which human reason could never explain. We require something infinitely beyond all human authority to explain these things, and to teach them as truths to be reconciled with the gracious attributes of the Supreme Being--and this want is well supplied. From Scripture we learn, that as God is the Creator of all things, so He has the unquestionable right of disposing and adapting everything according to His own free will, both in the moral and natural world. His holy Word very plainly tells us that He is the sole Author of all good (John 3:27; John 6:65; James 1:17; 1 Corinthians 3:7; 2 Corinthians 3:5; Philippians 2:13). There are other passages which teach us that God deals out His mercies according to His own free grace, without regard to any real merit on the part of those, His fallen creatures, who are the objects of His gracious and Fatherly care (Acts 17:24-25; Acts 17:28; Exodus 33:19; Isaiah 65:1; Matthew 20:15; Luke 19:10; Romans 9:16; Romans 11:33; Ephesians 2:8-9).1. Of this doctrine of God’ s free grace in the distribution of His manifold gifts, the following practical uses may be made. First, we are never to suffer our not being able to understand the counsels of God to perplex our minds, or to prevent us from fulfilling the various duties which He hath given us to perform. We know enough of God’ s moral government over us to know this great truth, that whatever comes from Him must be right and good, however unable we may be to explain all His dealings towards the children of men. We are therefore to go on with the work of God, the salvation of our immortal souls, with constancy and holy zeal. 2. We are, secondly, to rest satisfied with what hath been already made known to us, waiting for more perfect knowledge of the ways of God in the world to come. (H. Marriot.)The inequalities of life 1. That inequalities do exist is one of the most patent and enduring of facts. And we cannot but reflect that it might have been otherwise. The moral law, indeed, could not have been other than it is consistently with the nature of its Author; but we might conceivably have had a world upon which a law of equality might have been stamped as plainly as it is in fact everywhere absent. Nor is grace in this matter the antithesis of nature. 2. The great truth which the apostle suggests is that the author of differences is the infinitely wise and good God. It is not chance; it is not a fatal outcome of inexorable law. We differ from one another-- I. In external circumstances.1. Of these inequalities, England is, perhaps, beyond any country in Europe, the great example. The contrast presented by the east and west ends of the metropolis is probably not to be found in any other capital; and, considering the small area and vast population of this country, the actual distribution of land and wealth might seem to approach the proportions of a social danger, and to threaten some form of destructive change. 2. There are answers enough to the apostle’ s question. These differences, we are told, are begotten of ancient injustice; they are a legacy of feudalism, or they are traceable to more recent eras of misgovernment; they represent the traditional selfishness of one class and the chronic inertness and degradation of another. Let the truth of all this, here and there, be granted, yet vast differences will still remain, due to the simple fact that God makes one man to differ from another in productive power, and hence there is inevitably a corresponding difference in the amount produced. If to-morrow you could cut up the land into strips, that every Englishman should have his tiny share in it, a fortnight would not pass before the reign of inequality would have begun again. Nature and fact would assert themselves against theory; and property varying in amount concomitantly with each man’ s productive power, would find its way into the hands of a minority--though, no doubt, a new minority--of the people. 3. What is this, then, but the old story of the Church ever upholding privilege against right, wealth against poverty, the few against the many? What is this but an endeavour to stereotype wrong by making God responsible for it, and by interposing Divine sanctions between it and its correction? And if we point in reply to a future in which inequalities will be for ever redressed, we are fiercely warned that this faith of ours in a future stands in the way of efforts to improve man’ s present lot. No, you misunderstand us. If property be of a kind to make crime almost the instinct of self-preservation; if the lack of education means no ruling moral principles in the conscience; if human beings are huddled together into dwellings which deny to purity its simplest safeguards, then, most assuredly, the Church of Christ would be false to her Master if she did not, at whatever risks, urge a remedy. Nay, more, whenever Christianity is really believed and acted on, it tends to lessen the general inequalities of life. Its charities throw bridges over the abysses which separate classes; its spirit of self-sacrifice prompts the free abandonment of wealth and station for the sake of others. Yet when all that can be done in this direction has been done, great inequalities must remain, because they are due to inherited differences of personal capacity. II. In the personal endowments with which our Creator has sent us into the world.1. Race differs so widely from race, that these differences have been exaggerated into one of the stock arguments against the unity of the human family. But members of the same race often differ from each other scarcely, if at all, less widely. Not seldom does this original inequality traverse, as if with a disdainful irony, the other inequalities of external circumstances which you have inherited from those who have transmitted to you their name and blood. 2. Here we are encountered by the doctrine of heredity. We are told that every quality in the individual has its roots and germs in the ancestral past. Undoubtedly this doctrine rests on a basis of fact; but if you say that most of the differences between man and man can be explained by it, does this do anything more than postpone the larger question which lies behind? Why should a given individual have this particular ancestry? Nay, why should there be anything to be transmitted, or any law of type to govern its transmission? In presence of these questions, science is wisely silent; but religion is not silent. And the answer to them leaves man, as he was of old, in the pre-scientific days, face to face with the Almighty Creator. III. In the religious advantages and opportunities which have been bestowed on us. Our homes are, in this respect, very different; in some God is practically ignored, in others His will and honour are made a first consideration. The schools to which we have been sent are very different; in some religion is all but forgotten, in others it is the life and soul of the whole system. Our friendships are very different; and there are times in life when, religiously speaking, a friendship may have decisive consequences. Who maketh thee to differ from another? Who stands behind the opportunities of youth, behind the intellectual and moral environments of manhood, behind the subtle predispositions, which from the early days of life exercise a propelling influence in this direction or in that? Who gave his mother to St. Augustine, and his father to John Stuart Mill? These differences come from God; and if we ask why they should exist, we find ourselves face to face with abysmal mysteries, cut of which issues the warning, “ Is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own? Is thine eye evil because I am good?” Conclusion:1. But is not this disappointing? Might we not have hoped that Christ, in whom all are brethren, and who makes all free indeed, would also have made us equal? But let us note that inequality of gift does not imply that God loves less those to whom He gives less. He gives as we can bear His gifts; He withholds, as He bestows, in love. Nay, underlying the great differences there is a much truer equality than we may think. As in a well-ordered state all are equal before the law, so in the Church all are equal before their Maker and Redeemer. We are equal, in that-- (1) We all have before us the solemn moment of death. (2) We shall all be judged relatively to the gifts and opportunities we have enjoyed. (3) We must all of us be washed in the precious blood of Christ, and sanctified by the Eternal Spirit. (4) We are all of us receivers, although some of us may have received five talents, and others one. 2. What hast thou that thou hast not received? Is there nothing? Yes, one thing, only one--sin. 3. The temper in which we should think and act in view of the truth before us has three characteristics. (1) Disinterestedness. Any gift, possessed by others, and used for the glory of the Giver, should excite in a Christian pure and disinterested pleasure. If He has not given them to us individually, what does that matter, so far as our appreciating them is concerned? (2) Anxiety. Anxiety for others lest they should misuse God’ s bounty; but great anxiety for ourselves, if any of us have reason to think that we have been entrusted with anything considerable. “ Be not high-minded, but fear.” (3) Self-consecration. It may be little that you can give, give it to God; it may be what men deem much, give it unreservedly. (Canon Liddon.)A catechism for the proud 1. The Corinthian Church was exceedingly gifted: Alas! its grace was not in proportion to its gifts, and consequently a proud spirit was developed. Parties were formed who gloried in men that other men might glory in them. 2. There is great wisdom in Paul’ s rebuke. He did not cry down their talents. You very seldom lower a man’ s opinion of himself by undervaluing his gifts. He remembers the fable of the fox and the sour grapes. Pride is not to be cured by injustice: one devil will not drive out another. Pride often finds fuel for itself in that which was intended to damp its flame. The apostle follows a far more sensible course; he asks where the talent comes from. 3. The questions of the text may well humble us; but to this end we need the assistance of the Holy Ghost, for nothing is more difficult than to overcome our self-conceit. Pride hides itself under numberless disguises. Many take a pride in what they call having no pride about them. When Diogenes trampled on his valuable carpets and said, “ I trample upon the pride of Plato!” “ Yes,” said Plato, “ and with greater pride.” Note-- I. A great and comprehensive truth. “ Every good gift,” &c.1. Temporal advantages. Men boast of-- (1) Strength and beauty; but these are gifts, not virtues. Some consider the strongest man to be the best, forgetting that horses and elephants can bear greater loads, and lions and tigers can be fiercer in fight. As for beauty, one of its most potent charms lies in its modest unconsciousness. These personal advantages are distributed at the Divine pleasure. The Lord has made one athletic while another is born a cripple, &c. (2) Position. But what determined the circumstances of our birth? and after all we are all on a level if we trace our pedigrees to their common meeting-place. Some claim to have made their own position; nay, to have made themselves. Yes, and worship their supposed maker. But “ who gave you your opportunity and the force of character which have brought you to the front?” (3) Talent and knowledge; but to whom do they owe those natural predilections and talents which have been denied to others who have been equally industrious? Whence also has come the health which has enabled the student to persevere in laborious research? (4) Wealth. Certainly it is to a man’ s credit that he has not squandered his money in waste and self-indulgence; but still, what has he that he did not receive? His habits and discretions may be traced to training, or to force of mind, or to happy example, and they are, therefore, things received. And then his success, it is not alone due to industry, for sickness or accident might have made him unable to earn his bread. “ Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” 2. Gracious privileges. Those who have been saved by Divine grace differ greatly from what they used to be, and from others still unregenerate. How comes this? It has been by the hearing of the gospel as the means, but we must ascribe it to Divine grace, and not to chance, that we were born where the gospel was preached, and not left under the influence of heathenism. The sovereignty of God is to be seen, again, in the fact that one should be found under a cold, dead ministry, and another should hear a soul-saving preacher. Yet further, there were some who heard the same sermons as you did and were not converted, and you were. How came that about? It is true you did pay more earnest attention, but what led you to do so? 3. Spiritual blessings. Conviction of sin; did that arise spontaneously, or did the Spirit convince you of sin? Repentance towards God--was that wrought in you by the Holy Spirit, or was it the outgrowth of your own free will? You have faith, but faith is the gift of God. Since your conversion you have exhibited some measure of holiness, but was that wrought in you by the Spirit, or is it the fruit of your natural excellence? Who distinguishes thee now? Suppose thou wert left to thyself, couldst thou continue in thy state of grace? And who shall make us to differ in days to come? Are we our own keepers? II. Its teachings.1. It is a rebuke to pride. Let any one of us look back to our first estate, and we shall surely be compelled to silence every boast for ever. Think of what we should be if grace left us! 2. An excitement to gratitude. If all I have and am is due to the distinguishing grace of God, then let me bless the Lord in the depths of my soul. This gratitude should take the shape of continual obedience. 3. A reminder of responsibilities. Where much is given much will be required. It is to be deeply regretted that some of those who have the most ability to do good are doing the least. 4. A suggestion of great tenderness in dealing with others. “ Who maketh thee to differ?” You met the other day with a man fast bound with bad habits, and you said, “ Nothing can be done with such a wreck. I will not waste words upon him.” It would be better to drink into the spirit of John Bradford, who, when he saw a condemned malefactor, was wont to say, “ There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.” I have never despaired of the salvation of any man since the Lord saved me. 5. An encouragement for seekers. Now, you know some eminent Christians; remember that there is nothing good in them but what they have received from God. The Lord can give the like grace to you. “ Then what have I to do?” Simply, according to the text, to be a receiver; and that is the easiest thing in the world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Pride catechised and condemned Pride cannot endure honest questioning, and so Paul tried it by the Socratic method, and put it through a catechism. We have here-- I. A question to be answered with ease. When we are asked, “ Who maketh thee to differ from another?” the answer is,” God” : and if we are asked, “ What hast thou that thou didst net receive?” we reply, “ We have nothing but our sin.” We are the more glad to hear Paul say this, because he was what is nowadays styled a “ self-made” man. Yet though he was “ not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles,” he said, “ I be nothing.” “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” Our question is easy to answer, whether it be applied to natural gifts or to spiritual ones. II. A question to be answered with shame. “ If thou didst receive it,” &c. When we glory in anything we have received--1. We rob God of His honour. Every particle of praise we take to ourselves is so much stolen out of the revenues of the King of kings. 2. We leave our truthful position. When I confess myself to be weak, helpless, and ascribe all I have to grace, then I stand in the truth; but if I take the remotest praise to myself, I stand in a lie. 3. We are sure to esteem our Lord less. If Christ goes up self goes down; and if self rises Jesus falls in our esteem. 4. We undervalue our fellow Christians, and that is a great sin. “ Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones” ; but if we over-estimate ourselves we do so. 5. We miss the right course as to our gifts, and forget that they are only lent us to be used for our Master. It is required of stewards that they be found faithful, not that they vaunt themselves and deck themselves in their Master’ s goods. Some boast-- (1) Because God has placed them in office. What mighty airs some give themselves! “ Honour to whom honour is due” --they have learned by heart, and seen a personal inference in it. (2) About their experience. This also is vanity. Let the man who does this remember that he has gone nowhere except as the Lord’ s hand has borne him onward. Suppose a garden were proud, and boasted of its fruitfulness! III. Other questions which these questions suggest.1. Have I ever given to God His due place in the matter of my salvation? 2. Have I the spirit of humble gratitude? 3. Seeing I have been a receiver, what have I done towards giving out again? They make in the north of England earthenware saving boxes for the children. You can put what you like in, but you cannot get it out until you break the box; and there are persons of that sort among us. Some have died lately, and their estates have been reported in the Probate Court. We ought not to be as a stagnant pond, but like the great lakes of America which receive the mighty rivers and pour them out again, and consequently keep fresh and clear. 4. Since what I have had I have received by God’ s grace, might I not receive more? Covet earnestly the best gifts. 5. If all that Christians have they have received, sinner, why should not you receive as well as they? (C. H. Spurgeon.)Nothing to be proud of In “ Ethics for Young People,” Professor C. C. Everett tells of a question he asked when a small boy. He says: “ A lady was talking with me about ‘ easily besetting sins.’ She said that her besetting sin was pride. I looked at her in innocent wonder and exclaimed, ‘ Why, what have you to be proud of?’ I saw at once by her confusion that I had made a very impudent and unlucky speech.” We cannot ask this question of others; but if any one who is disposed to be proud should ask himself the question, “ What have you to be proud of?” and answer it truly, it might do him good. The inflation of pride Jehan Hering, who was a close observer of ants and their doings, once gave an account of a battle royal which he watched between two of the smallest of the species. It took place on the stem of a leaf; the cause was a scrap of food. The contestants fought until one killed the other. “ The victor,” says Hering, “ then strutted to and fro in view of the other ants. Napoleon could not have been more sure of his own mighty place in creation. ‘ For me,’ he seemed to say, ‘ was this world made.’ The mite was actually inflated with vanity.” An observer watching the throng of human beings passing along our crowded thoroughfares, would often be reminded of Hering’ s ant. So many are the men and women who express in their walk, their manner, their voice, a sense of their own importance. Here is a middle-aged tradesman who has just driven a sharp bargain; there is a schoolboy who ran a winning race last week; yonder is a young man who is pushing his way successfully into business or into fashionable society, and here comes a young girl whose only claim to distinction is a new hat. These are not strong proofs of superiority to the swarming millions of people on the earth. Yet these men and women bear themselves as if, like the ant, each of them thought, “ This world was made for me!” Theodore Hook, viewing a vain member of his college strutting along in cap and gown, approached presently, and timidly demanded, “ If you please, sir, are you anybody in particular?” How many of us, when most secure in our vanity, could stand that probing question? The men and women who have real work in life as a rule forget themselves, and acquire that total lack of self-consciousness which is the basis of the finest manners. Apostolic warnings I. To those who fostered the personal worship of the ministers--that is, of themselves.1. The qualities which are requisite for the higher part of the ministry are--great powers of sympathy; humbleness; wisdom to direct; knowledge of the world; and a knowledge of evil which comes rather from repulsion from it. But those which adapt a man for the merely showy parts are of an inferior order: fluency, self-confidence, tact, a certain histrionic power of conceiving feelings, and expressing them. Now, it was precisely to this class of qualities that Christianity opened a new field in places such as Corinth. Men who had been unknown suddenly found an opportunity for public addresses, activity, and leadership. They became fluent talkers; and the more shallow and self-sufficient they were, the more likely it was that they would become the leaders of a faction. And how did the apostle meet this? By inculcating (verse 7) Christian dependence: “ Who maketh thee to differ?” Christian responsibility: “ What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” 2. This tendency besets us ever. Even at school brilliancy is admired, whilst plodding industry is sneered at. Yet which of these Would St. Paul approve? Which shows fidelity? The dull mediocre talent faithfully used, or the bright talent used only for glitter and display? St. Paul did not sneer at eloquence, &c.; but he said, These are your responsibilities. You are a steward: you have received. Beware that you be found faithful. Woe, if the gifts and manner that have made you acceptable have done no more. In truth, this independence of God is man’ s fall. Adam tried to be independent; and just as all things are ours if we be Christ’ s, so, if we be not Christ’ s, then our pleasures, gifts, honours are all stolen; “ we glory as if we had not received.” II. To those who unduly magnified the office.1. There were men who exercised lordship over the congregations. Place verses 8 and 9 side by side, and think, first of all, of these teachers--admired, flattered, made rich, and then going on to rule as autocrats, so that when a Corinthian entertained his minister, he entertained his oracle, his very religion. And then turn to the apostolic life. If the one be an apostle, what is the other? If one be the high, the Christian life, how can the other be a life to boast of? 2. Remark here the irony. People who look upon Christianity as a mere passive, strengthless thing, must needs be perplexed with passages such as these. But remark how gracefully it turns with Paul from loving though angry irony, to loving earnestness: “ I would to God ye did reign.” Would to God that the time for triumph were come indeed, that these factions might cease, and we be kings together! 3. See here the true doctrine of the apostolical succession. The apostolical office is one thing; the apostolical character is quite another. And just as the true children of Abraham were not his lineal descendants, but the inheritors of his faith, so the true apostolical succession consists not in what these men pride themselves upon--their office, attainments, &c.; but rather in a life of truth, and in the suffering which inevitably comes as the result of being true. 4. Now, therefore, we can understand the passage with which he ends: “ Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me” (verse 16). Only do not misread it. You have here no mere partisan trying to outbid and outvie others. He says that the life he had just described was the one for them to follow. In this--“ Be ye followers of me,” he declares the life of suffering, in the cause of duty, to be higher than the life of popularity and self-indulgence. He says that the dignity of a minister, and the majesty of a man, consists not in “ Most Reverend,” or “ Most Noble,” prefixed to his name; but it lies in being through and through a man, according to the Divine idea; a man whose chief privilege it is to be a minister, a follower of Him who “ came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 4:8-13 Now ye are full … rich … as kings.The difference between the counterfeit and the real Christian I. The counterfeit--1. Is so replenished with Divine knowledge that he needs no teacher.2. Is so rich in grace that he exalts himself above the spiritually poor.3. Is so confident in himself that he would rule the consciences of others. II. The real--1. Regards himself as the least (1 Corinthians 4:9-10).2. Submits willingly to toil and suffering for the sake of Christ.3. Recompenses evil with good. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The state of the Corinthians contrasted with that of the apostles I. The state of the Corinthians. They were 1. Full of the good things of this world. 2. As kings, reigning. 3. But their condition spiritually was such as to demand earnest prayer. II. The state of the apostles.1. Poor in worldly things--rich in faith. 2. A spectacle both to angels and to men; a sight of misery to men; a spectacle of sorrow to angels. But their reward is not far distant. (J. H. Tasson.)Apostolic irony I. Exposes pride.1. It is empty, yet imagines itself full of wisdom.2. Poor, yet regards itself as rich in every good gift.3. Dependent, yet would reign as a king. II. Condemns it--1. By an indirect assertion of its folly.2. By an implied consciousness of personal insufficiency. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Apostolic treatment of vanity Vanity is a state of mind at once the most prevalent and detestable, it is a plant that springs from self-ignorance, and is disgusting to the spectator in all its forms and fruits. The apostle treats it with-- I. Withering sarcasm. “ Now ye are full,” &c. The Bible furnishes us with many instances of irony (1 Kings 18:27; Job 12:2), but nowhere have we it more forceful than here. Here are three metaphors, the first taken from persons filled with food, the second from persons so rich that they required no more, the third from those who have reached the highest elevation, obtained a throne. Paul seems to say to these conceited teachers that they were so great that they did not require such services as his. We scarcely know of a more effective way of treating vanity than by sarcasm. Treat the vain, swaggering man before you not according to your judgment of him, but according to his estimate of himself. Speak to him as one as stupendous as he believes himself to be, and your irony will stab him to the quick. Sarcasm often becomes the instrument of a great manly soul roused into indignation. II. A noble generosity. “ I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.” Here the north wind of sarcasm gives way to the south breezes of love. What he means is a wish that they were as truly full, rich, and royal as they thought themselves to be. The irony of a Christly man, however pungent, is not malign, but generous. (D. Thomas, D. D.)For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.--Before the footlights 1. A man may imagine it to be an easy matter to appear before an audience; but to stand before the footlights, when every turn of one’ s features are plainly to be seen, is a strain on the nerves which is hard to bear. 2. The Christian life is, however, more trying than any performance on the stage. The actor appears before a few hundred spectators who are willing to be pleased, and he is under the glare of the footlights for only two or three hours at a time; but the Christian is a spectacle to his many neighbours and also to the angelic hosts, and his part continues for life. 3. The apostle refers to the spectacles in the Colosseum at Rome. On some days, when about eighty thousand persons were assembled in its galleries, the first show in the arena would be men fighting with hungry lions and tigers, but in this performance the men were allowed to wear armour. In the pause after the first show, the vast crowd would refresh themselves with grapes, wine, and food, and then the second performance began, consisting of naked men fighting with each other, and without anything to defend themselves except their swords, the result being that the slightest touch of their weapons inflicted a gash. The most horrid regulation, however, was that he who preserved his own life should not be released but kept for slaughter another day. These men, therefore, that were actors in the last performance might well be called men appointed to death. 4. Of course everybody in his senses when he appears before the footlights of life, that is, when other people can see him, does his best. It is only the drunkard, the insane, or the woman that has lost all sense of shame, who label their sins before the eyes of others like a sign-board stating what they are. If an ordinary man have something that is bad within him, he tries to hide it from his fellow-men. Let the spectacle of your life be-- I. An embodiment of mercy. II. Exhibit the essence of truth. Learn to love the truth because it is the truth, and do it because it is right. Some people are not afraid to do wrong; all they are afraid of is being “ found out.” III. Embody charity in your deeds to your fellow--men. Follow the charity of God, who keeps open the gates of heaven day and night. (W. Birch.)A wonderful spectacle I. The spectacle.1. The actors were Divinely called. They appeared on the stage in answer to the behest of the highest will, guided in the selection by perfect wisdom. He who called David from the flock to preside over Israel, called these men from their daily avocations to preside over the affairs of the kingdom of heaven. 2. The actors were Divinely commissioned. The mission of apostolic life was special (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). 3. The actors were subjected to intense sufferings, and to cruel death. This was not accidental, but a part of their mission. They suffered in the tragedy to enforce its lessons (Matthew 10:16-18). It is almost certain that they all suffered martyrdom, except St. John. II. The spectators.1. Angels. We cannot say how their pure minds were affected, or what emotions throbbed in their breast. It appears from Ephesians 3:10-11, that they gather lessons from the life of the Church militant. (1) They saw the power of truth in lifting man above circumstances. By this they discovered that he had a nobler nature than they had been wont to ascribe to him. (2) The apostles gloried in tribulation, and this went beyond their experience and joy. They returned from the theatre inflamed with a greater degree of devotion. (3) That spectacle had something to do with their final safety. They had often ministered to the apostles in their trials, which taught them more perfect submission, and warmer obedience. No part of the audience realised the spectacle better than the angels. 2. Men. We have no difficulty in understanding the lessons which apostolic life teach us. (1) Entire consecration of life to the service of Christ. The apostles were not half-hearted or indifferent, but threw their heart and soul into the work. Can we look at this spectacle, and not be moved? (2) That the Christian life will surely vanquish difficulties. The boldness of faith is the same as that which encouraged the apostles to say--“ We cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.” (Weekly Pulpit.)A spectacle to angels In its widest reference the text teaches that our world is a theatre or arena, whereon men act their various parts, as in a drama--“ a spectacle to angels.” And this thought is at one with all Bible testimony. It teaches that from the first our planet has been an object of absorbing interest to all spiritual beings. I. The drama of human life has been cast in three great moral acts. And as displaying the Divine attributes, the angels are represented as bending down to study all of them.1. The first scene was one of blissful and holy human life. And endowed, as the first man was, with every power of perseverance in holiness, and plied with every motive to retain it, that first act in the drama of human life was fittingly “ a spectacle to angels.” 2. The second scene is a world apostate and accursed. An exhibition is now to be made of the terrible nature of sin, as seen alike in the malice of the tempter and the misery of the tempted. And when you consider the whole plot and progress of the drama--all the exhibitions of moral character under this fearful inspiration of sin, the whole wondrous development of redemption, from the first promise down through those ages of antediluvian depravity, through all those slowly evolving ritualisms to the tragic scene of Calvary, through all the gospel’ s subsequent triumphs--then this second act seems not unworthily “ a spectacle to angels.” 3. But on this scene the curtain falls. And when it rises again, it will be upon an arena worthier angelic regard. Out of the wreck and ruin of the present system of things, as a platform fitted for the manifestation of triumphant holiness, shall come forth the “ new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.” II. Its special and practical application to ourselves. It is a plain truth of revelation that these glorious beings are ever around us. They are represented not only as “ ministering unto the heirs of salvation,” but as watchful of even their seemingly most trivial interests, “ bearing them up, lest they dash their foot against a stone.” Let us consider this--1. For encouragement and consolation amid the trials of life. This is the application Paul gives it in the context. In a life wherein so few occasions are ours to do great things for God, and whose great law is suffering, it is blessed to think that it is especially when in sorrow, and agony, and death, we are “ a spectacle to angels.” They come on their bright wings to our desolate homes, our sick-beds, our death-beds, and every whisper of submissive Christian love sounds out as a grand hallelujah to the Infinite Glory, and every gentle tear in the eye of faith flashes as a gem of immense price in the diadem of their God. 2. As a ground of exhortation. We are all “ a spectacle to angels.” And how are we acting? (1) You may be this day an impenitent man; and if so, the part you are acting is one solemn beyond all conception--the part of an imperilled man with an immortal soul to save! For just such acting is this life-stage fitted. Oh, what solemn scenery it arranges around you! Here Sinai with its fire, and there Calvary with its Cross. And now tell me, you that live as if there were no God, and no judgment, sporting with the soul and salvation, if you are acting well your part before this great cloud of witnesses! Hath it not been with gestures of astonishment and indignation they have watched you? (2) Or you may be a true child of God; and then the part you are acting, if less terrible, is scarcely less solemn; for it is that of a redeemed man in the service of the Redeemer. In reference to this thought, Paul speaks of the believer as having “ put on Christ” --i e., as a tragedian assumes that of the hero he personates. Thus, to personate the Lord Jesus is the part you are to act, as “ a spectacle to angels.” And for such acting, also, is the world-stage fitted. For it is the self-same world wherein He personally acted. The same sinful and suffering humanity is ever around you. The same realities of eternity rise in transparencies beyond you. And tell me, if you seem unto yourselves acting your magnificent part well? III. As thus a spectacle to angels, it may be said, in one sense, we can choose the parts we are to act in their presence. There are some things common and certain to us all, and in regard of them we can choose at least our own style of acting.1. Take one set order-- 1. A death-scene! A darkened chamber. A company of heartbroken relatives keeping watch. The actor is a poor lover of pleasure, who put his eternity carefully away from him, living only for this world. Now witness his acting as it seems unto angels. Behold those feeble hands, lifted as to repel some shape of terror. Listen! That cry of anguish: “ Oh, do not let me die!” “ I cannot die!” “ I rejected the Saviour!” “ I am lost, lost, lost!” (2) The next is a judgment scene! And again this poor worldling appears upon the stage, “ a spectacle to angels.” And see it--that look of hopeless anguish, as there falls on the shrinking sense the appalling sentence--“ Depart!--depart!” (3) The last scene is in eternity! Go, ponder it as pictured in God’ s solemn Book. 2. This is one style of acting. Consider, in contrast, the other! The same stage; the same scenery; but all else different! (1) Again the death-scene! See the radiant fire in the eye! the rapturous smile on the lip! Hear those words, feeble, yet joyous in faith and love: “ Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” &c. Behold that fixed look heavenward, as the ransomed spirit spreads wing for its place in the many mansions! (2) The same scene of judgment! Note that look of triumph, that cry of rapture, at the approving sentence: “ Come, ye blessed of My Father,” &c. (3) Again, a scene laid in eternity! But here, stage, scenery, acting, all different. Such, shortly, are the two styles of human action on the great theatre of life. And for each of us, just behind this massive curtain, are stage and scenery being prepared! And we are here to choose, each for himself, the style of his performance. And now, tell me how you will act your solemn part--O immortal man! as “ a spectacle to angels.” (C. Wadsworth.)Humanity watched by angels The word spectacle is from the Greek word theatron. I. Implies the existence of angelic intelligences. No one who believes in the Bible can doubt this. Its pages are almost as full of angels as those of Homer are full of gods. They are represented as--1. Overwhelming in numbers of various orders and gradations, possessing life, power, intelligence, holiness, celerity, transcending all that is human. 2. As the special ministers of the Great Monarch of the universe, executing His judgment and distributing His favours. They have eyes to mark my movements, ears to catch my words, hearts to sympathise with my lonely history, and power to lift me up, or to press me down. II. Argues the importance of human life. Would those transcendent intelligences watch creatures of no or little worth?1. They may know the extraordinary relation of man to God. Not merely the creatures of His power, the subject of His government, but the redeemed of His Son. They see human nature in personal connection with Christ, uplifted to the centre of the universe. Thus they study God through man, and through man they have loftier views of the Infinite, than from a universe of blazing systems, and of unfallen intelligences. 2. They may know the wonderful possibilities of his nature. What thoughts he can originate, what discoveries he can make, what works he can invent, what good he can accomplish, what evil he can effect. 3. They may know the influence of his life. They may see the thoughts and words and deeds of his life, spreading in ever widening circles over the great world of spirits. They may see from one man’ s life many hells created and many heavens produced. To our fellow-men we are insignificant, but to angels we are of transcendent importance. III. Urges circumspection in human conduct. Men are generally cautious in their conduct when they feel even a human eye upon them, especially if that eye be keen, intelligent, and pure. The unexpected glance of a child has paralysed the arm of a burglar before now. But who would not be circumspect if we felt that the eyes of angels were ever on us, on us in our most private chamber and in our public walks? (D. Thomas, D. D.)Man an object of angelic observation If the eye of such intelligences are constantly upon us, what are the practical conclusions? I. That our conduct here concerns the universe. No man lives unto himself; each unit is a link in being’ s endless chain. His actions must tell banefully or beneficently on the creation; hence all loving and loyal intelligences direct their attention to him with deep and unabating interest. Besides, men and angels are offsprings of the same Father, participators of the same nature, subjects of the same moral government. No wonder they are so concerned. II. That our part should be carefully played. It behoves every man to be cautious how he acts in the presence of his fellow-creatures, whether they are children or adults, plebeians or princes; but how much more cautious should he be when he knows that angels, whose pure natures loathe sin in all its forms, have their keenest gaze fastened ever on his life! III. That there is no chance of concealing our sin. The attempt to cloak or dissemble our sins is absurdly futile. Whilst there is One who reads the heart, there may be millions who mark all our overt acts, whether in darkness or in light. IV. That we may expect help in all holy endeavours. Those celestial spirits are sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. They helped Abraham on the plains of Mamre, and Lot in his flight towards Zoar; they freed the apostle from the prison; they bore the spirit of Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham. (D. Thomas, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 4:10-14 We are fools for Christ’ s sake, but ye are wise in Christ. The folly of Paul The better to serve Christ, Paul refrained from making acquirement of knowledge his chief aim. And many others have renounced a path which might have led to literary eminence in order to devote their entire energies to evangelical work. Again, by abstaining from teaching mere human learning and by preaching a gospel which in the eyes of men was folly, Paul became, and felt himself to be, in their view, a foolish man. In other words, because of his loyalty to Christ he passed among men as one destitute of wisdom (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:2). (Prof. Beet.)Paul and the Corinthians: a contrast The contrast between the two situations enunciated in 1 Corinthians 4:8; 1 Corinthians 9:1-27 is expressed here in three antitheses, which are, as it were, so many blows for the proud Corinthians. The text is addressed especially to the principal men of the Church, but at the same time to all its members who share in the pretensions of these proud party leaders. And-- I. As to teaching. The apostles had to face the reputation of foolishness which the gospel brings on them, while at Corinth there is found a way of preaching Christ so as to procure a name for wisdom, the reputation of profound philosophers and men of most reliable judgment. As a Rabbi Paul might have become as eminent a savant as Gamaliel; for Christ he consented to pass as a fool. The Corinthians knew better how to manage: they make the teaching even of the gospel a means of gaining celebrity for their lofty wisdom. II. As to conduct. They came before their public with the feeling of their strength: there is in them neither hesitation nor timidity. The apostles do not know these grand lordly airs. Witness 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. III. As to the welcome received from the world. The Corinthians are honoured, feted, regarded as the ornament of cultivated circles; there is a rivalry to do them honour. The apostles are scarcely judged worthy of attention; nay, rather reviled and calumniated. In this last contrast the apostle reverses the order of the two terms, and puts the apostles in the second place. This is by way of transition to one or two traits of detail in the apostolic life he is about to draw. Indeed “ despised” is the theme of the following verses. (Prof. Godet.)Paul’ s treatment of self conceited teachers The Corinthian teachers were “ puffed up” with conceit. Paul treats them here with-- I. An ironic appeal (1 Corinthians 2:10). “ Ye have glory, but we have dishonour; we know nothing, you know everything; we are timid and feeble, but ye are strong and fearless; you are thought a deal of, but we are despised.” How would our little penny-a-liners feel if such a man as Carlyle were to speak in this way? If they had any sense remaining, they would quiver into nothingness. How much more would those small pretentious teachers feel this stroke of satire from the grand apostle! II. A personal history. 1. Here he refers to-- (1) His privations (1 Corinthians 2:11)--without nourishment, clothing, and the shelter of a home.(2) His labours (1 Corinthians 2:12).(3) His persecutions (1 Corinthians 2:13).(4) The spirit in which he endured the sufferings (1 Corinthians 2:12). 2. Why did he state all this? Not for the sake of parade, but for the sake of bringing these proud teachers to their senses. They could not fail to feel that he was a pre-eminent minister of Christ; notwithstanding this, in the world he was treated with cruelty and contempt. What, then, had they to be proud of as ministers? (D. Thomas, D. D.)Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst.-- True religion I. What it costs.1. Sacrifice.2. Shame.3. Suffering.4. Toil. II. What it secures.1. Companionship with the best of men.2. The approbation of God.3. A certain and glorious reward. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And labour, working with our own hands.--Honest labour 1. Is no disgrace.2. Is a sign of true independence.3. Is acceptable to God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Mammal labour gentlemanly When Bishop Patteson went among the South Sea Islanders they were surprised to see that he was ready to put his hand to anything. He would do a piece of carpentering, wash up things after meals, and teach the little blacks to wash and dress themselves. Other white men wanted to put all the work on the negroes; so in order to mark the difference, they called the bishop a “ gentleman-gentleman,” and the others “ pig-gentlemen.” Jesus Christ, “ the first true gentleman that ever breathed,” was when on earth called “ the Carpenter,” and if one of His chief apostles, St. Paul, worked with his hands as a tent-maker, manual labour ought never to be thought derogatory to the dignity of a gentleman. A honourable occupation There are three vitally important choices to be made by young men, about which a few plain hints may be pertinent and useful. The first one is his occupation. “ He who does not bring up his son for a trade brings up a boy for the devil,” is an ancient Jewish provers. In America, too, many of the native-born youths eschew a mechanical trade as vulgar, and go scouring about for some easier “ situation.” If Benjamin Franklin, the printer, and Roger Sherman, the shoemaker, were alive now, they would tell their young countrymen what a foolish mistake many of them are making. So would Vice-President Wilson and Governor Banks, who said that he “ graduated from an institution which had a factory-bell on the roof and a water-wheel at the bottom.” In selecting your occupation, endeavour first to find out what the Creator made you for. Consult your natural bent and talent. If you have a talent for trade, then you may venture into a counting-room or store. If you have a native skill in chemistry, and are made for a doctor, then study medicine. If your mathematical capacity fit you for it, you may be an engineer. No one ever fails in life who understands his forte, and few ever succeeded in life who did not understand it. Seek for a useful, productive calling, and steer clear of a career of “ speculation” as you would a gambling den or a glass of gin. Don’ t be ashamed to begin at the bottom and work up. Remember that every occupation is honourable in which you can serve God and your fellow-men, and keep a clean conscience. (T. L. Cuyler.)Being reviled we bless.--Apostolic meekness Observe--I. What the true Christian must expect.1. Reproach.2. Persecution.3. Calumny.4. Contempt. II. Why he must expect it. Because of--1. The experience of others.2. The unaltered spirit of the world. III. How he ought to bear it. 1. Meekly.2. Patiently.3. Christianly. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The triumph of the true Christian He triumphs-- I. Over the hatred of the world. Which is--1. Unchangeable.2. Bitter.3. Variously manifested. II. By-- 1. Faith.2. Hope.3. Love. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 4:14-21I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. Paul an example to parents and teachers He proceeds-- I. With love.1. Not as a schoolmaster, but as a father.2. Not to shame, but to warn.3. Not to threaten, but encourage (1 Corinthians 4:16).4. Not to punish, but to supply suitable help (1 Corinthians 4:17). II. With firmness.1. He discourages the perverse (1 Corinthians 4:18).2. Exposes the false.3. Exalts the true.4. Submits the choice of a rod or love. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Christian training is I. Loving in its aim and procedure (1 Corinthians 4:14-16). II. Prudent in its choice (1 Corinthians 4:17). III. Firm in its purpose (1 Corinthians 4:18-21). (J. Lyth, D. D.)The true minister is the father of his flock I. His relative position.1. Not a mere instructor, but the instrument of communicating new life.2. This cannot be accomplished by severity, but by a loving proclamation of the truth. II. His influence--1. Depends upon example (1 Corinthians 4:16).2. Supposes that he is in Christ (1 Corinthians 4:17).3. Will generally succeed where precept and example are combined. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Censoriousness and faithfulness contrasted “ He that would be a good man must have either a friend to admonish him or an enemy to watch over him.” Censoriousness-- I. Is a nimrod, a mighty hunter for faults (Jeremiah 20:10; Psalms 56:6). Faithfulness does not delight to dwell on a fault, but censoriousness does. II. A mighty creator It makes faults where there are none; it puts the worst construction on words and actions. Examples: The Pharisees and disciples going through the corn-fields. Eliab to David. It calls zeal rashness--Michael to David. Faithfulness is discreet in its decisions. III. Is an easy reliever where he is not an inventor of faults. Examples: The two false witnesses against Christ. The people of Ephesus when Demetrius slandered Paul. The Israelites when the spies returned and brought the evil report which the Israelites believed. Faithfulness is not credulous; it believes not every spirit, but “ tries the spirits.” IV. Is a kind of optician. It magnifies small things, makes a man an offender for a word, carries magnifying-glasses with it. Faithfulness endeavours to mitigate the offence (1 Peter 4:8). V. Is a kind of crier. It propagates the faults of men where they are not known. Example: Ham (Genesis 9:20-22). Faithfulness concealeth the matter (Genesis 9:23; Proverbs 11:13). VI. Delights to dwell on a fault (Psalms 102:8). Faithfulness grieves and laments the failings of others (Proverbs 24:17). VII. Is very supercilious in its reproofs (Isaiah 55:5; Luke 18:11). Faithfulness is tender of the reputation of others, and desires to reclaim and restore them. (Homilist.)Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers. The pedagogue and the father The word “ pedagogues” --who in most cases were charged with constant attendance on boys till they came of age--here denotes in a figure the later workers in the Corinthian Church. Of this Church St. Paul has been termed the founder, his successors the after-builders; he the planter, they the waterers: now he is father, they the tutors. The apostle here merely wishes to remind his readers of his own paternal rights, which can never be invalidated by subsequent labourers in the same field. Observe that they are called “ tutors in Christ,” but he “ father in Christ Jesus”--i.e., a host of tutors ye may have in the sphere of knowing about Christ; but into the life of knowing Christ as Saviour, none but I begot you by my preaching of the gospel. “ I” is emphatic: mine was a moral begetting unto salvation; this took place once for all; teachers after me are not spiritual fathers, but educators in the faith which I sowed. (Canon Evans.)The spiritual father I. Is more than an instructor. II. Is the medium of a new life.1. Instrumentally.2. By the Spirit of Christ, who originates life into the soul. III. Is bound to his children by indissolubleties. IV. Has special claims on their love and obedience. V. Should be the object of imitation. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Spiritual paternity I. That one may become the spiritual father of another. This is--1. Something more than to become the father of one’ s ideas. There are gifted men who generate the leading ideas in the minds of their contemporaries, by their conversation, speeches, writings. But these are mere schoolmasters or teachers. Coleridge and Carlyle arc examples of this. 2. Something more than the author of a certain style of thinking. Aristotle, Bacon, &c., are examples. 3. One who generates in another his own spirit, sympathies, and aims; one who transforms the character of another into his own image. II. That the noblest spiritual father is he who begets in another the Christly character. Many are the moral characters prevalent among men--the sensual, the sceptical, the selfish. The Christly character stands in sublime contrast to these; it is disinterested, spiritual, Divine. The man who generates in others this character--1. Imparts the highest good. To be like Christ is the highest end of being; it is the summum bonum of souls. 2. Creates the highest mutual affection. Paul called Timothy his “ beloved son,” and speaks with inexpressible tenderness of his converts as his little children with whom he travailed in birth (Galatians 4:10). III. That the Christly character is only begotten by the gospel of Christ. Natural religion cannot do it; Judaism, Mohammedanism, heathenism cannot do it; no speculative creeds, moral codes, ritualistic religions can do it. The gospel alone is the power to generate in man the true Christly character; it is that transformative glass into which as we look we get changed into the same image from “ glory to glory.” Conclusion: Learn from this--1. The supreme interest of man. What is that? Learning, wealth, fame? No; Christliness. He who has this, has everything; all things are his. He who has not this, has “ nothing,” says Paul. 2. The grandest distinctions amongst men. What are they? Sages, soldiers, sovereigns? No; spiritual sires. The man who generates in another the Christly character has done a greater work than any sage or king has ever done. Every man may, and ought to, become a spiritual father. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Christian lineage As a child who has been kept in ignorance of his parentage rejoices to know those who have given him life, so we in times of evil condition and days of questioning may be made glad in the knowledge that we belong to a noble race. I. The records and memorials of the Christian family.1. The propagating power of the Divine life in men is one of the distinctive features of Christ’ s religion. Other systems have made provision for carrying down their tenets, but the office of the Spirit of God is to recreate. The Founder of Christianity and His disciples claimed those in their day as “ children,” those who had been born again into a new family circle. 2. In looking up the genealogy of any line, the fact that there were known to be numerous descendants gives us the best evidence that we shall be able to trace the branches to the parent stock. The Church has as well authenticated outlines from the time of Constantine, in 325, as have the governments of the greatest nations of the past or their ruling houses. 3. You will realise, however, that a Church which has reached this stage of organisation and influence must have some time allowance for its crystallisation. Your scientist wants you to grant him thousands of years for the erosion of the bed of Niagara and the glacier tracts and deposits of natural forces. He must not deny some fair period of Christianising energy to cut the channel in which we find the love of God moving within the visible Church, so that the gospel might spread as it had done from India to Spain and Britain. The graves of the saints would bridge the gulf from Constantine to Polycarp, if there were no other records. Their inscriptions of the Christian virtues, hopes of immortality, and faith in Jesus would restore the materials for our family history, and the types by which we could trace our ancestry if all other lines should fail. II. Proofs of our spiritual lineage.1. Paul traces his own new birth and life to Jesus, so that we may consider the great apostle to the Genthes as a representative of what men had begun to he in the line of Christian descent, and compare ourselves with him. We are told what was the character of other people before they also were changed (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). In order to set forth more clearly the type of the new family, an example is given of one of Paul’ s pupils (1 Corinthians 4:17). Timothy is, as it were, a spiritual grandson of Jesus. We can tell what the gospel was as it worked in the son, sire, and founder of our faith. Then Timothy is particular not to teach doctrines only, but to put the people in remembrance of Paul’ s ways. They could see whether the child’ s walk and features were like those of the parent, and were “ in Christ.” 2. There are many varieties of temperament among children of the same household, and the Christian family presents us those with differing and peculiar traits. But does any candid man dare to say he cannot find to-day the type of those who formed the early Church in spirit, love, and works? If the men of the kingdom come short of your ideal, ask yourself where you received this noble image of the mind save from the gospel history. It should not be a matter of surprise that grotesque forms come to us from the isolated frontier communities of the world. The wonder is that they have preserved any likeness to our great ancestors. Select the best examples of faith and service in our world to-day, and you will be careful how you say you cannot find Christ, or His truth, or His will for you to obey. Through all the ages of darkness, idolatry, and persecution, the Spirit has been among men. III. An invitation to join the Christian family. “ Be ye imitators of Me.” (W. R. Campbell.)Spiritual paternity In my fernery I have some ferns which have little ones growing on the ends of their fronds; and as they are fine specimens, there are great numbers of the baby-ferns. Probably as many as three or four hundred complete ferns have sprung up out of each mother-fern, all of them having tiny roots, and everything necessary to their growth, so that you have nothing to do but to pick them off, put them in a little silver sand, and they will grow, and by and by become mother-ferns themselves. Every one of them, if broken off the frond, will live and grow; but you need not break them off, for they will continue to grow without being separated from their mother, for they are all alive, and they do not appear, by their existence, to cause any damage to the original plant from which they spring. The baby-ferns will keep on living and growing as long as the frond of the mother-fern lives; and even when the frond dies, each baby-fern, if it is planted, will live and thrive, and in its turn will become a mother-fern, producing its hundreds of children to perpetuate the species. There are other plants that are somewhat similar to the mother-fern in this respect. I saw at Mentone a very fine specimen of a flowering aloe. It sent up its blossom high into the air, and in due season the little aloes fell off, and dropped into the ground, and wherever they fell they grew after the manner of the mother-plant. I picked one up, and brought it home; and now it is growing into quite a large plant. These little aloes are born alive; they do not come in a seed, like a bird in an egg, but they come from the plant--living things falling from the living parent. Now, is not this a good illustration of what a Christian should be? It is well to be a living Christian yourself; but it is better to have springing from you many others that are your offshoots, each one ready to start on his own account, and to take root, and multiply to almost any extent. If you and I are living, acting, serving, growing Christians ourselves, maintaining a high degree of spiritual life, we may be the means, by the blessing of God, of imparting life to many others. Those to whom we are thus blessed will be to us what Paul’ s converts were to him, “ our glory and joy.” Every true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ leaves an influence for good behind him when he is taken away; but it is better still if his influence is also felt while he lives. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Wherefore, I beseech you, be ye followers of me.--Teaching by example I. Is God’ s method.1. Christ.2. Scriptural examples. II. Is incumbent on all, especially ministers, parents, teachers, &c. III. Supposes some proficiency in the teacher--principle, practice, motive. IV. Is most certain and effective. It is more simple, persuasive, powerful. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The force of example 1. It is our duty and concernment to regard the practices of good men, and to follow their example. It is the manner of the apostles on all occasions to inculcate the duty of imitating the examples of the good. 2. That we might have worthy patterns to imitate, God hath raised up in all ages excellent persons to lead us by good example in the paths of righteousness. 3. It was a special design of God’ s providence in recording and recommending to our regard the sacred histories. They were not framed as monuments of a fruitless memory; they were not proposed to us as entertainments of our curiosity; but they are set before us as copies to transcribe, as lights to guide us in our way to happiness. 4. Good example is of exceeding advantage to practice on many accounts. I. It more compendiously, easily, and pleasantly informs our minds and directs our practice than precepts or any other instrument of discipline. Who would not more readily learn to build by viewing carefully a well-contrived structure, than by a studious inquiry into the rules of architecture? or to draw by setting a good picture before him, than by merely speculating on the laws of perspective? Neither is the case much different in moral concernments; one good example may represent more fully and clearly the nature of a virtue than any verbose description. E.g.--1. If we desire to know what faith is, and how we should rely on the Divine Providence, let us propose to our consideration the practice of Abraham. 2. He that would learn how to demean himself in resisting the assaults of temptation, let him consider that one carriage of Joseph. 3. Would we learn wisdom, constancy, and resolution in the conduct of honest and worthy designs, let us set before our eyes the pattern of Moses. 4. Would you be instructed how faithfully to discharge the ministerial or any other office? With a steadfast attention then behold the excellent pattern of St. Paul. 5. I might in like manner instance how Elias’ s practice might teach us to be zealous champions for truth and righteousness; how they who would be good judges, or honest patriots, may receive direction from the carriage of Samuel, Daniel, and Nehemiah. II. It persuades and inclines our reason to good practice, commending it to us by plausible authority. For that wise and virtuous persons do anything is a very probable argument that we are concerned to do the like. It is obvious in temporal concernments how boldly men adventure their dearest interests in following such whom they deem honest and able to guide them. III. It incites our passions and impels them to the performance of duty.1. It raises hope, by discovering to us the possibility of success in undertaking good designs, and that by the best and most convincing of arguments, experience. “ The example,” saith St. Bernard, “ of a work done is a lively and efficacious oration, easily persuading what we intend by proving that feasible which we strive to persuade unto.” 2. It inflames courage. So the apostle to the Hebrews signified when he set before them the examples of the patriarchs. How many persons, timorous and averse from dangerous undertakings, have notwithstanding become very bold and adventurous in war by the discipline and influence of an exemplary valour! 3. It provokes emulation, moving us earnestly to desire, and thence eagerly to pursue, whatever good, privilege, or advantage we see another to enjoy. Shall he, a man like myself, by noble dispositions and worthy performances, render himself highly considerable, while I, by sordid qualities and unworthy practices, render myself despicable? Shall a stripling David gloriously triumph over giants, while I basely am vanquished by dwarfs? 4. It works on modesty, that preserver and guardian of virtue, as Cicero calls it. For every good action of another doth upbraid and shame him who acteth not conformably thereto. 5. It awakens that curiosity which is of no mean efficacy on our actions. For whatever we see done, we are apt to inquire why and to what purpose it is done, what the grounds are, and what the fruits of the performance. 6. It pleases the mind and fancy in contemplation, thence drawing a considerable influence on practice. No kind of studious entertainment doth so generally delight as history, or the tradition of remarkable examples. Conclusion: Consider that God hath provided and recommended to us one example, as a perfect standard of good practice: the example of our Lord, the which declareth the use and efficacy of good example as one principal instrument of piety. (I. Barrow, D. D.)A teacher must not set an imperfect example The teacher must be himself his own illustration. And he must aim at the highest. His example will be their standard. This is natural. A pupil teacher at school used to gain a good deal of popularity by writing a line or two on the copy-books of the children in his class. One day the head teacher said, “ Do you know Why the boys like you to write the first line in their copy-books?” “ I suppose it is because they think I am a good writer,” replied the conceited youth. “ No; it is because they know you are a bad one,” was the answer. “ The headline is perfect, and hard to follow. Yours is such a poor copy, that any one can imitate it quite easily.” 1 Corinthians 4:17-20 For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus. The visitation I. The visitor.1. Known.2. Beloved in Christ.3. Tried. II. His worn;.1. To remind--2. Of old truths.3. In Christ. III. The design. To secure unity. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. Pride rebuked I. Pride is a fruitful source of mischief in the Church. II. Often exhibits itself in reflections upon God’ s ministers.1. Their motives are impugned.2. Forbearance is regarded as weakness.3. Delay as want of purpose. III. Must be fairly met--1. In the Spirit of Christ. 2. In dependence upon the will of God. IV. Must be wisely-- 1. Discriminated.2. Rebuked. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The disciplinary office of the Christian minister I. Its requirements--1. Firmness, and sincerity of purpose (1 Corinthians 4:18).2. Submission to the will of God (1 Corinthians 4:19).3. Wise discernment (1 Corinthians 4:20). II. Its means.1. In harmony with the kingdom of God.2. Especially the Word of God.3. Accompanied with power. III. Its christian character. It is--1. Forbearing.2. Discriminating.3. Kind. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The worthless, the subordinate, and the vital in personal Christianity Note--1. The spirit that should regulate all our purposes. 2. The liability of the best men to disappointments. The words suggest-- I. The worthless. They said that Paul would not venture to visit Corinth again. And when they heard that he was sending Timothy instead they boasted, maybe, that Paul was afraid to come himself. They were “ puffed up” with the idea that they knew more about Paul’ s feeling and intention than their fellow-members. They were inflated with the spirit of vanity. Now there has always been, and still is, a great deal of this in professors of religion. What is called the Christian world seems to be as rife with “ puffs” as the world of commerce, literature, or politics. Some are “ puffed up” on account of--1. The superior contributions they are able to make to the cause of charity and religion. Having more of this world’ s goods than others, their names stand pre-eminent on subscription lists, are emblazoned in reports, and are loudly trumpeted on platforms. The more they give the more they are praised, and the more they are praised the more they are “ puffed up.” 2. Their superior intellectual endowments. Not a few in our churches imagine themselves as possessing mental faculties and furniture far superior to the majority, and they are “ puffed up.” But the very fact that they are “ puffed up” on this ground proves the inferiority of their mental endowments. As a rule, the higher they are the more humble they will be. 3. The extensive popularity they have obtained. Those who are acquainted to any extent with the tastes and sentiments of the populace will scarcely be disposed to render great honour to the man who will attract the greatest numbers. The most miserable prints have the largest circulation, the most empty talkers attract the largest audiences. 4. The supposed superiority of the Church or sect to which they belong. Such people are constantly glorifying “ our Church,” “ our denomination,” “ our body.” He who is impressed with the greatness of the universe, still more with the greatness of God, could hardly consider any human institution great. 5. The assumption that they and their community are the special favourites of heaven. This “ puffing-up” spirit is the “ canker of religion” ; it gnaws like a worm at the root, and when we look for the harvest it is dust and bitterness. II. The subordinate. What is the subordinate? The “ word.” “ The kingdom of God is not in word.” Take the “ word” here as representing profession in religion.1. There should be a “ word” or profession, but this is not religion. A profession of true religion is important in itself inasmuch as it is-- (1) A duty. “ Whosoever shall confess Me before men,” &c. But it is a duty only where the reality exists. The man who has not religion sins and acts in violation of duty, and his profession is hypocrisy. (2) An aid to religion itself. It is possible, it may be, for religion to exist in the soul, where there is no public profession of it. It may be like a seed germinating under the soil, but in this state it must be very weak as well as uninfluential. The man who has the real thing in him, however weak, and makes a declaration of it, strengthens and develops it thereby. 2. The “ word,” therefore, or confession of religion, is of value, but its value is subordinate. Nicodemus was a disciple, though a secret one. Profession without possession is a sin and a hindrance. Profession with possession is a duty and a help. III. The vital. The kingdom of God is--1. A “ power.” It is the “ power” -- (1) Of truth over the intellect.(2) Of love over the heart.(3) Of right over the conscience. 2. A reigning power, “ kingdom.” 3. The Divine power. (D. Thomas, D. D.)But I will come unto you shortly if the Lord will.-- Human purposes 1. Are suspended on the Divine purposes.2. Should be entertained in submission to the Divine will.3. Should be committed to the direction of the Divine Providence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And will know, not the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power.-- A boaster may be known 1. By his prating.2. By his lack of power. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 4:20 For the kingdom of God is not in word, hut in power.The kingdom of God not word, but power The kingdom of God-- I. Is not in word. It is one of the leading features of the age to make the gospel consist in phrases. It is a kind of pious fashion to formulate religious truths like the definitions of an exact science, and satisfy ourselves, and condemn others, only as they agree or not with the vernacular of party. There is a grievous lack of earnest originality, a suspicious amount of spiritual plagiarism in colloquial Christianity. Men adopt current phrases as a hypochondriac imagines the normal symptoms of a disease. Falsehoods often repeated at length impress their author with a vague belief of their veracity. And so the hypocrite or the formalist rehearse the spiritual phraseology of faith till they believe themselves believers. During the last century the besetting sin of the Church was a lifeless formality. Men have since learned to lay stress on forms of words in lieu of forms of worship. II. Is in power. But what kind of power? Not natural, nor moral, nor intellectual power. In these all men vary, but in the power of the text all who are the subjects of it are alike; for “ it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Note--1. Its commencement in believers in Christ, to “ whom gave He power to become the sons of God.” 2. In its continuance in them, as they are “ kept by the power of God unto salvation.” 3. Its influence, so that this Divine “ strength is made perfect in our weakness.” When I am weak, then I am strong.” 4. Its extent, including the final destiny of the body, which is “ sown in weakness, but raised in power.” 5. Its duration. Christ’ s people, like their Lord, being kings and priests after the order of Melchisedek, are “ made after the power of an endless life.” Conclusion:1. By this power St. Paul would gauge the professions of his rivals. Not by their speech, though they might have had “ the knowledge which puffeth up” ; nor by their gifts, for they might have gifts without grace, or they might have grace without the gifts. So he would try professors now; for “ the kingdom of God is not meat and drink,” &c. And the solemn inquiry is, Have we “ the form of godliness without the power” ? If our personal religion have not power enough within us to subdue our besetments, with all its tongues of men and angels, its mysteries, and knowledge, and prophecy, and it may be, “ all faith,” it is the “ sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.” It is not the professing, but the putting on Christ, and by necessary consequence “ the putting off as concerning the former conversation the old man with his deeds.” 2. A day is coming when the critical inquiry will be, not what doctrinal system we professed, but what was its influence on our hearts and lives? (J. B. Owen, M. A.)The kingdom of God in word and in power I. Its instrument--revealed truth. Although the word may be present without power, wherever the power is put forth it employs the word as its instrument: although the letter is sometimes dead, it is by that letter, when it lives, that all the real work is done. II. Its essence--Christ (1 Corinthians 1:24). Here is the fountain-head of all the force which, through the preaching of the truth, can be brought to bear upon the hearts and lives of men. The word and ordinances stand ready to convey the power, but the redemption that is in Christ is the power which must be led to men’ s hearts and led on. III. Its application is effected by the ministry of the Spirit. Before His ascension our Lord promised this, and at Pentecost the promise was fulfilled. Then the kingdom came in power to a multitude who had previously known it in word only. From that day to this, with a ministry sometimes silent as the dew, and sometimes terrible as a tempest, the same Spirit has been working in the world. IV. Its effects.1. It subdues. It seizes Saul, and in a moment Jays him prostrate on the earth. It makes him blind, and again gives him light. It strips him of his own righteousness, and forthwith clothes him in another. The soldier is compelled to change his side, and without even putting off his armour marches under another Captain to fight another foe. The conquest, as might have been expected, is more complete than any which earthly powers can achieve (2 Corinthians 10:5). Other monarchs rule men’ s actions; Christ is King of thoughts. 2. It comforts. It is as much the peculiar prerogative of royalty to make peace, as to declare war. “ Peace I leave with you,” &c. These are kingly words; only One has the right to use them. 3. It levies tribute. This is the sure mark of a real kingdom. Once the king of Britain claimed to be also king of France. In France his kingdom consisted in word only; in Britain and Ireland it came in power. Here tribute flowed into the royal treasury; there not a penny was paid. Christ’ s kingdom, wherever it is real, puts forth the taxing power. Tribute, bearing the image and superscription of earthly kings, flows into its treasury to maintain its machinery and extend its bounds; but the self of the subject is the coin in which the King best likes the tribute to be paid. (W. Arnot, D. D.)The kingdom of God in power The kingdom of God is-- I. A government of authority in distinction from legislation and representation. A government of absolute authority is characterised--1. By certainty in the righteousness of its requirements. Human governments cannot be certain here; they arise from finite intelligence; but the government of God arises from infinite intelligence and righteousness, and hence it is absolutely certain. We are so constituted as to accept with entire confidence that condensation of the Divine government known as the Tea Commandments. If a reformer were to propose to change these laws, they could not be accepted by the human character which God has created. In this certainty we see the distinction between the Divine and a merely verbal government. 2. By certainty in the reach of its prerogative. This is not possible to human governments. There are of necessity questions of prerogatives with regard to territories and dynasties, and consequently wars arise over questions of prerogative. There can, however, be no doubt with regard to the reach of the Divine prerogatives. He is the creator of all men, and hence has the sovereign right to govern all. And the omnipresence and omniscience of the sovereign power settles the question. 3. By certainty in the execution of penalties. This is not possible of human governments, for witnesses may be incompetent, and juries may be mistaken. But there is a perfectness in the administration of the Divine justice which renders evasion and error impossible. II. It is a government of absolute and of available conditions, and is therefore remedy in distinction from inexorable doom. It is one kind of power, having imposed penalties, to inflict them; it is another kind of power to maintain the authority of the government, and yet extend the grace of God. Because Jesus died and ever liveth to make intercession for us, we are called to receive the forgiveness of sins. When the pardon is announced from God, the repenting, believing sinner is able to say, “ Being justified by faith, I am at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” There is man dead in trespasses and sins, but under the power of the quickening Spirit the soul is brought to life again. There are the stains which sin has made upon our souls, but “ the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all unrighteousness.” This is the remedy. You thus see the power of God’ s govermnent rising above all mere nominal definitions in the great change of heart and change of life which the gospel works upon the souls of men. This is the government of remedy, and hence the government of power. III. It is a life in distinction from a doctrine. The potency of the Divine kingdom appears in the fact that it accomplishes what all other forms of power fail to achieve. It is the power not of mere creed, but the power of God within the soul; and hence springs up a life that is “ hid with Christ in God.” It is a new life, for it is life that flows from Jesus Christ through the faith that is operative in the soul. “ Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new.” This is a life of obedience, purity, and benevolence. Let me not be misunderstood as depreciating or undervaluing dogmatic theology; the kingdom, however, is not the doctrine whatever may be its form or its correctness. To take in the words of the Lord Jesus as He utters them is spirit and life, and inclusive of the kingdom; but the words of which we speak are the words of men having only a representative authority with regard to truth. If you ask me, Where is the kingdom? It is within you. If you ask me, What is the kingdom? I answer, It is “ righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Bp. J. T. Peck.)The nature of religion I. It is the kingdom of God. A kingdom which He hath erected in the hearts of men.1. Of this kingdom God is the Sovereign. He hath laid the foundations of it, and He therefore of right presides over it, commanding a ready obedience to His will, taking effectual care of its real interests, and administering all its affairs with infinite wisdom and goodness. 2. As the heart is the place where He hath erected His throne, so the powers of it, the understanding, will, and affections, are the proper subjects over which He sways His sceptre. 3. Nor need we be at any loss to determine what are the means or instruments by which the soul of man, restored to the dominion of its rightful Sovereign, is ruled and governed. By the sacred Scriptures the man of religion would have his opinions, affections, and conduct directed, governed, and tried. 4. We are led to contemplate the beauty, order, and harmony of this spiritual kingdom, which is another idea the metaphor naturally conveys. 5. If such be the nature and tendency of religion, how great are the privileges and immunities annexed to this spiritual kingdom! 6. Its stability and duration. It is a kingdom that shall not be moved. The foundation of it is laid in the purpose and grace of Him who wants neither means nor inclination to support and defend it. II. It is not in word, but in power. It is not “ in word,” it does not consist in notions, professions, or external forms--things wherein men are too apt to place the essence of it; but “ in power,” it is an inward spiritual vital principle, which takes hold of the heart and diffuses its influence through the life. It may in general be described as a principle of Divine and spiritual life. If it be considered in reference to the understanding it expresses itself in our perceptions, reasonings, and reflections about spiritual objects; if in regard to the conscience, in a lively impression of the truth and importance of Divine things; if as respecting the judgment, in an approbation of the things which are excellent; if the will, in a concurrence with whatever appears to be the pleasure of God, and in one word, if it be considered in reference to the affections, it consists in the direction of them to their proper objects. The result of all which will be such a course of behaviour as is in the general answerable to this state of the mind. And now with hew much reason may we--1. Appeal to the judgments and consciences of all men, whether there is not a real excellency in what we have thus been describing! How much then-- 2. Is it to be lamented that so little of real religion is to be found in our world! 3. Of what importance is it that we each of us seriously examine ourselves upon this question, whether God hath erected His kingdom in our hearts, and in what it consists, whether in word or in power! (S. Stennett, D. D.)The kingdom of God in power The kingdom of God is the substance and the order of the gospel, and of the gospel dispensation.1. In a kingdom the subjects become connected with each other and with their king. Salvation connects man with man, and man with God. 2. In a kingdom there is strength. Many kingdoms are powerful, but this is more so than the whole of them. 3. The kingdom of God is not in word; it is not in “ enticing words of man’ s wisdom.” Words pertain to the kingdom, but they are not its power--words are the clothing; power is in the body where truth lies. Fallen angels are mighty and have possession of man’ s fallen nature; the angels must be subdued, and man must be changed. What words are adequate for such a performance? 4. The kingdom of God is not like the kingdom of men, where the power is in the voice of the people: here the power is in the king, and of the king. 5. The power of this kingdom is exercised in the people of God. A new nature is formed in them by an almighty power. The power that will raise the dead in the last day is now exercised in raising the spiritually dead into a life of holiness. The grace received is not in word, but in power: the man does not talk of repentance merely, but departs from iniquity: he does not speak of faith merely, but believes in Christ, and gives himself to Him. The power of the kingdom makes strong the weakest. 6. The power of the kingdom is engaged on behalf of the subjects. The power of their King was engaged for the subjects here on earth, when He stood as their surety. Out of the treasures of holiness in Christ the power of God draws when engaged in the sinner’ s sanctification. The might and the holiness of God are alike infinite. 7. The power of God is sovereign in its exercise. A greater degree of success attended the preaching of fishermen in one day, than had been produced by the ministry of Christ Himself in three years and a half. Paul had the same gifts in preaching in every place, but not the same success. 8. The power of the kingdom is exercised against the enemies of the Church, and it reduces the creation into order. Sin and Satan are the great authors of disorder, and this kingdom is opposed to them; and its power will bring down whatever will rise up against it. 9. It will be the power of the kingdom that will appear in the great day. The Lord Jesus Christ will “ judge the quick and the dead, at His appearing and His kingdom.” Thenceforth the very world of perdition will be in order: then the chief author of disorder will be reduced to eternal order. Not many words will be used on the occasion, but power. (D. Charles.)The relation of word to power God has put truth into word, and so given us a Bible, for the purpose of making the Divine a practical working factor inside each man’ s own individual life; so that by virtue of it we become organs of God, and young incarnations. A man is not a man fully and fairly until his own energies gain their final touch of effectiveness through the power of God working within him to will and to do of the Divine good pleasure. Inspiration is permanent; only in one case it covers the Spirit of God going forth into the forms of lettered truth; in another into forms of thought, feeling, purpose, and power through personal instrumentality. Inspired power to write a Divine Bible; inspired power to live a Divine life; inspired power to conceive or achieve a Divine purpose--each of them is as a separate coloured ray that issues into the air after its passage through the prism of the human spirit; but one of these just as much as another sprung out of the original white beam of the Spirit of God. To be a Christian, then, is to live with a Divine life; and to secure that result is the object which God had in giving to us a book--an instrument, therefore, whose prime value lies only in its competency to contribute to the realisation and maintenance in men of the Spirit of God as the law and the material of life. (C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.)The distinction between word and power The written pages from Matthew to Revelation did not make Christianity; Christianity made those pages. Words are the accident of the matter. It is easier to carry a book around in our pocket than it is to carry God’ s Spirit around in cur life. But gospel is power; it is life, Divine life. Christ is “ the Way, the Truth, and the Life” ; the whole thing. And to be a Christian is not to know a book, but to be knit into the Son of God. There was no book in St. John’ s piety, or in St. Peter’ s, or in St. Paul’ s. I know whom, not what “ I have believed.” This, of course, is not to depreciate the Christian Scriptures. They serve a necessary purpose. They are a highway over which men are to be led to Christ. The error does not lie in using the written records as an instrument, but in treating them as a finality, as a substitute for Christ. We are in danger of trying to live on an inspired description of Christ and a verbal photograph of Him instead of succeeding in living on Christ. We cannot live on a history--even an inspired history. Christ told His disciples that it was expedient for them that Pie go away; to their advantage that He go away, because He would send His Spirit instead. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)The power of the gospel 1. The text does not mean that words have no place in the kingdom of God. No man made a more marvellous use of language than St. Paul. A man who has a perfect command of words has a very great command of things, because words are things in reality. 2. Yet it is true that the kingdom of God is not in words but in power, as it is that the glory of the picture is not in its frame, but in the picture itself. The gospel is in power. Men write and speak about it, some for and some against it; and in either case there is evidence of its power. Nothing in Europe to-day has such power over the minds of men as the New Testament. Millions of people believe the gospel, and are endeavouring in a manner to conform their lives to its requirements. Then people who are in trouble all love it. You have no idea what a power it has over them. What is the reason? I attribute the power of the gospel-- I. To the charm of the life of Jesus. You have read all manner of lives, but as a rule you do not read a man’ s biography twice. But how many times have you read the life of Christ? You say, “ But it is in the Bible, and is inspired.” You do not read it because of that. The main secret is in the charm of the history itself. There are certain elements of it that must always have a wonderful power over man.1. Its truth and naturalness. Some men love error, but our nature loves reality, and any man that is brave enough to be natural and true will be loved, and people will gather around him. No age was ever more real than this. Everywhere men are inclined to discover the reality of things, whether in the heavens or in the earth. Look at the sorrowful earnestness of writers in the daily journals. In the New Testament you meet a man who speaks fresh from the glory of God; you come in contact with reality and truth, qualities which will always have a charm. 2. Its perfect goodness and love. All that is rich, sweet, and inspiring in the vegetable world is concentrated in the fruit of the vine. Jesus said, “ I am the Vine” ; and all the virtues are found in Him. It is this that gives a power and a charm to the gospel. 3. Its supernatural majesty. Take one or two instances. There arose a great storm, and He said, “ Peace be still.” There followed a great calm. He sees people burdened with sin and sorrow, and He says, “ Come unto Me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” When sin and death came into the family of friends, He said, “ Lazarus, come forth,” and the man came forth from the tomb. You may write splendid essays to prove that miracles are outside experience; but as long as you have this supernaturalism mingled with goodness, and all founded upon truth and naturalness, you will have a power which will always have a charm for the minds of men. II. To the manner in which our Lord makes good His doctrine of the Divine interest in us. Science is bringing marvellous facts to light. Why then not make a religion of science, and make thoroughly scientific men the priests of that religion, and let its disciples worship the cosmos? You cannot. Science does not touch the heart deep enough. Why not make a religion of philosophy? Why not worship the Absolute One which underlies all things? The answer again is you cannot. Philosophy does not touch the heart deep enough to cause it to worship. Splendid as it is, still it seems cold as the northern lights that play around the pole. Why has the gospel a power over us? It brings God near to the heart, and enables us to believe in, to love, and to worship Him. III. To its doctrine of eternal life. All that we are and all that we have are summed up in the word “ life.” Hence men love life so dearly. “ All that a man hath will he give for his life.” We say of some people that they love riches, but it is not gold the people love. It is the position, the influence, the enjoyments, the independency that wealth gives. Men love wealth because it can make their life deeper, richer, broader. These are seeking the tree of life if they only knew it, but in the wrong way, in a way in which they never can find it. The gospel has a charm over us because it speaks certainly concerning eternal life. If you could take away all desire of knowledge from man, then you might shut up all the libraries of the world, for books would have no power. Books appeal to the love of knowledge. If we could lock out this thirst for life, if we could reduce the human mind to contentment, so that it should cease to desire an endless, blessed existence, then might the gospel become a dead letter. But whilst we thirst for eternal life, the message “ I give unto you eternal life” shall always be welcome. (T. Jones, D. D.)Profession and action These words may be-- I. Abused.1. When they are employed to weaken the outward institutions of piety. Some would so refine religion as to render it unsuited for human beings. We have to worship God in spirit, but we must not forget that we have bodies. There may be the form of godliness without the power, but while we are here the power cannot be manifested without the form. Even the practical duties of life are better discharged by those who wait upon God in His appointed means. It is a dangerous delusion that leads people to the neglect of those means and forms which God, who knoweth our frame, has enjoined us to use. 2. When we fail to regulate our religion by the rule of God’ s Word. Impulse is good, but requires guidance. Zeal may cause our good to be evil spoken of, and even produce evil. One duty must not defraud another. There are some who would even use the text to do away with social distinctions. II. Improved by applying them--1. To judging ourselves. Is religion a power in our lives? Does faith work by love? Professions or intentions do not make piety. 2. To judging others. Men differ in temperament. We often consider an individual who speaks much on religion as a zealous Christian, when, if we followed him through life, we should find him as zealous in worldly concerns. So also we meet with a man who shrinks from notice, and set him down as not “ fervent in spirit,” when it is only his natural timidity that restrains him from more active exertion. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)The spiritual mind I. If we would form a just notion how far we are influenced by the power of the gospel, we must put aside everything which we do merely in imitation of others, and not from religious principles.1. Let a man consider the number of times he has attended public worship because others do; or the number of times he has found himself unequal to temptations when they came, which beforehand he and others made light of, and he must own that his outward conduct shapes itself unconsciously by the manners of those with whom he lives. 2. Now, I am not condemning all that we do without thinking expressly of the duty of obedience at the very time we are doing it. It is natural to a religious man to obey, and therefore he will do it naturally, i.e., without effort or deliberation. Separate acts of faith aid us only while we are unstable. As we get strength, but one extended act of faith (so to call it) influences us all through the day, and our whole day is but one act of obedience also. Our will runs parallel to God’ s. We are moved by God dwelling in us, and need not but act on instinct. 3. How different is this high obedience from that random unawares way of doing right, which to so many men seems to constitute a religious life! The one is obedience on habit, the other obedience on custom; the one is of the heart, the other of the lips; the one is in power, the other in word; the one cannot be acquired without much and Constant vigilance, generally not without much pain and trouble; the other is the result of a mere passive imitation of those whom we fall in with. Have we then received the kingdom of God more than externally? II. We may have received it in a higher sense than in word merely, and yet in no real sense in power. Our obedience may be in some sort religious, and yet hardly deserve the title of Christian.1. It is possible, according to St. Peter, to fear God and work righteousness without being Christians. Is it not the way of men to dwell with satisfaction on their good deeds? They never harmed any one, they have not given in to a profligate life; they can speak of their honesty, industry, conscientiousness, &c. Now all this is really praiseworthy, and, when a man from want of opportunity knows no more, really acceptable to God; yet it determines nothing about his having received the gospel of Christ in power. 2. To be Christians, surely it is not enough to be that which we must be, even without Christ; not enough to be no better than good heathens. I am not wishing to frighten these imperfect Christians, but to lead them on; to open their minds to the greatness of the work before them, to dissipate the meagre and carnal views in which the gospel has come to them, to warn them that they must never be contented with themselves, but must go on unto perfection; that till they are much more than they are at present, they have received the kingdom of God in word, not in power. 3. What is it, then, that they lack? Read 2 Corinthians 5:14; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:12-16; Galatians 4:6; Luke 9:23. Now it is plain that this is a very different mode of obedience from any which natural reason and conscience tell us of. Observe in what respect it is different from that lower degree of religion which we may possess without entering into the mind of the gospel. (1) In its faith; which is placed, not simply in God, but in God as manifested in Christ, according to His own words, “ Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” (2) We must adore Christ as our Lord and Master, and love Him as our most gracious Redeemer. (3) We must, for His sake, aim at a noble and unusual strictness of life, perfecting holiness in His fear, destroying our sins, mastering our whole soul, and bringing it into captivity to His law, exercising a profound humility, and an unbounded, never-failing love, and shunning irreligious men. This is to be a Christian. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)Valid Christianity 1. This “ kingdom” is not God’ s government among the nations; nor the outward dispensation of the gospel, a kingdom which is “ preached” unto us; nor the sphere of celestial bliss, to which we are “ called.” It is spiritual. “ It cometh not with observation.” It is “ within us.” We can only “ see” it and “ enter” it by being “ born again.” It is not ceremonial observance, but “ righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Its “ mystery” can alone be appreciated by subjection to it. It is so inestimable that we must “ seek it first.” 2. This kingdom is not in “ word,” a mere proclamation--it is in power. This is a thing very difficult to define. To tell us that it is ability, capacity, strength, is idle repetition. It will better reveal its true meaning in the facts which the text will identify. I. Religion in its hold and operation upon the heart is nothing less than the kingdom of God.1. You must lay aside all notion of empires and thrones. You must remove all your ideas to the soul which once belonged to the kingdom of Satan. In our conversion God’ s reign begins. The atonement slays our enmity, and gives us our true and perfect law of liberty. We are “ willing in the day of His power.” 2. The kingdom of God supposes the corn stunt operation of authority, and of the sense of law. To the most sinless creatures this is the ever-present idea. There can be no excellence without such guide and commandment. In keeping such commandment is heaven’ s great reward. Heaven is a kingdom, and only they who do His commandments have right to its tree of life. 3. It is well known with what a graceful fervour human fealty has often borne itself. A generous devotion has sustained it. The darker the eclipse which greatness suffered, the steadier was its faith. And does not such loyalty shame our coldness, little short of treason, to Jesus our King? Where are our efforts and sacrifices for His throne? Would we die in His cause? II. This kingdom rests in a mighty influence.1. The ultimate sanction of every government is force. But that force is indicated by pageantry and weapon. Yet is it, at a very early stage, a barren spectacle. Carried to its furthest, it can kill the body. Within the still smaller limit its command is feeble. It cannot decide opinion or fetter conscience. If benevolent, few are the blessings which it can supply; if tyrannic, as few are the ills which it can inflict. It is a narrow thing. The soul defies it. But the kingdom of God in an embodiment of august ascendency. It is not indebted to the adventitious and the external appendage. It wants not palaces, courts, armies. It is great in the greatness, it is strong in the strength, of its King. 2. Christianity made its early boast of this attribute. A signal power attended its outset. The Saviour taught as having authority. His favourite disciples did not taste of death till they had seen the kingdom of God come with power. Glorious victories were won. It was the visitation of a new life. Nothing withstood it. It grew up into a vast intellectual and moral dominion, diverse from every other government, having no local confines, brooking no selfish jealousies, converting the rebel soul and restoring it to God it was in power. 3. We would not for a moment suppress the fact that if the gospel comes not in word only, but in power, it is because it comes in the Holy Ghost, the “ Spirit of power!” But the “ power” which is ascribed to the kingdom of God in the text, though always depending upon the Divine influence, is not the same with it. It belongs to the theme itself. It grows out of it, and is its legitimate due. It is a moral power. And there is power of the highest created order wherever there is mind. Knowledge is power (Proverbs 24:5). How mind acts upon mind! It is impossible to measure that impetus and confirmation which Christianity has given already to human intellect. It alone awakens man. Through its precepts he gets understanding. The entire soul is knitted into strength. The religion of Christ alone brings out the stamina of our mental and moral constitution. We can do all things through Christ Jesus strengthening us. 4. But in contending for the moral power inherent in the gospel of the kingdom, we may be asked, What can be the influence of the mere word? Let us illustrate. The great masters of antiquity have long since passed away. But their lore and eloquence have found some record. It is dead letter, it is mere word. But do they not exercise a mighty dominion over nations of which they had not heard? Paul penned his arguments and censures. “ His letters, said they, are powerful.” So all that belongs to our religion, even that which is most external, is m power. Its words, they are spirit and they are life. III. The qualities of this power.1. It is a power of truth. “ The truth” is its sublime designation. The gospel founds itself upon facts. “ With great power,” therefore, “ gave the apostles” their “ witness.” “ The word of the truth of the gospel” impresses its own seal upon our soul. So adapted is it, that the Spirit of truth exclusively employs it in the new birth. And it is equally operative in the growth of Christian character and experience; when we receive it “ not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God,” then “ it worketh effectually in us who believe.” 2. It is a power of authority. It is Divine obligation. (1) The authority of the gospel alone can impart confidence. It is God’ s provision; here is our security: it is God’ s will; here is our warrant: it is God’ s command; here is our duty. (2) It will manifest itself in our exertions to promote it. Content yourselves with the idea that Christianity would be a general blessing, that its extension is therefore desirable, and what would be the vigour of our missionary institutions? But when we feel that “ the mystery is to be made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God,” we cry, “ Necessity is laid upon us,” &c. 3. It is a power of realisation. It affects strongly and vividly. It arouses every earnest feeling. It substantiates its own truths and places them in a distinct perceptibleness. It realises God, and we “ endure as seeing Him who is invisible.” It realises futurity, and “ faith is the Substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” 4. It is a power of intuition. Though man is grossly self-ignorant, yet he feels the truth when brought home to him. We see ourselves as in a glass. The secrets of man’ s heart are made manifest. He wonders at the detection and exposure: “ Whence knowest thou me?” “ Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did.” 5. It is a power of relief. With royal liberality Christianity makes full provision for all the wants of all. There is no escape nor exemption which the sinner needs, but it secures. There is no remorse nor shame which he suffers, but it soothes. It is a feast for the hungry, a fountain to the thirsty, a wardrobe for the naked. 6. It is a power of exemplification. Sign and wonder attest it. But there is a still more decisive corroboration. A change has ever been going on in countless minds which science, legislation, moral suasion, never could achieve. 7. It is a power of absorption. It takes hold of man’ s soul, occupies and engrosses it. Like the leaven, it assimilates the mass into which it is thrown. 8. It is a power of courage. Christianity is the parent and nurse of the true heroic. It is great and it excites greatness. Its language is to reiteration, Be strong. It trains us to hardness; to the sacrifice of life when higher interests are at stake. Pusillanimity may be too natural to us, but it belongs not to our cause. True to it, we faint not. 9. It is the power of support. Afflictions are not held back from the Christian: but “ strong consolation” only feebly expresses his support. He glories in tribulation. He is more than a conqueror. We are partakers of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. 10. It is the power of influence. The gospel clothes its believers with an incalculable ascendency. It is impossible to limit their power of doing good. Who can measure the usefulness of a thought, the efficacy of a prayer? 11. It is the power of diffusion. In Christianity there is nothing sluggish and inert, nothing cold and narrow, but all is glowing, intense, stirring, and expansive. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)Polish without power The other Saturday evening, feeling tired and overworked, I went to the Turkish Baths to get freshened up for the Sunday services. I sat in the beautifully-furnished heating-room, quietly waiting my turn to go through the mysterious process of cleansing, when my attention was called to two gentlemen, whose conversation I was obliged to hear. “ Well,” said the shorter of the two, “ I don’ t get much out of his preaching now.” “ How is that?” asked the other; “ does he neglect the sermon preparation?” “ No. I think he prepares too much; he says he wants more time for study, and he can’ t visit the old folks like he did when he came fresh from college.” “ Perhaps he feels running dry,” significantly remarked the little man, as he wiped the perspiration from his face. “ I tell you what it is, Mr. S ,” said the first speaker, with emphasis, “ our minister thinks a lot too much about polish; he makes splendid sentences, but there’ s no power in them. He used to quote the Scriptures at first, now he puts in bits of poetry: all are very nice and pretty, but no power. What is the good of preaching when there’ s no power about it? I like polish, but I like it on something.” I went to take my turn in the bath, but not to forget the old man’ s words about polish and power. (Sword and Trowel.)The power of the gospel In the city of Shanghai, a convert to the gospel kept a store for selling rice for the daily food of the purchasers. When he was received into the Church he was told he could not sell rice on the Sabbath, he must close his store on that day. This would endanger his business, as his patrons, if they could not buy at his store on the Sabbath, would go to some other one, and would not come back to him. He, however, kept the Sabbath, and, to the surprise of others as well as himself, his business increased on the other days of the week, and he prospered. As he gained some money, he determined to build a church in which to preach the gospel to those who did not believe. He built the church at his own expense; and, as he has grown in knowledge of the gospel, as well as prospered in his business, he himself preaches in this church every Sunday, and thus gives, not only his money, but his own personal labour, to the extension of the gospel of our Lord. This shows that this gospel is the power of God wherever it is preached, to the Gentile as well as the Jew, and that it everywhere brings forth fruit to the praise of Divine grace. (S. S. Chronicle.)What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod or in love?-- Observe-- I. The occasion of this appeal; pride, contention, &c. (see foregoing chapters). II. The spirit of it. The apostle speaks as a father.1. With love.2. With authority. III. The design. To produce--1. Submission.2. Amendment. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Discipline in the Church 1. The apostle had the power of using the rod.2. This is sometimes needful.3. It is a ministerial duty.4. It was reluctantly employed by Paul, and should be spared where possible.5. Must be administered in the spirit of love. (J. Lyth, D. D.). 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 It is reported that there is fornication among you. Gross scandals 1. May arise within the Church.2. Occasion grievous reproach.3. Should be instantly investigated and removed. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The duty of the Church in cases of open immorality I. To itself.1. Humiliation.2. Sorrow.3. Purgation. II. To the offender.1. Separation from the Christian fellowship.2. Yet in earnest hope of repentance and amendment. (J. Lyth, D. D.)“ That wicked person” (text, and 2 Corinthians 2:5-11; 2 Corinthians 7:8-13):-- I. His sin.1. He had married his stepmother. Such a marriage, though forbidden by Moses, was, under certain conditions, permitted by the Scribes. Hence it has been thought that this man was a Jew. But from the gravity of Paul’ s censure it is more probable that he was a Gentile who had availed himself of the easy law of divorce and the licence of Corinthian manners. In itself the sin was not so heinous as many which were committed in that wicked city every day. 2. But there were circumstances which aggravated its guilt. (1) The father of this young man was alive and keenly resented the wrong (2 Corinthians 7:12). (2) Though Roman law and manners were loose, yet throughout the Empire the act was branded as a public scandal. (3) This man was a church member and therefore bound to walk by a higher law than that of Rome; and to create such a scandal in such a city might be fatal to the Christian society. 3. Let us, however, do him bare justice, and we shall find him a man like ourselves, open to similar temptations, and falling before them as we fall. From St. Paul’ s references to him he appears to have been of a sensitive passionate temperament. A few weeks after his expulsion he was in danger of being “ swallowed up by a swelling and excessive sorrow” (2 Corinthians 2:7), and the apostle trembled lest he should sink into despair, and vehemently urged his restoration (2 Corinthians 2:5-10). Now a man of such temperament might be led almost unwittingly into the gravest sin. His mother is dead and he is deprived of her counsel and sympathy. His father brings home a new wife--a heathen apparently, probably young and fair, given to him by her parents because he is a man of wealth and position. By and by we discover that she is divorced from him and married to his son. Does it require a novelist to suspect that behind these facts lay a romance or a tragedy? The young man may have loved this girl before his father, and while she favoured him her parents may have favoured the elder suitor. Once married, she may have taken out a divorce, as for almost any reason she was able to do, and have given herself to the man she loved. Or, having willingly married the elder man, her heart may have gone over to the younger before she knew she had lost it. Or, more probably still, she may have been one of those fascinating, fatal women with a strange power for taking men captive, and a wicked delight in using it. On any one of these hypotheses the man at once becomes human to us and alive, and while we cannot palliate his sin, it must have had a strong motive, and being a man of like passions with us he does not stand outside the pale of our sympathy. II. His sentence.1. He had a terrible awaking from his brief passionate dream. One evening he leaves the fair heathen who has bewitched him and goes down to church. The brethren are at their common evening meal. An unusual animation prevails among them. Titus is there with a letter from Paul, and sits at the board with a clouded, anxious face. The meal over he unrolls the epistle and begins to read. We know how the letter opens. And then, after all this kindly weather, the storm breaks (1 Corinthians 4:21). Up to this point all may have listened with tolerable composure. No one had been singled out for blame. But here, surely more than one back must have shivered with prophetic twinge. Probably, however, the young man had no presentiment of what was coming. If so, so much the worse for him; for now the rod falls in earnest. It is impossible to describe the agony of shame with which a sensitive, impulsive man would listen to the sentences which follow. 2. There can be no doubt that St. Paul intended to supply the church with a formula of excommunication, and that they used it. After due consultation, and when the vote of the church had been taken--not an unanimous vote, as it proved (2 Corinthians 2:6)--we must suppose that the young man was summoned before the elders of the church, and that they pronounced over him the solemn words, “ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we deliver thee, So-and-so, to Satan, for the destruction of thy flesh, that thy spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” And we may well believe that the sentence fell on the offender like the doom of death. Not that the apostle meant to shut him out from the common requisites and courtesies of life, or to make him a son of perdition; he meant-- (1) To have this open offender against the law of Christ cast out from the communion of the church, at least for a time, and so ‘ brought to a knowledge of his sin and sincere repentance. St. Paul habitually conceived of the heathen world as the domain of Satan, the prince of this world, and therefore to cut a man off from the church and cast him back on the world was to “ deliver such an one to the power of Satan.” (2) He habitually conceived of pain, disease, loss, obstruction, &c., as the work of the evil spirit, as indeed does all Scripture. Is any good purpose crossed? Satan hindered (1 Thessalonians 2:18). Is he tormented with a disabling malady? An angel of Satan buffets him (2 Corinthians 12:7). He had the highest authority for his conclusion (Luke 13:16). Probably, therefore, just as Job was given over into the hand of Satan for a time to be tried, or just as a darkness fell upon Elymas, so also when the Corinthian was excommunicated there came on him a succession of cruel losses. Perhaps even the loss of the fair heathen woman, or some disease which purged out the fever from his blood and brought him to himself. How all this differs from the ban to which the Church has again and again exposed the heretic, and from the mystic spiritual doom which some have discovered in this formula! For-- (3) The apostle expressly says that the “ destruction” was intended not for damnation, but for salvation (see also 1 Corinthians 11:32; 1 Timothy 1:20). III. His absolution. If “ the end crowns the work,” who that has “ seen the end of the Lord” with this young man can deny that even his excommunication was a work of mercy? His conscience was roused. He confessed and renounced his sin; his sorrow for it swelled till it threatened to prove fatal. And when Titus brings Paul the tidings, the heart of the apostle is profoundly moved (2 Corinthians 2:5-7). And in this passion of forgiving love to the penitent, Paul was a faithful expounder of the very spirit of the gospel. If there was mercy even for the wicked person no man need despair. (S. Cox, D. D.)The socially immoral in churches Note-- I. That the socially immoral sometimes find their way into christian Churches. A case of fornication had been reported to Paul. One of the members had actually married his stepmother. Such a piece of immorality would be regarded with the utmost abhorrence, even in heathendom. How such a character became a church member must have been through imposition on the one hand, and the lack of scrutiny on the other. It is to be feared that the admission of the socially immoral into churches has in every age been too common. How many churches are there in England entirely free from those who every day outrage the golden rule? There are merchants that cheat their customers, lawyers their clients, doctors their patients, politicians their constituents; masters and mistresses that oppress their servants, and servants unfaithful to their employers. The Church is a field in which grows the tare as well as the wheat, a net in which there is the “ unclean” as well as the “ clean.” II. That Churches in their internal religious disputations are in danger of overlooking these (verse 21). Probably there were those who were proud of this man: perhaps he was eloquent, rich, or influential. We have known joint-stock swindlers who have been made chairmen of religious meetings, and who have been cheered to the echo. Party feeling was so strong, and religious disputation so rife, that such immoralities escaped notice. Creeds are more thought of than character, heretics dreaded more than rogues. Hence the saying, sooner trust a man of the world than a professor of religion. III. That the exclusion by the churches of such is an urgent duty. A true church is a community of Christly men, and the presence of such in it is an outrage.1. Their expulsion should be practised with the utmost zeal. It would seem that no sooner did Paul hear of this abomination than he determined to put an end to it (verse 3). 2. The expulsion should be practised not to destroy, but to save the offender (verse 5). All punishment should be reformative (Galatians 6:1). (D. Thomas, D. D.)Ecclesiastical excommunication Note the several grounds on which it is based. I. Representation (verse 4). There is but One whose condemnation is commensurate with God’ s. Nevertheless, as the representative of that ideal man which Christ realised, the Church condemns. As representative, human punishment is expressive of Divine indignation. “ To deliver unto Satan.” I cannot explain such words away. I cannot say the wrath of God and the vengeance of the law are figurative, for it is a mistake to suppose that punishment is only to reform and warn. In our own day we are accustomed to use weak words concerning sin. The Corinthians looked on at this deed of iniquity, and felt no indignation. They called it perhaps “ mental disease,” “ error,” “ mistake of judgment,” “ irresistible passion.” St. Paul did feel indignation; and if St. Paul had not been indignant could he have been the man he was? And this, if we would feel it, would correct our lax ways of viewing sin. Observe, the indignation of society is properly representative of the indignation of God. So long as the Corinthians petted this sinner, conscience slumbered; but when the voice of men was raised in condemnation conscience began its work, and then their anger became a type of coming doom. But only so far as man is Christlike can he exercise this power in a true and perfect manner. The world’ s excommunication is almost always unjust, and that of the nominal Church more or less so. II. The reformation of the offender (verse 5). Of all the grounds alleged for punishment, that of “ an example to others” is the most unchristian. Here the peculiarly merciful character of Christianity comes forth; the Church was never to give over the hope of recovering the fallen. To shut the door of repentance upon any sin, and thus to produce despair, is altogether alien from Christ’ s Spirit. And so far as society does that now it is not Christianised, for Christianity never sacrifices the individual to the society. Christianity has brought out strongly the worth of the single soul. Yet it would be too much to say that example is never a part of the object of punishment. The severe judgments of society have their use. Individuals are sacrificed, but society is kept comparatively pure, for many are deterred from wrong-doing by fear who would be deterred by no other motive. III. The contagious character of evil (verse 6). Who does not know how the tone of evil has communicated itself? Worldly, irreverent, licentious minds, leaven society. You cannot be long with persons who by innuendo or lax language show an acquaintance with evil, without feeling in sonic degree assimilated to them, nor can you easily retain enthusiasm for right amongst those who scoff at goodness. IV. Because to permit gross sin would be to contradict the true idea of the Church. Let us distinguish. The Church invisible is “ the general assembly and Church of the First-born” (Hebrews 12:23). It is that idea of humanity which exists in the mind of God. But the Church visible is the actual men professing Christ, and exists to represent, and at last to realise, the Church invisible. In the first of these senses the apostle says “ ye are unleavened” ; i.e., that is the idea of your existence. In the second sense, he describes them as they are, “ puffed up, contentious, carnal, walking as men.” Now, for want of keeping these two things distinct, two grave errors may be committed.1. Undue severity in the treatment of the lapsed. Into this the Corinthians fell, and so did the Church in the third century, when Novatian, laying down the axiom that the actual state of the Church ought to correspond with its ideal consistently, demanded the non-restoration of the lapsed. But the attempt to make the Church entirely pure must fail: it is to be left to a higher tribunal. Cf. the parable of the wheat and the tares. Only as a Church visible she must separate from her all such foreign elements as bear unmistakable marks of their alien birth. 2. An over-rigorous puritanism (verses 9, 10). Note the dangerous results of that exclusiveness which affects the society of the religious only. (1) The habit of judging. For, if we only associate with those whom we think religious, we must decide who are religious, for which judgment we have absolutely no materials. (2) Consciousness: for we must judge those who are not religious, and then the door is opened for all the slander, &c., which make religious cliques worse than worldly ones. (3) Spiritual pride; for we must judge ourselves, and so say to others, “ I am holier than thou.” (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Discipline in the Corinthian Church I. The occasion.1. Common report not always reliable.2. In this case was lamentably true.3. Was aggravated by the conduct of the Church. II. The judgment was--1. Easy.2. Authoritative.3. Decisive. III. The excommunication was carried into effect--1. By the assembled church.2. In the name and with the power of Christ.3. By apostolic direction.4. Included a special penalty.5. Left hope of recovery. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Church discipline I. Who should exercise it--the minister in connection with the church. II. How far it extends--to exclusion from the Christian fellowship with its consequences. III. What is its object?1. The purity of the church.2. The amendment of the individual. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Christians ought to be solicitous about the spiritual condition of others “ Tom, you’ re the sort of Christian I like.” The speaker was a young man of no religious profession. His companion was a church member in good and regular standing. “ You’ re the sort of Christian I like. You never seem to bother yourself about a fellow’ s soul.” The words were lightly spoken, but they pierced like an arrow. One who was passing Tom’ s chamber door that night heard something like this: “ O God, forgive me that I have seemed indifferent to the welfare of my friends! Help me to trouble myself more and more and more about them! Make me hungry and thirsty for the salvation of those about me! Give me a passion for souls!” Church not to be judged by her hypocrites Was there ever a club in all the world without disreputable persons in it? Was there ever any association of men that might not be condemned if the fool’ s rule was followed of condemning the wheat because of the chaff? When with all our might and power we purge ourselves of deceivers as soon as we detect them, what more can we do? If our rule and practice is to separate them wholly as soon as we unmask them, what more can virtue itself desire? I ask any man, however much he may hate Christianity, what more can the Church do than watch her members with all diligence, and excommunicate the wicked when discovered? It is a foul piece of meanness on the part of the world that they should aliege the faults of a few false professors against the whole Church: a piece of meanness of which the world ought to be ashamed. Nevertheless, so it is. “ Ha! ha!” they say. “ So would we have it!” The daughter of Philistia rejoices, and the uncircumcised triumphs when Jesus is betrayed by His friend, and sold by His disciple. O deceitful professor, will not the Lord be avenged upon you for this? Is it nothing to make the enemy blaspheme? Oh, hardened man, tremble, for this shall not go unpunished. (C. H. Spurgeon.)And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned.-- The deplorable and the commendable in a Church I. The deplorable. Self-inflation, viz., when the Church prides itself on the gifts, wealth, &c., of its members, and when the members boast of the prestige and power of their Church. This is deplorable--1. In itself. (1) It is opposed to common sense. What has a Church which it has not received? The richer its gifts the greater its indebtedness. (2) it is a flagrant transgression of the law of Christ. “ He that would be chief among you let him be your servant.” (3) It is opposed to the example of Christ who “ humbled Himself.” 2. In its consequences. (1) A man who carries his head too high is apt to overlook matters that may bring both his head and himself to the ground. So with an inflated Church. The Corinthians, through obliviousness of the immorality practised by some, it may be, of its gifted members, have been a bye-word for nineteen centuries. (2) A man inflated by his self-conceit of health, strength, &c., may easily overlook humble facts and conditions which may easily prove fatal to the strongest and healthiest. So a Church conscious of its antiquity and connection may ignore certain little sources of weakness which in their after flow cover it with infamy. A little leaven leavened the whole lump. What is the reputation of the Church of Corinth to-day? II. The commendable is set before us rather by implication.1. Humility. “ He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The Church must stoop to conquer. Absolute subordination to and reliance on its Divine Head is the secret of its triumph. 2. Repentance for shortcomings. The manifest duty and interest of the Church is to face the facts. A fool’ s paradise is a desirable abode neither for the individual nor the Church. Having faced the unwelcome facts it is the duty and interest of the Church to lament and confess them. 3. Reformation. “ That he that hath done this deed,” &c. Without this repentance and humility will be vain. When abuses exist the Church must not think its duty is done when the members recognise and deplore existing evils. Those evils, whether they consist of customs or persons, must be rigorously expelled. (J. W. Burn.)Want of discipline in a Church-- I. Is a serious evil.1. It degrades all.2. Indicates declension of zeal, watchfulness, love, purity. II. Is commonly associated with pride.1. The offender may be respectable; or--2. The offence ignored. III. Is a just cause of sorrow.1. For the dishonour done to Christ.2. The injury done to souls.3. The discredit wrought upon God’ s cause. (J. Lyth, DD.)As absent in body, but present in spirit.--Absent in body, but present in spirit Much as Paul loved his converts he could not, at this period, think of visiting them. Their conduct so distressed and disappointed him that he felt constrained to be absent from them. But this did net imply any lack of interest in them or their proceedings. On the contrary, there was a sense in which he was really with them. I. The special instance of this principle furnished here. In what sense could the apostle deem himself present with them “ in spirit” ?1. By his teaching. He had long laboured here, and his teaching laid the foundation on which Apollos and the others had built. This teaching included many precepts and motives to holiness, and had sunk into the hearts of the spiritually susceptible. By it the apostle still summoned them to purity. 2. By his authority. He spoke by the Spirit of the Lord, and what he directed the Corinthians to do would be sanctioned by the Head of the Church. In vindicating the purity of the Christian communion, and in cleansing the stained robe of Christ’ s Bride they were to feel that Paul was with them inspiring and corroborating their action. II. The general operation in the living church.1. Christ, its Founder and Saviour, is absent in body, but present in Spirit. He assured His disciples that it was expedient for them that He should go away, &c. 2. The action of the Church when in accordance with Christ’ s instructions must be recognised as prompted by His Spirit and sanctioned by His authority. His presence is promised, and should be realised, to teach, comfort, and authorise the actions of those who do His will. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together … to deliver such an one unto Satan.--Exclusion from Christian fellowship where duly inflicted I. Is a terrible penalty. Enforced--1. By Christ.2. His ministers.3. The Church. II. Entails serious consequences.1. Loss of privilege.2. Exposure to evil.3. In this case possibly bodily affliction. III. Is merciful in its design.1. To condemn the sin.2. To save the sinner. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The power of excommunication must be exercised I. In the name of Christ. According to His command and direction. II. By the Church. With its knowledge and consent. III. In the apostolic spirit. With zeal for God’ s honour and love for the offender. IV. With the power of Christ. With His authority. V. For the destruction of the flesh. Its sinful tendencies. VI. That the spirit may be saved. By timely repentance and reformation. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The extreme penalty of the Church-- 1. Is reserved for notorious offenders.2. Implies serious consequences.3. May be mercifully overruled for good. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 5:6-13 Your glorying is not good. The true Church a feast These verses lead us to look upon the true Church-- I. In its internal enjoyments. The association of Christly men is a “ feast,” because it contains the choicest elements for--1. Spiritual nourishment. The quickening and elevating ideas current in such fellowships constitute a soul banquet, “ a feast of fat things.” 2. Spiritual gratification. What higher delight Shah the loving intercourse of kindred souls. The true Church is not a melancholy assemblage, but is the most joyous fellowship on earth. II. In its external relation to the ungodly. There is a connection with ungodly men--1. That it must avoid. As the Jews put away leaven at the Passover, so all corrupt men must be excluded from the Church feasts. Their presence, like leaven, would be contagious. No Church that has such leaven in it has any occasion for exultation (1 Corinthians 5:6). 2. That it cannot avoid (1 Corinthians 5:10). You cannot attend to your temporal affairs without contact with the ungodly, and as Christians you are bound to go among them to do them good. Over such you have no jurisdiction; they are “ without,” and God is to judge them, not you. But if they creep into the Church you are to deal with them (1 Corinthians 5:11). Observe here-- (1) That sin takes many forms. What is temptation to one man is not to another. One is tempted to be a “ fornicator,” another a “ miser,” &c. (2) In whatever form this leaven shows itself it must not be tolerated for one moment. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The evil of self-complacency I. The spirit condemned.1. Self-complacency.2. Vanity.3. Pride. II. The evil of it.1. Foolish, man has nothing to glory in.2. Sinful in itself, often in its occasion.3. Pernicious, it brings shame, humiliation, ruin. (J. Lyth, D. D.)A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. The leaven of sin works 1. Constantly.2. Imperceptibly.3. Powerfully.4. Perniciously. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Sin a malignant leaven I. In its nature.1. Corrupting.2. Spreading.3. Assimilating. II. In its effects--1. Upon communities.2. Upon individuals. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Purging out the leaven “ What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Evermore in Scripture the doctrines of grace are married to the precepts of holiness. Salvation in sin is not possible, it always must be salvation from sin. The apostle, while he was showing the Corinthians how wrong they were to ‘ tolerate an incestuous person, compared the spirit of uncleanness to an evil leaven; then the leaven suggested the passover, and turning aside for a moment he applied that, so as to make his argument yet more cogent. Hard by any Scripture wherein you find the safety of the believer guaranteed, you are sure to see needful holiness set side by side with it. The purity of the house from leaven went side by side with its safety by the blood.I. The happy condition of all true believers in Christ. “ Christ our passover,” &c. The habitual state of a Christian is that of one keeping a feast in perfect security. Observe how the apostle puts it: Christ is our passover--that by which God’ s wrath passes over from us who deserve its full vengeance: Christ is sacrificed, for He gave Himself for us. No new victim is expected or required. Let others offer what they will, ours is the Lamb once slain, and there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. This completeness of sacrifice indeed is the main part of the festival which the Christian should perpetually keep. If there were anything yet to be done, how could we celebrate the feast? “ Therefore,” says the apostle--and it is a natural inference from it “ let us keep the feast.”1. The paschal lamb was not slain to be looked at, to be laid by, or merely made the subject of conversation; but it was slain to be fed upon. So it is your daily business to feed upon Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed. At the paschal supper the whole of the lamb was intended to be eaten; and thou art to feed upon the whole of Christ. No part is denied thee, neither His humiliation nor His glory, His kingship nor His priesthood, His Godhead nor His manhood. 2. A feast is not only for nourishment, but for exhilaration. Let us in this sense also keep a lifelong feast. The Christian is not only to take the doctrines which concern Christ, to build up his soul with, but he may draw from them the new wine of delight. At the passover the Jews were accustomed to sing. Let us keep the feast in the same way. Let your praises never cease. 3. At the passover the devout Jew was accustomed to teach his family the meaning of the feast. Let it be a part of our continual festival to tell to others what our Redeeming Lord has done. This precept does not refer merely to the Lord’ s Supper; it is of continuous force. Let us keep the feast always, for the Lamb is always slain. II. A holy duty commended to us. “ Purge out, therefore, the old leaven.” “ Let us keep the feast; not with old leaven,” &c.1. Leaven is used in Scripture in every case but one as the emblem of sin. This arises from-- (1) Its sourness. Sin, which for awhile may seem pleasant, will soon he nauseous even to the sinner; but the very least degree of sin is obnoxious to God. We cannot tell how much God hates sin. (2) Its corruption and corrupting influence. Sin is a corruption, it dissolves the very fabric of society and the constitution of man. (3) Its spreading character. No matter how great the measure of flour, the leaven will work its way. Even thus it is with sin. One woman sinned, and the whole human race was leavened by her fault. If the leaven of evil is permitted in a Church, it will work its way through the whole of it. (a) A little false doctrine is sure to pave the way for greater departures from truth. The doctrines of the gospel have such a close relation to one another, that if you snap a link you have broken the whole chain. “ He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all.” (b) The leaven of evil living, too, tolerated in one it will soon be excused in another, and a lower tone of thought with regard to sin will rule the Church. Sin is like the bale of goods which came from the East to this city in the olden time, which brought the pest in it. In those days one piece of rag carried the infection into a whole town. 2. This leaven must be purged out. In consequence of the command the head of the household among the Jews, especially when they grew more strict in their ritual, would go through the whole of the house on a certain day to search for every particle of leavened bread. With as scrupulous a care as the Israelite purged out the leaven from his house we are to purge out all sin from ourselves and in our conduct. (1) The Jewish householder would very soon put away all the large loaves of leavened bread, just as we gave up at once all those gross outward sins in which we indulged before. (2) Then perhaps the stray crusts which the children had left were put away. So there may be certain minor sins in the judgment of the world which the Christian man, when converted, may not put away the first week; but when they are seen he says, “ I must have done with these.” (3) But the most trouble would be caused by the little crumbs. We must not retain even a crumb of the evil leaven; we must earnestly desire to sweep it all out. (4) The whole house was searched. A Christian man may feel that he has got rid of all the leaven from his shop, yet it may be there is leaven in his private house. (5) A candle was used to throw a light into every corner of the house, that no leaven might escape notice. Take you the candle of God’ s Word, the candle of His Holy Spirit. (6) To purge out the old leaven many sweepings of the house will be wanted. For, mark you, you are sure to leave some leaven, and if you leave a little it will work and spread. It is hinted in the text that there are forms of evil which we must peculiarly watch against, and one is malice. I have known believers who have had a very keen sense of right, who have too much indulged the spirit deprecated here, i.e., they have been severe and censorious. Take good heed also that every form of hypocrisy be purged out, for the apostle tells us to eat the passover with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let us leave off talking beyond our experience, let us never pray beyond what we mean. III. The happiness of the believer acts upon his holiness, and his holiness upon his happiness.1. The happiness acts upon the holiness. (1) If I feed upon Christ, who has been sacrificed for me, the happiness I feel leads me to say, “ My sins slew my Saviour, and therefore will I slay my sins.” (2) Sitting as you do within the house, and knowing that you are all safe because the blood is on the lintel outside, you will say, “ The firstborn sons of Egypt are slain, and I am preserved. Why I must be God’ s firstborn, and must belong to Him.” “ Ye are not your own,” &c. (3) Moreover, the Christian is encouraged to put away his leaven of sin because he has the foresight of a profitable exchange. The Israelite gave up leavened bread, but he soon had angels’ food in the place of it. (4) The Christian, too, who knows that his sin is forgiven, feels that the God who could put away his load of sin will surely help to conquer his corruptions. 2. Holiness produces happiness. How quiet doth the soul become when the man feels, “ I have done that which was right, I have given up that which was evil.” What is it that makes God’ s people look so sad? It is the old leaven. “ Let us keep the feast” ; but it is useless to hope to do so while we keep the leaven. Conclusion: There are some here who are not saved. Notice how salvation comes--not through purging cut the leaven; that operation is to be seen to afterwards, but because the Paschal Lamb is slain. Do not begin at the wrong end, begin with the Cross. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The purification of the Church I. Its necessity arises from--1. The existence of sin (1 Corinthians 5:1).2. Pride.3. Disregard of the corrupting tendency of sin. II. Its means.1. The removal of that which offends.2. Renewal.3. Through the sacrifice of Christ. III. Its motives.1. The full enjoyment of fellowship in Christ.2. Which is interrupted by malice and wickedness.3. But enhanced by sincerity and truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Little sins No man reaches at once an extremity of sin; the descent is not abrupt, but sloped. Little sins must creep in before great sins can find room. First the thin end of the wedge, to make way for the broader part. The ordinary laws of motion seem to apply to the spiritual ease; the speed increases fast after a time. So is the chain of sin slight at first and weak, like a single thread that seems scarcely to hold the soul, and which the soul hardly feels; and then it changes into a twisted skein, and then into a corded rope, and then into links of iron. So it is like a little leaven, that works on from part to part, till it has leavened the whole lump. Speak of a murder to a boy, and he will start in horror at the very word, and his blood run cold, as he thinks of tales of violent death. Yet the murderer was once a boy shuddering at the sight of a little blood, putting his hand with an uneasy conscience to some little sin. Little sins grow into great, first as it were a mere scratch on the flesh, and then a putrefying sore. Satan works like the leaven, not spreading his net over every part at once, but stealing his way to the dominion of our souls. So have we seen a little stream creeping through the fields, and then it has gathered other streams like itself, and these being joined to one another, have gone down together widening into a mighty river, that has swept down to the sea with its broad breast of waters and its strong rushing tide. Even so have we seen a small seed cast into the fruitful earth, and before long the seed has put forth its arms and opened for itself a way through the yielding soil, and the little stalk has risen with its green head above the earth, and the stalk has gradually broken forth into a strong plant, and the plant into a tree overshadowing the field. Allow little sins, suffer them to stay for a moment in our souls, and little they will not remain; open the door of our souls ever so little to any sin, and the sin will be soon master of the house and all that is therein. (J. Armstrong, D. D.)Little sins--their injuriousness Some brittle gold, having been accidentally melted with a quantity of well-refined and tough gold, was found to have rendered the whole mass brittle with a highly crystalline fracture, and therefore useless for coinage. The impurity causing brittleness in the whole 75,000 ounces was a small fraction of an ounce, probably one three-hundred-thousandth, or less, of the original weight. It will be seen from this that the saying holds good in metallurgy as well as in morals, “ A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” rendering it totally unfit for current uses, until it has been passed through a purifying process. (I. C. Booth, LL. D.) 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Purge out therefore the old leaven.The old leaven I. Its nature and operation. II. The imperative necessity of its removal. By repentance. That ye may be a new lump. III. The means and motive--that we may enjoy Christ--our true passover--sacrificed for us. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Leaven represented the pollutions of the idolatry and vices of Egypt with which Israel had broken in coming forth from it. As Israel had providentially carried to the desert that night only unleavened bread, the permanent rite had been borrowed from the historical circumstance (Exodus 12:39; Exodus 13:6-9). The apostle spiritualised the ceremony. As Israelites at every passover feast were bound to leave behind them the pollutions of their Egyptian life, in order to become a new people of God, so the Church is bound to break with all the evil dispositions of the natural heart, or that which is elsewhere called “ the old man.” The desired result of this breaking on the part of each one with his own known sin will be a renewing of the whole Church, “ that ye may be a new lump.” Another allusion to Jewish customs. On the eve of the feast a fresh piece of dough was kneaded with pure water, and from it were prepared the cakes of unleavened bread which were eaten during the feast. “ New” does not signify quality, but time--“ recent.” The whole community, by this work of purification wrought on itself, should become like a piece of dough newly kneaded. Has not the awakening of a whole Church been seen more than once to begin with submission to an old censure which weighed on the conscience of one sinner? This confession draws forth others, and the holy breath passed over the whole community. (Prof. Godet.)Old leaven to be purged There is a test point about you somewhere. Perhaps it is pride; you cannot bear an affront; you will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity, ready to sacrifice everything to display. Perhaps it is a sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up your moral forces just here, and, till that darling sin is brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut out from Christ’ s kingdom. (Bp. Huntington.)All sin to be removed If a physician were called to see a patient who had a cancer on his breast, the only thing to be done would be to cut it out from the roots. The physician, might give palliatives, so that the patient would have less pain, or he might make his patient believe it was no cancer, or forget that he had a cancer near his vitals; but if the physician were to do this instead of removing the evil, he would be a wicked man and the enemy of his patient. The man’ s case was such that the only favour which could be conferred upon him would be to cut out the cancer. Now all agree that sin is the great evil of the soul of man. Nothing can make man more spiritually happy here, or fit him for happiness hereafter, but the removal of sin from his nature. Sin is the plague-spot on the soul, which destroys its peace, and threatens its destruction unless removed. It is therefore certain that if the love of God were manifested towards man, it would be in turning man from sin which produces misery, to holiness which produces happiness. (J. B. Walker.)The leaven of malice to be purged It is said of the serpent, that he casts up all his poison before he drinks. It were to be much desired that herein we had so much serpentine wisdom as to disgorge our malice before we pray, to cast up all the bitterness of our spirits before we come to the sacrament of reconciliation. Purging out the old leaven A friend once described to me this process as he saw it in a carpenter’ s shop in Nazareth. The carpenter would not allow him to witness the search in the house lest his presence should defile the home; but he allowed him to enter the shop and witness the search there. The man went about the work with a will; he was evidently thoroughly in earnest; he girded up his loins as if he had a day’ s work before him, and then proceeded to search with the utmost zeal. Carefully and conscientiously he turned over every board, he moved all his tools, he swept out the whole place, he opened every drawer, looked into every cupboard; there was not a crevice or a cranny in the wall that was not inspected lest there might be a tiny crumb of leaven anywhere in the shop. As he drew towards the close of his search my friend suddenly heard him utter an exclamation of horror, and looking round he saw him standing as though he had seen something most alarming. If he had found a viper or a cockatrice he could not have been more horrified than he seemed to be. What was it? In the last corner that he had visited, under some shavings, he had come across a little canvas bag, and in this little bag there were a few crumbs of leavened bread; one of the workmen had left it on some former occasion. It was enough; it defiled the whole place. With the utmost possible gravity and solemnity, and with a most anxious expression of countenance as though it were a most critical and important business, the man took hold of two pieces of wood, and using them as a pair of tongs he raised up the bag, and holding it off at arm’ s length, marched out of the shop and dropped the leavened crumbs, bag and all, into the centre of a fire that he had burning outside ready for such a contingency, and so he purged out the old leaven. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.-- Christ our passover I. The inference.1. That sin has the true qualities of leaven. (1) Offensive sourness. Nothing is so distasteful to God; indeed nothing can displease Him but sin. How can it be otherwise when it is professedly opposite to Divine justice? Even the conscience, which is God’ s taster, finds it abominably loathsome: how much more God! Did God find sin in His angels? He tumbles them down out of heaven. Did He find sin in our first parents? He hurls them out of paradise. Yea, did He find our sins laid on the Son of His love? He spares Him not (Isaiah 53:5). The more loathsome we find our sins the nearer we come to the purity of the Holy One of Israel (Psalms 45:7). What shall we say, then, to those who find no savour in anything but their sins? Let us, then, bate sin (Psalms 97:10) and take heed of being leavened with it. (2) Diffusiveness. It began with one angel and infected legions. It began with one woman and infected all mankind. Let it take hold of one faculty and it will infect soul and body. Let it seize on one person in a family and it will corrupt the whole house. From thence it spreads to the neighbourhood, and taints whole cities and regions (2 Timothy 2:7). Since, then, our wickedness is of so spreading a nature-- (a) How careful we should be to resist its very beginnings! It is much easier to keep the floodgates shut than to drain the lower grounds when they are once overflown. (b) How wary we should be of joining the society of the infectious, whether in opinion or manners (1 Corinthians 5:11; Titus 3:10). (c) How much it concerns all public persons in Church or State to improve their authority to the utmost for the prevention of vice, and the expurgation of leavened persons (Psalms 71:4, Hebrews). 2. This leaven must be purged out if we would have any interest in Christ our passover. In vain should any Jew talk of keeping a passover to God if he would eat the lamb with leavened bread. In vain should any Christian talk of applying Christ to his soul while his heart willingly retains any of the leaven of any known sin (Psalms 26:6). II. The proposition.1. That Christ is a passover. The word is taken from the time of the solemnity (Acts 12:4); for the sacrifices offered in the solemnity (Deuteronomy 16:4); for the act of God’ s transition (Exodus 12:11); for the lamb to be offered and eaten (2 Chronicles 35:11, and here). (1) The lamb is the passover. Which may appear far-fetched. Here was a double passing over--that of the angel over Israel, that of Israel out of Egypt: both were acts, one of God, the other of men. The explanation is that the thing signed is usually put for the sign itself (Genesis 17:13; 1 Corinthians 10:4). Now what a mercy was it for God to pass over Israel when He slew the Egyptian firstborn. For this they were indebted to the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled on their doorposts. Had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped. The reality of this figure is that by Christ’ s blood sprinkled on our souls we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty. As then Israel were never to eat of the paschal lamb, but they were recalled to the memory of their deliverance, so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of Christ’ s death but we should bethink ourselves of the infinite mercy of God in saving us. (2) That Christ is that Paschal Lamb in regard to-- (a) Choice as to, first, nature. A lamb is noted for innocence and gentleness. Christ is the Lamb of God. What perfect innocence and admirable meekness He displayed (Isaiah 53:7). Secondly, quality. Any lamb would not serve: it must be a lamb without blemish. Could Christ have been capable of the least sin, so far from ransoming the world, He could not have saved Himself. (b) Preparation in respect to, first, killing. The lamb to make a true passover must be slain: so there was a necessity that Jesus should die for us (Luke 24:25-26). Secondly, sprinkling his blood. Thirdly, roasting. So did the true Paschal Lamb undergo the flames of His Father’ s wrath for our sins. (c) Eating. Note, first, it was to be eaten with bitter herbs to teach us that we may not hope to partake of Christ without sensible disrelishes of nature, without true contrition. Secondly, the whole lamb must be eaten. Many a lamb did the Jews eat in the course of the year besides; these were halved and quartered as occasion served. Whosoever would partake of Christ must take the whole Christ. There are those who will be sharing and quartering Christ; one will allow His humanity, but not His Deity; another His prophetic character, but not His priesthood, &c. In vain do these partake of Christ while they thus set upon Him by piecemeal. (Bp. Hall.)Christ our passover I. The antecedent.1. What is meant by Pascha? (Exodus 12:26.) Passing over is, of itself, a thing indifferent; it is good or bad according to what passes or is passed over. If any good pass over us we are the losers; if any danger the gainers. Again, if we pass from better to worse it is a detriment; if from worse to better a benefit. This is a benefit. Evil--the destroying angel--passed over Israel. They passed out of Egypt well, but the Egyptians ill. 2. What is this to us? We live in a world of which Egypt is but a corner and was a type; our Pharaoh is the devil; God’ s wrath is the destroying angel; death is our Red Sea through which all must pass, some well, some ill. Our abode is as dangerous as theirs; we need a Pascha to escape God’ s wrath and to pass well over death. Their passover, again, was nothing to ours. Theirs was but the deliverance of one poor nation from a passing bodily danger; ours frees all mankind from the destruction of body and soul, and that for ever. And what comparison is there between Canaan and heaven whither Christ shall make us pass? 3. Who is it? A sacrificial lamb--the figure of Christ, the Lamb of God, who became our passover when He was offered to bear the sins of the world. What is sin but a transgression or passing over the duty set before us in the Law of God? But for it no destroyer would have power over us: Christ was a passover from first to last. His birth was a passing over from the bosom of His Father to the womb of His mother: His resurrection a passing over from death to life; His ascension a passing over from the world to the Father. But in His death God took over our sins from us and laid them upon Him. II. The consequent. “ Let us keep the feast.” A fast rather, one would think; but by His resurrection we know that Christ is well passed over, and so we may keep our feast with joy. And a double feast it is. By His death He made the destroyer pass over us; by His resurrection He makes death passable by us. In the sacramental feast we--1. Remember Him our Sacrifice.2. Apply the sacrifice to our salvation. (Bp. Andrewes.)Christ our passover I. We are in danger of destruction. The angel of wrath has commission to destroy all the workers of iniquity. This destruction is certain, fearful, and will come in the darkness at an hour we look not for it. II. There is no other means of escape. We cannot bar our doors or windows against this minister of wrath. We cannot propitiate or resist him, or bear up under his avenging stroke. III. Escape is provided by the blood of Christ.1. This is the only means.2. The efficacious means. The angel entered no door sprinkled with the blood.3. It must be applied. It is not enough that it has been shed.4. The application of this blood gives not only security, but a sense of safety. Doubtless all degrees of confidence were felt by the Israelites. Some slept without anxiety; others trembled at every sound; others pressed their firstborn to their bosoms and longed for the morning. So with sinners sprinkled with the blood. All are secure, but the measure of their confidence is very different. The want of confidence arises from the want of faith. IV. The passover secures entrance into Canaan. Christ not only delivers from death, but gives an abundant entrance into heaven. V. The passover was to be commemorated as long as the old economy lasted. The death of Christ is to be commemorated till He come. VI. The passover was celebrated with everything indicative of separation from Egypt. The old leaven was purged out. So the death of Christ binds us to holiness. What would have been thought of a Hebrew who, after such a deliverance, had clung to his fetters? (C. Hodge, D. D.)Christ our passover I. Christ is typified here under the paschal lamb. Read Exodus 12:1-51. Note--1. The victim--the lamb. No other creature could so well have typified Him who was “ holy, harmless,” &c., and a sacrifice for sin. (1) It was a lamb without blemish. And was not Jesus Christ even such? Born of the pure Virgin, begotten of the Holy Ghost, His soul was pure, and His life was the same. In Him was no sin. Ye who have known the Lord, say, can ye find any fault with your Saviour? (2) “ A male of the first year.” Then it was in its prime. And so our Lord had just come to the ripeness of manhood when He was offered. He did not give Himself to die for us when He was a youth, for He would not then have given all He was to be, nor in old age, when He was in decay. And, moreover, at His death, “ He cried with a loud voice,” &c., a sign that His soul was strong within Him. And does not the thought rise up--if Jesus gave His all to me, should I not give my little all to Him? 2. The place where this lamb was to be killed. The first passover was held in Egypt, the second in the wilderness; but there were no more until Israel came to Canaan. And then (Deuteronomy 16:5) God no longer allowed them to slay the lamb in their own houses, but appointed a place for its celebration, viz., Jerusalem. In Jerusalem our Lamb was sacrificed for us; it was at the precise spot where God had ordained that it should be. If that mob at Nazareth had been able to compass His death, type and prophecy could not have been fulfilled. 3. The manner of its death. It was to be slaughtered, and its blood caught in a basin. Next it was to be roasted, but it was not to have a bone of its body broken. Now nothing but crucifixion can answer all these three things. Crucifixion has in it the shedding of blood--the hands and feet were pierced. It has in it the idea of roasting, which signifies a long torment. Moreover, not a bone was broken, which could not have been the case with any other punishment. II. How we derive benefit from Him.1. By having His blood sprinkled on us for our redemption. Note that the blood of the paschal lamb was not sprinkled on the threshold, but on the top of the door, on the side-post, for woe unto him who trampleth under foot the blood of the Son of God! tits blood must be on our right hand to be our constant guard, and on our left to be our continual support. It is not alone the blood of Christ poured out on Calvary that saves a sinner; it is that blood sprinkled on the heart. It is not enough to say “ He loved the world, and gave His Son” ; you must say, “ He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” There is an hour coming when God will say, “ Angel of death, thou knowest thy prey. Unsheath thy sword.” If we have the blood on us, when we see the angel coming, we shall smile at him. “ Bold shall I stand in that great day,” &c. 2. Christ is not only a Saviour for sinners, but He is food for them after they are saved. We must live on Christ as well as by Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ our passover I. A lesson of safety. 1. Emerson says, “ Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. It seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word. You cannot wipe out the foot-track. You cannot draw up the ladder so as to leave no inlet or clue.” That is no news. “ Be sure your sin will find you out” is written in the Bible of the moral nature and in the Scriptures. 2. But man wants to know something more than Emerson’ s philosophy can teach him. This is man’ s passionate question--Is there nothing which can come between himself and the doom of sin? The passover was God’ s answer in type; Christ is God’ s answer in reality. There was one hindrance on that fatal night that the death-angel could not pass--the blood of the lamb on the door-posts. The barrier which wards off the penalties for sin is the blood of Christ. 3. Only there must be personal appropriation of the atonement. It was not simply the lamb slain in general sacrifice that brought safety. And this involved faith in what God had said, and obedience correspondent to the faith. The application is evident. II. A lesson of strength1. Look at those Israelites. Their staffs are in their hands; their loins are girded, &c. Before them an exhausting march, behind them a sleepless night. But God has provided that they be strengthened. The slain lamb must be eaten. The Christian life is a pilgrimage. It is under burdens; it must meet conflict. But Christ is our passover for strength; we must subsist on Him. Thus in Christ shall there be strength for us. (Hom. Monthly.)Christ our passover We shall-- I. Trace the allusion. Note--1. The victim. (1) It was a lamb--the most gentle of creatures of the type. (2) “ A male of the first year” --that is, in its highest state of physical perfection. And Jesus was led to the altar in the flower of His age. (3) “ Without blemish” (Hebrews 9:13-14). (4) The paschal lamb was previously selected and set apart four days before it was slain. The service required forethought and preparation, which suggests that the Lamb of God “ verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,” and actually entered Jerusalem four days before He suffered. (3) The point of dissimilarity is that the lamb was unconscious of its approaching fate. But Jests saw the end from the beginning. Yet He pressed forward with unbending resolution until He could say, “ It is finished.” 2. The appropriation of the blood. (1) The means of protection to Israel was the blood. Without this they had been equally exposed with the Egyptians. And what is it that affords security to the sinner against the more fearful judgments of the Almighty but the blood of the heavenly Lamb which was shed upon the Cross? (2) But the blood of the paschal victim afforded no protection till it was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop. And here we are reminded of the necessity of a believing application of the gospel remedy. (3) The blood sprinkled answered the end of its application because of the Divine ordination. If the sacrifice of the Cross were merely the device of man, it would possess no virtue, but because it is of Divine origin and appointment it will ever prove “ the wisdom of God and the power of God.” (4) The blood of the victim was not to be cast upon the threshold, to be trodden under feet as a thing of nought. And beware how you treat the gospel remedy (Hebrews 10:28-29). 3. The ceremony of eating it. (1) The flesh of the lamb was designed for food. And what says Christ? (John 6:53-57.)(2) The whole lamb was to be eaten. And Christ must be received in all the extent of His official character and relations. (3) It was to be eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. The benefits of Christ’ s redemption can only be enjoyed in connection with the exercise of that “ godly sorrow which worketh repentance.” And “ the old leaven of malice and wickedness” must be purged out, that we may “ keep the” gospel “ feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (4) It ,was also to be eaten in haste and in a departing posture. Christians, this is not your rest. Ye are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, &c. II. Examine the fact. Christ our passover is sacrificed for us--is slain not merely for our good--that we might have the benefit of His example and the confidence arising from His testimony--but in our room and place.1. This principle characterised the paschal sacrifice. The lamb was virtually and in effect, if not strictly, a substitutionary victim. There was life for life. Herein is typified the death of Christ, by which a way has been opened for our escape from the doom to which we are exposed and our enjoyment of everlasting life. Hence the death of Christ is uniformly represented as the meritorious cause of our redemption. All the blessings of the gospel are ascribed to this as the means of their procurement--the reason of their bestowment--and the consecrated medium through which they flow. Pardon (Ephesians 1:7). Justification (Romans 5:9). Purity (Hebrews 9:13-14). Access to God (Hebrews 9:19). Victory over Satan (Revelation 12:10-11). Peace and joy (Romans 5:1-2; Romans 5:11). Final introduction into the presence of God in heaven (Revelation 7:14-15). 2. The fact, then, is one of no common character or trifling consequence. For if Christ was not “ sacrificed for us,” I am left without a refuge, with no ground of confidence or of hope when anticipating the transactions of the last great day. But I cannot thus surrender my hope. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)The Christian passover I. The sacrifice of Christ is--1. Deprecatory, or designed to ward off threatened judgment. Of this nature was the paschal sacrifice, by which the Israelites were protected from the destroying angel. 2. Expiatory, in which the innocent died for the guilty, and thus offered satisfaction for the sins of the world. On this ground God can justify the ungodly without relaxing the strictness of His law, infringing the truth of His word, or degrading the dignity of His throne. 3. Precatory. Such sacrifices were offered to secure the restoration of forfeited benefits, Hence the sacrifice of Christ is a “ redemption” which not only delivers from merited punishment, but recovers every forfeited good. 4. Vicarious. Christ endured death not merely for our instruction, or that He might seal the truth of His doctrine with blood, and set us an example of the spirit with which we should suffer. No! If He suffered, it was for our sins, the just for the unjust. 5. Eucharistic. In sacrifices of this class the victim was eaten with thanksgivings. Of this kind was the passover; and Christ is the true paschal lamb, who has not only sacrificed His life, but now offers Himself in every promise and ordinance, to be received by penitent faith, as the living bread. This is particularly represented in His last supper. II. The sacrifice of Christ a passover. Observe the correspondence between the type and antitype more particularly in--1. The sprinkling of the blood. As the Israelites sprinkled the blood outside the door, it ought to appear that we are inwardly pure by our being outwardly holy. 2. The eating of the lamb, by which the bodies of the people were nourished and supported. The teachings of Christ’ s Spirit satisfy the desire for spiritual knowledge; the joys and consolations of His love satiate the hungry desires after happiness; and the fulness of His spotless mind breathed into our souls meets the vast capacity of our nature; we are strengthened with all the might of God, and grow up into Him in all things. 3. The consequent deliverance. III. The manner in which we must celebrate the Christian passover. Let there be--1. Purity. “ Purge out the old leaven.” Every one who would receive Christ as his Saviour, and receive worthily His supper, should put away the “ old leaven.” The leaven of the Sadducees was error, that of the Pharisees was hypocrisy; these must be purged out; so must the old leaven of every besetment and sin. 2. Compunction, typified by the bitter herbs with which the paschal lamb was to be eaten, and which fitly describe the sorrow of a broken spirit. Without eating these bitter herbs we shall never feel the appetite of strong desire which hungers after Christ, nor taste the sweetness of His salvation. 3. Sincerity. We must embrace Christ, not merely that we may escape from future condemnation, but with sincere desire to enjoy Him savingly, to know Him experimentally, to love Him supremely, to submit to Him cheerfully, and devote ourselves to Him entirely. 4. Unreservedness, i.e., Christ must be taken wholly. Every family, under the law, was required to sacrifice a lamb, and that family must use or burn it; not even a bone was to be broken. So every soul needs a full Christ for himself--all His power to save; all His merit to cleanse; all His wisdom to guide; all His grace to invigorate; and all His sacred presence to fill the soul and constitute its heaven. 5. Promptitude. The Israelites partook of the passover in haste, their shoes on their feet, and their staves in their hands. Now, as everything depends on the present moment, receive Christ in haste. Just now, “ What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” 6. Joy. The Jews kept their passover as a season of great joy, because instituted in memory of their greatest deliverance. So should the Christian commemorate the death of his Lord as the greatest deliverance earth ever saw or heaven ever witnessed. (W. Atherton.)Christ our passover I propose to present some of the shapes in which this destroying angel appears, and, by Christ our Redeemer, is dismissed. But, first, I must meet one or two objections. Some may think this passing over, by the destroying angel, of a part of the world--that part, namely, visited by the light and salvation of the gospel--seems partial and unequal. To this I can only answer, God proceeds in His revelation as He does in all His providence. We feel God’ s goodness; and for His equity our inmost conviction and highest intuition stands voucher. We might ask why God has made one of His creatures an angel, and another a worm; why He has caused one to dwell under the tropic line, and another at the frozen pole; why He has ordained one to be born of a poor, and another of a prosperous parentage; why, for thousands of years, He delayed discoveries so important to darkened and suffering humanity, such as the press, the compass, the bright sky-marks of a trackless voyage, or the ether-breath under which the piercing knife is painless. Enough that, at length, we have these passovers of the Divine mercy. Enough, above all, that we have in Christ the chief passover of the keenest agonies of the human heart. But this doctrine of the passover, marvelled at by the sceptical, is resented by the proud, fancying they are unwilling to receive such gratuity. They would emancipate themselves from the miseries that assail human life; they would slay the monsters of danger for themselves; nor superfluously accept a heaven they have not earned. Ah! poor pride, empty claim of independence, infatuated denial of that grace of God which is the source of all we have or enjoy! Truly, we should have begun sooner to sign off and separate, if we meant to complain of the free grace and unmerited favour of God. It is too late. We are baptized in goodness and immersed in love from our infancy. For all things, temporal or spiritual, we are beggars, dependent on God. But it is important to observe that this passover is no Contradiction or exemption of true morality. It is no passover for our exertions of virtuous fidelity. It only modifies the character of our virtue to exalt and refine it. For that show of wisdom in will-worship, which the apostle rebukes, it substitutes the at once gentler and holier virtue of that devotion to God, to right and duty, which Christ the passover inspires. Indeed there is nothing immoral or dangerous to character in the doctrine of the text. The passover, at Christ’ s bidding, of the destroying angel, is for no license, but for our sanctity. For the contemplation of that sacrifice, producing this passover, stirs affections in the breast from which flow sweeter virtues and more winning charms of spontaneous worth than all the self-confidence of sages and all the austerities of the stoic. Christ our passover, by His Spirit, stimulates us to leave the bondage of our oppressive sins. Thus, seeing the idea of Christ the passover, not as a mere figure of rhetoric, but, beyond all objections, resting on a foundation of eternal truth, we may consider its practical applications: for we, as much as captive Jew or old Gentile, need the Divine passover. The destroying angel comes in many ways to close in a struggle with our safety and peace.1. As we meditate in solitude or muse by the wayside he often springs upon us. Sometimes, a gigantic spectre of doubt, he fearfully overhangs our thoughts and duskily obscures our path. He darkly queries with us whether all these spiritual things which we, in our words of fine discourse, make such account of, are not mere imagination and surmise. The shining mansions above fade away into mist and vacuity; and temples and closets, songs and supplications, turn to a vain pretence or a hypocritical mockery. But Christ the passover comes through His Spirit to make the heavenly glory shine again on the world, and gleam through our thoughts by His truth. 2. Again, in the gloomy and menacing shape of remorse, comes the destroying angel. He arrays before us all our wrong-doings and omissions of duty. He throws in our face all the shortcomings of the past, He stings our memory into the recollection of unworthiness we had forgotten. He lifts his ghostly, resistless hand, to cast us down into hopeless dejection over the remaining sin that clings to our nature, and into utter despair of the mercy of God. But Christ appears with His look of kindness; He speaks the pardoning love of God, and the destroying angel’ s condemnation is silenced. 3. In the shape of a mourner, too, as well as a doubter and accuser, comes the destroying angel. He sits by the fireside, at the table, and the grave, when dear objects have gone, and raises a miserable cry that all comfort and joy and reciprocity of affection are gone and lost with them. But Christ comes, and the destroying angel passes over. The Cross of Christ rises in sight. The sepulchre of Christ discloses its broken door. Now grief may do its worst. We are superior to it. It can lay waste the earth, and commit havoc in the abodes of men; but all its desolations are more than repaired. Christ is our passover, for He presents God as our Father. Now no father wishes his children to die; least of all the real Father, the Father of spirits, who hath power to give His children life. Therefore death, the huge but hollow semblance, must pass over. Christ hath taught us that we can love God, and how to love Him. But love is a bond of endurance according to all the ability of both its subject and object; with God it is a bond of immortality. Therefore death, with his mere masque and presumption of tyranny, must pass over. Matter ceases to be all. Knowledge, love, will, becomes all. The vast creation becomes but the theatre, wherein the intelligences which the Great Parent for ever inspires act out their thoughts and affections. (C. A. Bartol.)The Christian passover “ Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” The human mind is never more elevated with joy than in the case of those who have just escaped some great danger. Almost all our strong feelings and perceptions are due to strong contrasts; light is never so bright as when it arises out of darkness; health never so sweet as when it follows upon sickness; and safety never so precious as when realised in the presence of danger. Conceive the children of Israel on the night when the first passover was kept, standing with their staves in their hands and their shoes upon their feet, eating their last meal in the house of bondage. Who was there that did not feel, as on no previous occasion, the blessed security of being in covenant with God? Would not the consciousness of the awful danger that was abroad deepen and solemnise that sense of security? We say, “ Let us keep the feast.” We understand this to be something more than an exhortation. It was a command to the Israelites of the most positive kind. God intended to distinguish them by an act of special mercy from the Egyptians; but this distinction was all made to hinge upon their compliance with the directions about the paschal lamb. If it be possible to conceive an Israelite so infatuated as to neglect those directions, we need not tell you what the consequences would have been. “ How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” Oh! beware, I earnestly beseech you, beware of trifling in a case like this! Recollect, “ it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life” ; it is the life of your souls. Shall we put this matter to the proof? We have described the feelings of the Jewish family while keeping the passover: there were mingled feelings--fear of the danger which they knew to be so near, gratitude to God who had spread the shield of His protection over them, and reverence for that mysterious blood which God had appointed as the distinguishing mark between those whom He would protect and those whom He would destroy. Now on this great day of the feast does your state of mind resemble theirs? Have you a sense of the nearness of appalling danger? No one can estimate the greatness of the deliverance wrought who has not felt, personally and deeply, the greatness and the nearness of the danger incurred. What was it that made the feast of the passover, at its first celebration, so intensely interesting to the Israelites? what, but the knowledge that the angel of death was at their very doors? They never kept the passover so heartily afterwards; they never afterwards had such a sense of deliverance from actual and imminent danger. (J. E. Hankinson, M. A.)Our passover I. Our passover sacrifice. The death of the paschal lamb saved at least one life in the household, and was the security of them all. Because it died, the firstborn did not die. The blood sheltered and preserved; and the angel passed over the household whose posts were tinctured with the ruby pledge of safety. And so, distinctly and clearly in the apostle’ s mind here, the one conception of Christ’ s death which answers to this metaphor is that which sees in Christ’ s death a death of expiation; though not so distinctly as in other instances, a death of substitution. Because He dies, the destruction and punishment does not fall on the man who is housed behind the shelter of His blood. II. Our passover feast. The slaying of the lamb provided in the old ritual the material for the feast; and, says Paul, in effect, so it is with us. The Christ who has died as a sacrament is the nourishment and food of our souls. We live on the sacrifice; “ let us keep the feast.” What Paul is thinking about here is the whole Christian life which he compares to that passover feast. And his exhortation, “ Let us keep the feast,” is, in fact, first of all, this--Do you Christian men and women see to it that your whole life be a participation in the sacrifice of the slain Lamb. “ Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you.” And how are we to feed upon a slain Christ? By faith, by meditation, by continual carrying in grateful hearts, in vivid memories, and in obedient wills, the great sacrifice on which our hopes build. Let your minds feed upon His truth, and your love feed upon His love; let your wills feed upon His commandment; let your consciences feed upon His great cleansing sacrifice; let your whole hopes fasten on His faithful promise; and bring your spirits in all their parts into contact with His Spirit, and the life will pass from Him to you. As our Christian life should be all a feast of continual participation in Christ, so it should be all a memorial of Him. The passover was the perpetual calling to mind year by year of that great deliverance. What tenacity of national memory is shown in that continual observance of it till this very day! So should we ever carry in our remembrance the dying of the Lord Jesus, and whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, do all in memory of Him, moulding all our lives by the pattern and for the sake of His dying love. III. Our Christian purifying. “ Purge out the old leaven.” Think of the scrupulous Jewish householder the night before the passover, with his lighted candle, searching through every corner of his house, where there was any chance of a bit of leavened matter being concealed. That is the sort of thing we have to do. Better cultivate a conscience that is over-scrupulous than one that is over-indulgent. And, mind, it is you that have to do it. God will do it if you ask Him; God will help you to do it if you will let Him; but God cannot do it without you, and you cannot do it without God. Therefore, two things, a large part of our cleansing must be our submitting ourselves to His cleansing and cultivating the faith which unites us to the cleansing power. Second, a part of our cleansing must be in reliance upon His Divine help, ourselves taking the brush into our hands, and ourselves scrubbing vigorously till we get rid of the pollution. And, beyond that, remember further, that this self-purifying is an absolutely indispensable condition of your keeping the feast. “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” is but the same teaching as that of my text: “ Purge out the old leaven, that ye may keep the feast.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Christ our passover Observe--1. God’ s greatest mercies to His Church are attended with the greatest plagues upon their enemies. The passover was the salvation of Israel and ruin of Egypt. 2. God provides for the security of His people, before He lays His wrathful hand upon their adversaries. I. Christ is our passover. Christ is only designated in the New Testament as a Lamb, as being significant of the innocence of His person, the meekness of His nature, His sufficiency for His people.1. The design of the passover was to set forth Christ. All the sacrifices which were appointed by God as parts of worship, were designed to keep up the acknowledgment of the fail of man, and to support his faith in the promised Redeemer. Christ is the real accomplishment of all; He is our mystical, spiritual, heavenly, perfect Passover. And, indeed, if we consider all the circumstances in the institution, they seem not worthy of the wisdom of God if they be not referred to some other mystery: and what can that be but the Redeemer of the world represented thereby? Why should so much care be in the choice and separation of a lamb? How can we think God should appoint so many ceremonies in it, lay such a charge for the strict observation of them, if He designed it not as a prop to their faith, a ground to expect a higher and spiritual deliverance by the blood of the Messiah, as well as a trial of their obedience, a memorial of their temporal deliverance, and a sign for the direction of the angel in the execution of his commission? 2. The believers in that time regarded it as a type of the Messiah (Hebrews 11:28). 3. The paschal lamb was the fittest to represent Christ. It was a sacrifice and a feast--a sacrifice in the killing it and sprinkling the blood, a feast in their feeding upon it. It represents Christ as a victim satisfying God, as a feast refreshing us; He was offered to God for the expiation of our sins, He is offered to us for application to our souls. The truth of this proposition will appear-- (1) In the resemblance between the paschal lamb and the Redeemer. (a) A lamb is a meek creature. It hurts none; it hangs not back when it is led to the slaughter--no greater emblem of patience to be found among irrational creatures. How strange was our Saviour’ s humility in entering into such a life! How much more stupendous in submitting to such a death, as shameful as His life was miserable! From this paschal lamb typifying the Redeemer the Jews might have learned, not to expect a Messiah wading through the world in blood and slaughter, and flourishing with temporal victories and prosperity, but one meek, humble, and lowly, suiting the temper of the lamb which represented Him in the passover. (b) It was to be a lamb without blemish (Exodus 12:5). It was to be entire in all its parts, sound, without bruise, scab, or maim; and the reason why it was separated four days before the killing of it was that they might have time to understand whether it had any spot or defect in it. So is the Lamb of God; He was holy in the production of His nature as well as in the actions of His life. From the first moment of His conception He was filled with all supernatural grace according to the capacity of His humanity; His union with the Divine nature secured Him against the sinful infirmities of our nature, and made all supernatural perfections due to Him, whereby He might be fitted for all holy operations. As He was “ that holy thing” in His birth (Luke 1:35), so He was righteous to the last moment of His life. The law of God was within His heart, signified by the tables of the law laid up in the ark. (c) The lamb was to be chosen, and set apart three days, and killed the fourth in the evening (Exodus 12:6). Our Saviour was separate from men, manifested Himself in the work of His prophetical office three years and upwards, before He was offered up as a sacrifice in the fourth year, after He had been solemnly inaugurated in the exercise of His office. It was ordered by God to he killed in the evening, to signify the sacrifice of the Messiah in the evening of the world. He was crucified at the end of the second age of the world, the age of the law, and the beginning of the third age, that of the gospel, which is called in Scripture the “ last times “ (Hebrews 1:2). (d) The lamb was roasted with fire whole (Exodus 12:4; Exodus 12:8-9), not sodden. To put them in mind of the hardship they endured in the brick-kilns of Egypt, and as a type of the scorching sufferings of the Redeemer. Probably alluding to this roasting of the paschal lamb. He bore the wrath of that God who is a consuming fire, without any water, any mitigation or comfort in His torments. It may note also the gradual rising of the suffering of Christ. As His exaltation was not all at one time, but by degrees, so were His sufferings, by outward wounds, cutting reproaches, and inward agonies. (e) Not a bone of the paschal lamb was to be broken (Exodus 12:46). This was fulfilled in our Saviour (John 19:36). Death had not a full power over Him, He was not broken to pieces by the greatness of His sufferings. (2) There is a resemblance in the effects or consequents of the passover. (a) The diverting the destroying angel by the sprinkling of the blood upon the posts, to be a mark to the angel to spare the firstborn of such houses, was the main end in the institution (Exodus 12:12-13). It is only under the warrant of this blood that we can be safe. The Redeemer’ s blood shed for us, and sprinkled on us, preserves our souls to eternal life. As the destroying sword did not touch the Israelites, so condemning wrath shall not strike those that are under the protection of it: death shall have no power over them. (b) Upon this succeeded that liberty God had designed for them (Exodus 12:31). As it secured them from death, so it was the earnest of their deliverance, and broke the chains of their slavery. The death of Christ is the foundation of the full deliverance of His people, and the earnest of the fruition of the purchased and promised inheritance. This was the conquest of Pharaoh, upon which soon after followed his destruction. The Israelites’ slavery ended when their sacrifices were finished; the efficacy of this Divine passover delivers men from a spiritual captivity. (c) After this passover they do not enjoy their liberty, but begin their march to Canaan, the promised and delightful land. So by the merit of the sacrifice of Christ the true Israelite turns his face from earth to heaven, from a world that lies in wickedness to an inheritance of the saints in light, and travels towards Canaan. Is Christ called our passover? Then-- 1. The study of the Old Testament is advantageous. The Old Testament delivers the types, the New interprets them: the Old presents them like money in a bag, the New spreads them and discovers the value of the coin; the Israelites in the Old felt the weight of the ceremonies, believers in the New enjoy the riches of them. 2. Upon what a slender thread doth the doctrine of transubstantiation hang! Christ is here called the passover--was the paschal lamb therefore substantially the body of Christ? 3. The ancient Jews were under a covenant of grace. Christ was the end, the spirit, the life of their sacrifices. The passover, rock, sacrifices, manna, were the swaddling-bands wherein He was wrapped. They had the sun under a cloud, we the Sun at noon-day in His glory. 4. In the security Christ procures. The destroying angel was not to enter into any sprinkled house, no passage was afforded to him. The wrath of God, or the malice of the devil can have no power over them that are sprinkled with the blood of Christ. In the efficacy. The blood of the lamb was but a sign of that deliverance of the Israelites, but could not purge their defiled consciences; but the blood of our Lamb hath merited our salvation, can cleanse our consciences from dead and condemning works to serve the living God. This comfort is the greater by how much the tyrant we are delivered from is more dreadful that Pharaoh, whose design is not only like his to afflict our bodies but tumble our souls and bodies into the same hell with himself. It is from the wrath of God our passover hath delivered us; and what is the anger of Pharaoh to the fury of an offended Deity? It is true deliverance is yet but begun; it is not yet perfect; miseries and spiritual contests arc to be expected. Pharaoh will pursue, but shall not overtake; death shall not swallow up those who are sprinkled with this holy blood.1. Thankfully remember this passover. 2. Inquire whether He be our passover. He is a passover, but is He a lamb eaten by us, owned by us? He is ours by the gift of God, but is He ours by the acceptation of our souls? This Lamb is ours in the liberty, life, glory, and rest He hath purchased, when we are like Him, when we learn of Him. 3. Have faith in the blood of Christ. The killing the lamb signified the death of Christ, the sprinkling the blood signified the application of it by faith. It was not the blood contained in the veins of the lamb or shed upon the ground, that was the mark of deliverance, but sprinkled upon the posts: nor is it the blood of Christ circulating in His body or shed upon the Cross, which solely delivers us, but as applied by faith to the heart. That was sprinkled upon every house that desired safety, and this upon every soul that desires happiness. Had an Israelite’ s family neglected this it had felt the edge of the angel’ s sword; the lamb had not availed him, not by a defect of the sacrifice, but by their own negligence or contempt of the condition. Or had they used any other mark, they had not diverted the stroke: no work, no blood but the blood and sufferings of the Redeemer, can take away the sin of the world. 4. Let us leave the service of sin. The Israelites after this passover did no more work at the brick-kilns of Egypt. They ceased to be Pharaoh’ s slaves, and began to be the Lord’ s freemen. II. Christ is a sacrifice. I shall lay down some propositions for the illustrating of this doctrine.1. Sacrifices were instituted as types of Christ. (1) They were instituted by God.(2) No other reason can be rendered of the institution of them, but as typical of the great sacrifice of the Redeemer.(3) Christ did really answer to these types. 2. The sacrifices thus instituted were of themselves insufficient, and could not expiate sin; they must, therefore, receive their accomplishment in some other. But being shadows by their institution, they could make nothing perfect (Hebrews 10:1; Hebrews 10:11). (1) It was not consistent with the honour of God to be contented with the blood of a beast for an expiation of sin. How could there be in it a discovery of the severity of His justice, the purity of His holiness, or the grandeurs of His grace? (2) They have no proportion to the sin of man. The sin of a rational creature is too foul to be expiated by the blood of an irrational creature. (3) The reiteration of them shows their insufficiency. They were rather a commemoration of sin, and confessions of it, than expiations of any--rather accusers than atoners. (4) God had often spoke slightingly of them. He resembles them to the cutting off a dog’ s neck, when done with an unholy heart (Isaiah 66:3). He professeth He had no delight in them (Psalms 40:6). And what is said of this may be said of all our duties and performances, the staves upon which men naturally lean for acceptation of their persons. 3. Such a sacrifice, therefore, is necessary for a sinful creature. No creature can be such a sacrifice. As the apostle argues, “ If righteousness be by the law, then was Christ dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21). (1) What is a sacrifice for sin must be pure and sinless. God will not accept a defiled offering. (2) An infinite sacrifice is necessary for a sin in some respects infinite, for every sin entrencheth upon the honour of an infinite God. (3) Necessary in regard of the justice of God, which is an immutable and infinite perfection of the Divine essence. 4. Christ only was fit to be this sacrifice. 5. It was necessary in regard of His office of priesthood, that He should be a sacrifice. 6. Jesus Christ, then, was a sacrifice in His human nature. 7. That whereby this sacrifice was sanctified, was the Divine nature. Every sacrifice was sanctified by the altar (Matthew 23:19). 8. Upon the sacrifice of Christ all His other sacerdotal acts depend, and from thence they receive their validity for us. (1) This was the ground of His ascension and entrance into heaven as a priest. The high priest was not to enter within the veil without blood. (2) This is the foundation of His intercession. There are two functions of Christ’ s priesthood--oblation and intercession. (3) This is the foundation of all the grace any have. The conveyance of all the gracious love of God is through this channel. In redemption by His blood the riches of the grace of God abounded, and that with the marks of the highest wisdom (Ephesians 1:7-8). III. Christ was sacrificed for us--õ̔ðå̀ñ when joined with suffering for another, always signifies in another’ s stead and place; it is so used Romans 5:7. This will be cleared if we consider--1. That Christ could not be a sacrifice for Himself. The Messiah was to be cut off, but not for Himself (Daniel 9:26). He needed no sacrifice for Himself. 2. Sacrifices implied this. They had a relation to the offerer, and were substituted in his place. 3. The whole economy of Christ is expressed in the whole Scripture to have a relation to us. All things preparatory to His sufferings were for us. 4. Our sins were imputed to Him as to a sacrifice. Christ the just is put in the place of the unjust to suffer for them (1 Peter 3:18). Christ is said to bear sin as a sacrifice bears sin (Isaiah 53:10; Isaiah 53:12). His soul was made an offering for it. (1) It cannot be understood of the infection of sin. The filth of our nature was not transmitted to Him. (2) But that our sin was the meritorious cause of His punishment. All those phrases that Christ died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3), and was delivered to death for our offences (Romans 4:23), clearly import sin to be the meritorious cause of the punishment Christ endured: sin cannot be said to be the cause of punishment but by way of merit. If Christ bad not been just He had not been capable of suffering for us. (3) Our sins were charged upon Him in regard of their guilt. Our sins are so imputed to Him as that they are not imputed to us (2 Corinthians 5:19), and not imputed to us, because He was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). (a) The apostle distinguishes His second coming from His first by this (Hebrews 9:28), “ He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” (b) He cannot be well supposed to suffer for our sins, if our sins in regard of their guilt be not supposed to be charged upon Him. How could He die, if He were not a reputed sinner? 5. The sufferings of this sacrifice are imputed unto us. He took our sins upon Himself, as if He had sinned, and gave us the benefit of His sufferings, as if we had actually suffered. The redounding of these sufferings to us, ariseth--1. From the dignity of the person undertaking to be a sacrifice for us, and the union of our nature with his. 2. From union with this infinite Person by faith. All believers have a communion with Him in His death (2 Corinthians 5:14). If Christ be a sacrifice--1. We may see the miserable blindness of the Jews in expecting the Messiah as a temporal conqueror. 2. If Christ be a sacrifice, it shows the necessity of a satisfaction to the justice of God, and a higher satisfaction than men could perform. 3. Christ as sacrificed, is the true and immediate object of faith. 4. It is no true opinion that Christ died only for an example. 5. Comfort to every true believer. He was sacrificed for us. God counted Him a sinner for our sakes, that He might count us righteous for His sake. (1) As Christ hath been sacrificed for them, so He has been accepted for them. (2) This sacrifice unites all the attributes of God together for a believer’ s interest. (3) This sacrifice is of eternal virtue. (4) The effects of this sacrifice, therefore, are perfect, glorious, and eternal. 6. We must then lay hold on this sacrifice. 7. We must be enemies to sin, since Christ was a sacrifice for it. Unless sin die in us, we cannot have an evidence that this sacrifice was slain for us. (Thomas Hacket.)The Christian passover It is remarkable that this is Paul’ s only allusion to the Jewish Passover. Paul has been commanding the Corinthian Christians to cast out from their midst a grossly profligate person. He then desires to enjoin upon them to get rid of corruption in themselves as well as in others, and corruption suggests the thought of leaven, secretly, silently, victoriously spreading through the mass. And leaven suggests--in his way of going off at a tangent--the thought of the scrupulous search of the Jewish householder for it in his house in preparation for the paschal feast; and that suggests the paschal feast itself. And so without explanation, and quite incidentally, he drops, as it were by the way, this great thought. I. First, then, paul thought of Christ’ s work as a sacrifice. It was a sacrifice, though of a very singular kind. The passover lamb was slain by the head of each household. It was offered upon no altar; it was prepared by no priest, but for all that it was a sacrifice, and that of an expiatory character. You may call it a gross, low, infantile conception. Be it so! It is the conception of the rite at all events. Paul lays his hand upon that sacrifice, and he says it meant Jesus Christ. So he implies two things, both of which are gravely contested by many to-day: the one that, whatsoever the date of these Jewish sacrifices, they had not only a symbolical but a prophetic aspect; and the other that the centre-point of their prophetic message in reference to Jesus Christ was His death, wherein and whereby men were free from the penal consequences of death in its sternest sense. Is there any theory about Christ and His death which warrants the application of these words “ our passover” to Him, except one which frankly and fully recognises the sacrificial and atoning aspect of His death? Paul may have been right or he may have been wrong. That is what he believed, at any rate. But I have yet another step to take. Paul’ s Master took precisely the same point of view. I claim Christ as the first who taught us that He was our passover. And I point to the rite that He established as the great standing token that His conception of His work was the same as the apostle’ s. Now I do not want to pin you down to any doctrine of an atonement, but I do want to lay upon your hearts this, which I for one believe with all my heart, that no conception of Christ, His nature, His work, His life and death, is full toned and in accordance with His own teaching which does not proclaim Christ is our passover. And I ask you, Is that the Christ that you know and the Christ that you trust? II. If Christ is our passover our lives will be a feast. If He indeed has, as our passover, secured for us safety and liberty, then, of course, all life will take a new aspect. And if we recognise the fact that the Lamb slain is the Lamb in the midst of the throne, administering Providence and guiding the world and the Church, and ever present with each of us, if we trust Him, to bless and keep us, then a flush of gladness will be diffused over all life. Just as when the year turns, and the sunshine begins to gather power, even a grim landscape undergoes a subtle change, and is a prophet of the coming summer, so we, if Christ is our passover, will be possessed, in the fact and in the recognition of the fact, of a charm which, if it does not annihilate, at least modifies all burdens and troubles, and which will bring into any life that is true to it a deep, quiet, calm joy far more real, noble, blessed, and the ally of great thoughts and deeds, than the surface ripple of laughter and of mirth which men baptize by that great name. But, brethren, remember that the words are a commandment, and that implies that the realisation of this gladness, which is the natural fruit of the conception of Christ’ s death of which I have been speaking, depends very largely upon ourselves. I do not think Christian people as a whole realise as much as they ought to do the sin of sorrow and the duty of rejoicing. But that is not all which is conveyed in this thought of the feast which life becomes when Christ’ s death is recognised as our expiation. There is further involved the duty of participating in the flesh of the sacrifice. You have to feed upon the Christ who is sacrificed for you, or the sacrifice is of no avail. What Christ is it that nourishes a man? The Christ that taught great and wonderful things? Yes, in some degree. The Christ that walked before men, the sweet Example of all duty, and the sum of whatsoever things were lovely and of good report? Yes, in some degree, but I believe that the Christ who feeds the whole man, and who, being partaken of, gives immortal life to the man who feeds on Him, is the Christ who died and gave His flesh and His blood for the life of the world. Physiologists will tell you that it is possible to feed a man on foods which have so little power of supplying all the constituents necessary for the human body that he may eat them and be starved. And there is a version of the Christ which, if men live upon, they will live a very feeble life, and, as I believe, will come near starving. III. Lastly, if we feed upon Christ our passover we shall be pure. There is no way of getting thoroughly rid of the old leaven except the one way of taking Christ for the food of our souls. If He is our bread as well as our sacrifice, then we are bound to serve Him in righteousness. What did He die to deliver us from? Sin. What did He die to make us? Pure and righteous. There is no reason for any man believing that Jesus Christ is his passover unless He is that man’ s purity. The obligation, the inclination, and the ability to cleanse our- selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit are inseparably wrapped up with the conception of His death as the means of our life and safety. The Jew had first to cast out the leaven, then to partake of the passover. We have a better and an easier task; first to partake of the passover and then to cast out the leaven. Do not put the cart before the horse, as some of you do, and try to make yourselves better, in order that you may have a right to a share in Christ. Begin with eating the bread, and then in the strength of that meat, rejoice all your days, and purge yourselves from all iniquity. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Christ our passover The Rev. Dr. Bowman, of the Church Missionary Society, was enabled to erect a place of worship in connection with the Calcutta Leper Asylum, and an aged woman, over eighty-two years old, was there led by the preacher to the Divine Healer. A sceptic asked her if the many gods and goddesses of her own religion would not suffice, but she had an answer ready for him: “ None of them died for me.” Christ’ s sacrifice a quickening truth The sacrifice of innocence for guilt is the profoundest truth which God has ever exemplified in a human life. Yet not mere truth, but duty, not theology, but practice, is the end of revelation. Truth is not revealed or offered by prophets, Saviour, or apostles for truth’ s sake, but always for upbuilding in righteousness. There is no more dangerous falsehood abroad than the assertion that truth should be sought for its own sake. Yet a vast deal of this truth-seeking and hearing is an intellectual voluptuousness, a spiritual self-gratification, a selfish indulgence of pleasurable emotions, just as deadly to the soul as bodily sensualism. It is as truly immoral to seek truth out of mere love of knowing it as it is to seek money out of love to gain. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 5:9-13I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. Avoid the company of sinners I. Is this practicable?1. Not absolutely: we must have intercourse with the world.2. Yet practically: we need have no fellowship or familiarity with them. II. Is it necessary?1. Not indispensably, in reference to the world, whom we may not judge, but must leave to the judgment of God.2. Yet positively in reference to false professors, who must be exposed and excluded. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The company of sinners to be avoided When a man is known to suffer from a sadly contagious disease none of his friends will come near the house. There is little need to warn them off, they are all too alarmed to come near. Why is it men are not so much afraid of the contagion of vice? How dare they run risks for themselves and children by allowing evil companions to frequent their house? Sin is as infectious and far more deadly than the small-pox or fever. Flee, then, from every one who might lead you into it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The Christian law of association with evil I. Common, everyday associations with evil have to be maintained in--1. Family.2. Business.3. Society. Yet in all these the earnest Christian need never find it difficult to make a firm witness for truth, righteousness, and charity. II. Special relations with evil we may not make.1. For our own sake.2. For our friends’ sake. 3. For the sake of others who may observe our friendship.4. For Christ’ s sake, who said through His servant, “ Come out from among them,” &c. (R. Tuck, B. A.)The limits of fellowship “ No man liveth unto himself.” Attempts have been made to build a science of human nature and a scheme of human life on individualism, but they have failed. Man is born into, lives in, and is inexplicable apart from society. For good or for evil we are with one another. I. Christians are not limited to the society of their fellow-Christians. Paul was full of “ sanctified common sense.” He saw clearly that if a man eschewed all intercourse with those who differed from him he would have to “ go out of the world.”1. The example of Christ and His apostles sanctions intercourse with general society. 2. The assumption of superior sanctity repels, while such intercourse may lead to a desire for the gospel. 3. Opportunities occur in social intercourse for introducing directly or indirectly the truths of religion. “ A word spoken in season,” &c. II. Christians are restrained people free intercourse with unworthy fellow professors.1. It must not be supposed that we are confined to the fellowship of those whose character is mature and blameless. This would be to set up in the Church an aristocracy of the worst kind. 2. Those whose company is forbidden are such as by their violation of the moral law prove their insincerity. 3. The reasons for this prohibition are obvious. Intimacy with such would-- (1) Be injurious to our own moral nature.(2) Be interpreted by the world as a condonation of sin.(3) Encourage the sinner in his sin. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)Converse with the ungodly I. In our ordinary life we must associate more or less with the ungodly. Our legitimate business and our duties as citizens leads us amongst such. If we kept ourselves apart we should have “ to go out of the world.”1. Christianity is not designed to drive us out of the world. We are to live among men righteously. Here we have an argument against monasticism. 2. Christ mixed freely among men. 3. We have many opportunities for witnessing for Christ in the world. Private Christians may thus become missionaries, and reach classes beyond the ordinary means. Still any association with the ungodly has its perils, and we must not shut our eyes to them. When we go into the world we should go armed, and never without Christ. II. We are not to associate with a professor who walks disorderly.1. The case is here altered. Those outside are strangers, though we mix with them; this one we know and have been identified with. Those outside are left to the judgment of God; but we have jurisdiction in the case of our offending brother (1 Corinthians 5:4-5). If this were not so-- (1) The force of Church discipline would be seriously weakened. (2) The effect upon the offender would be lessened. Church discipline does not lose sight of his welfare: it is directed towards his recovery. (3) It would seem as though the evil were lightly esteemed, which would bring great scandal and contempt on Christianity. (4) There would be much peril to the other members of the Church-- (a) In the association. There is often more peril in the society of a false professor than in that of an open evildoer. (b) In the conviction that they could sin with comparative impunity so far as the Church was concerned. III. What kinds of sin involve separation. The apostle gives a list of transgressors.1. Fornicators. The unclean: professing purity, practising impurity. 2. The covetous. Those who made a god of the things of sense. Heart idolatry. 3. Idolaters. Those who, being professing Christians, compromised like Naaman, and like those who now pay homage to “ the god of this world.” 4. Railers or revilers. Those who say they have a clean heart, but keep a foul mouth. 5. Drunkards. 6. Extortioners. Greedy souls who overreach others, but overreach themselves pre-eminently. We may not company with such, but we may pray and labour for them. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)The snare of worldly conformity There is something ominous in the good terms on which Christians are now able to live with their worldly neighbours, when they are not only tolerated in worldly circles, but can make bosom companions of, and even be united in marriage to, those who, knowing nothing of spiritual life, and being habitually and ostentatiously regardless of unseen realities, are still of the world, in the truest and strongest sense of these words. The cause of these amicable relations is not that the world has changed its character essentially; for that it will never do until it ceases to be the world, by being born of God. And must it not be, therefore, that in the Christians who live with it on such intimate terms, there is little or nothing of the spirit of Christ? I would utter no sweeping assertion. But there is in this new bearing of the world to the Church enough to awaken the gravest inquiry in all who are really disciples of Christ, and jealous for the honour of their Lord. Nor is it evident that such inquiry honestly conducted would not lead to the conclusion, that while Christian principles have somewhat influenced the world, the spirit of the world has far more powerfully influenced the Church; and that we have secured the world’ s favour, by compromising our Christian character in compliance with the world’ s demands. Good John Bunyan, were he now to visit Vanity Fair, would find it very different from what it was when he conducted his pilgrims through it, and described the cruel treatment they received. He would find its hostility to the pilgrims wonderfully abated, but he would also find the spirit of the pilgrims wonderfully changed; and that the truce between the two has been procured, not by the concessions of Vanity Fair only, but by the concessions of the pilgrims as well. He would find that while the inhabitants of Vanity Fair have little objection to going to church as the best place for displaying their vanities, many of the pilgrims have become much less like travellers through the town, than residents in it; that some of them do a very flourishing trade there, and can scarcely be distinguished from other traders except from their occasional use of a religious phraseology, not at all from the principles on which their trade is conducted; that they patronise their places of amusement, scarcely avoiding even the most disreputable, and appear there in the attire common to those who frequent them; that they build their villas and mansions there, and enjoy the good things of the place, and altogether seem more likely to spend their days in Vanity Fair, than to induce the inhabitants of Vanity Fair to accompany them in their journey to the celestial city. And though he might find it difficult to say how far the pilgrims ought or ought not to avail themselves of the altered feeling, and take their share of the good things which the place supplies, I fear he would not think the present an unqualified improvement on the time which he so graphically described. (W. Landels, D. D.)Danger of worldly intercourse None can pretend to say how far you may intermix in worldly company, says the Rev. R. Cecil, and get no stain or soil. Situation, circumstances, &c., must all be taken into consideration. But this may be said, that he only mixes with the world with safety who does it not from inclination, but necessity. As to amusements, and what are called recreations, a really awakened Christian will neither find taste nor leisure for them. Religion furnishes the mind with objects sufficient to fill up every vacancy. Yet as you name them I would have you mark carefully everything that disposes or indisposes the mind to holy pursuits. Persons of tender health are very careful to avoid whatever is hurtful, such as damps, infectious rooms, blighting winds. They attend to the injunctions of their physicians, the cautions of their friends, &c. If people were but as careful about their spiritual health as they are of their bodily health, we should see much stronger and taller Christians. 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 For what have I to do to Judge them also that are without? Without and within I. Those without.1. Have no share in Church privileges.2. Are exempt from Church jurisdiction.3. Are liable to the judgment of God. II. Those within.1. May be unworthy of fellowship.2. Are subject to discipline.3. Must be excluded when their wickedness is proven. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The judgment of God and the judgment of the Church 1. The one is limited, the other universal.2. The one is partial, the other absolute.3. The one is disciplinary, the other infallible.4. The one is provisional, the other will be final.5. The effects of the one are temporary, of the other eternal. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Limitations of apostolic discipline 1. Even in that age of Divine intuitions and preternatural visitations Paul limits the subjects of expulsion from the Christian society to gross and definite vices. No encouragement is given to pry into the secret state of the heart and conscience, or to denounce mere errors of opinion or judgment. 2. Even when insisting most strongly on entire separation from heathen vices, he still allows unrestricted social intercourse with the heathen. He forbears to push his principle to an utopian extravagance: he acknowledges the impracticability of entire separation as a decisive reason against it, and regards the ultimate solution of the problem as belonging not to man, but to God. 3. Whilst strongly condemning the Christian quarrels as in themselves unchristian (chap 6.) he yet does not leave them without a remedy, and so drive them to the objectionable course of going before heathen judges. He recognises the fact, and appeals to their own self- respect to induce them to appoint judges of their own, thus giving the first apostolic sanction to Christian courts of law; in other words, departing from the highest ideal of a Christian Church in order to secure the purity of its actual condition. 4. He lays down the general truth that between all other outward acts and the sin of sensuality there is an essential difference; that the liberty which Christianity concedes to the former, it altogether withholds from the latter; that those sins are utterly inconsistent not merely with any particular relation existing between Christianity and heathenism, but with the very idea of Christianity itself. (Dean Stanley.) 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust? On going to law The Greeks were not only quarrelsome, but derived an excitement pleasant to their frivolous nature in going to law. The Christians seemed not to have discarded this taste. St. Paul has been telling them they have nothing to do with judging the heathen; he now proceeds to remind them that they ought not to be judged by them. How could he preach the superiority of Christianity if Christians had so little common sense, so little esprit de corps, that they must call in a heathen to settle their disputes for them? St. Paul’ s reasons are important. I. The saints are destined to judge the world and angels. Shall they not then be considered fit to judge little worldly matters of life?1. St. Paul meant that ultimately holy men will be at the head of affairs, acknowledged as the fittest to discern between right and wrong. We shrink from such a thought; not, indeed, that we are slow to pronounce judgment upon our fellow-men, but to do so officially, with definite results, seems too heavy a responsibility. But why? If we submit ourselves now to those who have knowledge of law we may well be content to be judged by the perfectly holy by and by. 2. If holiness shall eventually be supreme, it ought now to be regarded as competent to settle the petty disputes which arise among us (1 Corinthians 6:3). The future kingdom of God can only be perfect as its subjects carry into it characters tending towards perfection. The future is not to make us, but we the future. Earth is not heaven only because men decline to make it so. And as all possible differences in heaven will be adjusted by an all-reconciling authority, there ought to be among the heirs of heaven no going to law now. 3. A vast proportion of legal business is created by changes from which the future life is exempt: death, marriage, disasters, &c. It is often in the power of a lawyer to give a man advice which will save his conscience and bring comfort into a family instead of heart-burning and penury. If the legal mind deals with the reality of things, and tries to see what equity requires, and seeks to forward the well-being of men, then surely there is no profession with such opportunities of earning the beatitude of the peacemakers, none in which men may better be prepared for the higher requirements of a heavenly society in which some are made rulers over ten cities. II. Is there not a wise man among yourselves? “ A wise man” was the technical term for a judge in the Hebrew courts.1. Among the Jews there was no distinction between Church and State. In the synagogue and by the eldership offenders were both tried and punished. The rabbis said, “ He who brings lawsuits of Israel before a heathen tribunal profanes the Name, and does homage to idolatry; for when our enemies are judges (Deuteronomy 32:31) it is a testimony to the superiority of their religion.” This idea passed over from Judaism to Christianity. And even a century after Paul’ s time the rule of the Church was, “ Let not those who have disputes go to law before the civil powers, but let them by all means be reconciled by the elders of the Church, and let them readily yield to their decision.” And as late as our own day we find an Arab sheikh complaining that Christian Copts come to him, a Mohammedan, to settle their disputes, and “ won’ t go and be settled by the priest out of the Gospels.” 2. Did Paul, then, mean that such legal cases as are now tried in our civil courts should be settled by non-professional men? Did he foresee none of the great evils that have arisen wherever Church or State has not respected the province of the other? No one can suppose that this was his meaning. He taught men to submit themselves to the powers that then were, and he himself appealed to Caesar. He had no notion of subverting civil courts, but he would fain have deprived them of much of their practice. He thought it might be expected that Christians would never be so rancorous or covetous but that their disputes might be settled by private and friendly advice. Courts of law are necessary evils, which will be less and less patronised in proportion as Christian feeling and principle prevail. 3. This rebuke is applicable even to a community like our own, in which the courts of law are Christian. It is felt even by nations that if a dispute can be settled by arbitration this is the better way of getting justice done. Christian people may need legal advice; but when two Christians go to law in a spirit of rancour this only proves that their worldliness is stronger than their Christianity 4. But some one will say, “ All this is romance.” Just as if the world could be regenerated by anything that is not apparently romantic! If a greater good is to be reached, it must be by some way that men have not tried before. And if any one says, “ But if there is to be no going to law, we must continually be losers,” the reply of a Kincardineshire lawyer might suffice, “ Don’ t go to law if yielding does not cost you more than forty shillings in the pound.” And from a different point of view St. Paul replies, “ Well, and what though you be losers? The kingdom you belong to is not meat and drink, but righteousness.” If a man says, “ We must have some redress, when a man takes a coat we must summon him, or he will take our cloak next,” St. Paul replies, “ It is quite probable that if you act as your Master did, you will be as ill off in this world as He was. But is that any reason why you should at once call Him your Master and refuse to obey His precepts and follow His example?” St. Paul then shows no hesitation about pushing his doctrine to its consequences. He sees that the real cure of wrangling, of fraud, and of war is not litigation, but meekness and unselfishness. The world’ s remedies have utterly failed. Law is necessary for restraining the expressions of a vicious nature, but is insufficient to remove the possibility of these expressions by healing the nature. This can only be done by the diffusion of unworldliness and unselfishness. And it is Christians who are responsible for diffusing this unworldly spirit. Conclusion.1. Those laws which are to be our sole rule when we are perfect cannot always be immediately applied now; but there must be a striving towards the perfect state in which there shall be no going to law. 2. Paul knows that the Christian conscience is with him when he declares that men should rather suffer wrong than bring reproach on the Christian name (1 Corinthians 6:9). And yet how little do men seem to take to heart the great fact that they are travelling forward to a state in which nothing uncongenial to the Spirit of Christ can possibly find place! (M. Dods, D. D.)Law, going to A sheep, separated from the flock, was overtaken by a storm. To shelter itself from the rain it crept into a thorny bush, and remained there until the rain had ceased. It had much trouble in getting rid of the thorns. It, however, brought it about after many efforts, and got out from the bush without being wet; but the poor creature lost almost all its wool. A like fate is his who seeks redress in law. Why a Christian should not go to law with his brethren I. It is to demean Christianity before the world, which teaches peace, forbearance, unity, love. II. It is to cede to worldly men an opportunity of judging Christian character--the complainant as well as the defendant. III. It is to deny the competency of the Church to adjust differences among its own members. IV. It is to prefer law to equity. V. It is totally opposed to the spirit of Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The litigious spirit in the Church This the apostle rebukes because-- I. The Church should decide itself the difficulties of its members. “ The saints shall judge the world,” i.e., this earth shall be one day a kingdom of God.1. We cannot tell how, but one day “ the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God,” &c., and legislation become Christian. And more, a time is coming when statute law shall cease, and self-government supersede all outward or arbitrary law. That will be the reign of the saints. Let us examine the principles of this kingdom which is to be. 1. The supremacy of goodness. The word “ judge” does not mean that the saints shall be assessors with Christ at the day of judgment, but that they shall rule the world as Gideon, &c., “ judged” Israel. Successively have force, hereditary right, talent, wealth, been the aristocracies of the earth. But in that kingdom to come goodness shall be the only condition of supremacy. 2. The best shall rule. The apostles “ shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” which is not to be taken literally; you lose your time in investigating theories about the restoration of the ten tribes, &c. The spirit of the passage means, and typically expresses, that in that kingdom the best shall rule. 3. That there each shall have his place according to his capacity (see 1 Corinthians 12:28). Each man took his position in the Church according to his gift. Here was a new principle. So in the kingdom to come we shall not have the anomalies which now prevail. Men are ministers now who are only fit to plough; men are hidden now in professions where there is no scope for their powers. But it shall all be altered there. These are the things that must be hereafter. And it is only in such a belief that human life becomes tolerable. 4. This is the future destiny of the Church. Are these principles, thou, to be altogather in abeyance now? In the highest spiritual matters the Church shall decide hereafter. Therefore, in questions now of earthly matters, Paul argues, the least esteemed among them should be able to decide. “ I speak to your shame; where are your boasted teachers? Can they not judge in a matter of paltry quarrel about property?” (1) Let us not, however, mistake the apostle. He did not mean to say that the Corinthians should have ecclesiastical instead of civil courts. The question here is not between ecclesiastical and civil, but between law and equity, litigation and arbitration. The difference between the worldly court of justice and the Christian court of arbitration is a difference of diametrical opposition. Law says, You shall have your rights; the spirit of the true Church says, Defraud not your neighbour of his. Law says, You must not be wronged: the Church says, It is better to suffer than to do wrong. (2) And now, Can any principle but this heal the quarrels of the world? While one holds out as a matter of principle, the other appeals to law, and both are well assured of their rights, what must be the end? “ If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” Whereas if we were all Christianised, and ready to endure injuries, law would be needless--there would be no cry of “ my rights.” You will say, perhaps, “ But if we bear, we shall be wronged.” You forget if all felt thus there would be no wrong. There is no remedy for the world’ s miseries but the cure of its selfishness. Men have attempted to produce a peaceful and just state of society by force, by law, by schemes of socialism, and all have failed, must fail. There remains, then, nothing but the Cross, the Spirit of Him who conquered the world by being the victim of its sin. II. It contradicts the character of the kingdom of God. A true kingdom of Christ should be altogether free from persons of this character. His argument runs thus:--“ You ask me how quarrels are to be decided except by law; how the oppressed are to be freed from gross oppressors, except by an appeal to legal justice? I answer, the Church does not include such persons in the idea of its existence at all. The Church consists of men washed, sanctified, justified, &c. I cannot tell you how to legislate for drunkards, revilers, &c., for such ought not to be in your society at all. This is what you were as heathens; this is not what you are to be as Christians.” St. Paul insists on man’ s dignity. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Litigation among Christians: evil of I. It degrades Christian character.1. By subjecting it to an earthly tribunal.2. By denying the competence of Christian men to judge in the smallest matters.3. By ignoring the dignity which Christ has conferred upon His saints.4. By putting Christ’ s cause to shame before unbelievers. II. It indicates a selfish and unchristian spirit. Litigation 1. Would often be spared by concession, by a little sacrifice of personal right, although this must have its limits. 2. Is usually occasioned by a selfish desire to overreach another; which-- (1) Is opposed to brotherly love.(2) Excludes a man from the kingdom of God.(3) Makes the grace of Christ of none effect. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Litigation among Christians to be avoided I. Why? Because it is inconsistent with--1. Their profession (1 Corinthians 6:1).2. Their dignity (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).3. Self-respect (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). II. How? (1 Corinthians 6:4-6).1. By not appealing to a worldly tribunal; this occasions reproach.2. By referring the matter to Christian brethren; that will bring honour.3. By abstaining from open strife. III. In what spirit? The spirit of love, which--1. Excludes selfishness.2. Prefers patient sacrifice to contention.3. Gives no just occasion of offence. IV. On what grounds? (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Because every act of unrighteousness 1. Must exclude a man from the kingdom of God.2. Encourages self-deception.3. Is totally opposed to all Christian experience. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Litigation to be avoided A very learned judge was once asked what he would do if a man owed him ten pounds and refused to pay. His reply was worth remembering. He said, “ Rather than bring an action against him, with its costs and uncertainty, I would give him a receipt in full of all demands; yes, and I would send him five pounds over, to cover all possible expenses.” Litigation to be avoided Lord Erskine, when at the bar, and at the time when his professional talents were most eminent and popular, having been applied to by his friend Dr. Parr for his opinion upon a subject likely to be litigated by him, after recommending the doctor “ to accommodate the difference amicably,” concluded his letter by observing, “ I can scarcely figure to myself a situation in which a lawsuit is not, if possible, to be avoided.” A lawsuit discouraged Dr. Miner, of Trenton, N.J., who was formerly a pastor at Springfield, relates that when Abraham Lincoln was practising law in that city a farmer went to him to secure his services in a lawsuit pending between himself and a neighbour. Lincoln said, “ Now if you go on with this it will cost both of you your farms, and will entail an enmity that will last for generations, and perhaps lead to murder. The other man has just been here to engage me. Now I want you two to sit down in my office while I am gone to dinner, and talk it over and try to settle it. And to secure you from any interruption I will lock the door.” He did so, and he did not return all the afternoon. The two men, finding themselves imprisoned, burst out laughing, and being thus put in good humour, came to a settlement before Mr. Lincoln returned. The example may be commended to the attention of Christians. Lawsuits prevented Mr. Oatts remarks: “ Peter the Great frequently visited the magistrates in the various cities of his vast empire without giving them any previous warning of his intention. Having in this way arrived at the city of Olonez, he went first to the governor and inquired of him how many suits were pending in the Court of Chancery. “ None, sire,” was the reply. “ What! none? How does that happen?” “ Sire, I endeavour to prevent lawsuits, and to conciliate the parties. I act in such a way that no traces of quarrels remain on the archives. If I be wrong your indulgence will excuse me.” “ Wrong! No. I wish,” exclaimed the Czar, “ that all governors would act on your principle. Go on as you are doing. God and your sovereign are both satisfied.” The work of every child of God should be that of a peacemaker, reconciling man to God, and man to his fellow man. Do ye not know that the saints shall Judge the world?--The world judged by the saints The apostle condemns their going to law, and would have them cease their quarrels one against another before the unjust and unbelievers, and that by four arguments. First, by the shamefulness of it (1 Corinthians 6:5). “ I speak it to your shame.” Are you such fools that you cannot take up these matters among yourselves? Secondly, from the scandalousness of it. It is a thing so scandalous and offensive to those that are without that I wonder any of you dare be so bold as to go to law one with another. What will the world think? What! Are these the men that profess the gospel? Are these they that have the wisdom of God in them and that are led by the Spirit of God? Thirdly, from the unseemliness of it in the second verse. Do you not know that the saints shall judge the earth? What! hath God made you judges of the world, and do you go to be judged by the world? Fourthly, from the strangeness of it. Dare any of you? What! is there never a wise Christian amongst you? never an understanding professor, that is able to take up a controversy, or judge between his brethren? What a strange thing this is! Then he backs it with four arguments.1. Because they were brethren (1 Corinthians 6:6). 2. Because it was about things of this life. What! hath God made you judges of heavenly things, of angels, and are you unfit to judge of the things of this life? 3. It was about small matters (1 Corinthians 6:2), whereas you shall sit upon men and angels, and the weightiest matters in the world, the greatest things of God’ s law, judging them. 4. And lastly, because it was about such things as the meanest Christian in the town might have taken up and have ended: set up them that are least esteemed. Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? The doctrine is, that the saints shall judge the world. It is an old truth, yea, as old as the world itself: you may read it in the fourth verse of Jude’ s epistle. That Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied saying, Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints. God will not only come to judgment Himself, but He will come attended with all His saints, even with all the godly, to execute vengeance upon all the world, so our Saviour told St. Peter (Matthew 9:18). How shall the saints judge the world? Not by pronouncing of judgment upon the world, for that Christ only shall do. But the saints shall judge the world these four ways.1. They shall judge the world by their consent unto Christ’ s judgment. God trains up His children in this world and teacheth them how they may judge the world hereafter; He teacheth them in this life how to assent with His proceedings in the world, so that they are able to say, “ Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and just are Thy judgments” (Psalms 119:137). Now the law saith that consenters are agents, and therefore because the saints shall consent to the judgment of Christ, therefore they are said to judge the world. 2. The saints shall judge the world by their applause of Christ’ s judgment; they shall not only give consent unto the judgment of Christ, but they shall also commend it. They shall sing, “ Hallelujah, salvation, and honour, and power, be to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are His judgments” (Revelation 19:1-2). Let the wicked go accursed as they are, for it is a righteous sentence passed on them. 3. They shall judge the world by their majesty. Then shall the righteous shine as the stars in the firmament, and the wicked shall be astonished at the sight of them. 4. They shall judge the world by their lives and conversation. Then is the world judged by them when as the courses and manners of the world are not found upon them. Their faith shall judge the world’ s infidelity; their repentance shall judge the world’ s impenitency; their accepting of the Lord Jesus shall judge their rejection and neglect of Christ Jesus; their zeal shall judge the world’ s lukewarmness, and their holiness shall judge the world’ s profaneness.1. Because of the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His saints. He is the Head and they are His members. Now that which the head doth we ascribe it to the whole body. Secondly, in regard of compassion. I speak not of pity bait of compassion, of suffering with Christ, seeing that Christ was reproached, hated, and condemned by the world, the saints are likewise with Him; seeing they partake of the afflictions of Christ here they shall also be made partakers with Christ in His glory. Thirdly, for great terror to all wicked men at the day of judgment; for as it is with a thief, not only when the judge shall command to hang him, but all the justices and all the country shall cry out, Hang him! he is judged the more terribly. Fourthly, the saints shall judge the world because God shall so convince them that their mouth shall be stopped, they shall have never a syllable to excuse themselves withal when they shall see men as themselves are, that have lived in the same town, enjoyed the same ordinances of God, lived in the same family that did partake of the same blessings and of the same crosses and afflictions with themselves, subject also to the same corruptions and sins as themselves, when they shall see these at Christ’ s right hand. The first use, then, is for instruction, whereby we may learn that the saints by their now being saints do now judge the world (Hebrews 11:7). Secondly, this teacheth us that when there is one sinner converted from the wickedness of his ways, and is become a saint, then all the world may know that there is a new judge come to sit upon them. It may be God hath converted thy brother and sister, and thou art not converted, thy own brother and sister shall condemn thee if thou do not repent and come out of thy sins. Thirdly, we may learn that it concerns all the world to take notice of every grace in God’ s children. There is never a grace of God in any of His saints, but it shall condemn the world if it be void of it. The ways of the Lord are all judgments, because they judge them that will not walk in them. You may know a crooked thing by laying it to a straight line, and by that it is judged to be crooked. Is the child of God humble? His humility shall judge thy pride. Is the child of God meek and patient in suffering wrong and injuries? His meekness and patience shall judge thy revenge. Hath the child of God the spirit of prayer given him? It shall condemn thee that prayest only with thine own spirit. Doth his speech and communication administer grace to the hearers? It shall condemn thee that speakest of vain and idle things. Fourthly, learn hence, that all the texts of Scripture, all the whole Word of God, that is it that begets these saints; and therefore they must needs judge the world. The Scriptures are called judgments (Psalms 105:5), and our Saviour saith, “ The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day” (John 12:48). Fifthly and lastly, hence it follows, that all the ministers of the Word of God shall also judge the world. Son of man, wilt thou judge the bloody city? “ Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations” (Ezekiel 22:2). This, then, serves to condemn three sorts of men in the world. First, all those that despise the saints, and that see not amiableness in their faces. All the country doth reverence the face of the judge when he rides his circuit. 2. Shall the saints judge the world? Then what fools are the wicked that prepare not for these judges! When the judge comes to an assize all men prepare for him. Lastly, it condemns all those who do not see glory and majesty in the faces of God’ s saints. There is majesty in the face of a judge; yea, a man may discover in them a kind of sovereign majesty. Surely the wicked shall never escape condemnation, for--1. God the Father, who judgeth by way of authority, He will condemn thee; all judgment cometh originally from Him. 2. God the Son, He will judge thee, who judgeth by way of dispensation (Acts 10:1-48.). First, Christ preacheth to thee repentance and remission of sins, to which if thou yield not, then know that there is a day appointed wherein He will judge thee. 3. God the Holy Ghost will judge thee; that Spirit that now thrives with thee. 4. The Word of God shall judge thee, and that by way of form, it being the platform according unto which Christ will judge the whole world. There is never a text throughout the whole Scripture that commands you to leave and forsake your sins, but it shall judge you if you do not. 5. All the ministers of God shall sit as justices in common, from the first preacher of righteousness unto the last; Moses shall judge thee. Joshua, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Daniel, Paul, Peter, &c., they shall judge you. There will be no way for the wicked to put off their judgment; then the sons of Eli shall have none to advocate between God and them, none to cloak their wickedness. Would they send out excuses? The saints shall cut them off. Would they in the first place say, Alas! I was ignorant, I knew not how to pray, or to read, or to meditate on the Scriptures, nor to catechise my family? A second excuse is poverty. I have no means to live on; if I should run after sermons I should beg my bread. Thirdly, they shall have no excuse by employment. I am a servant, I am commanded to do this or that, I find so much business to follow that I cannot find any time for such things. Fourthly, they shall have no excuse from their callings and trades. I am an innkeeper, and if I should not suffer drinking and swearing and gaming I should not live. Another faith: I am a tradesman, and if I should ask at first just so much as I could take, I should never bring customers to my price, and so I should not live of my trade. Fifthly, they shall have no excuse from the times they live in. Alas (saith one)! I live in wretched times, all the world is given to sin. This, then, first condemns all unholiness in the lives of them that be saints. Beloved, if we did but live like the saints of God in holiness and purity the Lord would put such splendour upon us that would even daunt the very face of our enemies and make them stand amazed at saints. Secondly, this condemns the little difference that is betwixt the wicked of the world and some saints in their lives and manners. Beloved, is there so little difference between the judge and the prisoners that any one need to come and say, “ I pray you, sir, show me which is the judge and which is the malefactor” ? Thirdly, it condemns the scandalousness of many professors in their behaviours and actions. (W. Fenners.)Judgment given to the saints The apostle seems to refer to something in Christian doctrine well known then, but very obscure now. He asks with a tone of surprise, “ Do not ye know?” We always look forward to being judged, not to judging others, and if the words stood alone, indeed, we might think that they only spoke of “ judging” in the sense of “ condemning” by contrast or example, as the men of Nineveh the generation in Which Christ lived. But this reference to future judgment does not stand alone (see Daniel 7:22; Matthew 19:28; Revelation 20:4; Revelation 2:26). Looking to all that is said about the judgment to come, I suppose that Christians will first be judged according to the new nature of which they have been made partakers, and the new light which has been accorded to them; that afterwards the heathen “ world,” according to other standards and other necessities; and that in this judgment the saints will bear a part. Now, if it be so, does it not anticipate a frequent difficulty, the eternal fate of the heathen? Know this, thou shalt be consulted concerning these very heathen, if only thou be found worthy as a Christian. Only live as it becometh saints, and no sentence shall be passed without thy consent, or contrary to thy sense of justice, for the saints shall judge the world. The saints are also to judge angels, bad angels; for it does not appear how the others would be liable to any judgment at all. If it be asked why this should be so, it may be replied that their probation and fate has ever been mixed up with our own. In the days of our Lord they found a solace and a certain fierce joy in possessing themselves of the bodies of men, and only abandoned them at His almighty word. And these are now finally cast down to Tartarus and reserved under chains of darkness for the judgment of the last day. Contemplating their long connection in guilt and degradation with us children of men, shall we wonder if their final sentence also shall not be passed without us? (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another.--Christian faultiness The word may mean--1. A moral defeat sustained by the Christian soldier in his campaign and spiritual march for the heavenly prize of the kingly crown and judicial throne. 2. The loss or damage to the Church, more litigant than militant in the eyes of observant heathendom. (Canon Evans.)Lawsuits among Christians indicate a want of--1. Brotherly love.2. Christian sacrifice.3. Christian morality. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Why do ye not rather take wrong?-- A true Christian may not always insist on his own right I. It may indicate a want of Christian love.1. This is evident where brethren sue each other.2. Even the party wronged should rather yield than encourage strife and hatred.3. To press his cause before the world is to dishonour Christ. II. It is the first step to actual sin.1. It breeds selfishness, wrong, fraud.2. And that among brethren. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Know ye not Shall the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Persistent self-deception Sometimes we persistently deceive ourselves. We insist upon pursuing a policy for our benefit which all but ourselves clearly see to be absurd and useless. We cling to a pet project and nurse a worthless conceit long after the folly of both is recognised by everybody else. But we are not altogether to be blamed. For instinct itself is sometimes at fault, and its powers are uselessly applied. A hen will sit with the greatest tenacity on rounded pieces of chalk; and the Hamster rat breaks the wings of dead birds as well as of living ones before it devours them. Insects also occasionally err on the same principle, as when the blow-fly lays its eggs on the flower of the stapelia, deceived by its carrion-like odour. A spider, deprived of its egg-bag, will cherish with the same fondness a little pellet of cotton thrown to it. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)Who shall enter into the kingdom of God 1. The kingdom.2. The danger of delusion in reference to it.3. The certain exclusion of all unrighteousness.4. The necessity of a change in those who enter it.5. The means by which this change is effected. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Our inheritance in peril I. What our inheritance is--“ the kingdom of God,” present, but chiefly future (2 Peter 3:13). Heaven is rest, joy, purity, vision. This inheritance is in a sense the inheritance of all, since Christ died for the sins of the world. We disinherit ourselves. II. The hindrances to it.1. Sins of sensuality. 2. Idolatry. If we serve false gods how can we expect a reward from the true? Some have keen eyes for injuries done to men; idolatry is a pre-eminent sin against God. What is it that occupies the throne of our heart? 3. Theft, covetousness, extortion. These are much upon a par. Yet many a man who would be horrified at the thought of being a thief thinks nothing of covetousness or extortion. But what is covetousness but theft in the bud? and extortion but theft in the blossom! A man who steals mentally is as guilty as if he stole actually; for nothing but the restraints of society and the dock keep his hands still. Many a theft is committed in a court of justice with the assistance of counsel: e.g., when a man is striving to get more than his due. 4. Drunkenness. The curse of our land. What men lose by it--health, respect, friends, wealth, and the kingdom of God. 5. Foul language. Reviling, railing, sins of the tongue. Foul lips speak a foul heart. Plainly we are here taught that a nominal faith cannot save us. All the profession in the world will not secure our inheritance. III. These hindrances may be removed. Here is consolation for great sinners--and who are small ones? When a man is deeply convinced of sin he is often tempted to despair. Can I, the unclean, &c., enter the holy heaven? It seems impossible. But the apostle turns upon his converts and says--“ And such were some of you.” Of greatest sinners God has sometimes made the greatest saints. The barriers insuperable to man may be cast down by the might of God. No sickness is beyond the skill of the great Physician. IV. The manner of removal. Paul speaks of “ washing” in its twofold character.1. Justification, which we receive through Christ (1 Corinthians 6:11). 2. Sanctification, which we receive through the operation of “ the Spirit of our Lord” (1 Corinthians 6:11). V. A caution implied--“ And such were some of you.” Are ye becoming so again? Our great inheritance may be lost after all, and will be unless we endure to the end. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)Genuine reformation Reformation is an object most earnestly pursued by all who are alive to the wrongs of life. Some, however, are of questionable utility, and none of much value but that of the text. This reformation is-- I. Of the moral character of mankind. Sin which may be defined as self-gratification is here presented in a variety of forms. The principle of sin, like holiness, is one and simple, but the forms are multifarious. These morally corrupt Corinthians were changed in the very root and fountain of their character. II. Indispensable to a happy destiny. “ The kingdom of God” --the reign of truth, purity, love. To inherit that empire, to be in it, not as occasional visitors, but as permanent citizens, is our high destiny. For this we were made. Hence Christ urges us to seek it first. There is no getting into it without this moral reformation. III. Effected by the redemptive agency of Christ. They had been cleansed from their moral foulness, “ washed” ; consecrated to holiness, “ sanctified” ; made right in their being and relationships, “ justified.” And this “ in the name,” &c. Nothing on earth will effect this moral change but the gospel; not legislative enactments, or scientific systems. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Nor drunkards. Drunkenness 1. No pestilence has ever wrought as much devastation and misery as the pestilence of drunkenness. Even its physical destructions are simply terrific. It is the origin of many of the worst forms of disease. Nor are the moral and social devastations of drunkenness less terrific than its physical devastations. Drunkenness extinguishes the fires of shame, profanes the shrines of self-respect, enfeebles the forces of resistance to evil; stifles conscience. And what shall we say of drunkenness in its ravages upon religion? And what is true of Christian work in foreign lands is not less true of Christian work at home. Drunkenness is a fearful hindrance to Christian enterprise. It counteracts, if it does not overweigh, all Christian endeavour to ameliorate the moral and social condition of the people. 2. The causes of drunkenness, it seems to me, are seldom sufficiently inquired into and considered. Some races of mankind, e.g., are constitutionally more temperate than others; and some climates foster intoxication more than others. Both the race and climate of Sweden, e.g., are eminently favourable to drunkenness. The Swedes are Goths, and the Goths are a proverbially drunken race. The long, cold, dark winter of Sweden are also calculated to encourage habits of intoxication. On the other hand, in many southern climates, where the people, under the genial influences of the radiant sun, feel little natural desire for stimulants, a strong artificial desire has been created by the facilities with which ardent spirits have been commercially introduced. There are also two other causes of drunkenness which, although in themselves irremovable, are yet capable of being brought under favourable control. These two causes are-- (1) An hereditary disposition to drink; and-- (2) A highly wrought nervous constitution. In both cases alike total abstinence is, I believe, essential, and moderate drinking impossible. And when I speak of total abstinence, I speak of it not as an irksome restraint but as a charter of freedom. But the cause of temperance is not exclusively the cause of total abstinence. Total abstainers need all the co-operation they can receive from non-abstainers in their crusade against drunkenness, and particularly in removing the causes of drunkenness wherever those causes are removable. It is said that “ people cannot be made sober by Act of Parliament.” Whether this be so or not it is certainly true that multitudes are made drunk by the unnecessary and over-numerous temptations which are permitted by Act of Parliament. But the Licensing Laws are not the only removable cause of drunkenness. The most fruitful of all causes of drunkenness is, I believe, wretchedness; wretchedness social, moral, and personal. Look at the way our poor are herded together in our crowded towns, without air or light, with no comforts or recreations! Can you wonder they are drunken? Drunkenness is the Nemesis, the avenging punishment, of the utter selfishness of modern civilisation, which cares so little for the overcrowded poor. In other cases, also, wretchedness is the cause of drunkenness. Think of the wretched, empty, stagnant condition of many human lives. Think of the long, dreary hours which some operatives have to work; hours which leave no time for self-improvement or recreation. Can you wonder that such persons drink? Nor is the guilt of the sin wholly theirs. It is partly yours and mine for allowing such a frightful state of things to continue to exist. Three other causes of drunkenness only will I mention; viz., selfishness, the stings of an uneasy conscience, and the wretchedness of many homes--homes capable of comfort, peace, and joy, but homes made utterly miserable by indolence, stubbornness, evil tempers, artificial worries, and want of love. 3. These are, I think, the principal causes of drunkenness; and in most instances the remedies suggest themselves. We need great and fundamental reforms in our Licensing Laws. We need to Christianise our civilisation in the direction of ameliorating the lives of the multitudinous poor. We need less rush and more repose in daily life. We need a sounder and more indignant public opinion concerning drunkenness. We need also a great revival of the Christian ideals of marriage and domestic life--ideals which, when wrought in practice, make home the mirror of heaven on earth. We need, lastly, and above all things, to inculcate the eternal truth that wilful and deliberate drunkenness is sin; sin which brutalises every part of man’ s nature; sin which, if unforsaken, shuts the door of heaven against the drunkard. (Canon Diggle.) 1 Corinthians 6:11-12 And such were some of you, but ye are washed … sanctified … Justified. The great contrast Note-- I. The past state of the redeemed. “ And such were some of you.”1. They were void of moral rectitude. Their conscience was burdened with guilt. 2. They were subject to impure influences. Their affections were defiled. When conscience loses its authority there is nothing to prevent the soul becoming the slave of the most debasing influences. 3. They were slaves of wrong habits. “ Their deeds were evil.” When both the conscience and affections are wrong, the deeds must be inconsistent with truth and righteousness. 4. They were incapable of spiritual enjoyment. “ Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” The unrighteous have no capacity, taste, or fitness for it. II. The present state of the redeemed “ But ye are washed,” &c. Note--1. The change. (1) An initiatory act. “ But ye are washed.” There is probably an allusion here to baptism, the emblem of moral cleansing. But as the water of baptism cannot wash away sin, the apostle evidently refers to the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart. (2) A progressive development. “ But ye are sanctified.” This does not imply faultless perfection, but consecration. Christian graces, like living plants, gradually mature. 3. A beautiful completion. “ But ye are justified.” This act, though mentioned last, is generally considered the first. There are three great causes at work in man’ s justification. (1) The merits of Christ. “ Being justified freely by His grace,” &c. (2) The faith of the believer. “ Man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” (3) The influence of the Holy Spirit. “ And by the Spirit of our God.” Think of a man who, having fallen overboard, is carried away by the current. At last a rope is thrown towards him--he eagerly grasps it--and he is thereby rescued. We have here a combination of causes. The kind friend who threw the rope--the rope itself--and the man’ s own eager grasp. Thus the Saviour’ s merits, the penitent’ s faith, and the influence of the Spirit are necessary to secure the salvation of the soul. 2. The means. “ In the name of the Lord Jesus.” Nothing but that has sufficient power to change the heart. 3. The agency. And by “ the Spirit of our God.” It is He that gives effect to the word preached--moves the heart, destroys the yoke of sin, and creates the man a new creature in Christ Jesus. (J. H. Hughes.)The power of the gospel in changing the hearts and lives of men I. The gospel of Christ is abundantly sufficient for saving the greatest sinners.1. The salvation of a sinner consists in his deliverance from the guilt and punishment of sin; and his recovery to the Divine image, i.e., his justification and his sanctification. Let either of these blessings be wanting, and his salvation would be unfinished. But in both these respects the gospel remedy is abundantly sufficient. 2. The instance in the text is to the point. Surely, if there could have been any sinners, whose case the gospel remedy would not reach, these Corinthians would have been the persons. If you require any more witnesses, look at many celebrated in the Scripture for their piety, and see what they had formerly been. What had the Ephesian converts been? (Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:3; Ephesians 2:12.) What had Matthew, Onesimus, and St. Paul himself been? But for all these the gospel proved sufficient, for the thief upon the cross, for the jailer at Philippi, for thousands among the wicked Jews--for tens of thousands among the idolatrous Gentiles. 3. Let us then apply the truth-- (1) For correcting a common error respecting others. When we see a person notoriously evil, how apt are we to speak of him as being past recovery! But remember that the same grace, which was sufficient for the Corinthians, will be sufficient for him. (2) For consolation and encouragement to convinced and humbled sinners. Are you filled with anxious fears for your safety? Well, suppose that your former state has been as bad as that of the Corinthians, yet He who saved them can save you. But while the truth speaks comfort to the penitent, it leaves the impenitent without excuse. Is the gospel sufficient for saving the greatest sinners? Then why do any of you continue in the practice of sin? Is it not plain that you “ love darkness rather than light” ; that you prefer slavery to freedom; that you “ will not come to Christ, that you may have life” ? II. A man’ s religion is to be tried, not by what he was, but by what he is.1. True religion makes a real change in a man. Would we then know whether a man be truly religious or not, we must inquire what is his present conduct. 2. Let this truth then correct a too general practice. When a man begins to take up a serious profession of religion, nothing is more common than to hear all the irregularities of his former life charged against him as proofs of his present hypocrisy. 3. But while we apply this truth for correcting our wrong judgment of others, let us also use it for forming a right judgment of ourselves. Are we still the servants of sin? Or have we been made free from sin? (E. Cooper, M. A.)Triumphs of the gospel at Corinth One of the most common and powerful objections against Christianity is that many who profess it are by no means affected with it; that such professors cannot therefore believe it, or if they do, it must be destitute of moral power. But the badness of the copy is no proof of the badness of the original; the baseness of the counterfeit coin is no proof of the baseness of the genuine. Let the religion of Jesus be compared with its own standards; let it be tried by its own rules. With the crimes of religious professors we have nothing to do but to deplore and avoid them. What Corinth was, we know. To this focus of all that is horrible St. Paul went, and he did not preach in vain. What these Corinthians had been, St. Paul tells us in the context: but now they were washed, &c. I. The fearful state of unconverted men.1. Nothing can be more clear than the doctrine of universal depravity; but this depravity exhibits itself under various aspects, and in various degrees. These Corinthians had been uncommonly vile. Nor they only. We know of the thief who was pardoned on the tree. This, indeed, is not uniformly the case. For in the characters of multitudes we see much that is pleasing, even the grace of God. There are many who are “ not far from the kingdom,” and who yet appear never to reach it. 2. We ought to regard the depravity of man with deep sorrow and compassion, but not with despair. The very glory of the gospel is that it is a message of pardon and mercy to the guilty, the bankrupt, and the undone. But perhaps some of you may despair, not of the conversion of others, but of your own. Such should remember these Corinthians, and the apostle who converted them. II. The renewed state of these Corinthians.1. “ Ye are washed.” Since sanctification and justification are mentioned directly afterwards, perhaps this refers to baptism. 2. “ Ye are sanctified,” i.e., ye are more and more alienated from the world, and conformed to the image and the will of God. 3. “ Ye are justified,” i.e., your sins are pardoned, and you are accepted as righteous before God, through faith in Christ. III. The Divine method of sanctification and justification here exhibited. “ In the name of the Lord Jesus” means--1. Doing anything by the authority of Christ. “ Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name.” 2. Doing anything for the honour of Christ: thus St. Paul says--“ Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” &c. 3. Receiving anything from the Father, through His dear Son: thus our Lord says “ Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name,” on account of My merits, “ He will give it you.” The text, then, teaches us that the only method by which we can approach God, the only method by which God can display His grace and love to man, is through Christ. (G. Weight, M. A.)Cleansed by the Spirit There is a lonely little pool of water on the mountain side near Tarbet, Loch Lomond, called the Fairy Loch. If you look into it you will see a great many colours in the water, owing to the varied nature of the materials that form its bottom. There is a legend about it which says that the fairies used to dye things for the people round about, if a specimen of the colour wanted was left along with the cloth on the brink of the pool at sunset. One evening a shepherd left beside the Fairy Loch the fleece of a black sheep, and placed upon it a white woollen thread to show that he wished the fleece dyed white. This fairly puzzled the good folk. They could dye a white fleece any colour, but to make a black fleece white was impossible. In despair they threw all their colours into the loch, giving it its present strange look, and disappeared for ever. This may seem a foolish fable, but it has a wise moral. What the fairies could not do beside the Fairy Loch, the Spirit of God can do beside the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. He can make the blackest soul white. (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)The great change A piece of canvas is of a trifling value. You can buy it for a few pennies. You would scarcely think it worth picking up if you saw it lying in the street. But an artist takes it and draws a few lines and figures on it, and then with his brush touches in certain colours, and the canvas is sold for a large sum. So Godtakes up a ruined, worthless human life which has no beauty, no attractiveness, but is repulsive, blotched, and stained by sin. Then the fingers of His love add touches of beauty, painting the Divine image upon it, and it becomes precious and glorious. (J. R. Miller.)Moral transformations There are marvellous transformations in the material as also in the moral world. Look in the material world. The full-fed maggot, that has rioted in filth till its tender skin seems ready to burst with repletion, when the appointed time arrives leaves the offensive matters it was ordained to assist in removing, and gets into some convenient hole or crevice; then its body contracts or shortens, and becomes egg-shaped, while the skin hardens, and turns brown and dry, so that, under this form, the creature appears more like a seed than a living animal; after some time passed in this inactive and equivocal form, during which wonderful changes have taken place within the seed-like shell, one end of the shell is burst off, and from the inside comes forth a buzzing fly, that drops its former filthy habits with its cast-off dress, and now, with a more refined taste, seeks only to lap the solid viands of our tables, or sip the liquid contents of our cups. Look again into the moral world. There you see a transformation as wonderful. The selfish debauchee, whose horrid taste has grubbed in every sort of immoral filth, and become habituated to the harsh, the cruel, and the dishonourable, has been brought into contact with the necessary spiritual conditions for a change, and behold from one stage to another he passes until at last his tastes are entirely altered, his existence is changed, and even he is able to soar in the light and purity of the world. Elsewhere, behold, the miser is transformed to the philanthropist, the coward into a hero. We watch the fly’ s aerial circlings in the sunbeam, and remember with wonder its degraded origin. The preacher looks over his congregation, and he sees those who have become noble and virtuous, he is able to take heart for new work; for as he remembers in their presence the debased and the wicked who are yet to be transformed, he says, “ And such were some of you; but you are regenerated by the higher Power,” and those others may be changed likewise. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.) 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.The lawful and the expedient I. What is lawful for us in life? All things indifferent, i.e., not evil in themselves. The Christian has the widest liberty. He is not under the restriction of the older economy. To him every creature of God is good (1 Timothy 4:4). He must abide within the limits of the lawful; nothing that seems expedient outside those limits must be touched by him. II. What is expedient within the limits of the lawful.1. The Christian must not use his liberty indiscriminately; he must consider probable results. The end does not justify the means, hut the end often determines whether means, justifiable in themselves, shall he used or not. Means good enough in themselves may under certain conditions lead to most undesirable ends. Those ends foreseen determine that those means should not be employed. 2. The Christian has to select the truly expedient out of the truly lawful. Unlawful means ruin thousands; lawful means, unlawfully used, tens of thousands. Nowhere does the devil build his chapels more cunningly than by the side of the temple of Christian liberty. A Christian, before availing himself of his liberty, had need ask what will be the effect-- (1) On myself. Shall I be made less spiritual and useful? (2) On my liberty. Liberty may commit suicide. Undue indulgence of liberty results in slavery. Paul was anxious “ not to he brought under the power of any,” even lawful things. (3) On my fellows. Will it aid or hinder them? (1 Corinthians 8:13). (4) On God. Will it glorify Him? (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)The practical distinction between things lawful and expedient The text leads us to the contemplation of two very important particulars, the latter illustrative of the former, and closely connected with it, yet demanding separate consideration. The first is the practical distinction between things lawful and expedient; the second, the universal inexpediency of all those things which, by bringing us under their power, I will just remark that while the former of these particulars leads us to guard against the evils arising from external events and influences, the latter points more immediately at such as exist within us: the former has most direct reference to the effect of our conduct generally, and perhaps, in a principal degree, to its effect on others; the latter has relation chiefly to its operation upon ourselves. We may be led by both to the avoidance of one and the same evil; but they will present it under different aspects: the first as manifestly irreconcilable with our integrity or our profession, or injurious because of its obstructing the great purposes of our life; the last as insidious, as tending to lower the standard of our views and feelings, abating the energy of our resolutions; enfeebling the operation of our loftiest motives; making us, in short, less holy, less spiritual. These remarks will be confirmed by a simple reference to the text, which, in the most forcible manner, places the two points unitedly in our view. Of lawful things there are some it describes as to be avoided by a Christian, because they are not expedient; others it warns us to shun, because they would bring us under their power. Rather, perhaps, we ought to say, it speaks of the same objects, and leads us to regard them as connected with a twofold evil; that they are unprofitable in their direct influence, and calculated, in their indirect, to impair our spiritual and mental freedom. We may apply the passage in either way, and in both with manifest advantage. In some cases these evils are separate, in others they coincide. There are some things that merely hinder and obstruct our usefulness, and are for that reason inexpedient; there are others that have a perpetual tendency to debase us, and to bring us into vassalage under their power; but the greater number of inconsistencies unite both these effects, and are therefore to be avoided not only as improper in themselves, but because they will make us feel enslaved by them for the future. Having thus glanced at the general bearings of the subject, we shall now confine ourselves to the former of these particulars. We proceed, therefore, to exhibit the practical distinction between things lawful and things expedient. Is it asked, then, what is the foundation and essential nature of virtue? what the ultimate standard of morality? The answers to this question are various, and each appears supported by an array of the most specious reasonings. All cannot be true. They may, and do in many points, coalesce; but as far as they differ, they afford a presumption that each of them is imperfect, if not erroneous. It is said the standard is expediency; the tendency of every action to promote or hinder the general good: that those actions are right which advance, those unlawful which impede, the happiness not of the individual only, but of the whole. Thus morality is made the same thing with expediency, and the only reason for which any particular conduct is right, is because it is calculated for the increase of the general good. Now, against this principle there are very strong objections, and some which involve the most extensive consequences. When, in reply to such inquiries as these, “ Why am I obliged to speak the truth?” (proposed by Dr. Paley himself, the author of the system referred to); or, “ Why is falsehood to be accounted criminal? When this limited answer is given, “ Only because they are contrary to the general good,” we apprehend there is involved a serious and fundamental error, the substitution of what is secondary and adventitious for what is primary and in its nature essential. Surely there is a distinction, prior to all considerations of utility, between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, probity and baseness, spotless chastity and brutal indulgence. Surely there is another and an earlier reason for which to condemn some of these things, and to approve the opposite. We apprehend, also, that even if the principle were true, it would be practically inapplicable and useless; for it could be known only to God what actions were really calculated to advance the happiness of the whole. The ultimate consequences of every action are obviously beyond our knowledge, demanding a comprehensiveness of thought not less than that of Omniscience itself. Again, it appears to us to imply what can never be admitted in practice: that such considerations should, in many cases, prevail as relate to the general and last consequences of our actions, in opposition to all those which connect themselves with the individual and his present circumstances; for certainly no man is bound to sacrifice his personal welfare, and all that is most dear and necessary to himself, from a vague regard to the increase of the general happiness, nor yet to suspend all reference to the present, whatever its character may most imperiously require, till he shall have traced out the issue of his determinations in a distant and unknown futurity. Yet this impracticable and visionary principle is truly involved in the question of ultimate expediency as the law of our conduct. We will add only once more that this standard cannot be applied to the actual and immediate determination of men’ s conduct, and hence is of no practical utility even if it were ever so well established by argument. Before we could act according to this rule we must first balance and examine all the results of our conduct, through the wide extent of all connected being, and the long series of all even collateral and accidental consequences. But this is impossible, and the system which requires it cannot, as we think, be true. It is worthy of observation, then, that in the text there is an evident distinction made between the expediency and the lawfulness of actions, for it affirms that those things may be lawful that are not expedient. May we venture to deduce the converse--that some things may be, or seem, expedient, which yet are not lawful? We are aware that the advocates of the system to which we now object would demur to this suggestion, and say that nothing can be truly expedient, that is, truly and in the largest sense useful, which is not in itself good; and we admit that the statement is well founded, but it will not prevent the most mischievous mistakes in practice. He that shall make expediency alone, whether political or religious, or of whatever kind, his guide in conduct, will be betrayed inevitably into the most dangerous errors. When what is useful is substituted for what is just, or made identical with it, and the standard of rectitude is abandoned for, that of utility, the door is opened to a thousand evils. There are not wanting those who will plead for the worst abuses, the greatest perversions of principle and practice, upon the pretence that they are productive of advantage more than sufficient to outweigh the evil of their own nature. What other plea is adduced by those who disguise or modify their own Christian profession, lest they should give offence to the unthinking and the profane, on whom they may choose to be dependent? Paul resolves not, “ I will perform those things that are expedient, though they be not lawful; but I will not venture even upon lawful actions, if they be not expedient.” I fear there is but too little of this strictness of principle amongst us. Many, alas! are willing to make a sad commutation of the just, the honourable, and the lawful, for the convenient, the profitable, and the agreeable, both in religion and in common life. Suffer me now to call your attention to the import of that striking expression in the text employed to characterise the things that are thus to be avoided: they are “ not expedient” ; rather, “ they are not profitable.” They will not coalesce with that great purpose of the Christian life which alone is worthy of our desire and our exertions: that we may advance the glory and the cause of God; that we may be useful to our fellow-creatures. To the generous mind of the apostle nothing else seemed honourable or happy. Like his blessed Lord he had made it his meat and his drink to do the will of God. You behold, then, illustrated in the personal history of the apostle, the extent of his own language, and you will need no further comment on the phraseology of our text. Do you for a moment ask what is it that he disavows as inexpedient? You are prepared yourselves to reply; all that is thus unprofitable; or, as he has varied the expression in another place, “ All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not” (1 Corinthians 10:23). All things are inexpedient which are found to be unprofitable--not those alone which may issue in direct injury. Whatever hinders his preparation for the exercises of religion, for the duties of common life, for the endurance of the Cross, for the resistance of temptation, and for his entrance, even in its very performance or enjoyment, into the world above, is thus manifestly unprofitable and inexpedient. That, too, is inexpedient which would restrict the usefulness either of our direct exertions or our general example, impairing the uniformity, the completeness, and the accuracy of our representation in practice, of all that constitutes the Christian character. For the same reason we must avoid what would, in any measure, interfere with the fullest and most unembarrassed discharge of every obligation, whether official or personal. There ought to be no disguise, no mystery, nothing dark and unintelligible, in one who is not of the night but of the day. Many things which the men of the world allow in others, they deem unsuitable to the character of a Christian. We should respect their judgment. We should watch over our actions with a godly jealousy. There remains one other class of cautions more momentous than the whole, which we have not hitherto presented. We must abstain, then, from the things that we have specified, not merely as tending to diminish our personal happiness and piety, or to lessen the effects of our example in promoting that of others, but as operating in a pernicious manner upon the cause of God and the honour of the Redeemer. Little do we often think how much our conduct is identified with that of Christianity itself, in the estimation of the world around us. We shall suppose the principle, then, to be admitted. You readily subscribe to the sentiment that if any action be found to be unprofitable and inexpedient it must therefore be avoided, even though it be not absolutely unlawful; and now you have no other duty remaining but to propose to your own conscience, as in the sight of God, the following practical inquiries. Is the indulgence in question such as would, in any measure, oppress or agitate my feelings, and indispose me for the duties of the sanctuary, or the family, or the closet? Should I reflect on it with approbation, or with regret, upon the bed of sickness, or in the chamber of death? Would it tend to the diminution of my present usefulness, bringing a cloud to hide the lustre of my character in the sight of the world; and so presenting an imperfect and inadequate, not to say positively erroneous, view of the Christian life? (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)Liberty in the use of the lawful Our aim, in the former discourse, was to excite you to Christian vigilance and to a high appreciation of the obligations and effect of Christian consistency. We now proceed to a somewhat different view of the same subject, founding our remarks not on the former but the latter clause: “ All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” ; and our object is to show that there is a necessity of caution in the use of even lawful things from their probable effect upon ourselves; that many may be dangerous which are not originally criminal. We shall endeavour to convince you that there are many things which, in single instances and acts, may not be very censurable, which yet, when suffered to become habitual, would tend to diminish or to destroy the holiness and elevation of a Christian character. You will be reminded that all the powers of men are in a state of imperfection and disorder; that they naturally incline to the corruptions of that state through which we now are passing. We shall call on you to recollect how hard it is to retrace our steps--to regain the path from which we may have wandered. The design which we shall principally pursue is to warn you against yourselves--against the allowance of too great a latitude to your natural tastes and inclinations. There may be some to whom the exhortations of our former discourse might seem inapplicable. They may reason thus: “ It is true that such indulgences as I delight in, and think it no crime to enjoy, might be most unseemly for a man of piety; but I have made no such profession; I am not, and I wish not to appear, a pious man.” Now, in such circumstances, our text is fitted to afford a most instructive lesson. You are in the greater danger, and require the more scrupulous caution. You are the more liable to fall beneath the power of those indulgences which you think not sinful. What if in such as you they be not unlawful, are they, therefore, expedient? Will they involve you in no exposure to evil? And is there no need of watchfulness in one, that, even according to his own confession, is without God in the world--a man left to himself? Are you safer, then, while you are destitute of the grace of God than such men are with it? But, you reply, it is not the danger to their principles that would render such things inexpedient, neither is that danger to be apprehended to your own; it is the incongruity of their performance with the name they bear, and the superior strictness they are pledged ever to maintain. Still, the sentiment of our text applies to you; for that sentiment supposes that there is danger even in lawful things, and that the form wherein it is most to be apprehended is that they bring us insensibly “ under their power.” And, besides, the question solemnly recurs, Why are you not a follower of Christ? Is sin not sin, then? Are trifling and dissipation and folly free from the charge of evil? But I must recall your attention to the subject immediately before us. There may be some who reflect that the cautions we have already given are suited only to the circumstances of such as are advanced in life; that they apply, with the greatest force to those in public stations, and of a conspicuous character; but that they are exempt. Their state of life is humble and obscure, or their age excuses them from the burden of so great a responsibility. Their example will not be productive either of injury or good. Now, surely there is no man, whatever his age or station, that can plead exemption from the necessity of the caution we would thus enforce. It is often a happiness and a safeguard to feel that our circumstances call on us for vigilance. But, on the other hand, I scarcely know a more fatal mistake than, from undervaluing the effect of our example, to suppose ourselves at liberty to relax our watchfulness. I. We will briefly glance at the first of these particulars. It may perhaps surprise some to hear that we regard the text as presenting an enlarged and noble view of Christian liberty. They may fear, from the comprehensiveness of the terms, lest we are about to loosen the obligations of all morality, and maintain the pernicious dogma that there is no sin to a believer in Christ; that his transgressions are so fully visited upon his Surety, in their guilt and punishment, that they no longer attach to himself. We go as far as any man in maintaining the extent and absoluteness of the imputation of our sins to the Redeemer. But far be from us the impiety of saying, that in their case morality and immorality cease to retain their opposite and immutable nature. “ All things are lawful to them.” Surely not such as are in their own nature criminal; but all that are usually regarded as indifferent. To be a Christian is to be delivered from the obligation of all that is ritual and secular in the ordinances of religion, and to be brought into the enjoyment of a faith the most pure, simple, spiritual. Further, the impositions of all authority which is merely human are contrary to the genius and spirit of the gospel. Again, a Christian is not to be subject to the scruples and superstitious fears that so often perplex the mind, when it has conceived, in an inadequate manner, of the boundaries of its obligations and duty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, and the man who has that Spirit is to preserve himself from bondage, with relation to those groundless apprehensions that perpetually haunt the consciences of many among the disciples of Jesus. Niceties of phrase and of observance, of dress and manners and external circumstances, reaching not to the vitals of Christianity. Good men sometimes encumber themselves with an unnecessary yoke, by the excess of their suspicion as to the lawfulness of many things to which no law can apply, and which can, in the strict sense, constitute neither a fulfilment nor a violation of our duty. There is a sickly tenderness of conscience, an excessive and shrinking sensibility, which not only exposes us to a large amount of pain such as it was never the design of our Master that we should be called to endure, but which also incapacitates us for the vigorous and efficient discharge of our duty. We may go on, then, upon our way rejoicing; and let no unnecessary fears harass and distract us. There are many gratifications and indulgences which the law of Christ has not forbidden, and of them therefore His followers may freely and innocently partake. Yet they have been prohibited as sinful by the injudicious zeal and false prudence of some who call themselves His disciples. Christianity is not a system of restriction and oppression. There is nothing forbidden us but what is evil either in itself or in its influence. II. We proceed, then, to the second of the particulars, in what manner that Christian liberty of which we have spoken is to be practically secured; it is, in one word, by the exercise of Christian moderation. We are to say, with reference to every enjoyment, It is not unlawful, but it is inexpedient, and I will not be brought beneath its power. Are you solicited by gratifications that would consume your invaluable time, perhaps not in a very extensive degree in their single instances, but in their almost inevitable repetition; in their preparation and their consequences? Then stop; consider; calculate the results; ask yourselves whether you will gain or ultimately lose by such indulgence. Say if you have arrived at the conclusion that they will be hurtful in the end. They are lawful; I forswear them not. I could mingle, like others, delightfully in all the raptures they are fitted to impart; but I am a dying man; I know not how soon the frail thread of life may be cut off for ever; I must work while it is called to-day. Is the character of the delights you are tempted to participate, such as to excite, to undue and dangerous activity, any of the passions of our nature? Then they are inexpedient and hurtful. Let a Christian learn, in such things, to restrain his freedom that he may be truly free. There are forms of pleasure which, though innocent in themselves, yet place our conduct, in their ulterior consequences, injuriously in the power of others. They cannot be enjoyed alone, and hence they bring us into associations, the effect of which, though not immediately apparent, is to abridge our personal freedom by placing us in contact with the opposite sentiments and practice of those whom it is not safe to follow, in matters that even remotely affect religion and the concerns of the soul. But for such enjoyments, we might have remained in a happy separation from the ungodly. The recurring sight of what is evil, or even the habit of associating, without visible discrimination, with those who practise it, will tend to abate our positive disgust at its commission. In such instances, again, we behold the necessity of acting upon the salutary maxim presented in our text. It must be familiar to every serious and reflecting mind that there are many pleasures which, if they were in all other respects free from reproach, yet are on this account to be suspected; that they have a secret tendency to indispose and unfit us for the regular fulfilment of our duty. They exhaust the feelings; they impair our spirituality; they generate other and uncongenial habits; they are unfavourable to retirement; they produce a vagrancy of thought. I think it will be readily conceded by the candid hearer that our judgment, relative to the lawfulness or impropriety of many of our pleasures, is affected in a degree it would be very difficult to estimate, by our natural and constitutional temperament; by our tastes and aptitudes to the several diversities of sensitive or intellectual enjoyment. And hence arises a twofold fallacy. There are not a few who too severely condemn those whose gratifications they are themselves unable to participate. There are others who will at all hazards excuse and justify their own. Men of the former class need to be reminded that moroseness is not principle, and that a defective or a failing sense is a far different thing from Christian self-denial. And those of the latter must be warned that they extenuate not, in their own favourite department, what they would denounce with unmeasured condemnation in every other, that they do not substitute the impulses of natural feeling, or the pleasures of physical excitement for the joys of piety and the dictates of religion. Let them suppose the gratification in question to be one of another class, adapted to the indulgence of a different sense or a faculty which they have not cultivated, and then judge of their own as they would of that which their fancy has thus placed in its stead. Let the lover of music, for example, the man who professes himself exalted to the third heavens, while he listens to the deep and solemn strains of the pealing organ or the majestic choir; let him then, I say, while he feels the thrilling luxury of magic sound, and calls it worship and religion, imagine only that the lover of statuary or painting should, under the influence of the like excitement, describe the ecstasy of his enjoyments by the same appellation, and plead for the indulgences from whence they arise with the same earnestness, and on the same pretext. And, if he should plead by arguments like these for the introduction of objects calculated to afford him such delight in the same circumstances and on the same occasions, let the supposed devotee of music decide the question whether his plea were legitimate and his principles well founded; then let him transfer this judgment to himself, and he will perhaps discover that it is not his conscience but his taste, that has hitherto determined him with reference to those pleasures that he has accounted sacred; and he may thus be guided to a more just decision; and so in every ease. We are not concerned, then, to maintain that no emotions of piety, no sense of sacredness and reverence, may be connected with such enjoyments as we should account unseemly for a Christian, and from which it would be our counsel that he should conscientiously abstain, lest they lead him into danger, or fetter him in mental vassalage. From the whole subject we would briefly deduce the following practical exhortations. Bear ever in mind the intimate connection between your general consistency and the satisfactory evidence of your Christian character. Forget not that such consistency has an equal and inseparable connection with your habitual preparation for heaven. Reflect seriously on the awful consequences of being involved, through our unwise and dangerous indulgences, in the ruin and final condemnation of our brethren. Does any man object that we make the way of piety gloomy and difficult? We reply, this is at least more desirable than to leave it insecure. (R. S. McAll, LL. D.)The Christian rule in things indifferent I. In the abstract all things are lawful. Because--1. Every creature of God is good.2. May be used with thanksgiving. II. In practice all things are not expedient.1. It may rob us of influence, &c.2. It may become a stumbling-block to another. III. In general all things must be under control.1. Otherwise we become slaves.2. Which is to degrade and imperil Christian character. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The limits of Christian rights Men in the Corinthian Church, having heard the apostle teach the law of liberty, pushed that doctrine so far as to make it mean a right to do whatsoever a man wills to do. By these self-gratification was maintained on the ground of-- I. The rights of Christian liberty. Their watchword was, “ All things are lawful.” It is easy to understand how this exaggeration came about. Men suddenly finding themselves freed from the restrictions of Jewish law naturally went very far in their Dew principles. St. Paul met this by declaring that Christian liberty is limited--1. By Christian expediency. There are two kinds of “ best.” It is absolutely best that war should cease. Relatively, it is best under present circumstances that a country should be ready to defend itself. A defensive fleet is expedient, and relatively best, but not the absolutely Christian best. Now that which limits this liberty is the profit of others. 2. By its own nature. “ I will not be brought under the power of any.” It is that free self-determination which rules all things, which can enjoy or abstain at will. This liberty can manifest itself under outward restrictions. A Christian, as Christ’ s freed man, had a right to be free; but if by circumstances he is obliged to remain a slave, he is not troubled. He can wear a chain or not with equal spiritual freedom. Now upon this the apostle makes this subtle and exquisitely fine remark:--To be forced to use liberty is actually a surrender of liberty. If I turn “ I may” into “ I must,” I am in bondage again. For observe, there are two kinds of bondage. I am not free if I am under sentence of exile, and must leave my country. But also I am not free if I am under arrest, and must not leave it. So too, if I think I must not touch meat on Friday, or that I must not read any but a religious book on a Sunday, I am in bondage. But again, if I am tormented with a scrupulous feeling that I did wrong in fasting, or if I feel that I must read secular books on Sunday to prove my freedom, then my liberty has become slavery again. It is a blessed liberation to know that natural inclinations are not necessarily sinful. But if I say all natural and innocent inclinations must be obeyed at all times, then I enter into bondage once more. He alone is free who can use outward things with conscientious freedom as circumstances vary; who can either do without a form or ritual, or can use it. II. The rights of nature. There is some difficulty in the exposition of this chapter, because the apostle mixes together the pleas of his opponents with his own answers.1. The first part of 1 Corinthians 6:13 contains two of these pleas. (1) “ Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats” --a natural correspondency. “ Nature,” said they, “ herself says, ‘ Enjoy!’” (2) The transitoriness of this enjoyment. “ God shall bring to an end both it and them.” They do not belong to eternity, therefore indulgence is a matter of indifference. It is folly to think that these are sins, any more than the appetites of the brutes which perish. 2. To these two pleas St. Paul makes two answers. (1) “ The body is not for self-indulgence, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” He tells of a more exact mutual correspondency. He reveals a true and higher nature. There is much confusion and dispute about this word “ nature.” The nature of a watch is correspondence with the sun, perfect harmony of wheels and balance. But suppose that the regulator was removed, and the mainspring unchecked ran down, throwing all into confusion. Then two things might be said. One might say, It is the nature of that watch to err. But would it not be a higher truth to say, Its nature is to go rightly, and it is just because it has departed from its nature that it errs? So speaks the apostle. To be governed by the springs of impulse only--your appetites and passions--this is not your nature. For the nature is the whole man; the passions are but a part of the man. And therefore our redemption must consist in a reminder of what we are--what our true nature is. (2) To the other plea he replies, The body will not perish. It is the outward form of the body alone which is transitory. Itself shall be renewed--a nobler, more glorious form, fitted for a higher and spiritual existence. Now here is the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, and an awful argument against sin. Our bodies, which are “ members of Christ,” to be ruled by His Spirit, become by sensuality unfit for immortality with Christ. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 6:13-16 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats. Christianity in relation to the body The apostle here states, perhaps in answer to a question on the subject, that there is a limitation to Christian liberty. As the liberty which the Corinthians seemed to covet was to gratify the bodily appetites, he takes occasion to state certain things in relation to the body. Christianity recognises-- I. Attention to the natural needs of the body as proper (1 Corinthians 6:13).1. The body has appetites, and there are provisions intended to satisfy them. To act thus is in harmony with the constitution of nature. All animal existences act in this way. Christianity, instead of requiring you to starve the body by lastings, and to exhaust its energies by pilgrimages and self-mortifications, says, “ Eat and be satisfied and strong; take care of your bodies.” 2. Feeding the body, however, Christianity regards as temporary; both the food and the body must perish. They are not like spiritual existences, and spiritual supplies that have regard to an unmeasured hereafter. “ All flesh is grass.” II. Indulgence in the gratifications of the body as wrong. “ Now the body is not for fornication,” &c. This is not a necessity of the body, like eating and drinking, but an immoral indulgence of its propensities. Man should attend to his bodily propensities, as reliefs, not as gratifications. Hence intemperance, whether in eating or drinking, is a moral outrage. The crime and curse of men in all ages have been seeking happiness out of the gastric, the sexual, and other propensities of their physical being. III. That the proper treatment of the body is to identify it with Christ.1. It is the property of Christ. It is not ours; we are its trustees, not its proprietors. We hold it “ for the Lord,” and we should use it according to His directions. It is to let in God to the soul, and to reveal God to our race. 2. It is a member of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15). The Christian’ s body has a vital connection with Him. He had a human body which now raised to heaven is the model into which our bodies shall be changed. This being so, sensual indulgence is an outrage on the body (1 Corinthians 6:15-17). 3. It is a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) in which He is to dwell, be revealed and worshipped. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The permanent element in our bodily organism The apostle distinguishes two opposite elements in our bodily organism: the organs of nutrition, which serve for the support of the body, and to which, by a Divinely established correlation, there correspond external meats. The morally indifferent character of this domain appears from the fact of its approaching destruction; God will abolish those functions in the day of the redemption of our bodies. But it is not so with our bodies, strictly so called, which Paul identifies with our personality. This is the permanent element in our earthly organism, that which forms the link between our present and our future body. Now this element is that which is involved in the vice of impurity. And hence the profound difference between impurity and the natural functions of physical life. There exists between our body and Christ a moral relation analogous to the temporary relation which exists between the stomach and meats. The body is for Christ, to belong to Him and serve Him, and Christ is for the body to inhabit and glorify it. In consequence of this sublime relation, the body will not perish. As God raised up Christ, He will also raise the body which has become here below the property and the sanctified organ of Christ. The apostle says, “ Will raise us also” ; he thus expressly identifies our personality with the body which is to be its eternal organ. As the Church in its totality is the body of Christ, the organism which He animates with His Spirit, and by which He carries out His wishes on the earth, so every Christian is a member of this body, and consequently an organ of Christ Himself. Hence the practical conclusion: This organ of Christ must not be taken from Him and given to a harlot. Therein is a double crime: on the one hand a revolt, an odious abduction; on the other an act of ignoble self-abasement and the acceptance of a shameful dependence. And hence the apostle’ s cry of indignation, “ Let it not be so!” (Prof. Godet.)Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord.--Fornication is I. Inexcusable. On the ground of--1. Christian liberty (1 Corinthians 6:12).2. Necessity. II. Morally evil. It is--1. To prostitute the property of God.2. To incur a fearful penalty in the resurrection. III. Degrading.1. To all.2. Especially Christian professors, who dishonour Christ, themselves, and their bodies. IV. Sacrilegious.1. The body designed as the temple of the Holy Ghost.2. Redeemed by Christ.3. Consecrated to God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Fornication 1. In remonstrating with the Corinthians for their litigiousness, Paul was forcibly reminded how imperfectly they understood the moral requirements of the kingdom of God, and that they were quoting some of his own sayings in defence of immoral practices. If “ all things were lawful” to them, then this commonest of Greek indulgences was lawful; if abstaining from the meat which had been killed in a heathen temple was a matter of moral indifference, then this other common accompaniment of idolatry was also a matter of indifference. 2. St. Paul there-fore lays down two principles. First he insists that the question of duty is not answered by simply ascertaining what is lawful; we must also ask, Is it expedient? The Christian is a law to himself; he has an internal guide that sets him above external rules. Very true; but that guide teaches him to consider, not how much indulgence he may enjoy without transgressing the letter of the law, but how he can best forward what is highest in himself and in others. Again, “ all things are lawful for me” ; all things are in my power. Yes, and therefore “ I will not be brought under the power of any.” I am free from the law; I will not on that account become the slave of indulgence. There are several practices and habits which no one would call sinful, but which enslave a man quite as much as worse habits. And it is the very lawfulness of these indulgences which has ensnared him. He alone attains the true dignity and freedom of the Christian man who can say, with Paul, “ I know both how to be full and to be hungry,” &c. “ All things are in my power, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” 3. Paul then proceeds to apply these principles. The Corinthians argued that if meats were morally indifferent, so also a man was neither better nor worse for fornication. To expose this error Paul draws a distinction between the organs of nutrition and that body which is part of our permanent individuality, and which is to flower into an everlasting body. These two differ from one another; and if you are to argue from the one to the other, you must keep in view the distinction as stated in 1 Corinthians 6:13-14. The organs of nutrition have a present use; they are made for meats, and have a natural correspondence with meats. Any meat, therefore, which the digestive organs approve is allowable. Besides, these organs form no part of the future spiritual body. They pass away with the meats for which they were made. They serve a temporary purpose, like the houses we live in and the clothes we wear; and as we are not morally better because we live in a stone house, and not in a brick one, or because we wear woollens, and not cotton--so long as we do what is best to keep us in life--so neither is there any moral difference in meats. But the body as a whole--for what is it made? “ For the Lord.” He finds in it His needed instrument; without it He cannot accomplish His will. And “ the Lord is for the body.” Without Him the body cannot develop into all it is intended to be. Our adoption as God’ s children is incomplete until the body also is redeemed and has fought its way through sickness and death, into likeness to the glorified body of Christ. But this cannot be believed, far less accomplished, save by faith in the fact that God has raised up the Lord Jesus, and will with Him raise us also. And the Spirit of Christ within us inclines us while in the body, and by means of it to sow to the Spirit and thus to reap life everlasting. The only future of the body we dare to look at without a shudder is the future it has in the Lord. The Lord is for the body, and as well might we try to sustain the body now without food as to have an endurable future for it without the Lord. But if the body is thus closely united to Christ, then the inference is self-evident that it must be carefully guarded from such uses and impurities as involve rupture with Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15). And if any frivolous Corinthian still objected that such acts went no deeper than the eating of food ceremonially unclean, that they belonged to the body that was to be destroyed, Paul says, It is not so; these acts are full of the deepest moral significance (1 Corinthians 6:18), i.e., fornication is the only sin which by its very nature alienates the body from Christ, its proper Partner. Other sins indirectly involve separation from Christ; this explicitly and directly transfers allegiance, and sunders our union with Him. 4. These weighty reasonings are concluded by the statement of a twofold truth which is of much wider application than to the matter in hand (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We are not our own; we belong to Him who has loved us most; and His love will be satisfied when we suffer Him to dwell in us, so that we shall be His temples, and shall glorify Him. And it is the consciousness that we are God’ s temples which constantly incites us to live worthily of Him. In nothing can God reveal Himself as He can in man. It is not a building of stone which forms a fit temple for God; nor even the heaven of heavens. In material nature only a small part of God can be seen and known. But through us God can express and reveal what is best in Himself. Our love is sustained by His, and reveals His. Our approval of what is pure and hatred of impurity has its source in His holiness. But if so, what a profanation is it when we take this body, which is built to be His temple, and put it to uses which it were blasphemous to associate with God! (M. Dods, D. D.)Fornication is an awful crime 1. It robs God of His property.2. Dishonours the members of Christ’ s body.3. Makes a man one flesh with the harlot.4. Degrades a man’ s own body.5. Profanes the temple of God.6. Sins against the sacrifice of Christ.7. Devotes body and soul, which are God’ s, to the devil. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And God hath both raised up the Lord. The resurrection of the body I. Is possible. Christ is risen. II. Certain.1. God has revealed it.2. Is able to effect it. III. Is a powerful argument for the right use of the body. If God honours it, shall man dishonour it? (1 Corinthians 6:13, &c.). (J. Lyth, D. D.)Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?--Christ and the body I. His right over it.1. Not only by creation and redemption.2. But by our union with Him. II. The consequent obligation.1. To care for it.2. To keep it pure.3. To use it for His service. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The thought of the love of Jesus for us the remedy for sins of the body I. “ The word made flesh,” changed by that act the whole relation of the creature to the Creator. Before they were distinct. God chose man to knit both together. Could there be envy in heaven, surely the angels must have envied our race; nay, it has been believed that Satan fell through envy at the incarnation revealed beforehand. Nothing so illustrates the self-forgetting love of those blessed spirits, as that they should joy to be passed over, and to see us the fallen preferred to themselves. True! the purpose of God is to unite both under and in one head (Ephesians 1:10). Their ranks, it is a pious opinion, broken by the fall of the apostate angels, will be filled by redeemed men. But even this equality has not been enough. God has willed to give us a closeness of union with Himself, which He gave not to the Seraphim. And this for all eternity, II. This constitutes the claim of Jesus on our love.1. This is more than compensation for the fall of Adam. Jesus, in this special way, is ours; He is our near Kinsman, and more than brother. Jesus must love me with a special love, for He has not the nature of angels, but this of mine. 2. And how did He love us? What did He withhold from us, for love of us? His glory! He “ emptied Himself” (Philippians 2:7). He who was and is one with the Father, entered this mortal life. He began it an outcast, and ended it by “ giving Himself to be numbered with the transgressors.” In those dread hours on the Cross, what part of His sacred body did He reserve from suffering for us? (Psalms 22:14). And His Father’ s face was hid from His human soul. And what doth He now? He is in that unspeakable glory, “ upholding all things by the word of His power” ; governing also the Church and sanctifying her by His presence. But as something nearer to ourselves individually, “ He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Calvary lives on in heaven, and pleads for us still. And all this has been, is, shall continue to be done for us through the body. By taking our whole human nature, soul and body, God the Son gave us, in His own person, that special prerogative of nearness to Himself. III. With what sacredness does this invest our bodies.1. Limb by limb, they are the same bodies as that which God the Son took, which for us was crucified, which now is in glory at the right hand of God. All sin is misery, but sins of the flesh have yet this special misery, that they degrade that body which Jesus took. To sin as to the flesh is to insult Christ. 2. Trials you have or will have. But trials which are only of God’ s allowing injure neither body nor soul. He will give the victory who allows them (2 Corinthians 12:9). But now, if thou art liable to temptation, from which thou mightest have been blessedly free, or over which thou mightest have had, by God’ s grace, an easy victory-- (1) Observe well, whence mostly it begins now; from imagination? or from the eye? or from past memories? or from over-fulness of food? For there the entrance of thy battle lies. (2) In the trial itself. I know but of one effectual remedy--to clasp the hands together, and pray earnestly to God for help. And when thou so prayest, think how Jesus hallowed this poor body; think how He suffered in this body for love of us. Look well at that holy frame, racked on that hard bed of the Cross. But above all, look at that thorn-crowned head, and that yet open, mild, forgiving eye, which won the blaspheming robber to sue for pardon from his Lord. Does it not say to thee, “ Poor wanderer, this have I endured for love of thee; I loved thee and gave Myself for thee. Love Me at least now” ? Wilt thou not look up to Him and say, “ By Thy grace henceforth I will love Thee; let me rather die than again profane the body, which Thou didst so redeem, and wound Thy love” ? Or look up and gaze on that glorious form at the right hand of God. All else is spirit. One body is there, above all, adored by all. There, with a special lustre of their own, stream forth the rays of Divine light and love from those two pierced hands, those once wounded feet, that opened side and heart. There, at that moment, the moment of thy temptation, they intercede for thee. There is that human eye resting still in love upon thee. Christ is not ashamed to wear in heaven the tokens of His humiliation; be not thou ashamed of Him and His service. Remember that He willeth to “ fashion this our” now “ vile body, that it may be made like unto His glorious body,” and resolve by His grace to degrade no more the body which He so longs to glorify with Himself. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)Fornication I. Destroys all pretence to Christianity.1. The body belongs to Christ.2. Should be employed in His service.3. To give it to another is to deny Him--and court destruction, which God forbid! II. Degrades the man.1. The harlot is the refuse of humanity.2. To be joined to her is to be one with her--by a natural law. III. Is impossible while we are joined to Christ--we are one spirit with Him. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 6:17 He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.--The apostle was wont to associate the commonest duties with the highest motives. In dissuading from the sin of impurity, he might have adduced considerations drawn from physical laws and social conditions; instead of this he appeals to the loftiest principles of Christianity. Note I. The bond which unites believers to their Lord is a bond of--1. Faith, “ Whom having not seen,” &c. Christians receive with cordiality the gospel concerning Christ; they receive Christ Himself to dwell in their hearts by faith. 2. Love. They are joined to Him as the bride to the bridegroom, in a spiritual affection, in love “ stronger than death.” 3. Affinity. Drawn to Jesus as sinners to the Saviour, they remain with Him as friends, congenial in character, disposition and aims. II. The consequent unity between Christians and their Lord.1. They are in a spirit of subjection to the Father, whose will and law are authoritative and supreme. 2. They are one in the love of all that is holy and morally admirable. The sympathy that exists regards the principles that animate and the aims that dignify the moral life. 3. They are one in the bonds of an immortal fellowship. “ That they may be with Me where I am.” III. The practical proofs of this unity.1. Repugnance to all which is repugnant to Christ; as, e.g., those vices to which allusion is made in the context. 2. Cultivation of the spirit of brotherly love. The “ one spirit” must needs be a spirit of true love, linking together the members of the mystical body of Christ, and disposing them to a sympathetic and harmonious action. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)The saint one with his Saviour Note-- I. A mysterious deep.1. There is a joining to the Lord-- (1) In election. We were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world. (2) In covenant, when Jesus became of old the Head of His Church. (3) In the incarnation. All this makes up a glorious joining unto the Lord, but the union taught here is vital and spiritual which is wrought in us when we are born again. 2. But what does that word “ one spirit” mean? The union between Christ and His people is described by-- (1) The marriage union. It is said, “ These twain shall be one flesh” ; but to take off the carnal edge of the metaphor “ one spirit” is here substituted. (a) Christ and His people have one spirit. The Holy Spirit who quickens us anointed Him. The foot is baptized into the same spirit as the head. (b) We are of one spirit with Him, i.e., we come to think and feel as Jesus does. (c) Yet the text saith not that we are of one spirit, but we are one spirit. This is a matter to be understood only by the spiritual mind, and not to be expounded in words. “ I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one.” We have known on earth friends who have become one spirit; intimacy and mutual admiration have ripened friendship into unity, till the one seemed to be the complement of the other; one soul in two bodies. (2) The branch and the stem, which are one vine, and are nothing separated from each other, their life one and their design one. (3) The member and the body. If there be life in this finger, it is identically the same life that is in the head; and so in the whole Church the life and Spirit of Christ are the life and spirit of His people. II. A manifest grace.1. To be one spirit with Christ much more is needed than-- (1) To bear the Christian name. Call a poppy a rose and you will not thereby give it perfume. (2) Mere outward profession. Ye may be baptized in water, but unless ye are baptized into the Holy Ghost, ye know not what union with Christ is, for Simon Magus though baptized had no part nor lot in the matter. (3) The performance of some apparently good actions and the use of religious words in conversation. The superficial, the nominal, and the outward will not suffice. Deep down in the very vitals of our being must this union with Jesus Christ most eminently reside. 2. As an illustration of what unity of spirit is take that rare conjugal union of those who realise the highest ideal of the married life founded in pure love and cemented in mutual esteem. Their wishes blend, their hearts are indivisible. By degrees they come very much to think the same thoughts. Intimate association creates conformity. So the true Christian grows to think as Christ thinks till the teachings of Jesus are plain to him. Blessed consummation when their hearts at last are all wrapped up in Jesus, even as the bush at Horeb was all on fire with God! 3. Where such union exists, what does it produce? They who are thus one spirit with Christ live-- (1) For the same end--God’ s glory. (2) For the same reason--the love of the Father. (3) By the same means. By the conversion of souls: not by being made a king, not by being called rabbi. (4) By the use of the same modes-teaching, preaching, living, suffering, and dying. Some nowadays seem tired of Christ’ s plans, and hunt up more rapid methods. Jesus never strained after effect by animal excitement. (5) With the same emotions. Oh that we felt as He did the weight of souls, the guilt of sin, the terror of the wrath to come, and the tenderness of Divine mercy! 4. Let me add that if we are fully joined to our Lord, and of one spirit with Him, we shall have-- (1) The same tastes. What He loves will charm us, what He hates we shall loathe. (2) The same will. (3) Oneness of aim in our service of God. We have a dozen aims now, but if we were of one spirit with Jesus we should have but one object in life. (4) Great force and fervour. Our prayers would be very different from what they are, and our public service of God would never be so sleepy as it now is. (5) Abiding pertinacity. Defeated in one place we should try in another. (6) Wonderful serenity of spirit. We should not be disturbed with little, petty remarks of men, nor should we even be moved by great calamities. Conclusion:1. A word of rebuke. We have been joined to Christ, but have we been manifestly one spirit with Him? Angry--was that Christ’ s spirit? Worldly--was that Christ’ s spirit? 2. A word of hope. We want to have the same spirit as Christ. Well, our hope is that we shall have it, for we are joined to the Lord, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The true believer’ s union with Christ I. The explication of this truth.1. Who are “ true believers” ? (1) Not such as are united unto Christ by a mere external profession, sacramental admission, or presumptuous persuasion (John 2:23-24). These are dead branches (John 15:2). sapless stakes in the Church’ s hedge, wooden legs of Christ’ s body (2 Timothy 3:5; Revelation 3:1). (2) But such as are united unto Christ by internal implantation. Living, fruit-bearing branches (John 15:5); so that now Christ is in them, and they in Christ (John 17:21; John 17:23). 2. What kind of union is this? (1) Negatively. (a) Not a ,corporeal union. Christ is in heaven (Acts 1:11; Acts 3:21), we on earth. (b) Not a hypostatical, personal union; such as that of the Divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Believers make not one person with Christ, but “ one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13); and that not one body natural, but mystical. (c) Not an essential, substantial union; not such an union as makes believers in any wise partakers of the substance of Christ’ s Godhead. (d) Not such an union as mounts up believers to an equality with Christ in any respect. “ In all things He hath,” and must have, “ the pre-eminence” (Colossians 1:18). (2) Positively. (a) A spiritual union. (b) A mystical, profound union (Ephesians 5:32; John 17:20). (c) And yet a true, real union. Not a fancy only (Ephesians 5:30). As the head communicates real influences to the body, so Christ communicates to us His Spirit and graces (John 1:16). (d) An intimate union. Like that of the food with the body which it nourisheth (John 6:54). (e) A perpetual, indissoluble union (Romans 8:35). 3. What are the efficient causes of this union? They are-- (1) Principal. This great work ascribed-- (a) To the whole Godhead (chap. 1:9: 1 Peter 5:10; John 6:44-45; Ephesians 2:6-7). (b) But more especially to the Spirit of God. He it is that knits this marriage-knot (1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5). (2) Less principal, or the means or instruments of union. (a) Outward. Generally all the ordinances of God (Zechariah 4:12). More especially--First, the word read, preached, meditated on, believed, improved. Second, the sacraments. Those spiritual seals and labels which God hath fixed to His covenant of grace. (b) Inward faith. Not a bare historical, dead faith; but a living, working, justifying, saving faith (Ephesians 3:17; John 1:12; 1 Corinthians 6:56; Galatians 2:20). II. Confirmation. That there is such a union appears--1. From those many equivalent expressions whereby the Scriptures hold forth this union. (1) Christ is said to “ be in” believers (Colossians 1:27; Romans 8:10), to “ dwell in” them (Ephesians 3:17), to “ walk in” them (2 Corinthians 6:16). (2) Believers are said to “ abide in” Christ (John 15:7), to “ dwell in” Christ (John 6:56; 1 John 4:16), to “ put on” Christ (Galatians 3:27). 2. From those several similitudes by which the Scriptures shadow out this union. Believers are said to be-- (1) “ Lively stones” (1 Peter 2:4-6), Christ, the living “ foundation, the chief corner-stone,” on which they are built (Ephesians 2:20-21). (2) “ Branches” of Christ, “ the true vine,” into whom they are engrafted, and in whom they bring forth fruit (John 15:1; John 15:5). (3) The loyal, affectionate “ spouse” of Christ (Ephesians 5:31-32; Son 2:16; Son 5:1). (4) Christ’ s “ body” (Ephesians 1:23; Ephesians 5:30), Christ being the believers’ “ Head” (1 Corinthians 1:22). In a word, the Head and mystical body are called “ Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12). 3. From that communion which there is betwixt Christ and true believers. (1) Believers communicate with Christ-- (a) In “ His fulness” (John 1:16). (b) In His merits (2 Corinthians 5:21). (c) In His life and graces (1 Corinthians 1:2). (d) In His privileges and dignities. Is He a King, a Priest? So are believers (Revelation 1:6; 1 Peter 2:9). Is He a Son, an Heir, by nature? Saints are so by adoption (Romans 8:17). (e) In His victories (Romans 8:37). (f) In His triumphs and glory; they share with Him in His throne. All that believers are, is from the grace of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:10; Philippians 4:13), so that they do not so properly live, as Christ in them (Galatians 2:20). (2) Christ communicates in the believers’ graces. All that they are is from Christ; and therefore all that they have is to Christ; what they receive in mercy they return in duty. III. Application. Information. Are believers thus closely united unto Christ? Hence see--(1) The crimson dye of their sin, who oppose and persecute them. In touching them, they “ touch the apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8). (2) The quality of Christ’ s love to them beyond and above all others (Ephesians 3:18-19). (3) The high honour which Christ casts upon them--an honour not vouchsafed to heaven’ s courtiers, the angels. They are Christ’ s servants, subjects; not His members. (4) Their stability and perseverance in their estate of grace. (5) A cogent and conclusive argument for their resurrection (chap. 15:12-23). If the Head be got above, surely the body shall not always lie under, water. 2. Examination. To ascertain whether there be such a union betwixt our souls and Christ, let us ask-- (1) Hath Christ given unto you His Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9; 1 John 3:24). Now this Spirit is-- (a) A praying Spirit (Zechariah 12:10). (b) A mourning Spirit. (c) A sanctifying Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11; 1 Peter 1:2). (2) Doth “ Christ dwell in thy heart by faith” ? (Ephesians 3:17.) Namely, by such a faith as purifies the heart, works by love and overcomes the world. (3) Dost thou “ crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts” ? They that are united unto Christ do so (Galatians 5:24; Romans 8:13). (4) Art thou “ a new creature” ? He that is in Christ is so (2 Corinthians 5:17). Hast thou a new head, heart, lip, life? (5) Dost thou bring forth fruit? Every branch in Christ is a fruit-bearing branch (John 15:5; Philippians 1:11). 3. Consolation. (1) With relation to Christ, to whom believers are united. On their union with Him, there redounds to them a peculiar interest-- (a) In Christ’ s person. Christ Himself is theirs (Jeremiah 32:38; Isaiah 9:6). (b) In Christ’ s properties. Has Christ an arm of power? It is for your protection. Has He an eye of knowledge? It is for your direction. Has He a stock, a treasury, of perfect righteousness? It is for your justification, &c. (c) In Christ’ s promises (2 Peter 1:4). Which are the believers’ Magna Charta, to the confirmation whereof God has been pleased to add both His oath and blood for seals (Hebrews 6:17-18). (d) in all Christ’ s providences (Romans 8:28). (e) In all (1 Corinthians 3:22-23). (2) With respect to believers themselves. In a threefold regard; namely, of their persons, graces, duties. 4. Exhortation. (1) To sinners, that are as yet “ without Christ, God, hope in this world” (Ephesians 2:12). Be persuaded to give your eyes no sleep till you are united to Christ! Consider-- (a) The dreadful, dismal danger of thy present estate. A soul not united unto Christ lies open to all danger imaginable. (b) Christ’ s condescending willingness to be united to thee. (2) To saints that are united to Christ. (a) Be very fearful of that which may in any sort weaken your union with Christ. (b) Wisely improve it. (c) Labour for a frame of spirit suitable to it. (d) Walk worthy of it. (T. Lye, A. M.) 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 What?Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? The dignity and service of the body I. The dignity of the body. The apostle speaks in the accents of surprise, as if to imply that they ought to know.1. Many considerations may commend the sanctification of the flesh to God, e.g. (1) The natural care for our bodies. (2) The possibility that the angels may have bodies resembling our own, since every angelic appearance in Scripture has been in human shape. (3) The fact that Christ ascended to heaven in a body of “ flesh and bones.” (4) The fact that the flesh is included in His redeeming work so that in heaven there will be glory and happiness for the body. 2. But the apostle takes higher ground. The body of a Christian man is claimed and taken possession of by the God who has redeemed it--and therefore to be treated with the same respect with which a heathen would regard the temple of his idol, or a Jew the holy of holies. 3. Of course this is not true of all men. It is true that the body is fearfully and wonderfully made in all, that there dwells within it an immortal soul full of noble gifts, that body and soul are actuated by a supernatural power. But in natural men that power is the power of God’ s enemy. It is to Christians alone that the text applies. 4. Now the idea of temple implies-- (1) Presence. In the temples of idolatry there was a visible shape to represent the spirit supposed to be there. In the Temple at Jerusalem there was indeed no figure, but there the visible Shekinah dwelt above the mercy-seat. Thus if the body be the temple of the Holy Ghost it must be because He is actually there. What a solemn thought that is! (2) Presence, not by permission, but by right. Thus it is not that we ought from reverence or courtesy to render to God the use of a body which is our own, but it is that God assumes the use of a body which is His--bought with a price. We were God’ s by creation, and the right of property thus derived still exists. But we have given to Satan what is really God’ s; and the Spirit of God will not come back into a body where Satan’ s seat is, nor by force take the flesh, while the affections are bestowed elsewhere. But when His grace has won the heart back again, then God comes back to His own and takes full possession of the entire man. Try to realise the force of motive which this fact supplies for holiness. II. The service of the body. The Christian who thus thinks of his flesh as the temple of God cannot fail to acquire a higher respect for it, and it is evident that this higher respect will show itself in small things as well as in great. Follow the drunkard or the profligate, who abuse their natural health by sin, and see if the result be not neglect of the body, and misery and suffering in the very flesh they pamper. But let the grace of God change that man’ s heart, and what a difference is seen! Now he holds his head erect and takes his place among his fellow-men.1. We should jealously watch our bodies lest they be polluted with sin. 2. Respect for the body, as the temple of the Holy Ghost, should teach propriety of dress and manner, and even of bodily appearance. A saved body, destined for heaven, is neither to be neglected nor to be made into an idle gewgaw, but is to be treated with the serious propriety which becomes a house of God and the God who fills it. 3. We need to watch over all our habits, so as to keep the body in the fittest state possible to do God’ s will. This is the highest object of health, that the members may be instruments of righteousness unto holiness. 4. Learn the due use and place of the body in our worship of God. The real seat of worship is in the heart, but when the heart is right, the body must share the service. Hence arises the propriety of outward forms of worship, of the bended knees, &c. (Canon Garbett.)The temple of the Holy Ghost 1. There is a great danger in religion--as there is in everything else--of a want of proportion. To the natural man the body is much more than the soul. He can see his body; his soul is a matter of faith. The body can give him immediate pleasure; the pleasures of the soul lie chiefly in the future. To the care of the body there is little or nothing to oppose itself; to the care of the soul, the opposition, both from within and without, is very strong. Hence, to provide for that body takes by far the greatest part of a man’ s life. When a man becomes religious these two things change places. The body goes into the shade; the soul is everything. The body is a thing to mortify. In all this because it is extravagant there is a danger that there will follow a reaction, and the body may become again too important, because it was made too insignificant. 2. Now let us see how God’ s truth regards “ the body.” The whole man is “ a temple” ; the body its walls; the senses its gates; the mind the nave; the heart the altar-piece; and the soul the holy of holies. And yet, as in common life, we call the walls and the doors the house, so “ the body” is called “ the temple,” so important, so sacred is “ the body.” 3. Christ wore a body and wears it for ever. His discourses were very often about the body, and His miracles were chiefly upon the body. The body finds a place in our daily prayer--“ Give me this day my daily bread.” 4. We also know the close connection between the body and the mind! how the state of the one affects the condition of the other; and how the body reflects the inner life of the man. What are features, however delicately formed, without expression? And what makes the expression but thoughts--love, tenderness, sympathy l Or, equally, on the other side, sin lowers, vulgarises, spoils, even distorts the countenance. The real beauty of “ the temple” after all is its consecration. 5. And when you are dealing with some fellow-creature, what a new character the whole transaction would assume--if you would recognise the fact that that person is “ a temple.” However poor, wretched, weak, wicked. Notwithstanding, the Holy Ghost may be in that man--working, striving. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The temple of the Holy Ghost 1. God does not influence us merely from the outside--play upon us as the flame flickers on the bar of the grate, but rather as the heat penetrates into the very heart and core of the iron. He enters the very centre of our being, and makes His influence felt throughout the whole. 2. This indwelling is not merely that natural indwelling which is a necessary attribute of an Infinite Being; it is gracious friendly indwelling (Isaiah 57:15; John 14:23). The apostle employs this figure-- I. To quicken our abhorrence of sensual vice. Nowhere are disorder and neglect more unseemly than in a temple; but of all kinds of disorder and neglect the most repulsive is filth. For a Christian to indulge in sensuality is to commit an abomination to be classed with the sacrilege of Antiochus Epiphanes, who offered a sow on the altar of the Temple. II. To give an impulse to our desires for greater purity of heart and higher spiritual attainments--for those especially which imprint themselves on, and give elevation to, the bodily features. Not only should the sensual look, the bloated complexion excite our loathing: we should seek for such a state of soul as shall give a pleasing countenance. Cathedral builders used to spend much time and pains on the doorway, so as to make it worthy of the building. The face is the doorway to the soul, and it becomes us to see that it does not discredit the temple. Christian men and women should feel that the dreary look of care, the peevishness of discontent, &c., do not befit those whose bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost. III. To stimulate us to render God His due. The temple is a place of worship. Net that we can of ourselves provide offerings worthy of God; we must ask Him to give us of His own wherewith to serve Him. But if He dwells in us He will inspire with the feelings and produce in us the fruits that constitute the most acceptable offerings. His presence is not like that of a star in the firmament which, bright though it be, communicates nothing of itself to our distant planet. It is rather like the presence of the sun, which cannot shine without brightening earth and sky and sea; without giving its colour to the rose, its fragrance to the lily, its flavour to the peach; without ripening the golden grain and cheering and brightening the hearts of men. God cannot dwell in the soul without corresponding influences; without fostering love and purity; without making sin more odious and holiness more attractive; without giving it strength to banish the one and to follow the other. Conclusion: The Holy Spirit may be resisted and grieved, and in consequence withdrawn, and the painful discipline of separation and chastisement may be substituted for loving fellowship (Hosea 5:15; Isaiah 57:17). No loss can be more grievous. Far better the keenest application of the scourge than the sentence--“ Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.” (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)The redeemed sinner a Scruple of God I. Whose the Christian is. Before the apostle tells us this, he makes it evident that we must have some master. “ Ye are not your own!” You are bondmen. And this is no mere figure of speech. I know that if we look around us, it does not appear true. Freedom, independence, is the boast of earth and the pride of man; but go into heaven, and the very sound of it would dismay. The creature’ s real glory and happiness consist in his willing dependence on the God who made him. And this the Christian feels. While others are proudly asking who is lord over them, he knows himself to be God’ s property. And this is true of the Christian at all times. God says concerning every living soul and every clay-built dwelling-place a soul has occupied, “ They are Mine.” II. How he became God’ s. There were several ways by which one man might become the property of another.1. He might be born of a slave, and the owner of his parent would have a right to him also. And if Christian fathers could entail a glorious bondage on their children, what pangs and fears would many be spared! 2. He might be purchased. And this was a transaction so common that all would enter into the meaning of any illustration drawn from it. Money transferred the Greek slave from one master to another; so the blood of Jesus is the means whereby the sinner is rescued from his native thraldom, and brought “ into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” By sin he became the servant and property of Satan. The blood of Christ makes an atonement for the transgressor’ s sin; in a legal sense, it does away with it, and thus annihilates that on which Satan’ s title to him rests. III. What God makes him. A temple, which imports--1. A rebuilding, a restoration. Man was originally the temple of Jehovah, but sin entered, and, in one short hour, this noble piece of Jehovah’ s workmanship became a mournful ruin. Some traces indeed of its original glory may still be discovered, but to what do they amount? They serve only to show the greatness of its degradation. His lofty understanding overthrown; his affections, which once rose to the skies, now grovelling on the earth; a spiritual being, and yet bounded in his ideas and enjoyments by material objects. But the blood of Christ having ransomed, now the grace of Christ transforms him. In the very hour when he becomes the Lord’ s, a work of restoration is commenced within him, that never ends till it brings shape and beauty and glory out of a mass of ruins. And this is sanctification. 2. Dedication. It is this which distinguishes a temple from every other building. The purchased sinner is consecrated to holy purposes. 3. Residence, the abode of the Deity within it, to whom it is consecrated. We must labour to take in the idea of God dwelling within us; not carrying on His work of mercy in the heart like a bystander, but as leaven works in the meal, mingling itself with the mass it is changing. To the man of the world this is all a mystery, perhaps a delusion. And no wonder. It is understood only by experience, and of things like this he has had no experience. To the man of God it is a blessed reality. God never enters the heart alone; blessings unspeakable follow in His train--light end purity and joy. IV. What God expects from him--glory. Now the glory of God is not such a glory as results to a man from the circumstances in which he is placed; its source is to be found in God’ s intrinsic excellences. To glorify Him, therefore, is to bring these excellences into light. And the redeemed sinner does this.1. Passively. His very redemption is an amazing exhibition of the Divine attributes. In this point of view, the creation of a world is as nothing to the salvation of his lost soul. 2. Actively. We are so to live and act that all who see us may be reminded by us of God. Now it is by the body chiefly as an instrument that the work must be done. The seat of religion is the soul, but its effects will be visible in the frame which the soul animates. (C. Bradley, M. A.)The sacredness of the person 1. The whole person of the believer is as sacred to God as the Temple was. Stronger language is impossible. (1) In both the plan is Divine. (2) In both human agency was called into requisition. In the building of the Temple and in the salvation of the soul man must work out the plan. (3) In both the work is transcendent. (4) But the chief point is the fact that the Temple was the dwelling-place of God typical of His indwelling in the regenerate heart. 2. Our endeavour will be to consider the sacredness and preciousness of the persons of the saints in the light of the price of our redemption. That we should take our stand by the Cross in order to obtain the highest view of human nature may not be consonant with the opinions of many. There are other standpoints. (1) There is the commercial standpoint. On this pinnacle you may stand for a lifetime to witness incessant activities in the hives of industry, which offer their tribute of praise to the greatness and dignity of human life. (2) Look also at the results of scientific research; what a mass of wonders meets your eye! (3) There is also the literary standpoint, whence we see mind, like a cataract, pouring its contents in numberless volumes. (4) Art is no less wonderful. But to none of these lights do we now ask you to come. Ascend Calvary where the noblest view of human life is obtainable. I. The purpose of the saviour’ s life was to redeem mankind. Every great life has its purpose bound up in its very inclination and disposition. This is pre-eminently true of the life of Jesus. The purpose to save men preceded every thought, and left its impress on every act. II. To ransom mankind was the ruling passion in the life of jesus. The life of the Saviour was unique in the fulfilment of its design.1. His life was one supreme effort that men may feel that the salvation of the soul is the highest of all objects. 2. The cold reception He received did not damp His ardour. III. To redeem men jesus laid down his life. It was then the entire surrender of the price became apparent. IV. What jealous care must be taken to guard this temple from the intrusion of sin! God dwells in you; let no unhallowed thought enter. Let the body be pure. There are two steps in entire consecration--the Spirit of God must sanctify the soul, and the soul must sanctify the body. Therefore, touch no unclean thing. (Weekly Pulpit.)The Christian’ s obligation to a holy life Note--1. That sinners of every class are excluded from heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9). 2. That sinners of every class have been changed (1 Corinthians 6:11). 3. That those who have been changed are under immense obligations to cultivate a holy life. The text teaches us-- I. That the Christian’ s body is the temple of God. The body is frequently called so (1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:22). Three ideas are suggested--1. Special connection with God. God is everywhere, but He had a special connection with the Temple of old. God is with all men, but “ Thus saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity,” &c. 2. Special consecration to God. 3. Special manifestation of God. Though the universe reveals God, yet, in the Temple was the Shekinah. There is more of God seen in a good man’ s life than elsewhere throughout the world. II. That the Christian’ s being is the property of God. “ Ye are not your own.”1. This does not mean-- (1) That your personality is net your own. You will never be absorbed in God. (2) That your character is not your own. Character is the creation of a moral being--an untransferable thing. 2. It means that our existence is absolutely at His command; that He has a sovereign right to do with us whatever is pleasing in His sight. The reason of this is assigned. “ We are bought with a price.” Christ has redeemed us, and has laid on us the strongest conceivable obligation to live a godly life (Revelation 14:5). III. That the Christian’ s duty is to glorify God. Not to make Him more glorious than He is--this is impossible. A holy mind is glorified in the realisation of its ideals. St. Paul’ s Cathedral glorifies architecturally Sir Christopher Wren, inasmuch as it is the realisation of his idea. Man glorifies God when he realises in his life God’ s ideal of a man. All beings glorify God as far as they realise His idea of their existence. This includes two things--1. That the human body be under the absolute government of the soul. The crime and curse of humanity are that matter governs mind; the body rules the soul. 2. That the human soul be under the government of supreme love to God. Love always-- (1) Seeks to please the object.(2) Reflects the object.(3) Lives in the object. (D. Thomas, D. D.)God’ s Temple When Pompey captured Jerusalem he entered the Temple. On reaching the vast curtain that hung across the “ holy of holies,” into which none but the high priest could enter, and that only on one day of the year, he wondered what the dark recess might contain. He drew the veil aside, but the glory had departed and there was nothing there. How many Christians to-day are like that? Temples without a God. All beautiful outside. But when we lift the veil and pass beyond it to where the glory should be there is nothing to be seen. The glory is gone. This brings to our remembrance the old legend which tells us that on the night before the temple on Zion was burnt, the solemn words of the retreating Divinity were heard sounding through it, “ Let us depart.” “ I will arise and return unto My place till they acknowledge their offences.” Should this voice be heard to-day by you, let your cry be, “ Abide with me, King of life and glory. Leave me not!” And the answer will come, “ This is My rest for ever, here--mystery of love--will I dwell, for I have desired it, even the temple of thy heart.” The temple of God must not be defaced What right has any man or any woman to deface the temple of the Holy Ghost? What is the ear? Why, it is the whispering-gallery of the human soul. What is the eye? It is the observatory God constructed, its telescope sweeping the heavens. What is the hand? An instrument so wonderful that when the Earl of Bridgewater bequeathed in his will £8,000 sterling for treatises to be written on the wisdom, power, and goodness of God, and Dr. Chalmers found his subject in the adaptation of external nature to the moral and intellectual constitution of man, and the learned Dr. Whewell found his subject in astronomy, Sir Charles Bell, the great English anatomist and surgeon, found his greatest illustration of the wisdom, power, and goodness of God in the construction of the human hand, writing his whole book on that subject. So wonderful are these bodies that God names His own attributes after different parts of them. His omniscience--it is God’ s eye. His omnipresence--it is God’ s ear. His omnipotence--it is God’ s arm. The upholstery of the midnight heavens--it is the work of God’ s fingers. His life-giving power--it is the breath of the Almighty. His dominion--the government shall be upon His shoulder. A body so Divinely honoured and so Divinely constructed, let us be careful not to abuse it. When it becomes a Christian duty to take care of our health, is not the whole tendency toward longevity? If I toss my watch about recklessly, and drop it on the pavement, and wind it up any time of day or night I happen to think of it, and often let it run down, while you are careful with your watch, and you never abuse it, and you wind it up at just the same hour every night, and then put it away in a place where it will not suffer from the violent changes of atmosphere, which watch will last the longer? Common sense answers. Now, the human body is God’ s watch. You see the hands of the watch, you see the face of the watch; but the beating of the heart is the ticking of the watch. Oh! be careful and do not let it run down. (T. De Witt Talmage.)Keep thyself pure (sermon to young men):--1. Do not be surprised at the intensity of this remonstrance. Only think what a conception St. Paul had of the purity which Christ required; think what a sink of iniquity was the city of Corinth. It was London and Paris in one. It combined the worship of Plutus and Venus. The extravagance of its luxury was only matched by the depth of its licentiousness. Corinth was at that time the Vanity Fair of the Roman Empire. You might be tempted to say--Ah! no Christian could remain pure in such a place. So some of the young men of Corinth thought, and the apostle wrote to them that it was an entire mistake. I believe some of you young men have just the same notion that these Corinthians had. You say London is quite as trying to one’ s principles as ever Corinth was. Perhaps so; yet even in Corinth there were those who remained proof against contamination. The grace of God proved sufficient for them. 2. Of course, he is here writing to Christian men (1 Corinthians 6:11). It was of little use to exhort others to a life of purity. An unconverted man regards himself as his own property, and naturally feels that he may deal with that property as he chooses. The alternative is to be the redeemed of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:20). Christ gave His life for our salvation, that all who accept of Him should be saved; and if we believe, He claims us as His own. This is not a hardship, but a joyous liberty. And the secret of it is, that He puts His Holy Spirit within us, making us new creatures, with new desires, new likings, new motives. 3. Our body then becomes the “ temple “ of this Divine Spirit, and all its members are under His control. It is a very solemn and suggestive metaphor. There is no consecrated edifice that is really so sacred as the body of a Christian. The temple at Jerusalem has for ages been laid in ruins:; the only temples God now owns are the two which Paul so clearly defines in this epistle; first, the spiritual society of His own people in the aggregate (1 Corinthians 3:16), and, secondly, the fleshly frame of each individual believer. 4. Perhaps the most common plea with which the impure quiet conscience is that which the apostle here challenges, “ Our bodies are our own; we may do with them what we will.” But they are not your own, says Paul; your bodies are the purchased property of the Lord, and are consecrated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What an argument against self-indulgence in any form! These are, as we are told in this chapter, sins “ against the body” ; desecrations of God’ s own temple! And if “ any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” You recollect that, when Christ was about to visit the Jewish Temple of old, and found its hallowed precincts defiled, He made a scourge of cords, and drove out all the vile intruders. There are young men in some of our mercantile houses, respectable in appearance, and gentlemanly in bearing, who, through vicious indulgence, have already gathered a hell around them, from whose tortures they can find no escape. How did they begin? By being irregular in their habits, careless in making acquaintanceships, tampering with stimulants, and theatre-going, and gambling; and finally, every conceivable form of Satanic revelry! Ah! let me ask, “ What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.” 5. Oh, the heartlessness of vice! It is not so long ago since a young man of good family., excellent prospects, and pleasing address, died miserably like a dog in Paris, with not one to shed a tear over his cold clay, of all the depraved profligates that had sponged him and joined in his hilarious orgies. 6. There are plenty who will try to persuade you that it is a sign of weakness to be pure, and call you verdant, orapuritanical, and ask if you are still tied to your mother’ s apron-strings. And, unless you are prepared to stand that vulgar bluster, you are all but certain to be caught; and from the gates of hell shall ascend another shout of victory. I remember what a thrill went through me, as I first gazed upon the gloomy walls of the Prison de la Roquette, in Paris, which is set apart for criminals that are condemned to be executed, and read over those huge, hideous gates the inscription, “ Abandon hope all ye who enter here!” Bat hardly less hopeless are those who once enter upon the path of the profligate. Facilis descensus Averni. Oh, keep a thousand miles from the verge of the pit! Avoid everything that is likely to act as an incentive to sin. 7. Perhaps you think of these bodies as mere temporary tabernacles, soon to be taken down and dissolved. There is a certain measure of truth in this, of course. But in a higher sense, the Christian’ s body is not a tabernacle, but a temple, a permanent and enduring structure (Romans 8:11). Oh, with what a magnitude of interest and importance does this thought invest these fleshly temples! Some time ago an aged saint was being borne to his burial. He had been very poor, and with indecent haste they were shuffling his coffin out of their way, as though glad to get rid of him, when an old minister who observed it, said, “ Tread softly, for you are carrying a temple of the Holy Ghost.” (J. Thain Davidson, D. D.)Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.-- Ye are not your own 1. To be “ our own” is our very greatest ambition. To be our own masters, that is nature. To feel bought with a price, to forego all independence, to own ourselves God’ s property, and to seek His glory--that is grace. 2. When Satan first attacked our first parents, nothing could have done so well as this, “ Ye shall be as gods” ; and, in that reach to be their own, they perished. 3. God has been pleased so to order it, that no man can truly say, “ I am my own” ; “ Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are,” &c. Oh, we all know how we are trammelled by circumstances, there is not a single action in our life that is perfectly free. In what a higher sense this word is true of those to whom it was said, “ Ye are not your own.” 4. Of all the happy conditions upon earth, the happiest is to give up the whole heart to an authority which the whole heart can quite love and respect--an authority also which only needs proprietorship to make the relationship exquisite and the engagement perfect. Note-- I. God’ s property in you.1. Had one whole world been given for your salvation the price would have been a large one; but the whole universe would not have given so great a sum as the death of Christ. One single life offered for you would have been vast, but Essential Life Himself was the ransom of your soul. Ought you to be a poor, wretched slave, to fear sin, death, and hell, when the Son of God took fear, sin, death, and hell into His own heart to make you free? 2. The art of man may contrive a thing, and he has a right to anything that he has made. But he contrives out of what he finds already made, not what he brings into creation. But God made your body, soul, and spirit. A father has a right to his child, but God has done more than made you His child, for He has given you the spirit of a child, to cry “ Abba Father.” A husband has a property in his wife--but marriage is only a type of the union between Christ and His Church. Every man has a right to his own body--Christ has more than a right to His body, being the Head, and we all members in particular; so that each condition of life teaches us with one common voice, “ Ye are not your own.” II. The consequences arising from that fact.1. The great privilege which attaches to being the property of God. What-ever property one has, it entails certain duties upon the proprietors, and certainly God will not fail in fulfilling the great relationship in which He stands to His creatures. Are you “ not your own,” but God’ s? Then observe “ all things are yours,” &c. God holds Christ--Christ holds you--you hold everything. Then if “ you are not your own,” nothing which you have is your own, not your cares, griefs, or sins. God has undertaken for you in everything. The member may pass everything up to its Head--the thing possessed may refer everything to its possessor. 2. The duties which spring out of this great privilege. (1) God has made you a part of His Church, the body of Christ. In that Church we all belong one to another. Each has his particular gift to contribute to the mutual good, one has love, another intelligence, another experience--all belong to the Church. (2) This claim of God’ s proprietorship is not perfectly recognised. We may assign Him a part of our lives--a part of our money--a part of our time--a part of our energies--a part of our affections, but God will have no partnerships. He is too great to be a partner, He requires all of us. God is worthy of everything--yield all yourself to Him. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)Man acting independent of God The principle which is recognised in these words is the very reverse of that by which all men are naturally actuated. We reason, we act, not as if our bodies and our spirits were God’ s, but as if they were our own. This is the fault of human nature. Man is a fallen creature, in a state of apostasy. He has cast off his allegiance to God. God is not in all his thoughts; God’ s authority is not acknowledged, His glory is not regarded, His law is not obeyed. And what is the cause of all this? Does he not know that he is God’ s? Is he ignorant that all he is, and all he has, are from God? If the authority of God can only be established in the conscience, if His right to reign in the heart, and to demand all we are and have, be once acknowledged, what solicitude, what sorrow for sin, what opposition to self, what efforts, what prayers, what gratitude, what submission, will be the result! And who can escape the conviction that the whole heart, and mind, and soul and strength, should be given unto God? I. What can more clearly show that we think ourselves our own, than presuming to devise our own religion? God has vouchsafed to us a communication of His purposes. He has favoured us with the inestimable blessing of revelation. Now what is the disposition with which we should receive it? We know that it is with meekness we should receive the engrafted word. But where is this meekness to be found? Truly not in natural men. It is not the religion which is most agreeable to the revelation of God, but most consonant with the opinions of the world, which they adopt. There is an amazing insolence and impiety, and casting off subjection in calling good evil and evil good, in adding to the Word of God or in taking from it, and thus in virtually finding fault with the instructions of Divine wisdom, which is in fact finding fault with God Himself, and expressing a wish that He were the reverse of what He is. It is saying, We are our own, and we will have a religion according to our own wisdom and our own wishes. It is a dangerous thing, however plausible, to contend for the right of private judgment, and to suppose that if we only follow the dictates of our own conscience, and adopt sentiments such as we think to be sound, we must be right. The rule of faith and the rule of practice remain uninfluenced by the changes of conscience, and immutably the same, whether conscience approves and disapproves, perfectly or imperfectly. And a man is equally responsible to God whether his conscience is enlightened or unenlightened, and every time he contends for the authority of conscience in opposition to that of God, he does in fact, like that man of sin, oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God, sitteth on the throne of God, showing himself that he is God. Error is far from being harmless. It has a most pernicious effect upon practice. And in proportion to the importance which is attached to sentiments is the evil which those that are erroneous produce. II. We act as if we were our own by doing our own will. A respect unto all God’ s commandments is the only thing which can prove our regard to His will. If we keep the whole law, with the exception of one point, we are guilty of all. Whether, therefore, we are moral, or immoral, and whether we observe religious duties, or neglect them, we are, in all this, consulting our own will, and acting upon the supposition that we are our own. Nor is the case at all altered by our good conduct proceeding from conscientious motives and the fear of God’ s wrath. For a man’ s conscience may be awakened, and his fears excited, so as to constrain him to do many things with the view of conciliating God’ s favour, and saving his soul, while at the same time his partial obedience furnishes abundant evidence that his own will is still preferred to the will of God, and that, in the most plausible parts of his conduct, he is not actuated by any genuine principles of obedience. III. We act as if we were our own by seeking our own ends. Whatever we do in an unregenerate state, whether it be in itself good or bad, we seek in it an end that is not worthy of God. We have said that the true end of man is to glorify God. But men seek, not the honour of God, but their own honour. They not only do their own will, but they do it for their own purposes. The original depravity of man is so entire that it is a difficult and long-protracted business to make him, with all his new and Divine nature, propose the glory of God as the end of all his ways. (M. Jackson.)God’ s right to our services on the ground of creation I. Because we were made by Him. The more we know of the structure of the human frame, how fearfully and wonderfully we are made, the more are we persuaded that it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves. And if we consider that we are made of the dust of the earth, that if God bad not breathed into us the breath of life, we must have been nothing better than the dust under our feet; we shall see the propriety of glorifying God in our bodies which are His. And if we contemplate the rational understanding, the immortal spirit, by which we are distinguished from the beasts that perish, and assimilated to angels, and to God, we shall perceive that these are a still higher ground of claim upon us for services the most spiritual. When human creatures use their bodies and their ,spirits for the low purposes of sensuality, vanity, and ambition, or without any view to the service and honour of Him whose they both are, they are guilty of an injustice to God and a robbery of God, which, if conscience were not stupefied or perverted, would fill them with horror and overwhelm them with fear. Who call calculate the value of an immortal existence and of a capacity for happiness, exalted as its Divine original, and lasting as eternity? Who can calculate his obligations to God for such an existence? And who, then, can calculate the extent of his wickedness in habitually forgetting that he is not his own in using that existence without any avowed aim to the will and glory of its Author? I need not say that the bodies of them whose god is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, and who mind earthly things, are not used for the purpose of honouring God, for in all this God’ s laws are violated and His glory given to another. All who live in pleasure are dead while they live and dishonour God in their bodies. And it is equally clear that they who live in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another, as well as they who argue against religion and would discourage piety, are not glorifying God in their spirits, but openly dishonouring Him. Have you considered, and do you act upon the principle, that as all your faculties of body and of mind are God’ s, they ought to be employed for the promotion of His glory? II. We were made for God. The great end of creation is the glory of God. And all things, but men and devils, do glorify Him. Angels in heaven glorify Him, and all things in heaven and earth, and in the waters under the earth, glorify Him, by manifesting His perfections. Fallen men and fallen angels only answer not the design of their creation. Now let this truth be remembered--that you were made for the purpose of glorifying God. And would you oppose and defeat the end of your existence? Shall there be no concurrence between the design of God in giving you life and your design in living? How great must be that guilt which is contracted by living in opposition to the great end of God in calling us into being! Few things excite more opposition in the human mind than the attempt to reinstate God upon His throne, to assert His right to reign in our hearts, the Sovereign of our thoughts and affections, and to maintain that it is our duty to resolve all we think, and speak, and do, into His will. This is being righteous overmuch; this is enthusiasm. Now, can anything show more clearly how completely we have departed from God, how totally opposed to Him we are in the spirit of our minds? Remember we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and how shall we dare to appear as usurpers before our Sovereign and our Judge? If you exalt yourselves against God He will bring you down, and who shall deliver? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)Not your own 1. The passion for freedom is probably the strongest. Nothing is more wonderful than the secret working of this passion in securing gradual emancipation. There have been times when ages of serfdom had apparently crushed it out; but at the first impulse from without it was seen that the fire of freedom did not smoulder; and when the impulse has grown strong the passion has sometimes maddened men, blinding them to all sense of justice. And so the spirit of freedom has in turn made slaves of them. It was so in Paris a hundred years ago. 2. A large proportion of the members of this church were slaves. You can imagine what a gospel the life of Christ would be to these. And, to the honour of those who organised the first churches, we must always remember that they were not afraid to welcome the slave. Well, then, you may say, “ Was it not a cruel thing of the apostle to remind them that they were not their own?” Have you ever wondered why Paul should describe himself as “ the bond slave of Christ” ? Was it not because the people to whom he was writing were slaves, and as if he would say, “ I too am a slave; I too am bound, not with iron, but by love” ? What a grand revelation that was to the slaves! “ Ye are Christ’ s.” No chains or bondage could alter that. Better the fetter and the chain with Christ than the purple and the throne without Him. 3. And now these words have just as splendid a ring for us to-night. The law has discovered that they are true in part. The other day they brought before a court of justice a frightened, miserable woman, who had tried to drown herself. She pleaded that her life was not worth preserving. She said it was hers, and she could do with it as she liked. But the law stepped in and said, “ You are not your own. Your life is not your own. You have no right to squander it.” This meant that the law is founded on the Christian principle that every man’ s life belongs to his fellow-men as well as to himself. And that was what Christ came to teach. His life was given for everybody. 4. But the idea is not only what you may not do, but what you must do If you are Christ’ s, then every thought, word, action, must be what Christ would have them be. When Peter and John first began to preach in Jerusalem they were thrown into prison, and strictly commanded not to preach any more in that name. But Peter answered “ We must.” It is not a question whether we should like an easy-going life. We must obey God, though it leads us to stripes, imprisonment, and the cross (see also Acts 21:11-14). 5. But perhaps you think that such claims are only strong when we reach manhood or womanhood. But think of Christ, at twelve years of age, saying, “ I must be in My Father’ s house.” Twelve years of age, but He felt the power of the Divine “ must,” and yet that One was Lord of heaven and earth. Surely if any one could go through life with no constraint it was He; but He saw that to redeem mankind, even Omnipotence could not refuse to take the cross from childhood to the grave. “ Even Christ pleased not Himself.” 6. And now what part has that Divine “ must” begun to play in your life? Do you feel that it is stronger than the “ must” of men? Young man in business, would you let the word of an earthly master outweigh the command of the heavenly Master? Do you think you can slight Christ on the week-day and make it up to Him on the Sunday? Young men, newly awakening to find how strong the streams of tendency are in this world, look at life in the light of Christ, and not in the light of what everybody says and does. It is no excuse for looseness of conduct that it is the fashion. Christ waged relentless war against many of the fashions of His day. Servants, remember whose you are and whom you serve. You can hire your souls out and no wages can recompense you for the loss of them. There may be some here who have received from the Master on trust certain talents which they have been hiding in the earth. If you are letting your lives rust, remember you are abusing another’ s property, for “ you are not your own,” &c. (C. S. Horne, M. A.)Not our own 1. The first motives which influence us in Christian experience are usually self-regarding; and it is natural and right that they should be so. Salvation stands at the beginning of the Christian course, in order that our self-regarding interests may be set at rest, and that we may thus be left free to pursue an end that lies outside them, and yet is in perfect harmony with them. 2. We are not only redeemed from death, but purchased unto God. So long as we claimed to be our own, Satan possessed a certain legal right over us. He moved man to break away from his original relations with God, and to claim himself for himself. In doing so man became a spiritual outlaw, and as such fell under the supremacy of the prince of lawlessness. The great enemy held him by right as well as by might, because it is God’ s law that what we sow we reap. 3. But, on the other hand, since Satan owes his power against us to the operation of Divinely-ordained law, when once the necessities of law are satisfied, the claims of Satan against us are cancelled. Thus we are ransomed from Satan the moment that we are justified before God, and brought back to that position from which man fell of being God’ s and not our own. Only Adam belonged to God because He had made him for Himself; we belong to God because He has bought us back. Thus a new element is introduced into the case, and one that appeals to all the strongest emotions of our nature. He who robs a Divine Creator of that which He has made for His own glory commits a crime, no doubt; but he who has been brought back from the fatal effects of this crime by the dearth of his Benefactor, and then declines to recognise his obligation, is guilty of an enormity which casts that other crime into the shade. 4. As the result of redemption we come under the influence of Him whose will is law throughout the universe, and whose entrance into our nature insures our true moral freedom. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death. But here is a new property claim, a claim de facto where the others were claims de jure. His presence is our liberty, for “ where the Spirit of God is there is liberty” ; but it is the liberty which comes by full surrender of ourselves to Him. He does not enter our nature either as a conqueror, trampling down all resistance, nor as a mere auxiliary to help us out of a difficulty; rather as a constitutional Sovereign to reign according to the true laws of our ransomed nature. 5. But it is not by any means the rule that we apprehend His claims all at once. When the benefit that we seek has been obtained, it is only natural that, having been greatly forgiven, we should greatly love. But, alas! these warm feelings do not always last, when they subside the devotion subsides with them. It often happens, therefore, that after a considerable time has passed from the moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit leads us back, as it were, to the cross to learn more fully the lesson which we only partially learned. We find perhaps that we have been acting as though God existed for us, instead of realising that we exist for God; and then comes the definite question leading up to an equally definite decision, Is it to be self or God? When the Spirit of God thus induces a crisis, it often happens that a very marked and definite act of consecration ensues, bringing about an entirely new epoch in our Christian life. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)Ye are bought with a price.--God’ s right to our services on the ground of redemption If on the ground of creation God has a right to our services and may demand that we glorify Him with our bodies, and with our spirits because He hath made them, it must be evident that His right to them on the ground of redemption is still stronger. I. The guilt which soul and body had contracted, Jesus Christ hath not bought us with a price when innocent and deserving. His redemption supposes immeasurable guilt, the violation of a law which is holy and just and good, the rejection of Divine authority, the contempt of Divine majesty, the impeachment of Divine wisdom, the abuse of Divine godness, the defiance of Divine vengeance, the crime of injustice, and ingratitude, and rebellion, and sacrilege. Look at the defiled body and the polluted spirit, see in them everything that is earthly and sensual and devilish, and say if there is in them any quality to attract the Divine favour. Is there not everything fitted to excite the abhorrence of Him who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity? And yet He redeems you! He redeems you from the vileness of your bodies, and the apostasy of your spirits. What, then, is the perverseness, the accumulated ingratitude and sacrilege of using bodies and spirits so redeemed for the purpose of still dishonouring Him! II. But connected with this guilt is danger. Every sinner is exposed to the curse of God, and, but for redemption, must perish eternally. It is redemption from ruin by which you are urged to glorify God, in your body and in your spirit, which are God’ s. Who does not feel the force of this argument? Who can feet that he owes his deliverance from ruin, his deliverance from even temporal distress, to the benevolent exertions of a friend, without feeling himself bound by ties of gratitude to serve him to the utmost of his power? And shall that be withheld from Christ and from God which is so freely yielded to man? III. Christ redeems the body and soul, not only from ruin, but ruin immeasubable. Who can calculate the misery of them who are destroyed both body and soul in hell? Is a cold and reluctant service an appropriate return for deliverence from everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power? IV. Christ has not only redeemed body and soul from everlasting destruction, but by His redemption has procured for them immeasurable felicity. Does the circumstance of our ears being familiar with the sound of fulness of joy in the presence of God, and of pleasures at His right hand for evermore, render the felicity of heaven less valuable? Substantiate all this felicity. View it as a reality, as a reality at hand, as that which yourselves must possess, or not possess, in the course of a few fleeting moments, and then say whether there is not a reasonableness, a suitableness in glorifying God in those spirits, and in those bodies, which are to be the subjects of this felicity through the efficacy of His redemption. V. The greatness of the price with which you have been bought. You were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And can you, after this purchase, question His right to your bodies and your spirits? Can you think that you are justified in withholding your services from Jesus Christ, in living to yourselves, in not inquiring into His will, in not devoting yourselves to His glory? Why should the principles of justice be recognised in your transactions with men, and renounced in your dealings with God? But God demands your services, not merely because He has bought them with a price, hut because in buying them He extends to you-- VI. The most immeasurable mercy. It is infinite mercy that redeems you from destruction the most awful, infinite mercy that exalts you to happiness the most inconceivable, infinite mercy that buys you with a price the most costly, by all this infinite mercy so manifested you are urged to glorify God. How fervent should be our love, how animated our exertions! Every thought and every affection should be God’ s. Were we suitably affected by His love, we should see sin and ingratitude in every thought and word and work. The insensibility and worldliness of our minds and the inadequacy of our best returns would humble us in the dust. And our disproportionate humility itself, for making returns so imperfect, would be numbered among our grievous offences. The more of heart and soul we put into our services the more of freedom and delight shall we enjoy. We can imagine no happiness equal to that of living as not our own, living to God only, constrained by gratitude, and directed by justice to serve Him whose we are. (M. Jackson.)Redemption and its claims (text and 1 Corinthians 7:23):-- I. “ ye are bought with a price.”1. Redemption is a greater mercy than creation. It is no mean blessing to have been made, and to have been made a man rather than a dog, to have been blest with intellect and an immortal spirit; but for all that it would be better for thee that thou hadst never been born, if thou art not redeemed. 2. Providence also calls before our minds a great mass of mercies; but providence is second in its blessedness to redemption. 3. Redemption is that which gives effect to all the other great blessings of God. (1) Election, the well-head of grace, needs the conduit-pipe of redemption to bring its streams down to sinners. We are chosen of God, but unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. (2) Redemption is the foundation of all real peace. (3) It is through redeeming grace that we expect to enter heaven. II. Therefore redemption is the Lord’ s paramount claim upon us. Other claims, such as those of creation and providence, are forcible, but this claim is overwhelming. The love of Christ constraineth us. Think--1. What you were redeemed from. (1) Sin.(2) Its punishment. 2. Reflect most lovingly upon that dear friend who redeemed you. Not an angel, but Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. 3. Then think of the price He paid. The text does not tell us about it, and surely the reason is that words cannot express the mighty sum. The famous painter, when he drew the picture of Agamemnon at the sacrifice of his daughter, felt that he could not depict the sorrow of the father’ s countenance, and therefore he wisely put a veil over it, and represented him as hiding his face from the fearful sight. So the apostle seems to have felt. This price has been fully paid. I have seen lands which have belonged to men who were reputed to be rich, but there was a heavy mortgage upon them. But there is no mortgage on the saints. “ It is finished,” said the Saviour, and finished it was. III. The extent of this claim.1. The first text says-- (1) That it includes-- (a) The body. This body of yours is holy, and it will rise again from the dead. I charge you, by the blood of Christ, never defile this body either by drunkenness or by lust. (b) The spirit. Keep that pure too. Christ has not bought these eyes that they should read novels calculated to lead me into vanity and vice, such as are published nowadays. Christ has not bought this brain of mine that I may revel in the perusal of works of blasphemy and filthiness. He has not given me a mind that I may drag it through the mire. Your whole manhood belongs to God if you are a Christian. Every faculty, talent, possibility of your being--all were bought. (2) That consequently “ Ye are not your own,” which implies-- (a) That I may not claim the right to do what I please, but what Christ pleases. I am to please my Master in everything. (b) That I may not follow my own tastes if in any way I should so bring dishonour to the name of Christ. (c) That I must not trust my own reasonings. If I were my own teacher, then, of course, I should learn my lessons from my own book; but I have a Rabbi, even Jesus, and I am resolved with meekness to learn of Him. (d) That I must not seek my own ends. I must not live in this world that I may trade and get riches, but it must be that I may use them for Him. 2. In my second text the apostle draws another inference: “ Be not ye the servants of men.” (1) Do not even follow good men slavishly. Do not say, “ I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Calvin.” Who is Calvin and who is Wesley but ministers by whom ye believed as the Lord gave unto you?. (2) Do not pin your faith to anybody’ s sleeve. Keep close to Christ. (3) Do not give yourselves up to party spirit. (4) Do not give yourself to any scientific speculation, educational effort, or to any philanthropic enterprise so as to divert our minds from the grand old cause of Jesus and our God. (5) Do not follow the fashions of the world. (6) Let no man be your master. If ye have masters according to the flesh, serve them with all faithfulness; but as to any master over your spirit, allow no one to be so; consciences were made for God alone. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Redemption, and its claims There is within us a strange tendency to the acquisition of property, and therefore there is something startling in this announcement. We have been gloating upon our fancied proprietorship; it awakens us to the consciousness that we are only stewards. Nay, it lays hold upon ourselves, “ Ye are not your own.” And this may perhaps account for the comparatively trifling success with which religion has been favoured. It allows no compromise, it claims supreme and undivided homage. Notice-- I. The great fact asserted, that we are purchased, and tee position into which we are brought because of that purchase.1. While we would insist upon this as the prime cause of our being the property of God, we would not be supposed to invalidate others. “ He has made us, and not we ourselves.” He has, from the beginning, even until now, preserved the creatures He has made. But in redemption He has so impressively displayed His interest in our welfare, His yearning over His purchased possession. The apostle’ s language implies an acknowledgment of our fall, and refers to the provision of that covenant by which that fall was to be remedied. You will not fail to remark how Christ Himself spoke of those who believe on Him as peculiarly His own. “ My sheep,” &c. His great purpose was that He “ might purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” If that people are spoken of in their collective capacity, they are as the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood. As to these declarations, the statement of St. Peter comes as a hallowed appendix. “ Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things,” &c. Now, surely there can be no more strictly legal title to property than this. 2. Note an exquisite fitness in the connection between the purchase, and the position into which that purchase brings us. Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have something to lay hold of outside itself, and it will never willingly denude itself of any object of solicitude and love. Hence, if you would dispossess the mind of one object, you, must overbear it with the preference of another. If you extirpate one affection you must introduce another into its room. We see this strikingly illustrated in the progress of human life. The tastes and habits of childhood depart, but the heart is not bereft; new tastes acquire their influence, new affections exert their ascendancy. So it is in reference to matters of a higher moment. You will never drive from a worldling the pursuit which engrosses him by a mere naked demonstration of its worthlessness and folly. All that you say is true, and the man knows it; but the spell is over him. And is it not natural, when you think of the feelings of the man, and of what you are wishing him to do? You tell him to cultivate religion: it is his abhorrence. You tell him to renounce the world; why, it is all he has. Here, then, comes the question. We cannot prevail upon the heart by the simple act of resignation to give up everything unpleasing to God. May we not induce it to admit a higher affection? Here it is that the fitness of the connection becomes apparent. “ Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.” The heart, which all other means had failed to affect, is melted by the power of the Spirit, applying the gospel of God. We can deny the claim no longer; we acknowledge it at once as a natural and inalienable right, and we are bound to it with a tenderer tie, because He, to whom we are to swear our fealty, has been mysteriously one of ourselves. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 7:1-17 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Marriage I. Is not necessary for all (1 Corinthians 7:1).1. Instituted by God, sanctified by Christ, it is pure and holy.2. Yet circumstances, such as times of calamity, personal duty, &c., may render it undesirable II. Is advisable for many (1 Corinthians 7:2-5). Because--1. Of the force of natural passion.2. It is a shelter from temptation. III. It is nevertheless a matter of choice (1 Corinthians 7:6-9).1. Paul only counsels, does not command 2. The choice must be determined by the gift of God, which may render celibacy preferable, but every one must carefully estimate his case. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Marriage There are two preliminary considerations which throw some light on this passage.1. Paul had to speak about marriage as he found it. Hence he makes no allusion to that which with us is the main argument and motive, viz., love. In the marriages of Jews and Greeks, love had, as a rule, little to do. The marriage was arranged by the parents. 2. He was here only giving answers to some special questions, and not discussing the whole subject (1 Corinthians 7:1). Certain scruples about marriage had arisen. Among the Jews marriage was a duty, “ so much so that he who at the age of twenty had not married was considered to have sinned.” Among the Gentiles the tendency to celibacy was so strong that it was considered necessary to counteract it by legal enactment. The questions referred to Paul resolve themselves into two. So we have-- I. Paul’ s counsel to the unmarried. This is summed up in 1 Corinthians 7:8, “ It is good for them if they abide even as I” ; i.e., unmarried. But if any man’ s temperament be such that he cannot settle to his work without marrying; and if he is so full of natural cravings which make him feel sure he would be less distracted in married life--then, says Paul, let such an one by all means marry. But he adds, I do not say you ought to marry; I say you may, and in certain circumstances ought. Those among you who say a man sins if he do not marry, talk nonsense. Those among you who feel a quiet superiority because you are married are much mistaken. Personally, I would that all men were even as I myself, only I know that to many men it is not so easy as it is to me to live unmarried; and therefore I do not advise them to a single life.1. This proceeds, not from any ascetic tendency, but from the practical bias of Paul’ s mind. He merely thought that unmarried men were likely to be most available for the work of Christ (1 Corinthians 7:32-33). No doubt a good wife may stimulate a man to liberality, and may greatly increase his tenderness towards deserving objects; but he who has seven mouths to fill cannot have so much to give away as if he had but, one. With the unmarried man there need be no other consideration than this: How can I best serve Christ? With the married man there must always be other considerations. It is therefore to the unmarried that the State looks for the manning of the army and navy, that society looks for the nursing of the sick and for the filling of posts of danger, that the Church depends for a large part of her work, from teaching in Sunday schools to occupying precarious outposts in the mission field. 2. But Paul says also, Beware how you individually think yourself a hero, and able to forego marriage. Beware lest, by choosing a part which you are not fit for, you give Satan an advantage over you (1 Corinthians 7:35, cf. 1 Corinthians 7:7). What is good for one man is not good for another; every man must ascertain for himself what is best for him. And this is precisely what is lacking in popular feeling about marriage. People start, and are encouraged to start in life, on the understanding that their happiness cannot be complete till they are married. Now, on the contrary, they should be taught to consider their own make and bent, and not to take this for granted. Marriage is but one path to happiness, and it is possible celibacy may be the straightest path for some. Above all life is very wide and multifarious, and to effect His ends God needs persons of all kinds and conditions. 3. This not only illustrates the judicial balance of the apostle’ s mind, but gives us the key to the whole chapter. The capacity for celibacy is a gift of God which may be of eminent service, but no moral value can be attached to it. There are many gifts of immense value which may belong to bad as well as to good men. In the Roman Church celibacy is regarded as a virtue in itself, so that men with no natural gift for it have been encouraged to aim at it, with what results we need not say. But while there is no virtue in remaining unmarried, there is virtue in remaining unmarried for the sake of serving Christ better. Some persons are kept single by mere selfishness; but all honour to that eldest son of an orphaned family who sees that it is not for him to please himself, but to work for those who have none to look to but him! There are here and there persons who from the highest motives decline marriage: persons conscious of some hereditary weakness, &c. We may be thankful that there are men and women of sufficiently heroic mould to exemplify the wisdom of the apostle’ s counsel. Such devotion is not for every one. There are persons of a domestic temperament who need the comforts of home-life, and nothing can be more ill-advised than to encourage such persons to turn their life into a channel in which it was never intended to run. But it is equally to be lamented that, where there are women quite capable of a life of self-devotion to some noble work, they should be discouraged from such a life by the false, foolish, and petty notions of society. No calling is nobler than marriage; but it is not the only calling. II. St. Paul’ s counsel to the married.1. Some of the Corinthians seem to have thought that, because they were new creatures in Christ, their old relations should be abandoned. Paul had shrewdness enough to see that if a Christian might separate from an unbelieving wife on the sole ground that he was a Christian, this easy mode of divorce might lead to a large influx of pretended Christians into the Church. He therefore lays down the law that the power of separation is to rest with the unbelieving, and not with the believing, partner (1 Corinthians 7:12-15). It frequently happened in the early ages that when a man was converted in middle life, and judged he could serve God better without the encumbrance of a family, he forsook his wife and children and betook himself to a monastery. This directly contravened the law here laid down (1 Corinthians 7:20), which is of wide application (1 Corinthians 7:21, &c.). 2. But the principle to which Paul chiefly trusts he enounces in 1 Corinthians 7:29-31. Whatever is temporary in our relation to the present world it is foolish so to set our heart on, for death may end all our joy and usefulness. The man who is sent abroad for five years would consider it folly to accumulate a large collection of the luxuries of life; how many times five years do we expect to live, that we should be much concerned to amass goods which we cannot remove to another world? This world is a means, and not an end; and those use it best who use it in relation to what is to be. It is the thought of our great future which alone gives us sufficient courage and wisdom to deal with present things in earnest. The very intensity of our interests and affections reminds us that we cannot root ourselves in this present life, but need a larger room. (M. Dods, D. D.)Paul’ s conception of marriage That it-- I. Is not a duty binding upon mankind--not a moral obligation like “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” &c. (1 Corinthians 7:1; 1 Corinthians 7:7-8; 1 Corinthians 7:40). Some may feel that celibacy is best for them, then let them remain single; others that marriage is most desirable, then let them marry Now does it seem strange that a condition upon which the continuation of the race depends should be thus left open? For were celibacy to rule, in about sixty years mankind would be extinct. But it may be replied that marriage is a law of nature and does not require a command any more than eating or drinking. II. Is primarily for spiritual ends (1 Corinthians 7:14). Those who enter on this relation from fleshly impulses and with fleshly ends misunderstand the ordinance. True marriage means such a mutual spiritual affection as welds two souls into one moral personality. III. Involves mutual obligations the most sacred. Mutual--1. Benevolence (1 Corinthians 7:3), each wishing the well-being of the other. 2. Identification (1 Corinthians 7:4). The two are one. The equal rights of husband and wife are everywhere recognised in the Bible. 3. Honesty (1 Corinthians 7:5). Deception is inimical to the true union of souls. Nothing cuts united hearts asunder so easily and effectually as artfulness. 4. Forbearance (1 Corinthians 7:12; 1 Corinthians 7:14). Should difference of religious opinion crop up, do not separate; for the believing may correct the unbelieving. 5. Concession of personal freedom (1 Corinthians 7:15). Conclusion: Paul’ s conception is wise and just. We have made marriage simply a civil contract; but its essence is the strongest sympathies and aims that one can have for another; the bond of marriage is the solemn mutual pledge. Those who are thus married are united by a cord finer than the finest web; too weak to fetter, yet too strong to break. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Paul’ s view of celibacy It is necessary to remember-- I. That we have here only half of the apostolic mind. Had this passage stood alone, we might then have been justified in taking it as an absolute preference of the single state. But inasmuch as Colossians 3:18-19; Ephesians 5:22-33; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Peter 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:4 speak of marriage with high commendation, it is obvious that this passage expresses only one side of the truth. And it is also clear that it is this passage which must be qualified by the others and vice versa, inasmuch as he is here addressing himself to the answer of a particular question put under particular circumstances; in the others he is speaking without reserve on the general duties of a Christian life. This conclusion is confirmed by a consideration of this passage in detail. The preference for celibacy, although stated absolutely at first (verses 1, 7, 8), is afterwards expressly founded on the impending calamities (verses 26-31), and, apparently in connection with this, on the greater freedom thereby afforded from worldly cares (verses 32-35). In one instance, that of recommending widows not to marry (verses 8, 40). We have a precept (1 Timothy 4:14) reversing this; and whilst there is no trace here of the superior sanctity of celibacy, the prohibition of marriage on that ground is in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 classed among the signs of a false and dangerous system. II. That the apostle’ s preference must be taken with three strong qualifications.1. As being the expression of his natural temperament (verse 7). But he never confounds his individual peculiarity with Christianity itself. He warns us that it is he who speaks and not Christ, and claims for his recommendation no higher authority than the requirements of the time. 2. As given in expectation of calamities. 3. As given without regard to the moral purposes of marriage, To a certain extent the highest form of Roman marriage was a union for high moral purposes; and the same may be said of the Jewish marriages in the Old Testament and Apocrypha. But even in these the sterner rather than the gentler affections were called forth; and in the Greek and Eastern provinces generally marriage was little more than what the apostle describes it, good only as preventing great evils. And just as his denunciations of Greek wisdom must not be extended without qualification to that higher philosophy of Socrates and Plato; so his denunciations of marriage must not be extended without qualification to that intimate union of pure domestic affections which rose out of the combination of the Teutonic and Christian elements. III. That taking this preference as it stands two practical inferences may be deduced.1. That there are ordinary circumstances in Christian as well as in political life, under which the ordinary rules of right and expediency may be suspended or superseded by a higher claim. Philosophical historians have truly felt that the monastic system was to a great extent excused, if not justified, by the fact that it originated in an age when it seemed the only refuge from the dissolution of the existing fabric of society. An absolute dictatorship, whether of pope or emperor, has often been defended on the ground that it met the emergencies of a crisis of danger and transition. The enforcement of the celibacy of the clergy in the Middle Ages doubtless in part arose from the just instinct that they would else have sunk into an hereditary feudal caste. No one can deny that domestic ties must occasionally be severed by extraordinary calls, political, military, or religious. All these are instances of the adoption of a rule in peculiar circumstances which St. Paul’ s advice teaches us not to condemn at once, even though it may seem at variance with the broader principles of Christian life laid down elsewhere in the New Testament. Note in exact correspondence with this passage the declaration of Queen Elizabeth that “ England was her husband and all Englishmen her children,” and that she “ desired no higher character or fairer remembrance of her than this inscription on her tombstone, ‘ Here lies Elizabeth, who lived and died a maiden queen.’” 2. That the highest duties of Christianity are compatible with every lawful condition of life. If the state of slavery be consistent with the cultivation of the true spirit of Christian liberty, if the great religious divisions of Jew and Gentile be alike compatible with the true service of God, then in all other states of life the spirit of the apostolic injunctions may be observed where, in the letter, they seem disregarded. Freedom from earthly cares may be maintained in the married as well as in the single state; indifference to worldly gain may exist in riches, no less than m poverty; our nearness to God depends not on our desertion of one religious community for another, but on our keeping His commandments. (Dean Stanley.)Celibacy and marriage I. Celibacy.1. In what sense is it called good? Not in the sense of being in itself and always superior to marriage which is the image of the union between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:23-25). “ Forbidding to marry” (1 Timothy 4:3) is a mark of false teaching. The law of consistency, then, bids us interpret Paul’ s statements here as in no sense depreciatory of the Divine ordinance of marriage. A single life is good in the sense of being in itself honourable, and in certain circumstances expedient. The apostle’ s “ good” must always be read in the light of the “ not good” of Genesis 2:18. 2. When is it to be preferred to marriage? Leaving out of view considerations of physical health, which may in certain cases render marriage imprudent or culpable, three answers are given in this chapter. (1) In circumstances of peculiar distress (verse 26). In times of persecution or dearth it may be wise not to marry. (2) When called to some peculiar service for the Lord (verses 32, 33; cf. Matthew 19:12). (3) Both these considerations must be taken with that in ver. 7. If a man has not the gift of continency, then his duty to marry is clear (verse 9); if he has the gift, then he is free to give weight to reasons which may turn the balance in favour of celibacy. Even then, however, the higher ends of wedlock are not to be overlooked. 3. It is not to be made obligatory. The Church of Rome ascribes a peculiar excellence to the celibate state, as fitted to promote greater sanctity. There is no warrant for this here; while experience testifies to the dreadful evils to which it leads. II. Marriage.1. Is a safeguard against incontinence. The apostle is not treating of it in general, or in its higher aspects. Still the use here referred to is not to be overlooked in view of such licentiousness as prevailed at Corinth. 2. Implies the rendering of conjugal duty (verses 3, 4). The one party exists for the other, and the other alone the twain having become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). 3. It is a union between one man and one woman. In polygamy the true idea of marriage is lost. The testimony of Scripture is all in favour of monogamy (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-5; 1 Timothy 3:2); and the statements of the apostle here take this for granted. Domestic bliss is not to be found in the haunts of polygamy. (H. Bremner, B. D.) 1 Corinthians 7:6-9I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. Revelation I. By permission.1. Is still Divine and therefore authoritative.2. Respects matters of expediency and private application. II. By commandment.1. Is absolute.2. Of immeasurable importance.3. Universally binding. (J. Lyth, D. D.)For I would that all men were even as myself.--The happiness of single life I. Exemplified by paul.1. Freedom from earthly care.2. Entire devotedness to the service of God. II. Depends on special gift.1. The gift of continence.2. Not conferred upon all.3. Associated generally with special grace. III. Must not be inculcated upon all.1. Would violate the ordination of Providence.2. Breed mischief and immorality. (J. Lyth, D. D.)But every man hath his proper gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.--Distinct gifts Paul had peculiar natural powers, adapting him for a life of consecration and service. But it was a beautiful feature in his character that he did not expect or wish all Christians to resemble himself in all things. In fellow-labourers he recognised adaptation for usefulness.I. Human endowments are Divine gifts. The devout mind naturally looks up to the source of all. If to God we are to attribute providential favours, shall we attribute higher gifts to an inferior source? II. Divine gifts are bestowed upon men in great variety.1. It is so in bodily constitution. One has muscular strength, another manual dexterity, &c. 2. It is so in temperament. One is calm and wise, another tender and sympathetic, a third impulsive and commanding. 3. It is so in intellectual character. One reasons with force, another persuades with fervour, a third speaks with eloquence. Where are two leaves, two faces alike? So in the Church--one has the gift to rule, another to teach, or to console, &c. One is fitted for a pastor, another for an evangelist. One is called to a public, another to a private position. III. These gifts are complementary and co-operate to the general good. None can be spared. There is generosity, but not waste in the Divine benefactions. Pray for the qualified workman, and the work shall not be undone for the want of him. Because all things are Christ’ s, all things are ours. One supplies another’ s lack, and mutual sympathy and ministrations subserve the general good. Conclusion:1. Gratitude should be cultivated as due to Him who is the Giver of all. 2. Pride should be repressed; for if one has his gift he has to remember that it is a gift bestowed in grace. 3. Forbearance and toleration are requisite. It is vain to expect all gifts to centre in the same person, to look for what God has not bestowed, to complain because a man has his proper gift and that only. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.) 1 Corinthians 7:10-17 And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband.The marriage union: how disturbances of it are to be alleviated I. If both parties are believers--according to our Lord’ s command.1. Not by divorce.2. But by mutual conciliation. II. If one party is an unbeliever--according to apostolic prescription.1. Not by divorce.2. But by patience in the believing party, that by example, &c., the unbelieving party and the children may be saved. III. If the unbelieving party brings about a separation.1. By submission, love to God must predominate.2. God can overrule it for good.3. Everyone must content himself with the appointments of Providence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Unity in marriage The Cherokee marriage ceremony is very expressive. The man and woman join hands over running water, to indicate that their lives are thenceforth to flow in one stream. Divorce is I. A sad evidence of human depravity. Except in the case of confirmed lunacy--1. It originates-- (1) In marrying out of impure motives.(2) In the loss of affection,(3) In the unfaithfulness of one or both parties. 2. Is opposed (1) To the express command of our Lord (Matthew 5:31; Matthew 19:1-12), which is founded on the deep significance of the marriage bond (Matthew 19:6; Ephesians 5:32). (2) To the diffusion of the kingdom of God, as exerting a deleterious influence on the general welfare of mankind. II. Cannot be entirely disallowed.1. The Lord permits it in certain instances (Matthew 5:39), and the apostle extends the permission m an exceptional case (1 Corinthians 7:15). 2. Yet so long as there is hope of reconciliation, every means must be used to maintain an unbroken union. 3. Separation is therefore allowable when it is evident that a perpetuated union will only be a source of sin, or that it will prove perilous to the salvation of the innocent party. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Divorce: mixed marriages Having spoken of celibacy and marriage, the apostle now deals with the case of those already married. I. Where both parties are Christian. In this case Christ has decided, and Paul refers them to His words (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9).1. The marriage bond is indissoluble. This arises from the relationship itself, as well as from the Divine appointment. Husband and wife are ideally one; the bond has no parallel in the world; God has made the union sacred by blessing it. 2. Separation is not to be final. The cause of separation (ill-treatment, &c.) may or may not be sufficient to justify it, but it must not be regarded as severing the tie. The wife must remain unmarried, or she must be reconciled to her husband. The latter is the desirable course, inasmuch as husband and wife cannot go apart without scandal to the Christian name. Let them reconsider their position, and remove every barrier to union. II. Where one party is Christian and the other heathen. Christ had given no utterance on mixed marriages, and therefore Paul gives his inspired judgment regarding them. Consider the case where--1. The unbelieving partner is content to remain. The Christian spouse is not to seek a separation as if the marriage were unholy (1 Corinthians 7:14). The apostle does not mean that an unbeliever by conjugal union with a believer becomes personally holy; but that he or she is consecrated. As the altar sanctifies the gift (Matthew 23:19), so the Christian reflects something of his character on everything connected with him. His property, business, family, are all in a sense holy as belonging to one who is in covenant with God, and are under His special protection. Hence the pagan partner is a privileged person on the ground of union with a Christian. The reason is significant (1 Corinthians 7:14). It was an accepted maxim that the children of such marriages were born within the Church. This principle was recognised among the Jews, as the case of Timothy shows (Acts 16:1-3). If, then, the children of such marriage are reckoned holy, the marriage from which they spring cannot be inconsistent with the law of God (Romans 11:6 and conversely). The children take their standing from the Christian parent, who is regarded as the nobler of the two. 2. The unbelieving partner refuses to remain. In this case the Christian is to acquiesce. For-- (1) He or she “ is not under bondage” (1 Corinthians 7:15). The marriage is not to be dissolved at the instance of the believing partner; but if the other refuses to remain, the contract is no longer binding. It would be a case of bondage if the one were held to a union which the other has wilfully broken up. (2) “ God hath called us in peace.” The gospel is not intended to produce strife; but if this be the result of the heathen partner continuing to dwell with the Christian, it were better to let him have his wish. (3) The Christian partner is not to prevent the departure of the other in the hope of being instrumental to conversion. This is at best uncertain, and peace is not to be hazarded therefore. And if such a union is not to be maintained for the sake of a possible conversion, much less is it to be contracted with that view. Conclusion: 1. This passage is generally adduced as the Bible warrant for the view that wilful desertion is a sufficient reason for divorce. Such desertion is a de facto rupture of the marriage bond, and stands on the same footing as adultery. 2. The evil of mixed marriages. They-- (1) Render the complete fellowship of husband and wife impossible.(2) Break up domestic peace.(3) Prevent family religion.(4) Interfere with the religious training of children. (H. Bremner, B. D.)Christian casuistry 1. St. Paul makes a distinction between those things which he speaks by commandment and by permission; between what he says as being taught of God, and that which he speaks only as a servant, “ called of the Lord and faithful.” 2. It is plain that there are many questions in which right and wrong are fixed; while there are others where these terms depend on circumstances, e.g., there may be circumstances in which it is the duty of a Christian to be married, and others remain unmarried. In the case of a missionary it may be right to be married; in the case of a pauper, unable to maintain a family, it may be proper to remain unmarried. No fixed law can be laid down upon this subject. 3. These, therefore, are questions of casuistry, which depend upon the particular case: from which “ casuistry” is derived. On these points the apostle speaks not by commandment, but by permission. This distinction is not between inspired and uninspired, but between a decision in matters of Christian duty, and advice in matters of Christian prudence. God cannot give advice; He can only issue a command. When we come to advice the human element is introduced. 4. There are three main questions on which the apostle here gives his inspired decision. I. Concerning the sanctity of the marriage bond between two Christians (1 Corinthians 7:10).1. Of all earthly unions almost this is the only one permitting of no change but that of death. It is that engagement in which man exerts his most awful and solemn power--that of parting with his freedom. And yet it is perhaps that relationship which is spoken of and entered into most carelessly. It is not an union merely between two creature, but between two spirits; and the intention of that bond is to perfect the nature of both, by giving to each sex those excellences in which it is naturally deficient. 2. There is no earthly relationship which has so much power to ennoble (1 Corinthians 7:16). The very power of saving belongs to it, and that of ruin too. For there are two rocks on which the soul must either anchor or be wrecked. The one is the “ Rock of Ages,” on which if the human soul anchors, it lives the blessed life of faith; against which if the soul be dashed, there ensues atheism--the worst ruin of the soul. The other rock is of another character. Blessed is the man or woman whose life-experience has taught a confiding belief in the excellences of the sex opposite to their own. And the ruin is second only to perdition. And it is the worst of these alternatives which the young risk when they form an inconsiderate union, and which parents risk when they bring up their children with no higher view than that of a rich and honourable marriage. II. The sanctity of the marriage bond between a Christian and a heathen.1. The question arose, Is not the marriage null and void? As if it were an union between one dead and one living. And that perpetual contact with a heathen, and therefore an enemy of God, is not that defilement? The apostle decides this with his usual inspired wisdom--the marriage bond is sacred still (1 Corinthians 7:12-13). 2. Now for us the decision is not of so much importance as the reason in support of it, which amounts to this: If this were no marriage, but an unhallowed alliance, it would follow that the offspring could not be the children of God; but it is the instinctive conviction of every Christian parent, “ My child is a child of God,” or, in the Jewish form of expression, “ My child is clean” (1 Corinthians 7:14). It follows if the children are holy in this sense of dedicated to God, then the marriage relation was not unhallowed, but sacred and indissoluble. The value of this argument in the present day depends on its relation to baptism. This question is whether we are baptized because we are the children of God, or, whether we are the children of God because we are baptized. Here the apostle’ s argument is unanswerable. He does not say that these children were Christian, or clean, because they were baptized, but because they were the children of one Christian parent. 3. Observe also the important truth which comes out collaterally from this argument--namely, the sacredness of impression, which arises from the close connection between parent and child. Possibly from the very first moments of consciousness we begin to impress ourselves on our children. There is scarcely one here who cannot trace back his religious character to some impression from one or other of his parents--a tone, a look, a word, a habit, or even, it may be, a bitter exclamation of remorse. III. Existing relations (1 Corinthians 7:17; 1 Corinthians 7:20; 1 Corinthians 7:24). Christian men were to remain in them, and in them to develop the Christian life. Paul applies this principle in two ways.1. Ecclesiastically (1 Corinthians 7:18). The Jews, after their conversion, were to continue Jews, if they would. Christianity required no change in these outward things. Paul circumcised Timothy, and used Jewish customs. It was not the duty of a Christian to overthrow the Jewish system, but to throw into it a Christian feeling. Let us apply this to modern duties. The great desire among men now appears to be to alter, and so have perfect institutions, as if they would make perfect men. Mark the difference between this feeling and that of the apostle (verse 20). No man will get true rest for his soul in these days of controversy, until he has learned the significance of these wise words. 2. Civilly--to that relationship which, of all others, was the most difficult to harmonise with Christianity--slavery (verse 21). Recollect-- (1) That Christianity had made much way among slaves. No wonder that they embraced with joy a religion which taught the dignity of the human soul, and declared that rich and poor, master and slave, were equal in the sight of God. And yet it was to be feared lest men should be tempted to compel their masters and oppressors to do them right. (2) That all this occurred in an age in which slavery had reached its worst and most fearful form. And yet fearful as it was, the apostle says, “ Care not for it.” And hence we understand the way in which Christianity was to work. No doubt it will at length abolish slavery, war, &c., but there is not one case where we find Christianity interfering with institutions, as such: Onesimus Paul sent back to his master, but he told him of a higher feeling that would make him free with the shackle upon his arm. And so it was possible for the Christian then, as it is now, to be possessed of the highest liberty even under tyranny. It many times occurred that Christian men found themselves placed under an unjust government, and compelled to pay unjust taxes. The Son of Man showed His freedom not by refusing, but by paying them. His glorious liberty could do so without any feeling of degradation. Conclusion: It is possible from all this to draw a most inaccurate conclusion. Some men have spoken of Christianity as if it was entirely indifferent about public questions. This indifference is not to be found in the Apostle Paul. While he asserts that inward liberty is the only true liberty, he still goes on to say, “ If thou mayest be free use it rather.” Christianity gave to the slave the feeling of his dignity as a man, at the same time it gave to the Christian master a new view of his relation to his slave, and taught him to regard him “ not now as a servant, but a brother beloved.” And so by degrees slavery passed into freed servitude, and freed servitude, under God’ s blessing, may pass into something else. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)But to the rest speak I, not the Lord.--Paul’ s inspiration The distinction here is not between his uninspired and inspired commands. If we say that he usually writes under Divine inspiration, but that when he speaks about celibacy it fails him, to return suddenly when he enters on the question of divorce, again to desert him when he writes on the case of mixed marriages, inspiration becomes at once(1) arbitrary, because there is nothing in the nature of the subjects to account for the difference; and (2) mechanical, because it comes and goes independently of the writer’ s mental activity. The explanation is that on the question of divorce Christ had legislated (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9); but on the other questions gave no direct decision. The question of divorce touches the inmost nature of marriage, as it was instituted by God at the beginning, and afterwards connected by Christianity with the union between Christ and the Church. For this reason Christ, as the Divine lawgiver, rescinded the Mosaic permission to divorce for other causes than adultery, and restored the original idea of marriage. Paul never dared to rescind a law of Moses. Yet the apostle draws various inferences from the words of Christ. One distinction between the teaching of Christ and of His apostles must necessarily be that Christ always commands. He never arrived at a conclusion through a process of reasoning, much less discussed a question and left it unanswered. This absolute certitude is essential in the revelation of central principles. But it would be destructive of all that is valuable in human effort if it extended to the minute details of life; if it decided beforehand every possible case of conscience, and reduced our moral activity to a mechanical conformity with unswerving and merely authoritative regulations. The danger attaches to all books of casuistry; but in a book accepted by the doubting conscience as containing Divinely-inspired casuistry, the effect is fatal. The writings of the apostles abound, on the other hand, in argument and inference, which sometimes end in practical decisions, sometimes only in the expression of an opinion. The decision is often left to the enlightened conscience of the spiritual man (cf. verse 25). But apart from the teaching of Christ, the fons et origo of revelation, the inspiration of the apostles would have been an altogether different thing from what it is. We need not suppose that Christ gave the apostle an immediate revelation on the question of divorce. The general tradition of the Early Church and the narrative in the Acts points to an intimate connection between Paul and Luke. Indeed, our Lord’ s doctrine on that subject was in that age singular, and cannot fail to have been known among Christians throughout the world. (Principal Edwards.) 1 Corinthians 7:14-16 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife.The sanctification of an unbelieving partner The Christian wife lays her heathen husband upon the altar of God; and in all her intercourse with him acts as God’ s servant, striving ever to accomplish His purposes. Therefore, whatever the husband may be in himself, he, in the subjective world of her thought and life, is a holy object; and her treatment of him is a sacrifice to God. Such intercourse cannot defile. Therefore his heathenism is not in itself a reason for separation. (Prof. Beet.)The sanctification of mixed marriage relations The unbelieving husband (or wife) is externally sanctified. His status is a hallowed one. For he dwells no longer in the profane and godless world, but stands upon the sacred threshold of the Church. Both he and his wife are in God’ s commonwealth: she incorporated, he merely attached; hers is a dedication of self, his a consecration of position; his surroundings only are hallowed; brought oat of darkness he is in the light, but the light is not in him. United to a saintly consort he is in daily contact with saintly conduct; holy association may become holy assimilation, and the sanctity which ever environs may at last penetrate; for it is drop upon drop that hollows the rock and makes it a cistern; the circumstances are such that the man’ s will may be reached by God’ s grace, which by a Divine law moves in the sphere of theocratic consecration. But the man’ s conversion is not a condition necessary to the sanctity of the subsisting conjugal union. This being so, the children being the offspring of a hallowed union are themselves hallowed, i.e., in a position meet for dedication to God’ s service in Holy Baptism. It is not easy to sound the deeper sense of this. We may imagine three concentric circles: the innermost circle of spiritual light, environed by a margin of theocratic twilight, the suburbs of the city of God; embracing this twofold sphere is the immense margin of outer cosmic darkness. Better the twilight than the outer darkness, for it is a state of hope and transition from the bad to the good, and one that furnishes opportunities of grace, and makes salvation accessible. The deeper causes of these boundary lines lie in the secret laws of the Divine government of the universe, and in the unknown partition of mundane realms among angels and spirits, good and evil. (Canon Evans.)For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?--The conversion of an unbelieving husband or wife 1. Especially concerns those to whom they are united by marriage ties.2. Should be intensely desired.3. Should be earnestly attempted.4. Confidently hoped for.5. Thankfully acknowledged. (J. Lyth. D. D.)Advice to a pious wife A lady in Germany, who was a sincere follower of ChriSt, but whose husband was still unrenewed, was very much afflicted on his account, and told a clergyman that she had done all in her power in persuading and beseeching him to turn from his evil practices, to no effect. “ Madam,” said he, “ talk more to God about your husband, and less to your husband about God.” A few weeks after, the lady called upon him, full of joy that her prayers to God had been heard, and that a change was wrought upon her husband. Earthly relationships sanctified to heavenly uses There were several weighty reasons why a Christian husband or wife should not leave an unbeliever partner; and the same hold good to-day.1. An obligation has been undertaken from which only flagrant immorality can liberate either party. 2. Children may have been born during the union whose welfare depends upon its continuance. 3. Affection may have sprung up which it would be an outrage to check. 4. The continuance of the union may make the Christian the minister of spiritual blessing to the unconverted consort. I. An attractive representation may be furnished of the Christian character. Moral excellence, as presented in the Bible or any other book, or from the pulpit, is far less impressive than when, embodied in a life, it speaks from the domestic hearth: Some virtues are peculiarly Christian, and their exhibition is likely to give rise to the inquiry, What is the secret of such a life? How many a husband has been won to Christ by his wife! II. An unconscious influence may be exercised. Who can know, unmoved, that a dear consort is seeking his spiritual welfare? There is a tone imparted to the intercourse of daily life by the habit of prayer. And there is a dignity, gentleness, and spirituality of manner and language which cannot fail to be observed and to have due effect. III. An opportunity is given for express persuasion which may issue in spiritual good. In many instances it is unwise to make formal effort; it may be better to leave religion to tell its own tale and do its own work. But Providence not unfrequently will open the way for effort. There are few ministers who could not tell of instances in which God has blessed the effort of husband or wife so that both have become heirs together of the grace of life. Yet all this being said, the mere hope of exerting such influence should never lead to an unequal union. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.) 1 Corinthians 7:17-24 But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. Every Christian at his post 1. God appoints every man his station and condition in life.2. Has called him in it.3. Requires him faithfully to fulfil its duties.4. Allows of no exception unless when compliance is sinful. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The dignity of the true Christian He rises above the circumstances-- I. Of caste.1. Externals are nothing.2. Only conformity to the will of God gives true dignity. II. Of station.1. As a servant he is free; serving God in his calling, contented to leave the improvement of his position to Divine Providence, rejoicing in the liberty of Christ. 2. As free he is unaffected by external advantage, and glories in being a servant of Christ. III. Of human servility.1. He is redeemed by Christ.2. Therefore not the servant of man.3. Can in every condition abide with God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)True contentment I. Respects--1. Our religious privileges.2. Our earthly condition. II. Arises out of the conviction--1. That we are redeemed.2. Can serve Christ.3. Enjoy fellowship with God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The true freedom and dependence of every Christian I. His true freedom.1. From an over-estimate of externals.2. From pride of condition and false shame.3. From servility.4. In the service of Christ. II. His true dependence.1. He knows that self-dependence is impossible.2. Regards himself as Christ’ s property.3. Accounts it his highest honour to abide in God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised.-- The external and the real in religion 1. God calls us without any reference to our former condition.2. Puts no value upon religious externals.3. Requires holiness of heart and life.4. Hence anxiety about mere forms is reprehensible. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Why Christians should be contented with their circumstances 1. External circumstances are of no importance in the sight of God (1 Corinthians 7:18-19).2. God overrules them for our advantage (1 Corinthians 7:20-22).3. By seeking to change them we may easily forget Christ and become the servants of men (1 Corinthians 7:23-24). (J. Lyth, D. D.)Circumcision is nothing … but keeping the commandments of God.-- Forms versus character (text, Galatians 5:6; Galatians 6:15):--The great controversy which embittered Paul’ s life turned upon the question whether a heathen could come into the Church by the door of faith, or of circumcision. Time, which settles all controversies, has settled that. But the principles are eternal, though the forms vary with every varying age. The Ritualist and the Puritan represent permanent tendencies of human nature. These three passages are Paul’ s deliverance on the question of the comparative value of external rites and spiritual character. Note--I. The emphatic proclamation of the nullity of outward rites.1. Circumcision neither is anything nor does anything. Paul speaks about baptism, in chap. 1., in a precisely similar tone and for precisely the same reason. (1) Forms have their value. A man prays all the better if he bow his head, &c. Forms help us to the realisation of the truths which they express. Music may waft our souls to the heavens, and pictures may stir deep thoughts. (2) But then external rights tend to usurp more than belongs to them, and in our weakness we are apt, instead of using them as means to lift us higher, to stay in them, and to mistake the mere gratification of taste and the excitement of the sensibilities for worship, if there be as much form as will embody the spirit, that is all that we want. What is more is dangerous. All form in worship is like fire, it is a good servant but it is a bad master. Now, when men say about Christian rites that they are necessary, then it is needful to take up Paul’ s ground and to say, “ No! they are nothing!” If you say that grace is miraculously conveyed through them, then it is needful to declare their nullity for the highest purpose, that of making that spiritual character which alone is essential. 2. Uncircumcision is nothing. It is very hard for a man who has been delivered from the dependence upon forms not to fancy that his formlessness is what the other people think that their forms are. The Puritan who does not believe that a man can be a good man because he is a Ritualist or a Roman Catholic, is committing the very same error as the Ritualist or the Roman Catholic. There may be as much idolatry in reliance upon the bare worship as the ornate; and many a Nonconformist who fancies that he has “ never bowed the knee to Baal” is as true an idol-worshipper as the men who trust in Ritualism. II. The threefold variety of the designation of essentials.1. By “ keeping the commandments” the apostle does not mean merely external obedience, but conformity to the will of God. That is the perfection of a man’ s nature, when his will fits on to God’ s like one of Euclid’ s triangles superimposed upon another, and line for line coincides. When his will allows a free passage to the will of God, without resistance or deflection, as light travels through transparent glass; when his will responds to the touch of God’ s fingers upon the keys, like the telegraphic needle to the operator’ s hand, then man has attained all that God and religion can do for him, all that his nature is capable of; and’ far beneath his feet may be the ladders of ceremonies and forms and outward acts by which he climbed to that serene and blessed height. 2. But I can fancy a man saying, “ That is all very well, but how can I attain to that? “ Well, take Galatians 6:15. If we are ever to keep the will of God we must be made over again. Our own consciences and the history of all the efforts that ever we have made, tell us that there needs to be a stronger hand than ours to come into the fight if it is ever to be won by us. But in that word, “ a new creature,” lies a promise from God; for a creature implies a Creator. We may have our spirits moulded into His likeness, and new tastes, desires, and capacities infused into us, so as that we shall not be left with our own poor powers to try and force ourselves into obedience to God’ s will, but that submission and holiness, and love that keeps the commandments of God, will spring up in our renewed spirits as their natural product and growth. 3. And so we come to Galatians 5:6. If we are to be made over again, we must have faith in Christ. We have got to the root now. External rites cannot make men partakers of a new nature. He that trusts Christ opens his heart to Christ, who comes with His new-creating Spirit, and makes us willing in the day of His power to keep His commandments; and faith shows itself living, because it leads us to love, and through love it produces its effects upon conduct. The keeping of the commandments will be easy where there is love in the heart. The will will bow where there is love in the heart. Paul and James shake hands here. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)The one threefold essential As with all deeply earnest men, the teaching of St. Paul grew out of the special events of his life. The crisis called out the struggle, and the struggle called out the word of command. For some years of his life St. Paul passed through a strange experience. The man who to us is a saint, the very type of all that is most exalted, the very man who now keeps the conscience of Christendom, and of whom it is a commonplace to say, “ Follow him, as he followed Christ,” this man, while he lived, was for many years regarded by religious men, and doubtless by devout women also, as a dangerous man, as lacking true reverence in things pertaining to God, as what we might call in these days an innovator and latitudinarian. “ Circumcision,” in the eyes of St. Paul’ s opponents, was the symbol of what they reverenced and what they accused him, rightly or wrongly, of disparaging. He called himself the Apostle of the Gentiles. He turned his back on his own race and training. He seemed eager not to bridge over the chasm which separated the new from the old, but to glory in the conviction, which, indeed, in one of these four Epistles he expressly enunciated, that “ in Christ old things had passed away; behold, all things had become new.” Now, how did St. Paul bear such comments, and the consciousness that they came not only from unscrupulous partisans, but also doubtless from devout and aggrieved souls? I think we may say that among all his manifold troubles he had no heavier cross to bear than this. It led him not only to justify himself--not only in various ways and at various times to make an Apologia pro vita sua--but to dwell earnestly, solemnly, may we not also say wistfully, and with something of a holy impatience, on the real stake at issue. Why all this battling about symbols, about outward things, about the things below, instead of the things above? Circumcision and uncircumcision, symbol and no symbol, conformity with the past, or no conformity, what were they in the sight of Him who is a Spirit, and knows no difference between Gerizim and Jerusalem? The essential thing is this--the keeping of the commandments of God; faith which worketh by love; a new creature, We may regard these as three essentials, or as one essential; but here we have from a master of the spiritual life, at a time when he was attacked on every side by misrepresentation, besides that which came upon him daily, “ the care of all the churches,” an emphatic declaration of the essence of true Christianity; obedience to God’ s commands, faith working by love, a new creature. I. Whatever else may be important or unimportant in Christian teaching or discipline, this at least is essential, the keeping of the commandments of God. The expression may mean almost anything, or almost nothing, according to our rank in the school of Christ. To the ripe scholar it means almost everything. “ The keeping of the commandments of God.” “ Which be they?” “ The same which God spake in the 20th chapter of Exodus?” Yes, of course, and much more. The same which the life and death of Christ have written, not on tables of stone, but on tables of the heart and conscience. The commandments which every development of thought, every discovery or half-discovery as to the origin or the mysterious interdependence of mind and body, nay, every acceptance, general or partial, of some moral half-truth or even honest heresy, have concurred in stamping upon an enlightened conscience. Wherever the spirit of the age is in harmony with the Spirit of God, wherever the increase of thought and knowledge points to wider sympathies and enlarged fields of human service, there are fresh provinces marked out for the empire of “ the commandments of God.” To learn these commandments, to accept them with ardour and intelligence, with the mind as well as with the heart--to “ do them” ourselves and to “ teach men so” --this is one of the essentials of a true Christian faith. II. “ In Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.” We are not content, surely, that these should remain merely technical words; we would have them living forces. To St. Paul faith is that outgoing of the whole being--mind, heart, spirit--which attaches itself to a Person; believes in Him, “ clings to Him, trusts Him, worships Him; finds in His will, and even more in His assured sympathy, the plainest guarantee of duty, and cannot, even in imagination, separate itself from His presence and His indwelling. By this test may we know whether we are Christ’ s disciples. In Christ Jesus faith working through love is an essential. We cannot live without regard to Him, as though He were nothing mow to us beyond an illustrious Example. We cannot look at Him, speak of Him, criticise Him as from outside. We cannot think of Him as the citizens of a neutral power might think of the ruler or the general of some belligerent nation, sympathising perhaps in part with his policy, but still regarding it as outside their own. No! we are not outsiders. We are servants of One who has used the strongest language as to His claims upon His servants; One who has said, “ He that is not with Me is against Me” ; and again, “ Abide in Me, and I in you; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me” ; and again, “ Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” “ Faith which works by love,” perfect trust in Jesus Christ showing forth its devotion by sympathy with those whom He calls His brethren--this is life eternal; this can never disappoint, never betray the soul that trusts it. III. “ Neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” It is not easy, nay, it is morally perilous, to try to analyse, as in a laboratory, the essence of an expression wrung, one might dare to say, from the very heart, and steeped in the very life-blood of this great soldier of Christ, a “ new creature,” a “ new creation.” One thing is clear--we may interpret at least, if we hesitate to apply--that St. Paul must have meant to express by this phrase the greatest of all changes, not a mere improvement, the lopping off of a vice here, and an ambition there; not a taming down of the old wild nature under the yoke of some humanising and civilising charm: nothing so small as this, but a change comparable to a new birth, a new order of being, a new manifestation of life, with new aims, new conceptions, new ideals, new organ, new powers. To become a Christian, then, whether the change were from heathendom or Judaism, must, of course, have been something different from what it can be to the sons of Christian parents in the nineteenth century of the Christian Church, and at a place like this where the very stones are witnesses to the reforming and re-creating power of the name of Christ. But even now I venture to say that we do not know what true Christianity is unless we are able to recognise it as “ a new creature.” It is the “ new creature” which “ through peril, toil and pain,” was to “ overcome the world.” It was the “ new creature” which was to root out gradually all that was vile and refuse in humanity, and to present to Christ a changed society, worthy to be called His own bride, “ a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.” (H. M. Butler, D. D.)Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was calleth--On the choice of a profession In seasons of unusual religious excitement and earnestness men are tempted to regard all political and social distinctions, and all ordinary secular employments, as abolished or suspended. This apostolic injunction may be considered as directed in principle against a twofold form of error prevalent at such times.1. In the first place it is directed against the error of making religion a business or profession by itself, leaving us no time or thought for anything else. Who is the best Christian? Not he who makes the loudest professions of Christianity, nor he who gives the most time to thinking about it, nor yet he who best understands its principles; but he who best succeeds in applying these principles to his daily cares and duties, and in filling his place in society, whatever it may be, in a Christ-like spirit. 2. Again, the injunction in the text is directed generally, and in principle, against the kindred error of supposing that there are many lawful callings or professions in which it is impossible to lead a Christian life. More difficult it may be, but not impossible, the difficulty only enhancing the virtue which has strength and resolution enough to overcome it. On the other hand, the clerical profession, to those who are fit for it, is generally thought, in a moral and religious point of view, to promise best of all; because the special business and object of the calling coincide so entirely with what ought to be the highest business and object of us all. But here also there is difficulty and drawback, showing that the difference in the eligibility of the various professions on moral grounds is not so great as is often supposed. Where the profession is religious, the danger is that the religion will become professional. Then, too, looking merely at the effect of his labours, I believe it is often possible for a layman to do more for religion than a clergyman, from the very fact that he cannot be suspected of a professional bias or bribe. We arrive, then, at the conclusion that all the great professions are open to choice, and that there is nothing in any one of them, in itself considered, to hinder a good man in certain cases from choosing it. But it by no means follows that all professions are equally eligible in themselves; much less, that all are equally eligible to every person and under all circumstances. All are open to choice; but this does not exclude the duty of making a wise choice, as being that on which, more perhaps than on any other one thing, a man’ s usefulness and happiness will depend. Let me begin by observing, that if the time for choosing a profession has come, it is not well, as a general rule, to postpone it by unnecessary delays. If you say, your mind is unsettled; I reply, in the first place, that in practical matters the will has more to do in settling the mind than arguments; and, secondly, that the probable effect of another year spent without an object will only be to unsettle your minds still more. To enter on the practice of any profession without being duly prepared for it is, I admit, a great error; but this is a reason for beginning the preparation as soon as may be; certainly it is no reason for unnecessary delays. So much impressed was Dr. Johnson with the mischief of fickleness on this subject, that he is half inclined to recommend that every one’ s calling should be determined by his parents or guardian; at any rate, he does not hesitate to conclude, “ that of two states of life equally consistent with religion and virtue, he who chooses earliest chooses best.” Another preliminary suggestion is, that in choosing a profession we should take care not to allow too much weight to local and temporary considerations;--considerations which will have no bearing on our future progress, except perhaps to narrow and limit it. I suppose there are those who can give no better reason for being in one profession rather than another than this, that they found it easier to get into it. But certainly our success and happiness are to depend, not on our getting into a profession, but on our getting on in it; that is to say, on our being able to fill it honourably and well. I know the common excuse. It will be said, that we are often placed in circumstances where we must do, not as we would, but as we can. We talk about what we can do, and what we cannot; but, after all, this is, for the most part, an arbitrary distinction. What one man calls impossible, another man calls merely difficult; and, with minds which are made of the right sort of stuff, difficulties do not repel or dishearten; they only stimulate to new and greater efforts. Hence we conclude, that every young man owes it to himself, at any sacrifice consistent with virtue and religion, to find, as soon as may be, his proper place and calling, meaning thereby the place and calling in which, with his education and abilities, he is most likely to become useful and happy. But how is he to find it? that is the great question. I answer generally, By considering what he was made for, taking into view, at the same time, his intellectual aptitudes, and his moral needs and dangers. As regards intellectual or mental aptitudes, or what is sometimes called the natural bent of one’ s genius, two extreme opinions have found supporters, which seem to me to be almost equally removed from practical wisdom. The first is that of those who contend that a strong tendency to one profession rather than to another is to be considered; but only, that it may be crossed and overruled. Thus, if a person early manifests extraordinary talents for business and affairs, this is a reason why he should not be, by profession, a man of business and affairs, for he is enough of that already: he ought rather to go into the army or the Church, which will have the effect to call forth his latent qualities. I hardly need say that this doctrine, plausible as it may seem to some minds, is theoretically false, and practically absurd. It is theoretically false; for, though balance and harmony of character enter into the theory of what a man ought to be, these have nothing to do with an equal, or even with a proportionate development of his faculties. Moreover, to pursue this course would be practically absurd. Every man would do what he is least fitted to do; and the consequence would be, that the whole work of life would, be done in the worst possible manner and under the greatest possible disadvantages. Nor is this all; for the subject has its religious aspects. When we refer to a man’ s profession as being his vocation, or calling, we suppose him to be called. Every man is calmly and impartially to consider what he was made for, what by the constitution of his mind and character he is best fitted to become, and to look upon this as a call from God--the voice of God speaking in his own nature, which, when distinct and emphatic, he has no right to disregard. Often, however, and I suppose I may say generally, the call is not distinct and emphatic, at least as regards most professions; and this leads me to notice the other of the two extreme opinions referred to above. It consists in supposing that every man has his place, and that everything depends on his finding that particular place, a mistake here being final and fatal. No such thing. We are not born with adaptations, but with adaptabilities; and these are such in most men that they can fit themselves as well, or nearly as well, for one as another of several professions. Leaving out of view eminence in the fine arts, which seems to require at the start a peculiar nervous organisation, I do not believe there is one man in ten whom nature has endowed with aptitudes and predispositions so special and marked that he might not succeed perfectly well in any one out of several pursuits. In a large majority of cases the battle of life is won, not by natural, but by personal qualities; by those personal qualities which invite favour and inspire confidence and insure courage and persistency in whatever is undertaken. Neither your profession nor your circumstances, but the quick eye, and the strong arm, and the iron will must work out for you the great problem of life. These qualities, however, are little better than brute force, unless inspired and directed by a high moral purpose; and this high moral purpose little better than a breath of air, unless it rests on religious faith; and this religious faith “ unstable as water,” unless accepted as the revealed will of God. “ For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (J. Walker, D. D.)Abide in your calling, if it is an honest one.1. It is God’ s own appointment.2. God has blessed you in it. 3. It can be no impediment to a holy life.4. Affords ample scope for the development of Christian character.5. May be dignified by fidelity. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Christianity universally applicable It is-- I. Adapted to every rank and condition. II. Interferes with no honest calling, but rather alleviates, dignifies, and makes it subservient to the noblest ends. III. Teaches universal contentment.1. In the recognition of the Divine will.2. By the enjoyment of the Divine blessing. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Art thou called, being a servant? The Christian slave I. His privilege--called. II. His duty--contentment. III. His emancipation--a lawful object of ambition. (J. Lyth, D. D.)True liberty I. Does not consist in independence.1. A slave may be free.2. The freeman a slave. II. It consists in the subjection of the heart to Christ who--1. Makes the hardest service freedom.2. Subjects the freest will by the force of love. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gospel 1. Emancipates the slave.2. Captivates the free. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The common lot the best sphere In the “ Records” of Dr. Raleigh’ s Life we meet with some striking thoughts suggested while he journeyed in Palestine. The following remarks are interesting and instructive: “ It seems strange that events so great should transpire in a geographical area so small. Palestine is not much larger than Wales, to which, in some parts, it is not unlike, and not only is it small, but rugged, even what men call ‘ common.’ Some travellers come back almost oppressed with the commonness of what they have seen. God does not need much earthly space, nor that the little should be of what men esteem the best, on which to prepare the scenes of the great drama, historical and celestial, which has been there unfolded. He does not want a continent with far-stretching plains and ship-bearing rivers. He wants only a strip of land running along the sea shore; a confused mass of mountain and high land and plain; a single river of moderate size, a lake, and a Dead Sea. Only so much--and the great drama may go on which has already culminated in a tragedy, and which is destined, on some future day, to end in a world-wide triumph. God has repeated that type and method of action often. Egypt is a river-bed. Greece is little else than rock and sea. Montenegro is an eagle’ s nest. Grandly the Divine action shows against a background of plainness! Beautifully the Divine idea is worked out in scenes of common life! The fisherman in his boat on the sea; the shepherd leading his flock along the hillside; sisters dwelling in a brother’ s house in a village--these, and such as these, are the characters illuminated for ever for the instruction of all the world. What can we do better than construct our life, and seek to have it inspired after the model of God’ s own action? Do our souls begin to hanker after the fat pastures, the broad acres, the rich estate, the ample, well-furnished house? And do we dislike the commonness, the ruggedness through which we must work our way? We are wrong, we need much less than we are apt to imagine, we must correct our ideal. We need only foothold--room to begin. We do not need selected and auspicious circumstances--we need just such as come. We may take the commonness and glorify it by our temper and spirit. We may vanquish the hardships of life by courage and industry, and fill all its scenes with a gentle and noble simplicity. We may put righteousness into it, strong as the bars of the mountains round about Jerusalem, and love in the heart of it, rising ever more like the waters of Shiloah, and so all our life will be a Holy Land.” For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’ s freeman.--Deliverance from slavery I. The bondage supposed by the gospel, and which calls for its interference. It is a bondage--1. In which all are born. 2. Produced and perpetuated by an awfully evil agency from without. Satan exercises his dominion in a secret way, by adapting it to our own perverted inclinations. He moves us, not violently, but by means of exciting in a natural way, our depraved powers and propensities. 3. Toilsome and painful, profitless and punishable. II. The nature of that freedom from it, which the gospel effects in the case of all its converts. Every such one is “ the Lord’ s freeman” Of this freedom the Lord Jesus is the author. He is the meritorious cause of its being bestowed; the agent of effecting it by His Spirit, and the leader of all who partake of it. It is a freedom of three steps and degrees,1. It is a deliverance from the rightful power and custody of Satan. (1) Our bondage, because voluntary, is our crime. Satan does not force, but only draws, and we obey. Hence guilt is contracted, and guilt renders us amenable to the Divine justice. Thus guilt brings us under condemnation, and gives Satan a rightful power and custody over us, as the permitted executioner of the Divine displeasure. Such a power the law gives a jailer over the prisoner under sentence. (2) This is the state of which we are made aware when convinced of sire Nor can we think of any plea for mitigating or removing the sentence of Divine justice. Finding ourselves in this dilemma, we are prepared for the revelation of Divine mercy. Jesus steps forth as an Almighty Deliverer. We see Him in the gospel offering His life, paying it into the hands of justice as a ransom for the deliverance of sinners. But this deliverance must be sued by us, accompanied with a reference by faith to the great ransom presented. Then it becomes applied, and we are set free. (3) Our sentence being cancelled, Satan loses his rightful power over us. He retains his vexing, tempting, accusing power; but his right is g, no. By the removal of condemnation we are taken out of his custody for ever (Romans 8:1). 2. It is a deliverance from inbred sin, by means of new and holy tastes, inclinations, and principles. The faith by which we obtain deliverance from guilt and the power of Satan is a holy principle. There is a law in the mind now, stronger than the law of sin in the members, and overcoming its dictates (Romans 8:2). 3. It is a freedom of acting and moving in a noble and elevated condition. The converted person is the Lord’ s freeman. He serves Him in obeying His laws, reverencing His institutions, cherishing His image, cultivating His worship, and promoting His glory. This service is perfect freedom. It is the soul moving in its proper element, and feeling the pleasure which every creature enjoys so moving. Conclusion:1. Observe the noble character of Christianity. 2. Those who are partakers of the spiritual freedom of the gospel have three appropriate exercises allotted to them. (1) They should promote the natural and civil freedom of men, according to the dictates of the gospel, and in its spirit. The genius of the gospel is opposed to bondage and vassalage of every kind. (2) By teaching men in the highest ranks to be just, they can hold none of their fellow-creatures in slavish and ignominious subjection. The reign of Christianity, therefore, must be productive of liberty. (3) Anticipate for yourselves the liberty of heaven, and exult in the prospect. Your freedom is here only begun. You shall enter into full redemption. (J. Leifchild, D. D.)Liberty and slavery The ideas are antithetical; they therefore explain each other. We cannot understand the liberty spoken of until we understand the bondage, and vice versa. Liberty is not freedom from restraint or authority. No creature is thus free. All rational beings are under the authority of reason and right. And as these are in infinite subjection to God, all creatures are under absolute subjection to Him. And this is the highest liberty. Consider-- I. Man’ s servile state,1. In renouncing subjection to God man lost his liberty and became-- (1) The slave of sin. This subjection is bondage because-- (a) It has no right to rule. It does not belong to our normal state, and is inconsistent with the end of being. (b) It is independent of the will. We cannot throw it off. (2) The slave of the law. He is under the obligation of satisfying its demands or of bearing its penalty. This-- (a) Is inexorable. (b) Reveals itself in the conscience. (c) Produces the slavish spirit--fear and anxious looking for of judgment. (3) The slave of Satan. We are in his power, subject to his control. 2. This subjection manifests itself in various ways. (1) It destroys the balance and power of the soul. (2) Not being subject to God, and being unable to guide itself, it submits to the world and public opinion, and to the priesthood and the Church. II. Man’ s free state. Christ is our Redeemer, and the author of our liberty. They only are truly free whom He makes free. He frees us--1. From condemnation. Until this is done nothing is done. A man in prison under sentence of death must be freed or he cannot be delivered from other evils. 2. From the law or the obligation of fulfilling its demands. 3. From the authority and power of Satan (Hebrews 2:14-15). 4. From the reigning power of sin. 5. From a slavish spirit. 6. From all undue subjection to men. (1) By bringing the reason under subjection to His truth we are freed from their authority as to doctrine. (2) As we are subject to Him alone, as to the conscience, we cannot be subject to any other authority in deciding what is morally right or wrong. (3) As we have through Him deliverance from condemnation and acceptance with God, we are free from the priesthood. (4) As all we do is done in obedience to Him, lawful subjection to men is part of our liberty. (C. Hodge, D. D.)Slaves and free This remarkable saying occurs in a remarkable connection, and is used for a remarkable purpose. The apostle has been laying down the principle that the effect of true Christianity is greatly to diminish the importance of outward circumstance. Paul says, “ You will better yourself by getting nearer God, and if you secure that--art thou a slave? care not for it; if thou mayest be free, use it rather. Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed? seek not to be bound. Art thou circumcised? seek not to be uncircumcised. Never mind about externals: the main thing is our relation to Jesus Christ, because in that there is what will be compensation for all the disadvantages of circumstances.” I. First, then, note how, according to the one-half of the antithesis, Christ’ s freed men are slaves. Now the way in which the New Testament deals with that awful wickedness of a man held in bondage by a man is extremely remarkable. It might seem as if such a hideous piece of immorality were altogether incapable of yielding any lessons of good, But the apostles have no hesitation whatever in taking slavery as a clear picture of the relation in which all Christian people stand to Jesus Christ their Lord. He is the owner and we are the slaves. And all the ugly associations which gather round the word are transported bodily into the Christian region, and there, instead of being hideous, take on a shape of beauty, and become expressions of the most blessed truths. And what is the centre idea that lies in this metaphor, if you like to call it so? It is this: absolute authority, which has for its correlative--for the thing in us that answers to it--unconditional submission. Jesus Christ has the perfect right to command each of us, and we are bound to bow ourselves, unreluctant, unmurmuring, unhesitating, with complete submission at His feet. And His authority, and our submission, go far, far deeper than the most despotic sway of the most tyrannous master, or than the most abject submission of the most downtrodden slave. For no man can coerce another man’ s will, and no man can require more, or can ever get more, than the outward obedience, which may be rendered with the most sullen and fixed rebellion of a hating heart and obstinate will. Absolute submission is not all that makes a disciple, but depend upon it there is no discipleship worth calling by the name without it. Bow your obstinate wills, surrender yourselves and accept Him as absolute, dominant Lord over your whole being! Are you Christians after that pattern? Being freemen, are you Christ’ s slaves? What does it matter what you and I are set to do? Nothing! And so why need we struggle and wear our hearts out to get into conspicuous places, or to do work that shall bring some revenue of praise and glory to ourselves? “ Play well thy part; there all the honour lies,” the world can say. Serve Christ in anything, and it is all alike in His sight. The slave-owner had absolute power of life and death over his dependents. He could split up families; he could sell away dear ones; he could part husband and wife, parent and child. And Jesus Christ, the Lord of the household, the Lord of providence, can say to this one, “ Go! “ and he goes into the mists and shadows of death. And He could say to those that are most closely united, “ Loose your hands! I have need of one of you yonder. I have need of the other one here.” And if we are wise, if we are His servants in any real deep sense, we shall not kick against the appointments of His supreme and yet most loving providence. The slave-owner owned all that the slave owned. He gave him a little cottage, with some humble sticks of furniture in it, and a bit of ground on which to grow his vegetables for his family. But he to whom the owner of the vegetables and the stools belonged owned them too. And if we are Christ’ s servants, our banker’ s book is Christ’ s, and our purse is Christ’ s, and our investments are Christ’ s; and our mills, and our warehouses, and our shops, and our businesses are His. We are not His slaves if we arrogate to ourselves the right of doing what we like with His possessions. And then, still further, there comes into our apostle’ s picture here yet another point of resemblance between slaves and the disciples of Jesus. For what follows my text immediately is, “ Ye are bought with a price.” Jesus Christ has won us for Himself. There is only one price that can buy a heart, and that is a heart. There is only one way of getting a man to be mine, and that is by giving myself to be his. And so we come to the very vital, palpitating centre of all Christianity when we say, “ He gave Himself for us, that He might acquire to Himself a people for His possession.” The one bright point in the hideous institution of slavery was that it bound the master to provide for the slave, and though that was degrading to the inferior, it made his life a careless, childlike, merry life, even amidst the many cruelties and abominations of the system. If I am Christ’ s slave it is His business to take care of His own property, and I do not need to trouble myself much about it. II. Then there is the other side, about which I must say, secondly, a word or two; and that is, the freedom of Christ’ s slaves. As the text puts it, he that is called, being a servant, is the Lord’ s freedman. A freeman was one who was emancipated, and who therefore stood in a relation of gratitude to his emancipator and patron. So in the very word “ freedman” there is contained the idea of submission to Him who has struck off the fetters. I do not forget how wisdom and truth, and noble aims, and high purposes, and culture of various kinds have, in lower degrees and partially, emancipated men from self and flesh and sin and the world and all the other fetters that bind us. But sure I am that the process is never so completely and so assuredly effected as by the simple way of absolute submission to Jesus Christ, taking Him for the supreme and unconditional Arbiter and Sovereign of a life. If we do that, if we really yield ourselves to Him, in heart and will, in life and conduct, submitting our understanding to His infallible Word, and our wills to His authority, regulating our conduct by His perfect pattern, and in all things seeking to serve Him, and to realise His presence, then be sure of this, we shall be set free from the one real bondage, and that is the bondage of our own wicked selves. There is no such tyranny as mob tyranny; and there is no such slavery as to be ruled by the mob of our own passions and lusts. And that is the only way by which a man can be delivered from the bondage of dependence upon outward things. Christian faith does so, because it brings into a life a sufficient compensation for all losses, limitations, and sorrows, and a good which is the reality of which all earthly goods are but shadows. So the slave may be free in Christ, and the poor man may be rich in Him, and the sad man may be joyful, and the joyful man may be delivered from excess of gladness, and the rich man kept from the temptations and sins of wealth, and the freeman taught to surrender his liberty to the Lord who makes him free. And if we are the servants of Christ we shall be set free, in the measure in which we are His, from the slavery which daily becomes more oppressive as the means of communication become more complete, the slavery to popular opinion, and to men round about us. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Freedom through Christ Freedom! What a word! It has in it the music of the trumpet and psaltery, the harp, the loud cymbals and the high sounding cymbals of heaven and earth! I. Ambition speaks out boldly. Feeling fettered by our present lot, our poverty, hard toil, obscure position and such like, we indulge the animus of discontent, pine to rise above penury, grinding toil and isolation. Independence affirms that freedom is her legitimate offspring. The boy at home, curbed in many ways, feels under restraint and dreams of liberty. And this spirit of reckless independence belongs to us all. One of our ruling passions is a desire to be our own master--to do as we like--set up on our own account--throw off all Divine control. II. But some will say, to be free is to be educated. There is but one thing needed, we are told, to roll back the dark cloud of bondage from the race and cause the stars of liberty to stud every man’ s blue vault, viz., intelligence. Give the people a profound learning, a broad culture, and you give them freedom. All will concede the great blessing of education and the utter impossibility of lifting men up without it. But it must be borne in mind that never yet have a people been made free, m any true sense, by mere intellectual culture, however profound. I appeal to Greece of old, with her high scholarship represented by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and to France in modern history with her Voltaire, Diderot, Beaumarchais, and Rousseau. After all their learning, Greece ended in corruption, and France in the horrors of revolution. Examples we have of men, bound in hand and foot and heart by chains of vice and ill-formed habits, bearing the most crushing yoke of bondage, yet highly educated in the sense in which the term is here used. Julius Caesar was a great scholar, but he borrowed money, which he never paid back, to bribe the people in election times, and he made common traffic of female virtues. Aristotle was profoundly educated, but he classed working men with brutes, and made lewdness in woman excusable so long as she thereby accumulated wealth. Cardinal de Richelieu was one of the brightest intellectual stars of his age, yet he lived an immoral life, being a helpless slave to intemperance and uncleanness. And what are we to say of the defaulters, rogues, impostors, and backsliders from integrity so numerous in our midst and all over the country? Looking at the facts of the case, is it not the wildest absurdity to speak of education as the ultimate source of freedom? III. Once more, government aspires to be the true liberator of the race. Now it is an absolute monarchy for which the high claim is made, now limited monarchy, now an oligarchy, now a republic. In the name of freedom has every government of earth been set up. From the capitals of all the States and the seats of power of all nations has floated the silken banner of freedom. But oh, how often the breezes that have carried out these folds from the flag-staff have brought to the people themselves a pestilence of corruption, self-seeking, intrigue, and imperialism--bondage in its worst forms! IV. Over against government, education, ambition, vaunting independence, and every other such thing, I place the declaration of the old sage of Tarsus as the only real source of true freedom: “ For he that is called of the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’ s freeman.” When a man is called of Jesus Christ into His kingdom as a regenerated soul through the power of the Holy Spirit, such an one is free, has come into possession of that liberty which knows no trammels save what his duty to God and to man puts upon him. “ Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” But what is the freedom here taught? First of all, it is from sin. The essential element of all servitude and degradation and bone and heart crushing forces is sin. Here, then, is the first thing from which Jesus Christ gives freedom. But Christ in the soul not only emancipates from the polluting and condemning power of sin, but secures for us the joy and exercise of the highest freedom, notwithstanding the most hampering earthly circumstances. Paul had in mind this thought. He was thinking about what the gospel did even for slaves. In short, Paul says: “ It makes no difference what your calling is or what your circumstances are; if Christ is in you, you are a free man, and your duty is to serve Him.” How this argument rebuts what many affirm, that they cannot be Christians because of their peculiar lot in life; or they cannot serve the Lord because the state of their affairs will not permit them. Some plead poverty as an excuse for not being Christians, or for taking no part in the service of Christ and the work of the Church. Not a few say they have no time for these things. Others again parade the wrong-doing of others, the hindrances placed in their way, it may be, by domestic infelicities. Over against this, the Scriptures declare that the grace of God is sufficient to save us, no matter what our lot or fortune may be, and being saved, we are, therefore, free men in Christ, and hence His servants. Art thou called being a slave--a poor person, a man crushed with cares and toil, a heart-broken husband or wife, mother or father--care nothing for it. Remember that God is greater than adverse circumstances, and He can straighten every one of them and make you free to enjoy and serve Him. Nothing is any more a thraldom when the soul has been born into the light and liberty of the gospel. With this liberty comes the duty of serving the Lord--a duty which is never irksome, but always a glorious delight, as all obligations springing out of a sense of true freedom ever are. “ He that is called, being free, is Christ’ s servant.” My text also involves freedom from all ecclesiastical trammels and sectarian and denominational rigidities. Not that we are to condemn Church forms and laws and observances, but these are not to hamper us in our service of Christ or, in any way, keep us from the largest possible usefulness. Then, too, political freedom is found in Christ. “ Of one thing I am convinced,” remarked a Brahmin, “ do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christian’ s Bible that will work the regeneration of India. Wise indeed is this confession of the learned Oriental. Applicable to every nation is the thing he says. The Bible is the world’ s emancipator. (A. H. Moment.)In Christ, the servant the Lord’ s freeman: the free man Christ’ s servant In Christ there is neither bond nor free. It is not what they are with respect to man that is thought of, but what they are with respect to Christ. Thus considered, the servant is the Lord’ s free man, the free man is Christ’ s servant. The apostle speaks to the bond as free. The man who is called being a servant, may remain so. And then in some sense he is still the servant of his earthly master, and in some sense he is not so. His freedom consists in his being Christ’ s. That one thing, while it sets him free from the dominion of sin, and thus brings him into the glorious liberty of the children of God, changes the nature of that service which he pays to his earthly master, and gives the character of liberty to that also. For in reality he has but one master, i.e., the Lord; and the service which he now most dutifully renders to his master on earth, is but a part of the service which he pays to his Master in heaven. It may be still called service from the nature of the work, but it is freedom from the spirit in which it is done. As the servant of man, he once found his work drudgery, and did it unwillingly. But as the Lord’ s freeman, he finds it liberty, and does it with delight. He then served through fear. He now serves through love, and therefore performs every part of his duty better than ever he did. His joy is to approve himself to the Master whose he is, and whom he loves, as well as serves. His service is uniform, because Jesus is always the same, whatever be the changing humour of an earthly master. But now let us pass to him who has been called, being free. Of him it is said, Chat he is Christ’ s servant. He also is reminded that he has a master. In fact, he that is called being a servant, and he that is called being free, are both, after their calling, exactly in the same circumstances. Both are under the law to Christ, and neither of them under the law to man any further than the law of Christ permits. The servant, therefore, is bound no further than the superior will of Christ requires; and so far the free man, when he becomes the servant of Christ, is bound also. He is no longer his own. He has not himself only to please. He has talents committed to him, and he must employ them according to the will of Him who committed them. His time is not to be idled away, nor his health and strength wasted in frivolous employments, nor his substance squandered in selfish gratifications. And these, whether they be professional, or mercantile, or agricultural, are all appointed of God; and by them the servants of Christ, though they serve no one earthly master, serve the public at the command of their Master. Thus those who are not servants to men, are servants to Christ. They have to serve their generation by His will; and they have to receive the law from Him. And now let us endeavour to review the subject in as practical a manner as we may be enabled to do. We have already observed, that to be the servant of Christ, and to be the Lord’ s free man, are one and the same thing. Thus both were the servants of Christ, and both were free, because the service of both was a service of love. A service of love must be a free service, because it is childlike and willing, delighting to do what pleases him whose person is loved, as well as his authority owned. But whence arises this love which makes the servant of Christ thus affectionately dutiful, the free man of the Lord thus willingly laborious? It is faith. The servant of Christ can then only be satisfied when he is conscious of being where he is, and doing what he does, according to the will of Christ. Hence will arise two benefits.1. It is obvious that this habitual reference to the will of his Lord will very much tend to give him assurance, and to prevent doubts concerning his state. And it is absolutely necessary to this end. It is impossible for a man to hope assuredly who lives negligently. They who habitually acknowledge Christ as a Master will also steadily hope in Him as a Saviour. 2. And as this spirit of obedience, which leads a man habitually to consider himself as Christ’ s servant, is the best evidence of that faith and interest in Christ with which salvation is connected, so it gives a nobleness to every station of life, and every work of man, which is thus conducted. The magistrate on his bench, or even the monarch on his throne, has the most exalted, as well as the most just views of his office, when he considers himself as the minister of God, as the servant of Jesus Christ. 3. Lastly, I may observe, that Christ is too good a Master to let His servants obey Him for nothing. (J. Fawcett.)Personal Christianity for the bond and the free Personal Christianity-- I. May be possessed by both bond and free (verse 22). Many slaves were in connection with the Corinthian Church. Naturally enough some would desire their emancipation, and the more so as Christianity gave them a sublime sense of their manhood. Paul’ s advice is not to be too anxious about their enfranchisement, but rather to be anxious to “ abide” in their “ calling,” their religion. Christianity is for man as man, not for him as bond or free; it comes to him as outward nature comes to him, with equal freeness and fitness for all. The physical, civil, or ecclesiastical condition of a man, therefore, in this life is no excuse for his not becoming a Christian; though bound in chains, his soul is free, and it is with the soul that Christianity has to do. Slaves were members of many of the first Churches, and religion reigned amongst a large number of American slaves. II. Its possession, whether by the bond or the free, invests man with the highest liberty. He is the “ Lord’ s freeman,” however manacled his bodily limbs. There is no freedom like this from the dominion and consequences of moral wrong--the “ glorious liberty of the children of God.” III. This highest liberty augments man’ s obligation to serve Christ (verse 23). No creature owns itself. The highest angel has nothing in him that he can call his own. Man is not merely the property of God on the ground of creatureship, but on the ground of Christ’ s interposition (1 Corinthians 6:19). This being the case, however free and independent of men, you must ever serve Christ heartily, faithfully, loyally, and for ever. His service is perfect freedom, it is heaven. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The subordination of love Slavery is the subordination of one will to another will under the influence of fear; loyalty is the subordination of one will to another will under the inspiration of love. Here are two soldiers: one has been dragged by conscription and put in the army, and fights for fear, because there is a bayonet behind him; and beside him another man who loves his country, his flag, and he courts danger and death for love’ s sake--fear there, loyalty here. Here are two pupils sitting side by side in school: one afraid of his teacher, with his mind half on his book and half on his sports, eyeing his teacher and dreading the rod--slave, he! at his side another pupil who reveres the teacher, whose ambition it is to be such a scholar as this teacher and such a man as this man is--loyal pupil, he! Subordination to a larger, nobler, diviner will for reverence’ sake and for love’ s sake is not slavery; it is the great emancipator of the world. The men who have believed in Divine sovereignty have not been the world’ s slaves, they have been the world’ s freemen. When a man has a conscience behind his will, and God behind his conscience, no man can put manacles upon his wrists. Submission is not the weak, invertebrate, jellyfish quality that men imagine it to be. Submission to fear is. But submission to love and loyalty is not. Men tell us that if a man yields his will to the sovereign and supreme will of Christ, he will be made gentle, amiable, peaceful, kindly, meek, but the heroic will be taken out of him. Ask history to answer the question. What sort of men were the Scotch Presbyterians? Not famous for meekness and gentleness and invertebrate qualities. What sort of men were the Swiss Calvinists? Not men famous for truckling and letting other people walk over them. What sort of people were the New England Puritans? Men who were strong because their will had behind it the Divine will, and they willed to do the will of Another, A weak will is one thing, and an obedient will is another and a very different thing. To be a Christian is to take the Divine will as your will. (Lyman Abbott.)Christ’ s freemen If you are His servants you are free from all besides; if you give yourselves up to Jesus Christ, in the measure in which you give yourselves up to Him, you will be set at liberty from the worst of all slaveries, that is the slavery of your own will and your own weakness, and your own tastes and fancies. You will be set at liberty from the dependence upon men, from thinking about their opinion. You will be set at liberty from your dependence upon externals, from feeling as if you could not live unless you had this, that, or the other person or thing. You will be emancipated from fears and hopes which torture the men who strike their roots no deeper than this visible film of time which floats upon the surface of the great invisible abyss of Eternity. If you have Christ for your Master you will be the masters of the world, and of time and sense and men and all besides; and so, being triumphed over by Him, you will share in His triumph. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men (see on 1 Corinthians 6:20). True freedom Observe-- I. The import of the apostle’ s counsel. “ Be not under bondage to men.”1. This excludes-- (1) Slavish fear.(2) Servility.(3) Unlawful submission. 2. A servant must maintain his Christian dignity as serving the Lord Christ. II. The motive by which he enforces it. Christ’ s claim upon us secured by redeeming grace--by the price of blood. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 7:24 Brethren, let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God.The Christian calling 1. The word “ calling” in a Christian sense is a condensed confession of faith. It means that our life is governed by a will above it, and is capable of receiving influences of attraction from the Spirit of God. 2. In its secular use, as a man’ s common employment, it discovers the same origin. It must have sprung up in days when it was believed that each man’ s business was sacred, and that he himself was on a Divine errand. 3. The expression stirs some feeling of mystery; yet a life without the sense of God calling it is far more perplexing than with that key to its changes. For severed from a Father it is not only a mystery but a contradiction, an enigma which neither genius nor sensuality nor stoicism, nor suicide can solve: Earnest minds, however, find rational comfort in it, and only triflers will ignore it altogether. So true is this that the world’ s great men have represented themselves as led on by a power beyond themselves--a genius, a destiny, or a deity. But the apostle refers to something higher and holier than this dreamy sentiment. It is God who calls. Christ has lived, and He asks living followers. He has died, and asks the spirit of sacrifice. 4. It is remarkable how perseveringly the New Testament clings to this conception . Note its prominent teachings. I. The business of a Christian life is something special and distinctive.1. It is a “ calling” by itself. It is to be distinguished from all other occupations, systems, &c. It springs from its own root, grows by its own laws, bears its own peculiar fruit. 2. It is a Divine calling. Paul speaks as if no pursuit were to he thought of in comparison with it. II. This idea of a calling individualises the Christian person. Paul had no conception of a social Christianity apart from the personal righteousness of the men who make up society, and therefore he uses personal language. It is quite vain for us to congratulate ourselves on a state of general integrity and order, if we tolerate depravity in ourselves, or excuse it in the usages of the class to which we belong. If we have a community of a thousand people, in which we want to see the Christian graces flourishing, our only way is to go to work and turn one and another into a Christian person, each beginning with himself. How weary God must be at hearing these Pharisaic praises of a Christian country, legislation, &c., from those who allow Christianity to conquer no one of their propensities. III. Notwithstanding all this, the calling is of universal application. It is not meant for a class here and there. “ Whosoever will” ; and its speciality is the very ground of its universality. For it addresses men--1. Of all kinds of mental equipment.2. Of all varieties of outward fortune.3. In every time. Conclusion: The text appeals to-- 1. Families.2. Parents.3. Men of action. (Bp. Huntington.)Abiding in our calling The Christian must appear in the man of business. He is to abide with God. I. By the moderation of his desires and exertions; not entangling himself in the affairs of this life; diligent in business, but not, by multiplication and complexity, injuring the health of his body and the peace of his mind, and compelling himself, if not to omit, to curtail his religious duties. II. By unvariable conscientiousness; not content to keep himself within the precincts of legal obligation, but shunning everything that is mean and over-reaching; and exemplifying everything that is fair and honourable. III. By a devout temper and habit that will remind him of the presence of God; that will keep him from planning any enterprise without dependence upon Heaven; practically owning the agency of Providence in all the contingencies of his affairs; ascribing all to the blessing of the Lord. Conclusion: This secular life is Christianised, and the bounds of religion enlarged far beyond the district of what we commonly mean by devotion. In all situations, the cares of life demand the vaster part of his time and attention; but he must always walk before the Lord in the land of the living; and whether he eats or drinks, or whatever he does, he may do all to the glory of God. The spirit of devotion actuates him in the absence of its forms; and this principle, as is reported of the philosopher’ s stone, turns all it touches into gold. Thus his natural actions become moral; his civil duties become religious; the field or the warehouse is holy ground; and the man of business is the “ man of God.” (Weekly Pulpit.)How to walk with God in our calling I. A good calling is a great mercy, whether you take the word “ calling” for the calling of condition, or for the calling of employment. For--1. A man is thereby kept-- (1) From idleness, which is the nurse of all wickedness. (2) From busy-bodiedness. The more idle a man is the more apt he is to be meddling with others’ matters (2 Thessalonians 3:11). 2. A lawful calling is God’ s ground, inasmuch as no calling or an unlawful one is the devil’ s ground. II. A man having a good calling is to abide therein,1. Therefore there is an aptness in us to change or lay down our callings, or why should the apostle three times call upon us to abide in them? 2. But it is not absolutely unlawful for a man to leave or to change his calling.” For possibly a man-- (1) May be qualified for higher employments. In this case, David left his calling of a shepherd and became a king; the apostles left the calling of their fishing and became apostles. (2) May see the same hand of God leading him out of his calling which did bring him into it. So when Noah had the same command to go out of the ark that he had to go in, then he went out. (3) May be forced through want to change his calling. Paul, though a preacher and apostle, was sometimes forced to work with his hands. 3. Though it he lawful in some cases to do so, yet ordinarily a man is to abide in his calling, for a good calling is the Lord’ s gift. (1) It is God that calls a man to it, and is it likely that God will bless him who deserts it? (2) There is no calling but God may be served and enjoyed therein (1 Corinthians 7:22). 4. But, says one, that is the reason why I would lay down my calling, because I cannot serve God so well therein. Are you sure of that? Luther tells us of a certain man that was given to anger, and who to avoid provocation would go live alone as an hermit; and going to the well with his pitcher something displeased him, and he threw clown his pitcher, and he broke it in anger; which when he had done, he said, Well, now I see it is not in my condition, but in my heart, that doth cause provocation; therefore I will return to my calling again. III. It is the duty of every man to walk with God in his calling, and not barely to abide therein.1. It was so from the beginning. Adam had a calling in the state of innocency, and therein he was to walk with God. 2. And if a man do not walk with God in his calling, how can he walk with God at all? A man is not said to walk with God because he prays in the morning or evening; walking is a constant thing. 3. Thereby a man is distinguished from men of the world. A man is not of another world because he deserts his calling that he may give himself unto his devotions. Christ Himself was in the world, “ but not of the world.” 4. This is that which will sweeten and elevate your callings: everything is raised or depressed as God is present with it or absent from it. 5. Every man is as he is in his calling; a man hath no more grace than he may or can use in his calling; and though I have all parts and gifts, yet if I be not gracious in my calling, they are but sounding brass and as tinkling cymbal. IV. What should a man do that he may walk with God in his calling?1. Negatively. (1) You must not be ignorant of the way of your calling; for if you take up a calling, and are ignorant of it, you may tempt God therein. Every man should be the master of his art. (2) You must not be negligent. Diligence in our callings is commanded, commended, and rewarded in Scripture. (3) You must not deal unjustly with men (Micah 6:8). (4) You must not be too fond of your calling, or you will forget the God of your calling. You will go with an apron into your shop that you may keep your clothes clean, and hath not your soul as much need of an apron in your calling? If the ivy clings too close unto the oak it hindereth its growth; so if your callings cling too close to you, and you to your callings, it will hinder your spiritual growth. 2. Affirmatively. (1) You must observe what those temptations are that are incident to your calling, and take heed thereof (1 Corinthians 7:23; 1 Corinthians 7:35). (2) You must live by faith in your callings. Thereby you shall be kept from covetousness and love of the world. “ This is our victory,” &c. (3) Whatever you do therein, do all to the glory of God. (4) Be sure that you so manage your calling that your general calling may not be a hindrance, but a help to your particular; and thus your particular calling may be no hindrance, but a help to your general calling. (5) Be sure that you turn as God turns, sweetly complying with His dispensations in the way of your calling. (6) You must judge of things in your calling as God judges. (7) You must spiritualise your particular calling with heavenly things; not put all upon a morning and an evening prayer. Conclusion: If you walk with God in your particular calling, God will walk with you in your general calling. 1. Then shall your calling be a blessing to you indeed, and you shall have a greater reward than the wealth of your calling. 2. Thereby the knots and difficulties of your callings shall be taken off, and your way made easy. 3. Thereby you shall be kept from the sins and temptations of your calling. 4. Thereby shall your way of godliness be convincing and winning. (W. Bridge, M. A.)The dignity of the secular calling 1. It is unfortunate that this chapter is mainly occupied with subjects the public discussion of which is in these days hardly possible. Few portions of his Epistles more largely reveal the far-sighted wisdom of St. Paul. He was the foremost statesman of the kingdom of heaven. The golden mean between extreme opinions to him was clear. How firmly he held the balance between asceticism and license! 2. The subject here is most difficult and delicate. Fanatics on either side were watching eagerly for a word which might support their views. A less able, wise, and self-controlled man might easily, with such a force as the gospel, have shattered the whole framework of civilisation. Well was it for the world that this tremendous power of revolution was in hands so wise, so calm, so firm. Note-- I. The earnest desire of St. Paul that there should be no violent, visible change in the relations of classes and the organisation of society. “ These men, that have turned the world upside-down, are come hither also.” But the marvel is that practically they overturned so little, and left so much peacefully and patiently to grow. Whatever has come forth from Christianity for human welfare and progress has come, not from without, by any rearrangement of classes or orders, but from within, by the renewing and reordering of individual arts. Christianity introduced an idea absolutely new into the world: “ There is neither Greek nor Jew … for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Here was explosive matter enough to shatter society. This issue Paul’ s wisdom and firmness averted. Read the Epistle to Philemon. What a world of practical wisdom is there. Take this great question of slavery. The slaves bore the yoke uneasily, and in fact slavery in those days was eating out the very heart of the empire. Throw this new thought into their minds, It is hateful to God and wrong; all are equal before Him, and have the right from Him to contend for equality. It might have originated a new and more awful servile war, which would have reduced to ruin the whole structure of Roman society, ages before the German races were trained to occupy its room. But the gospel announced the principle, and yet maintained the order. II. Paul’ s deep conviction that no external change in the condition and relations of men is worth anything unless it grow out of and clothe a change deep down in individual souls. Nothing can be more fallacious than the notion that in different circumstances you would be a different man. A bad slave would be a bad master; a bad child a bad parent; a bad man would be bad everywhere. Man cannot be content with the world as it is. But he dreams that the mischief is in things. God says it is in souls. And God sets up His kingdom in souls--in the heart of the mischief. The Jews thought the evil was in their condition, so they dreamed of a splendid Messiah’ s kingdom. God saw that it was in their spirits, and said, “ the kingdom of God is within you.” Paul would have had little hope of any great ultimate good if he could simply have struck the sceptre out of the hand of the brutal Nero, emancipated every slave in the broad Roman dominion; while no new life-blood was poured into the exhausted veins of society. No! it must go on struggling, suffering, while the inward renewing was working; then it might be lifted bodily into a clearer and brighter heaven. III. That the condition of a man in his particular calling is just the instrument which God has furnished, by the use of which he may train himself for yet higher things. Do not be content to aspire, but grow. Do not demand things as abstract rights, win them by manifest power. Do not talk of being, or boast of calling, but be, and thus make your calling and election sure. And this runs through the whole scale of life. Have you capacity for higher things? Prove it by doing the lower more perfectly. Throw all your soul into your work; you are surely training yourself for the highest work of heaven (Luke 19:16-17). Despising the one talent it the most fatal folly. All faculty is like seed. Planted in work, it grows, and fills wide neighbourhoods with shade and fruit. The condition wherein a man is called is God’ s best school for him. Not by wriggling hastily out of it, but by working bravely and patiently in it, he is helping the progress of his own being and of mankind. IV. But a man may say, It is poor work after all. Is it? “ Therein abide with God.” Let the poorest remember that God abode with it; and that all that is most blessed for the universe came to it out of a poor workman’ s home. But the lot is a very humble one! Be it so. It is humble with Him. What is it to abide in our lot with God? Surely it means, Let a man abide in it with the full consciousness of all that he is, all that he has, all that he shall have, in Christ Jesus.1. Let him dismiss all fretful impatience at the meanness of his figure and the poorness of his pay. Such matters are not, cannot be, vital to a man who is so rich in hope. He must calmly wait God’ s time. 2. Let him know that the Lord abides with him in his lot, and has a deeper interest and joy in his daily labour than in the debates of the world’ s most famous congresses, and the acts of its most splendid kings. 3. The man who abides with God in the lowliest condition makes that condition illustrious by the patient, strenuous discharge of its duties, and manly resistance to the temptations which beset it, and which drag many a helpless worldling down. 4. Such a man will wait for God’ s word, and not man’ s, to “ go up higher.” 5. Wherever he is, he will abide with dignity and patience, because assured of the supreme promotion at last. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)Godliness in all conditions of life The text teaches-- I. That men are found in various conditions of life. Some are free men, some are slaves, &c. This variety--1. Affords scope for benevolent activity. If all men were in precisely identical worldly conditions, there would be manifestly no sphere for it. 2. Creates a bond of social unity. Gratitude is one of the strongest social ties, and hence the relation between the giver and the receiver, the helper and the helped, is generally close, tender, and strong. Were all men in exactly the same condition, there would be a spirit of reckless independency, and a state of social disorder. 3. Invests society with social charms. Variety is one of the charms of existence. II. That some of the conditions of life are of Divine appointment. Of some this cannot be said. People are found in--1. Matrimonial relations which God has not appointed. Two people are brought together for life whose instincts, temperaments, habits, are antagonistic. 2. Ecclesiastical positions which God has not appointed. 3. Commercial engagements which God has not appointed. Those who turn the ores of the earth into implements of destruction, and distil the fruits of the earth into liquids that drown the reason, ruin the health, and destroy the morals of a community, are not “ called” to their sphere. III. That in every condition of life men should practise godliness. What is it to “ abide with God” ? It means constancy of supreme love and obedience to Him, and of devotion to His cause. Godliness is--1. Binding in all conditions of life. As much so in the market as in the chamber or the temple. God is every- where, and your relation to Him remains intact in all circumstances. 2. Possible. Let no man say his conditions are such that he cannot be religious. If they really are, he must come out of them. If lawful, God knows them, and will help you in them. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The Christian life Three times within the compass of a very few verses this injunction is repeated (verses 17, 20, 24).1. The reason for this emphatic reiteration is that there were strong temptations to restlessness besetting the early Christians. The great change from heathenism to Christianity would seem to loosen the joints of all life. Hence would tend to come the rupture of family ties, the Jewish convert seeking to become like a Gentile, and vice versa, and the slave trying to be free. To all three the apostle says, Stop where you are. For if Christianity had become the mere instrument of social revolution, its development would have been thrown back for centuries, and the whole worth and power of it, for those who first apprehended it, would have been lost. Paul believed in the diffusion of the principles which he proclaimed, and the mighty name which he served, as able to girdle the poison-tree, and to take the bark off it, and the rest--the slow dying--might be left to time. 2. But, besides this more especial application of the text, it carries with it a large general principle that applies to all. Our maxim is, “ Get on!” Paul’ s is, “ Never mind about getting on, get up!” Our notion is, “ Try to make the circumstances what I would like to have them.” Paul’ s is, “ Leave circumstances to take care of themselves--or rather leave God to take care of the circumstances--and everything else will right itself.” I. Our chief effort in life ought to be union with God. “ Abide with God” means--1. Constant communion, the occupation of all our nature with Him. As we go to our work to-morrow, what difference would obedience to this precept make upon our lives? Before all else, we should think of that Divine Mind that is waiting to illumine our darkness; we should feel the glow of that perfect Love which, in the midst of change, treachery, is ready to fill our hearts with tenderness and tranquillity; we should bow before that Will which is “ the good pleasure of His goodness and the counsel of His grace.” And with such a God ever in our thoughts, love, and obedience, what room would there be for agitations and distractions? They die in the fruition of a present God all-sufficient, even as the sun when it is risen may wither the weeds that grow about the fruitful tree whose deeper roots are but warmed by the rays that ripen the rich clusters which it bears. 2. And then there will follow the recognition of God’ s will as operating in and determining all circumstances. When our whole soul is occupied with Him, we shall see Him everywhere, and connect everything which befalls ourselves and the world with Him. II. Such union with God will lead to contented continuance in our place, whatever it be. You have been “ called” in such and such worldly circumstances, which proves that these circumstances do not obstruct the highest and richest blessings. And that is the one point of view from which we can bear to look upon the world and not be bewildered and overmastered by it. Peace, a true appreciation of all outward good and a charm against the bitterest sting of outward evils, a patient continuance in the place where He has set us, are all ours--when by fellowship with Him we look upon our work as doing His will, and upon all our possessions and conditions as means for making us like Himself. The only question worth asking in regard to the externals of our life is, How far does each thing help me to be a good man, and open my understanding to apprehend God, and prepare me for the world beyond? Is there any other more satisfying, more majestic thought of life than this--the scaffolding by which souls are built up into the temple of God! And to care whether a thing is painful or pleasant is as absurd as to care whether the bricklayer’ s trowel is knocking the sharp corner off a brick, or plastering mortar on the one below it before he lays it carefully on its course. Is the building getting on? That is the one question that is worth thinking about. If, then, we have once got hold of that principle that all the antitheses of life are the product of His will, the manifestation of His mind, His means for our discipline, then we have the talisman which will preserve us from the fever of desire and the shivering fits of anxiety as to things which perish. III. Such contented continuance in our place is the dictate of the truest wisdom.1. Though you may change about as much as you like, there is a pretty substantial equipoise and identity in the amount of pain and pleasure in all external conditions. The total length of day and night all the year round is the same at the North Pole and at the Equator. It does not matter much at what degrees between the two we live, when the thing comes to be made up we shall be all pretty much upon an equality. What is the use of such eager desires to change our condition, when every condition has disadvantages attending its advantages, as certainly as a shadow; and when all have pretty nearly the same quantity of the raw material of pain and pleasure, and when the amount of either actually experienced by us depends not on where we are, but on What we are? 2. Whilst the portion of external pain and pleasure summed up comes pretty much to the same in everybody’ s life, any condition may yield the fruit of devout fellowship with God. 3. What is the need for my troubling myself about outward changes, when in Christ I can get all the peculiarities which make any given position desirable to me? Hear how Paul talks to slaves wanting to be set free (verses 21, 22). If a man is a slave he may be free in Christ. If free, he may have the joy of utter submission to an absolute master in Christ. If you and I are lonely we may feel all the delights of society by union with Him. If distracted by companionship, and seeking for seclusion, we may get all the peace of perfect privacy in fellowship with Him. If we are rich and think that if we were poorer we should be less tempted, we may find all for which we covet poverty in communion with Him. If we are poor and fancy that if we had a little more we should be happier, we may find all tranquillity in Him. 4. Think seriously of the antagonism between these principles and the maxims current in the world. Our text is a revolutionary one. It is dead against the watchwords that you fathers give your children--“ push,” “ energy,” “ advancement,” “ get on whatever you do.” If you, by God’ s grace, lay hold of these principles, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will have to make up your minds to let the big prizes of your trade go into other people’ s hands, and be contented to say, “ I live by peaceful, high, pure, Christ-like thoughts.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Vocation I want to take the general principle Paul lays down here and draw from it some lessons which I think it plainly teaches.1. In the first place, then, we learn that our daily work may be work to which we are divinely called. Now that: is not how many men think of their work. We may admit that the prophet, the reformer, or the patriot receive their calling from above--that a John Knox, a Joan of Arc, were called to their vocations in life; but to most people it seems a little ridiculous to say that a painter, a sailor, a manufacturer, or merchant has been called by God to do the work he is doing. The reason we think this is, I suppose, because of the hard definition we make between the sacred and the secular. That distinction should not by any means be an absolute distinction. In the tabernacle, in the Jewish temple, there was a “ holy” and a “ holy of holies,” and yet they were both under the same roof, and formed part Of the great Temple of God; and so it is with the things we call sacred and the things we call secular. We must admit that much of God’ s work is what we would call secular. He makes the sun to shine, the rivers to flow, the grass to spring: and if God is interested in work like that, the man ought not to feel he is bemeaning himself if God calls upon him to be a fellow-labourer in the same vineyard. For instance, we talk of God supplying us with food. But when we come to ask how it is that the world is provided with its meat, we find that God calls in human agencies. The farmer who grows the grain, the miller who grinds it, and the baker who makes the bread, have all been called by God. 2. There is another great lesson to be drawn from this principle, and it is--if this be true we ought to have a plain call to the occupation we follow, because it must be admitted that every occupation is not a Divine occupation. Sometimes a man is engaged in a particular form of business which his conscience tells him is wrong; such a man cannot think he is Divinely called. Again, a young man may be employed in a business that is worked on wrong principles. Another man may be employed in quite an honest calling, yet for which he is unsuited--sometimes a square man gets into a round hole--and if he gets a change to a vocation he likes, he should take the opportunity and enter into the calling he really cares for. How does God call upon us? Well, sometimes He gives us a bias for a special business. Another way in which God’ s guiding hand comes in is in our outward circumstances, because we must remember these circumstances are shaped by God’ s own hand, and sometimes our way is made pretty clear by circumstances alone. Another way in which God’ s voice can be heard is in the advice of our friends, and we ought to take the advice of those who can look at our character and work from a different standpoint than that we ourselves occupy. And now let me say this--that we should all choose our calling in the full light of the Word of God, “ Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Then we must remember prayer. Remember that more things are done by prayer than people think of; that if we lift up our voices in prayer for guidance, that guidance will come. Again, I would remark that when we have received our calling we should abide in it. “ Let every man abide in the calling wherewith he is called.” No doubt, the statement might be twisted into a wrong meaning. It might be said that this was an advocacy of the great fallacy that whatever is, is right, teaching that man should have no aspirations after better things. Christianity is something that has the principle of revolution in it; and yet though Christianity has the revolutionary principle inside of it, it does not make its followers revolutionists. And now in the last place we are taught that, abiding in our callings, we should therein abide with God. It matters not what your duties are, however common, however merely secular, do them as under your great Master’ s eyes. (J. C. Lambert.)Our calling We are the subjects of two callings. There is our “ high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” that is the calling of grace; and there is our outward situation in life, that is the calling of Providence. In the text both these callings are mentioned, our temporal and our spiritual calling; and we are directed to abide in the same temporal calling, wherein we may be, when we are spiritually called. A Christian man is not to murmur or be fretful and restless in that situation which the providence of God has assigned to him, but to be patient, quiet, submissive, and cheerful in it. Grace, when it takes possession of a man, does not alter his place in society, nor annul the obligations that pertain to it, unless it be intrinsically wrong and sinful, requiring of him a course of action which is immoral and injurious. If that be its character, it is the devil’ s calling and not God’ s, and we cannot too promptly abandon it at whatever sacrifice. Now what I wish to impress upon you is that our temporal condition, with that peculiar form of life which it imposes, is a calling, and is such because God has called us into it. I would remind you that the fashion of our existence in this world is not an accident, not the fruit of chance, nor of our own will, nor of the will of other men. God has assigned us our place. Whether we shall work with our brains or our hands, and in which of the various departments of human activity that belong to either, He has determined. How important, indeed, is the truth which we express in the naming our work in this world our vocation, or which is the same, finding utterance in homelier Anglo-Saxon, our calling. What a calming, elevating, solemnising view of the tasks which we find ourselves set in this world to do, this word would give us if we did but realise it to the full. What a help is this thought to enable us to appreciate justly the dignity of our work, though it were far humbler work even in the eyes of men, than that of any one of us present! What an assistance in calming unsettled thoughts and desires, such as would make us wish to be something else than that which we are! What a source of confidence when we are tempted to lose heart, and to doubt whether we shall be able to carry through our work with any blessing or profit to ourselves or others l It is our vocation, our calling; and He who called us to it will fit us for it and strengthen us in it. That the circumstances which frame our outward condition into its actual fashion are of God’ s ordering, none will doubt, who believe in the presence and agency of God in the affairs of the world. Our parentage, the period of our birth, the associations of our childhood, the events that betide us in our early days, the influences that act upon us as we advance to manhood, all the causes that cooperate to fasten upon our life the form it finally and permanently assumes, are of God’ s ordering and fixing. And thus the whole sum of society, in all its complicated framework, its mutual relations and dependences, its necessary gradations and shares of honour and advantage, will appear to be a visible outgoing of the Divine will, instinct throughout with a Divine presence, a Divine authority, and a Divine blessing; and every member of the same, in his own proper station and work, his special “ vocation and ministry,” believing God made his place for him and him for his place, will be enabled to walk in it with God, without pride in elevation, with self-respect in inferiority, in a spirit of cheerful submission, conscientious fidelity, and lowly hope. What we contend for is that every Christian should believe himself called to every work in which he finds his occupation and his livelihood; and that, except he believes this, the work of life, whatever it may be outwardly, will be unholy and cheerless, lack its best stimulus and its purest support and comfort, and be pursued without confidence in God, or any expectation of high and worthy fruit. The rich man who is exempt from the necessity of relying on some trade or profession for a living, is not so exempt in order that he may be an idler. He also has a calling, and a calling has always a work, and the work of his calling is by no means the least arduous and difficult; and if, because he is not driven to it by the stern pressure of necessity, he leaves it undone, and dies a mere loiterer, his will be the fearful reckoning of one who wrapped not one but many talents in a napkin and hid them in the earth. This view of our work as a calling communicates dignity and comfort to life, and this not in some of its ranges, but in all of them. The precious ointment on the head goes down to the skirts of the garments. There is no valley in life so low that the dew of Divine service does not visit and refresh it. The honour of the noble head pervades the family, stops not at the favourite of the lord, or chief officer of the household, but goes on till it reaches the bottom of the social fabric; and the lowest menial shines in the reflected lustre of his Master. And surely there can be no debasement in filling any station which God has created and assigned to us. It is an honour to serve Him in any place. It is looking upon our lot in life apart from God, viewing ourselves as the sport of a blind chance, or the victim of human tyranny, caprice, or injustice, that makes us despise and scorn it, view it with a bitter contempt and an indignant hatred. Only let us look at it as our calling, the utterance of God’ s will, and the appointment of God’ s wisdom, and we shall respect it and ourselves in it; for we shall sea that we are parts of a system, in which it is an honour to hold any position, of a mechanism so glorious, that the cog of the smallest wheel, or the cord of the obscurest pulley that is needful to its well-being and well-working, is honoured by its function. Nothing has so elevating an influence on men as to feel that they are members of a Divine economy in which honour depends not upon place, but upon faithfulness; so that some who are far down in it, may be higher in the estimation of Him whose judgment is its only rule of eminence, than many that are outwardly above them, as sweet violets lie low and nestle in the sod, overhung and hidden by tall, thrifty, but idle weeds, and gaudy but scentless blossoms. But if this view of the work of life as a calling confers on life a dignity that relieves and gladdens it, so does it also load it with a weight of responsibility which communicates to it a tincture of seriousness and solemnity. Seeing that all stations are of God, it is indeed a grave and awful thing to live in any station. God does not ask at our hands volunteer services, but prescribed and ordered services; and if in the final reckoning we undertake to recite our performances of the former kind, we shall be cut short with the inquiry, Who hath required this at your hand? how did you fill your station? A soldier who is appointed to stand sentry will not escape censure if he has left his post to reconnoitre the enemy’ s camp, or capture a solitary straggler. Nor will a farmer be satisfied with his servant who leaves his field unploughed to instruct his neighbour in agricultural science. When every man does his own work, the specific service of his place, then is the welfare of society most advanced, God’ s will best done, the gospel best recommended, and the souls of men best fitted for eternal life. (R. A. Hallam.)Everyday religion Learn-- I. What the religion of Jesus Christ really is. The godly man is the man who “ abides with God.” We use the term “ religious” very loosely, meaning by it the observance of certain ceremonies or the reception of certain opinions, but religion in deed and in truth consists in a right state and action of the soul towards God. It is our knowledge of God in Jesus Christ leading us to aim at a Christ-like life. II. Religion so understood is a right and a reasonable thing. It is the exercise of our powers upon Him who is infinitely worthy of them all. It is the rendering to God His own what He is pleased to ask and require. The eye is no more fitted to see or the ear to hear than is the constitution of your nature fitted for religion; and just as the formation of the eye tells us that though there may be blindness, nevertheless, we were made to see, and just as the formation of the ear tells us that though there may be deafness the ear was constructed that men should hear, just so the very structure of our moral nature teaches us that, in spite of all the wanderings of the intellect and the worse wanderings of the heart, we are made, it is the very end of our being, to love and honour God. Regarded as a life, religion is the life a man is fitted to live. Regarded as a work, religion is the work a man is adapted and intended to perform. A man is not a man in the full sense of the term unless he is religious; he is other than he ought to be, he is less than he ought to be if he is not religious. He is a ground not tilled, a seed not sown, a perversion of power. III. This religion may be a matter of every-day life with us is every condition of life a man may be called to occupy. If it consisted in the observance of certain rites, then it would be a thing of times and places; but since it is a life, it cannot be restricted to times and places and conditions. Even slaves are told that whatsoever they do they do heartily as unto the Lord. Well, now, if the bard service of slaves may be a service of God, is it not perfectly clear that every-day religion must be possible to each one of us? (J. Vaughan Pryce, M. A.)Home life and duties (Mark 5:19, and text):--1. The first text is the reply of Jesus to the maniac out of whom He had cast a legion of devils. This man certainly had passed through a very remarkable experience; and we might reasonably expect that so remarkable a case would be made much of by Jesus. This man will at once be sent out into the world as a witness to the power of his Saviour. The man seems to have thought that something of this sort was called for in his case. He prays to be always with Jesus. But instead he is met by the quiet, tame words, “ Go home to thy friends. They saw you go wrong, and are the ones, above all others, to be moved by the sight of your restoration. Go back to your former life, and from that centre work outward.” 2. The same thought lies in the second text. The early Christians thought that in their conversion something unearthly, prodigious, had happened, and expected a complete translation from their past life. They had caught the significance of Jesus’ words, “ I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” No disruption of your life in the world is proposed, but simply to conduct that life to nobler issues by purified and sanctified spirit. So the apostle says to these restless Corinthians, “ Go home to your friends and to your occupation.” Your relations to your fellow-beings in the household, in the state, in the market and shop, are the very points of contact at which your new spiritual life is to get access to the gross life of the world. Let every man, therefore, abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 3. There is something perennial in the mistake of this maniac and the early Church, and it arises from a total misconception of our life. We have not two lives, but life. We have not two sides to our life any more than a ray of light or a current of electricity has sides. We live; that is all. If you would see the absurdity of this division of our life, carry it up to God, our Father. He is a Spirit, yet He is constantly carrying on the affairs of a material universe. Now has God two lives--one spiritual, when He is lost in self-contemplation, or when receiving the adorations of the heavenly hosts? The other life material, when He is conducting the minute affairs of a world or a constellation, tempering its climates, mixing its soils, ordering wars and overturnings here, prosperity and abundance there? All actions of a spiritual being are spiritual. We are the children of God, and to divide our life and call one part earthly, the other heavenly, is just as absurd as to attempt to draw such a line through the life of God our Father. 4. Now, this being so, it follows that the practical life is the only point of vital, spiritual contact with the world, and if you are to make yourself felt as a spiritual power, it must be in the practical life. What is the world to you and to me? It is just our own small circle of the daily life. Now just that is our point of contact with the great round world. A tree is a mighty growth, with thousands of leaves, presenting to the sun and atmosphere a vast area of surface. Now suppose a single leaf should busy itself with thinking of that vast surface of absorption and radiation, and forget that its own daily life was its world of absorption and radiation. And having made this mistake, it hastens to make another. It forgets that its own stem is the nexus, the point of vital contact with the great life of the tree, and whatever transactions it may have with light and air, the results must be communicated to the great life of the tree through its own stem. Our point of living union with the great life of the world is our daily practical life; that is the stem which joins us to the mighty tree. Whatever dealings we may have with the heavens, the result must be communicated to the world through that one point of union, that leaf-stalk, the practical life. E.g., here is an humble, honourable craft--shoemaking. Now the average Christian shoemaker says to himself, My secular life lies in my craft. But my spiritual life lies in another realm. I must go apart there to do my praying and meditating, and get my spiritual nourishment. Now Christ meets that man in his so-called spiritual realm, and orders him off at once. “ Go home to thy friends.” And the apostle re-echoes the words of his Lord. You are joined to the great world at the point of your daily life. The need of the world for shoes is just as imperative, therefore as sacred, as its need for praying, and singing, and Bible-reading. If it imperatively needs shoes, it just as imperatively needs good shoes. You are called of God to minister to that honourable need. The principal part of your time, your thought, your labour, is held to that one point. If you are not spiritual there, then the principal part of your life is unspiritual. If you fail of a spiritual impression there, you have failed altogether, and any fine talk or earthly experiences which you may bring to your fellow-men from some other dreamy spiritual realm will be to them as chaff and dust. They turn upon you in just wrath, saying, Away with your religion. I needed you. I had a right to demand of you, and all that I asked of you was good work. You have lost your chance on me. And so the man loses his chance of spiritual influence upon the world. See to it that spiritual power goes into your work, through it and with it as it passes from your hands into the world. Genuine material, honest work; clean and sound thought and speech; these are the vehicles for transmitting spiritual power to the world. St. Paul was a tent-maker. I pledge you he made the best tents to be had in the country. (J. H. Ecob, D. D.)Christian contentment Observe-- I. The danger. 1. Of becoming discontented with our calling.2. This is common.3. It may be excited by the more enlightened views produced by conversion. II. The duty. “ To abide,” &c.1. This does not mean-- (1) That a slave may not seek his liberty.(2) That a man must not relinquish a nefarious occupation.(3) That a Christian may not desire a position of greater advantage and usefulness. 2. It (1) Inculcates contentment.(2) Teaches that every honest calling affords scope for Christian development, and that we should serve God in our calling. III. The motive. God--1. Has appointed your condition.2. Blesses you in it.3. Can easily improve it if desirable. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The need, choice, and use of a calling The Christian calling doth not at all prejudice, much less overthrow, it rather strengtheneth those interests that arise from natural relations, or from voluntary contracts betwixt man and man. I desired to speak, and judged expedient for you to hear, concerning--1. The necessity.2. The choice.3. The use of particular callings. Points, if ever need to be taught, certainly in these days most. Wherein some habituated in idleness will not betake themselves to any calling: like a heavy jade that is good at bit and nought else. These would be soundly spurred up and whipped on end. Other some, through weakness, do not make good choice of a fit calling: like a young unbroken thing that hath mettle and is free, but is ever wrying the wrong way. These would be fairly checked, turned into the right way, and guided with a steady and skilful hand. A third sort, through unsettledness, or discontentedness, or other untoward humour, walk not soberly and uprightly and orderly in their calling: like an unruly colt that will over hedge and ditch, no ground will hold him, no fence turn him. The first sort are to be taught the necessity of a calling; the second, to be directed for the choice of their calling; the third, to be limited in the exercise of their calling. Of which three, in their order; and of the first-- I. The necessity of a calling. The necessity whereof you are to imagine not an absolute and positive, but a conditional and suppositive necessity. Not as if no man could be without one, de facto, but because, de jure, no man should be without one. And this necessity we are now to prove. And that--First, from the obedience we owe to God’ s ordinances, and the account we must render for every one of God’ s gifts. Amongst those ordinances this is one, and one of the first, that in the sweat of our faces every man of us should eat our bread (Genesis 3:19; Ephesians 4:28), and woe to us if we neglect it. But say there were no such express command for it; the very distribution of God’ s gifts were enough to lay upon us this necessity. Where God bestoweth He bindeth; and to whom anything is given, of him something shall be required. We may not think the God of nature’ doth bestow abilities whereof He intendeth no use, for that were to bestow them in vain. Secondly, the necessity of a calling is great in regard of a man’ s self, and that more ways than one. For man being by nature active, so he must be doing. There is no Cross, no holy water, no exorcism so powerful to drive away and to conjure down the fiend, as faithful labour in some honest calling. Thirdly, life must be preserved, families maintained, the poor relieved; this cannot be done without bread, and bread cannot be gotten honestly but in a lawful vocation or calling. Fourthly and lastly, a calling is necessary in regard of the public. God hath made us sociable creatures; contrived us into commonwealths; made us fellow-members of one body. Every man should put to his helping hand to advance the common good. For which reason the ancient renowned commonwealths were so careful to ordain that no man should live bug in some profession. It is the sin of many of the gentry whom God hath furnished with means and abilities to do much good, to spend their whole days and lives in an unprofitable course of doing either nothing, or as good as nothing, or worse than nothing. Manual, and servile, and mechanic trades and arts are for men of a lower condition; but yet no man is born, no man should be bred unto idleness. There are generous, and ingenuous, and liberal employments sortable to the greatest births and educations. But for our gallants who live in no settled course of life, but spend half the day in sleeping, half the night in gaming, and the rest of their time in other pleasures and vanities to as little purpose as they can devise, as if they were born for nothing else but to eat and drink and sport. The third sort of those that live unprofitably and without a calling, are our sturdy rogues and vagrant towns-end beggars; the very filth and vermin of the commonwealth. I mean such as have health and strength and limbs, and are in some measure able to work and take pains for their living. God is just, and will not call any man to that which is not honest and good. God is all-sufficient, and will not call any man to that which is above the proportion of his strength. God is wonderful in His providence, and will not call any man to that whereto He will not open him a fair and orderly passage. Somewhat by your patience of each of these. And first, of the course we intend. Wherein let these be our inquiries--First, whether the thing be simply and in itself lawful or no. Secondly, whether it be lawful so as to be made a calling or no. Thirdly, whether it will be profitable or rather hurtful to the commonwealth. Now observe the rules. II. Our first care past, which concerneth the calling itself, our next care in our choice must be to inquire into ourselves, what calling is most fit for us and we for it. Wherein our inquiry must rest especially upon three things; our inclination, our gifts, and our education. III. Remaineth now the third and last point proposed, the use of a man’ s calling. Let him walk in it (verse 17). Let him abide in it (verse 20). Let him abide therein with God. It may seem he would have us stick to a course; and when we are in a calling, not to forsake it, nor change it, no, not for a better, no, not upon any terms. Perhaps some have taken it so, but certainly the apostle never meant it so. It is lawful to change it, so it be done with due caution. It is lawful, first, in subordinate callings. How should we do for generals for the wars if colonels, and lieutenants, and captains, and common soldiers might not relinquish their charges? It is lawful, secondly, yea, necessary, when the very calling itself, though in itself good and useful, doth yet by accident become unlawful or unuseful. As when some manufacture is prohibited by the State. It is lawful, thirdly, when a man by some accident becometh unable for the duties of his calling, as by age, blindness, maim, decay of estate, and sundry other impediments which daily occur. It is lawful, fourthly, where there is a want of sufficient men, or not a sufficient number of them in some callings, for the necessities of the State and country; in such cases authority may interpose. But then it must be done with due cautions. As first, not out of a desultory lightness. Nor, secondly, out of the greediness of a covetous or ambitious lust. Thirdly, nor out of sullenness, or a discontentedness at thy present condition. Much less, fourthly, out of an evil eye against thy neighbour that liveth by thee. But, fifthly, be sure thou change not, if thy calling be of that nature that it may not be changed. Wheresoever thy calling is, therein abide; be content with it. The second is faithfulness and industry and diligence. What is here called abiding in it, is at verse 17 called walking in it, and in Romans 12:17, waiting on it. The third is sobriety, that we keep ourselves within the proper bounds and limits of our callings. For how doth he abide in his calling that is ever and anon flying out of it, and starting beyond it? like an extravagant soldier that is always breaking rank. But yet abide with God. The clause was not added for nothing; it teacheth thee also some duties. First, so to demean thyself in thy particular calling as that thou do nothing but what may stand with thy general calling. Magistrate, or minister, or lawyer, or merchant, or artificer, or whatsoever other thou art, remember thou art withal a Christian. God is the author of both callings. Do not think He hath called thee to service in the one, and to liberty in the other; to justice in the one, and to cosenage in the other; to simplicity in the one, and to dissimulation in the other: to holiness in the one, and to profaneness in the other. It teacheth thee, secondly, not to ingulf thyself so wholly into the business of thy particular calling as to abridge thyself of convenient opportunities to the exercise of those religious duties which thou art bound to perform by virtue of thy general calling, as prayer, confession, thanksgiving, meditation, &c. God alloweth thee to serve thyself, but He commandeth thee to serve Him too. It teacheth thee, thirdly, to watch over the special sins of thy particular calling. Sins, I mean not that cleave necessarily to the calling, for then the very calling itself should be unlawful; but sins unto the temptations whereof the condition of thy calling layeth thee open more than it doth unto other sins, or more than some other callings would do unto the same sins. (Bishop Sanderson.)Christianity diffusive, not revolutionary Paul reminds us of the moral act which has the power of sanctifying and ennobling every external position: the eye fixed on God, walking in His presence. This is what preserves the believer from the temptations arising from his situation, and what raises his humblest duties to the supreme dignity of acts of worship. This principle has been of incalculable importance in the development of the Church. It is by means of it that Christianity has been able to become a moral power, at once sufficiently firm and sufficiently elastic to adapt itself to all human situations, personal, domestic, national, and social. Thereby it is that without revolution it has worked the greatest revolutions, accepting everything to transform everything, submitting to everything to rise above everything, renewing the world from top to bottom, while condemning all violent subversion. Whence has the apostle derived this principle in which there meet the most unconquerable faith and the most consummate ability (see Romans 12:3)? Wisdom from on high did not less direct Paul the pastor than Paul the teacher; and it is not improbable that he was acquainted with the parable of the leaven. (Prof. Godet.) 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord.Concerning virgins and widows The apostle advises-- I. The unmarried of both sexes. As he has argued against the disruption of the ties between slave and master, Christian and heathen, so Paul now advises the unmarried to remain as they are. Not that he disparages marriage, but special circumstances make it inadvisable.1. The present distress (1 Corinthians 7:26). This may refer to the Neronian persecution already commenced (a.d. 64), or to the troubles which were to usher in the second advent (cf. Matthew 24:1-51.). The injunction will hold in all similar cases; as when the soldier is called to dangerous duty, or when a man is approaching death, or during the prevalence of famine or pestilence. 2. Tribulation in the flesh (1 Corinthians 7:28), i.e., distress which bears more hardly on the married than on the single. 3. The shortness of time (1 Corinthians 7:29). 4. The cares incident to the married state (1 Corinthians 7:32). II. Fathers regarding unmarried daughters. In the East marriages are arranged by parents much more than with us: but how much even with us depends on the Christian wisdom of parents, who may sacrifice the highest interests for the sake of a union that offers worldly attractions. Faithful parental guidance may prevent an unholy alliance and lead to a happy union “ in the Lord.” The point before the apostle is--1. When permission to marry may be granted (1 Corinthians 7:36). (1) Generally, when the refusal would lead to anything unseemly. (2) In particular, if the girl is of marriageable age, and if she and her lover are bent on union, to enforce celibacy would be to put temptation in her way. The general advice not to marry because of present distress is overborne by stronger considerations (1 Corinthians 7:2); and in view of these the father will do well to put no barriers in the way. 2. When permission may be withheld. The elements determining judgment will be-- (1) The presence or absence of the considerations mentioned in the previous case. (2) The temperament or inclination of the daughter in reference to marriage. (3) Her fitness for Christ’ s service in the single state. (4) Her general well-being temporal and spiritual. If in view of these he judges it best for his daughter not to marry he may resist the solicitations of her suitors. III. Widows. This proceeds on the same lines as the advice to the unmarried. She is free, but she must only marry “ in the Lord.” Yet the apostle advises against a second marriage, on grounds already adduced in the case of virgins. A widow will be more free from care if she remain as she is. Conclusion:1. The application of abiding principles is modified by changing circumstances. What is prudent in a Christian country may be imprudent elsewhere. 2. Christians should only marry “ in the Lord.” (H. Bremner, B. D.)Works of supererogation and counsels of perfection Theologians have inferred that Christians have power not only to give adequate obedience to the moral law, but also to do works of supererogation. This doctrine rests upon two assumptions--1. That God requires in His creatures, not perfect conformity with moral law, but only sincerity of endeavour. 2. That the actions supposed to be counselled but not commanded are moral, and not merely indifferent. But both assumptions destroy the essential nature of moral law, which must, in its very idea, be obligatory; and whatever is not obligatory is no part of morality, but belongs to the class of indifferent things. It follows that if the apostle imposes no command but simply gives advice in reference to abstention from marriage such abstention is not to be reckoned a work of supererogation. This distinction, however, between obligatory and supererogatory moral obedience must not be confounded with the distinction between precepts and counsels of perfection--the latter so called from the vulgate rendering of ãíù́ìç in this verse. Counsels of perfection differ from works of supererogation in two points--1. They have always reference, not to actions in themselves moral, but to actions in themselves indifferent. 2. They are to be sought not in the words of Christ, but in the words of His apostles. Whatever Christ says in reference to practice is a command which men disobey at their peril. But the apostles, though they may often have authority to command, may be unable on occasion to arrive at a decision and, therefore rest content with the expression of an opinion, which Christians may, if they so judge, lay aside. The present passage is an instance of this. We need not discard the name “ counsels of perfection.” There are undoubted cases in which celibacy is helpful to spiritual progress, and other cases in which marriage is essential to it. The apostle says, “ I give my advice, not frivolously nor as a wise man of this world, but with all the faithfulness and sincerity of one that has had the grace of salvation and apostleship.” The advice is given with manifest reluctance. He is careful to prepare their minds for it by telling them that it is simply his own opinion, not the Lord’ s command, and that, on the other hand, he has formed his judgment under a sense of responsibility attaching to his office. (Principal Edwards.)How to judge in difficult matters I. Modestly (1 Corinthians 7:25).1. Not dogmatically as if we had a right to command.2. Yet faithfully.3. In dependence upon the mercy of God. II. Wisely.1. With delicacy and discrimination (1 Corinthians 7:26-28).2. With a due knowledge of times, circumstances, &c. III. In the fear and love of God (1 Corinthians 7:32-34).1. Even in ordinary life earthly ends are not to be the rule of action.2. The glory of God must be the supreme aim. IV. Kindly (1 Corinthians 7:35-40).1. Not assuming anything to ourselves.2. But respecting the liberty of our neighbour. (J. Lyth, D. D.)How to give advice I. Modestly--not with an assumption of authority. II. Humbly--as a matter of judgment, which must be tested by the Word of God. III. In a Christian spirit--as those who have been forgiven. IV. Faithfully--as the servants of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none.The time is short I. For the domestic connections of the world (1 Corinthians 7:29).1. Man is the creature of the family. He is nursed and trained under its influence. When called to leave his first home the domestic instinct impels him to become the head of a family himself. And then amidst the infirmities of old age he becomes again the subject of domestic solicitude and sway. A well-organised family is earth’ s chief nursery and highest type of heaven. 2. But this relationship “ is short.” Few husbands and wives are allowed to climb the hill together, and fewer still hand-in-hand “ to totter down.” 3. If family connections are thus so transient, how ought the members to live in vital connection with that gospel which immortalises all human friendships. II. For the sorrows and joys of the world (1 Corinthians 7:30).1. There are a weeping and rejoicing that will never end. The lost sinner will weep for ever; and the joy of a commending conscience will never end. 2. But there is a sorrow and a rejoicing that will end with life--the tear of worldly anxiety, and the joy of worldly success. This transitoriness is-- (1) A consolatory thought to the good man; for all his sorrows end here, and all unsatisfactory joys. (2) A terrible thought to the wicked. Many of the sorrows he has now will make way for greater ones, and all the pleasures he has now will end for ever. III. For the mercantile transactions of the world. “ They that buy,” &c.1. The principle of commerce is adapted to unite men together; and by the exchange of the material commodities, to exchange kind and improving thoughts. Were London tradesmen all religious, they could export religion with their goods--the market would be the best Missionary Society for converting the world. 2. This material commerce will soon be over, but mental and spiritual commerce may go on for ever. Make, then, this temporary business subservient to your spiritual welfare; make the market a means of grace. In all your getting get that “ wisdom which is the principal thing.” IV. For the right using of the world (1 Corinthians 7:31).1. The world is abused when it is used chiefly-- (1) With a sensuous end. To the brute, indeed, the world has no relation but to the senses. (2) With a secular end. When men value it on account of its fruit and minerals, i.e., so far as it can be turned into money, then they abuse it. (3) With an intellectual end. The world teems with Divine thoughts, which it is our duty and interest to study. But to make this the end is to abuse it. 2. To “ use” it rightly is to use it chiefly with a religious end. Religion warrants us to use it sensuously, for we have senses; secularly, for we need worldly good; intellectually, for we require truth; but it demands that we should subordinate it to the salvation of the soul--make it the means of grace--the temple of worship. 3. This religious use of the world makes it ours. The difference between the world to the worldly and to the Christian is, that the former is possessed by it, the other possesses it. V. For the fashion of the world.1. The world literally has a “ fashion” that is passing away. The phenomena and forms of the world are ever shifting. 2. The fashion of the human world passeth away. (1) The political world has its fashions which get out of fashion, and others appear on the stage to meet the times. (2) The social world has its fashions, &c., they become obsolete, and others take their place. (3) The religious world has its fashions. Now one ism is in vogue, and now another. Now one popular preacher, and then another. Thus, there is nothing fixed. Conclusion: Let us not, then, put our confidence in forms, but in substances. You know that though the world changes, there are certain principles that remain for ever. It is for ever true, that without virtue there is no happiness, and that without Jesus there is no virtue; that “ A man’ s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesses.” (D. Thomas, D. D.)The time is short I. “ The time is short.” All things tell us so.1. The year tells it in its rapid flight. The seasons, how they come and go! 2. Life tells it. Look back, you who can remember many years! What seem they now? As a dream when one awaketh. 3. The grave tells it, opening for one after another of our friends. 4. Sickness and weakness, the body’ s gradual decay, tell it. 5. Every day, stealing by us so quickly and imperceptibly, giving us warning. We go forth in the morning; and in a few brief hours our work is done, and we lie down again to rest. II. What gives to this truth its vast importance?1. Because time is the entrance to eternity. If we were formed for this world only, we might as well join with those who say, Let us have a short time and merry one. But this life has dread responsibilities, when viewed in relation to a life which is to come. To every one of us is committed the solemn trust, to have this immortal being prepared for its appearance before God. 2. And how may this be done? The way is revealed to us in the gospel. III. What practical lessons does it enforce?1. Use this world as not abusing it. (1) To live in sin is an abuse of this life. Sin is a horrible disorder, brought into the world which God made good. (2) All who care only for the body, are abusing this life; who work, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and do no more. Why! the horse and the ass are as good as they--nay, better; for the brutes fulfil the purpose of God. (3) If we set our affections on the things of this world, we are abusing them. 2. Be not weary in well doing: for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not. 3. Whatever good “ thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” (E. Blencowe, M. A.)The time is short I. The time of the world. Christ is at hand to judge the quick and the dead. II. The time of our little world; our particular judgment is near at hand. It shall be with us at the latter day as it is when we die. III. The season of the time. The opportunity of time is shorter than the time of life; for we have not opportunity of time all our life.1. The time is short for doing and taking good. 2. It is uncertain; we cannot tell how short. If it were told any that within two days he shall die, it would make us look about us: but who of us all knows certainly that he shall live two hours? 3. It is irrecoverable when it is gone. It is a precious thing, given for great purposes; let us take heed what we do in it. We may do that in a little time that we may rue for eternity. We may do and get that good in a little time that may stand by us world without end. Conclusion: There are three main parts of this little time.1. The time that is gone; let us repent of it, if it have not been spent well.2. The time present is to do good in.3. For the time to come, it is out of our power. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)Time: flight of When young, our years are ages; in mature life, they are three hundred and sixty-five days; in old age, they have dwindled to a few weeks. Time is, indeed, the ‘ messenger with wings at his feet. Yesterday, he took my wife; to-day, my son; to-morrow, he will take me. (Madame de Gasparin.)Time: how to use it I. Know the use of time; that it is a seed-time, wherein thou must go forth and sow, though in tears and showers. An husbandman will not lose his seed-time whatever weather it prove, True, our life is a moment, but on which eternity dependeth. And it is a time of traffic till the Master come: and is the Master’ s absence for eating, drinking, or smiting the fellow-servants? II. Know the worth of time, before the want of time. It is a very folly to be niggards of wealth and prodigal of time. It is the great sin of some that they cast away their short time in doing evil, or doing nought to the purpose: as little children who spend their candle in play, and are glad to go to bed by dark, and never perceive their childish folly till it be too late. But Christian wisdom is to set such a price on time as not to let it slip without making ourselves gainers of something better than itself. (J. Taylor, D. D.)Time: its rapid flight A Chinese preacher, wishing to impress upon his hearers the idea that time seems to pass more swiftly as we get older, used a telling illustration drawn from the incense-pan. The incense-pan is an article of furniture familiar to every Chinaman, young and old. It is a stand made to hold a great length of incense, coiled up like a clock-spring. The outer coils are by far the largest, the outermost being fifteen or eighteen inches in circumference; while the inner coils get gradually shorter, the innermost of all not being more than, perhaps, three inches in circumference. This spiral incense being fixed on the frame and lighted, the first round takes a long time to burn; the second round, being shorter, is completed quicker; the third round is completed more quickly still; and so, with accelerated pace, the smoking point courses round the shortening coils till the last is reached, which, being the shortest of all, is travelled round in a fraction of the time that was taken to consume the first. In the same way, said the Chinaman, our years seem to go, flying more swiftly the nearer we get to the end of our life. The shortness of life 1. The tone in which a man speaks often helps us to understand his meaning. “ Brethren, the time is short,” writes St. Paul, and there is no tremor of dismay or sadness in his voice. He was in the midst of work, full of the joy of living, and he quietly said, “ This is not going to last long.” It is what men often say to themselves with terror, clutching the things they hold all the more closely, as if they would hold them for ever. There is nothing of that about St. Paul. And on the other hand, there is no hatred of life which makes him want to be away. There is no mad impatience for the things which lie beyond. 2. It does not matter what St. Paul was thinking of. He may have had his mind upon death or the coming of Christ. And perhaps the very vagueness helps us to his meaning. For he is not, evidently, dwelling upon the nature of the event which is to limit the “ time,” only upon the simple fact that there is a limit. I. What is the shortness of life? To the ephemera it looks like an eternity; to God it looks like an instant. How shall human life seem, then, to man? It depends upon where he stands to look at it. If he stands with the ephemera, his life looks long; if with God, his life looks short. If a man is able, that is, to conceive of immortality, he thinks his life on earth is short--and that we can do so is the pledge and witness of our nobility. II. The shortness of life is bound up with its fulness. The day crawls to the idler, and flies to the busy worker. The shortness of life is closely associated, not merely with the greatest hopes of the future, but with the real vitality of the present. What then? If you and I complain how short life is, how quick it flies, we are complaining of that which is the necessary consequence of our vitality. And does not then the shortness of life cease to be our lamentation and become our privilege and glory? III. Suppose a man has accepted the shortness of life as a conviction, what effect will that conviction have upon his life?1. Must it not make a man try to sift the things that offer themselves to him, and try to find out what his things are? Epictetus said that for each of men there is one great classification of the universe, into the things which concern him and the things which do not concern him. To how many men that classification is all vague. Many men’ s souls are like omnibuses, stopping to take up every interest or task that holds up its finger and beckons them from the side walk. Such indiscriminateness is almost legitimate and necessary in childhood. Then life seems endless. Then the quick experimenting senses are ready for whatever strikes them. But as the course goes on, as its limit comes in sight and we see how short it is, the elective system must come in. Out of the mass of things which we have touched, we must choose these which are ours--books, friends, pleasures, usefulness, &c., before we go. We come to be like a party of travellers left at a great city railway station for a couple of hours. All cannot see everything in town. Each has to choose according to his tastes what he will see. 2. It brings a power of freedom in dealing with the things which we do take to be our own (1 Corinthians 7:29-31). Not that they should not marry, &c. The shortness of life was not to paralyse life like that. But they were to do these things with a soul above their details, and in the principles and motives which lay beyond them. He who has only an hour to stay m some great foreign city will not puzzle himself with the intricacies of its streets or the small particulars of its life. He will try simply to catch its general spirit, to see what sort of town it is, and learn its lessons. He must tread its pavements, talk with its people, &c.; but he will not do these things as the citizens do them. He will do them as if he did them not. Just so he who knows he is in the world for a very little while, is not like a man who is to live here for ever. 3. In the shortness of life the great emotions and experiences assume their largest power and act with their most ennobling influence. Think, e.g., of a great bereavement coming to a man. It comes in two forms. One is in the change of circumstances; the other is in the mystery of death and the distress of love. Now if the man who is bereaved sees nothing in the distance, but one stretch of living, it is the first of these aspects that is the most real. He multiplies the circumstances of his bereavement into all these coming years. But if, when we stand to watch the spirit which has gone away to heaven it seems but a very little time before we shall go too, then our grief is exalted to its largest form. Men’ s griefs are as different as men’ s lives. To the man who is all wrapt up in this world, grief comes as the ghosts come to the poor narrow-minded churl--to plague and tease him. To him to whom life is but an episode, grief comes as angels came to the tent of Abraham. The soul takes the grief in as a guest, and listens reverently for what it has to say about the God from whom it came. 4. The criticalness of life is bound up with its shortness. That thought belongs to every limited period of being which opens into something greater. A boy feels the probation character of his youth just in proportion as he vividly realises the approach of his majority. And man is made so that some sense of criticalness is necessary to the best life always. Let me feel that nothing but this moment depends upon this moment’ s action, and I am very apt to let this moment act pretty much as it will. Let me see the spirits of the moments yet unborn watching it anxiously, and I must watch it also for their sakes. And it is in this that the strongest moral power of life is found. Now ask yourself, Could this have been if life had seemed so long to men as never to suggest its limits? It is when the brook begins to hear the great river calling it, and knows that its time is short, that it begins to hurry over the rocks and toss its foam into the air and make straight for the valley. Life that never thinks of its end lives in a present, and loses the flow and movement of responsibility. 5. When we know that our time of intercourse is short with any man, our relations with that man grow true and deep. Two men who have lived side by side for years, with business and social life between them, with a multitude of suspicions and concealments, let them know that they have only an hour more to live together, and, as they look into each other’ s eyes, do not the suspicions and concealments clear away? Oh, you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day; or letting your friend’ s heart ache for a word of appreciation or sympathy, which you mean to give him some day--if you could only know, all of a sudden, that “ the time is short,” how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)Life’ s brevity No Christian will receive this as a sad announcement, or who has lost those whom he loves, and has a good hope beyond the grave. His only ground of regret is that the work he has to do is too great for the space in which he has to do it. And this is the thought which the word “ short” most literally conveys. It means “ shut in,” “ straitened for room.” And this thought was natural to a mind like Paul’ s--so full, so busy, with large undertakings. I. There are three reasons why time is short.1. To the eye that has been dwelling on eternity, all time, everything we can measure, must be short. 2. Good occupations make shortness. There is a great deal to do. Alas! for the man who finds any day of his life too long. 3. No happy man complains that the hours run sluggishly; and happiness is every man’ s duty. To those who are infinitely happy there is no time at all. II. I speak to those who wish it to be short.1. “ This I say, brethren, the time is short,” before the Elder Brother comes. The time is short for all your earthly brotherhood; and soon will be the heavenly brotherhood, when the whole family will meet in their Father’ s house. Already Jesus is on His way, and He travels quickly. 2. What makes time longer than it is, is to clog it with the past or encumber it with the future. If you desire that time should feel short, live straight to the present; the present duties, joys, trials. You have nothing to do but with the passing moment. Don’ t be long about anything. What is to be said, say it; what is to be done, do it; what is to be thought, think it; what is to be prayed, pray it; what is to be suffered, suffer it. Concentrate. Many persons are too long in their religious duties; they may do better by more condensation. 3. The time is too short-- (1) To trifle with.(2) To be speculative; what we want is to be exceedingly practical. (3) For fretting about little things. The future we care about may never come; and if it comes will be only for a little while. (4) To hoard up, when “ this night thy soul may be required of thee.” (5) To quarrel, when we are all about to go in together to stand before His judgment seat. (6) To mourn for those who are gone when they will so soon come back again. (7) To weep--when God is so soon to “ wipe away all tears from our eyes.” 4. But it is not too short-- (1) To pause and feel its shortness. (2) To do something for God before we “ finish the work which He has given us to do.” (J. Vaughan, M. A.)Brief life is here our portion The text does not say that time is short. That were very true. Compared with eternity, time at the very longest is but as a point. But the text says “The time is short,” i.e., the time of our life and opportunity. This is a truth which everybody believes; yet how few of us act as if we believed it! “ All men think all men mortal but themselves.” Ask the angel what he thinks of the life of a mortal, and he will tell you “ Like the grass, scarcely have I gazed upon them ere they are cut down, withered, and gone.” Or if you interrogate the oak or the elm they will tell you that man is but an infant of to-day. Or take counsel of the old man and he will tell you that when he was a boy he thought he had a wealth of time before him. Yet now he remembers when, as it were but yesterday, he was himself a little child, and his grandsire clasped him to his bosom. And yet, perhaps, some of you hoary veterans need to be reminded that the time is short. Should five, or even ten years more be granted you, how quickly they must pass when seventy so rapidly have fled! Be parsimonious of minutes now, though you may have been once prodigal of years. But to estimate this oracle truly we must turn to the years of the right hand of the Most High. “ A thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday,” &c. “ The time is short.” I. It warns. If ye knew the sterling worth of time ye would shrink from the smallest waste of so precious an article. It is too short--1. To squander upon unprofitable amusements. While recreation is needful to keep the mental and physical powers in working order, we can give no countenance to such gambols and gamblings as rather tend to enervate than to invigorate. 2. To lose it in senseless talk, idle gossip, or domestic scandals. 3. To plan a round of empty frivolities to while away an afternoon or an evening, as the manner of some is. It is said of Henry Martin that he never wasted an hour. I wish it could be said of us, that we wasted neither an hour of our own time, nor of other people’ s. 4. For indecision and vacillation. Your resolving and retracting, your planning and scheming, your sleeping and dreaming, are a mockery of life, and a wilful murder of time. If God be God, serve Him. Decide quick, speak sharp. If not, take the alternative--serve Baal. 5. For speculating upon nice points of controversial theology. You know how the school-men used to debate how many angels could stand on the point of a needle. There is a little of the spirit abroad now. Ministers will devote whole sermons to the discussion of some crotchet. I have generally noticed that the less important the point is, the more savagely will some persons defend it. I would sooner be able to proclaim the Cross and explain the Gospels than decipher the imagery of Ezekiel, or the symbols of the Apocalypse. II. It suggests. Surely, then, I have some opportunity to follow out the work of faith, the patience of hope and the labour of love, though not the opportunity I once had. Some of you can never hope to receive the greeting that awaits such a faithful servant. You have lost the golden opportunity. But are there not children here to whom this is possible? I solemnly charge each young man to foster this aspiration. Prepare for the good fight of faith. Live to the utmost possible consecration of your entire manhood. “ Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” III. It inspires. Now is the accepted time. The time to do the deeds that thou must do, or leave them undone, flies swiftly past.1. Are your children converted? Pray with them to-night. “ The time is short” for others as well as yourself. Do not wait, young man, to preach Jesus till you have had more instruction. You that mean to do something for the poor when you have hoarded up some more money, spend your money now. Be your own executors. “ The time is short.” Let it inspire you to pray for immediate conversions. 2. Seeing the time is short, let us bear with patience the ills that vex us. Are we very poor? Is consumption beginning to prey on our trembling frame? Have we to bear evil treatment from an ungenerous world? Why trouble yourselves about what you will do a month or two hence? You will probably not be here; you will be in heaven. Worldly-mindedness ill becomes us who have confessed that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. IV. It alarms. And well indeed it may. It is a dismal knell I have to toll for the unconverted man, to whom life has been a joy, for he has prospered in the world. But what have you not done? You have not found salvation. How few the opportunities that remain! (C. H. Spurgeon.)Length of life Ten thousand human beings set forth together on their journey. After ten years, one-third, at least, have disappeared. At the middle point of the common measures of life but half are still upon the road. Faster and faster, as the ranks grow thinner, they that remain till now become weary, and lie down, and rise no more. At three-score and ten, a band of some four hundred yet struggle on. At ninety, these have been reduced to a handful of thirty trembling patriarchs. Year after year, they fall in diminishing numbers. One lingers, perhaps, a lonely marvel, till the century is over. We look again, and the work of death is finished. (Bp. Burgess.)Only a little while The attitude of people towards a temporary state of affairs is very different from their attitude towards something permanent. No man fits up his room at an hotel as he does his home. When one is waiting in the vestibule of a public hall he does not give much thought to the inconveniences of his situation. The thing for which he has come is behind those doors. When a man rides in a street-car he would rather have a seat and less crowding; but he never thinks of making a serious matter of that. His object is to get down to business. Now do we recognise the larger applications of the same principle? Suppose we set this life of sixty or seventy years over against the eternal life of the future. The two spaces are related to each other as the vestibule to the hall, the transit on the car to the day’ s business. But remember that Paul does not use the fact of the shortness of life to encourage a sense of indifference to life’ s duties. There may be in the ante-chamber some beautiful pictures and sculptures, &c. These things are for us: we may and ought to enjoy them. We are not excused from the courtesies of life, even on a street-car. The other world may be, and is, the prime fact; but this world is a fact, too, though a secondary one. If Paul says, “ It remaineth that those who have wives be as though they had none,” we are not to conclude that because a man expects to depart for heaven in a short time, he is therefore to treat his wife as though she were not. This being premised, note the bearing of this fact on-- I. Our domestic relations (verse 29). These are the nearest and dearest of all earthly ties; they call out our deepest affections, our best energies. And God Himself instituted them, and Christ sanctified them at Cans; and Paul chooses them to illustrate the love of Christ for the Church. Yet it remaineth, that they that have wives be as though they had none.1. If our earthly homes crowd out the attractions of the heavenly home, we are misusing them. When home ceases to be the nursery of consecrated power, a scene of preparation for heaven, and becomes, instead, a base for fashion and shallow pleasure, then it is time to face the hour when a voice shall call us forth from these beloved doors, to return no more. 2. And then, too, we know that often the family relation is not the type of heaven. We know how men make it the instrument of fostering their pride of birth, and how, for the sake of preserving a family name, loveliness and innocence are allied with senility and debauchery. 3. On the contrary, in the New Testament domestic life is always treated with special reference to the life to come. The institution of the family, beyond any human institution, points up to God. God Himself takes the name of the family head; marriage is to be in the Lord; children are to be trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. II. The sorrow of this world (verse 30).1. Let us confine ourselves to one element--injustice. The innocent suffer; the bad prosper. Away back in the far past we find Job wrestling with the question. On the one hand, the reasoner asks, “ How did it come to pass? Why is it allowed?” On the other hand, the man who is trying to live rightly asks, “ What shall I do with it? How shall I adjust myself to it?” 2. Note the answers which are given to the latter question. (1) Rousseau tells us it is all the result of false training. Human nature is good; and, if you only educate it properly, its evil will be checked, and we shall have a reign of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The value of Rousseau’ s answer may be estimated in the lurid light of the French Revolution. (2) The communist says, “ Only do away with all private interest, and merge all in the public, and all will be well.” But, unfortunately, the history of Nihilism has some significant stories to tell of that experiment. (3) There was the Stoic, who steeled himself against injustice, and cultivated insensibility to pain, anger, and pity alike. (4) There was the Epicurean, saying, “ I will keep out of all such relations with men as will engender injustice or cruelty.” 3. All these views are strictly bounded by this life, and are opposed by that which is represented in our text. For the New Testament-- (1) Shows no sympathy with Rousseau’ s view. It treats injustice as an evil that will exist so long as human society is not under the power of Divine love. (2) Does not give us a picture of any favoured man who escapes the world’ s injustice. On the contrary, the better its men the more they suffer at the world’ s hands. (3) Gives us no men of iron, insensible to suffering. The victims of the world’ s cruelty are real sufferers. (4) Puts every Christian in a positive attitude towards this fact. He cannot evade it; he must feel towards it in the right way. And if, as the gospel everywhere assumes, this state of things is passing away to give place to a better and more permanent one, then let the injustice and cruelty and sorrow be measured by the proportions of that larger life (2 Corinthians 4:17). We can be as though we wept not; i.e., we can be as useful and as kindly as if we had no cause to weep. We may have lost what is ours; but the time is short, and heaven will give it back with interest. III. Our joys (verse 30). Not that we are to pass this life in gloom and sullenness because it is short. When the train goes through the tunnel let us be all the more cheerful because the sunlight will pour in by and by. But if there is grander joy in the life beyond this, it is not the part of wisdom to be too much absorbed in earthly joy. IV. The buying and selling, the possessing and use of the world in general (verse 31). All these things, in New Testament thought, have their value determined by two facts--the shortness of this life, and the overshadowing, transcendent grandeur of the life to come. Does it not become us to hold this world lightly in view of these two truths--so little time left, and eternity approaching? An old woman sat one day beside her apple-stand in a great thoroughfare. A well-known judge walked up and stopped for an apple. “ Well, Molly,” said he, “ don’ t you get tired of sitting here these cold, dismal days?” “ It’ s only a little while, sir,” was the answer. “ And the hot, dusty days?” “ Only a little while, sir.” “ And the rainy, drizzly days, and your sick, rheumatic days?” “ It’ s only a little while, sir.” “ And what then, Molly?” “ Then, sir, I shall enter into that rest which remains for the people of God; and the troublesomeness of the way there don’ t pester nor fret me. It’ s only a little while.” “ But,” said the judge, “ what makes you so sure, Molly?” “ How can I help being sure, since Christ is the way., and I am His? Now I only feel Him along the way; I shall see Him as He is in a little while, sir.” “ Ah!” said the judge, “ you’ ve got more than the law ever taught me.” “ Yes, sir, because I went to the gospel.” “ Well,” said he, as he took up his apple, and began to walk off, “ I must look into these things.” “ There’ s only a little while, sir.” (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)Life, its shadows and its substance Is it, then, the aim of Christianity to turn this world into a dream-land? Are we to undervalue life’ s sweetest affections and deepest sentiments as if they were but appearances? Surely no! Such an interpretation misconceives this passage alone and the whole Bible teaching; for no other book is more intensely realistic than the Word of God, and nothing places more value on common life. I. Let us look around and recall some of our experiences to see whether we may not find a clue to this remarkable passage.1. When, on some summer afternoon, parents watch the sports of their children and perceive their realisation of the game, do they not feel that to the child there is value in these things? And yet, when they consider the after-life of the child, do they not smile at his dream-land? It is to the parents as if it were not. And when the children grow up they feel that, when compared with the larger experience into which they have entered, that early joy was unsubstantial. In like manner, it is in the power of the ripened mind to look forward toward a coming state whose glory and perfectness shall cast all present realisations into such relative inferiority that they shall seem to be but shadows. 2. There are two states of mind in which men have an experience in business. The reality and importance of business is solemnly to be affirmed. And yet there are times when men feel disgust at wealth, and at all the means by which it is sought. But there are hours in which men feel, not that earthly treasure is despicable, but that there is a kind of treasure with which that which the earth affords bears no comparison. 3. He who has built a palace for his affections knows two experiences of the like kind. The earnest reality of heart-life--nothing can take from its importance. But there are times when there is a vision of the coming love in comparison with which all that we here knew in respect to heart-love is but a germ, or a plant in its early years. 4. Some there are who will tell you that in sorrow there is a like experience. The reality, the power, and the dominion of sorrow no man disputes. Yet, as in storms, sometimes there are moments when the clouds part and let through the whole gush of the sun; so, out of anguish, often, the soul rises to a vision of the work which sorrow does for men. “ No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,” &c. And in these higher moods we look back upon sorrows as if they had been no sorrows. Who remembers, when once his feet are upon land again, those weary storms that well-nigh rocked the life out of him but yesterday? 5. Thus in joy too we learn to rejoice as though we rejoiced not. We learn, blessed and beautiful as is the present, to wait for the more glorious disclosure that is just beyond. Have we not, then, in these and like experiences, the interpretation of this sublime truth of the sacred Scriptures? In another way John comes at the same truth, where he says, “ Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” You are to live as if all things here below were transient. You are not to rest in them as though you were satisfied with them. Let us live as though all these symbols of the life to come were but shadows and dreams. II. In view of these illustrations consider how the deepening and ennobling of human life depends, not on the idolatry of its present low estate, but on so employing its earthly letter as to descry what it is going to be.1. Take love, the finest feeling. We are to lift up our conceptions to a state in which our character will turn on this feeling, not occasionally, but as an ordinary experience. And when we have thus raised the ideal that ideal comes back to teach us how pure and noble it ought to be. 2. Nothing else is a better guard against immoderation and the vulgarising tendencies of business than that habit of mind which the apostle here indicates. We take business too often as an ultimate end. We do not let it prophesy anything to us. The wickedness of this world is not that men are addicted to business, but that they look at it only on the earth side; that they fail to hear its testimony of higher things. So soon as a man is satisfied that there is higher wealth than this world affords; that his life consists not of the abundance of the things which he possesses, he is fitted to acquire wealth and administer it. 3. All the experiences which we have in our varied life of this habit of mind which the apostle enjoins, will tend, not to destroy our conscious enjoyment in the present sources of innocent good, but to give us a finer joy. Men, for the most part, do not know how to find the honey in the things of this world. You will never suspect where the honey of a flower is; or, if you did, too large is your hand to be thrust in to get it. But the bee draws out the hidden stores. Its very fineness gives to it what your coarseness withholds from you. We are not fine enough to discover the joy that is hidden in many of the relations of this life. 4. So, too, cares and disappointments, such as waste life, are forestalled and resisted by this habit of mind. “ For I would have you without carefulness.” Not without occupation, but without corrosive anxieties. He that feels that his life here is but transient, and that his true life is craning to him lives above those annoyances. The higher our conception of life the easier will life become. 5. This view lifts us above those fluxes and refluxes of pain and suffering that come from death. What is death? When the apple-tree blossoms you laugh, and you do not cry when you pick the apple; but when man blossoms man laughs, and then, when God picks the fruit, he cries. In winter I planted under glass, and depended upon artificial heat, and waited for the time when I might remove my early plants. But now, in these June days, I have taken them into the broad, exposed garden, and put them where they are to blossom, and they did not weep when I put them there. Now God has raised us under glass, and nurtured us there, that we might bear transplanting into another and better sphere, and when He comes, and takes us, and plants us out in His open garden, is that the time for us to cry? Now let us thank God, not that men die, but that they live. Let us mourn as though we mourned not. (H. W. Beecher.)The shortness of time “ The time is short.” To the serious Christian there is much of consolatory as well as exhortatory nature in this solemn declaration. There is much that meets the anxious sorrows of the weary and heavy laden; and much that meets the circumstances of a sleeping, loitering pilgrim on the road to Zion. I. It remaineth that they that have wives be as though they had none. The apostle would here caution Christians against the undue encroachment of domestic cares. We must take care that our affection does not degenerate into idolatry; that we love our partners and our children with a subordinate regard; fearing lest our hearts should be overcharged with the cares of this life, and so the day of our departure come upon us unawares. We must only sip at the stream as we hasten through the valley, and beware how we linger on its banks. II. The shortness of time should lead those that weep to be as though they wept not. There must be weeping of one kind or other in such a world as this. We must weep over the death of relatives: we must mourn the failure of our favourite projects, the treachery of professed friends, the pains and diseases of a corruptible body, the weariness and helplessness of old age. And however free we may be from immediate causes of distress, we must often mourn from sympathy, “ weep with those that weep.” But the most fruitful source of a Christian’ s tears is his sin. But the time is short; and it remaineth that those that weep be as though they wept not. I might well weep rivers of tears on the very possibility of losing my immortal soul and an eternity of bliss; but for the loss of everything in this world, surely there should be a sorrow commensurate with the narrow limits of its duration. What though we witness the departure of friends? They are only called home a little before ourselves, and soon we shall be for ever with each other and the Lord. What though we feel the adversities of life? Who can fret over a momentary privation, who has a good hope through grace of an inheritance in heaven? What though we feel the earthly house of this tabernacle dissolving? We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, where the inhabitants no more say, I am sick. III. The shortness of time should lead those that rejoice to be as though they rejoiced not. To a certain extent many have a real enjoyment of human life. There is a temporary absence of disturbance, and a considerable competence of what nature relishes. Things wear a prosperous and a pleasurable aspect; and for a season at least men seem at liberty to rejoice, and to let their hearts cheer them. But let us pause and be sober-minded. What is it that we are so fondly handling? Perhaps the cockatrice’ s egg. The object of our endearment is filled with the seeds of misery, and vanity, and corruption. We are leaning on a feeble reed. The longest season of earthly pleasure is, after all, but a fleeting summer’ s day. Let us rejoice with trembling, and only suffer our unrestrained elevation of spirit to be given to these objects, which will never fail us. Rejoicing in Christ Jesus--rejoicing in hope--rejoicing in the testimony of our conscience--here is a wide and satisfying field--here we may fearlessly rejoice, even with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. IV. The shortness of time should lead those that buy to be as those who possessed not. Suspect something seriously wrong if you begin to think yourselves at home in this world. After all, you are but tenants of a day, and here have no continuing city. Let your loins then be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord. V. The shortness of time should lead us to use this world as not abusing it. Such is the depraved propensity of human nature, that it turns into a curse what was intended for a blessing, Riches are abused to the purposes of covetousness or extravagance. The advantages of talents and education are abused to the furtherance of infidelity and error on the one hand, or pride and self-conceit on the other. Time, health, and every other possession are liable to the same alienation from its proper service. It is the fault and the misery of our nature that it is always making the creature the object of idolatrous regard. But we must watch against this propensity. We must reflect upon our situation. The time is short. We are hastening on our journey. We are travelling to our home. And shall we be unduly pleasing ourselves with the comforts of the inn of this world? or wantonly and excessively partaking of its provision, or longing to abide in it: (W. C. Wilson, B. A.)The narrowed opportunity If a woman take leaven and hide it in meal, the meal will be changed into bread; but the meal must work before the bread can be made. The end is a good end, but the process by which it is reached is not pleasant and seemly. The meal will heave and labour, and must. In like manner, when a new principle of life is infused into human society, when, for example, the gospel of Christ is brought into vital contact with a society like that of ancient Corinth, the new quickening principle must work in and upon it before it can be changed, and in order that it may be changed, into more wholesome and happier forms. To hasten the process, and to make the bread all the sweeter when it came, St. Paul threw in the salt of his good counsel. He answers the questions by which the Corinthians were troubled, and which they were not able to answer for themselves. A grown man, who is governed solely by maxims and rules, not by reasons and principles, is a pedant or a slave rather than a man. I. Use the world, but don’ t abuse it. This is the broad general principle which covers, modifies, sanctifies all the details of practical life. Christ had said, “ Be not of this world” ; He had revealed a larger, fairer, more enduring world than the outward set of phenomena and conditions by which we are surrounded. And when the gospel came to the Corinthians, that spiritual world, which in its perfection is also a future world, seemed so attractive to some of them, so near, so momentous, that they heartily despised this present world and all that had once endeared it to them. This was one view of the case. And the other was: “ If time be so short, and the world so near its end, let us make the most of them while they last, and take our fill of pleasure as long as we can. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Both these conclusions, opposite as they are, were drawn from the same premises; and each of them is equally remote from the true conclusion. St. Paul rebukes them both. To the Stoic conclusion, “ Renounce the world,” he replies, “ Nay, but use the world” ; to the Epicurean conclusion, “ Live only to enjoy this world,” he replies, “ Nay, do not abuse the world.” To all who held them he says, “ All things are yours. You may use and enjoy them all. But give the best things the best place in your thoughts. Let that which is largest, fairest, most enduring, take the deepest, strongest hold upon your hearts.” II. The apostle assigns two reasons for thus using the world as not abusing it.1. The brevity of time. “ This I say, brethren, the time is short in order that henceforth … we may use the world as not abusing it.” Time is a word whose value wholly depends on our construction of it. It is variable as a chameleon, and takes its hue from the moods in which we regard it. An hour is much to a child, little to a man. To the same man an hour at a merry Christmas feast is one thing, and an hour on the rack of pain or expectation is a very different thing. Nay, so purely relative is time, that its length contracts or expands according as we look before or after. It is of little use talking to you of the brevity of the time to be; but look back on the years that have gone, and confess that “ the time is short,” that now, if ever, you must bring your life under law to God. “ The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the bird is on the wing.” But the words rendered “ the time is short” mean literally “ the season is contracted, the opportunity lessened.” Every year, every season of life, brings its own opportunities with it, and these, once neglected, never return. Every day, moreover, carries off with it an indelible record of how you have either used or abused it--a record which can never be obliterated, or even modified. As an old Persian poet finely says-- “ The moving finger writes; and having writ, Moves on: nor all your piety and wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.” 2. The second reason which the apostle assigns for a wise use of life is the transitoriness of the world. In the Pauline vocabulary the word “ world” includes nature, human society, and ecclesiastical forms, or, rather, it denotes all the visible and perishable elements of them. And all these change, and live by change. The more delicate and sensitive phenomena of nature vary even as we look upon them. The bare boughs put forth ]eaves of a tender green; the green shifts into yellows, browns, and crimsons; then the leaves fall, and the boughs are bare again. The birds come and go. The clouds shift and fly. The wind veers from point to point. The very rocks crumble. The sea eats away the land. The ice splits the mountains. And men change. The boy grows up into the man, the man marries and has children, sickens, dies. One generation goeth and another cometh. Modes of thought and government and the customs of society are for ever on the flux; “ the old order changeth, giving place to the new.” And we ourselves change. Our deepest impressions are fleeting unless they are continually recalled and retouched. Our most intense delight, whether drawn from some beautiful scene in nature, or from sacred human affections, or from fellowship with God, loses its edge and keenness as the months go by. There is no affection so sharp, there is no joy so pure, but that time dulls it. Let us, therefore, use the world as not abusing it. To-morrow becomes to-day so fast, and to-day yesterday, that we dare not attach ourselves to the present moment, and should not fail to avail ourselves of whatever grace or opportunity it may bring. We, changeful as we are, have an abiding life beneath all our changes, and though the world be changeful too, yet its various phenomena are the passing forms of an external substance. And the question for us is--Which shall we care most for, for which shall we most habitually and earnestly provide, that which is changeful and perishable in us and in the world around us, or that which liveth and abideth for ever? (S. Cox, D. D.)The message of the closing year Like the traveller who goes to sleep in the course of a long journey, and awakes astonished to find that he has traversed such a distance, so have we felt, when the approach of the year’ s end roused us to give attention to the matter. Here are two statements, and a series of practical inferences drawn from them. I. The first statement is pre-eminent for its brief point and solemn suggestiveness: “ The time is short.” Time, as every one knows, is simply duration; but it may be either the duration of the world itself, or the brief space of an individual’ s life on earth; or it may be employed to specify the precise date of some important occurrence.1. It is short, in itself considered; for, as the Psalmist sings, “ The days of our years are threescore years and ten” ; and this is rather the outmost limit than the general average of life. 2. It is short in comparison with the duration of the material universe. 3. The time of our life, again, is short as compared with the years of those who lived in the days before the flood, or even with those of the patriarchs immediately thereafter. They reckoned by hundreds; we do now, at most, by scores. 4. Again, the time of our life is short in comparison with the work we have to do in it. The old painters had an adage, which they derived from Hippocrates, the father of medicine, “ Art is, long, and life is brief.” They felt in their pursuits what our great lexicographer has expressed, when he declares, in reference to some matters about his dictionary, “ that a whole lifetime might be devoted to them, and even a whole lifetime would not be sufficient.” And so every true Christian feels regarding the work that is set before him. 5. But once more here, the time of our life is brief in comparison with eternity. II. The second statement here made is, that “ The fashion of this world passeth away?” The figure has been taken, as is commonly supposed, from theatrical exhibitions. How rapidly, in a drama, does scene follow scene, and act succeed to act! Battles are fought and won, empires lost and gained, sudden elevation followed by swift misfortune, and the events of many years compressed into a few short hours; and then, after the foot-lights are extinguished, the place where, shortly before, there have been pomp and pageantry, is hushed in the silence of complete desertion; while, if you follow the actors to their homes, you may discover that he who stalked across the stage with the port of an emperor, ties down to sleep in an empty attic, or on the cold damp floor of a cheerless cellar. And such, indeed, is life: its changes as rapid, its possessions as fleeting, its joys as transient, and after it is over, there may be seen many contrasts far more striking than that between the actor in his sparkling finery on the stage, and the same man shivering in the cold nakedness of his home. In the estimation of others, however, the figure here is taken, not from the theatre, but from a public profession. But such a procession the whole race of mankind upon the earth has been. On the page of history men pass on and on in ceaseless motion; the costumes vary as the times do change; yet still we gaze, and still they pass: and then, when we come down to the day in which we live, we too fall in and follow them, joining thus “ the innumerable caravan that moves” to the pale realms of shade. Thus it has ever been, thus it shall ever be. In solemn procession the race is moving on to death. “ Passing away” --let us affix these words to the ornaments we delight to look upon, and the works of art we love to see. Briefly let us pass on now to the consideration of the practical inferences which are here drawn from these two solemn truths.1. The first has respect to the relationships of life--“ It remaineth that they who have wives be as though they had none.” But let us not misunderstand our apostle. He does not mean that a man should desert his wife and children, and leave them to the cold cheer of the workhouse, or to the still more uncertain mercy of precarious charity. That is one way in which a man--nay, let me rather call him a human brute--having a wife, may be as though he had none; but that is not obeying the apostle’ s precept. Neither does he menu that a man should spend all his time out of his own house--whether in the fashionable club-room, or the genteel hotel, or the low public-house. That is another way in which he who has a wife may be as though he had none; but that is not obedience to the apostle’ s precept. Neither does he mean that a man should come to his home after business cross, testy, and cantankerous, so that he cannot be spoken to; and should sit down to his newspaper or book, with a foot on either side the fire, utterly oblivious that there is one by his side whom he has solemnly sworn to love. The meaning is that wife, and children, and earthly relationships in general, must all be subordinated to God. We must not build ourselves upon them, as if they were to be always with us, or we always with them. We must build thus on God alone. 2. The next inferences have respect to the sorrows and the joys of earth--“ They that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not.” Here, again, we must beware of supposing that Paul means to inculcate that stoical indifference to which all things come alike, and which can neither be melted to tears nor won into a smile. This was not the example which the Saviour set; for He joined in the mirth of a marriage feast, dropped a tear over the grave of Lazarus, and wept over the lost Jerusalem. He means that we must not allow ourselves to be swallowed up of sorrow, we must not nurse our grief until it become too strong for us to rise above it, nor brood over our sadness until it become murmuring. 3. The next inference has respect to the business of life “ They that buy, as though they possessed not.” This, of course, does not mean that possessions impose no obligation, or involve no responsibility. The vastness of their possessions is to cause no pride; for what is it, after all, to the infinitude of God? The smallness of their earthly portion is to cause no envy; for, having God, what cause have they to complain? 4. Finally, these truths have an influence on the enjoyment of this world’ s goods--“ They that use this world, as not abusing it.” There is thus a legitimate use of the world. I have no sympathy with those who cry out against a proper employment and enjoyment of the good things of this life. No man has so good a right to enjoy these things as a Christian. The things of the world are not in themselves evil. They become so only when, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, we seek to put them in an improper place; when we derive our entire enjoyment from them, or find our entire happiness in them. But, on the other hand, our noblest use of them is to employ them in the service of the Lord. If you have money, use it; do not let it lie rotting in idleness, but let it be employed in the promotion of God’ s glory, and the well-being of your fellows. If you have position, or rank, do not throw its weight into the scale of evil, neither seek to denude yourself entirely of it; but abide in it, and employ all the influence it gives you on the side of God. (W. M. Taylor.)A drama in five Acts 1. Holy Scripture gives not a special rule for each particular case, but rather instructs us by general principles applicable to all cases, otherwise a library would be required rather than a volume. The apostle had to answer several questions with regard to marriage. These he answers with an “ I suppose,” or again, “ Howbeit, for this speak I, not the Lord” ; as if he felt himself quite unequal to meet every case; but he lands here on sure ground, and seems to say, “ Of this one thing I am quite sure; that the time is short, and therefore, whether ye are married or not, &c., &c., ye should act in all these things as knowing their temporary character.” 2. This morning we shall go to a play, for the word “ fashion” is borrowed from the changing scenes of the drama. I. The drama as witnessed by the worldling.Act I. introduces those that have wives. Scene 1. is a wedding. Scene 2. Domestic happiness and prosperity. Scene 3. Children climbing the father’ s knee and lisping their mother’ s name. “ Now,” says our companion, “ I crave for nothing more than this.” He is right in valuing the blessing, but wrong in making it his all. Will he see his error before the curtain falls? Scene 4. A cemetery, and the headstone, with “ Here he lies.” Alas, deluded wordling! Where hast thou now a home? What family hast thou now to care for? The first act is over; “ This also is vanity.”Act II. introduces “ they that weep.” The cloudy and dark days have come. A beloved child dies. Anon, the merchant suffers a tremendous loss. Then the wife is smitten. Our man of the world, much moved, foreseeing his own sorrows therein, cries, “ Surely this is real; you cannot call this a fleeting sorrow or a light affliction. Everything worth living for is gone!” Sympathising deeply, we nevertheless venture to say that these trials to the Christian are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Let the curtain drop--let us enter into an eternal state, and what and where are these temporary griefs?Act III. presents us with a view of those who rejoice. The first-born son has come of age, or it is the daughter’ s wedding, or it is a gain in business, and the man is full of rejoicing. Our friend is smiling at this sunny picture. “ There,” says he, “ is not that real? What more do you want?” If we gently hint to our friend that all this passes away he laughs us to scorn.Act IV. they that buy demand our attention. The merchant is neither a mourner nor a man of mirth; he is attending to the one thing needful, the most substantial of all concerns. There are his money-bags, the rolls of bonds, the banker’ s books, the title-deeds, &c. He has made a good thing of life, and still he adheres to business, and is still piling up his heap, adding field to field and estate to estate. “ Is that all a shadow?” says our friend. “ It will satisfy me at any rate.” Alas, poor fool, the snow melts not sooner than the joy of wealth, and the smoke of the chimney is as solid as the comfort of riches.Act V. the rich man whom lately we saw married, then saw in trouble, then rejoicing and then prospering in business, has entered upon a green old age; he has retired, and has now come to use the world. Now he keeps a liberal table, excellent horses, and many servants, &c., and our friend says, “ Ay, there is something very real here; what do you think of this?” When we hint that the grey hairs of the owner of all these riches betoken that his time is short, and that if this be all he has he is a very poor man, our friend replies, “ Ah! ah! you are always talking in this way.” O world, thou hast line actors, to cheat men so well. The whole matter is a mere show, but yet men give their souls to win it. “ Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?” II. The christian view of this drama. Life is real; life is earnest to the Christian for activity for God; in the solemn responsibility which it brings; in the gratitude which we owe to God. The unreality of this world to him is found in the fact that time is short. This is the wand which touches the substance and makes it, before the eye of wisdom, dissolve into a shade.1. When the apostle declares that they that have wives should be as though they had none, he does not teach us to despise the married state, but not to seek our heaven in it, nor let it hinder our serving the Lord. It is supposed that a man without a wife-- (1) Can give his time to the cause of God: the man with a wife should do the same, and so he will if God hath blessed him with one who will second his holy endeavours. (2) Has no care: a man with a wife Should have none, for he should cast all his cares on God who careth for him. (3) Will find it easier to die, for there will be none of that sorrow at leaving his beloved family: the man with a wife and family should, by faith, find it just as easy since the promise runs, “ Leave thy fatherless children, and let thy widows trust in Me.” 2. Every Christian man must weep; but the apostle says that our sorrows are to be regarded by us, because time is short, as though they were no sorrows at all. A man who knows that his trials will not last long, can be cheerful under them. 3. The Christian has his rejoicings, indeed, he is commanded to rejoice. But still, believer, in all thy joys, remember to hold them with a loose hand. 4. So, too, in the matter of buying and possessing. It is not wrong for a Christian to trade and to trade well. But, still, while we buy and sell it should always be thus--“ This is not my real trade; for my treasure is beyond the skies, where moth devours not, and where rust cannot consume.” 5. The creatures of God are given us to be used, but the Christian must use them as though he did not use them, and learn in whatsoever state he is to be content. That man is the full-grown and true Christian whom circumstances cannot alter! III. The curtain which is soon to drop bears the device, “ Time is short.” At what a rate we whirl along! Childhood seems to travel in a waggon, but manhood at express speed. As we grow older the speed increases till the grey-headed old man looks back upon all his life as but a day. We heard of one who had seen Wesley preach, and he knew others in his youth who told him of the yet older time, and going through the history of some ten or twelve persons you are carried back to the days of the Conqueror. But while time is thus short its end is absolutely sure. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 7:31 And they that use this world, as not abusing it. Using this world (Election sermon):--1. It is the duty of a Christian, so long as he is a citizen of this world, to take a part in its concerns. “ I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world,” &c. (1 Corinthians 5:10). How can salt season, or yeast leaven, if it do not come in contact with that which it is to season or to raise? 2. Christ was removed above all the conventionalities and systems of this world; and yet He conformed to them all. He touched on the political questions; He had teachings about Church and State, and gave His authority to the great principle of taxation. And yet how heavenly the tone of every word and act! I. The believer “ uses” the world, which conveys the ideas of--1. Elevation. What I “ use,” I am above. It is the implement I employ, and not the power I obey. That is just what the world is to a Christian. 2. Intention. What I “ use” is never final. It is to work up to an end. Say it is an amusement I use it, it is to fit me for something I have yet to do. Say it is money, it is that I may have greater power to do good. Say it is influence, it is that I may the better extend truth. Say it is public life, it is that I may throw weight into the side of good. Or say it is the whole world, it is with an eye to eternity, to make myself or others ready, for a higher state that is coming. II. What, then, is it to “ abuse” ?1. If the world rule you, and you do not rule it--if you do not keep it within fixed bounds which your own conscience lays down--if you have not a further end in every natural thing beyond the immediate gratification--if that end is not worthy--then you are abusing the world. 2. If it separate you from Him to whom this whole world belongs, or if you use any part of it for any other end but the glory of the great Proprietor, you abuse the world. Conclusion: Now for present duty. In this representative country every man both legislates and governs. Therefore, it is no simple thing to exercise the franchise.1. You will “ abuse” and not “ use” the power which the law has given you if you do not accept it as a solemn trust which has been committed to you by God, to be exercised for Him. Great things are at stake, and in your degree God has made you the arbiter of them. Therefore-- (1) Discharge the duty calmly, according to your real conviction, bringing the best reflection you can to bear upon it, as before God. (2) Pray for a right judgment in this matter. (3) This done, it will help your decision, as to what line of policy will best promote the great ends that all have in view. Assuredly, the religious aspect of every subject ought to be the first considered. Therefore, regard should certainly be had to the religious character of the man whom you would entrust with power. He who would put first the glory of God, cannot rest in devolving high trust to one who has no such aim. 2. Let all be done with charity of judgment. Let no personal feeling embitter a great work. And then, whatever be the result, accept it as the will of God to you. And though the course of events may run counter with your wishes, still honour God by taking loving views of man, and trusting views of the future. And be they what they may, be loyal to the powers that be. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The use of the world-- I. is lawful. Its enjoyments, associations, business, &c., must be made subservient to the purposes of life and salvation. II. May become sinful--1. By excess.2. By abuse.3. By making it the end of existence. III. Is enforced by the consideration of its vanity. 1. Its fashion changes.2. Its joys wither.3. Its glory must ultimately perish. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The use and abuse of the world I. The reason why we should not abuse this world: the fashion of it passes away; literally, the scene changes.1. The world itself is a stable thing. Its face changes, but its matter and laws are fixed. The same mountain-tops point toward the sky to-day that seemed to touch it when we were children. The same plain stretches out from the Pyramids that the Pharaohs saw from their summits. The inhabitant is often changed; the habitation remains the same. 2. But it does not remain the same to me. The green grass looks not so lightsome when those whom I loved are laid beneath it. This is not the world on which I trod so lightly when I was a child. It was a brighter world then. That fashion went out, and the one that came in after it, was hard and busy. Faster and faster it moved, and I moved with it, until I became giddy with the whirl. At the next change of fashion the breathless runner is left behind. 3. But, besides those which time inexorably brings to all, there are other changes peculiar to each. (1) The owner of a beautiful estate was conducting a visitor through his park. At a bend in the path a lofty beech-tree suddenly hove in sight, wanting one hemisphere of its once symmetrical and stately head. In the last winter’ s blast one of these twin boughs had been rent off, and the survivor, bare on the side where his marrow grew, seemed a stricken, widowed thing. “ See,” said the visitor, “ the emblem of a husband standing alone in the world, after death has torn away the wife of his youth!” Then a stifled sigh revealed to the speaker that he had unconsciously hurt, by touching, a wound still green in his companion’ s side. (2) How many living victims are kept in continual torture! Clinging to wealth, when wealth is taking wings; to the trappings of beauty, when the beauty has gone; to the gaiety of youth, when age, unwelcome, unconfessed, is stealing quietly, quickly on. If you allow your heart-strings to twine around the fashion of the world, you are torn and tortured every day you live; for the fashion of the world is moving past you. The only possible method of living either pleasantly or safely on a shifting scene is to sit loosely on its surface. II. The abuse of this world which the text forbids. When the gifts are turned aside from their wise and kind intent, the Giver takes it ill (Ezekiel 16:19). The abuses of the world cannot be all named; let two or three suffice.1. Day and night are precious constituents of “ this world.” To shuffle them out of their places is to abuse them. An assembly of dancing men and women in a heated hall, a merchant leaning over his ledger in the counting-house, a student before his lamp in the silent chamber, are all guilty of abusing the world, if they occupy the long dark night, and sleep on the morrow while the sun is running his race rejoicing. 2. The fruitful earth is systematically and to a great extent compelled to minister to the vice of men. Nothing in nature is lovelier than the poppy-fields of India. The best land, in the most sheltered situation, is appropriate to the cultivation of the plant, and its product--opium--is a most precious medicine. But when we presume to use it as an indulgence to an unhealthy craving, and force it upon an unwilling people on whom its effects can be only baneful, then we abuse it. At home, too, in a similar way, we abuse the world, by converting a large portion of the grain which it brings forth for the food of man, into a stimulant which is chiefly employed in ministering to his vices. 3. Civilised nations have long abused in the gross a whole continent of the world. Instead of buying from the Africans the products of the soil, so stimulating arts and industry, we bought the people--the weak from the strong--so stimulating war and rapine. III. The use of this world which the text permits and enjoins. Observe how God uses this world, that we may fall in with His purpose. He has made it the dwelling-place of creatures formed after His own image, and capable of communion with Himself; but the grandest use of the habitation was made after the inhabitant fell by sin. Leaving behind all the shining worlds, the Son of God lived here; here the sons and daughters of the Lord obtained their birthright, and are prepared for their inheritance. Such are the purposes for which the Father employs this world; and for these chiefly the dear child values it. This earth shines only in the sunlight: if it were dark it would be also barren. So, morally for man, the world in which we live owes its beauty and its worth to the light which reaches it from heaven. Christians--1. May use the world. Practical religion does not consist in denying ourselves the use of temporal good, or in tasting it with terror. Every creature of God is good. A Christian, with a clear mind and a good conscience, tastes more sweetness in this world than he who has no other portion. The relations of the family, e.g., are touched in the context. He who has entered the family of God, has not thereby forfeited his place or his rights in the families of men. Make one thing sure, that it is the use of the world, not the abuse of it; and then use it with a will. 2. Must use it. Don’ t permit the riches, e.g., to lie so long still that they shall rust. Whatever God may have given you of personal qualification, or social position, or material means, take the use of it yourself, and let your neighbours participate in the benefit. Conclusion: In vain do you tell a man that the fashion of this world passeth away, if you have nothing more to tell. A drowning man will grasp straws; and you cannot put an end to the useless effort by standing on the river’ s brink and proving that straws will not avail to make his body buoyant. How shall we persuade him to let them go? Heave him a life-buoy, and no persuasion will be necessary. When he feels the contact of the better preserver, he will throw away the worse. So no demonstration of the world’ s changefulness will keep a human soul from cleaving to its dust. Nothing but faith’ s possession of the better portion can wean our hearts from the worse. (W. Arnot, D. D.)The use and abuse of the world To “ use” anything is to turn it to account in the direction of those ends for which it is really needed. To “ abuse” is simply to turn a thing away from its true and proper use. This “ world” has its “ uses.” According to the original purpose of God, it is a servant to minister to our wants, not a tyrant to oppress or degrade us. It may become a dangerous foe; but only when we stand in false relations to it. This world is designed to aid-- I. In revealing god to us. “ The heavens declare His glory, &c.” What an “ abuse,” then, of the world it is, when men employ it to conceal God! An astronomer once said that what he found in the study of the starry sky was the “ glory” of Newton, &c., and not the “ glory of God.” And it would seem as if some men deliberately try to forget God, by busying themselves about the things which God has made. They plunge into business and into politics, as if they would forget that the Most High has anything to do either with the growth of cotton or the growth of nations. Even the faces of their little children cease to speak to them of “ The Father” ; the selfish, worldly love they have for them becomes a pretext for ignoring the claims and commands of God. II. In the formation and development of spiritual character. The material exists for the sake of the spiritual. This earth has been furnished as a school for man’ s education. The monastic life is just a kinder “ playing truant.” The true “ use” of a school cannot be to run away from it. On the other hand, there are those who turn the schoolroom into a playground--who seek to convert the means of education and training into the instruments of mere selfish gratification. Some men are like little children burning their lesson-books for the momentary pleasure of the blaze! Others are like children trying to carve out their names on forms and desks of the school, when they ought to be learning lessons. Others are like children, with heads bent over their books, making a show of diligence, in order to conceal an indolent frivolity. And others, alas I are like children who, through self-willed folly, break their limbs in the very gymnasium which was intended and adapted to strengthen them! Oh what an “ abuse” is here! A whole world made for men--and, all the while, men living as if they had been made for the world! III. In serving God. He appoints us duties to discharge, and burdens to bear. His holy and loving commandment meets us everywhere--at home and in the market, &c.; and not a day passes in which He does not give us opportunities of expressing our loyalty to His law. Only see, again, how men “ abuse” the world! They convert it into a sphere of disobedience. Suppose that, in order to secure a higher kind of service from an employee you were to promote him to a confidential position--giving him full access to your books, and an insight into the secrets of your business; and suppose that he were forthwith to employ the knowledge thus obtained in order to injure your business or embezzle your property! And yet this is but a faint emblem of your own conduct towards the Heavenly Master! You take the bread which He places on your table; you come out into His sunshine; you breathe His air; and then, with the health and strength you thus obtain, you pollute His air with words that ought never to be spoken, or commit actions too foul to bear the light of His sun. God reveals to you some of those wondrous secrets which He has lodged in the bosom of Nature, and then you go, perhaps, and employ this very knowledge for the retarding of His spiritual kingdom. You take the subtle electricity, and with it you flash your lying, fraudulent message along the wire--breaking God’ s own law of truth and justice with God’ s own mysterious forces! He gives you wife and children and friends; and lo! you make them do the devil’ s work. Here is one man whom God’ s Providence places in a position of power. How that man might use his power in the cause of truth and justice and liberty! But, instead of this, he becomes tyrannical. Here is another man who bus been placed in a position of wealth. How that man might multiply manifestations of loyalty to God! But, instead of this, he practically worships his gold, and employs it to corrupt and degrade others, and to supply fuel for his own lusts. Conclusion: “ The fashion of this world passeth away.” Let us, then, not live as if the visible were the eternal. And let us remember that we do not necessarily escape worldliness, by belonging to what is called “ the religious world.” Men may seem to be engaged in the service of God, and yet all the while be only serving themselves. A selfish ambition does not cease to be worldly merely because it is ecclesiastical. Slander and spite do not cease to be worldly merely because they appear in a “ religious newspaper.” “ The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” do not cease to be worldly, even in a household that is daily summoned to family prayers. (T. C. Finlayson.)The use and abuse of the world.-- I. Paul’ s present observation about this world. That its “ fashion” “ passeth away.” It passes away--1. Before our eyes.2. To our hearts. II. The use which Paul makes of this fact. That they that use this world should use it as not abusing it. 1. The world is abused when we suffer it-- (1) To supplant in our hearts its Creator;(2) To banish other worlds from the sphere of our attraction;(3) To overcome us;(4) To make us carry the lawful use of it to excess. 2. The world should be used with-- (1) A pilgrim’ s;(2) A godly;(3) A free and independent;(4) A generous and holy spirit. (S. Martin.)On the use and abuse of the world The world is always represented in Scripture as the great scene of trial to a Christian. The part which is proper for him to act may be comprised in these two expressive words of the text; “ using the world, and not abusing it” ; the significancy and extent of which I propose now to explain. The subject is of the higher importance, as in the world we must live; and according as we use or abuse it, it will prove either our friend or our greatest foe. It is natural to begin with observing that the Christian is here supposed to “ use the world” ; by which we must certainly understand the apostle to mean maintaining intercourse and connection with the world; living in it as one of the members of human society, assuming that rank which belongs to his station. No one can be said to use the world who lives not thus. Hence it follows that sequestration from the world is no part of Christian duty. Instead of employing their influence to regulate and temper the pleasures of the world by a moderate participation of those that are innocent, they deliver up all the entertainments of society into the hands of the louse and giddy. It may be assumed, therefore, as a principle justified by the text, and by the whole strain of Scripture, that to use, and in a certain degree to enjoy, the world, is altogether consistent with religion. We shall have a clearer view of the proper use of the world when we contrast it with that abuse of the world which we too often observe. Those abuses manifest themselves in various forms; but in general may be classed under three great heads. I. They are abusers of the world who intemperately give themselves up to its pleasures, and lead a life of licentiousness, riot, and dissipation. Amidst the wealth and luxury of the present age, it will be admitted that persons of this description are not unfrequent, who, being opulent in fortune, and perhaps high in rank, think themselves entitled to pass their days in a careless manner, without any other object in view than the gratification of their senses and passions. By the train of life which they lead they defeat every purpose for which Providence bestowed on them the blessings of prosperity. They sink every talent which they possess into useless insignificancy. They corrupt the public manners by their example, and diffuse among others the spirit of extravagance and folly. They behave in a manner altogether unsuitable to the condition of the world in which we live. With indignant eyes the sober and thinking part of mankind view the luxury and riot of those abusers of the world. To them are owing the discontents of the poor, their disaffection to their superiors, their proneness to disturb the peace of the world. The conduct of such abusers of the world is not only pernicious to the welfare of society and to the interests of virtue, it is equally ruinous to themselves. At the bottom of the hearts of all men there lies a secret sense of propriety, virtue, and honour. This sense may be so far blunted as to lose its influence in guiding men to what is right, while yet it retains its power of making them feel that they are acting wrong. Hence remorse often gnaws the heart which affects to appear light and gay before the world. Retreat, then, from your dishonourable courses, ye who by licentiousness, extravagance, and vice, are abusers of the world! You are degrading, you are ruining yourselves. You are grossly misemploying the gifts of God, and the Giver will not fail to punish. II. The world is abused, not only by an intemperate pursuit of its pleasures, but by a sordid attachment to its gains. This respects a set of men of a very different description from the former, more decent in their carriage, and less flagrant in their vices, but corrupted by the world in no less a degree. For the world is often abused by the men of business as much as by the men of pleasure. The world, with its advantages, is a lawful object of pursuit to a Christian. He may seek, by fair industry, to render his circumstance affluent. His care is, not merely to amass and possess, but to use his possessions well, as one who is accountable to God. He is not a slave, either to the hopes or the fears of the world. He would rather forfeit any present advantage than obtain it at the expense of violating the Divine law or neglecting his duty. This is using the world like a good man. This is living in it as a subject of God and a member of the great community of mankind. Very opposite to this is the character of the worldly-minded. To them the mere attainment of earthly possessions is an ultimate aim. They cannot be said to use the world; for to possess, not to use or enjoy, is their object. He is an abuser of the world who cannot occasionally retreat from it to consider what character he bears in the sight of God, and to what issue his conduct will bring him at last. In a word, the world is then properly used when it is generously and beneficially enjoyed; neither hoarded up by avarice, nor squandered by ostentation. III. The world is abused by those who employ its advantages to the injury or oppression of their brethren. Under this class are included the worst and most criminal abusers of the world, who turn against their fellow-creatures those advantages with which it has pleased Heaven to distinguish them. The licentious, the avaricious, and the insolent, form the three great classes of abusers of the world. Let not those who are in wealthy and flourishing circumstances complain of the restraints which religious doctrine attempts to impose on their enjoyments. For to what do these restraints amount? To no more than this, that, by their pleasures, they would neither injure themselves nor injure others. (H. Blair. D. D.)The use and abuse of the world I. A good man may make use of the world.1. The persons of the world. 2. The things of the world, for they are his own: “ All things are yours.” It is an incivility and unthankfulness not to make use of a gift, and the things of this world are God’ s gift. We are all travellers to another country, so far therefore as things are necessary for our journey, we may make use thereof. II. But we must use the world as though we used it not. As wicked men do use the things of God, and of the other world, so a good man should use the things of this world. A wicked man prays as if he prayed not, and hears as if he heard not, because his mind is upon other things. “ Set your affections on things that are above.” As good men are where they yet are not, namely in heaven, so they are not where they now are, namely on earth, for your conversation is in heaven. The things of this world are but to serve a purpose, and are not to be enjoyed for themselves. Clothes are but to cover nakedness; meat and drink but to serve hunger and thirst; only God is to be enjoyed; therefore why should we not use the world as ii we used it not? And then the world uses us as if it used us not, and cares for us as if it cared not for us. III. What are those particular concernments wherein we are to use the world as if we used it not?1. Our relations (1 Corinthians 7:29). Be as zealous for the truth and as ready to suffer for the cause of Christ as if you had none. 2. Grief (1 Corinthians 7:20). It is lawful to grieve, but we must not weep too much, or otherwise it will argue that we have too much love to the world. If we are to “ rejoice in the Lord evermore,” then surely we are to weep as if we wept not. 3. Joy. Why should I joy much in that which I cannot enjoy? God only is to be enjoyed. There is a crack in the finest crystal. 4. Our possessions (1 Corinthians 7:30). How can a man be patient in the loss of things if he be not weaned from them while he hath them. And if good men have greater possessions to mind, and they cannot intensively mind both, then surely they must so possess, as if they possessed not. IV. What is there in these reasons of the apostle that may ,enforce the exhortation?1. The time is short. We have a great business to do, and but little time to do it in. If a citizen go into the country about some business that concerns his life, will he run up and down to catch butterflies, when all his time is but little enough for to do his business in? 2. The fashion of this world, it is but a piece of pageantry, a stage--one goes off and another comes on. As that is a fashion to-day which was not yesterday, that is a fashion to-day which is none to-morrow; so the fashion of the world passeth away. Will you instance a natural, civil, sinful, religious, or comfortable fashion of the world that does not pass away? V. When may a man be said so to use the world as if he used it not? When a man so uses the world as to walk with God in the use thereof: when one man walks with another he turns as he turns; so when a man walks with God in the world, he turns as God turns. When God calls to joy, he joys; when God calls to grief, he grieves, &c. VI. Suppose i do not use the world as if i used it not, what then?1. You do want this character of a good man. 2. You are not dead to the world, and if not dead to the world, then not dead with Christ. 3. You are defiled by the world. 4. Your hearts will reproach you when you come to die. 5. You cannot more prejudice the thing you love, nor wrong yourselves more, than by loving it too much. A man leans upon a slender stick, and both breaks the stick and runs it into his hand. VII. What shall we do that we may get our hearts into this gracious and holy frame? Note--1. What that man does that uses the world as if he used it not. (1) He will be sure to use grace in the use of the world. (2) He will be ready to give up that part of the world unto God wherein his affections are most engaged. (3) He will stand at a distance from the world, in the getting as well as in the keeping. (4) He will not place his religion in a morning and in an evening duty, but in his walking with God in his place. 2. The means. (1) Labour to possess your hearts much with God’ s all-sufficiency (Psalms 62:10-11). (2) Look upon the world with the prospective of the Scripture, not with the world’ s multiplying glass. (3) Never fall in love with any condition for itself, but for the good of the condition. (4) Take all God’ s alarums of death, and mingle those with the consideration of the death of Christ, and then you will die to the world. (5) Afford the world and the things thereof, so much of your love, as better things do leave. (6) Let the name of the Lord be very precious in your hearts and in your eyes. (7) Go to the Lord and beg of the Lord to fulfil His promises. (8) Consider what a good thing it is to use this world as if we used it not. Thereby-- (a) You shall be able to want and to part with the world with ease: “ I know how to want,” saith Paul, and “ I know how to abound.” (b) You shall have more of the world, and have it in a better edition, in a better impression, for it will be sanctified unto you. (c) you shall have that which is better than all, the mind of Christ. (W. Bridge, M. A.)For the fashion of this world passeth away.-- The fashion of the world The words contain-- I. A metaphorical allusion to a public exhibition or a dramatic representation.1. The state and constitution of things as they now exist pass away; not so much the world itself, as to its material substance, as its fashion with respect to us. Do we now behold a beautiful appearance of nature or art? To us they will soon be as the reminiscence of a giddy dream. 2. Our employments and pursuits here. In these we are as the actors of a drama. Some assume fictitious characters; our possessions and enjoyments change; our feelings change, not only as to their nature, but their keenness. 3. Our present ties and connections. These pass away to assume another fashion. In the world to come “ we shall know no man after the flesh.” II. Doctrine truth.1. The present world bears evident marks of imperfection; but “ God is a rock, His work is perfect.” 2. The present world does not exhibit that discrimination which exists between the righteous and the wicked. 3. The grand end of all revelation is to prepare men for another life. Why have human beings an intelligent existence? Why did Jehovah style Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Why select a people and inspire prophets to instruct them? Why send His Son to live, &c.? Why alarm the fears or excite the hopes? Verily there is an after state, &c. III. A practical application.1. All are equally concerned in it. Young persons of robust constitution must die as well as the greyheaded and infirm. The knowing or witty must all pass away. 2. This alone is our state of probation. Fleeting as this state is, when once gone it returns no more; “ time is short,” not so eternity. “ Behold, now is the accepted time,” &c. 3. The change of worlds, with respect to the righteous, will be highly advantageous. 4. The change of worlds to the unconverted distressing and terrible. What will become of the proud? (Malachi 4:1.) Of the worldly person? (James 5:1-3.) Of the carnally minded? (Romans 8:6.) Of the vain and giddy? (Luke 6:25.) In a word “ If the righteous scarcely are saved,” &c. Conclusion: Does the fashion of the world pass away? Then let us improve every occurrence which may tend to loosen our attachment to this world, and every means to prepare us for a better. (Homilist.)The passing nature of this world I. By this world we are to understand the visible, in opposition to the invisible state of existence. For into these two the whole world, or entire system of the creation, is resolved: the world that is unseen, and is in its nature eternal; and the world that is seen, and is in its constitution temporal. And by the attention that every man pays to the one or the other, his character is determined and his lot is fixed. He is either carnally or spiritually minded, and his recompense accordingly, death or life (Romans 8:6). Here things look quite otherwise than they are. Mourning and poverty bear the face of misery; mirth and riches appear to be happiness; fame and preferment are styled honour; slander and oppression are accounted disgrace; hypocrisy has the face of devotion; pride the mask of humility; vanity the air of greatness. In short, truth is currently counterfeited and concealed under false colours; and, as the Psalmist sings, man spends his life in a vain show. Yet, in truth, they may be blessed that mourn--they may be happy that are poor--they may be truly honourable that are in disgrace in this world--they may be great and good who look mean. And, on the contrary, they may be worthless, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked, who are accounted rich, and great, and famous among men. Here things have no solid bottom. All moves in a perpetual tendency to another state, where false appearances shall for ever vanish away, and everything appear as it really is. The whole frame of things here is continually hastening to a dissolution--continually shifting place and time. II. This world is in its nature a fluctuating and transitory state of things.1. Time is the element in which all creatures below are calculated to exist; in which they begin, go on, and end: and an element continually changing; always in motion, never resting, never returning. 2. The numberless creatures that exist in time, and compose this world, are continually changing with time, and passing away. III. The use we should make of this important and extensive truth.1. To avoid all anxious care and immoderate concern about the things of this life. 2. To be moderate in the use of worldly enjoyments. 3. To be contented with our lot in the world. 4. Here we have read a lesson that redeems poverty from contempt, and reduces riches to little. 5. Hence we may observe the sin and folly of those who trust to their riches for supporting their life, credit, and comfort in this world. 6. From this subject we should learn patience under afflictions. They cannot last in a world continually changing and passing away. A little time longer will either end or amend them. 7. We should study to wean our affections from the things of time; to leave the world as fast as it leaves us; to be more and more indifferent about the pains or pleasures of it, the longer we live in it. 8. What we have heard serves to abate the love of life and the terrors of death, which naturally keep the mind of man under bondage. 9. Here Christians may read consolation under the loss of Christian friends, relations, or acquaintances. 10. Let us bless God with thankful hearts that we have another and a better world to look for, a state that can never know either time or change (Wm. Beet.)On the fashion of the world passing away I. The fashion of the world passeth away, as the opinions, ideas, and manners of men are always changing. We look in vain for a standard to ascertain and fix any of these; in vain expect that what has been approved and established for a while, is always to endure. Principles which were of high authority among our ancestors are now exploded. When we read an account of the manners and occupations, of the studies and opinions, even of our own countrymen, in some remote age, we seem to be reading the history of a different world from what we now inhabit. Coming downwards, through some generations, a new face of things appears. As one wave effaces the ridge which the former had made on the sand by the sea-shore, so every succeeding age obliterates the opinions and modes of the age which had gone before it. Let us only think of the changes which out” own ideas and opinions undergo in the progress of life. One man differs not more from another, than the same man varies from himself in different periods of his age, and in different situations of fortune. In youth and in opulence everything appears smiling and gay. But let some more years have passed over our heads, or let disappointments in the world have depressed our spirits; and what a change takes place! The world itself remains the same. But its form, its appearance, is changed to our view; its fashion, as to us, hath passed away. II. While our opinions and ideas are thus changing within, the condition of all external things is, at the same time, ever changing without us and around us. Wherever we cast our eyes over the face of nature, or the monuments of art, we discern the marks of alteration and vicissitude. We cannot travel far upon the earth without being presented with many a striking memorial of the changes made by time. What was once a flourishing city is now a neglected village. When from the public scene we turn our eye to our own private connections, the changes which have taken place in the fashion of the world must touch every reflecting mind with a more tender sensibility. For where are now many of the companions of our early years? III. Not only our connections with all things around us change, but our own life, through all its stages and conditions, is ever passing away. As the life of man, considered in its duration, thus fleets and passes away, so, during the time it lasts, its condition is perpetually changing. It affords us nothing on which we can set up our rest; no enjoyment or possession which we can properly call our own. IV. That the world itself in which we dwell, the basis of all our present enjoyments, is itself contrived for change, and designed to pass away. There are three fixed and permanent objects to which I must now call your attention, as the great supports of human constancy amidst this fugitive state.1. Virtue and goodness never change. Let opinions and manners, conditions and situations, in public and in private life, alter as they will, virtue is ever the same. It rests on the immovable basis of eternal truth. Every terrestrial glory sparkles only for a little, with transient brightness. But virtue shines with eternal and unalterable splendour. It derives its origin from heaven; and partakes both of the lustre and the stability of celestial objects. 2. God never changes. Amidst the unceasing vicissitude of earthly things, there remains at the head of the universe an Eternal Protector of virtue, whose throne is established for ever. With Him there is no variableness, neither any shadow of turning; no inconstancy of purpose, and no decay of wisdom or of power. How much soever worldly things may change in themselves, they are all united in His plan; they constitute one great system or whole of which He is the author; and which, at its final completion, shall appear to be perfect. His dominion holds together, in a continued chain, the successive variety of human events; gives stability to things that in themselves are fluctuating; gives constancy even to the fashion of the world while it is passing away. 3. Heaven and immortality pass not away. The fleeting scenes of this life are to be considered as no more than an introduction to a nobler and more permanent order of things, when man shall have attained the maturity of his being. (H. Blair, D. D.)The changing nature of worldly things I. All things around us are changing. The visible heavens daily vary their appearance, the seasons walk their rounds, and in each we experience a great variety in the temperature. Nature is continually diversifying her dress. Time makes observable changes in the surface of our globe. Every age introduces great alterations in the bounds of empires, in the politics and commerce of nations. Families, as well as nations, are changing. New ones are forming as elder ones pass away. The lands which have been acquired, and the property which has been accumulated, by the industry of the proprietor, are often alienated by the misfortune or folly of the descendants. The condition of every person is in continual mutation. As we advance in life, our Views and apprehensions of men and things, and our taste and inclination for the objects around us, greatly alter. The inhabitants of the world are changing. There is a mighty change which awaits us all. II. Let us improve the sentiment. The mutable condition of the world may lead us--1. To contemplate the immutability of the Creator (Hebrews 1:10-12). 2. To see much of the wisdom and goodness of God. (1) The mutability of things is on the whole a source of enjoyment. We are formed to love variety. The traveller passing over a level plain where, all along, a train of similar objects meets his eyes, soon finds the scene tedious. Let a man choose his own condition, and place himself in the most agreeable circumstances; will he enjoy it? No, not for a single week. There must be something new, or every pleasure becomes insipid. (2) As our pleasures are heightened, so our pains are mitigated, by variety. On the roughest roads there is some smooth way where we can walk with ease, Many are the troubles of the world, but they are intermixed with pleasures. And our troubles are not always the same; one passes away as another comes. We find some relief by shifting it from shoulder to shoulder. 3. To direct our thoughts to a future state of existence. One change leads to another. Each season is preparatory to the next. Youth is preparatory to manhood, and this to old age. We may naturally then conclude that death is introductory to a new state of existence. Pain, in this state, usually precedes high enjoyment; the humiliating circumstances of death are preludes to glory and immortality. 4. To rejoice as if we rejoiced not, and weep as if we wept not. 5. To remember our great change. When we see the fashion of the world passing away, it becomes us to realise that we are passing away also, and have here no continuing city. The seaman, in a feeble bark, tossed on the tumultuous ocean, surely will not imagine himself on firm ground, nor forget his danger of being swallowed up in the deep. 6. To direct our thoughts to heaven, where none of the painful vicissitudes of the present stage will attend us. Changes there will be in heaven, but they will be only changes for the better, from glory to glory, from perfection to perfection. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)The world changes Ah, this beautiful world! I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all sunshine and gladness, and heaven itself lies not far off; and then it suddenly changes, and is dark and sorrowful, and the clouds shut out the day. In the lives of the saddest of us there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms. Then come gloomy hours, when the fire will not burn on our hearths, and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and ofttimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. (H. W. Longfellow.)The fashion of the world passeth away The crust of the globe is constantly changing in some form or other in all places. It is true in a material sense that the fashion of the world passeth away. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)Eternal things and fleeting Afar off one Can hardly tell which is mountain and which is cloud. The clouds rise with peaks and summits, all apparently as solid, and certainly as glistening, as the snow-clad Alps, so that the clearest eye might readily be deceived. Yet the mountain is unsubstantial as the cloud, and the cloud is never permanent as the mountain. So do the things of time appear to be all-important, far-reaching and enduring, arid eternal things are not always of equal weight to the soul with those nearer at hand. Yet, despite all our instinctive judgments may suggest to the contrary, nothing earthly can ever be lasting, nothing in time can be worth considering compared with eternity. The cloudy philosophies of men may assume the shape of eternal truth, but the wind shall scatter them, while the great mountains of the Divine Word shall stand fast for ever and ever. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Corinthians 7:32-40 But I would have you without carefulness.“ Without carefulness” I. By avoiding those states which involve carefulness. Take, e.g. 1. The question of marriage. Paul bids Christians, in the first place, not to marry. (1) But that was a time of persecution. The Christian man who had no family could flee in a moment if it was right to flee, and if caught he had not to think about his wife and fatherless children. Paul wished the Church to be like an army which is not encumbered with baggage; his own consisted of half a dozen needles and a reel of thread. He was thus without carefulness. (2) But to-day the circumstances are decidedly different, and we are to follow the principle rather than the particular instance. I have known brethren who had a great deal more care before than after marriage, and who served God better in the married estate. That is the rule to judge by. But numbers of you never judge at all in this way. Many men and women rush into marriage when they know that it must involve them in all sorts of care and hinder them in the Master’ s service. 2. Increased worldly business. Now, if you can serve God better by having a dozen shops, have a dozen; but I have known persons whom God blessed in one shop, and they lost the blessing when they opened two or three. When invited to take their part in the Lord’ s work, they replied--“ You see, I cannot get out,” or “ I am so tied.” But as the disability is entirely of your own creation, how can it excuse you? Do not fill your pocket at the expense of your soul. God can prosper you and make you happy with a more manageable business, and he can make you miserable if you wilfully increase your cares. Remember how Napoleon tried to do too much, and did it, and did for himself. 3. Public engagements. Everything which concerns man concerns a Christian, and God never wished His servants to leave the government of this realm to all the place-hunters who look for a seat in Parliament. To abandon law-making to the worst of men would be infamous. So with everything which concerns the public weal. But let the rule be--first God, and then our fellow-men. Ye are the servants of God; do not make yourselves the Slaves of men. 4. Occupations prevent attendance at the house of God. When a young man with a moderate salary, and the whole Sabbath and some week-evenings to himself, is offered twice as much in a place Where he must be shut out from worship and service, I hope he will look long before he makes the bargain. For Christians, the best place is where they can do most for Jesus. II. By keeping away from those pursuits which naturally foster it:1. When a man makes the gaining of riches the first thing in life he cannot be without carefulness. Where his treasure is, there will his heart be also. 2. If you live with the view of gaining honour among men, you will be full of cares. To please everybody is as impossible as to make ice and bake bread at the same moment in one oven. 3. Those who are ambitions to be very respectable will never be without carefulness; they have a pound coming in, but they spend a guinea. Some have a favourite object in life--not God; and these cannot be without carefulness. Dear mother, love your children by all means, but if that little one has become an idol, you cannot be without carefulness. Lots of children have suffered a martyrdom from too much nursing, and excessive carefulness has created cause for care. If anything else becomes the hobby of life, a horse, a dog, a flower, a painting, it will entangle you in nets of care. III. By exercising a childlike faith in God. He sends you troubles and trials, but be without carefulness--1. By never trying to anticipate them. Never meet them half-way. Commit your way unto the Lord, and then be without carefulness. 2. By being quite content with the Lord’ s will. Do your best and leave business, health, friends, &c., in the hands of God. 3. By being quite sure about the love of God. He cannot make a mistake, and He cannot fail His people. If the worst thing, as it seems to us, should happen, it must be the right thing, because God has sent it. 4. By believing in the power of prayer, and in the fact that God does actually answer it. 5. By giving all our thought and care to this one object--How can I live as Christ would have lived? You never find Jesus worrying. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Against carefulness I. The evil and danger of “ carefulness.” Every kind of care is not evil; but only that care which is attended with anxiety. And this is evil--1. As distracting our mind.2. As impeding our progress.3. As tending, to turn us from the path of strict integrity. II. How we may most effectually divest ourselves of it. We must get--1. A deep sense of the obligations which God has laid upon us.2. A lively sense of the obligations which He has laid upon Himself also respecting us. (C. Simeon, M. A.)Free from cares I. Why should we be “ free from cares” ?--1. The approach of the end. (1) “ The time is shortened,” between now and the Lord’ s coming; or-- (2) Between now and our last hour. 2. The transiency of all earthly things. “ The fashion of this world passeth away.” Do not many of the circumstances of past life, that were then subjects of absorbing anxiety, look now like so many shifting scenes of a stage play? II. How should we be “ free from cares” ?1. By contentment with our present lot. This is the lesson of 1 Corinthians 7:10-11; 1 Corinthians 7:27; 1 Corinthians 7:18; 1 Corinthians 7:21, &c. “ Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called” (1 Corinthians 7:20). 2. By using all temporal relations without worldly absorption in them. (1) All relative duties--husband and-wife an example.(2) All sorrowful and joyous events.(3) All acquisitions. 3. By using all temporal relations with a view of pleasing God (1 Corinthians 7:32; 1 Corinthians 7:34-35). (Clerical World.)Torment of little cares One of the most cruel torments of the Inquisition was to place a poor victim beneath a tap, and let the cold water fall upon the head drop by drop. This was not felt at first, but at last the monotony of the water dropping always on one spot became almost unendurable; the agony was too great to be expressed. It is just so with little cares. When they keep constantly falling drop by drop upon one individual they tend to produce irritation, calculated to make life well-nigh insupportable. (Clerical Library.)He that is unmarried … but he that is married.--The cares of married life I. Are unavoidable. Marriage involves not merely new anxieties and troubles, but new claims which may interfere with our duty to God. II. May be moderated.1. By considering the sinfulness of excessive care.2. By a supreme aim to please God.3. By pleasing the partner of our life for good to edification. (J. Lyth, D. D.)This I speak for your own profit.--Advice should be given I. With a pure motive--for another’ s profit. II. In a Christian spirit--So as not to overrule conscience and bring a snare. III. For a wise end--to secure what is honourable and subservient to piety. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Characteristics of Christianity The apostle here specifies in dealing with one particular subject some of the grand features which commend the Christian life. The expansion of the text is not unwarrantable, for religion is-- I. True profit. “ This I speak for your profit” might preface nearly every Biblical injunction; for godliness in its widest scope and minutest details is “ profitable unto all things.” This fact appeals to the practical side of our nature, and should have some force in this utilitarian age. II. Perfect freedom. The last thing Paul had in view was to cast a noose over the Corinthians, or to lay a restraint on them. The very key note of his teaching, as of the whole gospel, is “ liberty.” This appeals to the volitional side of our nature, and should arrest the attention of an age one of whose loudest watchwords is “ freedom” --of thought, trade, &c. Religion fetters us in nothing, but in that which would restrict our true liberty. Hence it is “ a perfect law of liberty.” III. Real beauty. “ That which is comely.” Much which goes by the name is unreal because unsubstantial and fading. One of the synonyms of Christianity is “ grace” --what is becoming the uncreated beauty of ‘ God, and what becomes the creature made in His image. By the common consent of all who are entitled to judge, the most beautiful characters are those who are formed on the model of Him who is “ the altogether lovely.” Religion thus appeals to the aesthetic side of nature, and should gain an hearing in an age which has witnessed a wonderful revival of art. IV. Happy service. “ That ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.” To attend upon anything with- out distraction is a desideratum in this busy age. The lowest and simplest services bring their cares, and men and women are overwhelmed with them. Religion sanctifies these and would have us at home, and in the world, “ without carefulness.” But in the highest and most difficult service--work for God, and for the eternal interests of man--here anxiety is often the acutest. Paul’ s contention is that this should not, must not be. And when we consider the nature of the work, its issues, and its helps, we shall say with our Master “ I delight to do Thy will, O My God.” Conclusion: What more can be added to commend religion? Seemingly two things. The great questions yet remain--Is it reasonable? Is it right? But these are answered already practically. A thing that is profitable, liberating, beautiful, useful and blessed cannot be irrational and wrong. (J. W. Burn.)Power over his own will--Will-power What is your conception of the best manhood? Clearly, there may be various conceptions of it, each with much to say for itself. One may think to discover it in the domain of mind, where the mellow and perfect culture of a vigorous understanding claims and wins homage. Another detects it in physical beauty and vigour, and in that delightful condition of body which makes it the obedient and ready organ of the spirit. Another, again, finds it in the moral nature of man. The best is the manliest. The purest, gentlest, kindest, truest, tenderest; he is the most worthy, and therefore the most admirable. But surely our text has the real key to the question. It is in the quality, and use, and dominance of the will that the test of manhood is to be discovered. It has been well said that every act is made up of a purpose, a method, and a power. But the purpose comes first. Also, what is true of an act is doubly true of a life. If the will is the mechanical force of the soul, before all things let it be strong. Only a strong will can make a strong man. If the will initiates action in purposing it, it must persevere in it for the accomplishing of the purpose; and, perhaps, even more needful than the volition that starts an act is the firmness that stays. What we all want in life is staying power. The beginning of the race is brisk, facile, and pleasant; but it needs more than high spirits and a vivid fancy to go on to the far end. See, oh, clearly see, that it is not from force of will, so much as from weakness of it, that the world breeds its miseries and its failures. Of course a strong will misdirected is bad. The apostle, you observe, is careful to add “ his own will.” Perhaps in nothing is a real man’ s individuality so marked as in his own will. Each man, as says Shelley, must “ be himself alone,” and he is most specifically himself by his will. If it deserves the name, your will differs from mine, and every other man’ s, in its surroundings, its flexibility, and original force; and we have to do the best with it that we can. For if you say, as well you may, is not will an inheritance by birth, God’ s original gift, as much as brain, or animal strength, or those surroundings which make such a difference in our start--I say, in a degree, yes: but not so as to justify us in a base despair because our pound is but one, when our neighbour has five. Like memory, like reason, like the brain itself, which they say grows all through a man’ s life with the steady work that does it honour, it is made stronger by regular, definite, and repeated use. Then there is the control of the will, which St. Paul describes as power over it, or as the Revised Version gives it, power touching it. To rule the will, we must first consecrate it, in surrendering it with the entire being which it both commands and energises at the footstool of the most high God. You remember of Him, who lived as no other man lived, and died as no other man died, what He said about His will--His human will--a will like yours and mine, “ Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” To give our will back, up to Him who has bestowed it upon us, with its terrible honourable freedom, is at once our dignity and our blessedness. Our dignity, because thereby we recognise the Divine Fatherhood, and plead our own sonship, as the children of God. Our blessedness, for sometimes the noblest use of liberty is to surrender it: and what St. James calls the perfect law of liberty, is only learnt in the school of love. “ Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price. Wherefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’ s.” To rule it, again, implies that we use it. By using it I mean giving it a first place in the continuous activities of life; not only about plans, but about details; not only for what gets credit, but for what no one sees but God; not only for the problems of the thinker, but for the homely plodding tasks of the honest student, who wanting but his degree, sees Alps that he must climb before he can reach it, yes means to reach it. Not for any one department, or corner, or phase, or period of life, but for the whole. A strong man resolves, sometimes it must be admitted with precipitateness, and an incomplete knowledge of resources. Then he suffers, and perhaps others as well. But is it not far better in the end to suffer for over-much doing--a rare fault, and one which has a knack of taking its own cure with it--than to suffer for too little doing, which usually results, if not in a paralysis of our finer powers, certainly in a deterioration of them? and it is deterioration, so subtle, so easy, so rapid, so hidden, that we all of us, but especially those who are in the autumn of our years, have so much to dread. Power over the will also means the regulating it, in its impulses, prejudices and resolves. By impulse I mean its first ideas and stirrings, which if not watched and restrained will sometimes land us in inextricable disaster. Prejudice it must examine and allow for; neither ignore, nor too much dread. Every intelligent human being is constantly and inevitably storing up in his mind those final and essential and condensed results of his past, which tend, and ought to tend, to bias him in this direction rather than that; and which swaying conduct with an invisible but potent influence, a wise man will recognise and make allowance for, just as the navigator of an iron vessel is careful to have his compasses verified before he goes to sea; then goes, and feels safe. Intention, too, needs regulating, sometimes in the way not only of modifying it, but even of surrendering it, should altered circumstances make it expedient. Self-will has nothing strong about it, though it affects, and even caricatures, firmness. But what is the area of this will over which we are to claim and exercise power? First, it moves about faith; for if St. Paul be correct, both the will in God and the will in man have a concurrent share in what touches our salvation--salvation being a condition of the entire being, and not only one part of it; as much of the intellect which ponders and accepts truth, as of the conscience that feels after righteousness. Let us instantly admit that the will must not be suffered an undue preponderance in the dealings of the mind, with what we call revelation. Our first question is not what do I wish truth to be, but what truth is actually found to be; not what I hope can be proved, but what by the evidence suitable to the question is capable of proof. Keep your will set on truth; still seek it, desire it, wait for it, pray for it, more than for your necessary food. Do not despise it as if it was not worth waiting for; do not despair about it, as if it would never come. Then for culture is not the will required to keep men from dreaming, instead of thinking; to stir this one to study, that one to ambition? Surely will has its place here, with its function of selection, and its duty of application, with its aim in concentration, and with its reward in power. Once more, see what the will has to do with character. An apostle of culture, who describes Salvation as “ a harmonious perfection only to be won by unreservedly cultivating many sides in us,” admits that “ conduct, not culture, is three parts of human life.” If there is one rule more than another that I wish to leave in your minds it is the will for goodness. The one sentence that I impress on you about it is “ to keep yourselves unspotted from the world.” Remember how all grossness and self-indulgence go to weaken the physical powers, and degrade your personal dignity, and wait for their implacable revenge, when the autumn of life arrives, and, almost worst of all, spoil that fine instinctive sense of goodness which is the reward of a soul that has never stained its whiteness, which goes, never quite to come back even after years of devotedness and sanctity: and so with all the power of your will, and with all the passion of your heart, and with all the conviction of your reason, and with all the weight of your conscience, say, when the tempter comes--I may not, I must not, I will not, I cannot, for am not I the child of God, the brother of Jesus Christ? Lastly, the will of the Father, the will of the Son, the will of the Holy Ghost are all for you. The will of the Father about you and your life in front will open out in the way of His providence as the years go on. Trust it. The will of His Son, Jesus Christ; is for you. From His place of glory He looks down and thinks of you all, some with fear, some with delight--all with unspeakable love. His will is to bless you. Is it your will to be blessed? And the will of the Holy Ghost is to give you strength, to sanctify you in body, soul, and spirit, and dignify and irradiate your studies with His divine presence, to stir your thirst for knowledge--all knowledge--but supremely that which manifests the face of God. “ I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” And then this power over your own will shall mean in a perfect and joyous freedom the service of men and the fruition of God. (Bishop Thorold.) 1 Corinthians 7:39-40 She is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.-- On marriage Let me-- I. Explain and justify the rule laid down in the text.1. To be in the Lord is to be a believer in Christ, to be united to Him by a living faith, and to be interested by reason of that, in all the blessings of His great salvation. In short, believers in Christ should marry believers, and none other. Now, this law does not require-- (1) Perfect unanimity in religious sentiment. Creeds may differ, but hearts may be the same. (2) That both should be members of the same religious society. This is, however, exceedingly desirable, for it is unseemly, indeed, when they who are together in all the most endearing intercourse of life, go as solitary individuals to the sanctuary. (3) That both or either of the parties should be in full communion with any Christian Church. Now, I believe that a man who lives in the neglect of such communion lives in the violation of a positive command, and in the abandonment of a precious privilege, and, by so doing, subjects his Christianity to suspicion by the Church, and to animadversion from the world. Yet still, there are some who, notwithstanding this serious drawback, we are compelled to believe love the Saviour. 2. Having thus ascertained the rule, we proceed to justify it by an appeal-- (1) To the reasonings of Scripture (Joshua 23:11, &c.; Ezra 9:1-2; Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Now, if such a principle as this was thus established under a dispensation comparatively lax and dim, how much more reasonable and binding must it appear as a law of Christianity (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). (2) To history, observation, and experience. With all the excuses persons have made, and all the disinterested motives they have assigned for their conduct, did you ever know any good come of it? Scripture and the Church are big with examples of domestic misery and spiritual ruin, the result of these monstrous and unnatural connections. What became of the daughters of Lot, who preferred the sons of Sodom to the sons of God? Was there ever a greater monster, a more fearful prodigy of vice than Ahab? (see also Nehemiah 13:23-27). 3. To analogy. If you wished for a commercial partner, would you choose a man utterly averse to, or totally ignorant of, trade? Would you choose for the companion of a long journey a man whose disposition and principles were opposite to your own? Would you, as a man of taste and of education, prefer being shut up for weeks in a carriage with a fool or a clown? 4. To acknowledged obligation (1 Corinthians 6:20). And how is such a marriage to promote the glory of God? 5. To conscience--whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Now, is this of faith, the union of a believer with an infidel?--of a friend of Jesus with an enemy? II. Consider and expose some of the most obvious temptations to its violation and the most common excuses for it.1. Fortune. It is this which constitutes a good match.2. Rank and station.3. Parental advice.4. An ill-directed but sincere attachment.5. But some are ready to say, the object of my attachment has everything but real religion. Well, and wanting that, everything is wanting. III. Some hints of caution and advice.1. There may be marriages within the letter of the apostolic rule, which yet are neither lovely nor of good report. There may be piety in both parties, yet-- (1) Such discrepancies of age as to render the union odious. (2) Such an evident impropriety in the connection as to render it a subject of grief to the Church, and animadversion to the world. (3) Such indecorous haste in the formation of a new alliance, immediately after the dissolution of an old one, as to excite the grievest censure. 2. There may be marriages in which the law of Scripture is observed with regard to piety, but the dictates of prudence utterly disregarded. There may be marriages where there is neither strength of affection, suitableness of character, adaptation of temper, or similarity of views, sufficient to ensure permanent happiness and domestic harmony. 3. There may be cases in which it is difficult to apply the rule of Scripture, and to determine in what way to act. There may be a most distressing ambiguity about a character. It is impossible to tell how far the influence of circumstances, so peculiarly interesting, may give a more favourable appearance than actual principle would warrant: the mind perpetually alternates between hope and fear, and dares not to decide. In such a case it were well to wait and watch, and, after all, if there should be error, to err on the side of conscience and of safety. Finally, let the husband and wife, who neither of them fear God, think how terrible a thing it is to walk hand in hand to hell. Let the pious husband who has an unbelieving wife, or the pious wife who has an unbelieving husband, strive by all means, by meekness, gentleness, and affection, to win the unbelieving party to the truth (1 Corinthians 7:16). (T. Raffles, LL. D.)Christian marriage I. This command must be explained.1. In what respects it allows freedom. A believer may marry-- (1) A second time. This is the particular case here referred to. (2) Under various circumstances of inequality. If he marry “ in the Lord,” he “ is at liberty to marry whom he will.” There may be inequality of mind, age, station in life. Marrying “ in the Lord” is of such infinite importance that in comparison with it every other consideration is almost trivial. Yet it should be seriously considered that any great inequality, though not expressly forbidden, is yet very undesirable. The God of grace is also the God of nature--the God of order, too, and not of confusion. “ All these things are lawful for me, but all these things are not expedient.” 2. In what respect it binds. “ Only in the Lord.” (1) Only to a Christian. For a believer to marry an unconverted person may be to marry in carnality, or in covetousness, or in pride, or in the world; but certainly not in the Lord. It is against the Lord; in opposition to one of His plainest commandments, and also to all reason and propriety. Such a junction (for union it cannot be) partakes of the monstrous. For the difference between a regenerate and an unregenerate person is next to infinite (2 Corinthians 6:14-16). (2) Only as a Christian--religiously and with the fear of God. They, there-fore, who anxiously desire to marry only in the Lord, will remember that “ a prudent wife (or husband) cometh from Him” ; they will, therefore, by prayer seek this good gift from the only Giver. II. This command must be enforced. Obedience here--1. Tends to the glory of God. God is glorified in this world by the visible holiness of His people. When professors marry persons “ of the world,” for money, or connection, or personal attraction, how is the mouth of the ungodly opened, the Church scandalised, and the cause of Christ dishonoured! 2. Prevents many most deplorable evils. He who obeys this precept will be saved from the shame of inconsistency before the world, from the loss of the esteem of holy persons, and from the remorse of his own conscience. Even in those cases of mixed marriages where the professing partner is not drawn aside by the other into apostacy; usually, he suffers great spiritual loss, and loses all zeal in doing good. And should there be children, the mischief spreads. 3. Promotes the true interest and happiness of those who obey it. The advantages that attend the spiritual and holy union of two believing persons are inestimable. They walk together, for they are agreed. They are helpers of each other’ s faith and joy, being made, through grace, the instruments of each other’ s spiritual growth in fruitfulness and happiness. They have their sorrows; but these they lessen by dividing them, bearing each other’ s burden. They have their faults; but these “ they confess, the one to the other, and pray one for another, that they may be healed.” But among all the changing scenes of life, they have a look that penetrates “ within the veil,” where their union will be perfected, and crowned with immortality. Hence they habitually walk, “ as being heirs together of the grace of life.” If children are given to them, they cordially unite in the work of bringing them up “ in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Exhortations: 1. To Christians who are yet free to obey this command. You see what the will of the Lord is. Regard with horror the thought of being united to an unconverted person. 2. To those who have already transgressed this command. If, by having married inconsistently, you have awakened in your partner’ s mind the suspicion that your religion is all a delusion, now seek to dislodge that suspicion, and to implant in its stead the conviction that religion is a great reality. 3. To those who have married in accordance with this precept. “ Happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you.” (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment. The widow’ s happiness I. Is conditional.1. Upon her union with Christ.2. Upon times and circumstances. II. Consists in--1. Freedom and care.2. Holy service.3. The assurance of the Divine protection and blessing. III. Is confirmed by--1. Apostolic judgment.2. Enlightened by the Spirit of God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)And I think also that I have the Spirit of God.--Degrees of apostolical authority The apostle on this point does not arrogate more to himself than a view, an advice, the value of which every one can appraise at pleasure. It is evident how far he was removed from that exaltation which makes fanatics take all their ideas for revelations. Nevertheless, he certainly claims an inspiration, and traces it to the Divine Spirit. But we must beware of concluding that he did not claim, besides this, revelations of a wholly special kind. In other cases he is careful to affirm that his directions proceed “ from the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37; 1 Corinthians 7:17). And if he thus expresses himself in connection with simple directions about public worship or Christian practice, how much more conscious was he of being the organ of a Divine revelation of a wholly personal kind when the matter in question was the very essence of “ his gospel” ! We are led, therefore, to distinguish three degrees of authority. I. The Direct Commands Of The Lord, which He gave during His sojourn on earth, and which Paul merely quotes without discussing their grounds (1 Corinthians 7:10). II. The apostolic commands of the apostle, which are imposed on Churches subject to his jurisdiction, and which he gives them as the organ of a higher illumination attached to his special mission. As to these he is careful to expound their reasons, being unwilling to ask his brethren to give a blind obedience (1 Corinthians 7:12-17; cf. 1 Corinthians 10:15). III. The directions which he gives as a simple Christian, which he himself declares to be optional, and which he leaves to the judgment of every believer (1 Corinthians 7:25). In the text there is a vein of irony. “ Now, I hope, however, even if my apostolic authority is disputed among you, that you will not deny to me the possession of the Divine Spirit, such as you recognise in all Christians, and specially in the numerous spiritual guides to whom you give your confidence.” (Prof. Godet.). 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 How as touching things offered to idols. Liberty and love 1. The question about meats necessarily arose in a society partly heathen and partly Christian. Every meal was dedicated to the household gods by laying some portion of it on the family altar. On a birthday, a marriage, or a safe return from sea, &c., it was customary to sacrifice in some public temple. And after the legs of the victim, enclosed in fat, and the entrails had been burnt on the altar, the worshipper received the remainder, and invited iris friends to partake of it either in the temple itself, or in the surrounding grove, or at home. A convert might therefore naturally ask himself whether he was justified in conforming to this custom. Thus personal friendships and the harmony of family life were threatened; and on public occasions the Christian was in danger of branding himself as no good citizen, or by compliance of seeming unfaithful to Christ. 2. Apparently a good deal of ill-feeling had been engendered by the different views taken, as is always the case with morally indifferent matters. They do little harm if each holds his own opinion genially and endeavours to influence others in a friendly way. But in most instances it happens as in Corinth: those who saw that they could eat without contamination scorned those who had scruples; while the scrupulous judged the eaters to be worldly time-servers. 3. As a first step towards the settlement of this matter, Paul makes the largest concession to the party of liberty. Their clear perception that an idol was nothing in the world was sound and commendable. “ But do not,” says the apostle, “ think that you have settled the question by reiterating that you are better instructed than your brethren. You must add love, consideration of your neighbour, to your knowledge.” Men of ready insight into truth are prone to despise less enlightened spirits; but however such vaunt themselves as the men of progress and the hope of the Church, it is not by knowledge alone the Church can ever solidly grow. Knowledge does produce a puffing-up, an unhealthy, morbid, mushroom growth; but that which builds up the Church stone by stone, a strong, enduring edifice, is love. It is a good thing to have clear views of Christian liberty; but exercise it without love, and you become a poor inflated creature, puffed up with a noxious gas destructive of all higher life in yourself and in others. 4. It is easy to imagine how all this would be exemplified at a Corinthian table. Three Christians are invited to a party in the house of a heathen friend. One is weakly scrupulous, the others are men of ampler view and more enlightened conscience. As the meal goes on the weak brother discerns some mark Which identifies the meat as sacrificial, or, fearing it may be so, he inquires of the servant, and finds it has been offered in the temple, and at once says to his friends, “ This has been offered to idols.” One of them, knowing that heathen eyes are watching, and wishing to show how superior to all such scruples the enlightened Christian is, and how genial and free the religion of Christ is, smiles at his friend’ s scruples, and accepts the meat. The other, more generous and truly courageous, declines the dish, lest by leaving the scrupulous man without support he should tempt him to follow their example, contrary to his own conviction, and so lead him into sin. It need not be said which of these men conies nearest to the Christian principle of Paul. 5. In our own society similar cases necessarily arise. I, as a Christian man, and knowing that the earth and its fulness are the Lord’ s, may feel at perfect liberty to drink wine. But I must consider the effect my conduct will have on others. There may be some among my friends whose temptation lies that way, and whose conscience bids them refrain. If by my example such persons are encouraged to silence their conscience, then I incur the guilt of helping to destroy a brother for whom Christ died. Or again, a lad brought up in a Puritanic household has been taught, e.g., that the influence of the theatre is demoralising; but on entering the life of a great city he is soon brought in contact with some genuine Christians who visit the theatre without the slightest twinge of conscience. Now either of two things will probably happen. The young man’ s ideas of Christian liberty may become clearer; or being daunted by overpowering example and chafing under the raillery of his companions, may do as others do, though still uneasy in his own conscience. What is to he observed is that the emboldening of conscience is one thing, its enlightenment quite another. Constantly it happens that men who once shrank from certain practices now freely engage in them, and they will tell you that at first they felt as if they were stealing the indulgence, and that they had to drown the voice of conscience by the louder voice of example. The results of this are disastrous. Conscience is dethroned. The ship no longer obeys her helm, and lies in the trough of the sea swept by every wave and driven by every wind. It may indeed be said, What harm can come of persons less enlightened being emboldened to do as we do if what we do is right? The harm is this, that if the weak brother does a right thing while his conscience tells him it is wrong, to him it is wrong. “ Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Note two permanent lessons-- I. The sacredness or supremacy of conscience. “ Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” A man may possibly do a wrong thing when he obeys conscience; he is certainly wrong when he acts contrary to conscience. He may be helped to a decision by the advice of others, but it is his own decision by which he must abide. His conscience may not be as enlightened as it ought to be. Still his duty is to enlighten, not to violate, it. It is the guide God has given us, and we must not choose another. II. That we must ever use our Christian liberty with Christian consideration of others. Love must mingle with all we do. There are many things which are lawful for Christian, but which are not compulsory or obligatory, and which he may refrain from doing on cause shown. Duties he must, of course, discharge, regardless of the effect his conduct may have on others. But where conscience says, not “ You must,” but only “ You may,” then we must consider the effect our using our liberty will have on others. We must forego our liberty to do this or that if by doing it we should shock a weak brother or encourage him to overstep his conscience. As the Arctic voyager who has been frozen up all winter does not seize the first opportunity to escape, but waits till his weaker companions gain strength enough to accompany him, so must the Christian accommodate himself to the weaknesses of others, lest by using his liberty he should injure him for whom Christ died. (M. Dods, D. D.)Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.-- A twofold knowledge I. A pride generating knowledge. “ Knowledge puffeth up.” One that is--1. Merely intellectual. A stock of mental conceptions, concerning objects material or spiritual, referring to the creature or to the Creator. Now such knowledge tends to self-conceit. 2. Essentially superficial. The more superficial mere intellectual knowledge the stronger its tendency. The men who go farthest into the essence of things, take the widest view of the domain of knowledge, will be the least disposed to self-elation. II. A man-edifying knowledge.1. “ Charity,” or love to God, is the true knowledge. Love is the life and soul of all true science. Love is the root of the universe, and you must have love rightly to interpret love. 2. This true knowledge builds up the soul; not as a house is built up, by putting dead stones and timber together, but as the oak is built up, by the appropriating force of its own life, compelling nature to deepen its roots, extend its bulk, multiply its branches, and push it higher towards the heavens. 3. This true knowledge insures the approval of God (1 Corinthians 8:3). In the last day, Christ will say to those who have not this love, “ I never knew” --i.e., approved of--“ you.” This love for God in the heart converts the tree of intellectual knowledge into the tree of life. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The difference between Christian and secular knowledge A great controversy is going on in the matter of education. One partly extols the value of instruction, the other insists that secular education without religion is worse than useless: Paul spoke of both as secular and worthless without love. That knowledge which he treated so slightingly was-- I. Knowledge without humility. It is not so much what is known as the spirit in which it is acquired which makes the difference between secular and Christian knowledge (1 Corinthians 8:2). The greatest of modern philosophers and historians, Humboldt and Niebuhr, were both eminently humble men. So, too, you will find that real talent among mechanics is generally united to great humility. Whereas those puffed up by knowledge are those who have a few religious maxims and shallow doctrines. There are two ways therefore of knowing. One is that of the man who loves to calculate how far he is advanced beyond others; the other, that of the man who feels how infinite knowledge is, and how little he knows. II. Liberty without reverence. The men whom the apostle rebukes were free from many superstitions. An idol, they said, was nothing in the world. But it is not merely freedom from superstition which is worship of God, but loving dependence on Him; the surrender of self. “ If any man love God, the same is known of Him,” i.e., God acknowledges the likeness of spirit. There is much of the spirit of these Corinthians now. Men throw off what they call the trammels of superstitions, and then call themselves free: they think it grand thing to reverence nothing. This is not high knowledge. It is a great thing to be free from mental slavery, but suppose you are still a slave to your passions? From bonds of the spirit Christianity has freed us, but it has bound us to God (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). The true freedom from superstition is free service to religion: the real emancipation from false gods is reverence for the true God. And not merely is this the only real knowledge, but no other knowledge “ buildeth up” the soul. “ He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” Separate from love, the more we know, the profounder the mystery of life, and the more dreary existence becomes. I can conceive no dying hour more awful than that of one who has aspired to know instead of to love, and finds himself at last amidst a world of barren facts and lifeless theories. III. Comprehension without love to man. These Corinthians had got a most clear conception of what Christianity was (1 Corinthians 8:4-6). “ Well,” said the apostle, “ and what signifies your profession of that, if you look down with supreme contempt on your ignorant brothers, who cannot reach to these sublime contemplations?” Knowledge such as this is not advance, but retrogression. How immeasurably superior in the sight of God is some benighted Romanist who has gone about doing good, or some ignorant, narrow religionist who has sacrificed time and property to Christ, to the most correct theologian in whose heart there is no love for his fellow-men. Breadth of view is not breadth of heart; the substance of Christianity is love to God and man. Hence it is a precious fact that St. Paul, the apostle of liberty, whose burning intellect expounded the whole philosophy of Christianity, should have been the one to say that knowledge is nothing compared to charity, nay, worse than nothing without it: should have been the one to declare that “ knowledge shall vanish away, but love never faileth.” (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Knowledge and charity No person ever entertained a higher idea of true wisdom than St. Paul, but he saw that learning makes not the man of God perfect, and that the complete scholar may fall short at last of the kingdom of heaven. He saw that spiritual, like bodily wealth, unless used for the benefit of others, would prove no blessing to its owner. And therefore, that the wise man might not glory in his wisdom, the apostle determines that, not only human learning, but the knowledge of all prophecies and mysteries, will profit nothing if charity be not superadded. I. Knowledge without charity endeth in pride.1. It produces an inflation in the mind, which, like a tumour in the body, carries the appearance of solidity, but has in reality nothing within, and only indicates a distempered habit. And, indeed, knowledge, as well as faith, if it be alone, is vain--it is dead. For all knowledge is given as a means to some end. The means, abstracted from their end, cease to be means, and answer no purpose whatsoever. The end of knowledge is action (John 13:17). Every article of the creed involves in it a correspondent duty, and it is practice alone that gives life to faith and realises knowledge. “ The manifestation of the Spirit (as that Spirit Himself testifies) is given to every man to profit withal.” Otherwise it is of no effect, and the man becomes “ a cloud without water” ; raised aloft it sails before the wind, proudly swelling in the sufficiency of its own emptiness, instead of dropping plenty on the lands over which it passes. 2. Consider the instances of this truth. (1) Ascend into heaven and there view the glories that once encircled Lucifer (cf. Ezekiel 28:12). He saw, he knew; but he loved not, and through pride he fell. A proof, to the learned of all ages, that knowledge without charity will turn a good angel into an evil one. (2) Yet this has all along been the fatal mistake, and the tree of knowledge still proved the occasion of a fall. Knowledge wrought destruction by pride. “ The serpent,” says Eve, “ beguiled me” ; lit., elated, puffed me up. All the fruits of error and vice have sprung from the same root of bitterness. (3) Take the case of the Gentiles (Romans 1:21). Lack of knowledge was not their original fault; “ they knew God.” But knowledge in the understanding for want of charity in the heart did not operate to a holy obedience. “ When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful.” (4) Turn to the Jew. “ Having the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law.” Yet knowledge puffed him up; his privileges became an occasion of boasting himself against his brethren, and envy ate out his charity. “ Going about to establish his own righteousness” upon the strength of his own wisdom, he rejected the Lord his righteousness, and nailed Him, who is the source of wisdom, to the Cross. (5) When the distinction of Jew and Gentile ceased, and one Church comprehended all believers, knowledge puffed men up into heretics and schismatics. Pride made them rather choose to see themselves exalted at the head of a faction, than the Church edified by their labours in an inferior station. This was the case in the Church of Corinth, and has been the cause of every heresy and schism since. II. Charity directeth knowledge to its right end--the edification of the Church. This will be seen in some instances the reverse of the foregoing.1. If we ascend a second time into heaven, we shall find that the principle which triumphed over the proud knowledge of Lucifer was the wisdom of God actuated by love. In our redemption, wisdom contrived, power executed, but love set all to work, and perfected and crowned the whole. 2. To reverse the sad effects of a vain thirst after knowledge in our first parent, Divine love became incarnate. All that He did and suffered was because He loved us. Because man, by the temptation of knowledge, was seduced to infidelity and disobedience, He encountered and overcame the tempter by the Word of God, and by love keeping the commandments. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Him were not suffered to rust and canker, locked up from the public by a supercilious reservedness, but out of them He continually dispersed abroad, and gave to the poor in spirit. On the Cross love regained what pride had lost, and the wound made in our nature by the fruit of the tree of knowledge was healed by the leaves of the tree of life. 3. To combat the vain wisdom of the Greek, and the self-justifying arrogance of the Jew, the apostles were sent forth. The strongholds of false knowledge could not stand before the gospel. Blasted by the lightning of inspired eloquence, the arm of false philosophy withered and lost all its holds on the minds of men. “ The Roman empire wondered to see itself Christian; to see the Cross exalted in triumph over the globe, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. But what was it that gained this victory over the pride of earth and hell? What, but the same all-suffering, and, therefore, all-subduing charity which taught the disciples of a crucified Jesus, after His example, to endure all things for the salvation of their brethren? 4. If we view the unity of a primitive church, as opposed to the sad divisions and distractions since produced by heresy and schism, it will appear that charity built up that solid and durable edifice. As at its formation, the Spirit descended upon the disciples, when “ they were all with one accord in one place,” so, in like manner, after more were added to them, it is remarked that “ the multitude of the believers were of one heart and one mind.” The spirit of unity knit all the members together, insomuch that if one member suffered the rest sympathised with it, And thus they “ grew up into Him in all things, even Christ … made increase of the body to the edifying itself in love.” (Bp. Horne.)Knowledge and love I. Knowledge puffeth up.1. This applies to all knowledge, whether human or Divine, when unaccompanied with love to God. 2. Its effect is-- (1) To inflate men’ s notions of the powers of human reason and the importance of human knowledge. (2) To encourage self-confidence and conceit. 3. The reason-- (1) Knowledge without faith acts upon the intellect, but leaves the heart untouched. II. Love edifieth.1. Love-- (1) Depends on faith.(2) Implies confidence, submission, obedience, sacrifice. 2. Its effect. It edifies-- (1) By strengthening the understanding and the will.(2) By building up the moral character.(3) By elevating the spirit.(4) By bringing man into direct communion with God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Knowledge and love This knowledge is not secular as distinguished from Divine and theological, but knowledge of Divine things without love--knowledge by itself as distinguished from the knowledge of Divine things with love. The same contrast is drawn out more at length in chap. 13.; but as there he is led to speak of it chiefly by insisting on the superiority of active usefulness to spiritual ecstasies, so here he is led to speak of it by insisting on the superiority of that love which shows a regard for the consciences of others, over that knowledge which rests satisfied in its own enlightened insight into the folly of human superstition. Knowledge such as this may indeed expand the mind, but it is a mere inflation, as of a bubble, which bursts and vanishes away. Love alone succeeds in building up an edifice tier above tier, solid alike in superstructure and in basis, so as to last for ever. (Dean Stanley.)The two guides--knowledge and love I. They are both excellent.1. The pupil of Gamaliel would have been the last to speak slightingly of real knowledge. How much has knowledge accomplished in the world! Ignorance is a fool’ s paradise; knowledge is power. 2. And how excellent is love. How dull and sad and more prolific in crime the world would be without it! One’ s only regret is that there is so little of it. Herein heaven and earth contrast. The triumphs of knowledge are great, but greater are the victories of love. II. They are complementary.1. Knowledge without love leads to-- (1) Pride.(2) Intolerance.(3) Selfishness.(4) Injury to others.(5) Many blunders in thought, feeling, and action. 2. Love without knowledge leads to moral catastrophe. Knowledge is necessary to determine within what limits we may rightly act; love determines what within the limits of the” lawful “ we should choose. 3. Knowledge and love united lead to that more perfect, penetrating, true practical knowledge, the opposite of that described in 1 Corinthians 13:2. E.g., a man may know God as God--have some conception of the Divine attributes, &c., but when he loves God his knowledge makes incalculable strides. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)Knowledge and love These beautiful words are introduced into a discussion which has long ceased to have any practical interest. In pagan Corinth the banquet and the sacrifice were part of the same proceeding. The animal was slain and offered to the gods. Then the priest claimed his part, and the rest was taken home and used in providing a feast. To these feasts the pagans invited their friends, and some of these friends might be Christians. The question was, Could they conscientiously go? Some, the most simple, honest, earnest souls, said, No. It was recognising idolatry, it was disloyalty to Christ; or, to say the best of it that could be said, it was going into evil associations and temptation. Others who prided themselves on their superior knowledge laughed at these scruples. We know, they said, that there are no gods except One. The offering of the sacrifice to them is an empty farce. The meat has not been polluted at all. We have discernment enough to share in the feast without recognising the occasion of it. We can rejoice with these pagans, and at the same time smile at their superstitions. It is only weak, ignorant natures that will hold aloof from these harmless enjoyments through the fear of being drawn into sin. The pride of knowledge and its accompanying disdain and want of consideration towards their less-instructed brethren were their distinguishing features. Knowledge puffeth up, charity edifieth. Knowledge passeth away, charity abides for ever. Knowledge sees through coloured glass darkly, love sees face to face. Knowledge may be greatest in devils, love makes angels and saints. Knowledge is temporal and earthly, ever changing with the fashions of earth; love is God-like, heavenly, immortal, enduring like the mercy of the Lord for ever. Now, if any other of the apostles had written in this way about knowledge, men would have been found ready to quote against him the old fable of AEsop about the grapes. Untutored peasants and fishermen lifting up their voices in disparagement of knowledge would have furnished the intellectual scorner with a convenient sarcasm. Ah, yes, these men were ignorant! Knowledge was beyond their reach, and therefore they depreciated it. Singularly enough, however, it is St. Paul, the one learned man in the apostolic band, who talks in this way. Never once did those unlearned fishermen, Peter, James, and John, write slightingly of knowledge. That was left to Paul, the scholarly man. Had not his own learning made him a hard, haughty, cruel Pharisee, shutting out the vision of God, hiding from him the beauty of Jesus Christ, filling him with violent prejudice and hatred against all men save those of his own class? With all his knowledge, he had been blind to whatsoever things were lovely, and just, and reverent, and Divine. He had reason, indeed, to write, Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. Knowledge puffeth up. Yes, from the raw schoolgirl to the man of greatest literary attainments, this is the effect of knowledge when it is found without the warm and generous and tender emotions of the heart. There is the young man with his smattering of literary attainments, with little more than an outward daub of culture. He has little reason to be proud; not a bit of that knowledge of which he makes his boast has been his own discovering. It has been drilled into him by patient, painstaking teachers. There is no more reason to be proud of knowledge received from another person than there is for a beggar to be proud of receiving alms. How wise he thinks himself in dealing with religious things, in measuring the preacher, in criticising the Bible, in disposing of questions of faith, in setting down the old-fashioned people who in their simple ignorance have been content to believe all that has been taught them! You see it in literary circles, and in the utterances of the scientist. How conspicuous by its absence is the grace of humility! Because they know something more about letters, and words, and cells, and germs, and rocks, and chemical elements than other people, they write and talk as if their judgments on all subjects were to be received ex cathedra as authoritative and unquestionable. Their word on all the great subjects of morality, faith, inspiration, the Bible, God, is to be deemed final and conclusive. They write as if all men were fools who dare to dispute their conclusions. Yet there is more genius, insight, and real vision in one of David’ s psalms than there is in all the books they have written. An artist or a poet who has none of their knowledge will see more of beauty and glory and reality in a moment than they would see in a thousand years. We are always boasting that knowledge is power, that knowledge has enriched the world, that knowledge has done wonderful things for humanity. It is the idlest of delusions. Knowledge by itself has done very little. Even the greatest material inventions have come through men who had rather the swift insight of genius than the lore of the schools. They were not knowing men who gave us the railway, the steam-engine, the telegraph. Still less were they knowing men who enriched the world with the sweetest poems, with the noblest pictures, with the most charming stories. Titian, and Raphael, and Shakespeare, and Bunyan, and Burns, and Thomas a Kempis, not to speak of Homer, and David, and Isaiah, and the evangelists, and the fishermen, Peter and John--from these men, who had less knowledge on most things than any undergraduate of the present day, we have inherited the wisdom and the immortal thoughts and words which are beyond all wealth. They were men with great hearts, seeing things with the keen, clear eyes of love, rather than men whose heads had gathered a large stock of culture. Heart rather than head has given to humanity its noble inheritance; love rather than knowledge. Think of the martyrs, the reformers, the defenders of liberty, the philanthropists, the missionaries. And who are doing the best work in the world now?--its purifying, saving, uplifting work? Not the men who call themselves the cultured class. No; knowledge for the most part sits in judgment on the work of others, criticises, and sneers; while love goes on its way, its loins girded for service with quenchless faith in God, and hope which nothing can discourage. It is love, not knowledge, that carries light and sweetness and health into the dark, foul places of city life; it is love, not knowledge, that generates all the power of sweet activities. In the highest kind of knowledge what the world calls knowledge breaks down utterly. What can mere intellect know about God ? His greatness infinitely transcends the grasp of the most cultured mind. Before His wisdom the profoundest reaches of the human intellect are folly. Yes, it is to the pure, gentle, tender heart that God tells His secrets. You can hardly prove the simple fact of God’ s existence, still less the supremely good, loving, and tender character of God, except to those whose hearts by their very likeness to Him beget their own witness of Him. His own love helps him to grasp the love Divine. So with immortality. All the knowledge of Butler and Plato could not prove it. Men who are only wise in the things of nature never find it there. But when the heart of man has found by experience the measureless power of its own love, found out what a human soul is capable of in long-suffering, patience, self-forgetfulness--how great, how even infinite the soul is in the power of loving--then the proof comes. God could not have made the soul thus and not made it immortal. And the loving heart, too, understands the mystery of sorrow and pain as the head does not and never can. The heart which loves God, and feels His love, knows that beyond all the sorrows and the darkness there is brightness and joy. So give me love and not knowledge, for knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)“ Love edifieth” Think of love-- I. As the essential spirit of all other graces. It is the life, beauty, strength, very soul of them all. Consider its position in the circle of the Divine attributes. Truth, justice, purity, &c., are perfections of the Divine character; but “ God is love.” A similar position does love occupy in the ideal character of His true children. II. As the bond of christian unity. Keenness of spiritual insight, zeal for truth, fidelity to conscience, may of themselves have a separating effect; but love draws and cements men together in a real fellowship. Differences in opinion, &c., become of comparatively small account. III. As an incentive to christian activity. “ Love is the fulfilling of the law,” the end of the commandment. Get your soul filled with love, and you will never want for an effectual motive to all noble living. As the materials of the building arrange themselves and rise into their finished form in obedience to the thought and will of the architect; as the notes fall, as if by an instinct of their own, into their due place according to the inspiration of the musician; as the words flow in rhythmic cadence in answer to the mood of the poet’ s genius; as the grass, flowers, and corn grow by the spontaneous energy of the creative and formative mind that animates them all--so will you rear for yourself the structure of a beautiful and useful Christian life, if your heart is filled with love. IV. As the mightiest of all instruments of blessing to others. By the sweet constraint of His love Christ wins the heart of those for whom He died. By the almightiness of His love He will ultimately conquer the world and build up that glorious temple to His praise--a redeemed humanity. Let His love be the inspiration of our life, and we wield a moral force akin to His and share His triumph. (J. Waits, B. A.) 1 Corinthians 8:2 If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. Pride vitiates religious knowledge St. Paul would teach those who placed a high estimate upon a philosophical comprehension of religious truth, and who therefore were liable to a spurious kind of knowledge, that if any one of them conceitedly imagined himself to comprehend the gospel mysteries, he was in reality utterly ignorant concerning them. Pride injures our religious knowledge as to-- I. Its quantity or extent. The apostle refers to that disposition which leads a man, when he has made some addition to his stock of knowledge, to stop and review it, and boast of it. These Corinthians were anxious to get the credit of superior insight into Christian doctrine, hence St. Paul says to them, “ If any man among you,” &c. (1 Corinthians 3:18-20). Such a self-complacent spirit prevents a man from surveying and travelling over the whole field. It is like a traveller among the Alps, who, having ascended the first range of hills, and seeing the lower valleys, should “ think” that he had exhausted Switzerland. The instant a Christian begins to dwell upon his knowledge of God, or of himself, with any degree of self-complacency, he creates an eddy in the flowing stream of his self-reflection, and whirls round instead of moving onward. And unless the volume of water starts once more, and gets out of this whirlpool; unless the Christian ceases to think of how much he knows, and to boast of it, he will never know any more than he now knows. And even the little knowledge, over which he has boasted, will be absorbed in the pride of the heart and disappear. But he who contemplates the character of God, e.g., with no side glances at himself, and bows down before it in reverence and awe, is carried forward from one vision to another. So with the knowledge of our own heart, of the atonement, &c. II. Its quality, or depth. The moment the mind begins to compute the distance it has gone, it stops going. If, therefore, under the influence of pride it pauses to see how profound it has become, and to tell the world its success, it adopts a suicidal course. Suppose that a man fixes his attention upon some one sinful habit, and begins to see plainly its odiousness. The longer this process continues, the deeper and clearer is his view. Now suppose that his attention is diverted from his sin itself, to the consideration of the fact that he has been exploring it, his sense of the iniquity of his sin will begin to grow more shallow, and he will come up to the surface of his heart again, instead of penetrating to its recesses. The sin will not appear so odious to him; he will know nothing as he ought to know. III. Its practicality. The great purpose of religions truth is, that we may be made better by it. We ought not to desire to know God except that we may become like Him. We ought not to make any scrutiny into our own sin except to get rid of it. When religious knowledge loses this practicality, it degenerates into mere speculation, and hardens the heart instead of melting it into sorrow and love. Man’ s first duty on obtaining some new view of Divine truth is to apply it. But nothing so interferes with this as pride or selfgratulation. “ Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit, there is more hope of a fool than of him.” When a man feels himself destitute of knowledge, instruction can be imparted. But when he thinks that he comprehends the whole subject, the prospect of his becoming enlightened is hopeless. Conclusion: Spiritual pride--1. Is the most subtle of sins. It is the sin of Satan. He fell from a purely intellectual temptation, and his wickedness was “ spiritual wickedness.” In wrestling against it, we “ wrestle not against flesh and blood,” &c. (Ephesians 6:12). When the believer proves to be on his guard against the more common and outward temptations of earth, then the arch-deceiver fills him with the conceit of holiness and of knowledge. 2. Especially requires the aid and influence of the Holy Ghost to overcome it. No spirit is a match for the subtlety of Satan but the Eternal Spirit. (Prof. Shedd.)The pride of intellect I. Its indications.1. Assumption.2. Dogmatism.3. Contempt of the opinion of others. II. Its rebuke. Human knowledge is--1. Very limited.2. Mixed with much error.3. Morally defective. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The modesty of true knowledge The wisest men feel that they know nothing compared with what they are capable of knowing. I was struck with a remark that a man once made to me on this subject. To my mind he was a marvel of learning. He seemed thoroughly educated in every direction. As now there is not a tree in the forest which, if you tap it, will not run sap, so there was not a side on which you could touch him where his knowledge did not seem complete. I said to him one day, “ If I knew a tithe of what you know, I should think myself very fortunate.” Said he, “ Henry, I seem to myself like a basket in which are being carried away the fragments of a hotel--a bit of this, the fag-end of that, and all sorts of things jumbled up together. I do not know anything except little fragmentary parts of this, that, and the other.” (H. W. Beecher.) 1 Corinthians 8:3 But if any man love God, the same is known of Him. Love the medium of Divine knowledge I. Its nature.1. Whence it proceeds.2. What it implies.3. What its fruits. II. Its privilege. It secures--1. The favour of God.2. Fellowship with Him.3. The enlightening influence of His Holy Spirit. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Superiority of love to knowledge “ Papa,” said the son of Bishop Berkeley, “ what is the meaning of the words ‘ cherubim’ and ‘ seraphim,’ which we meet with in the Holy Scriptures?” “ Cherubim,” replied his father, “ is a Hebrew word, signifying knowledge; seraphim is another word of the same language, and signifies flame. Whence it is supposed that the cherubim are angels who excel in knowledge, and that the seraphim are angels likewise who excel in loving God.” “ I hope, then,” said the little boy, “ when I die I shall be a seraph; for I would rather love God than know all things.” The love and knowledge of God From the love of man, which must be the sense of the word in 1 Corinthians 8:1 (see 1 Corinthians 13:1), the apostle passes insensibly to the love of God, partly because God is the implied, though not expressed, subject of the previous clause, partly because He is the only worthy and adequate object of Christian love. I. For the connection of knowledge and love (1 John 4:7-8). St. Paul substitutes “ is known of Him,” for “ knows Him,” to express that man can, in this life, hardly be said, in any sense, to know God. It is sufficient to be the object of His knowledge, which in itself implies that we are brought into so close a relation with Him, as to be the object of His care and love, and ultimately, therefore, to know Him. II. For the identification of God’ s knowledge with His love compare Exodus 33:17; John 10:3. III. For the identification of God’ s knowledge of man with man’ s knowledge of God compare the similar blending of the spirit of man with the Spirit of God in Romans 8:15-16; 1 Corinthians 2:11; also John 10:15. “ As the Father knoweth me, even so I the Father.” IV. For the general turn of the whole expression, as implying that every part of our redemption, but especially our knowledge of God, is more properly His act than ours see 1 Corinthians 13:12; Galatians 4:9; Philippians 3:12. For the unexpected substitution of one thought and word for another see 1 Corinthians 9:17; 1 Corinthians 10:18. (Dean Stanley.)Known of God I. The character that is here presented to us, the man that loves God. This love will be manifested by--1. The state of the heart.2. The tenor of the thoughts.3. The influence of God’ s Word.4. Delight in holy pursuits. II. The privilege asserted. “ The same is known of Him” --1. This knowledge is individual and personal.2. It embraces all the circumstances of his present state.3. It is a loving, parental delight in him.4. It is a pledge of final acknowledgment. Application:1. What a source of pure and solid delight!2. What a powerful incentive to holiness! (C. Simeon, M. A.)Known of God This verse is the antithesis of 1 Corinthians 10:2. Without love, no knowledge; with love, true knowledge. But why instead of “ The same knoweth God,” does the apostle say, “ The same is known of God” ? Does he mean to deny the first of these two ideas? Assuredly not. But he clears, as it were, this first stage, which is self-understood, to rise at a bound to the higher stage which implies it. To be known of God is more than to know Him (Galatians 4:9). In a residence every one knows the monarch; but every one is not known by him. This second stage of knowledge supposes personal intimacy, familiarity of a kind; a character which is foreign from the first. We need not therefore take “ known of God” as equivalent to “ acknowledged by,” or “ approved of,” or “ put into the possession of the knowledge of,” God. The word “ know” is taken in the same sense as in Psalms 1:6. The eye of God can penetrate into the heart that loves Him and His light, to illuminate it. In this light an intimate communion is formed between him and God; and this communion is the condition of all true knowledge--of man’ s being known by God as of God’ s being known by man. (Prof. Godet.)God’ s knowledge of us Sinner, let this be thy comfort, that God sees thee when thou beginnest to repent, He does not see thee with His usual gaze, with which He looks on all men, but He sees thee with an eye of intense interest. He has been looking on thee in all thy sin, and in all thy sorrow, hoping that thou wouldst repent, and when He sees the first gleam of grace, He beholds it with joy. Never warder on the lonely castle-top saw the first gray light of morning with more joy than that with which God beholds the first desire in thy heart. Never physician rejoiced more when he saw the first heaving of the lungs in one that was supposed to be dead, than God doth rejoice over thee, now that He sees the first token for good. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Intimacy between God and man I. Its condition. It is a condition--1. Which could scarcely occur to man apart from revelation. Men fear, reverence, worship, seek to avert the wrath of God; but to love Him is not an exercise of mind which seems congruous to the relation between the Creator and His creatures. 2. Which Christianity makes possible and natural. By revealing God as love, by bringing that love home to the heart in Christ’ s atonement and sacrifice it makes a claim upon human love. 3. Capable of universal fulfilment, “ If any man.” There are many whose natural powers of body and mind are very limited; but there is none who has not the capacity of love. II. Its character. Love is represented as leading to, as involving knowledge.1. On the side of God Himself knowledge is often used as equivalent to favour. Of course the Omniscient knows all His creatures; but He has a Fatherly, affectionate knowledge of those who love Him. He knows them to watch over, keep, guide, govern, strengthen, and save them. 2. On the side of man. This is the implicit statement of the text; for he who in the sense affirmed is known by God also knows God. How true it is that he who loves God knows Him too! We cannot know our earthly friends thoroughly unless we love them. Love opens the doors of knowledge. It creates that sympathy which gives intensity to the intuitive gaze of the soul. Thus it is that while many learned minds are ignorant of God, many lowly saints whose hearts are quickened with love, live in hallowed intimacy with Him. (Prof. J. H. Thomson.)The man who loves God known of Him You and I would dearly like to be known of God. Day by day we would like to be consciously at peace with God. We may know that there is no condemnation for us, that the gulf of spiritual death is behind and not in front of us, that life and immortality brought to light by the gospel are ours through grace, if love for God and our brethren reigns supreme within us. And now let us look, each one, into his heart and conscience, and examine himself as to how far he can truthfully say and feel, “ I love God: I am known of Him.” “ We love God, because He first loved us.” He, in the first instance, did so infinitely much that a rightly affected person could not possibly dwell upon without loving Him. And again, the statement of the inspired apostle bears yet another sense. We cannot love God without the Holy Spirit having been first given to, and dwelling within us, as His consecrated temples. But, again, let me press home the question, “ Do we love God?” I think we seem to fall back into the days of our childhood again when we answer this question truly and profitably. In our memories of those earliest years we shall certainly find experiences of our past feelings treasured up that will help us in our endeavour to find an answer to it. Those of us who had good, loving parents dearly loved them in return. We grew up beneath the sunshine of their smiles, and thrilled at the sound of their loving words. We strove to do all things that we knew would give them pleasure. We tried to obey all their commandments. We knew, too, what would please them, even though they did not ask us to study closely everything that they wanted of us. Our love for them was not fickle or changeable. Now and then, indeed, we had our naughty, rebellious passions hindering the outward flow of our love for them, but, underneath the strong torrent of those passions, our love for our good parents lingered on calm and unmoved, just as, fathoms down below the storm-tossed waves of the sea, the water is calm and still. And when our childhood’ s offences had been atoned for by our soul-felt tears of penitence, then we were ready enough to inveigh against ourselves as having been solely to blame for the interruption of the happy interchange of parental and filial love, with a great joy we threw ourselves into our fathers’ or mothers’ arms again, when we saw that they had forgiven our offence completely, and again our hearts welled forth their love for them, and all was once more peace and joy within us. Now have you these sacred memories of your childhood to help you to reply to my question? If so, it is very well, for are not God’ s people as just so many little children in His sight? And will they not then be happiest when they act towards Him, in all His dealings with them in providence and grace, as well disposed little children act towards their earthly parents? Will they not then feel consciously that they love God, and that God loves them? (J. C. Boyce.)Known to God although unknown to the world In the midst of His glory the Almighty is not inattentive to the meanest of His subjects. Neither obscurity of station, nor imperfection of knowledge sinks those below His regard who worship and obey Him. Every prayer which they send up from their secret retirements is listened to by Him; and every work of charity which they perform, how unknown soever to the world, attracts His notice. (J. Blair.)Known of God Thick on the moors, pushing up through the mosses, side by side where the blueberries grow, sprang up and blossomed the wild rose. There was no one to see its beauty, to breathe its fragrance. Mile after mile spread the moor, purple in the dawn glowing in the noontide, rosy in the sunset after-glow, yet there was none to see. Overhead there was the blue vault, soft and deep and silent. The wild, sweet breath of the sea swept over the moors, and tenderly touched the cheek of the wild rose. “ In thy heart, O Rose,” it said, “ what beauty, in thy form what loveliness! Yet there is none to see. Wherefore, O Rose, give thy fulness of bloom where no eye may see, where nought looketh down but the sun and the stars, and no voice save mine may whisper to thee?” “ God looketh down,” answered the Rose. “ He seeth me, and remembereth His gracious promise, ‘ The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.’ In the day when He turneth the captivity of His people Israel and His ransomed shall come to Zion with everlasting joy, shall my mission be fulfilled. But now, I look up to God and whisper, ‘ Though He tarry, wait.’ Even so I praise Him and magnify Him for ever.” (Christian Age.) 1 Corinthians 8:4-7 We know that an idol is nothing in the world.An idol nothing in the world A singular phenomenon, known as the Spectre of the Brocken, is seen on a certain mountain in Germany. The traveller who at dawn stands on the topmost ridge beholds a colossal shadowy spectre, moving on the summits of the distant hills. But, in fact, it is only his own shadow projected upon the morning mists by the rising sun; and it imitates, of course, every movement of its creator. So heathen nations have mistaken their own image for Deity. Their gods display human frailties and passions and scanty virtues, projected and magnified upon the heavens, just as the small figures on the slide of a magic-lantern are projected, magnified, and illuminated upon a white sheet. Idolatry I. Its folly.1. An idol is a thing of the imagination.2. For there is but one God.3. He is incapable of any representation. II. Its forms. Manifold.1. Among the heathen.2. Among professed Christians, as-- (1) Love of the world.(2) Undue attachment or subservience to the creature.(3) Forgetfulness of God. III. Its antidote Consider--1. His true character.2. His relation to His people.3. His revelation in Christ. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Idolatry I. In Its General History. Notice--1. The awful principle in which it originated (Romans 1:28)--aversion to God. But the knowledge of its origin may direct as to the means of its overthrow. Nothing in earth or heaven can effectually overcome it but the power and grace of Christ; not force of arms nor power of reasoning. 2. The degraded objects to which it was outwardly paid (Psalms 115:1-18.; Romans 1:1-32.). Surely, then, those who worship them demand our pity, our prayers, and our exertions for their reclamation. 3. The infernal spirit to whom it was really directed (1 Corinthians 10:20). 4. The amazing wealth and power by which it has hitherto been upheld. Talk we of the magnificence of some of the churches of Christendom. Think of the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Let rich Christians, who have it in their power to do so much for the propagation of their religion, but who do so little, let them turn to Isaiah 46:6, and learn a lesson of liberality worthy of a better cause. II. In that particular view presented in the text. The objector to missionary exertions may possibly be ready to say that if an idol be nothing, there is no need of the efforts, sacrifices, and prayers on which you have been insisting. How slightly he must have considered the matter who does not perceive that this very fact furnishes one of the strongest grounds of appeal on behalf of the unenlightened heathen! If an idol is nothing it follows--1. That the religious offerings of idolaters have not only been useless, but an abomination. 2. That the very religion of idolaters has promoted the honour and glory of Satan. 3. That the dying prayers of idolaters have been a delusion and a lie. (T. Mortimer, B. D.)And that there is none other God but one.-- The unity of God 1. What it implies.2. What are its evidences.3. What is its bearing upon faith and practice. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The unity of God is demonstrated 1. By reason.2. By creation and providence.3. By revelation. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Unity of God A little boy being asked, “ How many gods are there?” replied “ One.” “ How do you know that?” “ Because,” said the boy, “ there is only room for one; for He fills heaven and earth.” Aspects of responsibility (1 Corinthians 8:4-13):--Note-- I. That the moral obligations of all men are determined by their relation to the one God and His son. There are many objects that men call gods, but they are really nothing; they therefore impose no moral obligation.1. There is One, however, and only One, from your relation to whom there grows up all moral obligations. “ One God.” Monotheism is demonstrated by nature; conscience, and the Bible. (1) He is a Father. The Creator of the universe, but the Father of spirits.(2) He is the Source of all things.(3) He is our end. “ We in” or “ unto Him.” The supreme end of our existence, and object of our love. 2. In connection with Him there is “ One Lord Jesus Christ, who was not only His creative Agent, “ by whom are all things,” but His redemptive Agent, the Mediator, “ and we by” or “ through Him.” As Christians, we are what we are through Him. 3. Now the wilt of this One God, as coming through Christ to us, we are morally bound to fulfil--an obligation which can never be abrogated or modified. II. That what might be wrong for one man to do might not be so for another. The apostle teaches that those who felt that an idol was nothing in the world, and that consequently there was no harm to them personally in eating meat offered to it, would commit no wrong in doing so. The meat had not been corrupted by that, and their consciences not being against it, there would be no wrong in eating it (verse 8). On the other hand, those who had a superstitious idea that they ought not to eat it would commit wrong in doing so (verse 7). That which is against a man’ s conscience may not be against the eternal law of right, but is against his own sense of right, and therefore should be avoided. Here is the principle, “ Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” “ To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Therefore, “ let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” III. That to offend the conscience of a good man, however weak, is a wrong in all (verse 9). Respect for the weak consciences of good men.1. May require self-denial on our part. 2. Is urged on the strongest considerations. (1) The lack of it may inflict serious injuries on the weak. (a) It may “ become a stumbling-block to them that are weak” --i.e., an occasion of sin. Their faith may be shaken, and they may become apostates. (b) They may be “ emboldened,” encouraged to do the wrong. Without your moral strength they will imitate you and will be ruined (verse 10). (2) The lack of it is a sin both against the weak brethren and against Christ (verse 12). 3. Is exemplified in the sublime resolve of the apostle (verse 13). Here is benevolent expediency, the strongest ground on which the temperance reformation can be wisely and effectively advocated. Give up all rather than ruin souls. Such an utterance as this is characteristic of Paul (Romans 9:3). (D. Thomas, D. D.)But though there be that are called gods,… to us there is one God, the Father,… and one Lord Jesus Christ.--Polytheism 1. Its numerous forms.2. Awful prevalence. 3. Manifest absurdity.4. Abominable wickedness. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The unity of God The apostle had been trained in the monotheism which had from the first been the belief of his race, and from which they had now not swerved for centuries. The unity of God-- I. Is contrasted with polytheistic belief and worship.1. The heathen deities are “ called,” but are not, gods (verse 4). 2. These deities are deemed “ gods” and “ lords.” They were, and still are, in heathen lands thought supernatural, and are invested by the imagination with claims to the homage and service of men. 3. They are many in number, every natural object, &c., having its deity. 4. They have their several ranks and realms. The superior Olympian deities are “ in heaven” ; the inferior numina nymphs, fauns, dryads, &c., haunt this “ earth.” II. Furnishes a centre and aim for the new religious life of men.1. In Himself He is “ the one God, the Father.” This was a glorious revelation, and in Christ provision is made for its wide promulgation and acceptance. 2. He is the Creator and Upholder of all; “ Of whom are all things.” 3. He is the object of our faith, love, and devotion. We are “ for,” “ unto Him.” It is at this point that the great revelation of the new theology becomes the great motive of the new religion. Polytheism distracted the mind, and made it impossible that faith in God should become the inspiration of a new and better life. For it was a question, What measure of reverence and of service should be offered to this deity, and what to that? But Christianity revealed one God, in whom are all perfections, and who is the Creator, Governor, and Saviour of mankind. They who live to serve this God have an elevating, purifying, powerful aim in the conduct of their life. III. Furnishes the noblest motive to the new religious life.1. The one God is made known by the one Lord Jesus Christ, as the Word reveals the utterer, the Son the Father, which conflicts in no sense with monotheism. 2. Christ is the universal Mediator, “ by whom are all things” --the moral as well as the physical creation. All blessings which the Father destines for humanity He has resolved to confer by Christ. 3. We, as Christians, are what we are “ through Him.” As in the former clause we recognised the great aim, so here we see the great means and motive of the new, the distinctively Christian life. The Divine nature and mediation of Immanuel, so far from obscuring our belief in the Divine unity, is the most effectual support of it. Even as Jesus said, “ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” ; and “ No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)The unity of God The term “ unity” is difficult to define. It may mean merely the numerical basis of calculation; the contrast between one thing and two or more things of the same kind. But if used in the sense of a unit, it is clear that every one thing is made up of many parts, possesses many qualities, stands in various relations, and though in itself only one thing, is also a part of many other things. By unity is often meant more than the antithesis of many. Though the unity of God means that there is one God, in opposition to the claims of lords many and gods many, yet the phrase implies that whatever internal distinctions there may be in the essence of the Most High, that essence is one essence--a whole, a unity in itself. Unity is individuality, in spite of the recognition of the multiplicity of elements of which it is compounded. Thus a crystal of quartz is a unity distinct from all other crystals, and from the hand that holds it. It possesses a multitude of curious properties as long as it remains one thing; but let me break it into a thousand pieces, and it might soon be proved that every fragment possessed in a measure all those properties. Yet those fragments, though many, previously formed one whole. Consider, again, a tree or plant; its root, stem, branches, leaves, flowers, and seed form one whole of mysterious beauty; and though each twig and leaflet is a perfect creation, having an independent life in itself, yet the many parts do not fail to form a unity. Farther, playing in the branches of the tree there is a world of more mysterious life. Every leaf has its colony of insects, every bough its parasitical growth; the bees are humming in its fragrant flowers, and the birds are building their nests in its branches. But each lichen, moss, insect, and bird is as wonderful in its mysterious combination of many opposites, and dependent structures, and wondrous balancing of powers, as was the tree itself. But while I am considering crystal and tree, and insect and bird, I find that I myself am just such a combination of many parts, faculties, passions, and relations, each of which is sufficiently individual, and yet the whole of which seem all but indispensable to constitute my self-conscious unity. I am a strange combination of body, soul, and spirit; and yet I am reckoned as one man. My senses, reflections, and passions; my body, understanding, and will seem at times capable of individualisation, and to be unities in themselves; but it is the mutual relation and dependence of the parts that constitute the unity of the whole. With this self-consciousness of multiplicity in unity to help me, the revelation that God has made of His threefold nature is less perplexing than it otherwise would be. The unity of the Divine nature, like the unity of all other things, is a unity consistent with the self-inclusions of various constituent elements. (J. W. Reynolds, M. A.)One God, one Lord I. The one God. The oneness of Deity is here emphasised. It is insisted on throughout the Scriptures. The conflict, confusion, and absurdity conspicuous in polytheism find no place in Judaism or Christianity. This oneness is confirmed by nature, providence, and the moral sense. The one God is--1. The Source of all things. We know not how; the manner is not revealed to us; the fact is. God may have left much to man’ s scientific instinct to discover. He may have intended not a little to remain in mystery. We may travel reverently along the lines of true knowledge till they cease for us; then the great truth remains still for our enlightenment and comfort. The march backward of science is towards unity; revelation began with it. 2. The end of all things. “ We unto,” not “ in,” “ Him.” What is here asserted of some of God’ s works applies to all (Colossians 1:16). The whole universe looks God-wards. So far as intelligent creatures do not find the end of their existence in God and seek His glory, so far they fall out of harmony with the rest of creation and bring failure into their lives. II. The one Lord. The Head of the Church was the active power in creation. This verse teaches the Divinity of Christ in a very impressive manner. The administrative, mediating position occupied by Christ is recognised; but the assertion that “ through Him” all things were, is only explicable on the supposition of His Deity. Moreover, this very expression is applied elsewhere to God (Romans 9:36; Hebrews 2:10), and the expression “ unto Him” is in Colossians 1:15 applied to Christ. Paul is speaking about idols as “ gods and lords.” These were all regarded as deities. In carrying over the same terms to the realm of Christianity, there is nothing which should lead us to suppose that “ Lord” is less Divine than “ God.” III. The special relations subsisting between believers and the one Lord and one God.1. They are “ through” Christ--as creatures, amongst “ all things” ; but the additional “ we through Him” indicates special relationship. Believers are such through Christ; they believe in Him. Through Him they are separated from “ all things,” and made a peculiar people. Apart from Christ believers are nothing; through Him they become “ heirs of God.” 2. They are “ unto God” in a special sense, and through Christ. They show forth the Divine glories as others cannot. They reflect the Divine love manifested in redemption. They are presented to God as the fruits of Divine grace. Once rebellious, they are now obedient; once defiled, they are now purified, &c. 3. God is their Father. In a certain sense He is the Father of all, but in a spiritual sense He is not so. Of some Christ said, “ Ye are of your father the devil.” But the believer has received the adoption through Christ. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)The many gods and the one God I. The world’ s many gods. To make gods for himself has been man’ s great object all along. Every nation has had its gods, and every age. Is there no god-making still, even in our day? Money, business, pleasure, lusts, luxuries! Will they prove more helpful in the day of trouble than Baal, or Jupiter, or Buddha? Will they forgive, and save, and comfort? II. The saint’ s one God. Yes; one only, the living and the true God. Jehovah is His name. With undistracted eye the Christian looks but to one, not many; with undivided heart he fixes on one, not many; and that one sufficient to fill his whole heart, and soul, and being. How the thought of that one God--infinite, eternal, and unchangeable--makes all that are called gods to vanish utterly away! “ Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul.” We need no other; we need no more. III. The saint’ s one Christ. “ To us there is but one Lord Jesus Christ.” As there are many beings who go under the name of God, so are there many who go under the name of Christ, yet there is but one Christ, not two, nor many. The tendency of the present day is to multiply Christs. A Christ as the impersonation or representative of humanity is quite in accordance with the spirit of the age. But every one wants to have his own Christ, just as each heathen wanted to have his own god; the Christ that suits his own fancy, or his own philosophy, or his own intellect, or his own circumstances. Some want a Christ who is not God; others a Christ who is not a sacrifice; a Christ without a cross, and without blood; a Christ who will teach but not expiate sin; a Christ whose life and death are an example of self-surrender to the utmost, but not an atonement; a Christ who is not a judge, nor a law-giver, nor a priest, and only a prophet in the sense of teacher. If thus, then, there is but one Christ, then there is but--1. One Cross.2. One Priest.3. One altar.4. One sacrifice.5. One way to the kingdom. (H. Bonar.) 1 Corinthians 8:7-13 Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge. Ignorance 1. Great ignorance may consist with genuine piety.2. Is a source of much unnecessary anxiety and peril.3. Is to be deplored and pitied.4. May find relief in the study of Divine truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Christian liberty I. Its nature.1. Implies freedom of action in things indifferent.2. Depends on knowledge.3. Requires conscientious conviction. II. Its limits--1. Defined by a brother’ s weakness.2. By love to Christ.3. By self-sacrificing love. (J. Lyth, D. D.)For some with conscience of the idol … eat … and their conscience being weak is defiled.-- The law of Christian conscience I. The exposition of the law itself (1 Corinthians 8:7-8). The apostle tells the strong-minded Corinthians that the superstitious of their weaker brethren are unquestionably wrong (1 Corinthians 8:8); but he also tells them that “ there is not in every man that knowledge,” &c. (1 Corinthians 8:7), i.e., some have an ignorant, mistaken conscience; and yet he insists that this conscience, so ill-informed, yet binds the possessor of it: “ and their conscience being weak, is defiled.” Here, then, we have the distinction between absolute and relative right and wrong. Absolute right and wrong are unalterable. But the right or wrong of any action done by any particular man is a matter relative to his particular circumstances. That charity and self-denial, e.g., are right--this we see recognised in almost every nation. But when and how far self-denial is right, and what are the bounds of charity, this is for different circumstances to determine. And so it will be found that there is a different standard among different nations and in different ages, e.g., the standard among the Israelites in the early ages was very different from that recognised by the later prophets. And the standard in the third and fourth centuries was an entirely different one from that recognised among ourselves. The principle laid down by the apostle is this. That which seems to a man to be right is, in a certain sense, right to him; and that which seems to a man to be wrong, in a certain sense is wrong to him (Romans 5:14; Romans 14:14). II. The applications which arise out of it.1. Personally. Do what seems to you to be right: it is only so that you will at last learn by the grace of God to see clearly what is right. A man is responsible for the opinions he holds, and still more for the way in which he arrived at them--whether in a slothful and selfish, or in an honest and truth-seeking manner; but being now his soul’ s convictions, you can give no other law than this--“ You must obey your conscience.” For no man’ s conscience gets so seared by doing what is wrong unknowingly as by doing that which appears to be wrong to his conscience. 2. To others. To the large, free, enlightened mind of Paul, all these scruples and superstitions must have seemed mean and trivial. But conscience was far more sacred to him than even liberty. The scruple may he small and foolish, but it may be impossible to uproot it without tearing up the feeling of the sanctity of conscience, and of reverence to the law of God, associated with this scruple. And therefore the Apostle Paul counsels these men to abridge their Christian liberty, and not to eat of those things which had been sacrificed to idols, hut to have compassion upon the scruples of their weaker brethren. And this for two reasons. (1) Christian feeling. It might cause exquisite pain to sensitive minds to see those things which appeared to them to be wrong done by Christian brethren. Take a parallel case. There is no doubt that it causes much pain to many Christians to see a carriage used on the Lord’ s day. But you, with higher views of the spirit of Christianity, can exercise your liberty. But is it not your duty to abridge your Christian liberty, and to go through rain, and mud, and snow, rather than give pain to one Christian conscience? (2) It might even lead their brethren into sin. If any man should eat of the flesh offered to an idol, feeling himself justified by his conscience, it were well: but if any man, overborne by authority or interest, were to do this against conscience, his compliance would as much damage his moral sense as if the act had been wrong in itself. Conclusion:1. Distinguish between this tenderness for a brother’ s conscience and mere time-serving. This same apostle whom we here see so gracefully giving way upon the ground of expediency, stood firm as a rock when anything was demanded which trenched upon Christian principle (Galatians 2:5). 2. This abridgment of liberty is a duty especially incumbent upon all who are possessed of influence. If the landlord uses his authority and influence to induce his tenant to vote against his conscience, it may be he has secured one voice to the principle which is right; but he has gained that single voice at the sacrifice and expense of a brother’ s soul. Or again, if for the sake of ensuring personal attention, the rich man puts a gratuity into the hand of a servant of some company which has forbidden him to receive it, he gains the attention at the expense of a man and a Christian brother. 3. How possible it is to mix manliness with charity! No man ever breathed so freely the atmosphere of heaven as Paul--no man ever soared so high above all scruples as he: and yet no man ever bound himself as St. Paul bound himself to the scruples of his brethren. So that, what in other cases was infirmity, imbecility, and superstition, gathered round it in his case the pure high spirit of Christian delicacy. And now, out of the sayings of those who loudly proclaim “ the rights of man” and “ the rights of liberty,” match us if you can with one sentence so sublime as 1 Corinthians 8:13. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)A weak conscience, i.e., as we might say “ diseased,” incapable of forming a sound healthy judgment. As we speak of weak nerves the apostle speaks of a weak conscience. A person who has been taught when a child to believe in ghosts, will sometimes be seized with dread if he is alone at night, though his reason has long since convinced him that spectres do not appear. Similarly, though the moral reason of a Christian tells him that the heathen deities which he formerly worshipped do not exist, yet it requires spiritual knowledge of the true God to allay his dread. Cf. 1 Timothy 1:5, where the apostle joins “ a good conscience” with “ faith unfeigned.” (Principal Edwards.)Abstinence for the sake of others Of the flesh of beasts slain by the heathen priests in the service of their gods only a portion being required for the religious rites, the remainder was consumed as food by the priests or exposed for sale in the public markets. Entertainments were sometimes given in localities more or less closely associated with the idolatrous worship, and these meats were offered to the guests. Was it right to partake of such food? There may be at least four different methods of treating a question of that sort. It may be determined merely upon considerations of personal inclination and enjoyment. “ Those are the only considerations,” some might say. “ If the meat is good, and I want it, why refuse it?” With others the case would be at once submitted to the judgment of society: “ What is the custom? How do my associates dispose of the problem?” A third and manifestly higher method asks, “ What is right? What does an enlightened conscience approve?” Here are three entirely distinct methods of dealing with a question of practical morality. But neither of these schemes suit Paul. There is a larger question of charity: “ How might my habit affect others, and especially my religious associates?” I. In this golden sentence is seen the sensitiveness of Christianity with regard to the weak and the obscure. Such a sentiment was practically new. “ Christianity for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue,” says Lecky, the historian of European morals. How strange was this method is apparent also from the early criticisms of Christianity--that of Celsus, for example. “ Why,” said he, “ woollen-manufacturers, shoemakers, and curriers, the most uneducated and boorish of men, are zealous advocates of this religion!” By the apostle, however, the opprobrium was turned into a sort of boast: “ Ye see your calling, brethren … God hath chosen the weak things to confound the mighty.” These “ weak things” Paul never made the mistake of despising. We, too, shall deal most successfully with similar cases of conscience when we are nearest to Paul’ s Master and ours, having most of his life in us, his mind of love. Many a boy proudly drops his bat and ball to run and serve his mother or his sister. Such surrenders love counts among its privileges and joys. And if the earthly affection can easily do this, is it likely that a mightier passion will fail? II. We are taught, further, that the individual is of less consequence than society. That seems too plain to need reiteration. But practically it is not always acknowledged. Writers like Mill put the stress upon personal liberty. They are slow to justify legal measures or social laws which in any degree abridge the privileges of the individual. Such invasion of rights they would condemn, except under the greatest necessity. They seem to estimate a man too high, and mankind too low. But Providence does not make such estimates. What we call the laws of nature constantly subordinate us to the general good. The progress of history is achieved through suffering and martyrdom. Father and mother must deny themselves for the family. Sons and brothers die that the republic may live. Science and invention go forward through unrequited sacrifices. In the fact that men have so often tried to reverse God’ s computations, and make the one to be worth more than the many, lies the secret of much of the misery of the human race. Along the lines of this vicious calculation rivers of blood have flowed. Think of the kings and princes who from thrones of gold have looked down upon the millions of their subjects only as the small dust of the balance. III. It is also to be remembered that in the comparison of thess opposite methods, and in determining the issues which they involve, is to be found an important element of education. The settlement of moral questions to which we are daily summoned is designed for our discipline, a means both of testing and increasing our love for the Master and for His people. With a child we are best satisfied not when he promptly obeys an express command, but when, left to choose for himself, he deliberately prefers another’ s pleasure to his own. That shows, and at the same time develops, the kindness of his heart. It is often objected, however, that the requirements of such a charity may become unreasonable, and oppressive--that there are narrow-minded and captious persons who, upon any pretext, will seek to obstruct our freedom and spoil our innocent pleasures. Where, then, shall the line be drawn? The only answer must be that a line cannot be definitely drawn. We are left to the impulses of our natural or gracious hearts. They will put their own constructions upon every principle laid down for guidance. The problem is not, “ Who is technically right?” nor, “ Who has the better head and the more enlightened conscience?” nor, “ Who is more prominent in the world’ s work? “ This is not a matter of pride, but of self-forgetting charity. The stress and point lie in the question, “ What will save this brother whom my liberty might offend.?” The more unreasonable the prejudice, likewise, to which we yield, the weaker the opinion to which we make our offering of peace and goodwill, the more tenderly will” God be sure to regard it. We may be thankful if instead of being among those who ask for concessions, we have reached the high place of those who are delighted to grant them. IV. The superiority of “ love as a law” is manifest, therefore. Such a force is not only disciplinary, but it is in the highest degree disciplinary; it secures the best advantage and growth. “ This law is not arbitrary. It is no law of fanaticism or enthusiasm or self-torture.” In preferring it we only surrender a lower, because we seek a manifestly higher, good. “ To work from fear is slavery; to work under the compulsion of animal want is a hardship, and if not a positive yet a relative curse; to work for personal ends, as for pride or ambition or the accumulation of property, either for its own sake or our own sake, is compatible with freedom, but has in it nothing either purifying or ennobling; it finds and leaves the soul dry and hard. But activity from love is the perfection of freedom and of joy.” We are never so high and great as when for love we can easily make sacrifices to advance the unity and power of Christ’ s Church or the welfare of those for whom He died. V. How various are the problems of our modern life which this lesson touches we may readily discover. Shall I drink wine? What shall be my attitude toward the theatre and the opera? How shall I deal with the question as to promiscuous dancing? Shall I on Sunday patronise the street-railway? What games shall I approve? How far may I indulge a taste for personal adornment, particularly in places of public worship? What principles and limitations of expenditure are to be preferred in building, beautifying, and administering a home? These and a thousand like inquiries are to be treated in the spirit with which Paul approached the Corinthian problem about meat. They are not merely ethical, but Christian, problems. (H. A. Edson, D. D.)Abstinence for the sake of others Slight acts may loose vast forces, as a shout starts an Alpine avalanche. Insignificant questions may involve great principles. So was it with the Corinthian Church. The body of Christ was torn about a piece of meat; but the strife involved solemn matters--love for Christ and dying souls. I. The law of knowledge. We commonly reckon knowledge to be a product of the intellect, including the powers by which we learn facts, reason upon them, and draw conclusions. The kind of knowledge determines the instrument by which we are to acquire it. Pure mathematics, abstract logic, may seem to use only the seeing eye and reasoning mind. But really to know a thing, the student must have some affinity for the object. It must find him, must stir a response in his nature. True of nature and art, this is more commandingly true of our fellow man. We cannot know him or any truth concerning his life and character except as we love him. This is the only way to get God’ s way of looking at him, God’ s ideal for him. Love is the discoverer, love is the interpreter, love the guide. Knowledge without love is the turbine without waterfall, wire without electricity. Love without knowledge is cataract minus wheel, loose lightning in the heavens. Love with knowledge is the servant and benefactor of mankind. Love has chemic tests, microscope, clairvoyance. It is the expert picking up the pebble a settler’ s child is playing with and telling the man he is farming over a gold mine. Knowledge despises his ignorance and leaves him to its poverty. The characteristic of modern charity is the combination of scientific method with personal devotion. It studies the case with minute pains, then helps it with cool head and steady hand as well as warm heart. The worst enemy of true charity is indiscriminate giving; and true giving means personal contact. It is so much cheaper to give money than to give one’ s self, and the reward is correspondingly small. This is the law: True knowledge includes love; it comes through head and heart together. II. The law of conscience. But what law can there be to a faculty divided against itself, that, seeing two men doing the same thing, smiles upon one and smites the other? Which of them is right? How can any one ever be sure he is right? Conscience is called the voice of God in the soul of man; but can God say Yea and Nay together? The faculty we name conscience is not simple, but complex. It includes the impulse which commands, Do right; when you know the light, do it, whatever the cost. But back of this lies the judgment which tells us what is right. Not attempting the philosophical definitions, call the one moral impulse, the other moral judgment. The first of these is essentially the same in all sound souls, while differing in force and accepted control. The second differs according to birth, training, personal experience. Plainly, then, persons equally anxious to do right may differ as to the right or wrong of a specific act. Equally conscientious, they conscientiously disagree. Each, trying to do right, does what the other condemns. They agree in moral impulse, but disagree in moral judgment. The difficulty is great, and to recognise its occasion does not remove it. Two precepts are to be urged--1. Cultivate the moral impulse, which insists upon obedience to known right. Guard this high conception of the majesty of righteousness. Listen to the whispers of conscience rather than to the shouts of interest or songs of pleasure. Protect the sensitiveness of moral discernment as a piano tuner guards the accuracy of his ear. Recur constantly to the invariable standard. Crowd forward conviction into action. 2. Train the moral judgment, which decides whether a specific act is right or wrong. Extend the control of conscience to the formation of opinions. Educators of the moral judgment are-- (1) Revelation. A clear word from God is end of debate. (2) The teachings of reason, vitalised by love. (3) Experience; our own, that of the wise and good, and the broad testimony of history. (4) A spiritual life. Constant fellowship with Christ, effort to grow like Him and to win others to Him, furnish the finest tests and incitements to right moral decisions. We can have God’ s wisdom for the asking, the especial illumination of the Holy Spirit. Changes of conviction will issue in changes of practice, and with these may come a period of unrest, while the moral sense is becoming adjusted to the judgment. The immorality of false opinions and virtue of right convictions are often discredited; but they make life, character, destiny. This is the law of conscience: Cultivate a sensitive and positive moral impulse; train the moral judgment to clear and spiritual views. III. The law of conduct. Conduct has two relations--between myself and God, and between myself and my neighbour. An act done in the sight of others becomes example, and what is innocent kept to myself alone may be hurtful if indiscriminately followed. Unfortunately, doing in secret what is condemned in public savours of insincerity and hurts a delicate honour. As a rule, what is good for me is good for my neighbour, and what hurts him is bad for me. Which of us has suffered much from giving the weak brother, the holy Christ, the benefit of the doubt? That weak brother, he is ever with us; what shall we do about him? Would that he were strong! How we admire the well-poised man, clear head at the top and firmly set feet beneath; physical passions and temper and tongue following obediently at the heel of sound reason; warm heart and positive will, handmaids of a sensitive and proud conscience! Such there are, and how simple to them is life! But they are as rare as admirable. The weak brother, whose claim is mainly his weakness--he ought to train his moral judgment, be fully persuaded in his own mind, then be content to stand or fall to his own Master; but it is not so with him. He keeps looking to see what we do, putting us on a pedestal we have no wish to occupy. Have not we rights also? Yes; and what right higher than to surrender rights to gain blessings? To hesitate between tickling one’ s palate and saving a soul from death would be worse than brutish. Grant that this means surrender of what we might claim but for this weak brother, are we losers? Am I impoverished by putting helpfulness above self-assertion? What is self-denial but choosing the nobler and better part? Give the weak brother and the spiritual life the benefit of the doubt. The example of abstinence involves no risks. Grow rich by giving up, gain life by dying to self and the world. While this law is general, its application in a temperance lesson is peculiarly clear. Here, of all cases, abstinence involves no risks; and appeals to the weaker without example of abstinence come to nothing. (Charles M. Southgate.)Abstinence for the sake of others Not a few of the church members in Corinth reserved the right to purchase and partake of these meats. Where is the flaw in their argument? The apostle meets and controverts it with great clearness. I. He alleges that charity is better than knowledge. “ We all,” says he, “ have knowledge.” We are all able to make a showing of reasonableness for our foibles and prejudices. The poorest cause may be bolstered by an argument. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth, literally buildeth up. Self-vindication makes us conceited and dogmatic; but charity helps both us and others. The charity here referred to is the largest of the Christian graces. It is the Greek á̓ãá́ðç, the Vulgate charitas; it is love in its broadest and deepest sense. It includes love towards God as well as towards men. It is like the constant commerce which is going on between the waters of the heavens and the earth; the rills trickle into the brooks, the brooks murmur towards the rivers, the rivers roll onward to the sea, and the seas are exhaled into the clouds above to distil again in grateful showers and morning dews. So love is the constant means and communion between God and His children. “ We know our franchise,” said the Christian banqueters of Corinth; “ we have knowledge as to the true character of idols and idol-worship, and are therefore in no danger of being led astray.” “ Knowledge! knowledge!” replies the apostle, “ but what about love? If any man love God the same is known unto Him, and that is the knowledge worth having.” All the wisdom of the schools is not to be valued with the assurance that we love God; and “ the same may be known unto us.” II. The Apostle Turns, Secondly, To A Consideration Of Individual Freedom. For these Corinthian Christians were disposed to stand upon their rights. They said in effect, “ There is no specific injunction as to these idol-meats in Scripture. The question is left to the individual conscience. Our consciences are clear; the meats do not injure us. We therefore propose to do as we please about them.” “ Granted,” says Paul, “ I do not dispute your rights in these premises; but there are some important facts which you are in danger of losing sight of.” He then reminds them--1. That the mere matter of eating or abstaining is in itself of slight consequence; “ for meat commendeth us not to God; neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse.” So small a matter therefore as a dish upon one’ s table should not be permitted to jeopardise the spiritual interests of any. 2. There are some weaker brethren who have less knowledge. These weaker brethren must not be left out of the reckoning. We are in a measure responsible for them. Am I, then, my brother’ s keeper? Aye, and if he fall over a stumbling-block of my making, I shall be held responsible for it. 3. Rights are relative. Some of them must bow down to others, as did the lesser stars to the greater in the patriarch’ s dream. A man’ s lowest right is to please himself; his highest is to deny himself for others. Rights may conflict, but duties never; and duty always has the highest and uttermost claim. 4. As to individual freedom there is no such thing. If there were only one man in the universe he might be absolutely free to serve his own pleasure, but the moment you introduce another man there is a mutual restriction. Each is now free only so far as his freedom does not infringe upon the other. It is a mistake to think of freedom as license. There is, in fact, nothing in the world more circumscribed than true freedom. It is not lawlessness nor deliverance from restraint. Its best definition is, “ Perfect obedience to perfect law.” True, “ we are no longer children of the bond-woman, but of the free.” He who comes forth from the bondage of the law into the liberty of the gospel bows down, at the very threshold of his new life, and gives himself as a slave to serve the interests of his fellow men. III. This leads us, thirdly, to consider with the apostle the example of Christ Himself. “ Through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?” For whom Christ died! Is it true, then, that Jesus stooped to the infirmity of the least of His little ones? Aye, and here are we, followers of His, haggling about meats and drinks! God forgive us, that we fall so far short of the mind that was in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Philippians 2:7 occurs a word about which there is much controversy. The word is kenosis; it means an “ utter emptying,” and is applied to Christ’ s humiliation. When He crossed the threshold of heaven to undertake His redemptive work He laid aside crown, royal robes, heavenly retinue, everything, that He might restore the race of fallen men. He was free to remain where He was; but He put away His freedom and took upon Himself the form of a servant for our sake. Oh, by the love and devotion of our Lord, let us cease our clamouring for rights, and begin to ask, “ How may we empty ourselves as He did for the uplifting of the children of men?” The point at which humanity comes nearest to Deity is self-denial. Its best illustration is at Calvary, where God stoops down to embrace His penitent children. The summit of human character is reached when a man gives himself for others. Christ did it. We also, for Christ’ s sake, must do it. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 8:11-13 And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? Suffering, the measure of worth I. The “ weak brother” is not of much value in himself; but he is made valuable by the fact that Christ died for him.1. How much of themselves men will give for one another, measures the worth in which that other is held. “ I love you,” may mean only “ you are my plaything,” or “ I love myself” ; but true love will give up for another’ s sake time and convenience. It will employ all the resources of its being for the sake of that friend. And when, in some great exigency, all this will not avail, then love, in the glory of its power, goes to death as to the consummation of itself, and leaves a witness to itself which all mankind recognises (John 15:13). 2. Even when this is the fruit of instinct, it is impressive. The bear that dies defending its cubs, the hound that pines and dies on its master’ s grave, the little sparrow that fights the hawk and owl, not for itself, but its nest--one must be heartless indeed to feel no admiration for these fidelities of love. 3. But how much more when one’ s love and suffering spring from a perception of excellence in an object loved? The greater the nature that suffers, the higher is the estimate which his example gives of that for which he suffers. And by this analogue, the suffering and sacrifice of a Divine Being carries out the witness to its utmost conceivable extent. 4. We see at once a new element in the hands of the apostles after this testimony of the Master. No sooner was He gone up than they began to preach that man was valuable on account of what Christ suffered for him. A man for whom Christ died became a very different creature from a man before Christ had died for him. The fact that Christ died for a man made him worth protecting if he was weak. 5. This suffering was not founded upon man’ s character. It would be a testimony to the value of good character if Christ had come to die for it; but that was the very point of conflict between Him and the Pharisees. They held that Christ ought to suffer and identify Himself with them; but He most scornfully rejected that, and said, “ I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. I came to give My life for the lowest and worst men.” He more sharply than any other discriminated between good and bad character; yet there was something behind character to which Christ was bearing witness, viz., the abstract original value which inheres in human life. The death of Christ is a testimony to the value of man in his very substance, if I may so say; so that the least and the lowest have the essence of value in them. II. The effect which this fact has of determining man’ s place, his rights, and his worth.1. Consider what the world’ s way of estimation has been in judging men. Earliest, men measured physical power. Now the habit of society is to classify men into relative ranks of value by the effects which they are able to produce; by what they are worth to society. Therefore, when a great man dies men say, “ The world has met with a great loss.” If a poor man dies, men say, “ The world has one less incumbrance.” The dog that hunts well is better than a pauper that does not do anything, in the estimation of men. If a race are not able to hold their own against aggressive peoples men say, “ There is no help for it; they must go.” They judge men by the standard of political economy. There is no such contempt on the globe for anything as man has for man. We need therefore to go back to this testimony of our Master’ s example, who came by His suffering and death to bear a testimony of that element in human nature which every man has like every other. 2. This view interprets the future. A man in the lowest condition here is not the man that he is to be; and when you have measured and weighed him, you have not estimated what he is worth in the kingdom to come. He has before him another world; and we are told most solemnly by our Saviour that the men who are the most regarded here will be worth the least there. “ The first shall be last, the last first.” Many of the plants of our northern summer come up quickly, and do exceedingly well; but they are coarse and rank at that. And there are many seeds that I plant by the side of them every spring, which in the first summer only grow a few leaves high. There is not sun enough to make them do what it is in them to do. But if I put them in some sheltered hot-house, and give them the continuous growth of autumn and winter, and then, the next summer, put them out once more, they gather strength by this second planting, and lift up their arms and spread out the abundance of their blossoms. The plants that grew quickest the year before, are now called weeds by their side. And I doubt not that there is many a man who rushes up to a rank growth in the soil of this world, and of whom men seeing him, say, “ That is a great man,” but there are many poor, feeble creatures in this world who will be carried safely on and up, and rooted in a better clime; and then, lifting up their whole nature, they will come out into that glorious summer of fervent love in heaven, where they will be more majestic, more fruitful, than those who so far surpass them here. III. The effects which this doctrine will have upon our feelings and conduct to our fellow-men.1. Let us suppose that we are in full possession of the Christian feeling--Christ died for that man. It will be a powerful restraint upon lawless liberty, and will bring us into such sympathy with all our fellow men, that, at the sacrifice of our own convenience and rights, it will be a privilege and a pleasure for us to serve them. Some men go through life, saying, “ I will take care of myself, and you must take care of yourself” ; and they feel that they have a right to go through life thus. Now no one who has drunk deeply of the spirit of the Master will refuse to accept the injunction, “ We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.” It is as if a strong swimmer should turn back and lend a helping hand to buoy up and lift across the flood one that was weaker or less able to swim than himself. We have no right to disregard, much less to hinder, the welfare of any human being. Have I a right to go tramp, tramp, tramp, according to the law of my physical strength, among little children? If I have had better privileges than others, and have come to conclusions which they cannot understand, have I a right to scatter sceptical notions through society? A man is bound to hold his knowledge, his conscience, his pleasures, &c., subject to this great law: “ Christ died for men, and I must live for men, and restrain my power, and forego my rights, even for their sake.” We have a right to employ men, of course; but there is a habit which prevails in society of thinking that a man has a right to just so much of his fellow-men as he is able to extract from them. A man may fleece a hundred men during the week, and take the communion on Sunday, and nobody thinks that there is any violation of good-fellowship or of orthodoxy. But that great law of fellowship which knits every man to every other man on the globe says not only “ Thou art his brother,” but, “ Thou art responsible for his weal as well as thine own. Thou shalt not in any wise harm him.” 2. This is one of the most precious of doctrines to those that look and long for a better period of the world. It was almost the only thing we could urge when slavery rent our land. The single strand that held against the storms of avarice and the fire of lurid lusts was the single argument, “ For these Christ died.” And that held; and the most wonderful change toward regeneration that the world ever saw has taken place by the simple operation of that great law. And what have we now for the weak races? Men of a hard heart and an iron-shod foot are preparing to tread these people down and deny them their rights. And I take my stand by the side of every weak creature, whatever his nationality may be, and I say, “ For him Christ died.” Give men at the bottom a chance to come up. God, the highest, bowed down His head and came upon the earth and suffered for the weakest and the worst. 3. Christian brethren, we must arm ourselves betimes. The seeds of a better public sentiment must be sown. Then let no man be discouraged because he is labouring with a very much neglected class. There is no material in this world which is un-promising. No man is beyond salvation since “ Christ died” for him. (H. W. Beecher.)But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.-- Sin against Christ It is a proof of the intimate character of the relation between Christ and His people that it should be the very climax of reproach against Christians because of any course they followed, to charge them with sin against Christ. Language like this could be used of no merely human teacher and leader. To act without due charity is a sin against Christ because it is-- I. To offend against Christ’ s commandment, viz., to love one another. This was to be the test of Christian discipleship. II. To contradict Christ’ s example. What Christ enjoined He exemplified in His whole life, and at last in His death. III. To injure Christ in the person of one of His little ones. Christ so identified Himself with His disciples as to regard what was done to them as done to Himself. Whosoever is indifferent to the welfare of the Lord’ s servants, sins against the Lord Himself, and shall not be held guiltless. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)Wounding a weak conscience I. What a weak conscience is.1. Such a conscience is improperly called tender; for tenderness imports quickness and exactness of sense, which is the perfection of this faculty, whose duty it is to be a spiritual watch to give us warning of whatsoever concerns us. It is opposed to a hard or seared conscience; but a weak conscience is opposed to a strong, which very strength consists in the tenderness or quickness of its discerning power. 2. The weakness of conscience here spoken of is opposed to faith (Romans 14:2), by which is not meant that act by which a man is justified, but signifies the same with knowledge (1 Corinthians 8:7; 1 Corinthians 8:10). The clear discernment of what is unlawful, and what is only indifferent, together with a firm persuasion of the lawful use of such indifferent things, all circumstances being duly observed in the using of them. And therefore, on the other side, the weak conscience is such a one as judges otherwise of the nature of things than indeed it is, supposing that to be unlawful in itself which really is not so. 3. From whence it follows that weakness of conscience implies-- (1) An ignorance of the lawfulness of some certain thing or action. That ignorance must be such a one as is not willing. (a) Because it must be such a one as renders it in some degree excusable; but so far as any defect is resolved into the will, it is in that degree inexcusable. (b) Because it must be such an ignorance as renders the person having it the object of compassion. But no man pities another for any evil lying upon him, which he would not help, but which he could not. And consequently it must be resolved into the natural weakness of the understanding faculty, or else the want of opportunities or means of knowledge. Either of which makes ignorance necessary, as it is impossible for him to see who wants eyes, and equally impossible for him who wants light.(2) A suspicion of the unlawfulness of any thing or action. (3) A religious abstinence from the use of that thing of the lawfulness whereof it is thus ignorant or suspicious. It brings a man to that condition in Colossians 2:21. II. What it is to wound or sin against it.1. To afflict or discompose it; i.e., to rob it of its peace. For there is that concernment for God’ s honour dwelling in every truly pious heart which makes it troubled at the sight of any action by which it supposes God to be dishonoured. And as piety commands us not to offend God, so charity enjoins us not to grieve our neighbour. 2. To encourage or embolden it to act against its present judgment or persuasion: which is, in other terms, to offend, or cast a stumbling-block before it: i.e., to do something which may administer to it an occasion of falling or bringing itself under the guilt of sin. So that as the former was a breach upon the peace, this is properly a wound upon the purity of the conscience. 3. The conscience may be induced to act counter to its present persuasion. (1) By example; which is the case here expressly mentioned, and principally intended. (2) By command; as when a person in power enjoins the doing something, of the lawfulness of which a man is not persuaded. (R. South, D. D.)Dissuasives against an undue use of Christian liberty 1. A weak conscience is easily wounded.2. The infliction of such a wound is a violation of the law of love.3. It is a sin against Christ Himself. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.-- The great argument for abstinence I. Arguments for abstinence are often grounded on. 1. Danger to ourselves. (1) We may be led to excess.(2) We may injure ourselves, physically or morally. 2. Wastefulness.3. Intrinsical wrongness. II. Such arguments frequently lack cogency.1. The third will have no application to a large class of things indifferent in themselves, and it is generally in respect of such that the war is waged. 2. The others are open to question. Conflicting facts will be adduced, and where knowledge is imperfect the contest is likely to continue. And the argument often acts as a temptation, for when human nature is warned of peril it often delights to show how brave and steadfast it can be. III. The apostolic argument. St. Paul--1. Enlarges the view so that others are included as well as ourselves. Abstinence is sometimes not for ourselves at all, but only for our fellows (Philippians 2:4). We are units, but united units. We cannot legislate for that little area which we ourselves occupy. 2. Recognises the influence of example. Our words are a spider’ s web; our acts are a cable. Men do what we show them, not what we tell them. And we cannot persuade men that we are strong and they weak. 3. Asserts the obligation of self-sacrifice for the welfare of others. That which is “ indifferent” becomes anything but that if our indulgence is injurious to others. Our sacrifice is small indeed compared with their possible loss. This argument has special force for Christians. (1) They have the example of self-sacrifice in their Master (verse 12). They have a more impressive view of the issues involved in the fall of a fellow-creature. (2) Their non-abstinence may be a sin against a fellow-Christian (verse 11). The fall may be, not of an unbeliever, but of a brother associated in Christian fellowship and service, and thus be-- (3) A sin against the brethren (verse 12), i.e., the Church, bringing scandal and disgrace through a brother’ s fall. And also-- (4) A sin against Christ (verse 12). For Christ and Christians are one--He the Head and they the members. (5) They have in their ears such utterances of their Master’ s as Matthew 18:6; Matthew 25:40. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)Personal sacrifice is I. Necessary.1. Not only in meats and drinks, but in many other things.2. To avoid offence. II. Is obligatory--1. On Christians.2. By the law of love, and--3. The example of Christ. III. Is magnanimous. It is--1. A conquest of self.2. An act of benevolence.3. A feature of renewed nature. IV. Will be abundantly compensated.1. By the approval of conscience.2. The benefit of others.3. The approbation of God.4. Final reward. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Abstaining for the good of others Do you not think, dear friends, that though it may be quite proper for you to take a glass of wine or a glass of beer, and there is no sin in the thing at all, your example may be injurious to somebody to whom it would be a sin to take it? Perhaps some persons cannot take a glass without taking two, three, four, five, or six glasses. You can stop, you know; but if your example leads them to start, and they cannot stop, is it right to set them going? Though you have a clear head, and can stand in a dangerous place, I would not recommend you to go there if somebody else would thus be placed in danger. If I were walking by the cliffs of Dover, and I happened to have a very fine cool head, yet, if I had my sons with me, and I knew that they had ordinary kinds of heads, I should not like to go and stand just on a jutting piece of crag so as to induce them to try the same position. No; I should feel, “ Though I can stand here, you cannot; and if I stand here, perhaps you will attempt it, and fall, and I shall be guilty of your blood.” Let us treat men as we would treat our sons; and let us be weak to their weakness, and deny ourselves for their sakes. Is not that good and proper reasoning? It seems to me that it is. If it is not good reasoning, it is safe. I never have asked God to forgive me for my sin in going without strong drink. I have never seen any commandment in Scripture showing that I am bound to take it. I feel free to do as I like about abstaining; but especially free when for the good of others I prefer to abstain altogether. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christian consideration for others Now you may say to me if you please as a man, “ Mr. Gough, I am a moderate drinker; I use these things in moderation, and therefore I set you a good example.” I say at once, “ Sir, you do not.” “ Well, if I drink one glass and there stop, is not that an example for others?” “ No, sir; no, sir; no more than if there was a bridge built over a gulf, to fall into which was utter ruin, and that bridge will bear 150 lbs., and you weigh 1501bs., and you say to that young man (and he weighs 200 lbs.), ‘ Follow my example.’ --‘ I don’ t like the look of that bridge.’ ‘ Don’ t be a fool, I have walked it forty years; proved it perfectly safe; never cracked with me; never sprung with me; perfectly safe.’ --‘ But I don’ t like it.’ ‘ Don’ t be foolish; you can do that which I can do; now I am setting you a good example; follow me step by step.’ That young man attempts to follow it; he sets his foot on the centre; crash! crash! down he goes, with a shriek, into destruction. Now, did you set a good example? No, because you didn’ t take into consideration the difference of weight.” Before you can say to a young man, “ I set you a good example,” you must take into consideration the difference between his temperament and yours, his susceptibility and yours. (J. B. Gough.). 1 Corinthians 9:1-22 Am I not an apostle?Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Signs of apostleship Why should Paul, departing from his usual custom, speak here of himself and his claims? Undoubtedly because these were questioned. Now wishing to incite the Corinthians to self-denial, Paul exemplified this virtue; but to make this effective it was necessary that he should assert and vindicate his position and rights. If he had no special commission from Christ, there was no virtue in renouncing privileges which never were his. The signs of his apostleship were-- I. The vision of christ. Not that every one who saw Jesus became an apostle; but that none became an apostle who had not seen and been commissioned by Him. No doubt he had been contrasted with the twelve to his disadvantage in these respects. But Paul would not submit to an imputation which must needs weaken his authority. He had seen the Lord on the way to Damascus, had heard His voice, and been entrusted with a special mission to the Gentiles. He had not been preaching the gospel at the instigation of his own inclinations, but in obedience to the authority of Christ. II. Success in apostolic labour. The craftsman proves his ability by the work he does; the sailor by his navigation of the vessel; the soldier by his courage and skill. So the apostle acknowledges the justice of the practical test.1. Paul appealed to his work. Labour is misspent when no results ensue. But his labour had not been in vain. 2. The workmanship of the apostle was also his seal, i.e., it bore the mark and witness of his character, ability and office. A competent judge, looking to the Churches Paul had founded, would admit them to be evidence of his apostleship. 3. The signs were manifest in the very community where his authority was questioned. There is irony and force in the appeal made to the Corinthians. Whoever raised a question they should not. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)The leading characteristics of a truly great gospel minister The greater minister of Christ I. The More Independent Of Ceremonial Restrictions. Paul was an apostle, and had “ seen Christ,” a qualification that distinguished him as a minister from all but eleven others. Besides this, his natural and acquired endowments placed him in the first rank of reasoners, scholars, and orators. He was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, &c. But see how he regarded the mere conventionalities of religious society. “ Am I not an apostle? Am I not free?” --referring to the eating of meat offered to idols, &c. (1 Corinthians 8:13). The greater the man, always the more independent he is of forms, fashions, customs. Hezekiah called that which his countrymen worshipped “ Nehushtan,” a piece of brass. Cromwell called that glittering insignia of authority on the table of the House of Commons a “ bauble,” Thomas Carlyle called all the pageantry of office and the glitter of wealth “ shams.” Burns called the swaggering lordling a “ coof.” A famous French preacher began his funeral address over the coffin of his sovereign with “ There is nothing great but God.” What cared Elijah for kings? Nothing. Felix trembled before the moral majesty of Paul, even in chains. II. The higher the services he renders to society (1 Corinthians 9:1-2). “ He that converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, &c. What work approaches this in grandeur and importance? And the man who succeeds in accomplishing it demonstrates the divinity of his ministry (1 Corinthians 9:3). III. The more independent he is of the innocent enjoyments of life (1 Corinthians 9:4-5). Paul claims the privilege to eat and drink as he pleased, and to marry or not. IV. The more claim he has to the temporal support of those whom he spiritually serves (1 Corinthians 9:6-14). The reasons are--1. The general usage of mankind (1 Corinthians 9:7). He illustrates the equity of the principle from the cases of the soldier, the agriculturist, and the shepherd. 2. The principle of the Jewish law (1 Corinthians 9:8-9). “ Doth God take care for oxen?” Yes; but is not man greater than the ox? And shall he work and be deprived of temporal supplies? 3. The principles of common equity (1 Corinthians 9:11). 4. Other apostles and their wives were thus supported (1 Corinthians 9:6-12). Have we done less? Is our authority inferior? 5. The support of the Jewish priesthood (1 Corinthians 9:13). 6. The ordination of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:14; cf. Matthew 10:10). Looking at all that Paul says on that question here, the conviction cannot be avoided that no man has a stronger claim to a temporal recompense than a true gospel minister. Albeit no claims are so universally ignored. Call the money you pay to your butcher, baker, lawyer, doctor, “ charity” ; but in the name of all that is just, do not call that charity which you tender to the man who consecrates his entire being and time to impart to you the elements of eternal life. V. The more ready to surrender his claims for the sake of usefulness. (D. Thomas, D. D.)A true minister We see in these verses-- I. What it is that constitutes a true minister.1. Communion with Christ. “ Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?”2. Souls won for Christ. “ Are not ye my work in the Lord?” II. The true minister ought to be recognised by his people.1. Courtesy demands it.2. His message demands it.3. His work requires it.4. Their consciousness declares it. III. It is often better to answer foolish questions than to pass them by.1. For the sake of individual character.2. For the sake of the Christian Church.3. For the sake of mankind. (A. F. Barfield.)The claims of the Christian minister I. Are founded--1. Upon his character as-- (1) A messenger of Christ.(2) A man.(3) A Christian. 2. Upon his work. II. Include--1. The common rights of man.2. The particular right to a just compensation for his labour. III. Should be enforced--1. With moderation.2. With a due regard for the interests of the gospel. IV. Ought to be relinquished rather than occasion reproach: still the right remains, and will finally be established. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Maintenance of the ministry In the preceding chapter Paul has disposed of the question as to meats offered in sacrifice to idols. He has inculcated the duty of accommodating ourselves to the consciences of others, and is prepared to abridge his own Christian liberty. But keeping pace, as he always does, with the thought of his readers, it at once occurs to him that his opponents will declare that his apostleship stands on so insecure a basis that he has no option in the matter, but must curry favour with all parties. The original apostles may reasonably claim exemption from manual labour, and demand maintenance both for themselves and their wives; but Paul has no such claim to maintenance, and is aware that his apostleship is doubtful. He therefore-- I. Asserts his right to the same privileges and maintenance as the other apostles (1-14). He rests his claim on--1. His apostleship (1 Corinthians 9:1-6). No one could be an apostle who had not seen Christ after His resurrection. Paul therefore, both in his speeches and in his letters, insists that on the way to Damascus he had seen the risen Lord. But an apostle was also one who was commissioned to bear witness to this fact; and that Paul had been thus commissioned he thinks the Corinthians may conclude from the results among themselves of his preaching. In presence of the finished structure that draws the world to gaze, it is too late to ask if he who built it is an architect. 2. The principle of remuneration everywhere observed in human affairs (1 Corinthians 9:7). However difficult it is to lay down an absolute law of wages, it may be affirmed as a natural principle that labour must be so paid as to maintain the labourer in life and efficiency; as to enable him to bring up a family which shall be useful and not burdensome to society, and as to secure for him some reserve of leisure for his own enjoyment and advantage. Paul anticipates the objection that these secular principles have no application to sacred things (1 Corinthians 9:8-9). But this law is two-edged. If a man produce what the community needs, he should himself profit by the production; but, on the other hand, if a man will not work, neither should he eat. 3. Ordinary gratitude (1 Corinthians 9:11). And some of the Churches founded by Paul felt that the benefit they had derived from him could not be stated in terms of money; but prompted by irrepressible gratitude, they could not but seek to relieve him from manual labour and set him free for higher work. The method of gauging the amount of spiritual benefit absorbed, by its overflow in material aid given to the propagation of the gospel would, I daresay, scarcely be relished by that monstrous development the niggardly Christian. 4. The Levitical usage (1 Corinthians 9:13-14). That evils may result from the existence of a paid ministry no one will be disposed to deny. But if the work of the ministry is to be thoroughly done, men must give their whole time to it; and therefore must be paid for it; a circumstance which is not likely to lead to much evil while the great mass of ministers are paid as they are. II. Gives the true season for foregoing his lawful claim. Paul felt the more free to urge them because his custom was to forego them (1 Corinthians 9:15). How apt are self-denying men to spoil their self-denial by dropping a sneer at the weaker souls that cannot follow their heroic example. Not so Paul. He first fights the battle of the weak for them, and then disclaims all participation in the spoils. Nor does he consider that his self-denial is at all meritorious. On the contrary, he makes it appear as if no choice were left to him. His fear was that if he took remuneration, he “ should hinder the gospel of Christ.” Some of the best incomes in Greece were made by clever lecturers; Paul was resolved he should never be mistaken for one of these. And no doubt his success was partly due to the fact that men recognised that his teaching was a labour of love, Every man finds an audience who speaks, not because he is paid for doing so, but because there is that in him which must find utterance. Paul felt that on him lay the gravest responsibilities. Had he complained of bad usage, and stipulated for higher terms, and withdrawn, who could have taken up the task he laid down? But while Paul could not but be conscious of his importance, he would arrogate to himself no credit. Whether he does his work willingly or unwillingly, still he must do it. If he does it willingly, he has a reward; if he does it unwillingly, still he is entrusted with a stewardship he dare not neglect. What, then, is the reward? The satisfaction of knowing that, having freely received, he had freely given (1 Corinthians 9:18). III. Reaffirms the principle on which he has uniformly acted. It was from Paul (1 Corinthians 9:19) that Luther derived the keynote of his blast “ on Christian Liberty” with which he stirred Europe into new life: “ A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” But Paul was no mere latitudinarian. While accommodating himself to the practice of those around him in all matters (1 Corinthians 9:20-23) in all matters of mere outward observance, he held very definite opinions on the chief articles of the Christian creed. No liberality can ever induce a thoughtful man to discourage the formation of opinion on all matters of importance. No doubt righteousness of life is better than soundness of creed. But is it not possible to have both? Again, Paul had an end in view which preserved his liberality from degenerating (1 Corinthians 9:22). In order to remove a man’ s difficulties, you must look at them from his point of view and feel the pressure he feels. In order to “ gain” men, you must credit them with some desire to see the truth, and you must have sympathy enough to see with their eyes. Parents sometimes weaken their influence with their children by inability to look at things with the eyes of youth. Put yourself in the place of the inquiring, perplexed, embittered soul, find out the good that is in it, patiently accommodate yourself to its ways so far as you legitimately may, and you will be rewarded by “ gaining some.” (M. Dods, D. D.)Abstinence from rightful privileges Verse 27 is commonly quoted in the Calvinistic Controversy, to prove the possibility of the believer’ s final fall. In reality, it has nothing whatever to do with it. The word “ castaway,” is literally “ reprobate,” that which, being tested, fails. “ Reprobate silver shall men call them.” St. Paul says, “ Lest when I have preached to others, I myself, when tried by the same standard, should fail.” In chap. 8. Paul had laid down the principle that it was good to respect the scruples of weaker brethren (1 Corinthians 8:13). But to this teaching an objection might be raised. Does the apostle practise what he preaches? Or it is merely a fine sentiment? Does he preach to others, himself being a castaway, i.e., one who being tested is found wanting? The whole of the chapter is an assertion of his consistency. Note:-- I. Paul’ s right to certain privileges, viz., domestic solaces and ministerial maintenance. This right he bases on four arguments:1. By a principle universally recognised in human practice. A king warring on behalf of a people, wars at their charge--a planter of a vineyard expects to eat of the fruit--a shepherd is entitled to the milk of the flock. All who toil for the good of others derive an equivalent from them. Gratuitous devotion of life is nowhere considered obligatory. 2. By a principle implied in a Scriptural enactment (1 Corinthians 8:9). The ox was provided for, not because it was an ex, but because it was a labourer. 3. By a principle of fairness and reciprocity. Great services establish a claim. If they owed to the apostle their souls, his time had a claim on their gold. 4. By the law of the Temple Service. The whole institution of Levites and priests implied the principle that there are two kinds of labour--of hand and of brain: and that the toilers with the brain, though not producers, have a claim on the community. They are essential to its well-being, and are not mere drones. II. His valiant abstinence from these privileges (2 Corinthians 8:12; 2 Corinthians 8:15). Note--1. His reasons. (1) He was forced to preach the gospel, and for the preaching of it, therefore, no thanks were due. But he turned his necessity to glorious gain. By forfeiting pay he got reward: and in doing freely what he must do, he became free. When “ I must” is changed into “ I will,” you are free. (2) His object was to gain others (verse 19) His whole life was one great illustration of this principle: free from all, he became the servant of all. 2. The general principles of our human life. You cannot run as you will; there are conditions (verse 24). You cannot go on saying, I have a right to do this, therefore I will do it. You must think how it will appear, not for the sake of mere respectability, or to obtain a character for consistency, but for the sake of others. And its conditions are as those of a wrestling march--you must be temperate in all things--i.e., abstain from even lawful indulgences. Remember no man liveth to himself. The cry, “ Am I my brother’ s keeper?” is met by St. Paul’ s clear, steadfast answer, “ You are.” (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)If I be not an apostle unto others … I am to you; for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.--The successful minister I. His happiness.1. Success.2. Divine attestation. II. His claims upon--1. The respect.2. Affection.3. Help.4. Support of his charge. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The seal of apostleship I. Consists in actual success--in the conviction and conversion of sinners. II. Establishes the claim to apostleship--because it--1. Indicates the Divine call and blessing.2. Is of more value than human authorisation. III. Entitles a minister to the special regard of those to whose spiritual benefit he has contributed. If no claim on others--yet on you for sympathy, love, support. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Mine answer to those that do examine me is this.--Ministerial independence I. Attempts are often made to limit the free action of Christian ministers; as in apostolic times, so now. II. These attempts should be resisted with Christian dignity and in a Christian spirit--Paul’ s answer--he excludes all interference with--1. His manner of life.2. His personal and domestic associations. His mode of working. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The right of the ministry to support Observe-- I. The occasion of the apostle’ s appeal.1. Not selfish (1 Corinthians 8:12).2. Some disputed his apostleship and its rights (1 Corinthians 8:3). II. His assertion of his right--1. To support for himself--for his wife if he thought proper to marry.2. Sufficient to free him from the necessity of manual labour. III. His defence of his right--is sustained by an appeal to--1. Human justice.2. The law.3. The sense of gratitude.4. Divine ordination under the law, under the gospel. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 9:7-14 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? The baffle of life We have here-- I. An inspiriting metaphor. When life is represented as a warfare, some peaceful minds may feel a little alarmed, yet there are others who feel their blood pulsing the stronger at the thought that life is to be one continued contest. It were ill for us if our love of peace, as a nation, should degenerate into a fear of danger or an indifference to exploits. For me the battle-field has no charms; but I buckle on my armour at the very thought that life is to be a conflict in which it behoves me to get the mastery.1. It is wise to begin the battle of life early. We have all so little time to live, and our first years are so evidently the best, that it is a pity to waste them. 2. We have to fight with that trinity of enemies--the world, the flesh, and the devil. 3. This is not an engagement to be quickly terminated. Unlike the laconic despatch of the ancient Roman--“ Veni, vidi, vici,” this is a continuous fight. Like the old knights who slept in their armour, you must be prepared for reprisals--always watchful, and ready to resist. 4. You may hope to conquer, for others have done so before you (Revelation 3:21; Revelation 7:14). 5. You may be defeated. Make bankruptcy in your secular business, why, you can start again; but once make bankruptcy in soul affairs, and there is no second life in which to start afresh. If you are defeated in the battle of life you can never begin again, or turn the defeat into a victory. If you go down to your grave a captive of sin, the iron hands will be about you for ever. II. A kindly hint. There are charges in this life-battle. Let us just glance at some of them. If any man shall get up to heaven he will have to meet a demand for--1. Courage. How many enemies he must face!2. Patience. How he must bear and forbear!3. Perseverance.4. Watchfulness.5. Zeal.6. Strength.7. Wisdom. The difficulties of an expedition may be intensely aggravated by a lack of knowledge as to the country to be invaded; and in the battle of life who knows what lies next before him? Hence I beseech you to consider the greatness of the charge of this warfare. Our British soldiers must press forward, though they are landed on a blazing beach, before steep mountains, dismal swamps, or savage tribes. But in our eventful battle of life the checks and bars to progress are more than I can describe. No marvel that Pliable should say, as he turned back, “ You may have the brave country yourself for me,” Apart from Divine strength Pliable was a wise man. There is no “ royal road” to heaven, except that the King’ s highway leads there. There is no road skilfully levelled or scientifically macadamised. The labour is too exhaustive, the difficulties are too serious, unless God Himself come to our help. Who, then, can go this warfare at his own charges? III. A gracious reminder. You cannot go this warfare in your own strength. Then do not try it. If you do you will rue it. But you may rely on God to help you. You may reckon on--1. His watchful Providence. You little know how easy the Almighty can make a path which otherwise would have been difficult and dangerous. All things shall work together for good to them that love God. 2. The help of Christ. He will be always present to revive you with His precious blood, to sprinkle your hearts from an evil conscience, to wash your bodies with pure water. 3. The assistance of the Spirit. There is nothing too obdurate for the Spirit of the Lord to overcome. Conclusion: Let me urge upon those who are beginning this battle--1. The wisdom of diffidence. “ Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 2. The dignity of reliance upon God. 3. The importance of prayer. If all our charges in the life-war are to be paid us by the Paymaster, let us go to the treasury. 4. The necessity of holiness. 5. The power of faith. The beginning of true spiritual life is here--trusting what Christ has wrought for us. The continuation of spiritual life is here--trusting still in what Christ has done and is doing. The consummation of spiritual life on earth is still the same--trusting still, trusting ever. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ present with His servants About two centuries ago, during the persecutions in Scotland, Margaret Wilson, a girl of eighteen, along with an aged widow of sixty-three, was doomed to die for insisting that Christ alone was the Head of the Church. They were to be fastened to stakes driven into the oozy sand that covered the beach, and left to perish in the rising tide. The stake to which the aged woman was fastened was farther down the beach than that of the young woman, in order that, being sooner destroyed, her expiring sufferings might shake the firmness of Margaret Wilson. The tide began to flow, the waters swelled and mounted to the chin of the old woman, and when almost stifled by the rising tide, they put to the girl the question, “ What think you of your friend now?” “ What do I see,” she answered, “ but Christ in one of His members, wrestling there? Think you that we are the sufferers? No; it is Christ in us, He who sendeth us not a warfare on our own charges.” Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?. Principles of equity 1. Commend themselves to human reason.2. Are enforced by the law of God.3. Are of universal application.4. Contribute by their operation to the best interests of all. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Human consciousness of the right 1. Is but an echo of the Divine law.2. Is only explicable on the principle of moral government.3. Establishes the authority of the law. (J. Lyth, D. D.)For it is written in the law of Moses.-- The inspiration of the law of Moses is established by 1. Its ascription to God.2. Its moral bearing.3. Its comprehensive application.4. Its beneficial tendency. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Doth God take care for oxen?--Oxen unmuzzled This is a favourite text with Paul (1 Timothy 5:17-18). If Paul wrote this twice we may be sure the words were often on his lips; and if the Holy Spirit has twice put this fragment of the old law into the New Testament, we may be sure the lesson is an important one. The text is racy and suggestive. I. Ministers and their work.1. They are a distinct class. Have a function all their own like oxen.2. Their work is humble.3. And hard.4. And requiring patient routine.5. And withal of vital importance. II. The saviour has taken care for their support. They have the same wants as other men, but are not at liberty to supply them in the same way: they are oxen whose strength is spent in the service of others. Therefore the Master laid down His will as to their temporal support. “ The labourer is worthy of his reward” (1 Corinthians 9:14). Both charity and ordinary bargain are excluded by this rule: the matter is raised to a higher level altogether. III. The rule is reasonable (1 Corinthians 9:11). Whatever a man pays for his Bible there is no kind of proportion between the money given and the thing got: the wealth of the world could not buy one text of the Word of God: the money is the equivalent only of paper, printing, binding. So conversion, sanctification, organised fellowship, godly training of the young, the Lord’ s Day, the sacraments, comfort in sickness and death--are things which man cannot buy, because man cannot give them. All the more reasonable, therefore, that the simple and inexpensive channel by which God dispenses them to us and sends them on to coming generations should be maintained. IV. The support should be generous. While the ox is working he will not be the worse for all he can eat: let him not be muzzled. Muzzling is poor economy, and not even just. All the more should this part of Bible teaching be plainly uttered, because the true minister will be ready to forego even righteous claims rather than allow God’ s message of love with which he is charged to be discredited by urging these (1 Corinthians 9:15-19). The minister should receive freely--not what his education, time, gifts, may be worth in the market, for gain and bargain have no place here--but what is needed to maintain his position. There should be nothing so grand about him as to estrange him from the poorest, and nothing so mean about his dress or personal habits as to render him unfit for the most refined society; for, like the gospel, he belongs to no one class of society, but stands equally related to all (Philippians 4:10-19). (A. M. Symington, D. D.)That he that plougheth should plough in hope.--Ploughing in hope When you go into the country and see the farmers driving their ploughs, you have no occasion to ask them why they are turning up the soil. You understand as well as they that it is the crop they have in view. If it were not for the hope of the harvest they would forego this toil. And what is true of the farmer is true of the mechanic, of the manufacturer, of the tradesman, of people of all occupations and conditions. Men are swayed by an endless variety of motives, good and bad; but the one element which blends with all other springs of action is hope--the desire and expectation of future good. St. Paul takes the plougher as a representative character. It may be useful to us to consider the same principle in its application to the religious life and the service of God generally. The spiritual, no less than the natural husbandman, has ample reason to go on with his work in hope. That is to say, in doing the Divine will we have ground to hope for a beneficial result. It may be just the result at which we have been aiming. Herein the case differs from that of the ploughman, who can always forecast the nature of his crop from the seed. And yet the difference is rather apparent than real. For the spiritual husbandman does after all reap what he sows if we inquire into the grounds of that hope which should animate all true workers in this field, it may be observed that they are doing what their Heavenly Father has directed them to do. Our Saviour said, on a certain occasion, “ My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” We are every one of us sent into the world on a similar errand--i.e., to do the will of Him who placed us here. The few who do try to conform to it are fulfilling the end of their being. They are living not for themselves, but for God. We affirm the right of the believer, and of all who have their faces Zionward, to labour or suffer for God in hope, because He “ cannot deny Himself.” In His infinite condescension He has been pleased to link His own glory with the toils and trials, the prayers and praises, of His people. To an eye capable of taking in its vast proportions, our globe must present a busy scene. We may not assert that the overthrow of an empire or the founding of a dynasty is a matter of no moment to God; but we are warranted in saying that events of this kind are of small moment with Him as compared with changes in the condition of the Church; and, indeed, that He orders or permits those very events, with a continual reference to His Church. We are sure, then, that He looks with approbation upon the efforts of His people to follow and to serve Him; and that in doing this they have more reason to be hopeful than in attempting any other service whatever. Let us rather consider the lesson of the text in its bearing upon various parts of the Christian life. To begin at the beginning--our first plougher shall be one who is just awaking from the sleep of sin, and pondering the question, Shall I now attend to the matter of my personal salvation? Can I hope to secure this greatest of blessings? Many an one, brought to this point, has been discouraged by the apparent obstacles in the way, and declined the effort. Had it been an earthly scheme they would not have abandoned it. Men do not so lightly forego the prospect of wealth and honour. But where the soul is concerned the quest is too often relinquished on the vague report that “ there is a lion in the way.” Without striving there is no entering in at the strait gate. But is this peculiar to religion? Do you win any earthly prize without striving? Why, then, complain that Christianity denies its treasures to the torpid and the indifferent? The blessings it proposes to us are as much superior to the noblest distinctions of the world as the heavens are higher than the earth. There is nothing a man may go about more hopefully than an honest and faithful endeavour to obtain forgiveness and reconciliation to God. How can you help seeing this? For what means this day of rest, this house of worship, these Christian ordinances, this precious Bible revealing a crucified Saviour, a throne of grace, and an ever-present compassionate Spirit? If, with these testimonies around you, you cannot “ plough in hope,” you will be likely to wait until all that now invites you to hope gives place to remediless despair. But coming to Christ is only the first step: it is simply securing the charter and the gracious equipment which prepare us to begin the work of life. The ploughing must go on. The field is large, and much of the soil intractable. But the allotted task can be accomplished, provided only we keep up a good heart as we tread the weary furrows, and “ abound in hope.” You will know what is meant by this “ intractable soil.” Look at the human heart, even the renewed heart, and see what a work is to be done there before it can “ bear the image of the heavenly!” This whole work of self-discipline must needs be arduous and painful, because it is in the face of nature. Its aim is the subjugation of nature. We need this conviction as a stimulus to effort. You have to deal, e.g., with some wayward passion, some obliquity of temper, some inexorable habit. You are well aware that it is more than a match for your own strength. But you must also understand that you henceforth bring into the contest auxiliaries which insure your ultimate victory. It is part of His plan that “ you should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” And what He proposes, He can and will accomplish. There is nothing in the case which need discourage them. Let them “ plough in hope.” We have all seen the proudest men clothed with humility; the profane become patterns of godliness; the passionate put on the gentleness of the lamb; even the parsimonious turned into generous givers. They “ ploughed in hope,” and were made “ partakers of their hope.” And thus it will be with all who tread in their steps. We may extend the application of this principle. It deeply concerns parents and teachers to understand it, and all who have to do with the training of the young. How disheartening this work is may be seen in the ill success which so often attends it. What is done frequently is to leave them to themselves. The fruit answers to the culture. Their early infirmities have ripened into vices; and the habits which were barely endurable in their youth are intolerable in their manhood. The Scriptures teach “ a more excellent way” : “ That he that plougheth, should plough in hope.” It will be conceded that the field here indicated is not very attractive. One would not choose for his ploughing a common that was overrun with brambles, or a hill imbedded with stones and matted roots. But if that happens to be your only inheritance, you have no alternative. And many a farmer has transformed just such a plantation into a scene of surpassing fertility. These uninteresting children, so dull and torpid; these malicious children; these deceitful children; these coarse, unkempt children; it matters not what they are, they belong to your patrimony: at least they are, for the time, committed to your guardianship. It is idle to look abroad and say, with a sigh, “ Oh, that this or that child had been confided to me instead!” God has given you this field to plough; and however ungenial the task, He has bid you “ plough in hope.” For consider that He who made nothing in vain could not have designed that these children should remain in perpetual bondage to their wayward tempers and repulsive habits. And is there anything in the sort of problems here presented which should prevent your “ ploughing in hope” ? The question may be answered by another: “ Is there anything too hard for the Almighty?” For no one expects these children to be roused into action, to be toned down into submission, to be cured of their vicious propensities, to be moulded into shapes of symmetry and beauty, except by the help of a superhuman arm. But God can do it. And He can do it through your agency. And if it be thus with teachers and parents, so also with ministers of the gospel. No one can understand, except from experience, the greatness of their work, or the trials and discouragements which are incident to it. But what can they do? What ought they to do? They hear a Divine commission. They preach a Divine gospel. The truth they proclaim is precisely suited to its end. It is the only cure for the world’ s maladies, the only means for bringing men back to God. They must publish it. And they may well publish it in hope. Appearances may be adverse. But there is no alternative. And precisely such conditions as these have often been followed by a generous harvest. It has proved thus even amidst the appalling wastes of paganism. Let them “ plough in hope.” The cause they have at heart is God’ s cause. His eye is upon them. His ear hearkens to their intercessions. Especially will this be the case with those who make it a part of the real business of life to seek the conversion of their fellow-sinners. There are such Christians. They are always on the alert for opportunities of this kind. And they who do this, who make the conversion of sinners one of the cherished ends of life, not only have full warrant to “ plough in hope,” but uniformly avail themselves of it. Hopefulness is of their very nature. There is another field for the application of this maxim, covering too many broad acres to be traversed now; but we may just glance at it. I refer to the multitudes of sufferers--those who are struggling with inward conflicts, with poverty, with misfortune. There is a lesson in our text even for these sufferers. It is not in mockery of their troubles, but with a full appreciation of them, we say, in the face of these trials, you must “ plough in hope.” Despair will ruin you. Despondency will paralyze you. Hope will bring peace and strength. These troubles have not come by chance. They are from the hand of an infinitely wise and merciful God. “ It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:26). Satan will if possible prevent this, Still another wide sphere invites our notice in connection with the text, merely glanced at in the opening of this sermon--viz., the importance of this principle to the young in prosecuting even their secular plans. It is, under God, one of the great secrets of success, this “ ploughing in hope.” No one quality has been more uniformly characteristic of the world’ s heroes, both its benefactors and its scourges, than hopefulness. The main thing is to assure yourselves that you are in the right path; that your ends and aims have been sought in the fear of God, and your powers dedicated to Him. With this condition precedent, you may and should be hopeful. You will encounter difficulties. But never despond. Look to God for succour, and “ plough in hope.” I feel that I have done injustice to this text by restricting it so much to the present life, to immediate, or at least palpable, success, whether in temporal or spiritual things. But you will all contemplate it in its higher and nobler aspect. It is the blood-bought privilege of the Christian always and everywhere to “ plough in hope,” because he may be certain of his harvest hereafter, even if it fail here. Nothing he does for Christ can miss its fruitage there. There is one hope, and only one, that never misleads and never disappoints. Its foundation is laid in the blood and righteousness of Christ. Its object is the friendship of God and the glories of the heavenly state. (H. A. Boardman, D. D.)Ploughing in hope Ploughing the land may properly be considered as one of the most laborious of those services to which husbandmen are called: much strength, skill, and perseverance are required. The same field must be frequently retraced by weary steps, till the whole is regularly and deeply furrowed. But arduous, difficult, and wearisome as this employment is, we find persons cheerfully and habitually engaged in it, although it yields no immediate return of profit, and is only preparatory to their other toils. Hope animates their exertions, not the expectation of a direct benefit, but the hope of suitable weather for sowing; the blessing of heaven on the springing of the seed; and, remotely, the returns of harvest. It will be our purpose to illustrate this one position--that those more difficult duties of religion which do not promise immediate advantage, yet should be promptly and perseveringly engaged in. “ He that plougheth should plough in hope.”1. We shall see the propriety of applying the sentiment of our text, primarily, to repentance towards God. This is indeed the gift of God, but clearly the duty of man. Painful, tedious, and distressing as this toil is, it is preparatory to that state of rich cultivation which is the honour of the Christian character. Then those of you who are convinced of sin, and are sorrowing in the bitterness of your spirits, persevere. 2. May not the sentiment of these words be considered as applicable to that reformation and regulation of heart and life which invariably accompany, yea, may be considered as essential parts of true repentance--as the necessary products of genuine contrition? Self-inquiry, like the searching and separating ploughshare, will be driven over every part of the heart: irksome as the service may appear, no nook or corner of that barren field shall be left unbroken. 3. There are numerous acts of self-denial required by Him who for our sakes bare His Cross and hung thereon. These, like the toils of tillage to which our text alludes, require much skill and perseverance in their discharge; and but for a better hope would be in every case neglected. 4. Various are the duties of benevolence He performed towards His fellow immortals. Not only are we called to cultivate our own hearts, but to labour for the good of others, that they may not be barren and unfruitful in knowledge of our Lord and Saviour: but frequently this toil is so irksome, and the advantage, if any, so remote, that but for the principle presented in our text, we should refuse to commence our work, or cease in the midst of our labours.1. Are there any here who must be charged and convicted of having put their hand to the plough and looked back? 2. Let me offer consolation to such as have long toiled, and have hitherto wrought unrewarded in the field of exertion. 3. I congratulate such as patiently persevere, even where success appears withheld. (W. Clayton.)He that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.--Threshing The toils of the field are succeeded by those of the flail: and perhaps the peasant has no employment more laborious than threshing; indeed, none to equal it in severity of exertion, but ploughing; for which reason St. Paul, in the verse before us, selects these two branches of agriculture to illustrate the work of a minister. I. On entering a barn and seeing the thresher beat the corn with his flail, a casual observer would almost conclude the grain would be materially injured, Censures, in ignorance of the process, might be heard; and ministerial efforts are open to this misconstruction (Isaiah 41:15-16; 2 Corinthians 7:8-16). II. He who thresheth intends, and hopes, to succeed in separating the grain from the husk; and he does succeed. So shall the Word of God be, by it character is detected and displayed. After our Lord had urged the necessity of self-denial, from that time many walked no more with Him, they were offended at His doctrine: while His genuine followers became by the same means more confirmed in their attachment, and renewed their allegiance to their chosen sovereign. Labours for the spiritual good of others must be discriminating to be successful: each must receive his portion of meat, or medicine, as the case may require, in due season. III. Does not the toil of the thresher receive a remarkable and instructive commendation in the removal of the chaff when the corn is winnowed? He hopes that he shall so thresh as that the subsequent process of the fan shall thoroughly purge the floor. Terrible will be the sanction that God, the Judge of all, will give to every rejected message: the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous: they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. IV. The termination of ministerial toil is suggested by this metaphor: when the husks and chaff are separated from the grain, the husbandman threshes it no longer. Further, this specific toil of all who labour for the immortal welfare of others shall cease for ever when the number of the elect is accomplished: the dusty and tedious process of threshing is not needed in our garners; and it is in hope of this remoter happiness that he that plougheth and he that thresheth engage in their respective labours; they shall rejoice together. To conclude, let it ever be remembered that though the Word of God is the ordinary threshing instrument, yet it is not the only one; for there is a variety of implements used for this purpose (Isaiah 28:27). So where the Word fails of producing the desired effect, He will try the flail of adversity; by this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away sin. (G. Clayton.)If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?--Christian ministers I. Are sowers.1. They toil and cast in the seed.2. In obedience to their Master’ s command.3. The result depends on the soil and the Divine blessing. II. Bear precious seed. Spiritual things as--1. Truth.2. Hope.3. Promise. III. Have a right to participate in the fruit. The reasonableness of some return is shown by--1. Gratitude.2. Justice. (H. H. Beamish, M. A.)The obligation of the Churches to support the ministry I. The Divine appointment, that Churches should support their ministers.1. Under the Mosaic dispensation.2. As enjoined by Christ under the gospel.3. As the dictate of natural religion. II. The various modes adopted to attain this instituted end.1. Tithes.2. Taxes.3. Voluntary support. III. The extent to which this duty should be carried.1. To satisfy the claims of justice.2. To accord with the language of Scripture.3. To promote the highest interests of the Church.4. To promote in the best way the conversion of the world. IV. The agents by which this work must be accomplished.1. The deacons.2. The people. (J. Bennett, D. D.)The Christian ministry Had the preaching of the gospel been committed to the ministry of angels, their superior natures would have rendered them incapable of receiving those services of gratitude which are evidences and effects of faith and obedience. But when men, subject to wants and griefs, come to us in the name of the Lord, we feel ourselves called upon to consult their temporal comfort. I. From the nature and design of the ministerial office, forcible arguments result for the gratitude and liberality of those for whose benefit it is employed. “ We sow unto you spiritual things.” We are the ministers of a spiritual dispensation which has for its object the present happiness and everlasting salvation of mankind; we endeavour to implant in your mind those sacred principles which, when nourished by Divine influence, ripen into all the fruits of righteousness and peace; we willingly spend our strength for your improvement. Just is the plea, good men will reply. From your ministrations we have enjoyed advantages which we can never repay; through your instrumentality we have, by Divine grace, been rescued from the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity; have learned the vanity of created joys, and been taught to set our affections on the nobler things which are above. We know, indeed, that to the God of all grace belongs the supreme unrivalled praise of those supports and joys we have experienced. But ye are the servants of the Most High, who have shown unto us the way of salvation, and as such we honour you; ye have administered to us benefits far more valuable than all the honours and treasures and joys of time. And what can we render you in return? What can we do for you, or for your sons or daughters? II. The stated labours of a regular ministry are of much importance to the community. The preservation of a state depends far more upon the prevention of crimes than upon the punishment of them. Civil legislation needs to be aided by an authority which reaches the heart, by a dominion over man which extends to his sentiments and pursuits, and by considerations calculated to subdue his worst dispositions, to restrain him from every evil work, and to regulate by internal and governing principles the whole tenor of his conduct. This is the empire which religion establishes. If this representation of the importance of religion to human society is just, it becomes a prudent measure in all well-regulated governments to secure a succession of persons who are qualified by education, by talents, by principle, and by conduct, for explaining the rules of piety and morality; and for recommending that glorious scheme of salvation which Christianity reveals to us--that blessed doctrine of salvation which came down from heaven, which alone can conquer the depravity of human nature, which alone can secure the reign of tranquillity on earth. III. The labours of a regular ministry are of much importance to individuals, A faithful pastor, dwelling amongst his people, observing their tempers and their habits, and enjoying their confidence and affection, feels himself sincerely interested in the welfare and happiness of every individual committed to his charge. He regards them as his family, and the evidences of his pastoral care will bear a proportion to the variety of their situations. Animated by his careful inspection, and awed by his reproofs, the young are trained up to habits of application, temperance, and subordination; and thus are fitted for appearing with advantage in the station which Providence allots them. In estimating the advantages of religious institutions to individuals, keep it in remembrance that ministers of religion are messengers of consolation to the afflicted. The trials of life are far too numerous to be mentioned in detail; suffice it to remark that the consolations of the gospel extend to all the variety of human woes. Another evidence of the importance of pastoral ministrations to individuals is taken from their tendency to prepare them for everlasting happiness. IV. The hardships and difficulties which ministers have to encounter vindicate the reasonableness of the expectation expressed in my text. Long before they enter on their sacred employment, they look forward to it with the mingled emotions of hope and fear. They enter on the arduous work with the solicitude of men who know that earth and hell unite to impede their progress and to ensnare their steps. They perceive the importance of preparing new and diversified instruction for their people. (A. Bonar.)The duty of ministerial support I. The work of the minister is costly to himself.1. All the energies of the minister must be devoted to his work, or it cannot be well done. 2. The minister’ s work is relatively expensive. He occupies a position which exposes him to expenses that cannot be met with small means. 3. Then there are the public meetings of the churches and councils, all necessary for the good of Zion, yet they cost something to the minister. He must also read much; he must therefore have at hand all necessary facilities for the study and illustration of truth. 4. The work of the ministry requires a large amount of skill and a sound judgment, and imposes great responsibility upon the minister. II. The minister’ s services are valuable to the people. The pulpit is in no wise indebted to its supporters. It gives them many times more in temporal good than it costs. It has ever been the first, the most important, means of civilisation and social refinement; of gathering around the family home the tokens of thrift and comfort; of the increase of wealth, and of the productive value of real estate. Life and property are more secure under the influence of an evangelical ministry than where the gospel is not preached. III. The standing and reputation of a minister is affected by his compensation. IV. Justice requires that ministers should be paid like other men. V. The system so prevalent of supporting the minister as a gratuity degrades the ministry in the estimation of the people and tends to make the minister servile.1. To avoid misapprehension, it is proper to say that this discourse refers to the duty of churches in forming their estimate of a minister’ s claims; not of the minister’ s duty to preach, whether paid or not. Necessity is laid upon him, he must preach the gospel; but it does not follow that he must give his services to those who able to pay him. 2. Ministers should preach to their own people on this subject. 3. Churches may not expect the rich effusion of Divine grace while they do not acknowledge their just obligations to their minister. 4. If the church that is able to pay a just compensation to their minister does not and will not do it, their minister should leave them. (M. H. Wilder.)If others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless we have not used this power.-- Rights asserted and foregone I. The just rights which the apostle asserted--that like other teachers he had a claim upon his scholars for recompense and support.1. He supports this by striking illustrations (1 Corinthians 9:7) and by Scriptural proof (1 Corinthians 9:8-9). 2. He urges the superiority of the advantages bestowed by the teacher over those which he is justified in expecting by way of acknowledgment if not of return (1 Corinthians 9:11). 3. This right he claims for all ministers, himself included. II. The nobility of spirit with which the apostle was wont deliberately to forego these rights. Observe--1. The fact. Paul had acted on this principle from the beginning, and remembered that it involved hard manual labour. Like every Jew he had been taught a trade; he wove the Cilician goat’ s hair into the fabric used for tents and sails. It was a tax upon his energies whilst he was thinking, writing, and preaching, to spend part of the day in hard rough toil. 2. The exception. From the Macedonian Churches, for a special reason, he consented to receive a gift (Philippians 4:1-23.). 3. The motive. (1) Not pride: whilst preaching was a necessity in his case, so that he could take no credit and make no boast for his ministry, he gave up the right of maintenance that he might have the pleasure of a voluntary sacrifice, a ground of lowly glorying. (2) That there might be no hindrance to the progress of the gospel. It might have been thought that he preached for gain, and such a supposition would render his hearers suspicious and unreceptive. (Prof. J. R. Thompson.)But suffer all things lest we should hinder the gospel.--How Christians may hinder the gospel 1. In one sense the gospel cannot be hindered. As well speak of hindering the advance of the sun, or of an avalanche. God has promised, “ My word shall not return unto Me void,” &c., and Christian history is but the fulfilment of this prediction. 2. But whilst this is true it is not less true that the work of sinner’ s salvation may be impeded. I will not refer to so-called hindrances by the enemies of truth, for these have often been the most effective aids to its advancement; nor to the major hindrances such as Romanism, superstition, hypocrisy, rationalism, &c., for these are so prominent that we cannot overlook them. But I call attention to some serious obstacles which are too much overlooked. I. Churches may hinder the gospel.1. By the want of a clear and definite line between the Church and the world. During the first three centuries this was distinct enough, and then the Church prospered. And if this distinction is less manifest to-day it is not because the world has become less carnal. A false respectability is threatening the spiritual life of the Church. A cause is often accounted prosperous according as its finances are large and the hearers influential. This cold respectability does not believe much in conversions or aggressive effort. 2. By the want of self-denial. Instead of “ suffering all things” for the advancement of the gospel, is there one single thing that we really suffer? The manifold artifices we have to adopt, the violent efforts we have to make to raise the means of spreading the gospel are an evidence of the unreality of much religious profession and a powerful hindrance to the truth. How different in those early days amid the glow of the Church’ s first love, when they that had money brought it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3. By the refusal of personal and active service. We speak, indeed, with anxious concern of the heathen abroad and at home, pray for their evangelisation, and bid God-speed to the official labourers among them; but something more than this is required before these masses will be brought under the power of the gospel. As in the early days the responsibility must be felt by the entire Church; every believer must be a herald and an evangelist. The Epistle to the Hebrews rebukes those who are still babes in Christ, but ought to be teachers; and if the day is to come when it will be no longer necessary to say “ Know the Lord,” because all shall know Him, it will only come by every one teaching his neighbour that knowledge. The living Church has not yet stretched herself Elijah-like upon the dead body whose quickening she prays for. Like the atmosphere she must press with equal force on all the surfaces of society; like the sea flow into every nook of humanity; and like the sun shine on all things foul and low as well as fair and high, if she is to accomplish that for which she has been commissioned and equipped. 4. By self-complacency and spiritual pride. 5. By a spirit of captiousness, ever ready to pick faults with existing arrangements, but doing nothing to make them better. 6. By our failure to recognise the absolute sovereignty of God in the salvation of souls. 7. By our want of humble dependence on the Holy Spirit and our neglect of earnest persevering prayer. II. Ministers may hinder the gospel. If Paul felt the possibility of this, why may not we?1. By a cold perfunctoriness in the discharge of our duties. It is no easy matter to escape this. To address to the same people every week the same verities and still retain freshness and power, can only be done by sustained communion with God and living contact with the realities of which we speak. Incessant preaching apart from careful cultivation of the inner life will make us little better than sermon machines. 2. By forgetfulness of our absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit, and by reliance on human strength. 3. By the assumption of a certain distinctness of order from our people. Our office, authority, and work are all spiritual. We have no priesthood in any other sense than that all believers are priests. The more we make our people feel that we are not above them, but of them, the more influence will oar preaching exert upon them. 4. By our want of confidence in the success of the gospel. How many sermons have we preached of which we have never seen any fruit because we never really looked for it? 5. By our want of the spirit of self-sacrifice and consecration indicated in the text. (Thain Davidson, D. D.)They which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar.--Partakers with the altar Archdeacon Farrar says that Mr. Gladstone once told the late Bishop Magee that he had never heard a sermon preached on the text, “ They who wait at the altar are partakers with the altar.” The bishop thereupon promised to preach on the text, and on the occasion Mr. Gladstone was present. Most preachers would have seen nothing in the text but a sermon on the right of ministers to maintenance. But Dr. Magee drew from it a sermon on the congruity between the nature of a man’ s life and the results he reaps from it. “ I shall never forget,” says Dr. Farrar, “ one passage, in which he described the bitter disappointment and disillusionment of the man who had lived for sense, for pleasure, and for self. He described such a man--his own worthless idol--in his hoary and dishonoured age seeking in vain for comfort and sustenance from the source of his idolatry; the hungry worshipper holding out his withered hand to his dead idol, and holding it out in vain.” Do ye not know that they … which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.-- The pastor’ s duty and claims I. The business of the pastor is implied: he is to “ preach the gospel.” Note--1. The subject of his ministry--“ the gospel,” i.e., all the gospel fairly implies, its promises, commands, &c. The term taken thus comprehensively, clearly instructs us in-- (1) The fallen condition of mankind.(2) God’ s great pity on our fallen race (John 3:16).(3) The obligation of those who believe to act worthy of their relation to the Saviour. 2. His duty with regard to it. He is to preach “ the gospel.” Every pastor is bound to do this out of regard to-- (1) The honour of Christ.(2) The edification of the Church.(3) The conversion of sinners. II. The duty of the flock pointed out, viz., to support their pastor. There are two ways of doing this, either by compulsory laws or by voluntary contribution. The former has, indeed, some advantages. It renders the minister independent, and if his flock is destitute of principle it is well for him that the law compels them to the performance of duty. But the law of Christ binds the people voluntarily to the support of their minister, i.e., it binds them to the duty, but leaves the amount to them according to the rule in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, and Matthew 10:8. Now this is to be done--1. From a principle of justice. It is not benevolence, but equity, and he is not just who withholds from the minister the due remuneration of his labours (verse 7). The person who refuses to meet the just claims of the physician is reckoned dishonest, and is he less so who withholds from the pastor his equitable support? 2. From a regard to our own advantage. We all know that our prosperity depends on the Divine blessing; and should we not be chiefly concerned respecting soul prosperity? God’ s blessing may be hoped for in the use of the means when those means are suitably valued and employed. But are they so when the support we could give is sinfully withheld? (2 Corinthians 4:6-10). 3. From a regard to our final account. (J. Dorrington.)Ministers, pay of Ministers are not as well paid as cricket-players, and for a good reason--religion is not the national game. The utmost a minister can say is what the farmer said of his cow when grazing on the bare top of a lofty hill, “ If she has a poor pasture, she has a fine prospect.” (J. A. Macfadyen, D. D.)Paying the ministry In 1662 the town of Eastham agreed that a part of every whale cast on shore be appropriated for the support of the ministry. The ministers must have sat on the cliffs in every storm, and watched the shore with anxiety. And, for my part, if I were a minister, I would rather trust to the bowels of the billows to cast up a whale for me than to the generosity of many a country parish that I know. (Thoreau.)Payment of ministers It must be remembered as among the anomalies of Welsh religious life, that it combines an insatiable appetite for sermons with a marvellous disregard for the temporal comfort of the preacher. On one occasion a woman said to Mr. Evans, as he came out of the pulpit, “ Well, Christmas Evans, we are back with your stipend; but I hope you will be paid at the resurrection. You have given us a wonderful sermon.” “ Yes, yes,” was his quick reply; “ no doubt of that; but what am I to do till I get there? And there is the old white mare that carries me--what will she do? For her there will be no resurrection. But what will you do? What reward will you get for your unfaithfulness at the resurrection? It’ s hard, but I shall get on at the resurrection; but you, who got on so well in the world, may change places with me at the resurrection.” (Paxton Hood.)Support of the ministry A clergyman in Wales was appointed by an ordaining council to address the people who had impoverished their former pastor and were now to receive a new one. He recommended in his address that Jacob’ s ladder be let down from the skies to that Welsh parish, in order that the new minister might “ go into heaven on the sabbath evening after preaching, and remain there all the week: then he would come down so spiritually minded and so full of heaven, that he would preach almost like an angel.” Now, the people insisted on having their pastor with them on other days than the sabbath. “ That may be,” replied the speaker; “ but then, if he remain among you, he must have something to eat.” The dignity of the angels was not inconsistent with their ascending and descending on a wooden ladder; and one ladder on which our ministering angels may go up to their heavenly studies is such a material sustenance as will make it unnecessary for them to grovel in the earth. (Prof. Park.) 1 Corinthians 9:15-16 But I have used none of these things. Paul’ s conduct I. Does not establish a general rule. Because--1. He maintains his right.2. Voluntarily concedes it.3. Under particular circumstances. II. Commends disinterested effort. The desire of personal advantage--1. Should never be the motive of Christian effort.2. Is unworthy of the Christian character.3. Robs us of our true glory. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Professional Minister The man who has adopted the Church as a profession, as other men adopt the law, the army, or the navy, and goes through the routine of its duties with the coldness of a mere official--filled by him, the pulpit seems filled by the ghastly form of a skeleton that, in its cold and bony fingers, holds a burning lamp. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me.--Preaching the gospel is to preach Christ in His fulness, in His attributes, in His relations to men; is to preach His life as the pattern of Christian morals; His atonement as the substance of Christian doctrine; His resurrection as the source of Christian assurance; and His coming again as the fountain of hope and joy. (Bp. Thorold.)Preach the gospel I. What is it to preach the gospel?1. To state every doctrine contained in God’ s Word, and to give every truth its proper prominence. Men may preach a part of the gospel. I would not say that a man did not preach the gospel if he did but maintain the doctrine of justification by faith, but he would not preach the whole gospel. No man can be said to do that who leaves out one single truth. Some men purposely confine themselves to four or five topics and make an iron ring of their doctrines, and he who dares to step beyond that narrow circle is not reckoned orthodox. God bless heretics, then, and send us more of them! 2. To exalt Jesus Christ. A great many preachers tell poor convinced sinners, “ You must go home and pray and read the Scriptures; you must attend the ministry,” and so on. I would not direct to prayer, &c., but simply to faith. Not that I despise prayer, &c. that must come after faith. None of those things are the way of salvation. 3. To give every class of character his due. He who preaches solely to saints, or solely to the sinner, does not preach the whole of the gospel. We have amalgamation here. We have the saint who is full of assurance and strong; we have the saint who is weak and low in faith; we have the young convert; we have the man halting between two opinions; we have the moral man; we have the sinner; we have the reprobate; we have the outcast. Let each have a word. 4. Not to preach certain truths about the gospel, not to preach about the people, but to preach to the people. To preach the gospel is to preach it into the heart, not by your own might, but by the influence of the Holy Ghost. II. How is it that ministers are not allowed to glory? Because--1. They are conscious of their own imperfections. 2. All their gifts are borrowed. The life, the voice, the talent are the gift of God; and he who has the greatest gifts must feel that unto God belongs the glory. 3. They are absolutely dependent on the Holy Ghost. III. What is that necessity which is laid upon us to preach the gospel?1. The call itself. If a man be truly called of God to the ministry, I will defy him to withhold himself from it. He must preach. 2. The sad destitution of this poor fallen world. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Every Christian a preacher Mark-- I. The obligation of speech. No doubt the apostle had, in a special sense, a “ necessity laid upon” him. But though he differs from us in his direct supernatural commission, in the width of his sphere and in the splendour of his gifts, he does not differ from us in the reality of the obligation. The commission does not depend upon apostolic dignity. Christ said, “ Go ye into all the world,” &c., to all generations of His Church.1. That commandment is permanent, it is exactly contemporaneous with the duration of the promise which is appended to it. Nay, the promise is made conditional upon the discharge of the duty. 2. Just because this commission is given to the whole Church it is binding on every individual member of the Church. The whole Church is nothing more than the sum total of all its members, and nothing is incumbent upon it which is not incumbent upon each of them. You cannot buy yourselves out of the ranks, as they used to be able to do out of the militia, by paying for a substitute. We all, if we know anything of Christ and His love and His power, are bound to tell it to those whom we can reach. You cannot all stand up and preach in the sense in which I do it. But the word does not imply a pulpit, a set discourse, a gathered multitude; it simply implies a herald’ s task of proclaiming. Everybody who has found Christ can say, “ I have found the Messias,” and everybody who knows Him can say, “ Come and hear, and I will tell what the Lord hath done for my soul.” No man can force you. But if Christ says to me, “ Go!” and I say, “ I had rather not,” Christ and I have to settle accounts between us. 3. This command makes very short work of a number of excuses. (1) There is a great deal in the tone of this generation which tends to chill the missionary spirit. We know more about the heathen, and familiarity diminishes horror. We have taken up, many of us, milder ideas about the condition of those who die without knowing the name of Christ. We have taken to the study of comparative religion, forgetting sometimes that the thing that we are studying as a science is spreading a dark cloud of ignorance and apathy over millions of men. And all these reasons somewhat sap the strength and cool the fervour of a good many Christian people nowadays. Jesus Christ’ s commandment remains just as it was. (2) Then some of us say, “ I prefer working at home!” Well, if you are doing all that you can there, the great principle of division of labour comes in to warrant your not entering upon other fields; but unless you are, there is no reason why you should do nothing in the other direction. Jesus Christ still says, “ Go ye into all the world.” (3) Then some of you say, “ Well, I do not much believe in your missionary societies. There is a great deal of waste of money about them. I have heard stories about missionaries taking too much pay, and doing too little work.” Be that as it may, does that indictment draw a wet sponge across the commandment of Jesus Christ? 4. I sometimes venture to think that the day will come when the condition of being received into and retained in the Church will be obedience to that commandment. Why, even bees have the sense at a given time of the year to turn the drones out of the hives. Whether it is a condition of Church membership or not, sure I am that it is a condition of fellowship with Christ, and a condition, therefore, of health in the Christian life. II. The penalty of silence. “ Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”1. If you are a dumb and idle professor of Christ’ s truth, depend upon it that your dumb idleness will rob you of much communion with Christ. There are many Christians who would be ever so much happier and more assured if they would go and talk about Christ to other people. Like the mist, which will be blown away with the least puff of fresh air, there lie doleful dampnesses, in their sooty folds, over many a Christian heart, shutting out the sun, and a little whiff of wholesome activity in Christ’ s cause would clear them all away, and the sun would shine again. 2. The woe of the loss of sympathies, and the gain of all the discomforts and miseries of a self absorbed life. 3. The woe of the loss of one of the best ways of confirming one’ s own faith in the truth--viz., that of seeking to impart it to others. If you want to learn a thing, teach it. 4. The woe of having none that can look to you and say, “ I owe myself to thee.” 5. Aye! but that is not all. There is a future to be taken into account. Though we know, and therefore dare say, little about that future, take this to heart, that he who there can stand before God, and say, “ Behold! I and the children whom God hath given me” will wear a crown brighter than the starless ones of those who saved themselves and have brought none with them. III. The glad obedience which transcends the limits of obligation. “ If I do this thing willingly I have a reward.” Paul desired to bring a little more than was required, in token of his love to his Master and of his thankful acceptance of the obligation. The artist who loves his work will put more work into his picture than is absolutely needed, and will linger over it, lavishing diligence and care upon it, because he is in love with his task. The servant that seeks to do as little as he can scrape through with without rebuke is actuated by no high motives. The trader that barely puts as much into the scale as will balance the weight in the other is grudging in his dealings; but he who, with liberal hand, gives “ shaken down, pressed together, and running over” measure, gives because he delights in the giving. And so it is in the Christian life. There are many of us whose question seems to be, “ How little can I get off with?” And what does that mean? It means that we are slaves. It means that if we durst we would give nothing and do nothing. And what does that mean? It means that we do not care for the Lord, and have no joy in oar work. And what does that mean? It means that our work deserves no praise, and will get no reward. If we love Christ we shall be anxious, if it were possible, to do more than He commands us. Of course He has the right to all our work; but yet there are heights of Christian consecration and self-sacrifice which a man will not be blamed if he has not climbed, and will be praised if he has. What we want is extravagances of service. Judas may say, “ To what purpose is this waste?” but Jesus will say, “ He hath wrought a good work on Me.” And the fragrance of the ointment will smell sweet through the centuries. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)The true pulpit From this verse we infer that the true preacher-- I. Preaches the gospel as his grand mission. The essence of this good news is that God loves man, though a sinner, and that Christ is the demonstration and medium of this love. This is the heart of the gospel, and to preach this is the grand mission of the true preacher.1. In contradistinction to natural religion. Natural religion does not reveal Divine love for sinners. The volume was written before sin existed. 2. In contradistinction to human theologies. Neither Calvinism, Arminianism, nor any other “ ism,” constitute the gospel. 3. In contradistinction to legal maledictions. A terrible condemnation, it is true, hangs over the sinner, but the terrors of the judgment, &c., are not gospel. II. Disclaims all praise in the discharge of his mission. “ Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of.”1. There is everything in the nature of the subjects to prevent self-glory. It is-- (1) Undiscoverable by human reason.(2) Declaratory of human degradation.(3) Demonstrative of infinite condescension. 2. There is everything in the nature of the work to prevent self-glory. Every true preacher must feel a consciousness-- (1) Of unworthiness for such a high honour. “ Unto me, who am least of all saints,” &c.(2) Of incompetency for such a work. “ Who is sufficient for these things?” &c.(3) Of utter inability to realise success. Whatever he does, however well he preaches, he cannot guarantee efficiency. “ Paul plants, and Apollos waters,” &c. 3. There is everything in the nature of his inspiration to prevent self-glory. What was the feeling that prompted him to undertake it? “ The love of Christ that constrained” him. It was scarcely optional with him. He was drawn to it by this new and heavenly afflatus. Man cannot praise himself for loving. Does a mother take credit for loving her child? &c. III. Is impelled by an inward necessity in the prosecution of his mission. “ Necessity is laid upon me,” &c. This necessity was a force working from within, not a pressure from without. It was the force--1. Of ingratitude. Christ had appeared to him, rescued his soul from hell, and given him a commission. Gratitude bound him to the service of such a deliverer. 2. Of justice. The gospel had been given to him in trust. He was a steward. It was given to him not to monopolise, but to communicate. “ He was a debtor,” &c. 3. Of compassion. He knew that souls were dying, and he had the panacea in the gospel. Such were the necessities that bound him to his work. He felt he could not but do it; felt a horrid woe over him if he dared neglect it. (D. Thomas, D. D.)The ministry and its responsibilities We have here-- I. A declaration of an existing office--to preach the gospel.1. The gospel is a simple statement of glad tidings to a perishing world. To speak merely of the nature of moral duties, to discuss the various attributes of God, to describe Christian virtues, to speak of a future state and its retributions, is very well in its place, but it is not the gospel. If there be not warm statements of the atonement then there is a blank in the “ counsel of God” ! 2. With regard to the manner in which we are to discharge our duty. These principles are to be made known to all within our reach. The minister of Christ is to allow no limitations or restrictions to his message. He must “ warn every man, and teach every man,” &c. 3. This gospel must be “ a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death,” to those who hear it. II. The renouncement of all right to self-exaltation on account of that office, “ Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me.” There is in man a powerful tendency to self-exaltation. The same principle would fain accompany us in our Work of preaching the gospel; but ministers have nothing to boast of.1. Because we are under the bond of absolute necessity. For the apostle says, “ Necessity is laid upon me.” There is-- (1) The positive command of God: “ Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (2) The constraining influence of love to the Redeemer. (3) A sense of the necessities of men around us. 2. Because, whatever talents we possess, they are given us entirely by God. 3. Because all our success is entirely from the agency of Heaven. The preacher remembers to have been told, “ My son, beware of the bribe of talent” ; this was understood--“ Beware of the bribe of applause,” and this was understood. But then there was another caution, which was a secret--“ Beware of the bribe of usefulness” ; this could not be understood. We are apt to say, “ My success! My usefulness!” and so Satan overcomes us. Now, the gospel goes to destroy this tendency. It says, “ Not by might,” &c. III. A sense of certain consequences resulting from infidelity in this cause. “ Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.”1. Why should he have this woe? (1) Because it is an intrusion upon an office which God would have occupied only by His own servants. (2) Because it is an act of absolute wickedness to undertake so important an office and not perform it. (3) Because it is an attempt to sustain the weight of immortal souls without being able to bear it. 2. What is this woe? (1) We should encounter the censure of all good men.(2) Our death-beds can else be nothing but desertion and misery.(3) The contemplation of condemnation on the judgment-day. (J. Parsons.)The burden of the ministry I. What is it to preach the gospel? The gospel is the revelation of God’ s mercy to mankind, disclosing the Divinely-appointed method whereby a lost and degenerate race may be restored to the favour of their Creator. Consequently it cannot be rightly understood, or fully preached, until there be a distinct exhibition of man--1. As fallen in Adam.2. As renewed in Christ. II. Why woe is unto the minister, if he preach not the gospel.1. Professing that he thinks himself moved by the Holy Ghost to undertake the solemn office of clergyman; and having bound his soul by the most awful vows; if he deliver a false message, and inculcate a strange worship, then he violates, with flagrant audacity, the most sacred of all obligations, and is a thousand times a fouler traitor than if sent on an embassage by his earthly monarch, he had sold that monarch or bartered his honour. 2. Woe is unto him who preaches not the gospel, because he deludes into error the souls of his hearers; and at his hands shall their blood be required. (H. Melvill, D. D.)The watchword of the true minister I. The function of the true minister is to preach the gospel. Paul was not a politician, to turn the church into a party club, and the pulpit into a hustings--not a mere orator, to give his hearers an hour’ s entertainment; not a devotee of science; not a philologist, to spread out before immortal souls scholastic criticisms; not a mere moralist, to discourse of flowers that never grew around the Cross. No! his was a nobler and more difficult work, viz., to preach the gospel! To do this is--1. To proclaim all the precious doctrines, promises, precepts, and duties recorded in the Scriptures. Some confine themselves to a few favourite topics. They are afraid to preach the whole gospel, lest its truths contradict each other. Away with such idle fears! One truth can no more clash with another truth than one sunbeam can quench another sunbeam. 2. To preach Christ crucified. Some excuse their non-preaching of Christ on the ground that He is not in the text. I should not like to live in a village from which there was not a road to London; and I should not take a text from which there was not a way to Christ. 3. To preach to all. A deacon once said to a minister, “ If you go into that pulpit, you are only to preach to God’ s dear people.” The minister replied, “ Have you marked them all on the back, so that I may know them?” The gospel is a boon to a lost world, and I dare not monopolise it. II. The true minister is impelled to his holy vocation. Paul did not preach the gospel on the ground of expediency, or to gain human applause, but because of an irresistible inspiration, a celestial impulse. No minister is now called in the miraculous way Paul was, but every true minister feels the same necessity. John Newton was summoned from the deck of the slave ship to the pulpit. Thomas Scott threw aside his shepherd’ s frock to put on the mantle of the prophet. The true minister cannot help preaching. “ If I were out of prison to-day,” said Bunyan, “ I would preach the gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God.” You might as well try to uproot the mountains, roll back the rivers, tame the wild ocean, or arrest the stars, as attempt to silence the man whose mouth God has opened. It is said that ministers are all hypocrites; and when a specious professor stands unmasked the cry is raised, “ They are all the same.” Are they? Nay, there are thousands who would march bravely to the stake to-morrow, if it were necessary. III. The true minister is miserable if unengaged in his sacred calling. To an unselfish mind personal security is not always perfect felicity. The apostle stood on the serene elevation of personal assurance. “ I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ; but oh! this great heaviness for Israel--my kinsmen!” The man who would go to heaven alone shall never get there. Paul longed and laboured to save others. He thought on the multitudes that were dying in their sins. Christ bled for sinners--shall I not labour for them? He lived and died for me--shall I do nothing for Him? Perish the thought! (W. Anderson.)Necessity is laid upon me We need not ministers that may or will, but that must preach, and members not that may or will, but that must live, the gospel. Consider-- I. The work: what they do. They preach the gospel. The terms point to the public ministry of the word; but it is as certainly applicable to every Christian. Responsibility is diversified not in kind, but only in degree. By two short links every believer is bound to minister for the Lord. “ Let him that heareth say, Come.” We have heard the word of life, and therefore we should speak it. “ Freely ye have received, freely give.” Without opening his lips to teach, every one who bears Christ’ s name may help the gospel--1. By his spirit and his life. As we thread life’ s promiscuous throng we are touching right and left immortal beings, giving them a bias by the contact to the right or the left. 2. By word and work. The methods and opportunities are manifold. “ She hath done what she could” is the standard of measurement. (1) The more obvious methods are--a Sabbath-school, a mission or tract district. (2) Private doors are also open. You might make yourself useful in a time of distress; and your word would then go deeper than in the public assembly. As to work for the Lord, the rule is the same as in getting from the Lord: “ Seek, and ye shall find.” (3) But a sphere lies open to those who shrink from even the most private walks. If you cannot make up to other people, you may have your hands filled with remunerative labour at home. If you are bashful in presence of others, you may surely be bold in dealing with yourself. Here is an opportunity of doing mission-work. The kingdom of God is within you: go work in that vineyard. If that field become ripe, seed from it will be carried away on the wings of the wind to make the desert fruitful. II. The motive: what compels them to do it. “ Necessity is laid upon me,” &c. The apostle confesses frankly he was kept at his work as a slave is by the sound of the whip. Is any one startled at this representation? See if it be not God’ s way of keeping His servants to their work, and if His way be not very good? The pain of a wound is our Maker’ s messenger to send us forth quickly in search of a cure; the pain of thirst, His messenger to send us forth quickly in search of water. So it is consonant with God’ s ways to keep His creature busy with useful work by pressing him with pain if he indolently or ignorantly cease. By the secret line fixed in the conscience, which God in heaven holds in His own hand, many a man is compelled to run errands of benevolence who otherwise would sit at home in indolent ease. I knew a boy once who was asked for an alms by a passing beggar. The boy refused; the beggar passed, piercing the youth by a look from a pale face and a drooping eye. The youth continued his work mechanically, scarcely knowing what he did. Woe, woe was upon his soul, because he had not given the beggar a penny. This woe increased and accumulated until it became unbearable. The boy threw his instrument on the ground, and ran after the wearied beggar, and silently placed the penny in the beggar’ s hand, and ran home again to his work. The woe lashed him to duty, and then left him light of heart as the birds that sang beside him on the tree. Look to some of the particular forces which press a human soul to diligence in the work of the Lord.1. The constraining love of Christ. Paul could not help going forward through every difficulty and danger, any more than a ship can help going forward through the billows when its sails are full and its helm held aright. His affections rose from earth to heaven, because a pressure was upon his heart, as great as the pressure that compels the waters of the sea to rise and constitute the clouds. 2. The new appetite of the new creature. The Lord Himself was borne forward in this manner, and owned it. “ My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” 3. The need of a sinning, suffering world. A brother ready to perish lies heavier than lead upon a loyal, loving heart, and produces that haste to the rescue at which the giddy world, ignorant of the moving power, gazes as an inexplicable phenomenon. Ah, if the secret machinery of the Christian life within us were well oiled and free of rust, we should move quickly in these days; for the appropriate kind of power is playing on us in a mighty volume all the day long. (W. Arnot, D. D.)A passion for preaching Dr. Parker, in an address to local preachers, City Temple, June 1,1885, said: “ A lady asked me the other day, ‘ What is your hobby?’ Said I, ‘ Preaching.’ ‘ But apart from that?’ said she. ‘ There is nothing apart from that,’ I replied. All poetry, all beauty, all nature, all love, all history, the whole future are included in preaching. The preacher should never be away from his work, and never can be if his spirit is what it ought to be. Unless you make this preaching the very crown of your lives you will be very poor preachers.” Constrained to preach In lecturing one day to the students of his college--by no means the least important monument of his sanctified genius, enterprise, and industry--Mr. Spurgeon said: “ If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way.” No doubt it has always been more or less true, though never more so than in these days of earnest faith and equally pertinacious scepticism, that the preacher, or Christian worker of any kind, whose heart does not feel the fire of spiritual earnestness, who has no enthusiastic love for his work, will soon succumb, and either leave the unavailing drudgery or move on in sullen discontent, burdened with a monotony as tiresome as that of a blind horse on a farmyard saw-mill. Beneath and behind all high and fruitful exertion of the human soul there must be moral earnestness. Horace, in his “ Ars Poetics,” tells the poet that if he wants the people to weep over his poetry, he must weep with them. And the coldest, hardest, most self-contained pleader at the bar knows he must have his heart in his ease if he is to convince the jury. One of the greatest of actors laid bare the whole secret of his power in a tragic part he was accustomed to play with incomparable success by saying that through force of imagination he did actually tremble under the terror which he excited in the audience. To young versifiers who had scored some success in poetry and asked his opinion as to the advisability of devoting their time and energies to poetry, Ruskin was accustomed to say, “ Don’ t if you can help it.” Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.--The responsibility of gospel preaching 1. There are some with whom an exclamation of this kind is almost conventional, with whom it implies nothing more than annoyance. But this is not the case with the deeply serious apostle. The exclamation which occurs nowhere else in his writings has a history. Under its cover the prophets called down penal suffering upon opponents of God’ s will. And our Lord invoked it upon the scribes and Pharisees, &c. The word does not change its character when it is invoked by a psalmist, prophet, or apostle, upon himself. St. Paul, then, is employing an expression of acknowledged solemnity, which for him had not lost its freshness. 2. But is not the apostle exaggerating somewhat? It was a grand thing to preach the gospel as he did. But supposing that he had settled down quietly as a private Christian, why should he think that any great harm would happen to him? There are multitudes with natural capacity for this or that kind of work, who, somehow or other, never come to undertake it. It is a misfortune, no doubt, but if we were to hear a man say, “ Woe is me if I do not practise medicine; if I do not plead at the bar, &c., we should say to him, “ It is a pity you are not making the best of yourself; but there are other things besides that on which you have set your heart, and it is better to take a quieter view of your case.” Now why may not something of this kind be said of St. Paul? Ah! why? Because St. Paul felt that if he were not to preach the gospel he would-- I. Do a violence to his sense of justice. The gospel was not his in such a sense that he had any right to keep it to himself.1. The word implied that man was in a bad case, and needed something to reassure and to help him; that mankind was ill at ease, and was looking out for a deliverer. We often know that we are ill without knowing precisely what is the matter with us, and this was the case with the pre-Christian world. And, therefore, God opened the eyes of men to see what their case really was. Nature and conscience did something in this way for the heathen nations; the law of Moses did a great deal more for the Jews. But man’ s misery was only made more intense by becoming intelligent. And then came the real cure, “ God so loved the world” that He gave His Son to save it. 2. Now this is the essence of the gospel, and clearly such a gospel was not meant for a company of men, or for a favoured nation, but for the race. Like the natural sun in the heavens the incarnate Sun of Righteousness is the property of all men. And not to preach the gospel, to treat it as if it were the luxury of a small clique, was to offend against the sense of natural justice; it was to incur the woe which, as Nature herself whispers, is sooner or later inseparable from doing this. II. Sin against the law of gratitude. That which strikes St. Paul in the redemption, and makes his heart captive, is the extraordinary generosity of the Divine Redeemer. What was there in the race, in the single sinner, in himself, to invite such an effusion of Divine love? Even the heathen counted the obligations of gratitude as imperative; and the lower animals make practical acknowledgment of kindnesses received at the hand of man. And such a sentence as “ While we were yet sinners Christ died for us” measures St. Paul’ s sense of his obligation to his Saviour; and if this sense is to take a practical form, it could only be by his extending among men the knowledge and the love of the redemption. III. Be false to the imperious commands of truth. The gospel came to St. Paul as it comes to all of us, as a body of truth which could only be really held on condition of its being propagated. Not to do something towards this is already not to believe it; it is to treat the gospel as at best only partially true; and the gospel is nothing if it is not the universal religion. It is different with false religions, with human views. To hold them is one thing, to make efforts to disseminate them is quite another; to believe the gospel and to do nothing for its acceptance among men is a contradiction in terms. Unless you can separate, in fact as well as in idea, the convex and concave sides of a circular vase, you must, when you believe a religion which, being absolutely true, is also, and therefore, the universal religion, do what you may to induce others to believe it also. Conclusion: This surely is a motto for every member of the Church of Christ. Not seldom in her history has she been tempted to proclaim something other or less than the gospel.1. There were clever and accomplished Greeks at Corinth, feeling much sympathy with many sides of Christianity, but withheld from conversion by what seemed to them to be the strange and repulsive doctrine of Christ crucified. And what was St. Paul’ s reply? “ We preach Christ crucified, to the Greeks,” &c. (1 Corinthians 1:23). He could say nothing else. Woe to him had he preached not the gospel! And so it was again in the fourth century. Arianism tempted the Church to say something less on the subject of our Lord’ s adorable person than she had said and had believed since Pentecost. And what was her reply? It was the famous sentence which we repeat in the Nicene Creed … I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,” &c. She could have said nothing else, nothing less. Woe to her had she not preached the gospel! 2. And so it was in the fifteenth century. The old literature of Greece and Rome had been just rediscovered, and Christians actually professed themselves ashamed of the jargon of St. Paul, and unable to express even their religious ideas excepting in the phrases of Cicero and of Plato. The Church was bidden by the Renaissance to refashion herself upon the model of Paganism which, a thousand years before, she had conquered by suffering. The reply of Christendom took different forms, but its spirit was substantially “ Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.” 3. And in our own day the old temptation presents itself, but in an altered form. There is much good still in Christianity--so we are told; but if it is to keep on good terms with the modern world, Christians must give up the supernatural--they must be content with a Christ who is perfect, if you will, but simply human, with a Calvary that is the scene of a self-sacrifice, but not a world-redeeming atonement, &c. And what are we to say to all this? Ah! what but that which the apostle said eighteen hundred years ago? (Canon Liddon.)The preacher and his mission Simple as the words appear, the exact meaning of the passage in which our text occurs is not easy to determine. One thing is clear, viz., that the idea of “ glory” or “ glorying” which is brought out in the 15th verse is the key with which the passage must be opened, but even then the manner of using this key remains to be discovered. What is there that we can conceive of Paul as glorying in to such an extent that he says with impassioned vehemence: “ It is good for me rather to die than that any man should make my glorying void” ? Surely he would not use such language about some little question of independence that lay on the fringe of his life; most certainly he would not use it in opposition to the grand compelling power which he was conscious of in his Christ-begotten life. Nay, rather, it was in this very compelling power, and in this alone that Paul felt the true glory of his life to consist. This was his one glory which he would rather die than lose, that God had imposed upon him a sacred stewardship. All else must be subservient to the fulfilment of that. I. The gospel of the true preacher. In the impassioned assertion: “ Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel,” the gospel is intimately and intensely related to Paul’ s inner self. Truth is not an external label to be affixed to a glass case to mark a fossil inside, but a living movement in a living man, God ever revealing Himself in clearer and clearer forms to the soul that seeks Him. It will go hard at any rate if he be not superior to an embalmed and preserved mummy. There is no doubt that the reassertion of the subjectivity of truth has given new freshness, beauty, and unity to the history of the world, and to the place of revelation in that history. It has united the old and new dispensations in a living embrace, it has connected us by closer links with prophet and apostle, and revealed that all the world in all ages has been held in the grasp of one great Divine movement. But we must remember that this assertion of subjectivity is also one-sided, and, as in all eases of reaction there is a danger of swinging back to the other extreme, so there is certainly a tendency in much that is written and spoken now, to advocate a doctrine of extreme subjectivity which contains far greater peril for the truth than the most dogmatic applications of credal orthodoxy. The gospel must be a system of objective truth, and my gospel, if it is to be a gospel at all, must not be in opposition to that, but must rather be that very gospel, or a portion of it, having passed through the crucible of my life. The Jesus that was revealed to Paul was revealed also in him. II. The egotism of the true preacher. What does the apostle mean by saying, “ Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel?” There is one answer that will be ready on all your lips, and as far as it goes it is perfectly true. He meant that there was a Divine impulse within him that he could not resist. The fire that blazed within would have burnt deep scars upon his heart if his mouth had kept silence. The “ burden” of the Lord would have grown too heavy to be borne if it had not been imparted to the people. And I believe that this is substantially true of all that have really a prophetic mission for their generation. But Paul’ s impassioned words quiver with a yet deeper meaning, and it is to this that we apply par excellence the phrase. “ The egotism of the true preacher.” To Paul’ s eye the fiery hieroglyphics of God’ s moral government, of the great over-arching heaven of eternal righteousness, contained primarily a message for himself. It was not merely that he would feel inward pain if he refused to preach the gospel, but he felt the universe to be in battle-array against him if he gave no voice to his great mission. Herein lies the prophet’ s power and authority that he utters the mandate of creation--the mandate of God--that he feels the full tides of the universal roll through his soul, and must move with them or perish. But, further, this intense spiritual consciousness of the true preacher not only causes him most emphatically to relate himself to the universal government of God, but also to fling all his energies into the heart of human life. In this respect also the self of the preacher must be large: it must be profoundly related to universal humanity. He must be a microcosm--a miniature of the great macrocosm of human joy and sorrow. He must know himself a debtor to all sorts and conditions of men, by feeling the surging tides of the world’ s needs and aspirations rush through his own life, and by thus knowing that he must find his life by giving it up to the larger life of the world. The prophet of the age is the man that can speak the thought, the passion, the aspiration of the people, and give them their Divinest setting. He must have the subtle sympathy and the Pentecostal tongue of flame that can speak to the people in their native language--the language of their hearts. Him will the people hear; for they are part of his life, and he is part of theirs. III. The deep-seated faith of the true preacher. To say that “ Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel” is to recognise the gospel as eternally victorious. For nothing can be really a woe to me except my being out of harmony with those forces that are to be eternally triumphant. Only the truth itself can revenge the insult which I offer it by rejecting it. The qualifications of the true preacher consist, therefore, in a profound faith in the Divineness of the gospel, in the heart-recognition of it as the eternal truth of God. These two things, then, are necessary to enable us to enter into the fellowship of the apostle’ s words. We must be under the absolute sway of the gospel of Christ, and we must identify this rule with the eternal government of God. (John Thomas, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 9:17-19 For if I do this thing willingly I have a reward. Purity of motive required in every Christian minister I. Wherein it consists.1. A willing service.2. Without respect to fee or reward.3. He may receive but must not bargain for it. II. Its importance.1. If pure, Christ will reward him.2. If impure, his service is merely professional and has its reward. III. Its present recompense.1. Freedom from all imputation of mercenary motives.2. The free dispensation of the gospel.3. The consciousness of his own integrity. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Aspects of St. Paul’ s ministry His preaching was no ground of boasting (1 Corinthians 9:16). If he preached willingly, i.e., if it were optional with him to preach or not to preach, then it would be a ground of boasting; but if he did it unwillingly, i.e., if it were not optional with him (as was in fact the case), he was only discharging an official duty, and had nothing to boast of. That Paul preached the gospel willingly, that he esteemed it his highest joy and glory, is abundantly evident (Romans 1:5; Romans 11:13; Romans 15:15-16; 1 Corinthians 15:9-10; Galatians 1:15-16; Ephesians 3:8). The difference, therefore, here expressed between “ willing” and “ unwilling,” is not the difference between cheerfully and reluctantly, but between optional and obligatory. He says he had a “ dispensation” or stewardship committed to him. Stewards were commonly slaves. There is a great difference between what a slave does in obedience to a command, and what a man volunteers to do of his own accord. And this is the difference to which the apostle refers. So Paul was commanded to preach the gospel, and he did it with his whole heart; but he was not commanded to refuse to receive a support from the churches. The former, therefore, was not a ground of boasting, not a thing for which he could claim the reward of special confidence; the latter was. He could appeal to it as a proof, not only of his obedience, but of the purity of the motive which prompted that obedience. A physician may attend the sick from the highest motives, though he receives a remuneration for his services. But when he attends the poor gratuitously, though the motives may be no higher, the evidence of their purity is placed beyond question. Paul’ s ground of glorying, therefore, was not preaching, for that was a matter of obligation; but his preaching gratuitously, which was altogether optional. He gained something by it. He gained the confidence even of his enemies. But as preaching was not optional but obligatory, he did not gain confidence by it. The principle on which the apostle’ s argument is founded is recognised by our Lord in Luke 17:10. (C. Hodge, D. D.)Ministers and wealth Rev. T. Hancocks, of Chatham, formerly a Pastors’ College student, relates the following reminiscence of Mr. Spurgeon, introduced by the late president into one of his lectures to his students, and which is particularly interesting in the light of his last will and testament: Men sometimes say, “ Spurgeon’ s making a good thing of it.” To which I reply, “ You are perfectly right, for I serve a Master who is no niggard, but who rewards me daily with both hands.” But if they mean that I am saving money--well, they will know when I’ m gone. I give away all I can get, and could wisely use more. For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.--True ministerial independence I. Its nature. Freedom--1. As far as possible from personal obligation.2. In the declaration of Divine truth.3. In the conscientious discharge of duty. II. Its use. In the service of all--1. By patient toil.2. By forbearance.3. By Christian compliances. III. Its motive.1. Christ’ s honour.2. In the gain of souls. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The highest service of man earth The services of men on earth embrace a large variety. There is the service of the agriculturist, the mechanic, the mariner, the merchant, the scientist, the legislator, the king, &c. Men esteem these services as differing widely in respectability and honour; but the service referred to in the text stands infinitely above all. Four thoughts are suggested concerning this service. I. It is a service for the gaining of men. “ That I might gain the more.” The “ more” what? Not the gaining the more wealth, fame, or pleasure; but the gaining of men. Christ says, “ Thou hast gained thy brother.” There is a way of winning a man. Morally man is lost. No work in the universe is higher than this--to gain a man, to recover him to the true spirit and mission of life. II. It is a service independent of men. “ Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all.” Oh, how this high service has been degraded by the crowds of craven and mercenary souls that have pushed themselves into it! I am “ free from all men,” says Paul. “ I made myself servant.” I was not made by human authority, I was not pushed into it by others, “ I made myself.” A man by God’ s grace must make himself for the work. III. It is a service for universal man. “ Unto all.” All men, not to any particular tribe, sect, or nation, but to all, rich and poor, high and low, cultured and rude. (D. Thomas, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 9:20-22 Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews. The flexibility of Christianity In Paul’ s hands the Christian ministry was like the Gift of Tongues. The gift was one; but it fell upon the ear of the Roman in Latin, upon the ear of the Egyptian in Coptic. Not a bad emblem of the manner in which the dispensation should adapt itself to the various forms of human character and phases of human society. While never sacrificing truth or principle, yet, so far as truth and principle admitted it, the apostle wore the guise and spoke in the accents of the persons whom he addressed. Recognising circumcision as a national mark of distinction, while utterly denying its necessity to salvation, he circumcised Timothy. Owing allegiance as a Jew to the Mosaic ritual, so long as God suffered it to exist, he took legal vows, and was scrupulous in paying them. Among Gentiles, he drew illustrations from the Grecian games, although they were heathen festivals; he quoted truths which had been proclaimed by heathen poets, and founded his appeals on natural religion. How totally different in its topics, as well as in its form, is his address on Mars’ Hill from that in the synagogue at Antioch! The genius of the gospel was free. It was felt, from the first, that its fixed truths were capable of being presented in aspects almost innumerable. Note then:-- I. The plastic character of Christianity. This is seen in--1. Its documents. (1) The history of our Lord has been transmitted to us by four distinct authors, who evidently write from four points of view, and address distinct classes of readers. (2) Peter, Paul, James and John--men of widely different characters and circumstances--were all employed in the doctrinal writings of the New Testament, and thus Christian doctrine comes to us distilled through the alembics of four human minds. If God had desired to teach a Christian minister that he should study the age, characters, society, with which he has to deal, how could He have done it otherwise? 2. Its precepts, how broadly they are stated, and with an obvious avoidance of those particulars which might limit their application. Take, e.g. “ Pray without ceasing” --evidently a principle and not a rule, and, because a principle capable of application to an infinite variety of circumstances. 3. Its doctrines. The Fatherhood of God; the Incarnation, the sacrifice of the Cross, the gift of the Spirit, the brotherhood of men in Christ’ s Church, and the resurrection; these are evidently doctrines whose import is as wide as the race, and which correspond to the instincts of the human heart, under whatever garb it beats. II. How this character should determine the conduct of our clergy in setting it forth.1. It is in vain to hope to revive any type of Christianity which has obviously had its day. (1) Let us not attempt to revive mediaevalism; all that was true, deep, and touching in that really survives still, only the fashion of it has passed away to return no more. Let us cherish its devout spirit, and endeavour to imbue with it our circle of society, while we throw off its superficial costume, which, like all mere costume, must in the nature of things become antiquated. (2) Let us not seek to revive the precise form of the Evangelicalism of seventy years ago. Here again there was much which, because it was the very truth of God, can never pass away. But while we endeavour to inhale its spirit, let us not entangle ourselves in its trammels, which are not adapted to the present day. 2. But to pass to more positive counsels. Ours is an age-- (1) Of much superficial knowledge on the subject of religion. For a thousand persons who discuss religion freely in society there is not one who ever digested a spiritual truth. Now in dealing with this state of mind you must not content yourself with a few Sunday platitudes; the people will tell you that they know all that as well as you. You must oppose erudition to their flimsy knowledge, and be a man of thought as opposed to their superficiality. (2) Of latitudinarianism which is making the most insidious inroads on the faith. Now an indignant repudiation of scepticism, with but a partial insight into its real views is little likely to reclaim the sceptic. Let us seek to appreciate his difficulty, and to draw forth from the repository of Divine truth a solution of it: and in doing so it may be that we shall occasionally have to retract--not indeed one iota of Scriptural truth--but our notions of what the Scripture has said. Might it not be well too if our clergy would acquaint themselves, not merely with the general platform on which infidelity is conducting its attacks, but specially with those sciences whose progress is always attended with much danger in minds which are not well settled in the faith? But remember that our Lord bids us, as scribes, instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, to bring forth out of our treasury things new and old--old in the substance, which must always abide; new in the form, which ever changes with time and with the manners of men. Mark the emphatic word “ his treasury.” It is not from any repository of truth external to ourselves. No amount of learning in a Christian minister can for a moment compensate for the absence of an experimental religion. God’ s Word must be brought forth from our own treasury, not stolen from that of our neighbours. Prayer must go hand in hand with study. (Dean Goulburn.)Being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.-- The Christian law I. Its nature.1. Moral.2. Given by God.3. Confirmed by Christ.4. Written by the Holy Spirit on the heart. II. Its authority.1. Comprehends the whole law.2. Extends to the heart.3. Is enforced by love. (J. Lyth, D. D.)I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.-- All things to all men 1. St. Paul was a cosmopolitan in the best sense, the world was his country, mankind his brethren, truth his business, the church his family, and Christ his Lord. His catholic impartiality credited alike Jew and Greek with whatever amount of truth they severally held. 2. Love is the true expositor of the text. It is the sterling politeness which gracefully bends itself into “ all things” within the perpendicular of truth and equity, “ to all men” in order to their profit and salvation. Like a tender mother, lisping to her babe, reading with her boys, sympathising with the early trials of her girls, following with her wistful prayers the absent ones, nor ceasing a maternal interest in the elder branches settled in life, and so in her motherly heart is all things to all members of her family so the earnest Christian has a large-hearted family power of interestedness in whatever concerns the soul of every fellow-being. Being “ all things to all men,” only to gain them to Christ, implies a sacred uniformity of purpose, which-- I. Sanctions nothing inconsistent with divine conformity. “ All things to all men” --1. Sanctions no versatility which is evangelical with low church, sacramental with high church, indefinite with broad church, and indifferent with no church; though it does imply a courteous, loving, conciliatory tone of address to every church, always with a view to gaining them for the Church of Christ. 2. Implies no sinking the Christian to meet the worldling. The Christian is no chameleon, taking his hue from every incident he feeds on; but rather like the sunlight of his heavenly Father--the evil and the good are the better for his shining. Apply the rule to places of amusement. Can we imagine ourselves meeting Christ there, as He sat at the festival in Cana, &c.? We can realise His presence on occasions of innocent festivity; but there are others at which, if we could suppose His eye falling upon us, as it did on Peter in the hall of his denial, we should be ashamed to meet Him. I noticed in France pictures of the Crucifixion in streets and public galleries, in Hotel de Ville and Palais de Justice, but never one in a Cafe Chantant or the opera. As believers, you are Christ’ s living images, and would be as much out of place in a Casino or a playhouse. There is a rubicon between the carnal and the spiritual man which needs no Caesar to cross it from one side (that is, from the church to the world); but it requires a Christ to ford it, from the world to the church. Attempt it alone, and like Peter on the lake, you would sink in the act, unless His mighty hand bear you through. 3. Is no text for the pusillanimous concessions implied in the maxim, “ When you are at Rome, do as Rome does.” Paul did not; he was as much “ Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ” in Caesar’ s household as in his own. Still he who gave Roman officers their respect, and magistrates their titles, who gathered sticks with the barbarians, and received the grateful courtesies of Publius, taught us to eschew rudeness or eccentricity in circumstantials, and to be peculiar only in essentials. In whatever shape you are gratuitously singular, you will be unpopular, and therefore the less useful. Hence, cultivate a conciliating not a litigious tone--suggest, rather than challenge. A well-oiled and tempered blade cuts deeper than a hacked or rusty one. Be as much at home with people as you can, that they may be at their ease with you. Let things indifferent be indifferent, that none of your earnestness and usefulness may be spent on trifles, but all concentrated on the main thing--saving souls and glorifying their Saviour. II. Justifies anything becoming a manly Christianity. By this is not meant a Christianity indigenous to man; but a robust, open-hearted, large-minded view of sinners, and of the means to be employed for their salvation. “ All things to all men.”1. Means religious toleration having “ proved all things, hold fast that which is good.” Stand out for your own convictions. “ Be strong and quit you like men.” At the same time, fidelity to your own opinions is perfectly compatible with the most respectful toleration of those of others. You believe in election; another man sees only open universal salvation. Be it so. You both believe in Christ and in His Holy Spirit: then work and pray together on those grounds in which you agree, and you will get nearer to God and to each other than by incessant debate upon your points of difference, 2. Implies the use of all lawful means of “ preaching the word in season and out of season,” e.g., if a Romanist won’ t listen to our translation of the Bible, converse with him out of his own. The Douay version obscures some doctrines, but it can’ t extinguish Christ. On the same ground controversy is justified. Let the obvious love of souls, and loyalty to Christ so distinguish the spirit ill which you wield controversial weapons that men may see “ they are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds.” 3. Suggests a gentle forbearance with men’ s tempers, infirmities, and even sins. Much self-denial is needed for the duty of reproof, both as to the mode of doing it, and the doing it at all. “ Bearing one another’ s burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ” is not the least self-denying form of taking up the cross. To bear with the magnanimity of Christian love the irritating annoyances and petty insults of an ungodly circle is no easy trial; but its effect upon those around us, though imperceptible, is real. 4. Imports the diligent use of many means, notwithstanding few results. There is a noble contentedness in expending all our means on the prospect of only “ some” return. Conclusion--1. Neither “ all things to all men,” nor anything to any man, is either safe or possible without God. You dare not be “ all things to” some men, lest, burning incense with Korah, you be swallowed up with his company. “ Evil communications corrupt good manners.” Your life must be your testimony, where direct association would only compromise or quench it. 2. Make Christ your model. “ Set the Lord alway before you.” Let your first question be, “ What would He have done?” He was in the best sense, and ever will be, “ all things to all men,” “ the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” And He would be nothing to any man except to save him. (J. B. Owen, M. A.)Compromises As a general rule compromises of every description are to be regarded with distrust. Taken at the best they are of the nature of sacrifices, as each party is supposed to give up something which he considers of more or less importance. And this is not all. A plan or policy which is the result of a compromise is not a single plan or policy, but a mixture of plans, a mixture of policies. Now the several parts, instead of aiding and sustaining each other, will be very likely to interfere with and obstruct each other. Accordingly, if a compromise is called for, the first question we should ask ourselves is, whether the occasion for making it may not be avoided altogether. Many of our associations are entirely voluntary. But all our associations are not voluntary in the sense here intended. The family, for example, is not a voluntary, but a necessary association; and so likewise, in a certain sense and to a certain extent, is the neighbourhood, the Church, the State. Every man must live in society. I do not say in this or that society, but in some society. Concessions, then, we must make; but what concessions? How far can we carry the spirit of compromise without trenching at the same time on the laws of Christian truth and righteousness? To this question I reply, first, by observing that we are in no danger of trenching on the laws of Christian truth and righteousness so long as our compromises do not involve anything more than the giving up of our own tastes, our own convenience, our own innocent pleasures, our own interests, even our own rights, out of regard to others, and in the spirit of Christian concession and self sacrifice. To say that we have a right to give up our rights may sound to some like contradiction; but it is a contradiction in sound, in appearance, only. Indeed, not to give up our rights is to give up nothing; for why talk about giving up what we have no right to retain if we would? At the same time it is proper to add that our right to give up our rights depends on their being ours exclusively. We have no right to give up our neighbours’ rights without their consent, express or implied. A parent, for example, might be willing to give up one or more of his own rights if he were sure the loss would fall on him alone; but if, on the contrary, he knows that, directly or indirectly, it will fall on the whole family, he will feel that they also have a voice in the matter. Again, a right may be held in common, and require to be maintained in common, and all therefore may be in some sense pledged to its defence in common, as in the case of civil or religious liberty. Here, as before, no individual can honestly act as if he alone were interested in the event. And this brings me to what may be called the pinch of the question. Have we a right, under any circumstances whatever, to go contrary to our duty for the sake of peace, or to meet those we must act with half-way, or on the plea that in a choice of evils we should take the least, or in the hope that in the end virtue and humanity will be gainers by such a course? Thus stated, it seems to me that the question answers itself. We have no such right. But we must not think that the annunciation of a moral truism like this will go far to clear up the great practical difficulty we are considering. The question disappears in one form, it is true, but only to come up in another. In a sharp collision of opinions and interests, of rights and duties, of reciprocal benefits and mutual obligations, may not my duty itself become changed? Let me suppose a case. A community, bound together by a multitude of reciprocal affections, interests, and obligations, fall into irreconcilable difference respecting a single question, and that a moral one. What are they to do? Some may think to cut the matter short by insisting that the party which is right ought not to give up, ought not to make the smallest concessions. And this is true, supposing it to be known and conceded which party is right; but unhappily this is the very point in dispute. The question is not what the party shall do is right, but what the party shall do which thinks itself right. And if you still answer, “ Not concede one jot nor tittle,” then you have no ground of complaint against your opponents for not conceding one jot nor tittle to you, for they also think themselves right. If, therefore, we persist in shutting our eyes on these obvious facts, that is to say, pay no regard to the judgment and the consciences of others, but proceed to act on our own as if we were infallible, when we know we are not, the mistake, if we fall into one, does not make wrong to be right even for us; nay, is no excuse for the wrong. It is not mistake, properly so called, but obstinacy; and obstinacy is no excuse for delinquency of any kind. Another ground sometimes taken is, that where two parties are at variance, only one can be right; and consequently that a compromise supposes a departure from the right course on one side or the other. This, however, does not follow. I admit that where two parties are at variance, both cannot be right; but it does not follow that either is so, that is, wholly right. Both parties cannot be right, but both parties may be wrong; at least more or less so. And if so, it would seem that each party has something of wrong to give up, and the compromise that should consist of mutual concessions of this sort would evidently result, not in a departure from right on either side, but in an approximation to right on both sides. I have spoken of compromises in general, not of any particular compromise. I am aware that there is often less difficulty in laying down general principles than in applying them with the limitations and qualifications which the circumstances of the case require. Still something is gained by clearly apprehending the principles--the applications must be left to the occasion as it arises; and let me add, that a right application of the principles in the most perplexing circumstances will mainly depend, not on a morbid sensitiveness to the question at issue, nor yet on casuistical subtlety, but on downright honesty of purpose, a sound understanding, and a truly generous and magnanimous spirit. (J. Walker, D. D.)Apostolical sympathy This is an expression which might easily be mistaken, and has been so before now; as though St. Paul recommended, by his advice and example, a sort of craft in religious matters--pretending to agree with men when you really do not, humouring them in bad ways, concurring with them tea certain length in what you know or fear to be wrong; but all the while for their benefit, and with a view of doing, on the whole, more good in the end. Are not many marriages made by this rule, or, at least, defended by this excuse? and how do they commonly turn out? A much lighter error, but yet an error of the same kind, was that which St. Paul himself had once to correct in St. Peter, when, rather than give present dissatisfaction to certain Jewish converts which were there, he separated himself from the Gentile Christians (Galatians 2:11), and so encouraged a division in the Church, and encouraged also the low notion that believers were still under the law of Moses. But this of St. Paul in the text is very different; it is an example, not a warning. And the difference may be put in one word: it is not accommodation which St. Paul encourages, but sympathy. He does not say that he practised what would please others, to win them, but he says that he always had an eye to them; he put himself into their place. He thought with himself, Were I a heathen, or a Jew, a young man or an old, an advanced or an imperfect Christian, a rich man or a poor, a master or a servant, what would my thoughts and feelings and fancies be when such and such holy truths or Divine commandments were made known to me? And according to what his wise and charitable heart, guided by the Holy Spirit, told him, of the needs and feelings of other persons, so he ordered his ways towards them, and his manner of speaking to them, and dealing with them. To take the instances which the apostle himself had been enumerating just before the text: “ Unto the Jews,” first, “ I became,” says he, “ as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews.” How was this? for we know how earnestly St. Paul opposed himself to the Jewish prejudice, that circumcision and keeping the ceremonies of the law were at all necessary to salvation. How, then, did he become as a Jew to the Jews? Look at that letter of his, in which he most opposes their ceremonies; look at the Epistle to the Romans, and see how he speaks of them there. “ I also am an Israelite.” “ I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.” “ I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren.” Look in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 16:2; Acts 28:17; Acts 22:17) and see what trouble he took, how he went out of the way to show them that he reverenced the Mosaical ceremonies, and did not hold them wicked, though he would not have them reckoned part of the Christian law. As to the Gentiles, them also he mentions just before the text, saying, “ To them which are without law I became as without law, that I might gain them that are without law.” That is, he put himself in the place of the Gentiles, and said and did what their condition required; as when, writing to the Corinthians, he so greatly slighted human wisdom, which he knew they were inclined to think too much of; also as when, speaking to the Athenians, he made use of their own poets, their own altars, their own customs, and the like; whereby to bring them to attend to the truth of Christ. But towards the people of Derbe and Lystra, who were in the very act of idolising himself, he spake with all vehemence, as the case required, seeing it was the only thing which could hinder them from offering sacrifice to him. In neither case did he flatter or beguile, or at all encourage them in anything wrong, no not with a view of greater good hereafter, as we, in our short-sighted self-sufficient plans, are so often tempted to do; but he used that gift which God gave him, of entering into their minds and feelings to edify them, whether by soothing or contradiction, as might be needed. And as it was with him in respect to Jew or Gentile, so also in respect of rich and poor, and the other distinctions of life; to masters and servants, husbands and wives, in short, all sorts of people, he speaks as one who had the power, by the Divine Spirit which was in him, to feel not only with them but for them--not only what they would like, but what their condition would most require. Now St. Paul was a representative, what we may in some sense call a type, of the Church or kingdom of Christ in action and warfare. His teaching seems especially recorded as the completest standard and model of her teaching. May it then be truly said that the Church is made all things to all men? Surely it may; the mystical body of our Lord Jesus Christ, animated by His Spirit, has a word of seasonable instruction, and an aid of seasonable grace, for every one, even the meanest of His members. Surely there is no person, rich or poor, young or old, good or bad, wise or foolish, for whom the Church, as she speaks in our Prayer Book, has not a word of comfort or censure, of warning or encouragement, in their season. And as this is the temper of St. Paul himself, and of the Church which he served, so also should it be the temper of each particular Christian, among his own friends and acquaintance, and all whom the Providence of God puts in his way. He will account it a part of charity to become all things to all men; to enter into their notions and feelings, not for any vain fancy of pleasing them and obtaining their good word, hut for their profit, if haply by God’ s mercy he may be permitted to do something towards the salvation of a brother. And truly it is a strange power which God’ s Holy Spirit gives to faithful, self-denying persons, to enter into the thoughts and tempers and passions of those for whom they are concerned, even of those who are most unlike themselves; guarding them by a kind of instinct against those sins and temptations which would seem to be furthest from their own feeling and knowledge; as God and good angels guard them, knowing, and in a manner feeling for the sinner, without any sort of communion in the sin. Once more; if it be asked what is the way by which frail, imperfect men may be enabled to understand the thoughts of the wicked so as to perceive their tendency, and to pray and strive against them, the answer is, we must be very single in our aims-not looking, much less turning, back after we have once given in our names to Jesus Christ to be His soldiers and servants. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)“ By all means save some” I. Why is this passion for saving others implanted in the breasts of the saved? For God’ s glory.(1) It is greatly to the glory of God that He should use humble instruments for the accomplishment of His grand purposes. When Quintin Matsys had executed a wonderful well-cover in iron, it was the more notable because he had little more than his hammer. (2) It brings glory to God also that He should take us sinful men and make us partakers of His compassionate and loving nature. That an angel should cleave the air to perform his message is simple enough, but that a Saul, an enemy of Christ, should live and die for the winning of souls to Jesus, is a memorable illustration of the grace of God. (3) In this way the Lord gets great glory over the Arch-enemy, for He can say to Satan, “ I have defeated thee, not by the sword of Michael, but by the words and prayers of My humble servants.” Then is the enemy smitten in the house of his former friends. Satan desired to sift Peter as wheat, but Peter sifted him in return on the day of Pentecost. 2. For the church’ s good. The passion for winning souls-- (1) Expends the Church’ s energy in a healthy manner. There is a certain quantity of steam generated in the community, and if we do not let it off in the right way, it will blow up and do infinite mischief. Talents unused are sure to rust, and this kind of rust is a deadly poison to peace, an acrid irritant which eats into the heart of the Church. (2) Draws forth the strength of the Church, awakens her latent energies, and arouses her noblest faculties. Many a commonplace man has been rendered great by being thoroughly absorbed by a noble pursuit, and what can be nobler than turning men to Christ? (3) Knits us together. I have been blest of God to the salvation of my hearer, but that hearer was first brought here by a friend, and so we become sharers in the joy. And, moreover, when new converts are brought into the Church, the fact that they are brought in by instrumentality tends to make their fusion with the Church an easy matter. 3. For the good of the individual possessing it. (1) It makes us Godlike. (2) It provides a vent for love to God as well as to men. Loving God makes us sorrow that all men do not love Him too. (3) It revives our first love. When I see an inquirer penitent for sin, I recollect the birthday of my own soul. (4) It strengthens faith. If you begin to doubt the gospel’ s power, go to work among the poor and ignorant. (5) It draws forth all the faculties of a man. One strong passion will frequently bring the whole man into play, like a skilful minstrel whose hand brings music from every chord. If we love others, we shall become wise to attract them, and discover in ourselves talents which else had been hidden in the ground. (6) It gives the highest joys beneath the stars. II. How does this passion exercise itself? Differently in different persons, and at different periods.1. By tender anxiety. The moment a man is saved he begins to be anxious about his relatives, and that anxiety leads him at once to pray for them. 2. In the intense joy exhibited when news reaches us of their conversion. 3. In private efforts, sacrifices, prayers, and agonies for the spread of the gospel. A word may often bless those whom a sermon fails to reach, and a personal letter may do far more than a printed book. 4. In the more public agencies of the Church. 5. In adapting ourselves to the condition and capacity of others for their good. Paul became a Jew to the Jews. He did not preach against Judaism, but showed them Jesus as the fulfiller of its types. When he met with a heathen he did not revile the gods, but taught him the true God. He did not carry about with him one sermon for all places, but adapted his speech to his audience. If you have to talk to children, be children, and do not expect them to be men. If you have to comfort the aged, enter into their infirmities, and do not speak to them as if they were still in the full vigour of life. Are you called to labour among the educated? Then choose out excellent words. Do you work among the illiterate? Speak their mother tongue. Are you cast among people with strange prejudices? Do not unnecessarily jar with them, but take them as you find them. All men are not to be reached in the same way, or by the same means. III. Why is not this passion more largely developed among Christians? Is it not that we have but very little grace? That is the fountain of all the mischief. But to come to particulars.1. One-sided views of gospel doctrines. “ God will save His own.” Yes, but His own do not talk in that fashion; they do not say, “ Am I my brother’ s keeper?” Since idleness wants an excuse, men dare to abuse this sacred truth to stultify their consciences. 2. Worldliness. Men are too fond of gain to care for saving souls. 3. Want of faith. Men do not believe that God will bless their efforts, and therefore they make none. 4. Want of sympathy with God. IV. How can this passion be more fully aroused?1. By our obtaining a higher life. I do not believe in a man’ s trying to pump himself up beyond his level. The man must be up, and then all that comes out of the man will have risen. If love to God glows in your soul, it must show itself in your concern for others. 2. By full cognisance of men’ s misery and degradation. How differently one feels after seeing with one’ s own eyes the poverty, filth, and vice of this city. Your fellow-countrymen are living in neglect of your Saviour, and in jeopardy of their immortal souls; if you did but realise this it would quicken you by all means to save some. 3. By a sense of our own solemn obligations. If we are what we profess to be, we are redeemed by the heart’ s blood of the Son of God; do we not owe something to Christ for this? (C. H. Spurgeon.)All things dared for souls In Switzerland, where land is very precious because rock abounds and the rugged soil is chary in its yieldings, you see the husbandman looking after a little tuft of grass growing on one of the edges of a lofty cliff. From the valley he had caught a sight of it, and thought of clambering up to where it grew, but the rock was all too steep. From a ledge nearer the top of the precipitous wall he looked down, but could see no pathway to the coveted morsel of green. That armful of grass would feed his goat, or help to fill the cottage loft with winter fodder for the cow. Every armful is an item, and he cannot forego that tempting clump. He looks, and looks, and looks again, but looks in vain. By and by he fetches his bold boy, who can follow wherever a chamois can climb, but the boy after a hard scramble comes back with the tidings, “ Father, it cannot be done.” Father’ s answer is, “ Boy, it must be done.” It is only an armful, and would not be worth a farthing to us, but to the poor mountaineer even a farthing or a farthing’ s worth is precious. The grass waves its flowers in the breeze and scorns the daring climbers from below; but where there is a will, there is a way; and what cannot be reached from below may be gained from above. With a rope slung round him, or firmly grasped in his accustomed hand, with a stout stake or tree to hold it up above, the Switzer is let down till he gets to the jutting crag; there he stands with his sickle, reaps the grass, ties it into a bundle, puts it under his arm, and climbing back again, joyfully returns with his little harvest. Poor pay, you think, for such dangerous toil; but, fellow worker for Jesus, I wish we were as venturesome for souls, and as careful of them, as these poor peasants are concerning miserable bundles of grass. I wish that we sometimes looked up or down upon apparently inaccessible spots, and resolved to reach immortal souls who are to be found there, and pined to bring them to Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Soul saving our one business It is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master-passion. Lives with many aims are like water trickling through innumerable streams, none of which is wide enough or deep enough to float the merest cockleshell; but a life with one object is like a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to the ocean a multitude of ships, and spreading fertility on either side. Note-- I. Paul’ s great object in life--“ To save some.”1. Some preach with the view of amusing men. But Paul did not lay himself out to please the public and collect the crowd. 2. Others think that the object of Christian effort should be to educate men. Education is an exceedingly valuable thing, but if the Church thinks that it is sent into the world merely to train the mental faculties, it has made a very serious mistake. Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost, and on the same errand has He sent His Church. 3. Paul did not try to moralise men. Dr. Chalmers, in his first parish, preached morality, and saw no good; but as soon as he preached Christ crucified, grace prevailed. He who wishes for perfumes must grow the flowers; he who desires to promote morality must have men saved. 4. What did Paul mean by saying that he desired to save some? (1) That some should be born again; for no man is saved until he is made a new creature in Christ Jesus. (2) That some might be cleansed from their past iniquity through the merit of Christ’ s sacrifice. No man can be saved from his sin except by the atonement. (3) That they might also be purified and made holy; for a man is not saved while he lives in sin. II. The apostle’ s reasons for electing such an object.1. The honour of God. Did you ever think over the amount of dishonour that is done to the Lord in London in any one hour of the day? 2. The extreme misery of this our human race. It would be a very dreadful thing if you could get any idea of the aggregate of the misery of London at the present moment in the hospital and the workhouse. 3. The terrible future of impenitent souls. But if they be saved, observe the contrast. III. The great methods which the apostle used.1. The simple preaching of the gospel. He did not attempt to create a sensation by startling statements, neither did he preach erroneous doctrine in order to obtain the assent of the multitude. To keep ,back any part of the gospel is not the true method for saving men. Give the people every truth baptised in holy fire, and each truth will have its own useful effect upon the mind. But the great truth is the Cross, the truth that “ God so loved the world,” &c. 2. Much prayer. A great painter said he mixed his colours with brains. A preacher ought to mix truth with prayer. When a man was breaking granite by the roadside, a minister passing by said, “ Ah, my friend, your work is just like mine; you have to break stones, and so do I.” “ Yes,” said the man, “ and if you manage to break stony hearts, you will have to do it as I do, go down on your knees.” 3. An intense sympathy which made him adapt himself to each case. He was all things to all men, that he might by all means save some. Mr. Hudson Taylor finds it helpful to dress as a Chinaman, and wear a pigtail. This seems to me to be a truly wise policy. To sink myself to save others is the idea of the apostle. Never may any whim or conventionality of ours keep a soul from considering the gospel. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Sacrifice for souls All things are easy which are done for the love of God and of the souls which He loves. A lady who had a most sensitive ear for music--so much so, that a note out of tune caused her intense discomfort--joined one of our English Sisterhoods. Being visited one day by a friend, she was found placidly seated in an outhouse, in the midst of a most horrible din, raised by a number of lads whom she was forming into a drum and fife band. “ How can you possibly endure this noise?” asked her friend. “ Oh,” was the sweet reply, “ it’ s very good for souls!” Adaptation essential to persuasion It is said that Kossuth had an inimitable power of adaptation: a keen sense of the fitness of things. So adroit was his oratory that coming to a new country he would soon master its language, had forensic arguments for the bar, prose and poetry for women, statistics for merchants, and an assortment of local allusions for the respective towns and villages in which he pleaded his cause. (H. O. Mackey.)Adaptation essential to soul winning While Edward Irving was assistant to Dr. Chalmers he called upon a shoemaker, a thorough-going infidel of a most disagreeable temper. All who had previously called upon him were met by cold shoulder and a “ Hump!” Irving, knowing his man, took up a piece of patent leather, and expatiated on it. This he could do admirably, as his father was a tanner, and he knew the process well. The shoemaker did not look up, but said roughly, “ What do you ken about leather?” Irving, unabashed, went on, and described how shoes were being made by machinery. Then the shoemaker slackened up his work, and looked up, and said, “ Od, you’ re a decent kind o’ a fellow; do you preach?” Next Sabbath the shoemaker was at church. On the Monday Irving met him in the Gallow Gate, and walked arm-in-arm with him along the street. He was overcome, and became a friend instead of a foe to Christianity; and ever after, when taunted with his change, justified himself by saying, “ He’ s a sensible man, yon; he kens about leather.” (Mrs. Oliphaut.)Adaptation in a minister “ We use the language of the market,” said Whitefield, and this was much to his honour; yet when he stood in the drawing-room of the Countess of Huntingdon, and his speech entranced the infidel nobleman whom she brought to hear him, he adopted another style. His language was equally plain in each case, because it was equally familiar to the audience: he did not use the ipsissima verba, or his language would have lost its plainness in the one case or the other, and would either have been slang to the nobility or Greek to the crowd. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Wisdom of adaptation He alone is wise who can accommodate himself to all the contingencies of life; but the fool contends, and is struggling like a swimmer against the stream. Wisdom needed for usefulness In order to reach men’ s hearts on Divine things Lord Haddo strove to cultivate the art of conciliating even the careless and indifferent, by talking to them, in the first instance, on subjects in which they would be interested; and in this taught a precious lesson, which all who are engaged in evangelistic labour would do well to learn and exemplify. When acting as a regular district visitor in Whitechapel, London, he happened to visit a currier, to whom he was unknown, and his knowledge of the various processes of tanning and the preparation of leather, elicited the remark, “ Ah, I see you are in the trade yourself, sir.” (A. Duff, D. D.)The law of spiritual accommodation (Text and 1 Corinthians 10:33). Here is the supreme secret of service to human souls; and the two passages must be taken together to get the beauty of the whole thought. It is an accommodation-- I. To all men; to Jew, to Gentile; to weak, to strong--1. By way of identification; as though himself just what they were. This means an Englishman becoming an Irishman to save an Irishman; a man of culture becoming an ignorant fool to save a fool--going down to the slums to save the inmates of the slums--becoming a slave to save slaves. 2. By way of self-denial and self-oblivion; not seeking one’ s own pleasure or even “ profit,” that others may be saved. A renunciation of self-gratification and even self-advancement and advantage for their sakes. II. In all things--wherever it implies no wrong. The question is, What will remove a stumbling-block out of others’ way? What will serve others? (1 Corinthians 9:19). III. In order to save others. Everybody may not be benefited. “ Duty is ours; results are God’ s.” But what is offered to Him is not lost, although it may seem to be wasted. We never get to the true platform of service until what we do we do unto the Lord, and are not disturbed by its apparent unfruitfulness. He values it just as highly, without regard to obvious results. (Hom. Monthly.)Paul’ s versatility There are those to whom it is painful to have to accost a stranger even on pressing business; and most men arc only quite at home in their own set--among men of the same class or profession as themselves. But the life he had chosen brought Paul into contact with men of every kind, and he had constantly to be introducing to strangers the business with which he was charged. He might be addressing a king or a consul the one hour and a roomful of slaves or common soldiers the next. One day he had to speak in the synagogue of the Jews, another among a crowd of Athenian philosophers, another to the inhabitants of some provincial town far from the seats of culture. But he could adapt himself to every man and every audience. To the Jews he spoke as a rabbi out of the Old Testament Scriptures; to the Greeks he quoted the words of their own poets; and to the barbarians he talked of the God who giveth rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. When a weak or insincere man attempts to be all things to all men, he ends by being nothing to anybody. But, living on this principle, Paul found entrance for the gospel everywhere, and at the same time won for himself the esteem and love of those to whom he stooped. (J. Stalker, D. D.)Fish must be angled for with the right bait Speaking of fishing in Persian rivers, a recent traveller says, “ The river Lar is famed for its speckled trout, and we encamped on its banks, well provided with the best rods and flies the English market could afford. We found the trout fickle enough as elsewhere, and could never tell when or where to find them. Some days ‘ coy and hard to please,’ and other days abundant. We soon discovered that a trait peculiar to these Persian trout was an indifference, amounting to contempt, for the daintiest flies we coaxingly threw in their way. But when we baited our hooks with young grasshoppers or frogs we discovered the favourite weakness of these epicures of the Lar.” (H. O. Mackey.)Moral identification with others--a qualification of the evangel This verse is sometimes taken as expressive of the accommodating spirit of the apostle. Hence he is regarded as acting in a somewhat Jesuitical way, taking men as it were by guile. Such a view is utterly untrue. From his very constitution, he could not bend to any temporising expediency. All that the apostle means is, that he endeavoured to put himself into the place, or rather into the views and feelings, of those whom he endeavoured to win to Christ. Now this is both right and wise. As a debater, whether in politics, philosophy, or religion, he only acts fairly and with power who acts in this way. This power implies-- I. A highly imaginative temperament. The phlegmatic man, whose nature is incapable of taking fire, who moves with the creeping legs of logic rather than on the wings of moral intuition, would find it all but impossible to realise another man’ s experiences. II. A knowledge of human life. It is necessary that we should make ourselves acquainted not merely with the outward circumstances of men, but with their inner life--their modes of thought, their strongest proclivities. This requires study of men, not as they appear in books, but as they appear in their circle, and men, not in the mass, but in their individual character and idiosyncrasies. III. A passionate love for souls. Nothing but the constraining love of Christ can invest man either with the disposition or the power for such a work--a work requiring self-sacrifice, patience, tenderness, invincible determination, and hallowed devotion. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Power of tact A little management will often avoid resistance, which a vast force will strive in vain to overcome. (Colton.) 1 Corinthians 9:24 They which run in a race, run all, hut one receiveth the prize.The Greek athletic festivals and their lessons 1. Of these the most famous was that held every fifth year at Olympia in the west of Peloponnese. Very famous and ancient also was the Isthmian festival held every two years at the Isthmus, about eight miles from, and in full view of, the city of Corinth. Similar festivals were held at Nemea and Delphi. But in these the athletic element was less conspicuous. All these were instituted before the dawn of history. Other festivals, in imitation of them, were held in Paul’ s day in many cities of Asia, e.g., at Tarsus, and notably at Antioch in Syria. 2. All athletes, i.e., competitors for prizes, had ten months’ training, under the direction of appointed teachers and under various restrictions of diet. At the beginning of the festival they were required to prove to the judges that they were of pure Greek blood, had not forfeited by misconduct the right of citizenship, and had undergone the necessary training. Then began the various contests, in an appointed order. Of these, the oldest and most famous was the footrace. Others were wrestling, boxing, chariot and horse racing. The prize was a wreath (or crown) of olive at Olympia, and of pine leaves (at one time of olive) at the Isthmus. The giving of the prizes was followed by processions and sacrifices, and by a public banquet to the conquerors. The whole festival at Olympia lasted five days. 3. The importance of these athletic festivals in the eyes of the ancient Greeks it is difficult to appreciate now. They were the great family gatherings of the nation, held under the auspices, and under the shadow of the temples, of their gods. The laws regulating them were held as binding by the various independent states of Greece. The month in which they were held was called the sacred month, and was solemnly announced. And all war between Greek states ceased, under pain of the displeasure of their gods, while the festival lasted. The festivals were attended by immense crowds from all the Greek states, and from even the most distant colonies. The various states sent embassies, and vied with each other in the splendour of them and of the gifts they brought. The greatest cities thought themselves honoured by the victory of a citizen. The victor was received home with a triumphal procession, entered the city by a new opening broken for him through the walls, was taken in a chariot to the temple of its guardian deity, and welcomed with songs. In some cases a reward in money was given, and release from taxation. In honour of the successful athlete poems were written; of which we have specimens in the poems of Pindar. A statue of the victor was permitted to be placed, and in many cases was placed, by townsmen or friends, in the sacred grove of the presiding deity. An avenue of these statues, shadowed by an avenue of pine-trees, leading up to the temple of Poseidon, which stood within two hundred yards of the racecourse at the Isthmus of Corinth, is mentioned by Pausanias (bk. 2:1, 7). Close by this temple with its avenue of statues Paul probably passed on his way from Athens to Corinth. The Olympic festival, which survived the longest, was abolished in A.D. 394, four years after the public suppression of paganism in the Roman Empire. The Greek athletic festivals must be carefully distinguished from the bloody Roman gladiatorial combats. That these athletic festivals permeated and moulded the thought both of classic writers and of the apostle to the Gentiles, we have abundant proof. Eternal life is to be obtained only by contest and victory (Philippians 3:14; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 2:5; 2 Timothy 4:7 f; cf. Luke 13:24; Hebrews 12:1; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4; Revelation 2:10; Revelation 3:11. The Christian life is both a preparation for conflict (verse 25; 2 Timothy 2:5), a race (verse 24; Philippians 3:12; Acts 20:24; 2 Timothy 4:7); a boxing (verse 27); and a wrestling (Ephesians 6:12), Paul’ s converts will be his crown in the great day (1 Thessalonians 2:19; Philippians 4:1). And, just as the athlete, victorious but not yet crowned, lay down to rest on the evening after conflict, waiting for the glories of the morrow, so Paul (2 Timothy 4:7 f). This metaphor-- I. Presents a needful complement of Paul’ s doctrine of justification by grace and through faith. Though eternal life is altogether a free gift of God, it is given only to those who strive for it with all their powers. Therefore we must ever ask, not only whether an action open to us is lawful, but whether it will increase or lessen our spiritual strength. Just so, an athlete would forego many things otherwise harmless, and some not even forbidden by the laws for athletes, simply because he was striving for a prize. II. Receives in turn its needful complement in the doctrine of the holy spirit. Had we to contend for life in our own strength, we might be doubtful of the result, as was many a resolute athlete on the morning of the contest. But in us is the might of God, crushing (Romans 16:20; 1 John 4:4) our adversary under our feet, and carrying us (1 Kings 18:46) forward to the goal. Therefore, day by day we go down into the arena, to fight with foes infinitely stronger than we, knowing that “ we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Conclusion: That the crowded Isthmian festival was held each alternate year at the very gates of Corinth and almost under the shadow of its Acropolis, must have given to the metaphor of verse 24 special force in the minds of the Corinthians. And, possibly, Paul was himself present at a festival during (Acts 18:11) his eighteen months’ sojourn at Corinth, using perhaps the opportunity to summon the assembled strangers to a nobler contest. (Prof. Beet.)The Christian race In a race generally there are multitudes to compete, but out of those multitudes bow few win! The same fact in the Christian race can be accounted for on two grounds:-- I. The lack of earnestness. Consider this in--1. Its sources. (1) Lack of knowledge, or confusion of thought. Because of such passages as Romans 6:23; Titus 3:5-7; John 3:16, &c., some do not see what there is for the believer to strive after. As though merely being a child were enough; as though it were not possible for a father to give his children special marks of his love. “ How pleased father will be when he sees how much we have done.” Are not children, when speaking in this way, really labouring for just the kind of prize held out here? the expressed approbation (Matthew 25:21) of the “ righteous judge” (2 Timothy 4:8). (2) Lack of appreciation. All who see the nature of this gracious reward do not also see its great value. Besides, how dim and distant! Like Esau’ s despised birthright, how intangible the whole promise! 2. In its results. Those who have never succeeded in grasping this prize with their hearts, naturally never do so with their hands. Such halfhearted competitors have lost the race even before they begin. Never starting, how are they to arrive? In such an undertaking as this, would it not be more than a miracle if they did? II. Lack of suitable training. Consider--1. What “ training” Signifies. Living by rule. To be “ temperate” (verse 25) is to rule oneself. It is to “ keep under” the body, &c. (verse 27). It is to deny ourselves everything that would in any way impede us in running our race (Hebrews 12:1). Hence we see-- 2. What the lack of it does. It secures failure. (1) On account of the greatness of the enterprise. What we are striving for is nothing less than the “ mastery.” In such an enterprise, if we do not rule our desires, our desires will rule us--and ruin us too. In such a work we not only need no self-inflicted hindrance, we need all the help we can get. (2) On account of the insufficiency of our strength. Even those who are strong, if “ out of condition,” are unequal to their task. Much more we, who are weak. Conclusion: To stir us up, consider in the case of failure 1. How much is lost. How can we hope that we are true Christians if we do not even “ study to show ourselves approved unto God” ? There are those who have just enough religion to make them miserable. 2. How little is gained, viz., too little to be described. The man who misses the approbation of Christ obtains no other in its stead, not even his own. How many centuries have passed since the question of Mat 16:26 was first asked? How much nearer are we, even now, to finding a reply? (W. S. Lewis, M. A.)The Christian athlete I. His exercises. The Christian life may be compared to--1. A race.2. A combat. II. The conditions of success in these exercises.1. Personal mastery.2. Moderation.3. Distinctness of aim.4. Concentration of purpose.5. Activity.6. Courage.7. Perseverance. III. The reward of success.1. Its intrinsic value.2. Its permanence. Application: This reward should make us--1. Burn with ambition. 2. Watchful3. Enduring and contented. (W. Stevens.)The spiritual racer I. The race. Christian life is a race. It is no haphazard thing; it is marked off and measured; it has a starting-point and a goal.1. The race begins at the Cross. The Christian, at his conversion, enters the racecourse, and his name is recorded and published. 2. The race ends at death. The most hopeful beginning may have a hopeless ending. A good start is of immense value; but it is not he that maketh a fine start, but “ he that endureth unto the end, that shalt be saved.” It does not take very long for the racer to lose all the advantage of a good start: and a life, though nobly run, if it fail in the home stretches, will be sure to miss the crown. II. The racers are all who have forsaken sin, accepted Christ, and publicly entered the path of obedience. The Bible does not speak of invisible racers, but of those who are “ compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses.” Those Grecian athletes were in training long before the day of conflict came. But the Christian’ s training begins with the race. He trains in the race, and thus gains agility and skill through the turmoil of the contest. The racers--1. Strip for the race. “ Lay aside every weight.” Nothing that hinders must be left on. 2. Make progress. “ Run.” Think how ridiculous a lounger would have appeared, hanging around the ancient stadium, professing to be a racer, but never getting out of sight of the starting-point. Dash into the race, or leave the ground. 3. Persevere. “ A race.” Not a little jet of speed, because one feels like it, or down street for fun. Christianity demands not only prompt action, but continuity of effort. If religion were only a thing of frames and feelings, some would soon fly to the goal, especially if the feeling held out. 4. Concentrate effort. “ Run a race.” Christianity harmonises all man’ s powers, and, with a noble obliviousness to surrounding attractions, hurls the whole man into the race. 5. Are watchful. “ So run that ye may obtain.” Christian activity is not a blind, haphazard thing. We are to keep our eyes about us, lest we stumble. III. The reward. In the stadium, the prize, like all earthly honours, was perishable. But the Christian prize is an incorruptible crown. Proud moment, that, when the successful racer had the chaplet placed upon his brow, amid the applause of thousands. Grander moment for the Christian athlete, when amid the shouts of rejoicing myriads, the pierced hands of Jesus place upon his head the crown of glory, with the blessed words of approval: “ Well done,” &c. (T. Kelly.)The great race I. The duty enjoined--“ running.” The word implies--immediate attention--strong exertion. Not that easy, quiet religion which takes salvation as a matter of course, and regards condemnation as out of date. “ The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,” &c. II. The manner of discharging this duty.1. Previous preparation. (1) Moderation.(2) The removal of every weight.(3) Once more: we should take care in what manner.(4) Being “ shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.” 2. An actual exercise. Running implies-- (1) Going forward.(2) In a direct line.(3) Without halting.(4) Without looking back.(5) Lawfully (2 Timothy 2:5), i.e.,(a) In dependence on Christ-- (b) With a view to the glory of Christ. 3. Patient endurance. Blessed are they which “ endure to the end, for they shall be saved.” III. The object at which we are to aim. Everlasting life--to be “ found in Christ” --to “ know Christ,” whom to know is everlasting life. (Bishop Montagu Villiers.)The great race I. The prize competed for. An object in life is necessary to every one. Without it our energies are like the shafts and wheels of a machine, when there is no steam in the boiler. Put before a man the prospect of a fortune, and how cheerfully will he devote himself to his business. An objectless man can only be indolent and wretched. How these conditions remain when we rise to the higher ranges of life. There is an object in religion. Nowhere is a higher incentive needed or furnished.1. This is not happiness. There are many whose creed is--Be good that you may be happy. But the principle is wrong. It is not for that a good man runs. He knows that happiness is like a little bird which will sit on your shoulder and sing for you all day, if you do not turn to look at it. But the moment you begin to look at it, it takes its flight. Hugo says truly--“ Being in possession of the false aim in life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!” 2. It is not heaven. That is, undoubtedly, a home of the soul. But Christ never urged men to believe in Him in order that they might get it. The assurance of it is a very different thing from making it the reason of a good life. If the only reason one has for serving God is that he may receive his pitiful denarius at the end of the day, he will find that he has been running a race for a corruptible, not an incorruptible end. His heaven will be no heaven, since his heart will still be full of that self-seeking in whose train follows a hell of discontent and misery. Out of the heart the love of Christ must thrust the selfishness which makes not only present self-good, but eternal self-good, the aim of religion. 3. The thing for which we run is a kingdom of heaven which is within us--a Christlike character. The good man runs the race that he may be “ perfect and entire” in goodness, lacking nothing. Heaven will at last fall to his lot, but to get it is not his ambition. He aims at a life made holy by the pursuit of righteousness. II. Certain conditions accepted.1. The back must resolutely be turned on wrongdoing. No one can lawfully enter on the contest for holiness with any love of sin in the heart. The merchant who conducts his business upon dishonest principles, cannot at the same time be a disciple. He is not running lawfully, and will never win the prize. 2. A strong faith in Christ who takes away the sin of which we have repented. Many hold that for a good life one has only to recognise the voice of conscience, and to follow its directions. But let us not be deceived. History can tell us something of the fruits of this so-called independent morality. The teaching of Socrates and Plato wrought no radical reformation in Athenian morals. The precepts of Seneca could not save his pupil Nero from the depths of brutality and shame. The moral philosophy of Hume culminated in the French Revolution. It is impossible to rise above the low levels of a sinful self without a high faith in Him who is the power of God unto salvation. Argument is not needed to enforce this. It is prescribed by the eternal Judge. 3. Open confession of our fidelity to. Christ. We cannot, lawfully, run the race in secret. Here is the plain word of the Master. He requires us to enter into open fellowship with His cause on the earth. 4. Great and continued effort. It is not an easy thing to do right. In this contest, every energy of the soul is called into play. Amateur Christianity may do for show, but it tells for nothing in the great sum of life. This is the vice of our age. We are enthusiastic about everything but religion. (H. R. Harris.)The race of life 1. The style of Paul is peculiar in its directness. We may hesitate to illustrate religious truth by sports as now conducted. The Greek games, however, were not of a mercenary character. No entrance fee was demanded, no betting, and no disreputable people were allowed. 2. Physical culture was more esteemed than now. We often have well-trained minds in thin, sapless bodies. Our schoolrooms rob vitality. In Greece the instruction was given outdoors. Manly struggles ennobled the physical nature. 3. Picture to yourselves the temple of Neptune, the stadium, and the circling seats where sat the beauty and the wealth of Greece, a “ great cloud of witnesses” applauding the efforts of the racers. Here is the starting-post and there the goal, with a tripod holding a garland of pine. Now the judge is seated, and the herald cries out that no unclean, no criminal or foreigner, shall draw near. The signal is given and the race begins. 4. We are all runners. Life is earnest. It may be a triumph or a disastrous failure. What is required:-- I. Temperance. This word is belittled if referred to mere abstinence from drink. It means self-mastery. The whole nature must be under constraint and restraint, lest we slip and fall. II. Watchfulness. Temptations creep upon us stealthily. Wealth, pleasure, ambition, and cupidity have their golden apples. Unless we keep our eye on the goal we are lost. III. The laying aside of every weight. The Pilgrim lost his load at the Cross. We must drop there everything which hinders. Men of this world make every sacrifice to gain money or power. Politicians run with zeal. They do it for a corruptible crown. (D. M. Reeves, D. D.)Earnest counsels on the race of life I. Trifle not--the business is earnest. II. Delay not--the opportunity is short. III. Err not--the path is narrow. IV. Divide not your attention--the work is difficult. V. Relax not your efforts--he only that endureth shall be saved. VI. Faint not--the prize is glorious. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The Christian race You are called, every one of you, for the kingdom of God; but it depends upon yourself whether you will work this salvation out. Life is a race, in which many will run but will not gain a prize. What is the meaning of the simile? I. Run with all your speed. There are some who labour from morning to night to win the treasures of this life, who are slothful in the work of saving their souls. And if they could gain the whole world and lose their own souls, what is the profit? Run with all your speed, for the way is long to the kingdom of God. The wise men from the East, when they saw the star, followed it through all the dangers and difficulties of a long journey. The attaining of eternal life, i.e., so to live that eternal life may be in us here, is the greatest work that we can do. The prodigal who departed from his father’ s house into a far country, has to go back step by step as far as he departed. Surely this work is not the work of a day but of a life; and life is short for so great a work, and life is fleeting and uncertain. We cannot promise ourselves to-morrow; tomorrow is God’ s, to-day is ours. II. Run with all your strength. If you see a man set about doing a task, you can see by the way he goes about it whether his heart is in it or not. Men who decide to get rich or to make a name will overcome every obstacle. But such men are often cowardly and slack in the work of their salvation. And yet we are warned that no man can serve two masters. There must be no half-heartedness in the work of our salvation, and there can be no neutrality. “ He who is not for Me is against Me.” III. With self-denial and temperance. Our Lord has said, “ If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out,” &c. The thing most necessary to you, you must cast off, if it cause you to sin. Remember that out of the seven deadly sins four are spiritual--pride, jealousy, anger, and strife. Such sins you must cast out. St. Paul says, “ I keep under my body,” &c. And if he had need to say that, how much need we? Venial sins are still important sins, and grow into great sins. And therefore, as St. Paul says here, “ Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” Men who desire to exhibit great feats of endurance have to mortify and control themselves in everything; and we cannot live with a little hardness for our eternal reward. IV. Run with all your hearts. There are two failures in this race--the one is to have too much hope in salvation. Some are as presumptuous as if they had received a revelation that they must be saved. The other is in not having confident hope. We must have confidence in God, and in experience. St. Paul says, “ I know whom I have believed,” &c. If a man is running for his life, as long as he has a hope of escape he will continue running; but the moment he despairs he slackens his efforts. A man who is swimming for his life will strike out strongly if he can hope, but the instant he despairs he sinks. So with those who lose their confidence in God, who are overcome by servile fear. Why are we to trust in God? Because--1. God is Love.2. You have His promises. He has promised you that if you believe in Him He will give you life eternal, What more do you need? Conclusion:1. Take care you are in the right way. St. Augustine said, “ You are making great strides, indeed, but you are out of the right way.” If we are out of the way, every step we take we are going from the kingdom. Our Lord says, “ I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” 2. Having begun to run, do not let your heart do what Lot’ s wife did. Do not look back on the world which you have given up. (Cardinal Manning.)The Christian race I. Its nature--“ So run.” It implies--1. Piety towards God. The love of God must be the all-constraining principle, the Spirit of God the Guide, and the Word of God the constant companion of every candidate. 2. Equity towards all their fellow-creatures. They will, by God’ s grace, endeavour to render to all their dues, and it will be their daily habit “ to do unto others as they would others should do unto them.” 3. Sobriety as to ourselves. It is not enough to abstain from drunkenness, &c., but the candidate’ s Christian course must be temperate in all things, even in lawful matters, keeping under his body, and bringing it into subjection. He is to use this world as not abusing it, and to let his “ moderation be known unto all men,” because “ the Lord is at hand.” II. The manner. “So run.”1. Lawfully.2. With the understanding. We must, ere the resolution be formed, “ sit down and count the cost.”3. Looking forward to “ Jesus the Author and Finisher of faith.”4. Penitently--i.e., godly sorrow for and hatred to sin.5. Prayerfully.6. Cheerfully.7. Believingly (Hebrews 11:1).8. Continually. The Christian, unlike the Olympic race, which was celebrated but once in five years, is to be run every day of our lives.9. Perseveringly. Nothing honourable and desirable is obtained, even in this world, without this. III. The resign. “ That ye may obtain.” (T. Sedger, M. A.)The Christian race I. The christian life is compared to a race. There was a peculiar propriety in the selection of such an image when writing to a people who held the Isthmian games in such reverence, that no national calamity was ever known to hinder their performance. The city was sacked on one occasion, but the games went on. Public events were dated from the time of their celebration. The design of the apostle was to show that the advantage was always on the side of him who, instead of the pine leaves, was running for the crown of life.1. There were points where the comparison held. The racer must keep to the rules of the course, and confine himself within the limits of the stadium. Speed will stand him in no stead without this: and though he may reach the goal, he will not receive the prize. And it is so with the Christian racer. He is not at liberty to choose his ground, to invent a short road, or to seek an easy road there; he must keep in the way of God’ s commandments. “ The law of the Lord is perfect,” and it is equally dishonoured, whether we multiply religious works and let these stand in lieu of the heart, or whether, under the plea of cultivating the heart, we neglect some plainly commanded duties. One man finds it easier to pray for an hour than to control his temper; another to cultivate a highly emotional religion than to part with his money. The gospel crown must be won in the gospel way. 2. There are points in which the parallel fails. (1) In an earthly race, however many may start, only one can win, whereas in the Christian race all may win. He who is faithful over a little shall be as certainly rewarded as he who is faithful over much; each shall receive a crown as large as he can wear. (2) In earthly competitions there must be jealousy and strife; the gain of one competitor is the loss of another, and each one feels it is his interest as far as he lawfully may, to keep all rivals back. But the Christian racer, instead of hindering a weak brother, would help him; he rejoices in the feeling that he has so many companions, and would carry all the world along with him if he could. II. What is implied in the comparison.1. The necessity of vigour, singleness of heart, steadiness of purpose, and determination; the concentration on that work in which we are engaged, of all effort and all hope. Thus the text is a protest against all half-heartedness, all matter-of-course religions, all views of salvation which make it a thing to be done by and by. If you are losers in this race, you lose everything. 2. Deliberation; carefulness, frequent looking both to ourselves and to our way, to see that we are running right. Many have run well who have not run rightly. They took their eye off Christ, and all went wrong with them; they missed the prize through having missed the way. 3. Habitual self-denial (verse 25). The restrictions are not meant to be unnatural, or such as to make life a burden, but mere restraints upon what would be a hurtful excess. We are to be temperate in all things--in our enjoyments, our griefs, our worldly ambitions, our most lawful and permitted affections. 4. The absolute necessity of holding on our way unwearied to the end. There is no prize for him who stops half way. If the disciple after taking up his cross grow weary in well doing; if he put his hand to the plough and look back, both labour and crown are lost. Vigour and alacrity in youth, noble self-sacrifice in manhood; the longest and the best running, all will be unavailing, if, like the Galatians, we suffer any influence to drive us back afterwards. III. The encouragements.1. Remember all eyes are upon you. The eyes of God are upon you; the eyes of Christ are upon you, rejoicing at each onward and victorious step, and in sorrow rather than in auger turning to look upon you when the voice of the cock-crowing proclaims a shameful fall; the eyes of the holy angels are upon you, watching their opportunities to strengthen you with invisible aids; and the eyes of the malignant powers of darkness are upon you, marking your steps to make you fall; the eyes of glorified spirits are upon you (Hebrews 12:1). 2. Think of the priceless worth of the prize for which we run. (D. Moore, M. A.)The Christian life a race I. The christian life is a race. Rapidity, energy, &c., required (Luke 13:24; Colossians 1:29; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7; see Gr., and cf. Luke 22:44). Running often used in illustration of Christian course (Galatians 2:2; Philippians 2:16; Philippians 3:3; Hebrews 12:1; and see Son 1:4, and Psalms 119:32). Some are walking, crawling, loitering,’ &c. (1 Corinthians 16:13). Is not heaven worth running for? (Matthew 11:12). Strive; for many will seek (only) and fail (Luke 13:1-35.). II. The great difference between the figure and reality. There one receives the prize; here all may, though some come much behind others. Happy those with a finished course, a crown won! Some are lame, halt, feeble, slow, &c. Nevertheless, if in Christ, who is the way, they will yet win, and many first will be last, and last first. III. How? Mark how these Greeks were trained.1. What care, pains, self-denial, self-restraint in all things, hours, food, rest, &c. (Romans 8:13). The Corinthians self-indulgent, which St. Paul rebukes (cf. 1 Peter 2:11; 1 Peter 5:8; and especially 2 Timothy 2:3-5). 2. They were to “ strive lawfully.” So we are “ under the law to Christ” (v. 21). IV. The prize. Great disparity between the reality and the figure. Astonishing what men will undergo to obtain--what? a little fame, gold, power, or authority. All the prizes of this world like those in Greece, which were wreaths, no sooner clutched than gone. But the Christian prize how glorious. A crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8); of life (Revelation 2:10; James 1:12); of glory (1 Peter 5:4; cf. Revelation 4:4; Revelation 4:10; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 7:9). “ Hold fast that thou hast,” &e. What hast thou?--hast thou Christ? Hold Him fast and run. Soon the race will be over (2 Timothy 4:7-8). Conclusion: Revelation 3:21; Revelation 2:10. (W. E. Light, M. A.)The heavenly race 1. There are few things upon record in which the exertion was so violent, and yet so short, as a Greek race. And therefore it stands at least four times in St. Paul’ s epistles, as the emblem of the brevity and the struggle of the Christian life. 2. We can conceive how the believer’ s career will look when he casts his eye back upon it from eternity. First there came a Divine influence--then a holy ambition--then an earnest determination--then all the happy self-discipline--then the race--severe even unto death: he rushed, passed by, and all is over--and then the rest, and the joy. 3. In that course all of you are occupying now your positions. Your stadium is the little span of your present existence--the spectators are the holy angels, the heralds are the ministers who call you to the contest, and animate you by the way--the umpire is the Lord Jesus, and the crown is life eternal. 4. Already some have run their course, and are not uninterested in those who are filling, after them, the same exciting scene. Others are just offering themselves; while many are midway. But alas I some have never set out, and others who did “ run well” --but, bewitched with the world’ s sorcery, they have ceased to run. We shall only be fulfilling our duty, as the heralds, if we set before you-- I. Some of the conditions of the course upon which your admission and your subsequent victory must depend.1. In those Isthmian games none could join who were not freemen of unspotted character. As soon as the combatants appeared, the crier, having commanded silence, laid his hand on the head of each in succession, demanding of all the assembly, “ Is there any one here who can accuse this man of being a slave, or of being guilty of any moral wrongs of life?” If any stain was found upon his character, he was excluded; but if otherwise, then he was led to the altar of Jupiter, there to make solemn oath that he would conform to all the regulations, and so he proceeded to the brunt. 2. And now what if God should make proclamation that none should be candidates for the crown of life but those who, free from sin, are obedient to His laws? Could you pass the scrutiny? The very scrutiny of which St. Paul speaks in verse 27, “ castaway” meaning “ not approved in the scrutiny.” If there be any secret love of sin, men may reckon you in the number of candidates, but God does not! II. But suppose that the examination has shown you one who, believing in Christ, is emancipated from sin, and obedient to God’ s law. Follow me to the stripping room (Hebrews 12:1). There are some who are sadly “ weighted” with many things, Hoarding money--personal vanity--worldly amusements--society where God is not--self-indulgence. What are these things but clogs? You cannot “ run” with those things on. Will you cumber your energies when you need to stretch them to the uttermost? In the natural course, men are accurate to the ounce--and will you trifle with those fearful odds? You may set out; but if your heart is not in it, it will only be soon to creep, then to crawl, then to stop, then to lie down, then to go to sleep, and then to die! Go into the stripping room at once, undress yourself, else do not call yourself a runner. III. But now, entered on the race, “ Press toward the mark for the prize.”1. “ The mark” was a certain line drawn along tile course, to show the runners exactly where they were to run--so that if you would run lawfully, take care not only that you are going to the right object, but that you are pursuing that object along the right line. The Christian’ s “ mark,” in general words, is the Scriptural method of salvation. This “ mark” stretches itself out all along. “ Press” to it. Every day consult your Bible to find your “ mark.” 2. At the time when St. Paul was writing there was a particular race in which every runner carried a torch; and he won the race who came in first, bringing with him his torch still alight. Some, running very fast, put out their torch; others, running slowly, kept their torch in, but arrived too late. Beware lest a false excitement put out the flame of love! and yet beware, equally, lest over-caution hinder too long! but let zeal and love, patience and speed, go hand in hand, with equal pace--for so heaven is won! IV. And now I see you in the midst of your career. Every race quickens as it proceeds; and the competition grows greater. You must stretch to the point. The secret of every race, perhaps, is fixedness of eye. Therefore the apostle has given us two directions.1. “ Forget the things which are behind” --counting our own past attainment nothing. 2. “ Look unto Jesus.” (J. Vaughan, M. A.)The heavenly race I. What are we to run for?1. Some think they must be religious in order to be respectable. Verily, if this be what you seek after, you shall get it; for the Pharisees who sought the praise of men “ had their reward.” But is it worth the drudgery? 2. Others go a little farther and desire to be considered saints. We have a considerable admixture of persons in our churches who only come for the mere sake of obtaining a religious status. “ They have their reward,” and they shall never have any but what they obtain here. 3. Another set take up with religious life for what they can get by it. I have known tradespeople attend church for the mere sake of getting custom. Loaves and fishes drew some of Christ’ s followers, and they are very attracting baits, even to this day. They have their reward; but at what a price they buy it! 4. Another class take up with religion for the sake of quieting their conscience; and it is astonishing how little of religion will sometimes do that. I have known a man who was drunk in the week, and who got his money dishonestly, and yet he always had an easy conscience by going to church on Sunday. 5. If you run for anything else than salvation, should you win, what you have won is not worth the running for. II. The rules of the race.1. Some never will obtain the prize, because they are not even entered. These will tell you, “ We make no profession.” It is quite as well, perhaps, that you do not; because it is better to make no profession at all than to be hypocrites. Yet it is strange that men should be so ready to confess this. People are not so fast about telling their faults: and yet you hear people confess the greatest fault. God has made them, and yet they won’ t serve Him; Christ hath come into the world to save them, and yet they will not regard Him. 2. There is another class whose names are down, but they never started right. A bad start is a sad thing. There are some who on a sudden leap into religion. They get it quickly, and they keep it for a time, and at last they lose it because they did not get their religion the right way. They have heard that before a man can be saved, it is necessary to feel the weight of sin, make a confession of it, renounce all hope in his own works, and look to Jesus alone. But they look upon all these things as unpleasant preliminaries and therefore, before they have attended to repentance, &c., they make a profession of religion. This is just setting up in business without a stock-in-trade, and there must be a failure. 3. Some cannot win because they carry too much weight. “ How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven!” Carry the weight of this world’ s cares about you, and it will be as much as you can do to stand upright under them, but as to running a race with such burdens, it is just impossible. 4. We have known people who stopped on their way to kick their fellows. Such things sometimes occur in a race. The horse, instead of speeding onwards to the mark, is of an angry disposition, and sets about kicking those that are running beside him--there is not much probability of his coming in first. “ Now they that run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.” There is one, however, who never gets it, and that is the man who always attends to his fellow-creatures instead of himself. It is a mysterious thing that I never yet saw a man with a hoe on his shoulder, going to hoe his neighbour’ s garden; but every day I meet with persons who are attending to other people’ s character. They have so few virtues of their own that they do not like anybody else to have any. 5. Those will not win the race who, although they seem to start very fair, very soon loiter. At the first starting they fly away as if they had wings to their heels; but a little further on it is with difficulty that with whip and spur they are to be kept going at all. 6. Another class start well too, and they run very fast at first, but at last they leap over the rails and go quite out of the course altogether. They are like the dog that returned to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. “ The last end of that man shall be worse than the first.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)Running in the race I. The necessity of self-denial.1. Difficulty of winning the crown. If he who makes every exertion is the only winner, what becomes of the sluggish, selfish soul? All roads downward are easy; all roads upward difficult. 2. Greatness of the loss of the crown. Some will be saved--so as by fire (chap. 3.). Scarcely saved, but the reward lost. II. Its nature.1. All sin must be laid aside. Progress is impossible so long as one sin is deliberately indulged or one duty wilfully neglected. 2. All weights must be laid aside (Hebrews 12:1-3). What is lawful in itself may weigh us down. The true runner will sacrifice everything to progress. III. Its inducement. Throughout the moral universe there runs a law of compensation. Self-denial is but a postponement of pleasure to the future.1. Sacrifice is reward by self-mastery. To keep the body under implies the reason and conscience enthroned and regnant, and the Spirit of God ruling over all. That is the ideal estate of man. 2. Progress and coronation. To make advance is reward enough to a true disciple; but to get to the goal and get the prize too--that is heaven. Conclusion:1. We must run lawfully, i.e., according to the Scripture rules of the race.2. We must be temperate in all things.3. We must run perseveringly; pursuing even when faint.4. We must run hopefully.5. We must run purposefully--not as a boxer who beats the air, not as one who runs uncertainly--a definite goal and the eye always on it. (Homiletic Monthly.)Running, the true Christian attitude Cecil says that some adopt the Indian maxim, that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. Such is not the teaching of the gospel. It is a good thing to be walking in the ways of God, but it is better to be running--making real and visible progress, day by day advancing in experience and attainments. David likens the sun to a strong man rejoicing to run a race; not dreading it and shrinking back from it, but delighting in the opportunity of putting forth all his powers. Who so runs, runs well. (The Christian.)Not all who run win As victory in the games was the incentive which stimulated the youth of Greece to attain the perfection of physical strength and beauty, so there is laid before us an incentive which is sufficient to carry us forward to perfect moral attainment. The brightest jewel in the incorruptible crown is the joy of having become all God made us to be. But there are men who when opportunity is given them to win true glory turn away to salaries and profits, to meat, drink, and frivolity. The incorruptible crown is held over their head; but so intent are they on the muck-rake, they do not even see it. To those who would win it Paul gives these directions:-- I. Be temperate (verse 25).1. Contentedly and without a murmur the racer submits to the ten months’ training without which he may as well not compete. The little indulgences of others he must forego. His chances are gone if in any point he relaxes the discipline. So if the Christian indulges in the pleasures of life as freely as other men, he proves that he has no higher aim than they and can of course win no higher prize. 2. Temperance is complete and continuous self-rule. No spasmodic efforts and partial abstinences will ever bring a man victorious to the goal. One day’ s debauch was enough to undo the result of weeks in the case of the athlete; and one lapse into worldliness undoes what years of self-restraint have won. One indiscretion on the part of the convalescent will undo what the care of months has slowly achieved. One fraud spoils the character for honesty which years of upright living have earned. II. Be decided. “ I run,” says Paul, “ not as uncertainly,” not as a man who does not know where he is going or has not made up his mind to go there. We have all some kind of idea about what God offers and calls us to. But this idea must be clear if we are to make for it straight. No man can run straight to a mere will-o’ -the-wisp, or who first means to go to one station and then changes his mind. Paul had made up his mind not to pursue comfort, learning, money, &c., but the kingdom of God. He knew where he was going and to what all his efforts tended. What then do the traces of our past life show? III. Be in earnest. “ So fight I, not as one that beateth the air,” not as one amusing himself with idle flourishes, but as one who has a real enemy to encounter.1. How much of mere parade and sham-fighting is there in the Christian army! We seem to be doing everything that a good soldier of Jesus Christ need do save the one thing: we slay no enemy. We are well trained: we could instruct others; we spend much time on exercises which are calculated to make an impression on sin; but where are our slain foes? 2. Even where there is some reality in the contest we may still be beating the air. Many persons who level blows at their sins do not after all strike them. Spiritual energy is put forth; but it is not brought into contact with the sin to be destroyed. Paul’ s language suggests that the reason may be that there remains in the heart some reluctance quite to kill and put an end to sin. We pray God, for example, to preserve us from the evils of praise or of success; and yet we continue to court them. Therefore our warfare against sin becomes unreal. 3. The result is detrimental. Sin is like something floating in the air or the water: the very effort we make to grasp and crush it displaces it, and it floats mockingly before us untouched. Or it is like an agile antagonist who springs back from our blow, so that the force we have expended merely racks and strains our own sinews and does him no injury. So when we spend much effort in conquering sin and find it as lively as ever, the spirit is strained and hurt. It is less able than before to resist sin, less believing, less hopeful, and scoffs at fresh resolves and endeavours. Finally, Paul tells us that the enemy against which he directed his well-planted blows was his own body. Every man’ s body is his enemy when, instead of being his servant, it becomes his master. When the body mutinies and refuses to obey the will, it becomes our most dangerous enemy. The word Paul uses is the word used of the most damaging blow one boxer could give another. It was probably by sheer strength of will and by the grace of Christ that Paul subdued his body. Many in all ages have striven to subdue it by fasting, &c., and of these practices we have no right to speak scornfully until we can say that by other means we have reduced the body to its proper position as the servant of the spirit. There is a fair and reasonable degree in which a marl may and ought to cherish his own flesh, but there is also needful a disregard to many of its claims and a hard-hearted obduracy to its complaints. In an age when Spartan simplicity of life is almost Unknown, it is very easy to sow to the flesh almost without knowing it until we find ourselves reaping corruption. (M. Dods, D. D.)How to win the crown I. Make up your mind to run. Decision: This must be settled once for all: “ Put my name down, I will run.” St. Paul says, “ So have I; I therefore so run.” Have you? II. Put yourself in training. Discipline: “ For even Christ pleased not Himself.” III. Strain every nerve. Earnestness: See them, each one alert, waiting for the signal--then, away, each one with desperate eagerness seeking to cover the course. “ So run that ye may obtain.” Strenuous effort is needed. Look at rowers in a boat-race, or players in a football match. Are we to be put to shame by these? IV. Aim at the winning-post. Singleness of mind: Straight for the mark! No step can he afford to take outside the line which leads right to it. V. Hit straight and hard! Reality: It is no sham-fight. He cannot afford to hit wildly, as one beating the air. Our own besetting sin must be found out. We must learn, what the tempter knows so well, where our weak place is. There we must meet the enemy. VI. Never give in. Persistence: Keep at it to the end. (T. Puddicombe.)The Christian race I. How we ought to conduct ourselves in the Christian life, or, to preserve the metaphor, how we ought to run so as to obtain.1. We ought to make ourselves well acquainted with the nature of the Christian life, with its duties and advantages, its difficulties and its dangers. This knowledge lies at the foundation of all spiritual improvement. The history of Christianity abounds with examples of the dangerous effects of partial and mistaken views of religion. To this source we may trace that system of corruption and superstition which, after the days of the apostles, gradually spread over a great part of the world. To the same source we may trace the overwhelming influence of the papal power, the thunders of excommunication, and the horrors of the Inquisition, the practice of retiring from the world to a life of monastic seclusion, together with many of those wars, persecutions, and massacres, which in the Middle Ages deluged with blood the nations of Europe. A plan of mercy has been devised and executed for the salvation of man. This plan, together with the means by which we become interested in it, has been fully unfolded in the gospel. But if we are ignorant of those means, we cannot possibly avail ourselves of them. Hence the necessity of being acquainted with the Scriptures. They contain a full revelation of the Divine will. In them the path of duty is clearly pointed out, and they unfold the mystery which had been hid for ages, but which was at last made known by Jesus Christ. 2. Having become acquainted with the nature of tile Christian life, we ought also carefully to avoid everything that may obstruct or retard us in our spiritual course. Christians ought to guard against the beginnings of sin, and shun every appearance of evil. They ought to subdue every evil passion, and to mortify every unhallowed lust. Without doing this, it is in vain to think of making progress in religious attainments. Every commandment of the law is enjoined by the same authority, and therefore whoever habitually violates any one of them, may be justly reputed a transgressor of the whole. 3. But Christians ought not merely to abstain from sin, they ought to discharge the duties of the Christian life with patience, with ardour, and with perseverance. (1) They ought to discharge them with patience. “ Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Patience is opposed to a hasty, fretful, and discontented temper, and consists in a disposition to bear the severest trials without murmuring, and to fulfil the part assigned to us, notwithstanding all the difficulties with which we may have to struggle. (2) We ought to discharge the duties of the Christian life with ardour. This temper of mind is directly opposite to that lukewarmness, and difference about religion, which the Scriptures so much condemn. Why are men so ready to lay hold of every little excuse to justify their criminal attachment to the enjoyments of the present life, and their neglect of future blessings? It is because they want that ardour which penetrates the heart of the disciples of Christ, and’ alone can raise them above the enjoyments of the world. (3) We ought to persevere in well-doing to the end of our days. II. Some motives to encourage you to comply with the exhortation in the text.1. Consider, first, that you have many spectators of your conduct. To be approved of by those whose approbation we esteem; to be respected by those among whom we live; to be extolled by the wise and the good, and to obtain a name among such as have distinguished themselves among men; this conveys to the mind a pleasure, to which no man can be insensible. 2. Consider, next, the example of those who have gone before us. The duties to which we are called have already been performed; the difficulties with which we have to struggle have already been surmounted; and the troubles which we feel have already been borne by many of our brethren. 3. Consider, again, that the discharge of our duty is itself attended with pleasure; that the service which God requires of us is the most conducive to our present peace, as well as to our future happiness. 4. Consider, also, that a crown of glory is reserved for the faithful disciple of Christ. It is not a garland made up of flowers and leaves, which soon wither and decay; it is a crown which will flourish, when the most precious gems on earth are dissolved, when the luminaries of heaven are extinguished, and the moon and the stars fade away in their orbs. 5. We have the promise of Divine aid in every difficulty and in every trial. God sendeth no man a warfare on his own charges. When He calls us to duty, He invariably promises to fit us for the discharge of it. (John Ramsay, M. A.)I. To give you a general account of the race we have to run. In general, the race we have to run comprehends the whole of that duty we owe to God; namely, obedience to His laws, and submission to His providence; doing what He commands, and patiently enduring whatever He is pleased to appoint. II. To illustrate the fitness and propriety of this similitude, and to show that the Christian life doth very much resemble a race in several important respects. There is a certain limited way in which the Christian must run, emphatically called the way of God’ s commandments. This we must keep with the utmost precision, “ neither turning aside to the right hand, nor to the left.” Mere activity will not avail us: we may be very keen and busy, but if we are not busy according to rule, we only lose our labour: God can never accept it as a service done to Him. Again, as running a race is a swift and constant progression, so ought the life of a Christian to be. There are several important respects in which the Christian race doth widely differ from all others.1. In other races, though many may start, and hold out to the end, yet none but the foremost receiveth the prize: whereas it is quite otherwise in the Christian race. There may be a great disparity among the candidates, but every one who endureth to the end shall be saved. 2. They who run in the Christian race have no envy, no jealousy, among themselves; far less do they molest and hinder one another: on the contrary, the stronger help forward the weaker, and give them all the assistance in their power. 3. They who run in other races have nothing but labour till they obtain the prize; but in the Christian race, the exercise itself carries part of the reward in its bosom: “ Wisdom’ s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” 4. A distinguishing property of the Christian race; namely, the certainty of gaining the prize at last. III. Let me now exhort you so to run that you may at length obtain. And for this end let us consider--1. That many eyes are upon us. 2. That many have already run this race who are now in possession of tile glorious prize. 3. The unspeakable worth of the prize to be obtained. (R. Walker.)Human rivalries I. Nothing is more undeniably true than that rivalries are among the most fruitful sources of evil in every department of life.1. People are agitated by heated political contests which, for a time, absorb every other interest. 2. Commercial rivalries. The rivalries of the street, the shop, the drawing-room, when and where do we not hear their echoes? II. How universal is the training that produces these rivalries. It begins in childhood and runs all through life. How many people are there who covet a thing because it is intrinsically good, compared with those who covet it because it is better than somebody else’ s. The race of competitive display we see on every side. No place is so sacred as to be free from it. III. Yet competition, a strife to excel, nay, if you choose, downright rivalry, has a just and rightful place in the plan of human life.1. It is the equitable thing that the best man should win. 2. But the rivalries of our daily life must be exercised under manly and Christian sanctions. 3. But having said this, let us see to it that no eagerness for victory persuades us for one moment to forget that greater than any other triumph is the triumph of inflexible principle. 4. It is just here that we touch what may be called the heroic side of human rivalries. 5. In the eagerness of business competition, in the race for a prize, whether it he social, or commercial, or political, what a rare field for that magnanimity which will not take an undue advantage of another. 6. And even so, nay, still more, when there comes that harder strain upon the nobility of our nature which comes with our successes. How hard to bear meekly and generously the intoxication of success. (H. C. Potter, D. D.)Try a run On one occasion I had taken my boys with me to the top of a mountain 2,500 feet high. The youngest of them got very tired on the way back; I thought he would fairly give in, and that I would have to carry him. As we were crossing the valley we came within sight of home, a mile and a half off. I said, “ Shall we run and see who will be home first?” He put his hand in mine, and we started off with this idea: “ We will be home before the boys.” On we went, leaping over streams, jumping over every boulder, on and on across the fields. Disheartened worker, if you get tired and weary in God’ s service, try a run, holding your Father’ s hand. (J. Carstairs.)Parabolic use of the occupations of life Learn-- I. That the lower occupations of our life serve as a parable of the highest. Probably, few parables of Christian life could have been more clearly understood and keenly appreciated than these national pastimes. Pastimes become parables of Christian life. Yes, and if pastimes, why not all the engagements of life? Assuredly Scripture warrants us letting commerce become such a parable. “ Buy the truth,” &c. Do not agriculture, travel, art, music, &c., stand out to thoughtful eyes as indications of the true merchandise, exploration, painting, harmony, of which all that concern merely the material are but shadows. “ The things that are seen are temporal,” &c. II. That the highest occupations of life challenge and employ all the best qualities of manhood that are employed in the lower. St. Paul clearly recognised certain moral elements of great worth in those ancient games. There was the perseverance of the runner, the self-mastery of the wrestler; arid such perseverance and self-mastery were to be imitated by men in the highest region of human experiences. So it is in the whole realm of occupation. The industry, persistence, frugality, heroism, &c., we may see in any course of human affairs are to be imitated by us in our concern for, and contact with, the sublimest spiritual realities. Why? This leads us to notice-- III. That there is urgent need for the exercise of these qualities, because in the highest concerns of life the difficulties are greater, the rewards richer, and the failure more terrible than in the lower.1. The race to be run by the soul who would reach the true goal is longer, has more obstacles, requires more strength than that old race. 2. The rewards are higher for they are incorruptible, perfectly pure and unfading. 3. The failure is more deplorable. To miss the goal is nothing in comparison with becoming a moral castaway. (U. R. Thomas.)Jacob’ s ladder, or the way to heaven 1. The apostle saith that you must run. It is not an easy nor a short journey, which a dreamer, a snail, or any careless man may perform and take his ease. A man must always run, from the first day he setteth forth till he come to his journey’ s end. 2. Christ saith, “ I am the way,” and therefore He bids us to follow Him. He began betime, for at twelve years of age He was about His Father’ s business (Luke 2:49). He made speed; for “ He spake and did more good things” in three and thirty years, “ than could be written!” (John 21:25). He kept the right way; for none could accuse Him of sin, though they watched Him for that purpose. He continued well; for He died like a lamb, and prayed to His Father, and forgave His enemies. Therefore do you-- I. Begin betime. God requiring the firstborn for His offering, and the first-fruits for His service, requireth the first labours of His servants, because the best season to seek God is to seek Him early. And therefore Wisdom saith, “ They which seek me early shall find me” ; but to them which defer, she saith, “ Ye shall seek me, but ye shall not find me.” Therefore the Holy Ghost crieth so often, “ This is the acceptable time; this is the day of salvation; to-day hear His voice.” Who is so young that has not received some talent or other? Therefore the fathers were charged to teach their children the same law which they had themselves (Deuteronomy 6:7), and Christ rebuked the disciples which forbade the little children to be brought to Him (Matthew 19:14), for, should children honour their father, and not honour God? Manna was gathered in the morning, because when the sun arose it did melt away; so virtue must be gathered betime, for if we stay till business and pleasures come upon us, they will melt it faster than we can gather it. Yea, doth not God require morning as well as evening sacrifice? It is an old saying, repentance is never too late; but it is a true saying, repentance is never too soon; for so soon as ever we sin, we had need to ask forgiveness. Therefore linger not with Lot; for if the angel had not snatched him away, he had perished with Sodom for his delay. They were but foolish virgins, which sought not for oil before the bridegroom came. Samuel began to serve God in his minority (1 Samuel 2:18). Timothy read the Scripture in his childhood (2 Timothy 3:15); John grew in spirit as he ripened in years (Luke 1:80). II. Keep the way. As God taught Israel the way to Canaan, sending a fiery pillar before them, which they followed wheresoever it went; so when He ordained a heaven for men, He appointed a way to come unto it, which way he that misseth shall never come to the end. There be many wrong ways, as there be many errors; there is but one right way, as there is but one truth. And, therefore, Jacob did not see many, but one ladder, which reached to heaven. It is not enough to run, but we must know how we run. Therefore, if ye ask, like the scribe, how ye shall come to heaven, the right way to heaven is the Word, which came from heaven, and the way by which the Word doth set thee into heaven is, to do to others as thou wouldst have others do to thee; to exercise good works, and yet believe that Christ’ s works shall save thee; to pray without doubting, and yet be content that thy prayer be not granted; to keep within thy calling, and do nothing by contention; to bring thy will unto God’ s will, and suffer for Christ, because He hath suffered for thee; to apply all things to the glory of God, and of everything to make some use. Thus the Word goeth before us like the fiery pillar, and shows us when we are in, and when we are out. III. Make haste. For this cause Paul saith, “ Run,” which is the swiftest pace of man; as though he should go faster to heaven than to any place else in the world. His meaning is this, that as a man doth watch, and run, and labour, to be rich quickly, so he should hear, and pray, and study, and use all means, to be wise quickly. Therefore St. James says, “ Be swift to hear” (James 1:19). We must be swift to pray, to obey, to do good; for he is not cursed only which doeth not the Lord’ s business, but he which “ doeth it negligently” (Jeremiah 48:10). The hound, which runs but for the hare, runs as fast as possibly he can; the hawk, which flieth but for the partridge, flieth as fast as possibly she can; and shall he which runs for heaven creep more slowly than the dial? IV. Persevere to the end. For if you begin betimes, and go aright, and make haste, and continue not to the end, your reward is with them of whom Peter saith, “ Their end is worse than their beginning” (2 Peter 2:20). Therefore the Holy Ghost cries so often, “ Be faithful even unto death,” “ Be not weary of well-doing,” “ Take heed lest ye fall.” For when thou art weary of thy godliness, God doth not count thee good, but weary of goodness. Therefore Paul saith, “ Pray continually,” as though prayer were nothing without continuance. Some came into the vineyard in the morning, and some at noon; but none received any reward but they which stayed till night. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 9:25 Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.Lawful striving I. The fact that the Christian life is a striving after an end. This text is out of joint with much of the language of the present day. Such as “ the rest of faith” --as if Christian life were inaction. This is not an exceptional experience, or merely true of babes in Christ. The language appears again and again as the constant state of the apostle. II. The manner of the strife.1. Lawfully. It must be in harmony with the Divine rule, not with our own impulses. 2. Certainly. Lawfulness secures certainty. Men guided by Christ are not in doubt as to what they ought to do, or as to the result. III. The object of our striving. “ I keep under my body.” We think there was little need of Paul to do this. His body was indeed subject; he had gone through peril, trial, persecution. He never indulged it. IV. The motives.1. Not to be a castaway.2. To gain a crown. (W. Landell, D. D.)Temperance helpful to resolution It is weak to be scared at difficulties, seeing that they generally diminish as they are approached, and oftentimes even entirely vanish. No man can tell what he can do till he tries. It is impossible to calculate the extent of human powers; it can only be ascertained by experiment. What has been accomplished by parties and by solitary individuals in the torrid and frozen regions, under circumstances the most difficult and appalling, should teach us that when we ought to attempt we should never despair. The reason why men oftener succeed in overcoming uncommon difficulties than ordinary ones is, that in the first case they call into action the whole of their resources, and that in the last they act upon calculation, and generally undercalculate. Confidence of success is almost success; and obstacles often fall of themselves before a determination to overcome them. There is something in resolution which has an influence beyond itself, and it marches on like a mighty lord among its slaves; all is prostration where it appears. When bent on good, it is almost the noblest attribute of man; when on evil, the most dangerous. It is by habitual resolution that men succeed to any great extent; impulses are not sufficient. What is done at one moment is undone the next; and a step forward is nothing gained unless it is followed up. Resolution depends mainly on the state of the digestion, which St. Paul remarkably illustrates when he says, “ Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” Temperance I. As an element of Christian character. There are many elements that constitute this; but there can be no full-rounded Christian life without temperance.1. Observe the frequent references made to it in Scripture. It is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:1-26.), and one step in the ladder of Christian graces (2 Peter 1:1-21.). In his address to Felix, Paul reasoned of it. 2. The word literally means the power of regulating one’ s self; hence it is synonymous with self-control; and as self-control is needed only when there is temptation to sinful indulgence, there is contained in it the further idea of self-sacrifice. So it lies at the foundation of the noblest of all lives. This is the principle that made the martyrs. 3. Let it not be supposed that it was unknown prior to the Christian era. It was practised, as we see, by the athletes; so that Christianity simply took hold of an existing principle and applied it to a new case. But formerly its end was selfish and secular; now it is exercised for a worthier end. 4. Self-denial, then, occupies no secondary place. He who is not able to practise it is not worthy to be a follower of Christ. But how can this be unless we possess something of His spirit? The highest type of man is he who is likest to Christ in consecration and self-denying service. This is what we should aim at; it is the perfection of character. “ Shall Jesus bear the Cross alone, and all the world go free?” &c. II. As a condition of moral conquest.1. No one ever yet did anything great without making a sacrifice. The prize-wrestler deemed it indispensable to success. He had to forego everything that did not contribute to the end in view. It is the same all through life. Whatever be one’ s abilities, there is no royal road to proficiency; and of all things, the most difficult to master is one’ s self. If the prize-fighter, the soldier, the student, the merchant, can be self-denying to gain their ends, why cannot the Christian deny himself to gain his end? Think of the self-denial of Moses, Daniel, tile three Hebrew children. Let their manly example impress on us the duty of total abstinence, when the alternative is sin. 2. Herein lies the guarantee of conquest. Let self be put down and Christ lifted up, and then not only will the life be itself a success, but it will be a power for the moral conquest of the world, for we can influence others only in proportion as we live under the power of the truth ourselves. The world will not readily be impressed with that spirit which makes self-interest its end, nor be struck with the excellence of that religion which makes no sacrifice. III. As a duty of universal obligation.1. We owe it to Christ. We owe our salvation to the practice of this principle on His part. Think what He gave up for us. 2. We owe it to ourselves. How many are there who, from protracted pandering to the cravings of their lower nature, have lost the power of self-control! 3. We owe it to our fellow-men. If Christ denied Himself for us, should we not also deny ourselves for the brethren, and, like the noble Apostle of the Gentiles, become all things to all men? (D. Merson, M. A.)Self-control possible to all 1. Paul, instructed in all the narrowness of his people, escaped entirely from it, and became as unconventional as you can well imagine a man to be. If he went past a heathen temple, he used that as an illustration of Divine truth. 2. The illustration of our text is one drawn from the conflicts where wrestlers or racers contended for the wreath. He declares that men who strove for these things were “ temperate.” Now temperance means self-control, and self-control, self-denial. This was much to say in Corinth. I. Self-control is the common experience of men, and Christianity appeals to an active possibility, for a purpose far higher than that for which men usually employ self-control.1. If there is a class who are more than any other given up to the force of animal desires, it is the athletic class. And yet for the (to them) highest pleasure they persuade themselves to practise extraordinary self-control. If I were to preach to them a temperate life, for the sake of spiritual dignity, they would reply, “ That will do very well for parsons, but it is impossible for men like us.” And yet they practise far more than what would be necessary to make them eminent Christians. Did you ever read the history of the training of men for prize-fights? The system of exercises, if exerted in industry, would obtain for them a living during the whole year. 2. If there be anything in this world that men dislike, it is the unintermitted endurance of discomforts and disciplines; and yet how cheerfully do soldiers endure these things under the stimulus of various motives of ambition, patriotism, and esprit de corps. Well, if these men can do it, anybody can. The only question is, Will you? 3. There is no class that submit to so much inconvenience and self-denial as commercial men. The most disagreeable things are done by men, and men of sensitive nerve, if there be money in them. How patiently will they work in the tallow-chandler’ s shop, or a fish-shop, or in a mine, &c.; nay, cheerfully go to the tropics, and burn in Cuba. Ah! how sublime the life would be of an all-world-disturbing merchant, if only it were for a moral end. 4. Consider how patient men are with their fellow-men. The hardest thing to bear is men. A man that can bear cheerfully his fellow-men has little to learn. When men have no motive, how cross and uncharitable they are. But the moment they have an interest in others, see what perfect Christians they are--in a way! If a man owes you a debt, and you think you can get it by crushing him as a cluster is crushed, you will do it. But sometimes there is no cluster to crush, and then you tend this man, and take care of him. You do a world of work for the sake of helping him to bear clusters that by and by shall be pressed into your cup. Why, if you should take a man on Christian principles, and do as much as that for him, you would be canonised as a saint. And then, for the same reasons, see how men bear with disagreeable men. You have your wares for sale, and anybody that buys is welcome to your shop. And if the price is that you shall be “ hail fellow well met” with him, you swallow down any reluctance, and say, “ We must not do anything to offend him.” During the days when colour was a virtue, in a famous church in New York a distinguished merchant had a coloured man in his pew, whose presence in the congregation had the same effect that a lump of salt would have in a cup of tea. And as they went out of the church, they gathered about the merchant, and said, “ What possessed you to bring that nigger into your pew?” He whispered, “ He is a great planter, a millionaire.” And then they said, “ Introduce us to him.” Then where was their fine taste? When mammon said, “ Let it go,” it was all right. But when Jesus said, “ Let it go,” that was detestable. 5. Nay, more. We see how willingly and cheerfully great men, great natures, for the sake of an ignoble ambition, that is not very high, after all, will sacrifice their lives, their multiform faculties and enjoyments. There are those living that are to be revered for many excellences, who, adopting the apostle’ s form of expression, could say, “ I count all things but dung, that I may win the Presidency.” II. Now the Lord Jesus, calling us to honour and glory and immortality, says only what the world says of its poor, grovelling, and miserable things--“ Take up your cross and follow me.” Lust says so: why should not love say so? Earthly glory that fades like the laurel wreath says so: why should not that crown of gold that never grows dim say so? When we urge such considerations upon the young, and young men are fired thereby; when truly noble natures hear the call, and accept it, and yield themselves to it, and enter upon a religious life with fervour, and deny themselves in all things in furtherance of its commands, how strangely the world fails to recognise its own redeeming qualities! And how are these men called enthusiasts! Now, enthusiasm in religion is the only good sense. There is not a father who does not say to his child, going out into life, “ If you are to succeed as a lawyer, my son, you must give yourself to it.” And I say to every man that is going out as a Christian, “ If you are going to succeed as a Christian, you must give yourself to it.” (H. W. Beecher.)Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.--Contrasted aims and parallel methods Here we get, in a picturesque fashion-- I. The world’ s sad folly in its ordinary aims. The wreath was, of course, not what the racer ran for. It was only a symbol, and its entirely valueless character made it all the more valuable. It expressed simply honour and the joy of success. In front of the temple that presided over the games was a long avenue, on either side of which stood ranged the statues of the victors; and the hope that flushed many a man’ s face was that his image, with his name on its pedestal, should stand there. And where are they all? Their names forgotten, the marble likenesses buried beneath the greensward, over which the shepherd to-day pastures his quiet flocks. And all our pursuits, unless they be linked with eternity and God, are as evanescent and disproportioned as was the wreath for which months of discipline, and moments of almost superhuman effort, were considered but a small price to pay. Business, providing for a family, &c., necessarily demand attention. You may so use them as to secure the remoter aims of growing like your Master and fit for the inheritance, or to construct out of them a barrier between you and your eternal wealth. In the one case you are wise, in the other case your epitaph will be “ Thou fool!” A poet has put in homely words the lesson for us: “ What good came of it at last?” asks the little child, when the old man is telling him of the great victory. “ They do it to obtain a corruptible crown” --two pennyworth of parsley. It is a symbol of what some of you are living for. II. The Christian’ s wisdom in his aim. “ But we an incorruptible.”1. The emblem stands for a symbol of dominion, of victory, and of festivity. It is the crown of the king, or the wreath of the victor, or the garlands on the guests at the feast. It is a “ crown of life.” The true life of the spirit which partakes of the immortal life of Jesus is the crown. It is a “ crown of glory” --the radiant lustre of a manifestly God-glorified spirit. The garland that adorns those who sit at the feast is no mere external adornment, but the lustre of a perfect character which is the outcome of a Christ-given life. It is the “ crown of righteousness.” Only pure brows can wear it. It would burn like a circlet of fire if it were placed on other heads. Righteousness is the condition of obtaining it. 2. This, then, is the aim which the apostle asserts to be the aim of every person that has the right to call himself a Christian. There is a sharp test for you. Do you live to win it? Does it gleam before you with a brightness that makes all other and nearer objects insignificant and pale? If you can answer them in the affirmative you are a happy man. 3. And more than that, all these nearer objects will become even more blessed, and your whole life nobler than it otherwise would be. The green of the lower slopes of the Alps never looks so vivid, their flowers never so lovely or so bright as when the eye rises from them to the glaciers. And so all the lower levels of life look fairer, because our eyes pass beyond them and fix on the great white throne that towers above them all. III. The world’ s noble wisdom in the choice of its means,1. This poor racer had ten months of hard abstinence and exercise before there was even a chance for him to succeed. And then there was a short spurt of tremendous effort before he came in at the goal. These things are conditions of success in the would, and no matter for what the man is doing it, it is better for him to be braced into self-control, and stirred into energetic activity, than to be rotting like a fat weed in the pestilential marshes of self-indulgence, and losing all pith and manhood in tile languid dissolution of indolence. 2. And so one cannot but look with admiration at a great deal of the toil and effort that the world puts forth, even for its own shabby ends. Why, a man will spend twenty times as long in making himself a good conjurer, who can balance feathers and twirl plates upon a table, as some of us ever spent in trying to make ourselves good Christians. IV. The folly of so many professing Christians in their way of pursuing their aims.1. A languid runner had no chance, and he knew it. The phrase was almost a contradiction in terms. What about a languid Christian? Is that a more consistent idea? If I let my desire and affections go flowing vagrantly over the whole low plain of material things, they will be like a river that is lost in the swamp. If I set out on the race without having girt up my loins by resolute self-denial, what can I expect but that before I have run half-a-dozen yards my ungirt robes will trip me up or get caught in the thorns and keep me back? No Christian progress is possible to-day, or ever was, or will be, except on the condition--“ Take up your cross, and deny yourself, and then come after Me.” Learn from the world this lesson, that if a man wants to succeed in any course he must shut out other, even legitimate ones. 2. And then the runner that did not put all his powers into the five minutes of his race had no chance of coming in at the goal. And there is no different law in regard to Christian people. Conclusion: God be thanked! We are crowned not because we are good, but because Christ died. But the teaching of my text, that a Christian man must labour to win the prize, is by no means contradictory to, hut complementary and confirmatory of the earlier truth. The laws of the race are--“ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” ; and the second is, “ Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (A. Maclaren, D. D.)Heaven--an incentive to diligence Julius Caesar coming towards Rome with his army, and hearing that the senate and people had fled from it, said, “ They that will not fight for this city, what city will they fight for?” If we will not take pains for the kingdom of heaven, what kingdom will we take pains for? (C. H. Spurgeon.)“ Concerning the crown” I. The crown. Recall the other places where the same metaphor is employed. It is extremely unlikely that all these instances of the occurrence of the emblem carry with them reference, such as that in my text to the prize at the athletic festivals. For Peter and James, intense Jews as they were, had probably never seen, and possibly never heard of, the struggles at the Isthmus and at Olympus and elsewhere. The book of the Revelation draws its metaphors almost exclusively from the circle of Jewish practices and things. So that we have to look in other directions than the arena or the racecourse to explain these other uses of the image. It is also extremely unlikely that in these other passages the reference is to a crown as the emblem of sovereignty, for that idea is expressed, is a rule, by another word in Scripture, which we have Anglicised as “ diadem.” The “ crown” in all these passages is a garland twisted out of some growth of the field. The “ crown” which is the Christian’ s aim is a state of triumphant repose and of festal enjoyment. There are other aspects of that great and dim future which correspond to other necessities of our nature. That future is other and more than a festival; it is other and more than repose. There are larger fields there for the operation of powers that have been trained and evolved here. The faithfulness of the steward is exchanged, according to Christ’ s great words, for the authority of the ruler over many cities. But still, do we not all know enough of the worry and turbulence and strained effort of the conflict here below, to feel that to some of our deepest and not ignoble needs and desires that image appeals? So the satisfaction of all desires, the accompaniments of a feast in abundance, rejoicing and companionship, and conclusive conquest over all foes, are promised us in this great symbol. The crown is described in three ways. It is the crown of “ life,” of “ glory,” and of “ righteousness.” And I venture to think that these three epithets describe the material, so to speak, of which the wreath is composed. The everlasting flower of life, the radiant, blossoms of glory, the white flower of righteousness; these arc its components. Here we have the promise of life, that fuller life which men want. Here we live a living death; there we shall live indeed; and that will be the crown, not only in regard of physical, but in regard of spiritual, powers and consciousness. But remember that all this full tide of life is Christ’ s gift. All being, from the lowest creature up to the loftiest created spirit, exists by one law, the continual impartation of life from the fountain of life, to it, according to its capacities. “ I will give him a crown of life.” It is a crown of “ glory,” and that means a lustrousness of character imparted by radiation and reflection from the central light of the glory of God. “ Then shall the righteous blaze out like the sun, in the kingdom of My Father.” We all shall be changed into the “ likeness of the body of His glory.” It is a crown of “ righteousness.” Though that phrase may mean the wreath that rewards righteousness, it seems more in accordance with the other similar expressions to which I have referred to regard it, too, as the material of which the crown is composed. It is not enough that there should be festal gladness, not enough that there should be calm repose, not enough that there should be flashing glory, not enough that there should be fulness of life. To accord with the intense moral earnestness of the Christian system there must be, emphatically, in the Christian hope cessation of all sin and investiture with all purity. “ Thy people shall be all righteous.” “ They shall walk with Me in white.” And it sets the very climax and culmination on the other hopes. These, then, are the elements, and on them all is stamped the signature of perpetuity. The crown of life is incorruptible. II. Now look, secondly, at the discipline by which the crown is won. Observe, first of all, that in more than one Of the passages to which we have already referred, great emphasis is laid upon Christ as giving the crown. That is to say, that blessed future is not won by effort, but is bestowed as a free gift. It is given from the hands which have procured it, and, as I may say, twined it for us. Jesus provides the sole means, by His work, by which any man can enter into that inheritance. It remains for ever the gift of His love. Whilst, then, this must be laid as the basis of all, there must also, with equal earnestness, be set forth the other thought that Christ’ s gift has conditions, which conditions these passages plainly set forth. In the one which I have read as a text we have these conditions declared as being twofold, protracted discipline and continuous effort. James declares that it is given to the man who endures temptation. Peter asserts that it is the reward of self-denying discharge of duty. And the Lord from heaven lays down the condition of faithfulness unto death as the necessary pre-requisite of His gift of the crown of life. Eternal life is the gift of God, on condition of our diligence and earnestness. It is not all the same whether you are a lazy Christian or not. III. And now, lastly, note the power of the reward as motive for life. Paul says roundly in our text, that the desire to obtain the incorruptible crown is a legitimate spring of Christian action. Now, I do not need to waste your time and my own in defending Christian morality from the fantastic objection that it is low and selfish, because it encourages itself to efforts by the prospect of the crown. If there are any men who are Christians only because of what they hope to gain thereby in another world, they will not get what they hope for; and they would not like it if they did. I do not believe that there are any such people; and sure I am, if there are, that it is not Christianity that has made them so. But a thing that we must not set as the supreme motive, we may rightly accept as a subsidiary encouragement. We are not Christians unless the dominant motive of our lives be the love of the Lord Jesus Christ; and unless we feel a necessity, because of loving Him, to aim to be like Him. But, that being so, who shall hinder me from quickening my flagging energies, and stimulating my torpid faith, and encouraging my cowardice, by the thought that yonder there remain rest, victory, the fulness of life, the flashing of glory, and the purity of perfect righteousness? Now it seems to me that this spring of action is not as strong in the Christians of this day as it used to be, and as it should be. You do not hear much about heaven in ordinary preaching. And I believe, for my part, that we suffer terribly by the comparative neglect into which this side of Christian truth has fallen. Do you not think that it would make a difference to you if you really believed, and carried always with you in your thoughts, the thrilling consciousness that every act of the present was registered, and would tell on the far side yonder? (A. Maclaren, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 9:26I therefore so run, not as uncertainly. Not as uncertainly In the Grecian games the uncertainties of every earthly race are symbolised. This uncertainty is one of the saddest aspects of experience. There are laurels for a few winners, but many are the losers. Some nearly win the race, and miss by a hair’ s-breadth; and many more never glimpse the goal, and yet bravely plod on in their weary disappointed way. I. Men must run. Multitudes can say, not “ So run I,” but, “ So look I on.” They are interested in the Christian story; but this is not enough. “ Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” “ Almost!” is one of the saddest words in human experience. II. Men admit the uncertainty of the earthly race, and so they run with this dread consciousness at their hearts. Who can tell whether health may not fail, just as honours hard-won are heralding reward? What impediments may come in the earthly path from the falsity, greed, or frivolity of others? If you seek apart from God, all is uncertainty! How different is the Christian struggle. Here all who run may obtain the prize. Men of culture and no culture; vigorous or of feeble health--for Christ has promised His own Divine aid to all who, laying hold on His strength, press toward the mark. III. Men slight distant rewards. The goal! Let it be now, men say. The world of sense seems at first to have the best of it; but soon there comes the experience, common to all, that worldly reward is transient at the best. Earthly honours fade and wane. Even fame lives in few lives. One of the most renowned commanders of men, when the hour of triumph came, and the whole world seemed marshalled before him, was asked what the spectacle wanted? and he answered, “ Permanence!” What a satire on human glory. “ All flesh is grass,” &c. But so firm is the apostle’ s faith, that with the heavens opened above him he calls the sons of men to seek the same incorruptible crown. The things we seek are all, like their Divine author, eternal in the heavens! As the voices of the redeemed fall from the celestial heights, they cry, “ Not as uncertainly.” IV. Men wait to begin. There are some who have long been close beside the course, who are hesitating and halting still. Much depends, in life’ s crucial moments, upon habits of decision of character. So wait I! too many say. But what for? When wilt opportunity be more golden? When will heaven’ s gates be thrown more widely open? Test the things that are this day more pleasant than God’ s salvation, and see if they are worthy to be weighed with the soul’ s immortal weal. Death may be nearer to us than we think. V. Men stay in their course. Some did run well, but they are hindered. Heroism cools; ardour faints. If religion were one sharp conflict, one martyr sacrifice, then how many would join the ranks? But ever in this sublunary sphere the rewards of earth and time are to the persevering. AEsop was but a slave, and Homer but a poor man, and Columbus but a weaver, and they all, keeping their eyes on the earthly goal and pressing toward it, gained the prize. So in the immortal sphere--the feeble may become strong, and the last be first, through earnest faith. (W. M. Statham.)The heavenly race I. You must enter the lists.1. You must be a Christian. An infidel, a pagan, cannot run this race, nor can a mere nominal professor. A sound faith must be united with an exemplary life. 2. Preparation is needed. The racer is careful in his diet. The Christian is to show sobriety, to be master of himself, subduing every passion. The athletes oiled themselves, both to give suppleness in motion, and to render it difficult for their antagonists to grapple them. The grace of Christ, the anointing of the Holy One, is indispensable to the believer. With the aid of Christ we can do all things. 3. The racer was presented in the circus. The Christian must free himself from everything that may hinder his progress. II. You must run certainly.1. Men fail who have no aim in life. One thing is needful. “ Beware of the man of one book,” it has been said. You cannot stand in discussion with him. Others are readers of many books, but forget their contents. Some are distracted with business, polities, and pleasure, and so lose the reward. Of course, if God gives you varied gifts, you are not to neglect them, but to subordinate all to one aim. 2. Having chosen that aim, be conscientious. It is your conscience, not that of others, which is to guide. Do not falter and be turned aside, as were David and Peter. Don’ t beat the air, as a gladiator who, through fear or lack of skill, swung clear of his foe, giving the air the blow instead of his adversary. 3. Be candid. Look to yourself. We all live in glass houses, and should not throw stones. Do not listen to a sermon for another, and think how well the reproof fits another, and say, “ Bravo for the preacher who has nothing for us.” III. Keep your eve on the goal till you reach it. We are to be “ looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith,” for looking at Him will keep us from turning aside. We arc all running a race, willingly or unwillingly. Is it a heavenly one? (A. Gavazzi.)The Christian’ s race and battle St. Paul proposes himself as an example of the life of a converted man. No conversion more unmistakable than his. If we would estimate conversion aright, let us view it as exemplified in St. Paul. I. Position of conversion. The starting-point, not the goal--the enlisting of the soldier, not his victory. It places us on the ground, and bids us run. Enlists us in an army, and bids us fight (1. Timothy 6:12; Ephesians 6:10-17). Look at St. Paul.1. Christ had arrested him as he was rushing to ruin (Philippians 3:12). Why? Not that he might stand still--sit down with folded hands, and wait for promised crown; but that he should run like racer in games, with no eye but for the goal--no thought but for the crown--all his powers concentrated on the one object, “ to obtain” (Philippians 3:12-14). 2. Christ had delivered him “ from the power of darkness,” &c. (Colossians 1:13). He was sure of victory (1 Corinthians 15:57; Romans 8:37; Romans 16:20); but only through conflict. II. A converted man must have a definite aim. St. Paul had “ so run, not as uncertainly,” vaguely, hither and thither, wasting time and strength. Not enough to run fast, perseveringly, energetically, we must run for the goal (Philippians 3:13-14).1. Our goal is likeness to Christ. So to win Christ, to put on Christ, to be found in Christ, that we may be one with Christ. 2. Christ also our crown. He is our “ exceeding great reward.” The rewards of conquering in Revelation 2:3 are Christ under different symbols. III. A converted man must realise a definite enemy. “ So fight I, not as one that beateth the air” ; my blows well aimed, and they tell.1. Discover your besetting sin, or sins, by self-examination, and set yourself to fight therein. To fight against sin in the abstract is to beat the air. 2. Train for the fight. “ I keep under my body,” &c. Self-indulgence fatal to victory. We must be masters, not slaves of the body and its desires. 3. Fight in Christ’ s strength--with your eye on Him who has fought and overcome, leaving us promise of victory. As He did, take “ sword of Spirit” --the threefold “ it is written” --whole armour. “ Who is he that overcometh,” &c. (1 John 5:5). IV. A changed man not necessarily a saved man (verse 27). St. Paul’ s words, “ lest that by any means … a castaway,” show us the precariousness of Christian life. So, too, the “ stony-ground” hearers, “ backsliders,” &c. The Christian’ s safety depends on union with Christ. He must watch lest bosom sins cause him to relax his hold; lest unholiness clog the channels of the life-giving sap (John 15:4-6). No danger so great as to shut one’ s eyes against danger. Application--trust not to past experiences. Self-confidence is fatal to Christian life. It is true Christ’ s sheep can “ never perish,” &c. (John 10:28-29). But who are His sheep? They that “ hear His voice and follow Him.” (Canon Venables.)Personal holiness I. The subject treated of--eminent personal holiness.1. Its spring. The Divine influence on the soul of man. 2. Its marks. (1) A constant keeping of the great end in view. The attaining a crown (verse 25). (2) A habitual conflict with all difficulties. “ So fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” Paul felt that he had not to skirmish shadows. (3) The prevailing dominion of the Spirit over the flesh. “ I keep under my body,” &c. II. Its importance to the Christian minister.1. It is essential. (1) To his freedom. He is a soldier; the various indulgences which would enslave are not for him; the softnesses which would prevent his warfare are not for him. But that he may be thus free, he must be eminent in holiness (2 Corinthians 6:4-7). (2) To his happiness. The unhappiness of many ministers arises from the consciousness that they are not what they ought to be. (3) To a well-grounded assurance of the Divine favour and approbation. (H. March.)The necessity of progressive religion That was a fine eulogium which was made on Caesar, that he thought there was nothing done while there remained anything to do. Whoever arrives at worldly heroism arrives at it in this way, and there is no other way of obtaining salvation. Behold in Paul a man who accounted all he had done nothing while there remained anything more to do. We ground the necessity of progressive religion I. The great end of christianity--to transform man into the Divine nature. This being the case, we ought never to cease endeavouring till we are as perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. Moreover, as we shall never in this life carry err virtue to so high a degree as that, it follows that in no period of our life will our duty be finished, consequently we must make continual progress. II. The fatal consequences of a suspension of our religious endeavours. A man employed in a mechanical art sets about his work and carries it on to a certain degree. He suspends his labour for a while; his work doth not advance indeed, but when he returns he finds his work in the same forwardness in which he left it. Heavenly exercises are not of this kind. Past labour is often lost for want of perseverance and it is a certain maxim in religion that not to proceed is to draw back. III. The advances themselves in the path of holiness. The science of salvation in this respect resembles human sciences. In human sciences a man of great and real learning is humble; he always speaks with caution, and his answers to difficult questions are not unfrequently confessions of his ignorance. On the contrary, a pedant knows everything, and undertakes to elucidate and determine everything. So in the science of salvation, a man of little religion soon flatters himself that he hath done all his duty. A man of lively and vigorous religion finds his own virtues so few, so limited, so obstructed, that he easily comes into a well, grounded judgment that all he hath attained is nothing to what lies before him. Accordingly we find the greatest saints the most eminent for humility (Genesis 18:27; Job 9:15; Psalms 130:3; Philippians 3:12). IV. The end which God proposed in placing us in this world. This world is a place of exercise, this life is a time of trial, which is given us that we may choose either eternal happiness or endless misery. (J. Saurin.)So fight I, not as one that beateth the air.--Beating the air The expression implies-- I. Want of skill. The boxer who strikes about wildly has never learned his art. This has to be studied--1. Patiently. Day after day must the labour be repeated. 2. Practically. No theory will teach the various cuts and defences without actual trial. And yet there are persons who think that they can enter upon the spiritual contest without either. II. Want of concentrations. The fighter who fights wildly loses his head and is lost, for his cool opponent seizes every opportunity, and calmly avails himself of every occasion of advantage. Does not our Christianity need a cool head, a concentration of purpose? Surely; and yet men suppose that any slipshod method, any wool-gathering frame of mind, will satisfy the requirements of that awful contest which is to win or lose eternal life. Should we not sit down sometimes amid the rush of life, and calmly inquire as to our position, difficulties, dangers, and progress? A merchant who acted aimlessly would soon come to grief; a ship’ s captain would soon wreck his vessel; a tradesman quickly come to the workhouse. And the Christian in the same way would soon fall a prey to the wiles of the devil. III. Want of preparation. The athlete lays aside every weight. Even his clothes are cast off. Alas! how often Christians are handicapped with weights! One has a heavy golden chain about his neck. Another has a load of worldly affections round his heart and almost stopping its pulsations. A third has rings on his fingers which prevent his grasp. A fourth has his thoughts, his time choked with business. Or again another is absorbed with the sweet voices of pleasure. It is impossible to win with these “ weights,” and he who attempts to do so will be like one “ beating the air.” IV. Want of energy. Activity is the soul of earthly business. How much more important is it in a contest such as a race or a fight And in spiritual matters energy is quite as essential. (J J. S. Bird.)Fight wisely 1. To fight wisely is not to fight at a venture, but with a definite aim. Ahab, indeed was shot by an arrow sent at a venture; but this is told us to magnify the Providence of God, who, in His designs, can direct the aimless shaft whithersoever it pleases Him; not to teach us that aimless shafts are likely on common occasions to be successful. Yet what is the warfare of many Christians but the sending of shafts at a venture? 2. The first work of the politic spiritual warrior will be to discover his besetting sin, and having discovered it, to concentrate all his disposable force before this fortress. Just as each individual has a certain personal configuration, distinguishing him from all other men, so there is some sin or sins which more than others is conformable to his temperament, and therefore more easily developed by his circumstances--which expresses far more of his character than others. This bosom sin is eminently deceitful. Its especial property is to lurk. (1) The besetting sin of many is vanity. Who knows not how it apes humility, so as really to impress its possessor with the notion that he is humble? Intensely self-satisfied in his heart of hearts, he depreciates himself in conversation. What follows? Men say to him, as in the parable, “ Go up higher.” He has been fishing for compliments, and compliments have risen to the hook. Is it not so? For would he not have bitterly resented it had any of the company taken him at his word? (2) Some men cannot bear to be second. Whatever they do must be done seas to throw into the shade all competitors. The world dignifies this with the name of honourable emulation, and accepts it as a token of fine character. But, judged by the mind of Christ, how does the sentiment sound, “ Because I cannot outshine all rivals, therefore I will be nothing” ? It jars strangely with those words, “ The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them,” &c. “ Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,” &c. (3) A bosom sin, that it may the more easily escape detection, will wear the mask of another sin. Indolence, e.g., is a sin which carries with it omissions of duty. Prayer or Scripture reading is omitted or thrust away into a corner, because we have not risen sufficiently early. Things go cross during the day in consequence, and we trace it all up to the omission of prayer. But the fault lies deeper. It was indolence which really caused the mischief. One of the first properties, then, of the bosom sin with which it behoves us to be well acquainted, as the first step in the management of our spiritual warfare, is its property of concealing itself. In consequence of this, it often happens that a man, when touched upon his weak point, answers that whatever other faults he may have, this fault at least is no part of his character. It is to aid in bringing to light these secret sins that we make the following suggestions-- I. Praying heartily for the light of God’ s Spirit to know thine own heart, observe and reason upon the results of self-examination. When this most salutary exercise has been pursued for a certain time, you will observe that the same failures are constantly recurring. The conclusion is almost inevitable that there is something serious beneath these constantly recurring failures. What is it?--selfishness, indolence, vanity, anxiety, &c. Remember always, that in the symptom, and on the surface, it may look like none of these, and yet be really and fundamentally one of them. II. Let us have our eye upon the occurrences which specially give its pain or pleasure. They will often be the veriest trifles; but yet, be it what it may, the probabilities are that, by tracing it to its source, we shall get to the quick of our character, to that sensitive quarter of it where the bosom-adder lies coiled up. III. When the discovery is made, the path of the spiritual combatant becomes clear, however arduous. Your fighting is to be no longer a flourishing of the arms in the air; it is to assume a definite form, it is to be a combat with the bosom sin. Appropriate mortifications must be adopted, such as common sense will suggest. If indolence be the besetting sin, we must watch against slovenliness in little things; if selfishness, we must lay ourselves out to consider the wishes of others; if discontent, we must review the many bright points of our position, and seek our happiness in our work. But the great matter to be attended to in each case is, that the whole forces of the will should be concentrated for a time in that one part of the field, in which the besetting sin has entrenched itself. Thus point and definiteness will be given to Christian effort. IV. For each one of us, no business can be of more urgent importance than this discovery of our besetting sin. In conclusion, he who prays, “ Show me myself, Lord,” should take good care to add, lest self-knowledge plunge him into despair, “ Show me also Thyself.” The course recommended will probably lead us to the conclusion that our heart, which showed so fair without, is an Augean stable, which it requires a moral Hercules to cleanse; but the love of Christ and grace of Christ are stronger than our corruptions. (Dean Goulburn.)Christian conflict The prominent idea of spiritual life given in the New Testament is that of conflict. There is hardly one of the epistles of Paul in which the thought is not presented in some form. The same feature is found in the Epistles to the churches of Asia. I. Some characteristics of the Christian strife.1. Its individuality. It is the personal struggle of each man against the enemies of his salvation. Of the ultimate issue of the great strife of all time there is no doubt. In other warfares each soldier receives a certain amount of glory from the success of the host--but not so here. Each man for himself must fight the good fight, and by God’ s grace lay hold on everlasting life. 2. Its reality. There was a time when the Christians were “ everywhere spoken against” --when Paul knew that in every city bonds and imprisonment awaited him; and in the altered state of the times, and the change in feelings of men towards the gospel. Now the flesh is not less carnal, the world less alluring, the devil less Satanic. 3. Its variety. It is manifold in power but one in purpose. So is it-- (1) With the outward and visible conflict. Sometimes it is a mere strife of opinion, or it is a struggle for the assertion of the rights of conscience, or it is the resistance of virtue to some form of iniquity, or the manly effort in the cause of right to break the chains of tyranny. (2) With the inner conflict of individuals. Some have to contend only against intellectual difficulties--in others it is the insidious growth of the world-spirit which they have to watch and resist. Others, again, have to contend against the self-righteous temper, or the mean, envious spirit, or the fierce passion. But, whatever phase the conflict assumes, we are contending against an enemy, who adapts his attacks to meet our individual cases, and the issue at stake is exactly the same. 4. Its bitterness. (1) There is an intensity in the opposition directed against the gospel, which at first is not easy to explain. If the Bible be not true, our faith inflicts no injury to others. It is true that Christianity pronounces a certain doom on unbelief, but if it be, as infidels would have us think, a human invention, these threatenings need awaken no anxiety, and provoke no opposition, Yet there is no weapon that can be employed against the gospel that is not put in requisition. (2) So with regard to Christian practice. If Christians are striving after too high an ideal, they are the sufferers. Why employ against them the weapons of ridicule and calumny--why not treat them as weak enthusiasts to be pitied rather than seriously opposed? Yet it has never been so. The light will ever be hateful to those who love the darkness. (3) As in the world, so in the Christian’ s heart. Here is a battle of life and for life, where no quarter will be given, and no compromise can be attempted. This is, of all kinds of contests, the most fearful. It is not one of those mock encounters of the tourneys of chivalry, where knights sought to prove their prowess, without receiving or inflicting deadly injury. But it is a deadly wrestle with the foe in which we must conquer or die. II. Some qualities of the Christian soldier.1. Perfect consecration. A whole-hearted service is what the “ Captain of our salvation” expects from all who follow Him. This warfare must be the one business of his life who would “ fight a good fight, and lay hold on everlasting life.” 2. Simple faith. This is emphatically the “ good fight of faith.” It is the struggle between the love of “ the things that are seen and temporal and the things which are unseen and eternal,” and only through faith can the spiritual principle be victorious. Faith in the leader, not in the excellence of the cause--in a person, not in a principle--in Christ Himself and not in any creed, will give us the victory. Even in earthly conflicts nothing seems to breathe such spirit into a host as the presence of a favourite captain. Have faith in Christ, and neither earth nor hell can prevail against you. 3. Undoubting assurance as to the issue. This is the grand distinction between this and all earthly toils. There a man may be faithful and diligent and yet fail. But here we “ run not as uncertainly, we fight not as one that beateth the air.” “ He who hath begun a good work in us will perform the same until the day of Jesus Christ.” Conclusion: This is a conflict in which no man can be a mere spectator. We are all fighting under the banners of the King of kings or of the Prince of darkness; to which host do you belong? The question is surely not to he lightly dismissed, since on it hang the issues of life and death. (J. Guinness Rogers, B. A.) 1 Corinthians 9:27I keep under my body … lest … I myself should be a castaway. Keeping under the body The body is a bad master though it may be a good servant. St. Paul does not wish to be rid of it, but he desires to put it in its proper place. I. It is quite essential to a high morality to have a respectful sense of the dignity of the body. What our Lord Himself was pleased to wear, and wears flow, must, on that very account, be honourable, and His teaching and His wonder-works were addressed as much to the body as to the soul. There are times when it is as right to attend to the body as to the soul. Are they not equally the subjects of God’ s creation and redemption, of the Father’ s care and love? Never look upon it as a pious thing to depreciate the body. We are not depreciating the body when we say, “ I keep under the body, and bring it into subjection.” The very connection does away with that thought. For does the racer, the wrestler, the boxer, despise his body? Is not it rather his glory? Is not it because he values it very highly that he so treats it? II. With this caution, we may now observe what place the body occupies in connection with the spirit. Originally the whole man was made in the image and after the likeness of God. Then came the fall. It was equally through the body as through the mind. In due time, Christ came, and equally redeemed both. But now here comes in the important distinction which determines everything. In the renewed man a change immediately takes place in his soul, but his body is not changed. That will take place at the resurrection. We all of us have felt the trouble of our bodies. One moment they incite us by their too much strength to pride and self-indulgence, and the next they drag us down to the dust. They are always carrying us too far, or preventing us from going far enough. To every physical temperament there is its own special danger--one to youth, another to age--one to health, another to sickness--to each according to his circumstances and constitution; but to all it is little better than “ the body of this death.” But, remember, there is not a member or a nerve in the body but it is capable of being a great sin or a high virtue. Every part admits of sanctification. All are given for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify God. What we have to do is not to destroy anything, but to guide it--not to despise, but to elevate--not to cast off as an enemy, but to employ as a servant. Let me take an instance or two.1. There is the love of dress. It is a natural instinct, and is in itself a perfectly innocent thing, And some attention as to personal appearance is inseparable from every rightly-constituted mind. Yet every one knows that the love of dress is one of the greatest temptations of the age--to selfishness, vanity, extravagance, and sin. What shall we do, then, with it? Crush it? No. Employ it, control it, subject it. Always act upon a principle, and lay down for yourselves certain rules which your own judgment and conscience approve: Settle with yourself how much your dress ought to cost in the year, and be faithful to your estimate. Dress in the way that will please those whom you most ought to please, and not to please yourself. Make it a school of refinement and thought. So you will turn a dangerous thing into a good discipline, and a positive grace. 2. In like manner, as to food. Guide your conscience in this matter by the Bible; then live by your conscience. Take care that you live unselfishly. Remember whom you follow; and among whom, in this world of want and suffering, you are living. 3. The same consideration will apply to all worldly pleasures and amusements, and all corporeal gratifications. What is meant for pure and holy uses, keep for pure and holy uses. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)Physical conditions This language suggests-- I. The many-sidedness of scripture, or, its polarity.1. One end of a bar of magnetized iron will attract what the other repels. Now break the bar in the middle; and of either half the same will be true. And so you may keep on breaking, until you come to an atom, and even in it the two poles will be found to exist. 2. As wonderful is the polarity of truth. Take this, “ Hath not the potter power over the clay,” &c., and place it alongside of the text. Bring the latter near to a Calvinist, and it repels and is repelled. Bring it near to an Arminian, and it attracts and is itself attracted. And so, vice versa, of the former text. But as in the magnet there is but one force manifesting itself in duality, so with God’ s sovereignty and man’ s responsibility. God cannot be disappointed; yet man is free. 3. Let the theologian, then, follow the example of the philosopher who does not say, as he looks upon the needle, “ There must be some mistake in the matter” ; but “ This is a great mystery: yet there are the two poles, and one is as deserving of my attention as the other.” II. Responsibility for the lower or physical conditions of spiritual life. As a plant has its enemies which crawl upon the ground, and others which fly in the air, so the spiritual life has its antagonists who meet it on every level. There is the danger from intellectualism, imagination, and the affections. Then also, on the lowest and widest level, in the physical region, there is often the marshalling of forces to oppose all growth in grace. And these are what the apostle alludes to. There is--1. The excessive development of physical appetite and passion. That this has the fearful power implied in the text is very evident. Its first and most patent effect is upon the religious life. Take the professor who is given to intemperance. Before you can trace it upon the countenance, or in the domestic sphere, you will be able to note its influence upon the pulse of the man’ s religion. The man dies like some trees, from the heart outward. First and foremost dies that within him which is the very core of his manhood--his spiritual sense. There is much with which the indulged vice may make some sort of terms for a time, love of family, desire for a good name, many of the higher tastes, ambitions, and activities. But vice and spiritual life cannot exist together. The life of the one is the death of the other. 2. Too great absorption in the cares of this world. The Bible tells us to be “ Not slothful in business.” But there must be subordination of the temporal interests to the eternal. A man is like a vessel. He can hold so much, and no more. The cares of this world may be poured into his soul in such quantity as to leave room for nothing else. Many a man has no taste, capacity, strength, time, for anything but business. How can the spiritual hold its own in such? Where will you find place for religion? The good seed is choked. And the result is the same if honour instead of wealth fills the man. The condition of danger is, that a man be filled with the cares of this world. And these may be generated by poverty as by affluence. How can a man grow in Christian life who cannot forget his worldly cares long enough to say the Lord’ s Prayer? And but one result is possible; the religious life must die of starvation, and the man become a castaway. 3. The atmosphere of selfish indolence. Work is ordained of God as the one condition of healthful development. “ Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” It is the very ruin of thousands that they have nothing to do. And that which was made the condition of human development at first Christ has lifted up and sanctified to the end of Christian growth and safety. “ Son, go work in My vineyard.” “ If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross,” &c. 4. The predominance of irreligious association, or, what is the same thing, living in a bad moral atmosphere. Good air, God’ s sunshine--these are more to the body than all else. Let a man breathe in noxious gases day by day, and it makes no difference what other special precautions he may take, his health will be gradually undermined. So is it of moral and spiritual health. “ Evil communications corrupt good manners.” Hence the importance which is laid upon the separation of Christians from the world, and upon tile Christian communion which has been prepared for them. No man is strong enough to stand by himself. And it was never intended that the greater part of any Christian life should be spent outside of all religious association. Conclusion: In view of all that has been said it follows 1. That Christian cultivation covers a much wider sphere than many seem to think. First in order, as a means of grace, stands the Church. And then, secondly, outside of the means of grace, there are others none the less needful, and whose places cannot be supplied by the Church and her ordinances. What matters it how much a man prays, if he is living in intemperance or impurity? What good will the communion do her who has sunken down into the depths of a perfectly selfish and indolent life? And take the man whose heart is eaten up with the cares of this world. Can the Word of God dwell richly in such a one? 2. That there is no point in the Christian’ s progress at which he can afford to relax in vigilant watch and care of the physical surroundings of his life. 3. That there is a very wide sphere in which human activity may co-operate with the saving power of God. Many Christian hands are idle because they do not know what to do. To such I say, look at Paul. Hear his words, “ I keep under my body and bring it into subjection.” (S. S. Mitchell, D. D.)Self-mastery 1. The simple etymological sense of the term is “ I strike under the eye.” The figure is that of a pugilistic encounter. Paul imagines to himself his body as rising up against his higher nature; and against this foe he directs his well-aimed blows; not to destroy or even mutilate it, but to render it what it always ought to be--the obedient slave of the inner nature. 2. But, it may be asked, does the apostle teach us that the body is the source of all inward evil? On the contrary, no man exalts the human body more. He represents it as the temple of the Holy Ghost. “ Members of Christ.” He prays that our body, as well as our spirit and soul, may be preserved faultless. How, then, are we to understand the phrase?--whence this mysterious collision? 3. St. Paul is here speaking of his life’ s work, in pursuing which he makes a discovery which all of us have to make sooner or later--that he who would conquer a world must be ready to conquer himself. In 1 Corinthians 9:4-6 St. Paul indicates three special respects in which he had turned aside from the reasonable demands of nature for his work’ s sake. “ Have we not power to eat and to drink?” --that is to say, he might have secured for himself a comfortable competence. “ Have we not power to lead about a sister?” &c. He might have surrounded himself with all the pleasures of domestic life. “ Have not Barnabas and I power to forbear working?” It certainly did seem reasonable that one who worked so hard for souls should be saved from the weariness of physical toil. And what had he to say to these natural and reasonable demands? Nothing but his work, and the will of God in that work. And when he found nature urging, as nature will, her demands for some degree of consideration, just as our Lord discovered Satan in the person of the disciple who dissuaded Him from the Cross; so the apostle discovered a foe in his own flesh, when that flesh shrank from the path of self-denial, and, smiting his antagonist down, he consigned it to its own proper place; from henceforth thou art to dictate thy terms no longer; thou art slave, and not master! 4. And now for our practical lesson. We, too, are striving for the mastery in a world which has been devastated by evil. Do we not also find that our bodies rise up and resist the claims made on them by the work which has to be done? (1) It may be perhaps, with us, rather in little things that the conflict has to be waged. You know that there are sick and poor to be visited. Love for souls, and for God, would prompt you to set forth; but it is a cold wintry day. How the body pleads, Sit still; another day will do as well. Or perhaps it is so small a matter as rising from your bed in the morning sufficiently early to give yourself time for prayer and the study of God’ s Word; or it is your time for prayer in the evening, after the busy day of toil; or it is that you have a call to visit the haunts of wretchedness and misery, where everything is repulsive. These are occasions on which we too have to arm our right hand with spiritual power, and to smite our body down, forcibly reminding it of its true position. (2) Or perhaps the body asserts itself not so much in forbidding the painful as suggesting the pleasant--now appealing to our lower appetites with suggestions of indulgences. The mind that is taken up in any degree with the thought, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? &c., is making provision for the flesh, and in doing so is unconsciously resigning its true supremacy. The same thing is true of those higher forms of gratification which none the less have the body as their subject. There is no harm in enjoying the pleasures of the eye, or of the ear, but as soon as we give ourselves over to it, it becomes guilty. If God throws an innocent pleasure in our way, we are not called upon to suspect the gift; but when we go out of our way to pursue the pleasurable, the higher part of our nature is yielding itself as the slave of the lower. 5. How did St. Paul smite his body down, and reduce it into the condition of a slave? This much surely is obvious--a man is no match for himself! He lets us into the secret by giving us a practical direction: “ If ye,” he says, “ through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” All turns upon this. “ Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.” (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)Self-mastery Look at the chariot-drivers. Do you not see how exceedingly careful and strict they are with themselves in their training-practice, their labours, their diet, and all the rest, that they may not be thrown down from their chariots; and be dragged along by the reins? See what a thing art is! Often even a strong man cannot master a single horse; but a mere boy, who has learnt the art, shall often take the pair in hand, and with ease lead them and drive them where he will. Nay, in India, it is said that a huge monster of an elephant will yield to a stripling of fifteen, who manages him with the utmost ease. To what purpose have I said all this? To show that, if by dint of study and practice we can train into submission even elephants and wild horses, much more the passions within us. (Chrysostom.)Self-government A friend once asked an aged man what caused him so often to complain of pain and weariness in the evening. “ Alas!” said he, “ I have every day so much to do; for I have two falcons to tame, two hares to keep from running away, two hawks to manage, a serpent to confine, a lion to chain, and a sick man to tend and wait upon.” “ Why, you must be joking,” said his friend; “ surely no man can have all these things to do at once.” “ Indeed, I am not joking,” said the old man; “ but what I have told you is the sad and sober truth; for the two falcons are my two eyes, which I must diligently guard, lest something should please them which may be hurtful to my salvation; the two hares are my feet, which I must hold back lest they should run after evil objects, and walk in the ways of sin; the two hawks are my two hands, which I must train and keep to Work in order that I may be able to provide for myself and for my brethren who are in need; the serpent is my tongue, which I must always keep in with a bridle, lest it should speak anything unseemly; the lion is my heart, with which I have to maintain a continual fight in order that vanity and pride may not fill it, but that the grace of God may dwell and work there; the sick man is my whole body, which is always needing my watchfulness and care. All this daily wears out my strength.” (Preacher’ s Promptuary.)Spiritual caution Observe this was penned towards the close of the apostle’ s career. Full of years, and laden with trophies, he still thinks it necessary to keep war with the flesh. View him-- I. As an aged man. There is no period in which the spiritual warrior may relax his training. Each season of life has its appropriate and dominant passion. II. As an advanced Christian. Men may make great advances in religious knowledge, but be imperfect. Consider Paul’ s attainments in theology--yet still he struggles; he is still imperfect. III. As an experienced minister. A minister may eloquently preach, and people be delighted to listen--to real blessings to which both he and they be strangers. Again, people may be converted, and yet their minister be a castaway. So parents, masters, teachers, may help others to Christ, yet never find Him themselves. Personal religion, including persevering conflict, essential to final salvation. (Homilist.)Lest I be a castaway I. What is it to be a “ castaway” ? One who had been pronounced by the judges to be disqualified for the Greek games, or one who, having been permitted to enter into the contest, fails. Or the expression may have reference to metals, which, when the mass has been “ proved” to be dross, is rejected. Thus we read of “ reprobate silver.” The theological idea of reprobation does not belong to this word, it is simply intrinsic worthlessness, brought to light by the scrutiny of God’ s eye, the searching efficacy of His Word, or a providential dispensation.1. From whom may we be castaway. (1) God. God “ drove out the man” Adam; and Cain “ went out from the presence of the Lord” ; and David says, “ Cast me not away from Thy presence,” &c. (2) Christ, who said, “ Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” Yet He drove the buyers and sellers out of the Temple; ejected demons; denounced the scribes and Pharisees, and foretold to them their doom. (3) The Spirit of God, who “ will not always strive with men.” “ Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost,” said Stephen to the Jewish nation; and at length the Jewish nation was cast away. A man may sin till the Spirit of God will let him alone. (4) Good men; rejected of the Church, excommunicated. The salt having lost its savour is good for nothing but to be cast away. (5) Certain societies. You are blackballed, and your rejection may involve shame and infamy. (6) The angels of God. Did they not turn their backs upon Sodom? Did they not smite Egypt? (7) Yourselves; and this in the case of an apostate is not that salutary self-loathing which is associated with hope and pardon, but that of darkness and despair. 2. When? In part now; as when a man is excluded from the fellowship of the wise and good. Yet very often this may not be carried into effect; just as in the case of the tares, Christ told His disciples to let them grow together until harvest. The time of final discrimination, then, is the end of the man’ s earthly probation. When he departs from this world, he is rejected of heaven. We read of those who were “ without,” of the virgins who were cast away; of those to whom Christ will say, “ Depart from Me, I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity.” The most affecting thing in the universe is to be “ a castaway,” finally and for ever rejected. II. The means which the apostle took to prevent this. The text is only one among many.1. He abjured confidence in himself, and his own virtue and excellence (Philippians 3:1-21.). He grounds his hope of eternal life on the atonement of Christ, and resting as he did in Christ, it was impossible for him to be “ a castaway.” 2. He lived, and loved, and laboured by faith (Galatians 2:20). It is when the love of Christ is not present in a man’ s heart and mind, that he is in danger of being a castaway. “ If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” 3. He kept near to God in prayer. If you cast off prayer, you will be in peril; if you continue in prayer and supplication, you will not. 4. Taking these points antecedently to the one suggested in the text, our course becomes clear. “ But I keep under my body,” &c. Now the apostle does not mean anything ascetical; but that the body was subjected to the reason; and if any one of you has acquired a mastery over the animal appetites and instincts, he is on his way not to be a castaway, but to be approved and glorified of God. 5. What comes after this is sweet and sacred resignation to the Divine will “ I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 6. The final thing is that Paul laid aside every weight. “ This one thing I do,” &c. III. The triumphant issue. I know not anyone name which surpasses that of Paul. He is no castaway as respects the honour done to his name in the Church. And then in the world how has his character been appreciated even by those who have rejected his doctrine! What an immense effect have his writings had on the condition of society and on human affairs! Then as respects his admission to heaven, one moment there is the axe of Nero, the next he hears, “ Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” (J. Stratten.)A Castaway Observe--1. How earnestly Paul sought the kingdom of heaven (1 Corinthians 9:26). It was long after his conversion that Paul writes in this manner. 2. One particular in which he was very earnest. “ I keep under my body,” &c. (1 Corinthians 9:25). 3. His reason for all this earnestness--“ Lest when,” &c. What is it to be cast away? Wicked men shall be cast away-- I. From God (Matthew 25:41; 2 Thessalonians 1:9). From 1. The fruition of God. 2. The favour of God--“ In Thy favour is life.” 3. The blessing of God. God is the fountain of all blessing. Separate a man from God finally, and no creature can give him joy. II. From the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is now dealing and striving with natural men. When the day of grace is done the Spirit will strive no more--1. Through ordinances. There will be no family worship in hell--no Bible, no Sabbath, no preached gospel. 2. Through providences. There will be no more poverty or riches--no more sickness or bereavements. 3. Through conscience it will condemn, but it will not restrain. III. From all creatures.1. The angels will no longer take any interest in you. 2. The redeemed will no longer pray for you, nor shed another tear for you. 3. Ministers will no more desire your salvation. It will no more be their work. 4. Even devils will cast you off. As long as you remain on earth, the devil keeps you in his train; then you will be a part of his torment, and he will hate you and torment you, because you deceived him, and he deceived you. IV. From themselves.1. The understanding will be clear and full to apprehend the real nature of your misery. 2. The will in you will be all contrary to God’ s will. 3. Your conscience, God’ s viceregent, will accuse you of all your sins. 4. Your memory will be very clear. 5. Your anticipations--everlasting despair. Conclusion: Let believers learn Paul’ s earnest diligence. A wicked life will end in being a castaway. These two are linked together, and no man can sunder them, (R. M, McCheyne, M. A.)Wrecked for two worlds Ministers of religion may finally be lost, The apostle indicates that possibility. Cardinal Wolsey, after having been petted by kings, died in darkness. There have been cases of shipwreck where all on board escaped excepting the captain. You all understand the figure. There are men who, by their sins and temptations, are thrown helpless! Driven before the gale, wrecked, cast away. Among the causes of this calamity are-- I. False lights on the beach. This was often so in olden times. There are all kinds of lanterns swung on the beach philosophical, educational, humanitarian. Men look at them, and are deceived, when there is nothing but the lighthouse of the gospel that can keep them from becoming castaways. Once, on Wolf Crag lighthouse, they tried to build a copper figure of a wolf with its mouth open, so that the storms beating into it the wolf would howl. Of course it was a failure. And so all new inventions for the saving of a man’ s soul are unavailing. You might better destroy all the great lighthouses on the dangerous coasts than to put out God’ s great ocean-lamp--the gospel. II. The sudden swoop of a tempest. A vessel is sailing along in the East Indies; suddenly the breeze freshens; but before they can square the booms the vessel is in the grip of a tornado, and falls over into the trough of the sea, and broadside rolls on to the beach and keels over, leaving the crew to struggle in the merciless surf. And so there are thousands destroyed through the sudden swoop of temptations. Some great inducement to worldliness, or temper, or dissipation comes upon them. If they had time to deliberate, they could stand it; but the temptation came so suddenly, and they perish. It is the first step that costs; the second is easier; and the third; and on to the last. Once having broken loose from the anchor, it is not so easy to tie the parted strands. III. Sheer recklessness. The average of human life on the sea is less than twelve years. This comes from the fact that men by familiarity with danger become reckless, and in nine out of ten shipwrecks it is found out that some one was awfully to blame. So men lose their souls. There are thousands who do not care where they are in spiritual things. Drifting in their theology, in their habits, in regard to all the future; but all the time coming nearer and nearer to a dangerous coast. They do not deliberately choose to be ruined;’ neither did the French frigate Medusa aim for the Arguin Banks, but there it went to pieces. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)Hell after preaching These terrible words teach-- I. That deliverance from hell deserves the most earnest self-discipline. “ I keep under my body” I. strike under the eye so as to make it black and blue, a boxing phrase, indicative of strenuous efforts at mortification, as who should say, “ I subdue the flesh by violent and reiterated blows.” “ And bring it into subjection” ; “ I lead it along as a slave,” having subjugated it, I treat it as a bondsman, as boxers in the Palaestra used to drag off their conquered opponents. And the reason for this mortification of the flesh is, “ lest I should be a castaway.” Self-discipline consists of two things.1. The entire subjugation of the body to the mind. The body was intended to be the organ, servant, and instrument of the mind, but it has become the master. The supremacy of the body is the curse of the world and the ruin of man. 2. The subjugation of the mind to the spirit of Christ. Though the mind govern the body, if the mind is false, selfish, unloyal to Christ, there is no discipline. The mind must be the servant of Christ in order to be the legitimate sovereign of the body. II. That the necessity of this self-discipline cannot re superseded by the most successful preaching. Paul had preached as no one else had ever preached; yet his preaching, he felt, did not do the work of self-discipline. Indeed, there is much in the work of preaching that has a tendency to operate against personal spiritual culture.1. Familiarity with sacred truths destroys for us their charm of freshness, 2. A professional handling of God’ s Word interferes with its personal application. 3. The opinions of audiences, favourable or otherwise, exert an influence unfavourable to the life of the soul. 4. Satan is especially active in opposing the growth of spiritual piety in the preacher’ s soul. So that there is a terrible danger that whilst the preacher is cultivating the vineyards of others he is neglecting his own. III. The most successful preaching may be followed by ultimate ruin. A “ castaway” ! Who shall fathom the meaning of this word? A successful preacher “ a castaway” ! The Tophet of him who has offered mercy to others which he has despised, urged truths on the credence of others that he has disbelieved, enforced laws on others which he has transgressed, will burn with severer fires and peal with more awful thunders. (D. Thomas, D. D.). 1 Corinthians 11:1-2 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.Follow Paul and follow Christ I. Be ye followers of Paul. But how can we be like a man who has been dead for centuries, whose language and occupations were wholly different from ours? Can the nineteenth century be changed into the first? No. There are hundreds of points in which we cannot be like him; and yet Paul is more capable of being an example to us than he has been to almost any previous age of the world. He is truly the apostle of Englishmen, because--1. He is the apostle most congenial to our peculiar excellences. There is a real likeness between the English character and the freedom and love of truth which is the fibre and tissue of the teaching of St. Paul. 2. He is the apostle of progress. Are any of us inclined to think that Christianity is worn out, that it is too contracted for these broad, enlightened times? Some forms of it may have become so, but not the Christianity of St. Paul. He is the apostle of the vast and unknown future. St. Paul is always looking, not backward, but forward. He went beyond his own age, beyond the ages that followed; and, however far we have advanced in enlightenment and liberation, he has gone before us still. 3. The apostle of toleration. Have we outgrown the noble lessons of Rom 14:1-23.? Are we more able to bear with those who differ from us, more tender to the rights of conscience, than he? Let us separate the essential from the non-essential, the temporal from the eternal, as he did. II. Even as he was of Christ.1. In many forms this is the burden of all his Epistles (Romans 13:14; Colossians 2:6; Romans 8:29; Galatians 6:14; Galatians 2:20). He is but a servant of Christ. To carry in his own life a copy, however imperfect, of what Christ had said and done; to be one with Christ now and hereafter was his highest ambition and hope of salvation. And to this he calls us still. 2. True, we cannot imitate Christ in the letter, but we can in the spirit; we cannot “ put on” His outward garb and actions, but we can put on “ the mind which was in Christ Jesus.” We cannot attain to His perfection; in great part He is rather the likeness of God than the example of man; but we can study in His life and character the will of God and the duty of man. He should be to us as a second conscience, to fix our wills, to calm our scruples, to guide our thoughts, the conscience of our conscience, the mind of our mind, the heart of our heart. III. How shall we bring home this joint example to ourselves? How shall we concentrate on our own lives the rays of this double light, the greater light for ever going before, the lesser light for ever moving behind? Turn from the text to the context, and you will find laid down two fundamental principles of Evangelical religion--1. For the service of God (1 Corinthians 10:13.). Whatsoever ye do, in commerce and in labour, wheresoever it be, there is what you have to do to the glory of God. Here, joining in the prayers and hymns, etc., you are preparing for the service of God. But there, in your daily life, is the true “ Divine service,” in which we must all bear our parts. (1) Paul was ever employed in driving the enthusiasm of his followers into homely, useful, practical channels. (2) What was true of Paul was still more true of Christ. He did not retire to the wilderness. He lived and died in blessed companionship with men. In labour and in festivity, in moving multitudes and in crowded ship, He found alike His Father’ s work. 2. How are we to follow Paul and Christ in the service of man? (1 Corinthians 10:33; 1 Corinthians 9:22). Not by one uniform mode, but in ten thousand was, ever fresh, every varying with the wants and characters of each. (1) Every face that looks up from this crowd is different from every other; it expresses a history, a character, a weakness, a strength of its own. To every one the apostle would have been, as it were, a different man; he would have transformed himself into the thoughts and would have borne with the infirmities of each. No outward difference would have prevented him from seeing the good which lay beneath. He would have made straight for that and built it up, and so would have saved the soul in the midst of which he had discovered it. (2) And this example is not only for teachers or special times and places. It is for all times, places, and persons; for it is the example, not only of Paul, but of Christ Himself. He, too, “ became all things to all men, if by any means He might save some.” He came with a gracious word and touch for each. And as Christ and Paul have done to us, so ought we in our humble measure to do to our brethren; so ought we humbly to hope that they each in their turn will do to us, if by any means some of us may be saved. (Dean Stanley.)Following Christians and following Christ I. We ought to follow the example of former saints, so far as they walk in the laws of God.1. Though by nature all be sinners, yet by grace many in all ages have been saints. 2. The lives of many saints are recorded for our imitation (James 5:10-11; James 5:17; Philippians 3:17; Philippians 4:9). 3. But everything recorded of them is not to be followed. (1) Not such actions as are condemned. (2) Nor all such which are not condemned (Genesis 19:8; Genesis 27:25-27; Genesis 42:15-16). (3) Nor all such as are approved. For-- (a) Some things are only in part approved (Luke 16:8; Exodus 1:19-20). (b) Some things were done by the extraordinary call and instinct of God (Numbers 25:7-8; 2 Kings 1:10; Luke 9:54-55). So Abraham offering Isaac. 4. In our imitation of the saints we must observe-- (1) Whether what they do be according to the law of God. (2) The circumstances of their actions (Amos 6:5). Read, then, the lives of former saints, and follow their examples, especially the particular graces wherein they were eminent (Numbers 12:3; 1 Samuel 3:18; Job 1:21; Acts 5:41). II. Christ is the grand example which we ought to imitate.1. What is it to imitate Christ? (1) As He did it. (a) Understandingly (John 4:22). (b) Obediently (Luke 2:49; 1 Samuel 15:22). (c) Sincerely John 4:24; 2 Corinthians 1:12). (d) Wholly (Matthew 3:15; John 17:4). (e) Believingly (John 11:41-42). (f) Cheerfully (Isaiah 53:7; Hebrews 10:34; Romans 12:8). (g) Humbly (Matthew 11:29). (h) To the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). 2. What are those works which we are to imitate Christ in? Christ was truly God from eternity (John 1:1; John 8:58). He became truly man in time (John 1:14; 1 Timothy 2:5), and He was and is truly both God and man in one person (Acts 20:28). Whatsoever He did in the flesh He did under one of these three notions. (1) We are not to follow Christ in what He did as God; such are His acts-- (a) Of omnipotence. Healing the sick, casting out devils, raising the dead, etc. (b) Of omniscience (Luke 11:17; Luke 13:32). (c) Of sovereignty (Matthew 16:2; Matthew 16:7). (2) Nor in what He did as God-man, in the acts-- (a) Of His prophetical office (Deuteronomy 18:15; John 15:15; Acts 3:22). (b) His priestly office. Satisfying for our sins (1 John 2:2), and interceding for our souls (Hebrews 7:25). (c) His kingly office (Isaiah 9:7). (3) But we are to follow Him in what He did as mere man. (a) He was subject to His parents (Luke 2:51). This subjection consisteth in reverencing them (Leviticus 19:3); in obeying them, by hearkening to their instructions (Proverbs 13:1; Proverbs 23:22) and performing their lawful commands (Colossians 3:20; Ephesians 6:1); in thankfulness, by acknowledging their care and providing for their necessities (1 Timothy 5:4; Genesis 47:12; John 19:26-27). Consider--This is pleasing to God (Ephesians 6:1), and hath a promised blessing (Ephesians 6:2-3; Exodus 20:12). (b) He committed no sin 1 Peter 2:22; Isaiah 53:9; 1 John 3:5). How are we not to sin? We are not to love it (Psalms 119:1-176). We must imitate Christ in-- (c) Love. (d) Submission. (e) Meekness and holiness. (f) Hearing. (g) Finishing His work. (h) Taking all opportunities of doing good. 3. Means. (1) Watch always over thy heart (1 Peter 5:8; Proverbs 4:23).(2) Live as under the eye of God.(3) Consider thou art a Christian. (Bp. Beveridge.)A follower of Christ It needs no argument to prove that all men do not follow Christ. Many profess to follow Him, and many boast that they do follow Him, but, oh, how few faithfully follow Christ! Indeed, the grand mistake of the world lies in this--that following Christ consists in mere attendance to a few forms and professions of religion, whereas it is wholly a spiritual service, and can never be taken up by any but spiritual men. Therefore the Scriptures assure us that a follower of Christ is-- I. One who has been quickened by Christ. A dead man cannot follow another. A man dead in trespasses and sins must be quickened by the Son of God before he will take one step in the way to heaven. II. One who heartily loves Christ. “ We love Him, because He first loved us.” “ The love of God constraineth us.” All Christ asks in return for His love is “ Follow Me,” and the grateful and redeemed spirit says, “ Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.” III. One who embraces the doctrine of Christ. When quickeing takes place, the soul receives the kingdom of heaven as a little child. “ Teach me,” says such a spirit, “ Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth; unite my heart to fear Thy name.” It does not take the doctrines of the gospel and throw away the precepts; it does not reserve the precepts and cast away the doctrines, but it takes it as a whole, as the word of Christ, and the directory in the way to heaven. IV. One who cheerfully walks in the ways of Christ. Religious labour is no drudgery to him. Never has a Christian any melancholy as long as he walks in Christ’ s paths; it is when he turns out of them that occasions him sadness and pain. V. One who copies the example of Christ. A follower of Christ is not one whose head is filled with well-digested schemes of theology. Christ hath left us an example that we should follow His steps. Following Christ is walking behind Him, putting our feet into the print of His footsteps, and so going on in the way to heaven. He has left His footprints--1. In His meek and amiable spirit.2. In heavenly behaviour and conversation.3. In prayer.4. In His abounding liberality.5. In His diligent labours.6. In His spirit of love. VI. One who perseveringly continues with Christ. Some follow Christ from gain, some partially, as long as the truth does not touch their consciences; some in poverty and affliction; but when the sun of prosperity has arisen, when persecution or affliction cometh on account of the truth, then they desert Christ. “ But he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” (J. Sherman.)True following Some men are destined to lead either in evil or in good. St. Paul, who had been a leader in persecution, was made “ a leader and commander of Christ’ s people,” and he removes every trace of human assumption when he qualifies the exhortation with “ even as I am also of Christ.” I. To follow Christ is the source of Christian influence. It is one thing to look at the life of Jesus with interest and admiration; it is another thing to regard it as our pattern and inspiration. To gain the higher influence of the Saviour’ s life we must follow Him--1. Wholly. The would-be followers of His day made loud professions of following Him, but when He said, “ If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross,” etc., the crowd dispersed, and only the twelve remained. 2. Constantly. When you sit for your likeness the photographer measures the time in which to take a deep and sharp impression. Half the time would only give half the result. If you only look at Jesus once in awhile, and if serious thought only possess you at times, the flood of worldly influence will sweep away the good impressions as the tide demolishes footsteps in the sand. 3. Openly. Conversion becomes more real, love to Christ more intense, and hatred of sin more forcible by the exhibition of the virtues of Him who has called us out of darkness into light. The light we shed on others is again reflected on ourselves. The voice of the echo is sweeter than your own; so is piety when it returns to us from its mission of mercy. II. To exhibit Christ is the mission of the Christian life.1. The power of example is great. The ancient Romans used to place the statues of distinguished men in their halls. When they left in the morning they were inspired by the remembrance of their noble deeds, and when they returned in the evening they were ennobled by the thought of the associations they enjoyed. 2. The power of Christian example is the greatest. Both in moulding and reforming characters it has not a rival. Its force is that of Divine love working through human actions. God in Christ Jesus made His life the noblest of all lives, because it has produced the greatest reforms in the race. The life of Jesus in His Church is its perpetuation. (Weekly Pulpit.)Christ’ s example 1. Once in the course of the world’ s history there has been seen on earth a perfect life. It was a life not merely to admire, but to follow. It has been ever since the acknowledged human standard. 2. And we have not only the perfect example, but we have it declared why and how it is perfect. Lessons, teaching and enforcing, accompany each incident of our Lord’ s ministry; they are drawn together into a solemn summary in the Sermon on the Mount. Here we have the highest moral guidance for the world. 3. That example and law of life were nothing less than universal. They were meant for all men. Differing so widely as men do, Christ calls them all alike to follow Him. 4. Christianity makes itself universal by making its moral standard, not verbal rules or laws, but a character. That character is one who is called in Scripture the Image of God. All that Christ did and said were the various expressions of the perfect goodness of the Father. And that is the Christian law. And this is what fits the Christian standard to be a universal one. For a character, if it is great enough, carries its force far beyond the conditions Under which it may have been first disclosed. If shown under one set of circumstances its lesson can be extended to another, perfectly different. It adapts itself with the freedom and elasticity of life. We can follow it on, from the known, to what it would be, in the new and strange. “ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to-day and for ever” --the same in glory as in the form of a servant. Under conditions utterly changed, His goodness is that same very goodness which we saw. And so we can derive from that Character lessons for our state, which is so different from His. And not only so, but we can derive lessons from it for conditions of human life very far removed from those conditions under which His goodness was manifested to us here. Literal imitation may be impossible, but it is not impossible to catch its spirit and apply its lessons to altered circumstances. In that character, though shown to us in the form of servant, we know that everything is gathered which could make human nature what it ought to be. Consider Christ as a pattern for-- I. The life of faith.1. All the while that He was on earth He was in heart and soul undivided for a moment from heaven. He does what is most human; but He lives absolutely in the Divine. However, we see Him: tempted, teaching, healing, etc., in the wilderness, in the temple, on the Cross--He is yet all the while “ even the Son of Man which is in heaven.” 2. Men have compared the active and the contemplative life, and the life of practical beneficence with the life of devotion. We see great things done without the sense of religion, and we see the religious spirit failing to command the respect of those who have other ways of ministering to men’ s wants. But in Christ we have both lives combined. In Him we see man serving to the utmost his brethren; but we also see man one with the thought and will of God. 3. Here we see how character in itself, irrespective of circumstance, is adapted to be a guide; here is an example, shown under the most exceptional conditions, yet fit to be universal. But on what outward circumstances does such a life depend? Why is not equally to be realised in the calling of the ruler, the rich man, the student? How need their outward conditions affect their relationship to God? II. The Life of Truth.(1) To all, quite apart from the accidental conditions of their state, Christ’ s life shows what alone is real and great in life; and surely there are ends and purposes in the life of each of us which are literally as real as the ends of His life. One is high and another low; one has much and another little, but to every one who believes in God and providence, the work of each is equally real: a call, a stewardship from God. (2) What we see in Christ’ s life is not only a purpose and work passing man’ s understanding, but that purpose followed, and that work done, in a way which man can understand. It is a life governed by its end and purpose, in which shows or illusions have no place; and further, a life in which its purpose is followed with absolute indifference to whatever sacrifice it may cost. He has put all this into words which mark for ever the change He made in our views of life--“ My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work” ; “ I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day” ; and when all was over, “ I have finished the work that Thou gavest Me to do.” III. The Life of Love. It is the new commandment, new to the world, but as old as the eternal Word who brought it, which turns the Sermon on the Mount from a code of precepts into the expressions and instances of a character. Its words have their interpretation and their reason in that Divine temper which had come with Christ to restore the world. The purity, the humility, the forgiving mind, the unflagging goodness they speak of, were but some among the infinitely varied ways of acting out the meaning of His last charge, “ That ye love one another as I have loved you” ; and of His last prayer, “ That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me, may be in them, and I in them.” A great deal may be said of love without ever really touching what is its vital essence. But here our sympathies are appealed to. We see how Jesus Christ showed what it is to lead a life of love. Conclusion:1. The mutable shapes of society, unfolded by God’ s providence, fix almost without our will our outward circumstances. But for the soul, wherever it is, Christ our Lord has one unchanging call, “ Be perfect” ; and He has one unchanging rule for its fulfilment, “ Be what I am, feel what I felt, do as I should do.” How shall we? How but by looking steadfastly at Him and trying to see and know Him? In the same Living Person each age has seen its best idea embodied; but its idea was not adequate to the truth--there was something still beyond. (1) An age of intellectual confusion saw in His portraiture in the Gospels the ideal of the great Teacher, the healer of human error. It judged rightly; but that was only part. (2) The monastic spirit saw in it the warrant and suggestion of a life of self-devoted poverty as the condition of perfection: who can doubt that there was much to justify it: who can doubt that the reality was something far wider than the purest type of monastic life? (3) The Reformation saw in Him the great improver, the quickener of the dead letter, the stern rebuker of a religion which had forgotten its spirit; and doubtless He was all this, only He was infinitely more. (4) And now in modern times there is the disposition to dwell on Him as the ideal exemplar of perfect manhood. He is all this, and this is infinitely precious. We may “ glorify Him for it and exalt Him as much as we can, but even yet will He far exceed.” And as generations go on they will still find that Character answering to their best thoughts and hopes. 2. What is the lesson? Surely this: to remember when we talk of the example of Christ, that the interpretations and readings of it are all short of the thing itself; and that we possess, to see and to learn from, the thing itself. (Dean Church.)Christ, our example The apostle-- I. Directs our attention to Christ as the great model of the Christian. It is a marked characteristic of Christianity that all the truths are presented in no vague, intangible form, but as embodied in one living model. Note--1. The fitness of Christ to be our model pattern. We needed one Divine and yet human. One all Divine would have been inimitable; one all human must have fallen below the necessities of the case. So Christ came, “ God manifest in the flesh.” His divinity fitted Him to reveal God’ s will, and uniting His Deity with humanity, He lived, laboured, suffered, and died as a Man, to present a visible picture which shall be the model of study and imitation for all time. 2. The perfection of this model. Perfect God and perfect man, He forms a perfect study for the believer. His love to God was supreme; the exercise of His will was ever in perfect harmony with the Divine will. In the hour of His temptation, He emerges from the furnace unscathed; and in the profoundest depth of agony there is the deepest submission to God. 3. Its surpassing loveliness. Look at His unearthly life--living in the world, and yet above the world. Look at His humility--the incarnate God though He was, yet stooping to wash His disciples’ feet. Look at Him as a Man of prayer--walking in the closest communion with His Father. II. Delineates the character of a true believer as moulded upon that of Jesus. A follower of Christ.1. Is a partaker of its spiritual nature. An unsanctified heart, an unrenewed soul, cannot be said to be cast into this mould. It becomes, then, a question of the deepest moment, “ Am I born again of the Spirit?” 2. Has his hope of acceptance, as a lost sinner, entirely in Christ. He has renounced his own righteousness, and has received as his only justification “ the righteousness of God which is by faith in Christ Jesus.” 3. Sits as a humble learner at the feet of Christ. 4. Follows Christ only. We may follow ministers and not Christ, Churches, and not the Head of the Church. 5. Is crucified with Christ: “ If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” (O. Winslow, D.D.)Imitation of Christ 1. We find in the Word of God that the imitation of Christ is frequently laid down as the leading principle of the gospel (Matthew 16:24; John 12:26; John 13:13; 1 Peter 2:21; Ephesians 5:1.; 1 Thessalonians 1:16). In these passages we are taught the importance of the principle of example. The Word of God has many ways of teaching. But especially it teaches by example. Example embodies precept, places it before us in pictorial form, which we can easily see and understand. And not only so, but example recommends precept; because where it is a good example, it evidently carries with it the proof of sincerity on the part of the person who sets it. 2. But it may be asked why, if Christ is the real standard and example, does St. Paul set himself before us? I think the reason is simply this, that while Christ is undoubtedly the example, St. Paul regarded himself as an illustration of that example. Note some of the leading features of our Lord’ s character in which this principle of imitation is to be carried out. I. In His spirit of self-renunciation (Philippians 2:6; cf Philippians 2:5.) How closely St. Paul copied our Lord in this! He “ counted all things but loss that he might win Christ,” and glorify Him. And that same spirit lies at the foundation of all true religion. “ If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself.” II. His spirit of obedience. “ My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” It was--1. A willing obedience; one in which He delighted. 2. A constant, ceaseless obedience. 3. An obedience victorious, because it was through and after conflict. And so with St. Paul. “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” seems to have been the question which pervaded his whole career. Now, we love and value the privileges of the gospel; but do not let us lose sight of its responsibilities. III. His spirit of zeal (John 2:1-25.). St. Paul followed Him in this. Men in the present day seem afraid of zeal. But it is good to be zealous in a good cause. Lukewarmness in religion is especially hateful in the sight of God. IV. His spirit of meekness and gentleness--“ I beseech you,” says St. Paul, “ by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” He never quenched the smoking flax. And so St. Paul, with all his fire and energy, observed the evident spirit of tenderness and sympathy with which he watched over the infant Church. There are rough and rugged characters which are full of energy in Christ’ s cause, but which need to look at His example in this respect. V. His spirit of love as shown in giving Himself for us; as shown towards the impenitent, and to the multitude scattered as sheep having no shepherd. All this was imitated by St. Paul. VI. The spirit of blessed anticipation as regards the future (Hebrews 12:3). In the same way St. Paul tells us that his one desire was to finish his course with joy. We should endeavour in our seasons of trial to remember that the time is short, and that if we be faithful there is laid up for us “ an exceeding weight of glory, a crown of righteousness.” Conclusion: The subject may be used--1. By way of self-examination. It is exceedingly difficult to bring home to the sinner’ s conscience, by the mere statement of truth, the guilt which attaches to him. But let the sinner place his own life by the side of Christ’ s life. 2. As a principle of guidance. There are perplexing questions which continually arise in the Christian life. Whenever you can find Christ’ s example as a guide to you in your conduct, you may be perfectly certain that yon are safe in the course you adopt. 3. As an encouragement for Christians. It is according to the will of God that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. In attempting, therefore, to reach this conformity, you are attempting that which is the revealed will of God concerning you, and, therefore, which you may reasonably expect. He will give you grace, at least in some measure, to attain. In the future we shall be like Him, for “ we shall see Him as He is.” And the more we see Him now, the more we live with Him now, the more like Him we shall become. (E. Bayley, D.D.)Imitation and commendation In these words we have-- I. The principle on which the characters of most men are formed. Men are imitative beings, and from a law of their nature those whom they most admire, and with whom they most associate, they become like in spirit and in character. The request of Paul at first sight seems somewhat arrogant, “ Be ye followers of me.” No man has a right to make such an unqualified claim. Hence Paul puts the limitation, “ Even as I also am of Christ.” The apostle undoubtedly refers to the preceding verses, in which he speaks of himself as not seeking his own pleasure or profit, but that of others. This Christ did. He “ pleased not Himself.” He means to say, Be like me as I in this respect resemble Christ. Here is the principle that should regulate our imitation of men; imitate them just so far as they resemble Christ. Children should not imitate their parents, pupils their teachers, congregations their ministers, save so far as they resemble Christ. II. A commendation of merit which many are reluctant to render (verse 2). In some things, then, some of the Corinthians pleased Paul. There was much in them at which he found fault, but so far as they did the proper thing he praises them. To render generously credit where credit is due, is the characteristic of a great soul, but one which most men are reluctant to perform. A wife will go on lovingly attending to the wants and wishes of her husband, and perhaps not from one year to another does she receive from him one word of hearty commendation. So with servants and masters, and ministers and their congregations. (D. Thomas, D.D.)A momentous example In one of our western cities, high up on a very tall building, is a large clock. It registers what is called “ electric time,” and is known to be very accurate because it is regulated by the calculations of scientific instruments. On a large sign is painted, “ Correct city time,” and when one has any doubts about having the exact time, he sets his watch by this clock. Great mills, railroads, manufactories, run by its time. Should it lose or gain an hour the whole city would be thrown into confusion. Let us remember, one watch set right will do to set many by; while, on the other hand, the watch that goes wrong may be the means of misleading a whole multitude of others. So it is with life. A wholly consecrated person may become the example for many, and a wicked life of sin may, too, be the means of entangling a whole community of associates. “ Examine yourselves.” (Sharpened Arrows.)Imitation of the good It is characteristic of St. Paul that in his Epistles, as in his ministry, he uses his own life, his own personality, almost as if they were not his own; they are as much at the service of his argument as of his work. Such was the nature of his self-surrender to Christ. There is much in the faculty of imitation, and in the facts connected with it, that is mysterious, much beyond our ken. Man is presented to us in Holy Scripture on the one hand in his first state before the fall, as a creature of imitation, made after the likeness of God. On the other hand, in his fallen state we find him wearying himself with all kinds of yearnings after the likeness of God manifested in every kind of idolatry. In the fulness of time Christ came on earth, in His human nature, both restoring the Divine image and making it possible for man to realise the long lost ideal. What wonder, then, that St. Paul, realising and profoundly impressed with this great feature of the Incarnation, should emphasise imitation of himself as leading to Christ, imitation of Christ, and imitation of God in Christ? What wonder if of all books (next to the Bible itself) the most dear to devout souls and spirits striving upwards after heavenly things should be the “ Imitatio Christi” of Thomas A.Kempis? But before we go on to consider how this can become potent in our life and practice, we ought not to fail to observe one aspect of imitation which is of infinite importance to us in its effects for good or for ill. Imitation is not only a conscious activity, by which we can strive to follow and adapt ourselves to any example which we may select for ourselves. It is a part of nature; not only of human nature. It has its unconscious as well as its conscious side. It pervades animal life to an extent which we are apt to ignore or forget. It is the first didactic force. It is concerned with the simplest and most necessary problems of life. By it the young of many animals are first taught to take their food. For instance, in the case of chickens hatched by an incubator, if they are to be artificially reared, it is necessary that the example of picking up their food should be set them in some way. By imitation they learn to live. Imitation, as Darwin has pointed out, is one of the chief factors in the advancement and modification of such intellectual powers as animals possess. There are, indeed, subtle indications of its force in lower animal life, but it is most manifest in birds and in the apes, whose very name furnishes a verb of kindred meaning. And again, as we rise in the scale of animal life, it is very noticeable as a characteristic of savage races of men; of man, indeed, in what some are wont to call his primitive state. We need hardly dwell upon its development in civilised man. It is dominant in those arts which claim so large a portion in his education, his enjoyment of life, his material well-being. Again, as part of human nature, imitation has two functions, which it is important that we should observe, explanatory as they are in a measure of that which we have noticed in the history of man in relation to God. On the one hand he received the likeness, on the other hand he sought it outside himself. Even so, just as in the nervous and muscular system of the body we have the division into involuntary and voluntary, so the imitative faculty in man is unconscious and conscious, is passive as well as active. Much more of it perhaps is unconscious than conscious, and the mystery of its essential being and origin is more inexplicable in the former than in the latter. Why is it that such physical defects as squinting and tricks of movement are said to be infectious, capable of being communicated at sight to very young children? Why is it that, as so often happens, a boy’ s handwriting becomes like his tutor’ s? All these instances point to unconscious, involuntary imitation. The surroundings of a child, of a boy, of a young man, have more effect upon him than he himself can discern, or any one else can determine, and that because of this faculty of imitation, which is part and parcel of his nature. He assimilates them as he does his food, they become portions of his being, and affect his growth, his development, his ultimate destiny. Nay more, it seems as if these influences became hereditary in their effects. We cannot limit these effects to merely physical characteristics or physical results. If our intellectual and spiritual being is thus subject to the supreme influence of assimilation and unconscious imitation, can we doubt its power in the sphere of morality? “ Tell me who he lives with, and I will tell you who he is,” is an old proverb. “ With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with the perfect man thou shalt be perfect. With the clean thou shalt be clean, and with the froward thou shalt learn frowardness.” Youth is plastic. And without doubt the first and most important counsel is: “ Be not over hasty in making friends” ; take heed as to the associates whom you choose to live with. Remember you will probably become like them. All unconsciously your moral being will receive the impression of their moral being, their conversation, their tone, their virtues, or their vices. Unless the soul proposes to itself the imitation of good, it will prove unconsciously to be assimilating and imitating evil. The Apostle Paul had so devoted himself to the imitation of Christ, that as we have seen he regarded himself as living in Christ, and Christ living in him. This imitation cannot be without effort, and if, as in the mixed community of Corinth with all its blemishes, and weaknesses, and grievous sins, it was not easy to rise to the ideal of the unseen, yet still the nearer ideal of the good man is better than none, and the apostle did not hesitate to set his own example before them. There must be few of us who cannot find some such good example, some good and holy, some pure and honourable, some generous and manly life, to which we may look with satisfaction and hopefulness, and a desire so to follow it as to rise “ upon the stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things.” But even so the imitation must ultimately be not even of good and holy men, but of Christ in them. “ Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ.” The work of the Incarnation was not only to restore to humanity the image of the perfect man in Christ but also the power, to them that believe in Christ, of reflecting that image, and by conscious and unconscious imitation of becoming more and more like Him. I know not at what time of life this work of the imitation of Christ can be entered upon more freely, more reasonably, more joyfully, than that in which, when childish things are being put away, the young man reaching toward the maturity of his physical and mental powers, is still occupied with his own education and improvement, and is not yet immerged in the world-life with all its engrossing toil of business and pleasure, its triumphs, its disappointments, its sorrows, and soul-enthralling anxieties. (E. Warre, D.D.)Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you--Apostolic commendation I. Its grounds.1. Personal, “ that ye remember me.” (1) We all like to be remembered, especially by those who owe us much, or between us and whom there exist the tenderest relationships. These Corinthians owed all their spiritual life and blessings to the apostle, and it comforted him amidst the toils and perils of his Ephesian ministry to know that he was not forgotten. Nothing would more sadden a father than to be forgotten by his children, a wife by her husband, a pastor by his church. (2) We like to be remembered “ in all things.” They remembered Paul’ s preaching, his labours at his handicraft, his sympathy and helplessness. And when we come across an acquaintance that we have not seen for years, how pleasant it is to be remembered by one’ s features: tone, gait, or some other characteristic, and to gather in conversation that this and that incident or word has been treasured up. 2. Moral. The Corinthians not only remembered Paul and what he said; they remembered to do what he told them. Not the most tender personal recollections would have compensated for the absence of this. Paul’ s wish was not to be popular, but to be permanently useful. This is what Christ wants: “ If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” This is what we all want: parents, teachers, ministers, etc., and exact obedience is what is required--“ as I delivered them,” adding nothing to them, taking nothing from them, but keeping them both in the spirit and in the letter. II. Its expression. This was--1. Frank and open. Encouraging sentiment is sometimes entertained where it is not expressed. This does no good. If you feel that a man deserves your praise, why not tell him so? 2. Large-hearted and generous. There were a good many things which the apostle could not praise, but was forced to blame the Corinthians; but where he felt he could praise conscientiously he did so unstintedly. 3. Fraternal, “ Brethren.” He did not indulge them as children simply to spur them on, nor flatter them as superiors to secure their patronage. He treated them as equally next himself concerned about the prosperity of the Church, and in their efforts to promote that prosperity he felt them worthy of a brother’ s praise. (J. W. Burn.) 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.Christ our Head This important statement is the starting-point for a deliverance on the subject of the conduct of women in the Church. The apostle often, in dealing with matters of trifling importance or limited interest, rises to the enunciation of the grand principle on which it rests. Here he gives the principle first. Let us look at our relationship with Christ-- I. Through its earthly shadow.1. In building the house of the human family God made the man the head of the woman, the husband or bond of the house. This headship carries with it responsibility; for if wives are to obey their husbands, husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and so make the wifely duty a joy. 2. In this sense, only with deepened meaning, Christ is the head of every man, i.e., of the race. And just as the wife attains the end of her being on the earthly side in her husband; as she finds the sum of her womanly ambitions and duties in promoting his welfare; as she is entitled to look to him for protection, counsel, tenderness, and example; as she is to seek in him the rounding of her present life and the fulness of her earthly joy; so the members of the human family are to look up to Christ as their Head. None of us is complete without Him. And just as trust and obedience unite a woman to her husband and enable him to fulfil his obligations to her, so it is by faith and submission that Jesus is able to accomplish His saving, life-giving work. There is therefore deep truth in the representation of the exaltation of the Church to glory as a marriage supper. II. In its heavenly archetypes--God’ s headship over Christ.1. In His Divine, eternal essence Christ is “ the brightness of His Father’ s glory,” etc., God’ s realised ideal, a vessel into which God has poured all the fulness of the Divine nature, a vessel of Godhead eternally equal to that which it contains and perfectly full. 2. In the light of this look once more at your relationship to Christ. “ As the Father hath loved Me” (John 15:9-10). We are to reflect Christ just as He reflects God, and appears, therefore, full of grace and truth. Conclusion: “ The head of every man is Christ.”1. Then Christ is just yourself, idealised and perfected--the prophecy of what you are to become. He is not a glorified man merely, but glorified humanity. 2. This great fact throws light on the doctrine of substitution. Christ became man, not a man. Just as we were all in Adam, and are so many multiplied copies of him, so Christ became the second Adam, and God looks at us in Him. Since, then, He was a representative man, all He did and suffered on earth had a representative character. (E. W. Shalders, B.A.)Human and Divine relations There exist three relations which together form a sort of hierarchy: lowest in the scale, the purely human relation between man and woman; higher, the Divine-human relation between Christ and man; highest, the purely Divine relation between God and Christ. The common term whereby Paul characterises these relations is “ head,” or chief. This figurative term includes two ideas--community of life, and inequality within this community. So between the man and the woman, by the bond of marriage there is formed between them the bond of a common life, but in such a way that the one is the strong and directing element, the other the receptive and dependent element. The same is the case in the relation between Christ and the man. Formed by the bond of faith, it also establishes a community of life, in which there are distinguished an active and directing principle and a receptive and directed factor. An analogous relation appears higher still in the mystery of the Divine essence. By the bond of filiation there is between Christ and God communion of Divine life, but such that impulse proceeds from the Father, and that “ the Son doeth nothing but what He seeth the Father do.” The relation between Christ and the man is put first. It is, so to speak, the link of union between the other two, reflecting the sublimity of the one and marking the other with a sacred character, which should secure it from the violence with which it is threatened. (Prof. Godet.)The conduct and deportment of Christian women A broad principle laid down by Christianity was human equality: “ there is neither male nor female, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” We all know how fruitful a cause of popular commotion the teaching of equality has been in every age, and at Corinth this doctrine threatened to lead to much social confusion. A claim was made for a right in woman to do all that men should do--to preach and pray, e.g., in public, and therefore to appear as men, unveiled in public. This latter the apostle here prohibits-- I. On the ground that it was a rash defiance of established rules of decorum. The veiled head is a symbol of--1. Modesty; for to pray unveiled was to insult all the conventional feelings of Jew and Gentile. The Holy Ghost, however, has not imposed on the Church this particular fashion, but the principle contained in it is eternal; and it is impossible to decide how much of our public morality and private purity is owing to the spirit which refuses to overstep the smallest bound of ordinary decorum. 2. Dependence. St. Paul perceived that the law of Christian equality was quite consistent with the vast system of subordination running through the universe (1 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Corinthians 11:11-12). He distinguishes between inferiority and subordination; each sex exists in a certain order, not one as greater than the other, but both great and right in being what God intended them to be. II. By an appeal to natural instincts ann propriety (1 Corinthians 11:14-15). Fanaticism defies nature. Christianity refines it and respects it. It develops each nation, sex, and individual, according to their own nature--making man more manly and woman more womanly. But let us not forget that here, too, there are exceptions. Beware of a dead, hard rule. There have been many instances in which one man standing against the world has been right, and the world wrong, as Elijah, Athanasius, Luther, and others. But in questions of morality, propriety, decency, when we find our own private judgment contradicted by the general experience, habit, and belief of all the best around us, then the doctrine of this chapter commands us to believe that the many are right and that we are wrong. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The veil St. Paul is now compelled to qualify the general commendation of 1 Corinthians 11:2. He heard with surprise and vexation that women presumed to address the assembled Christians unveiled, to the scandal of all sober-minded Orientals and Greeks. It is a singular specimen of the strange matters that came before Paul for decision when the care of all the Churches lay upon him. I. What was the intention of Christian women in making a demonstration so unfeminine?1. Throughout this letter Paul is correcting the hasty impressions which the new believers were receiving regarding their position as Christians. A flood of new ideas was suddenly poured in upon their minds, one of which was the equality of all before God and of a Saviour for all alike. There was neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, etc., now. And it dawned on the woman that she was neither man’ s toy nor slave, but that she had a life to frame for herself. She was not dependent on men for her Christian privileges; ought she not to show this by laying aside the veil, which was the acknowledged badge of dependence? 2. Among the Greeks it was the universal custom for the women to appear in public with the head covered, commonly with the corner of their shawl drawn over their head like a hood. It was the one significant rite in marriage that she assumed the veil in token that now her husband was her head. This covering could be dispensed with only in places where they were secluded from public view. It was therefore the badge which proclaimed that she who wore it was a private, not a public, person, finding her duties at home, not abroad. It was the man’ s place to serve the State or the public, the woman’ s place to serve the man. II. This movement of the Corinthian women Paul meets by reminding them that personal equality is perfectly consistent with social subordination. The woman must not argue that because she is independent of her husband in the greater sphere she must also be independent of him in the less (1 Corinthians 11:3). This principle is of incalculable importance and very wide and constant application.1. Whatever is meant by the natural equality of men, it cannot mean that none are to have authority over others. In order to the harmony of society there is a gradation of ranks; and social grievances result, not from the existence of social distinctions, but from their abuse. This gradation, then, involves Paul’ s inference (1 Corinthians 11:4-5). The veil being the recognised badge of subordination, when a man appears veiled he would seem to acknowledge some one present and visible as his head, and would thus dishonour Christ, his true Head. A woman, on the other hand, appearing unveiled would seem to say that she acknowledges no visible human head, and thereby dishonours her head--i.e., her husband--and so doing, dishonours herself. She puts herself on the level of the woman with a shaven head, which both among Jews and Greeks was a brand of disgrace. 2. This subordination has its roots in nature (1 Corinthians 11:7-8). (1) Man is the glory of God because he is His image and is fitted to exhibit in actual life the excellences which make God worthy of our love and worship. But while man directly, woman indirectly, fulfils this purpose of God. She is God’ s glory by being man’ s glory. She exhibits God’ s excellences by creating and cherishing excellence in man (1 Corinthians 11:8-9). The position assigned to woman as the glory of man is therefore far removed from the view which cyclically proclaims her man’ s mere convenience. (2) That this is woman’ s normal sphere is indicated even by her unalterable physical characteristics. By nature woman is endowed with a symbol of modesty and retirement. The veil is merely the artificial continuation of her natural gift of hair. The long hair of the Greek fop or of the English cavalier was accepted by the people as an indication of effeminate and luxurious living. And nature, speaking through this visible sign of the woman’ s hair, tells her that her place is in the home, not in the city or the camp; in the attitude of free and loving subordination, not in the seat of authority and rule. In other respects also the physical constitution of woman points to a similar conclusion--e.g., her shorter stature and slighter frame, her higher pitch of voice, her more graceful form and movement. And similar indications are found in her mental peculiarities. She has the gifts which fit her for influencing individuals; man has those qualities which enable him to deal with persons in the mass. Not all women, of course, are of the distinctively womanly type. A Britomarte may arm herself and overthrow the strongest knights. A Joan of Arc may infuse into a nation her own warlike and patriotic ardour. In art, in literature, in science, feminine names may occupy some of the highest places. In our own day many careers have been opened to women from which they had hitherto been debarred. Conclusion: A woman is a woman still though she become a Christian; a subject must honour his king although by becoming a Christian he is himself in one aspect above all authority; a servant will show his Christianity, not by assuming an insolent familiarity with his Christian master, but by treating him with respectful fidelity. It forms a great part of our duty to accept our own place without envying others, and to do honour to those to whom honour is due. (M. Dods, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:4-7 Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered dishonoureth his head.Decorum in the house of God 1. It is possible to dishonour Christ in our holiest services. 2. It is not enough to pray and preach in the spirit--some regard is due to propriety of manner and demeanour. 3. This is especially necessary in public worship, lest we dishonour Christ whom we represent before others. 4. Every true and enlightened Christian will therefore study what is decorous, as well as what is religious. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The proprieties of public worship I. Explain the improprieties referred to in the text. These were determined by natural and spiritual relations. Required apostolic prescription, which was fixed in harmony with prevailing custom and opinion. II. Apply.1. The proprieties of public worship must to some extent be governed by the customs of the times. 2. Because Christianity inculcates whatsoever is of good report. 3. Yet the outward form must be pervaded with spiritual life. (J. Lyth, D.D.)For a man … is the image and glory of God.-- Man is I. The image of God. Imago is an abbreviation of imitago, something more than imitatio--not as one orange is the likeness of another; it means the copy of an archetype, as, e.g., the sovereign’ s head on a coin (Matthew 20:20), or the sun’ s reflection in water. A cathedral in photograph is a copy of a copy; for it is an image of a cathedral in stone, and this again is the image of the original pre-existing in the mind of the architect. God is both the architect and, within due limits, the archetype of man. But the relation between the two consists in something more than similitude, even in affinity of essence. For man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature, which, because of the primal inbreathing (Genesis 2:7), is akin to the Divine. II. He is the glory of God. The Divine glory itself is the eternal self-manifestation to the Triune God of His own holy nature. In the Divine counsel of creation this inner self-manifestation was to become an outer manifestation filling all creation. But it was through man, the created lord of the cosmos, the representative of God in the universe, the connecting link between heaven and earth, that the glory of God was to be communicated to the cosmos. As this derived glory was to be the effluence of the self-manifested Divine glory, which is itself the eternal effluence of Deity; so man in his higher nature of spirit, inbreathed into him from Spirit, was created actually the image of God, but in his lower nature of body, moulded from earth, was created potentially the glory of God, i.e., constituted with a possibility, contingent on obedience, of a glorified body and soul and spirit. The design was baffled by Satan for a season. Meanwhile humiliated in body, yet now transformed in spirit, fallen man awaits in faith and hope the unveiling of the “ new creation” in Christ and his own bodily assimilation to the body of His glory. (Canon Evans.) 1 Corinthians 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.Power on the woman’ s head because of the angels 1. Hardly anything is more notable in St. Paul than his impatience of mere maxims and rules of conduct. He can never rest till he has based them on large general principles which may be applied under all changes of condition. So here with regard to woman’ s dress. 2. Paul had taught both the spiritual equality of woman with, and her subordination to, man. But these eager converts had not minds large enough to hold and reconcile both these great principles: they seized impetuously on that which fell in with their wishes, and let the other go. True, in a subordinate position they may show an equal, even a superior, ability; just as a designer in a factory, or a governess in a family, or a manager in a bank, may display higher gifts than their social or official superiors. But how do they prove their superiority? Not by rebelling against their position, but by excelling in it. So with woman. She proves her equality with man, not by rebelling against her subordinate social position, but by discharging its duties with an ability equal or superior to that shown by her husband in his different sphere. Some of the Corinthian women did not see that. They thought to assert the equality of the sexes by praying and prophesying in church instead of ruling their households. As a sign of their enfranchisement they appeared in public unveiled, and so became bad as women that they might prove themselves as good as men. And had the Christian women gone unveiled, when the absence of the veil was the open stamp of harlotry, we can easily conceive what a fatal obstacle would have been thrown in the path of the infant Church. 3. It was no mere question of maxims and rules, therefore, with which St. Paul had to deal; it was a question of principles vital and profound. And hence he appeals-- I. To nature. (1 Corinthians 11:13-15).1. Man is by nature unveiled, has short hair; woman is veiled with her long hair. The Divine intention is thus revealed. In handling and attiring the body we are to take the suggestions of nature as ordinances of God. Man is to go unveiled, woman is to use, or to imitate, the natural veil which God has given her. The Greeks and Romans did thus interpret and obey the voice of Nature. While their noblest men cut their hair close and short, they held long flowing tresses as among the most potent charms of women--as a real “ power” on their heads. 2. St. Paul appeals to Nature; from how many evils would the Church have been saved had his example been followed? Had we listened to her, had we asked with St. Paul, “ What does Nature itself teach?” we should have had more of his free, generous, catholic spirit. II. To the Scriptures (verses 7-9; cf. Genesis 1:26; Genesis 2:18; Genesis 2:21).1. Man, said Moses, was made “ in the image of God” ; therefore, adds St. Paul, man is a “ glory” of God. Hence he ought not to veil the head which bears an impress and reflects a glory so Divine. But “ the woman is the glory of man” ; she was taken not from rude clay, and not from any remote or uncomely member of man’ s body, but from his very heart. Therefore she is his “ glory” ; she represents what is finest in him. Nevertheless, the apostle insists (verses 8, 9), although she is his glory, because she is his glory, she is to defer and minister to him from whom she sprang, just as the highest spirits are those who serve most and best. 2. “ And therefore ought the woman to have power on her head.” Now one of Paul’ s great fixed thoughts is, that we rule by serving; that to become great we must make ourselves of the least. He has been describing the subordinate position of woman. But if she is to serve, she must be strong. To the Hebrews unshorn hair, like that of Samson, was the sign of strength. And the unshorn hair of the woman is “ the power,” or the symbol of the power, which her service requires. And does not Nature confirm his thought? How often has a thread of golden hair drawn strong men across the world! How often have soft locks proved stronger bonds than bars of steel! Who does not remember the little packet, all blotted with tears, which they found in a corner of poor Swift’ s desk, with these words on it, “ Only a woman’ s hair” ? 3. But what are we to make of “ the angels,” for whose sake woman is not to put off this power? Now closely following the passage in Genesis to which Paul refers, there is the story of the first infraction of the true relation of the sexes (Genesis 6:1-4), which the rabbis read thus:--The daughters of men, departing from their primitive simplicity and decorum, laid aside their veils, and tricked out their hair and faces with ornaments. The angels saw them, and grew enamoured of their beauty, and fell from their blessedness. Possibly St. Paul alludes to this here. If only “ because of the angels” therefore, the Corinthian women should carry this veil on their heads. The rabbis were so possessed by this legend that they were constantly making proverbs about it. Thus, Rabbi Simeon used to say, “ If a woman’ s head be uncovered, evil angels come and sit upon it.” The “ fathers” of the Church believed it. The Arabs and Turks believe it to this day. They tell us that “ Khadijah said to Mahommed after his first vision, ‘ If the angel appear again, let me know.’ Gabriel appeared to him again. He said to her, ‘ I see him.’ His wife placed his head first on her left, then on her right shoulder, and asked, ‘ Seest thou him still?’ He answered ‘ Yea.’ Then she said, ‘ Turn, and lie on my bosom’ ; which, when he had done, she asked again, ‘ Seest thou him?’ He answered, ‘ Yea.’ Then she took her veil from her head, and asked, ‘ Seest thou him still?’ And this time he answered, ‘ Nay.’ Then she said, ‘ By heaven, it is true, it is true! It was an angel, and not a devil!’ “ Having told this story, the Arabian historian remarks and explains, “ Khadijah knew that a good angel must fly before the face of an unveiled woman, whilst a devil would bear the sight very well.” III. To Christian doctrine. (verse 3).1. But is not Christ just as truly the head of the woman as of the man? Yes, viewed simply as human beings, the relation of women to Christ is as direct and vital as that of men. But look at them as forming a distinct sex, as members of the social order. In that order there must be grades. In an empire there must be a ruling class, or person; and in a household there must be a ruling sex. When we ask, Which? the Bible replies, “ Man is first in creation, first in dignity. Woman was made for him, not he for her.” And with this natural order and subordination, the equal spiritual relation to Christ is not to interfere. Christ did not come to thwart or to reverse, but to perfect, human nature and human society. 2. What grade we hold in this social order, and what part we play, is not by any means the main question; but how we fill it, how we play it. The woman, e.g., though equal in nature, holds the subordinate social grade; but if she play her part well, she becomes perfect as a woman. But suppose a wife to rebel, what happens? Either, casting off all restraint, she divorces herself from him rather than obey him; or she openly rules where she ought to obey, and is condemned by her own instincts and her own sex even more severely than by men. 3. But before we can fully reach Paul’ s sense of the sacredness of “ the head,” we must remember that the pious Hebrew not only retained hat or turban when he entered the sanctuary, but also drew over it the tallith, a sacred veil, kept exclusively for public worship. By this he meant to express reverence for the Divine Presence--that he was not worthy to stand in it, that he could not look on God and live. But in Paul’ s scheme of thought Christ was the head of the man. For a man to cover his head in worship was therefore to veil Christ; it was to imply that He needed to veil His face before God. Man must not thus dishonour Christ, his head. But the very reason which made it right for man, made it wrong for woman, to worship unveiled. For her head was the man. And to uncover her head in worship was to imply that man needed no veil when he came before God. Let her worship, therefore, with head veiled, and thus bear witness to the fact that sinful man was unworthy so much as to lift up his eyes unto heaven. Conclusion: Let us learn from St. Paul to apply the largest and deepest principles to the smallest details of conduct and duty; but let us also learn to apply them with his freedom. Are we invariably to adopt and enforce these rules? Is a woman never to speak in public, and always to wear a veil? Is it wrong for a man in India, or at an outdoor service, to worship with covered head? To make St. Paul’ s rule inflexible and universal would be to sin against his spirit. On Greeks and Romans he enforces attention to the decorums of their race and time, and gives them perfectly good reasons for adhering to them. Principles abide, but customs change. And we then act most in the spirit of Paul when we freely apply his principles to our changed customs. (S. Cox, D.D.)Power on woman’ s head It is argued that exousia might have been used for “ veil” or “ covering,” as a local and Tarsian expression. But this is not very probable. Many commentators, therefore, prefer to regard the word as one which, though originally metaphorical, would have been widely understood to mean “ a veil,” just as imperium is used for a female ornament, regnum for an imperial crown, and triregno for the triple tiara of the popes. Thus Diodorus Siculus uses the Greek word basileia, “ kingdom,” to mean the crown, or token of a kingdom, describing the statue of a queen as “ having three kingdoms upon its head.” It is a curious fact that in Hebrew the word radid, which sometimes means “ a veil,” is derived from a verb of which one of the meanings is “ he subdued” ; and it is not impossible that the knowledge of this may have smoothed the way for the apostle’ s unusual phrase. One more explanation is, that exousian, etymologically, may also mean “ existence,” and that St. Paul selected it because it might serve to indicate that woman’ s dignity consists in her being created from or out of the man (οὖσαἐξἀνδρός). But modern criticism seems to be settling down into the simple familiar meaning of the word “ power,” in the obvious sense of “ a sign of power.” But the question then naturally arises, “ A sign of whose power?” I. Some say, “ Her own power,” and refer this not to the veil which the woman is directed to wear upon her head, but to the glory of her natural covering, her own long hair. They argue that this is one of the chief elements of female beauty--“ Love in her rosy cheeks did basking lie, love walked in the sunny masses of her hair.” They quote such instances as that of Swift, in whose desk was found a folded paper containing one faded tress, and on it written, “ Only a woman’ s hair.” II. The context, however, does not at all favour this view; and we see from 1 Corinthians 12:22-23, that St. Paul considered a covering as a proof of inferiority in honour. Our translators seem to have hit on the only true meaning of the expression, in the margin of our Bibles, “ A covering, in sign that she is under the power of her husband.” Any apparent harshness in this meaning is at once dispelled--1. By the analogies (imperium, triregno, etc.), which we have already adduced. These show how easily the word “ power” could come to be “ a sign of power” by the common figure of speech which is called “ metonymy” ; and if so, it is much more likely to mean a sign of her husband’ s power over her than a sign of her own power, because the whole context is enforcing the superiority of the man, and bears on the “ He shall rule over thee” of Genesis 3:16. 2. Because to this day the veil is regarded in the unchanging East as a sign of subordination, and the traveller Chardin says that in Persia “ only married women wear it, and it is the mark by which it is known that they are under subjection.” And in the Roman customs the putting on of a veil in marriage was a sign that a woman lost all independent rights of citizenship. 3. Because there is a close analogy between this passage and Genesis 20:16, where “ covering of the eyes” is generally understood to mean “ a veil,” and is by the LXX. rendered τιμή, which properly means “ honour.” Lastly, it is to me no small confirmation of this plain and simple sense that we find it in the noble verse of Milton, who seems to combine the notions of a woman’ s hair being at once a covering and a glory to herself, and a sign of subjection to her husband:-- “ His fair large front and eye sublime declared Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustering, but not beneath his shoulder broad: She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved As the vine waves her tendrils; which implied Subjection, but required with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best received.” (Archdeacon Farrar.)Because of the angels The absence of “ and” suggests that it is a motive, not additional to, but confirmatory of, that given in verse 9. Already (4:9) we have seen the angels contemplating the apostles’ hardships. They attend upon men (Hebrews 1:14), are placed side by side of the Church militant (Hebrews 12:22), and desire to look into the teaching of the prophets (1 Peter 1:12). Now, if they take interest in men, they must take special interest in those assemblies in which men unitedly draw near to God, and which have so great influence upon the spiritual life of men. We must therefore conceive them present at the public worship of the church. Now the presence of persons better than ourselves always strengthens our instinctive perception of right and wrong, and deters us from improper action. And the moral impression thus produced is almost always correct. To this instinctive perception Paul appealed by the word “ shame” in verse 6; and has revealed its source in the purpose of woman’ s creation. He now strengthens his appeal by reminding us that we worship in the presence of the inhabitants of heaven. For every right instinct in us is strengthened by the presence of those better than ourselves. Surely a remembrance of these celestial fellow-worshippers will deter us from all that is unseemly. (Prof. Beet.)Because of the angels I. Some suppose that the words refer to real angels.1. The holy angels. It appears to have been the opinion of the Jews that the holy angels were present at their religious assemblies (Psalms 128:1; Ecclesiastes 5:6). Bengel supposes that the reason why the apostle names the angels is, because as the angels are represented as veiling their faces before God, so women ought also to veil their faces when they worship. Erasmus remarks, “ If a woman has arrived at that pitch of shamelessness that she does not fear the eyes of men, let her at least cover her head on account of the angels who are present at your assemblies.” But such an explanation appears to be far-fetched. St. Paul does not lay much stress elsewhere on the sentiments of the angels; he employs reasons far stronger and more telling. And certainly the above reason is not one which would suggest itself as a corrective to disorders in public worship. 2. Evil angels. It is supposed that the apostle here accommodates himself to this extravagant notion, which arose from a gross misconception of the words “ the sons” (or angels) “ of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” Women should veil themselves, because they might tempt or be tempted by evil angels. Dr. McKnight supposes that the reference is to the seduction of the woman by the artifices of the serpent; and that the wearing of the veil was to be the perpetual memorial of her fall and of her subjection to man in consequence. We cannot imagine that Paul adopted the rabbinical notion, nor can we see the force of that notion as an argument for women veiling their faces. Nor does the view that the reference is to the seduction of Eve recommend itself; for this seduction was not effected by evil spirits in general, but by one pre-eminently, namely, the devil. And in general, if evil angels were meant, we would expect some statement to that effect by the apostle, as “ the angels that sinned,” “ the angels that kept not their first estate.” II. Others suppose that the word refers to the ministers, who were specially set apart to conduct the worship of the congregation. The name angel, it is said, is conferred on ministers, both in the Old Testament and in the New (Malachi 2:7; Revelation 2:3). Such a name is also sufficiently appropriate, as ministers are the messengers of God. The reason, then, here assigned is, that women should veil their faces lest they should draw away the affections or distract the attention of the ministers or presidents of the assemblies. But the term ἄγγελοι is never applied to ministers by Paul. Nor is it certain that by the angels of the apocalyptic Churches the ministers are meant. III. Others suppose that the reference is to heathen messengers or spies. In the New Testament the word frequently occurs in the sense of messenger (Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:24; Luke 9:52). But the most remarkable passage, and the one which bears most closely upon our subject, is James 2:25, where this very word is applied to the spies whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. Now it is argued that this is the meaning of the term here; women, in their assemblies for worship, ought to veil their faces because of the heathen spies. Tertullian informs us that the heathen were in the habit of sending spies to observe what was said or done in their Christian assemblies. According to this view, the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to see to it that their assemblies be conducted with proper order--that all violations of what was counted decorum be absent; that they are to remember that the eyes of the heathen are upon them. (P. J. Gloag, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:11-16 Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman.Sanctified marriage implies I. Equal privilege in Christ.1. Alike redeemed.2. In Him there is neither male nor female. II. Equal subjection to Christ--here the husband has no superiority. III. Equal dependence upon Christ--for grace to discharge their reciprocal duties. IV. Indissoluble union in Christ--whose Spirit makes both one in Him. (J. Lyth, D.D.)For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman.-- The mutual dependence of man and woman I. A natural law.1. Woman was created out of man, and is therefore subordinate.2. Man is born of woman, therefore dependent. II. A Divine appointment. III. A gracious purpose. That each might love, succour, and comfort the other in the faithful discharge of their relations. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?--A Christian must observe what is comely I. Illustrate this by the example adduced.1. The use of a veil in Christian worship is in itself indifferent. Only the condition of the heart is of importance in the sight of God. 2. But in the times of the apostle it was not indifferent because it was required by established custom. Its disuse caused offence and contention, and might easily be interpreted as a sign of superstition or immorality. 3. Respect must therefore be paid to the alteration in public opinion and the circumstances of the times. II. Enforce by arguments.1. Of Christian prudence. Attention to externals-- (1) Is often of great importance.(2) Cannot be ignored without disadvantage. 2. Of Christian faith. Neglect of externals may create offence, this love will avoid. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Propriety and religion The teachings of religion--1. Harmonise in matters of propriety with those of reason and nature. 2. Condemn what is uncomely in woman and what is effeminate in man. 3. Require us in indifferent matters to avoid contention by complying with established custom. (J. Lyth, D.D.)But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Churches of God--Peaceful compliance with the established usage of the Church is a Christian duty Because--1. In this case usage becomes law.2. A wilful violation of it breeds contention.3. Contention is utterly at variance with a Christian spirit. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Contentions in the Church First, it should seem there were contentions in the apostle’ s times. Contentions about what? About matter of circumstance. So was this here, Whether men were to pray uncovered, and women veiled or no? Not to pass them in silence, and say nothing to them. But this to say, We have no such custom, nor the churches of God. And so oppose the Church’ s custom to contention. In which saying there are these heads--First, that the Church hath her customs. As she hath them, so she may and doth allege them. This I note first, that we may not think it strange if there be contentions in our times. As true it is of the last as of the first Church. There were contentions then. About what? For though peace be precious, yet of such moment may the matters be as they are to be contended for. For what then were these? For nothing but a matter of rite. Men praying whether they should be uncovered; women, whether veiled or no. For a hat and a veil was all this ado. It was not about any of the high mysteries, any of the vital parts of religion. And to pick a quarrel with a ceremony is easy. A plausible theme not to burden the Church with ceremonies--the Church to be free--which hath almost freed the Church of all decency. About such points as these were there that did not only contend but that grew contentious. Why should any love to be contentious? Why, it is the way to be somebody. Well, if any such should happen to be, what is to be done in such a case? What saith the apostle? Saith he thus? Seeing it is no greater matter, it skills not greatly whether they do it or no--sets it light, and lets it go. No, but calls them back to the custom of the Church. Why doth he so? For two reasons:1. First, he likes not contention at all. Why? If it be not taken at first, within a while ye shall hear of a schism (1 Corinthians 11:18). And within a little after that (1 Corinthians 11:19) ye shall have a flat heresy of it. The one draws on the other. 2. Nor he likes not the matter, wherefore though it seems but small. St. Paul knew Satan’ s method well--he asks but some small trifle. Give him but that, he will be ready for greater points. If he win ground in the ceremonies, then have at the sacrament. For when they had sit covered at prayer awhile, they grew even as unreverent, as homely with the sacrament. Opposing then to these, what course takes he? Where it is plain the apostle is for the Church customs. And first, that she hath them. Every society, beside their laws in books, have their customs also in practice; and those not to be taken up, or laid down, at every man’ s pleasure. The civil law saith this of custom. A custom is susceptible of more and less--the further it goeth, the longer it runneth, the more strength it gathered; the more gray hairs it getteth, the more venerable it is--for, indeed, the more a custom it is. Now, then, as the Church hath them, so she stands upon them--fears not to allege them. And say not the prophets the same? “ Stand upon the ways” (it is Jeremiah), “ and there look for the good old way; and that way take, it is the only way to find rest for your souls.” If it be but of some one Church, but at Corinth alone it is too narrow--not large, not general enough. If it be but taken up by some of our masters of late, it is too fresh--it is not ancient enough. But by these two we know our right custom. As neither is any particular Church bound to the private custom of another like particular as itself is. But if the other Church’ s custom have also been the general custom of the Church, then it binds, and may not be set light. But, if to this we add, or rather if before this we set, this the apostles had it too, that it is apostolic, we have then said as much as in this point can be sad, as much as may content any that is not contentious. (Bp. Andrewes.) 1 Corinthians 11:17-22 Now … I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.Unprofitable public worship I. When do we come together, not for the better, but for the worse? This may be known--1. By the principles which influence our attendance. (1) Do we come to receive instruction, to get good that we may grow in conformity to God, or do we come only to gratify curiosity, to subserve our worldly interest, etc.? (2) Do we come without any preparation of heart? Are we soon weary of the service (Ezekiel 14:3)? 2. From the manner of our attendance. If we are either captious, careless, or sleepy; if we suffer the fowls to come down and devour the sacrifice, and the buyers and sellers to occupy the inward sanctuary; if we have no love for the work in which we are engaged, but can indulge in a trifling or stupid frame of mind, assuredly we come together, not for the better, but for the worse. 3. By the effects of our attendance. Some, like Festus, treat the Word with derision. Some, like Agrippa, are half convinced, but they stifle their convictions. Others, again, hear and approve, but never practise. In the parable of the sower we hear of four sorts of ground, and only one of them good. II. The evil of such conduct. If we do not come together for the better, it will be for the worse. Where the Word does not soften it generally hardens; and where it does not make the heart contrite it often makes it desperate (1 Corinthians 2:16). More particularly--1. It is highly displeasing to God. 2. It is a great grief to godly ministers; and what can be more unreasonable than to afflict those who labour for our good, and are seeking our everlasting salvation (Jeremiah 13:17; Philippians 3:18). 3. In the end it will be a source of sorrow to themselves, and will issue in their ruin (Proverbs 5:11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:30). (B. Beddome, M.A.)Religious institutions--their abuse Observe-- I. That attendance on the institutions of religion may prove pernicious rather than beneficial (1 Corinthians 11:17). Men cannot be made religious; an irresistible moral force is a contradiction in terms, an impossibility in fact. Hence the highest redemptive forces on man often conduce to his ruin. The gospel is either the “ savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.” Pharaoh’ s heart was hardened under the ministry of Moses, and the hearts of the men of Chorazin, etc., were hardened under the ministry of Christ. II. That assembling together for religious purposes does not necessarily imply unity of soul (1 Corinthians 11:18-19). It does not follow that because people are brought together in the same church that they are united together in spirit. Two people may sit in the same pew, hear the same discourse, etc., and yet in soul be as remote from one another as the poles. No real spiritual unity can exist where there is not a supreme affection for Christ, who is the only uniting place of souls. III. That the very best institutions on earth are often sadly perverted by men. For many reasons the Lord’ s Supper may be regarded as one of the best ordinances. But it was now perverted into a means of gluttony and drunkenness (1 Corinthians 11:20-21). Are not men constantly perverting Divine institutions, Churches, Bibles, the Christian Ministry, etc.? (D. Thomas, D.D.)The abuse of the means of grace is I. Very common. Through--1. Carelessness.2. The indulgence of an improper spirit, as enmity, pride, unbelief, etc. II. Highly criminal--because a direct offence against the purity, majesty, mercy of God. III. Exceedingly dangerous. It makes a man worse by increasing his sin, hardening his heart, augmenting his guilt and punishment. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Abuse of the Lord’ s Supper In this paragraph (1 Corinthians 11:17-34) Paul speaks of an abuse which can scarcely be credited in our times. A respectable citizen would hardly have permitted at his own table the licence visible at the table of the Lord. I. How did such disorders arise?1. It was common in Greece for clubs to meet periodically and to share a common meal. This custom, not unknown in Palestine, had been adopted by the primitive Church of Jerusalem. The Christians then felt themselves to be more closely related than the members of any trade guild or political club. Speedily love feasts (agape?) became prevalent institutions. On a fixed day, generally the first day of the week, the Christians assembled, each bringing what he could as a contribution to the feast. In some places the proceedings began by partaking of the consecrated bread and wine; but in other places physical appetite was first appeased. 2. This mode of celebrating the Lord’ s Supper was recommended by its close resemblance to its original celebration. It was at the close of the paschal supper that our Lord took bread and brake it. But when the first solemnity passed away the love-feast was liable to many corruptions. Those who had no need to use the common stock, but had houses of their own to eat and to drink in, yet, for the sake of appearances, brought their contribution to the meal, but consumed it themselves. The consequence was that from being truly love-feasts, these meetings became scenes of greedy selfishness, and profane conduct, and besotted excess. II. To the reform of this abuse Paul now addresses himself.1. Negatively. (1) He does not propose to disjoin absolutely the religious rite from the ordinary meal. In the case of the richer members of the Church this disjunction is enjoined (1 Corinthians 11:22). But with those who had no well-provided homes another rule must be adopted. It would shame the Christian community, and undo its reputation for brotherly love were its members observed begging their bread on the streets. (2) Although the wine of the holy communion had been so sadly abused, Paul does not prohibit its use. On infinitely less occasion alterations have been introduced with a view to preventing its abuse by reclaimed drunkards, and on still slighter pretext in the Church of Rome the lay communicant is only allowed to partake of the bread. Mohler says that this arose from a nice sense of delicacy, a pious dread of desecrating, by spilling and the like, even in the most conscientious ministration. In contrast to all such contrivances we recognise the sagacity which directed that the ordinance should not be tampered with to suit the avoidable weaknesses of men, but that men should learn to live up to the requirements of the ordinance. (3) Paul does not insist that because frequent communion had been abused, this must give place to monthly or yearly communion. For some centuries it was expected that all members of the Church should partake weekly. That familiarity breeds contempt, or heedlessness, is a rule that ordinarily holds good. And by the same law it is feared, and not without reason, that if we observed frequent communion we should cease to feel the sacredness of the ordinance. But our method of procedure is first to find out what it is right to do, and then, though it cost us an effort, to do it. If our reverence for the ordinance in question depends on its rare celebration, may it not be a merely superstitious or sentimental reverence? Paul seeks to restore reverence in the Corinthians, not by prohibiting frequent communion, but by setting more clearly before them the solemn facts which underlie the rite. But does not our shrinking from communion often mean that we shrink from being more distinctly confronted with the love and holiness of Christ and with His purpose in dying for us--that we are not quite reconciled to be always living as the children of God, whose citizenship is in heaven ? 2. The positive counsel Paul gives regarding suitable preparation for participation in this sacrament is very simple. He offers no elaborate scheme of self-examination which might fill the mind with scruples and induce introspective habits and spiritual hypochondria. (1) He would have every man answer the plain question, Do you discern the Lord’ s body in the sacrament? The Corinthians were chastened by sickness, and apparently by death that they might see and repent of the enormity of using these symbols as common food; and in order that they might escape this chastening, they had but to recall the institution of the sacrament by our Lord Himself. (2) The brief narrative gives prominence to the truth that the sacrament was intended primarily as a memorial or remembrance of the Saviour. As the dying gift of a friend becomes sacred to us as his own person, and we cannot bear to see it handed about by unsympathetic hands, and as when we gaze at his portrait, or use the pencil worn smooth by his fingers, we recall the many happy times we spent together, so does this sacrament seem sacred to us as Christ’ s own person, and by means of it grateful memories of all He was and did throng into the mind. (3) The form of this memorial is fitted to recall the actual life and death of the Lord. By the symbols we are brought into the presence of an actual living Person. Our religion is not a theory; we are saved by being brought into right personal relations by remembering Christ and by assimilating the spirit of His life and death. (4) But especially by giving His flesh and blood He means that He gives us His all, Himself wholly; and by inviting us to partake of His flesh and blood He means that we must receive Him into the most real connection possible, must admit His self-sacrificing love into our heart as our most cherished possession. (M. Dods, D.D.)When ye come together in the Church, I hear there be divisions among you.-- Divisions in the Church I. Are a serious evil.1. They hinder prosperity.2. Demoralise many.3. Occasion reproach.4. Dishonour Christ. II. Ought not to excite surprise. Because offences must come--1. Through the imperfections of humanity.2. The instigation of Satan. III. Are overruled by God, as a test of the faith, purity, steadfastness of those who are approved before God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)A spirit of disunion in the Church 1. Destroys edification.2. Occasions divisions.3. Profanes what is most holy.4. Usually springs from selfishness and pride.5. Is deserving of the strongest condemnation. (J. Lyth, D.D.)And I partly believe it.-- Charitable judgments I. Some of you are guilty of this fault, though others be innocent. General censures, condemning whole churches, are altogether uncharitable. Angle out the offenders, but take heed of killing all with a dragnet: and grant many, yea, most to be faulty, yet some may be guiltless. Wickedness was not so general in Sodom, but that righteous Lot was an exception. Obadiah was steward of Ahab’ s wicked household. Yea, seeing impiety intrudes itself amongst the thickest of God’ s saints, just it is that God should have some names even where the throne of Satan is erected (Revelation 3:4). Let us therefore follow the wary proceedings of Jehu (2 Kings 10:23). When we are about with censuring to murder the credits of many together, let us take heed that there be not some orthodox amongst those whom we condemn to be all heretics; some that desire to be peaceful in our Israel, amongst those whom we condemn for all factious schismatics. II. I believe these accusations only in part, and hope they are not so bad as they are reported. When fames are brought unto us from good hands, let us not be so incredulous as to believe no part of them; nor so uncharitable as to believe all; but with St. Paul “ partly believe it.”1. Because fame often creates something of nothing, always makes a great deal of a little. It is true of fame what is said of the devil; it has been “ a liar from the beginning” ; yea, and sometimes a murderer. Absalom slew one of David’ s sons, and fame killed all the rest (2 Samuel 13:30)2. Because men in reporting things often mingle their own interests and engagements with their relations, making them better or worse, as they themselves stand affected. Water resembleth both the taste and colour of that earth through which it runneth; so reports relish of their relators, and have a smack of their partial dispositions; and therefore such relations are not to be believed in their full extent. Conclusion: 1. This confutes-- (1) Those that will believe nothing of what they hear reported, though warranted by never so good witnesses. I bear them witness, these men have charity, but not according to knowledge. (2) But where too much charity hath slain her thousands, too little hath slain her ten thousands. 2. Let not our beliefs be altogether of clay to receive any impression; nor altogether of iron to receive none at all. But as the toes in the image of Nebuchadnezzar’ s dream were partly iron and partly clay, so let our beliefs be composed of charity, mixed with our credulity; that, when a crime is reported, we may with St. Paul “ partly believe it.” (T. Fuller, D.D.). For there must be also heresies among you.-- Heresies Consider-- I. What heresy is. There are two opinions upon this subject. One is, that it is a schism. But the apostle in the text and in verse 18 makes a distinction between the two. By heresies, all denominations mean false doctrines, contrary to, and subversive of, the gospel (Titus 3:10-11; Galatians 1:6-9). Every error is not a heresy, yet every error which subverts the gospel is. II. That heresies have been in the Church from the beginning. Immediately after the gospel was preached by Philip, Simon professed to believe it; but he soon propagated the grossest heresies. Paul intimates that there were heretics in the Church of Rome (Romans 16:17-18). Our text assures us that there were heresies in the Church of Corinth. And John mentions various dangerous heresies in the seven Churches of Asia. If we consult ecclesiastical history, we shall find that the Church has never been free from them. Christ predicted that there would always be tares among the wheat to the end of the world. III. In what sense it is necessary that heresies should be in the Church. There never can be any natural necessity. Those who enjoy the gospel may always know the truth. Heresy is always the fruit of an evil heart of unbelief. There is, therefore, only a moral necessity arising from the corruption of the heart. As long as this is the case, some will love error better than truth. IV. Why God chooses that heresies should exist.1. To distinguish truth from error. Darkness renders light more visible, and light renders darkness more visible. The errors in the heathen would illustrate the truths believed in the Christian world. The errors in the Romish illustrate the truths professed in the Protestant Church. 2. That true believers may be distinguished from false professors. Paul gives this reason in the text. The heterodox everywhere are a foil to the orthodox, and exhibit their characters in a beautiful light. 3. That mankind may have a fair opportunity of choosing the way to life or the way to death. Accordingly, it had always been God’ s method to exhibit both truth and error before their minds, and give them opportunity of choosing the one or the other, that they may be saved or that they may be damned. V. Improvement.1. If heresies are opposite to, and subversive of, the gospel, then we have reason to think that they have had a long and extensive spread in the world. 2. It appears, from the nature and tendency of heresy, that the Church ought to censure and reject any of its members who embrace it. 3. If it be one design of God in continuing heresies to distinguish real Christians from false and erroneous professors, then there is a palpable impropriety and absurdity in attempting to unite those together in Christian communion who differ essentially in their religious sentiments. 4. When fatal heresies greatly prevail, then is a time when God is about to purify the Church, and make manifest those who are approved among the professors of religion. 5. Learn the importance of ministers’ preaching the gospel fully and plainly. If the gospel had always been preached fully and plainly, it is hard to conceive how heresies should have abounded. 6. From the nature and tendency of heresy, we conclude that sinners are in the most dangerous situation, for they are surrounded by heretics on every side. (N. Emmons, D.D.)Heresy Heresies sin against faith and schism, against charity; and, as children say they love father and mother both best, so let us hate heresies and schisms both worst. I. What is a heresy? An error in the fundamentals of religion, maintained with obstinacy.1. Note those qualities which dispose a man to be the founder of a heresy. (1) Pride. When one is elated with conceited sanctity above others, he will quarrel with those who are before him in place, which are behind him in piety. (2) Discontent that his preferments bear not proportion to his supposed deserts. Thus Arius would be an Arian, because he could not be a bishop. (3) Learning void of humility; or good natural parts, especially memory and a fluent expression. But if both be wanting, yet boldness and brazen-faced impudence will supply the place, especially if he trades with the vulgar. (4) To varnish all these, there must be pretended piety and austerity of life. Put all these together, and they spell together hoeresiarcham. To prevent these mischiefs, let such men pray to God for humility. Let them beware of discontentment, which is a direct quarrelling with God, who is the Fountain of all preferment. Grant preferment is denied thee; be not so childish to cast away a crown, because thou canst not get a counter. Lastly, if God hath bestowed good parts upon thee, pray to Him to sanctify them; otherwise the greatest memory may soon forget itself, and a fluent tongue may cut his throat that hath it. 2. A plain follower of a heresy may be thus described. He must be-- (1) Ignorant; for he that knows nothing will believe anything (2 Timothy 3:6). (2) Desirous of novelty. It is an old humour for men to love new things. (3) As a result of these two, he must have the persons of men in much admiration, and entertaining anything that is said because they say it. To prevent these mischiefs, let the meanest labour to attain to some measure of knowledge in matters of salvation, that so he may not trust every spirit, but be able to try whether he be of God or no. Secondly, kill the itch of novelty in thy soul, practising the prophet’ s precept (Jeremiah 6:16). Lastly, love and admire no man’ s doctrine for his person, but rather love his person for his doctrine. II. There must be heresies. A conditionate necessity is this: for upon the pre-supposition of these two things, which cannot be denied--that the devil goeth about like a roaring lion, etc., and that the flesh lusteth against the spirit, making men prone to all wickedness; hence it followeth there must be heresies. Thus he that beholdeth a family, and findeth the master to be careless, the mistress negligent, the sons riotous, the servants unfaithful, he may safely conclude that family cannot be safe, but must be ruined (Luke 17:1). (T. Fuller, D.D.)Heresies in the Church I. The assertion--“ there must be heresies” --is made in the same sense as “ It must needs be that offences come” (Matthew 18:7). Not that he is excusable who introduces heresies, or occasions offences; for “ woe unto him by whom they come.” But in the natural course of things, such evils will happen.1. Could no external cause be assigned, our common frailties and corruptions may prepare us to expect them in a society composed of men. Of all parts of our knowledge, we are inclined to be fondest of those in which we differ from other men. It appears dull and undistinguishing to tread on in the common road, and think and believe as other men do. And if we observe how deeply this is rooted in our nature, and how difficult it is even for good men to restrain it within due bounds; and if we take farther into our reflection that envy, resentment, and almost every other passion may accidentally concur in producing heresies, we must confess that these evils are, humanly speaking, unavoidable. And accordingly the Scriptures prepare us for them, as natural effects of the corrupt passions of mankind (Acts 20:30; 2 Timothy 3:2-4; 2 Peter 2:1). 2. From false teachers and seducers, then, the Church must never hope to be perfectly free in this world. Nor shall we be surprised at their success if we reflect that there will be hearers--light and unstable men with itching ears--strongly inclined to hearken after new discoveries. II. The providential end assigned for God’ s permission of these evils--the trial and manifestation of these who are approved (see Deuteronomy 13:1; Luke 21:13). This manifestation may be understood--1. With respect to ourselves. It is a comfort unspeakable to a good man to find his graces of strength to endure this trial. Unless our constancy has been tried, we know not how far an esteem for the virtues and abilities of any man may prevail on us to desert the faith. If upon experiment we find ourselves equal to the trial, we may then hope well of our integrity, and that we shall “ hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” 2. With respect to the Church. Known unto God only are they who are His, by an internal inspection into their hearts. To the Church, however, this character can only appear by outward evidences; and, therefore, professions of faith have been always required, as terms of admission into its society. But these cautions are not always sufficient to reach the heart and discover the sincerity of the man. But he who has stood firm in the day of temptation has given an evidence of his integrity which cannot be suspected; and if to his faith he has added knowledge, and is able to convince gainsayers and defeat the craft of those who lie in wait to deceive, we must distinguish him in our esteem, not only as a sincere member, but as a light and ornament of the Church. III. The advantages derived to the Church from these manifestations.1. It is hereby enabled better to exercise its discipline, to separate the sound from the corrupted members of the body. 2. Hereby its enemies are discovered in their proper character. 3. Hereby Church governors are enabled to choose fit persons to serve in the sacred office. 4. By occasions of inquiry into heresy, the doctrines of the Church become more attentively considered and more firmly established. To the early heresies we owe many of the writings of the primitive fathers, and several parts of the Scriptures themselves. 5. By the appearance of these dangers, pastors are quickened to a more diligent attendance on the duties of their station, and at the same time carefully to examine their own lives, and, by an unblamable conduct, to keep up the dignity and influence of their ministry, that the enemy may have no occasion to blaspheme. Conclusion:1. It may hence appear with how little reason Rome reproaches us with those schisms and heresies which God has permitted to vex our Church, and to use them as an argument of our rejection by Christ. It may as reasonably be objected that it is composed of men, and has enemies. And least of all can this objection become those who are well known to have been the authors of these evils to us. 2. If, as the apostle affirms, the providential end of these heresies is that they who are approved by God may be made manifest, then it follows-- (1) That they who under these trials persist in the faith and communion of the Church are thereby manifested to be approved by God. (2) That they who introduce heresies into the Church, or follow those who introduce them, are thereby manifested to be disapproved by God; and therefore that the Church may, and ought, to treat them in its discipline as sufficiently discovered under that character. (J. Rogers, D.D.)That they which are approved may be made manifest among you.-- Heresy manifesting truth Oftentimes goldsmiths, though they themselves be sufficiently satisfied of the goodness of the gold, yet “ put it to the touch,” to content the beholders. Never had Athanasius so answered his name, and been so truly “ immortal” in his memory, but for opposing of the Arians. Never had St. Augustine been so famous, but for quelling of Manicheans, Pelsgians, Donatlsts, etc. Many parts of true doctrine have been but slenderly guarded, till once they were assaulted by heretics; and many good authors in those points which were never opposed have written but loosely, and suffered unwary passages to fall from their posting pens. But when thieves are about the country, every one will ride with his sword and stand on his guard: when heretics are abroad in the world, writers weigh each word, ponder each phrase, that they may give the enemies no advantage. Again, the hardened will be made unexcusable, who obstinately persist in their errors. They cannot plead they lost their way for want of guides, but for mere wilfulness. (T. Fuller, D.D.)When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’ s supper.-- The love-feast and the Lord’ s Supper The Church of Corinth introduced what was called a love-feast previous to the reception of the Lord’ s Supper--rich and poor bringing their own provisions. This idea seemed in strict accordance with the original institution of the Lord’ s Supper, for that was preceded by a common meal. There was a great beauty in this arrangement, because it showed the conviction of the Church of Corinth that differences of birth and rank are but temporary, and are intended to join by reciprocal bonds the different classes together. Still, beautiful as the idea was, it was liable to great abuse. Thus there arises a perpetual lesson for the Church of Christ: it is never good to mix things religious with things worldly. In the highest conceivable form of the Church of Christ, the two will be identified, for the kingdoms of the world are to become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ. In order to make these two one, the Christian plan has been to set apart certain days as holy, that through these all other days may be sanctified: to set apart a certain class of men, through them to, sanctify all other men: to set apart one particular meal, that all meals through that one may be dedicated to God. The world’ s way is rather this: to identify things religious and worldly by throwing the spirit of the week-day into the Sabbath; to make Christian ministers like other men, by infusing into them its own secular spirit; and to eat and drink of the Lord’ s Supper in the spirit of a common meal. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The heavenly banquet Let me notice here the many words which are connected with ” the Lord” by the apostle: the Lord’ s body (verse 29), the Lord’ s blood (verse 27), the Lord’ s bread (verse 27), the Lord’ s cup (verse 27), the Lord’ s death (verse 26), the Lord’ s Supper (verse 20). For in this ordinance Christ is all and in all; He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Why does the apostle call it the Lord’ s Supper? I. The lord appointed it. It is not man’ s feast, or the Church’ s feast, it is the feast of the Lord. II. He provides. The feast of fat things is of His providing, so is the table, so is the banqueting house, so is the raiment. All the viands are of His selection, His purchase, His setting out. He is both appointer and provider. The provisions must be rare and suitable and nourishing in such a case. His wisdom knows what we need, and His love prepares it all. III. He invites. Come, is His message to us! IV. He is himself the feast. He is the Paschal Lamb. He is the bread and wine. Yes; Christ is Himself the provision, as well as the Provider. V. He partakes with us. He sits at the table Himself, and forms one of our number. Here we have fellowship with Him, and He with us. Seated at this table, and partaking of this Supper--1. We look backward. And as we look back we see the passover, we see the shewbread, we see the Cross. 2. We look forward. For we show His death till He come. We fix our eye on the coming glory. 3. We look inward. In doing so, we ask, Is my soul prospering? 4. We look around. Brethren in the Lord are on each side--our fellow-believers, our fellow-pilgrims. Love circulates around, as well as joy and peace. 5. We look outward. We cannot, at a feast like this, forget a world which is famishing; shutting itself out from this heavenly feast, and revelling in its lusts and vanities. We pity, we pray for you, we plead with you to come. For here at this table we find all we need--the fulness of Christ. Here we taste-- (1) His love.(2) His peace and joy.(3) His consolations.(4) His glory. For that glory is our hope, specially at the table. Here we get the foretaste of it. (H. Bonar, D.D.)Eating the Lord’ s Supper Those who do, and those who do not, sit at this board, may alike wish to understand what it is to eat the Lord’ s Supper.1. First, it is not to eat the Lord’ s Supper to make it a feast for the satisfaction of outward appetite. Into so low an estate, as we learn from Paul’ s rebuke, had it degenerated among the Corinthians. They may, indeed, have but imitated an earlier example, set in the depravity of human nature. It was a custom at Athens, in the age of Socrates, for each person coming to a feast to bring his own provision; not that, as in some later social festivals, he might add it to the common stock, but to feed on it by himself alone. No wonder the apostle said this was not to eat the Lord’ s Supper. It is upon something far different, even upon making a sensual feast of the Lord’ s Supper, that Paul lays his ban. They fancied, forsooth, they were eating the Lord’ s Supper because they came together in one place. Without hesitation he explodes the superstition, which, alas! has reached our own day, that any local sacredness of temple or altar made an act holy. The Lord’ s Supper was a showing forth of the Lord’ s death. The apostle’ s admonition is still instructive. Some, in our own age, have complained of the grave and serious manner of observing the Lord’ s Supper. They would have it more of a social and friendly feast. Surely, there should be no coldness round the Lord’ s table. Yet this table cannot furnish what is like any other feast, the dinner given to a hero, or even the family thanksgiving of kindred and friends, eating and drinking, in gay, though innocent, hilarity together. In the Lord’ s Supper is the presence of a spirit peculiar, awful in purity, as it is tender in love. 2. But the apostle’ s description shows again, that it is not eating the Lord’ s Supper to make it a mere form. Externally, no doubt, it is a form. But there are two kinds of forms, the dead and the living. The dead are those that have lost, or never had, life. The true form is the tree, that buds and blooms, to show in flower and fruit the hidden meaning which God set in its seed. 3. Once more, the meaning of our text shows that eating the Lord’ s Supper is not to make a profession of holiness. This is a very common mistake. Many are prevented from coming to the table by their reluctance to make such a profession. Yet, so far from being a profession of holiness, it is, in truth, the very opposite. It is a declaration of our not having attained what we desire, because so anxiously we use this means of attaining it. 4. Still, again, eating the Lord’ s Supper, as Paul describes it, is not to increase our moral obligations. Infinitely bound are we beforehand to love and serve God. Eating the Lord’ s Supper reminds us of our obilgations, and may assist us to fulfil them, but does not originally impose them, or add to their essential weight or number. 5. In fine, according to the mind of the apostle, eating the Lord’ s Supper is not swearing an oath. The Romish dogma, that the communicant eats the real flesh and drinks the real blood of Christ, and thus assumes a vow and performs a sacrament, such as men have sealed with awful ceremonies and signed in their heart’ s gore, is a fancy no less unscriptural than irrational, and contrary especially to the discourse of Christ. “ The words that I speak unto you are spirit, and they are life.” As much as to say, “ It is no physical or literal meaning I intend by them, but a sense of spiritual, cordial communion with my own feeling and mind.” So he stops their murmur at what they were at first inclined to think a hard saying. Let us now consider, more positively, what to eat the Lord’ s Supper is. (1) First, as a showing forth of His death, it is the highest manifestation of the Divine love. So, in the Scriptures, the death of Christ, the sinless Son of God, is described. This meaning of the Lord’ s Supper, as the supreme sign of Divine love, let us now observe, falls in with all that is best in human thought and knowledge. It is a fact of singular and transcendent beauty, that all discovery, through all history, in all the world, has been but the gradual and ever cumulative discovery of the goodness of God. Now, all this scientific discovery of God’ s goodness is but a ladder to the highest point of that goodness revealed in the gospel, whose crown is in the death of Christ, and whose celebration is in the Lord’ s Supper. The Lord’ s Supper, as the great peculiar symbol of the spiritual fact, especially tells us that our Father is pure, essential love, in long-suffering and willingness to forgive. Nothing can refute its witness, that, when He chastens, it is still love, not hatred, that wields the scourge; and that His wrath to the wicked is but His kindness for their case. (2) But, as eating the Lord’ s Supper is a recognition of this Divine love, it is, too, a corresponding expression of our own love. It should be regarded and observed in all the largeness and liberality of this idea. It was not meant by Christ, as it has been often made by man, to be a subtle, tormenting test, on minor points, of formal custom or intellectual opinion. But all the troublesome theories, arising or imposed, are, in the light of the new covenant itself, brought down to one which may indeed be sharper and stricter than any, or all beside, and to which those otherwise most rigid may give place. Do we love Jesus Christ? (3) Furthermore, to eat the Lord’ s Supper, according to the universal law of exercise, is to increase the love it expresses. This law holds peculiarly of all true affections and right exertions. The waxing love for Christ is its highest illustration. It especially is a magnet whose use enhances its power. It is true our love for Christ is a spiritual love for a now spiritual being, whom our fleshly eye never saw, or mortal ear heard. So the love of the Master and the follower is no antiquarian tradition. Truly, of what worth is love, if not personal? This Christian love passes and repasses, with God’ s own spirit, the great conveyancer of all good things, like a dove through the air, and knits those who share it together. The feeling below tends to rise to the level of that from which it runs, on high. (4) Eating the Lord’ s Supper, thus expressing and increasing our love, furthermore supplies the loftiest and most efficient motive to all duty. All our life, all earnest labour, flows out of our heart. We give all, by natural and inevitable consequence, to Him to whom we have first given our heart. Eating the Lord’ s Supper, therefore, while it may seem merely formal, is of all things most practical. It does not end as an exhibition or ceremony. It nerves to toil, endurance, and sacrifice, for the sake of God and humanity. (5) In fine, the Lord’ s Supper, while thus empowering for earthly duty, prepares us for scenes beyond this passing world. Its shadow falls two ways, back into time, and forth into eternity. It wings the soul to fly in another atmosphere, beyond this grosser air. It is preparation for the world to come. It is making ready for the second coming of Christ. Shall we extend this principle of preparation in all that is palpably useful, no further, but let it stop with the brink of the grave? Taking but a step in our little footing in this world, shall we not receive that staff of the bread of life which helps us to take the next, the second step, beyond the grave? Ah! in its true sense and meaning, both for present support and coming exigencies, we need the Lord’ s Supper. All the ministrations of this world cannot satisfy our appetite, that immortal hunger and thirst with which God has made our souls to be hungry and thirsty. (C. A. Bartol.)What … despise ye the Church of God?-- Despising the Church Take the term in the sense of:-- I. The house of God. Do you undervalue the place set apart for God’ s service, to convert it into an ordinary banqueting-house?1. Duties public and not pious more befit a guild-hall or town-house; duties pious and not public more become a closet (Psalms 4:4); whilst duties public and pious beseem a church, as proper thereto. 2. The use is to blame those that turn the church into a counting-house, there to rate their neighbours--both to value their estates, and too often to revile their persons. Others make it a marketplace, there to bargain in; yea, some turn it into a kennel for their dogs, and a mew for their hawks, which they bring with them. Surely if Christ drove out thence sheep and doves, the emblems of innocency, He would not have suffered these to have abode in His temple. II. The spiritual Church. The rich Corinthians, in not inviting the poor, made chaff of good corn; yea, refuse of God’ s elect.1. Objection. But not inviting the poor, was not despising them. A freewill offering is no debt. 2. Answer. This is true of civil and ordinary entertainments: but these being entitled “ love-feasts,” and charity pretended the main motive of them, poor people were the most proper guests. Besides, if not Christianity, yet good nature might have moved them, whilst they gorged themselves, to have given something to the poor which stood by. To let them look on hungry was to wrong their peers in grace here, and glory hereafter. 3. Doctrine. He that despiseth the poor, despiseth the Church of God. Whereof they are a member inferior to none in piety (James 2:5); superior to all in number. Now he that pincheth the little toe paineth the whole body; the disgracing any member is the despising the whole church. Let us beware of affronting those in want. “ He that seeth his brother in need … how dwelleth the love of God in him.” (T.Fuller, D.D.)Regard for the Church I. There is such a thing as the Church of God. Nor need we travel far to find it. Wherever there is a congregation of believers among whom the gospel is preached and the ordinances observed, there is the Church of God. Such a church existed at Corinth. It was the assembly of them who were “ called to be saints,” and had responded to that call in the confession of faith in Christ and in the observance of His commands. II. There be some who despise this Church of God.1. The particular offence of the Corinthians was, that they misapprehended the character and spirituality of the holy Supper, and thought to celebrate it after the manner of a worldly festival. This the apostle sets down as equivalent to contempt of the whole institution of which they were members. 2. On the same principle there are many ways of despising the Church of God. (1) By contemning the Church’ s faith.(2)By despising its ministry.(3) By neglecting its services.(4) By ignoring Church fellowship and relations. II. There is much in and about the Church to tempt men to despise it; much with which the carnal reason and taste of man is naturally offended, and which he is therefore predisposed to dislike and disesteem.1. Take the faith of the Church, the Trinity, the Incarnation, etc., etc. 2. Its ordinances. 3. Its unimportance in the world in comparison with pompous organisations of man’ s devising! 4. Its members. How destitute of that style which is claimed amongst the worldly great and noble! 5. Its hypocritical adherents. Nevertheless-- IV. There is reason why the Church should not be despised. There is but one consideration to this effect named in the text; but that reason is ample. The Church is not of man, it is Divine. It is not a Masonic fraternity--a man-made institution. 1. God made the first Churches, and out of and through them He has made all Churches. 2. The faith of the Church is from Divine revelation. 3. Its sacraments are Divine ordinances. 4. The making of true members of the Church is by a new creation by the Holy Ghost. 5. And everything entering into the constitution of the Church is the work or gift of God. (J. A. Seiss, D.D.)The Church: its note of universality 1. It is important to put the local church in its right Christian setting. The single congregation is a unit in the great multiple of communions which constitute the Church of God. 2. It is necessary that the kingdom of God should be localised in separate churches. The strong emotions gather around definite objects. Men in battle look to their regimental colours for their rallying-point; yet those colours would be nothing of themselves, did they not belong to and represent the country. To follow the colours of a particular church for its own sake might prove to be treason to the Church of God. I. The Church of God is a universal institution for man.1. If we listen to the gospel which Jesus preached we cannot fail to hear ringing in it this clear note of universality. It was not a gospel of individual election, nor of personal salvation simply, but the gospel of the Kingdom of a redeemed society organised in righteousness, and vital with the spirit of love. 2. His daily life was marked by the sign of universality. And so it was a constant surprise to His disciples. It was a larger humanity than Jerusalem could understand. Recall, e.g., that scene at which the Scribes and Pharisees were shocked, when Jesus sat at meat with publicans and sinners; and that scene at Jacob’ s well at which even the good disciples were surprised. He healed the impotent man, and restored the sight of the blind on the Sabbath day, and proclaimed that even an institution so sacred to God from the completion of the creation was made for man. 3. This note pervades also and harmonises all His doctrines. No teacher had ever used the universal adjectives in speaking to men. We cannot take “ all,” “ any,” “ whosoever,” etc. out of the speech of Jesus without taking all the music from it. 4. The Person also of Jesus is distinguished from all others by this. He has named Himself in His human place in history, “ the Son of Man.” When the disciples began to realise who and what manner of man the Son of man was, the other confession followed of itself, “ Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And upon the man who confessed that whole truth Christ said the Church should be built. 5. The Church, therefore, whose promise was given in that moment should be characterised by the same note of universality. It is not to be a chosen school of disciples around their Teacher; it is not to be a national church--another temple in Jerusalem. II. Three days of the Son of man, at least, in Christian history have preceded our day.1. The apostolic age, that day of glorious beginnings of Christianity. It was necessarily, however, an era of but partial applications of Christ’ s words to the life of the people. The apostles were called to liberate and set in motion the Christian ideas, but not to apply them universally to their world and its customs. 2. The age of the power of external law, and the era of the outward unity of the Church. The Roman age witnessed an external universality of the Church; but its method was the way of Caesar rather than the way of the Son of man. 3. A return from Roman Catholic supremacy to the authority of the Son of man followed next, in the Divine order of history, through the Reformation. III. And now what is the next step forward?1. What are the chief questions of life now the world over? How not only in this city, or this country, but how in the whole world shall men live together? All labour troubles, or wasteful competitions, or hurtful combinations, are symptoms and signs of this vital problem of society. No nation can live for itself alone. The fates of the modern nations are bound together. There is nothing so foreign that it may not become domestic to any country. The destiny of this world, it is increasingly evident, is to be one destiny. 2. To the Church of God providence is bringing home this one social question. How then are the churches to answer it? (1) Not in the way of Rome. The Son of man will not be enthroned as Caesar. There is no way of legislation to the millennium. (2) Neither shall the old man of Protestantism, shrunken in muscle, its separate members scarce hanging together, and living on the income of its capital laid up in other days, be the new man of the coming day. (3) Verily, the days are coming--are they not now at hand?--when the Son of man will open His mouth, and bless the multitudes in our churches, and in the power of His Spirit our Christianity shall become as never before the Church of God for the world. The churches are becoming more deeply conscious that they exist not for themselves; but for some Divine blessing for all men. The Church belongs to you, whether you will belong to it or not. The Church is for the world, whether the world now be for or against it. IV. Two consequences of great moment follow.1. That we who belong to particular communions should be careful in our administration of them not to interfere with the Divine rights of any man in the Church of God. We must look carefully to it lest we exclude some souls from our churchly participation in the kingdom of God. All disciples have Divine rights to any table of communion which is spread in the name of Christ. The Divine rights of the world to the Church, and in the Church, impose upon us the present and urgent missionary obligation. 2. That men who are already in the Church have right to stay there, and to work out honestly and patiently within the Church any questions which may trouble them. The disciples of old were constantly going back to the Son of man with some new question, or from some fresh perplexity. Still, the Son of man dwells among the questionings of men. And there is no better place than within the communion of the Church for you to meet the questions of your lives. Thomas of old kept in the Church, although he doubted. And so Thomas, the honest sceptic, became an honest apostle. Conclusion: It follows from this truth that every man to whom the Church is presented has some corresponding obligation towards it. The world is redeemed in Christ, and it is a sin and a shame to live in it as though it were not redeemed. There is a Church of God forming, growing, having a glorious world-task committed to it; and it is ignoble not to have part in it and its work. (N. Smyth, D.D.)Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.-- Ministerial blame and commendation I. Pastors may and must praise their people wherein they do well.1. Reasons. (1) Hereby they shall peaceably possess themselves of the good-wills of their people, which may advance the efficacy of their preaching. (2) Men will more willingly digest a reproof for their faults, if praised when they do well. (3) Virtue being commended doth increase and multiply; creepers in goodness will go, goers run, runners fly. 2. Use. Those ministers are to be blamed which are ever blaming, God “ doth not always chide” (Psalms 103:9). These preachers use their reproofs so commonly, till their physic turns natural, and will not work with their people. Do any desire to hear what Themistocles counted the best music--namely, themselves commended? On these conditions, we ministers will indent with them: Let them find matter, we will find words; let them do what is commendable, and blame us if we commend not what they do. Such work would be a pleasure. To reprove is pressed from us, as wine from grapes; but praises would flow from our lips, as water from a fountain. But, alas! how can we build, when they afford us neither brick nor straw? If with Ahab they will do what is evil, then with Micaiah we must always prophesy evil unto them. II. Ministers must not commend their people when they do ill.1. Reasons. (1) Dishonourable to God. (2) Dangerous to the ministers. That ambassador who, being sent to proclaim war, pronounceth peace to rebels (Isaiah 57:21), deserves at his return to be preferred to the gallows. (3) Dangerous to the people who are soothed in their sins. Honey-dews, though they be sweet in taste, do black and blast the corn: so those who praise their people without cause, are cruelly kind unto them: it is pleasent to the palate of flesh, but destroyeth and damneth the soul. 2. Use. It were to be wished, that as those that live under the equinoctial at noonday have no shadows at all; so great men should have no shadows, no parasites, no flatterers to commend them when they least deserve it. 3. Objection. But why doth St. Paul deal so mildly with the Corinthians, “ I praise you not” ? Me thinks he should have made his little finger as heavy as his loins. (1) Theophylact answers that St. Paul reproves the rich men the more mildly, lest otherwise they should be implacably incensed against the poor as the causers of the apostle’ s anger. (2) It was the first time he told the Corinthians of their fault, and therefore used them the more gently, on hope of their amendment. This corrupt humour in the Corinthians was not as yet clodded in them by custom, and therefore the easier purged and removed. So ministers must use mildness, especially at their first reproving of a sin. Yea, God so blessed the mild severity of St. Paul, that the Corinthians reformed their errors. (T. Fuller, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I have received of the Lord Jesus that which also I delivered unto you.Giving as we receive At a sailors’ meeting a seaman prayed, “ Lord, make us ships with two hatchways; one to take in cargo, and the other to give it out.” A good prayer; Paul knew its answer, “ I have received of the Lord that which, also I delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). We are not storehouses; we are ships intended to trade with the heavenly country and bring supplies for a needy world. Always loading ends in overloading; if we unload, we shall soon be reloaded. He who keeps his talent in a napkin, will lose both napkin and talent; one will rot, and the other rust. The Lord’ s Supper Four things strike us with amazement:-- I. That any should doubt the genuineness of Christianity. Here is an institution that was started the night previous to our Saviour’ s crucifixion, and which from that to this hour, through eighteen long centuries, has been attended to by all the branches of the true Church. Since its origin thousands of generations have passed away, many systems have risen and disappeared, nations have been organised, flourished, and broken up, but this ordinance continues. And what for? To commemorate the great central fact of the gospel, viz., that Christ died. Is there any other fact in history sustained by evidence half so powerful as this? II. That any should misinterpret this ordinance. It is to “ show forth the Lord’ s death.” There are three abuses of this institution which imply the grossest misinterpretation.1. The gustatory. The Corinthians thus abused it. Hence, in the preceding verses he says, “ When ye come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’ s supper,” etc. They had been accustomed, in their heathen festivals, to give way to gluttony and intemperance. Many of them, from the force of old habits, were tempted to use the Lord’ s Supper in this way, hence they were guilty of profaning the institution. Thus, they ate and drank “ unworthily,” and by so doing ate and drank condemnation to themselves. 2. The superstitious. There are some who believe that after the words of consecration pronounced by the priest over these elements, the elements become carnally the “ body and blood of the Lord.” This is transubstantiation. 3. The formalistic. There are those who partake of the bread and wine merely as a matter of ceremony. It is regarded as the proper thing to be done, and is done mechanically. We evangelical Christians are not guilty of the first nor the second, but we may be of the third. Let us “ examine ourselves” ; so let us eat, etc. III. That any should say the institution is not permanent in its obligation. The apostle tells us distinctly that it was to show forth the Lord’ s death till He come. On to that distant point the obligation is binding. There are some professing Christians who think themselves too spiritual to observe such an ordinance. These very spiritual ones, to be consistent, should avoid all scientific studies, for science has to do with material forms. They should also avoid all Biblical studies, for Biblical truths are, for the most part, embodied in material facts. Christ Himself was flesh and blood. IV. That any acquainted with the biography of Christ should neglect it. Consider--1. That it is to commemorate the world’ s greatest Benefactor that has served the world-- (1) In the highest way, effected its deliverance from sin and hell.(2) By the most unparalleled sacrifice.(3) With the most disinterested love. 2. It is enjoined by the world’ s greatest Benefactor, under the most touching circumstances. How amazing it is that men should neglect it! Conclusion: The excuses that men make for neglecting this are singularly absurd.1. A man will sometimes say, “ I can be saved without it.” We ask, who told you so? What is damnation? What but disobedience to Christ? And he who neglects this institution disobeys Him. 2. Another man will say, “ I am unfit for it.” We say, if you are unfit for this you are unfit for any other religious observance; unfit to read the Bible, sing, or pray, nor can you ever become fit by neglecting your duty. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The sacrament of the Lord’ s Supper of Divine institution I. What is a sacrament? In general, the visible sign of an invisible grace.1. As God hath used covenants, so also sacraments always.2. They are part, not of His natural, but instituted worship.3. They are all pledges of the covenant of grace.4. They all represent Christ the Mediator-- (1) To suffer.(2) Or having suffered. 5. In all sacraments there are two parts. (1) The thing signified. II. What is the Lord’ s supper? A sacrament, wherein the outward signs are bread and wine. III. What are we to understand by Divine institution? That it was instituted of God, as the others were not, which the Church of Rome maintains to be sacraments, viz., confirmation, orders, penance, matrimony, and extreme unction. IV. How does it appear to be of Divine institution (Luke 22:19-20). V. Wherefore was it instituted by God?1. When God had made man, He entered into a covenant of works with him (Leviticus 18:5). 2. This covenant man broke, and so became miserable. 3. Hence God, of His mercy, enters into a covenant of grace (Jeremiah 31:33). 4. This covenant of grace was established in Christ (Hebrews 12:21; 2 Corinthians 1:20). 5. This covenant man is also apt to miscarry in; so as-- (1) To be forgetful of it.(2) Not to believe in it.(3) To receive no benefit from it. 6. Hence God instituted this sacrament. (1) To make us mindful of this covenant and Christ (Luke 22:19).(2) To confirm and seal it to us (Romans 4:11).(3) To convey the benefits of it to us. Conclusion:1. Be thankful for this sacrament.2. Do not neglect the use of it.3. Prepare yourselves for it. (1) Acquaint yourselves with the nature of it.(2) Repent.(3) Act faith in Christ. (Bp. Beveridge.)The doctrine of the Holy Communion I. It is a memorial of the sacrifice of the death of Christ.1. See how closely it is connected with that death. Consider-- (1) The time; Christ and His apostles had met for the last time before He died. (2) The action; the breaking being a sign of the dissolution of the body, the separation of body and soul in death, and also that His death was an act of free-will. He had power over His life to take it up and lay it down, just as of His own accord He took up from the table the bread, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples to eat. 2. To this picture the three Evangelists and St. Paul all describe the Lord as “ blessing,” or “ giving thanks,” as He brake the bread. And so this also afterwards passed as a synonym for the sacrament. St. Paul calls it “ the cup of blessing,” and among us it has the name of “ Eucharist.” 3. Since the sacrifice of the death of Christ is the cause of our justification, our chief concern must be to make sure of our partaking of it. It is one thing to say “ Christ died for all” ; another, “ Christ died for me.” Therefore every man for himself must stretch forth this hand of faith and take to himself, appropriate, his part in the atoning sacrifice. The sacrament is an instrument for such an appropriation. II. A means of present communion with Christ. As it was the work of Christ of His own free-will and grace to offer His body upon the Cross, so now every fruit of that sacrifice which we gather in His Church comes fresh from His living hand, and His work, and is nothing less. “ Lo, I am with you always,” is the secret of our life in the Church; and nowhere more effectually than in the holy sacrament is His presence made real and true to the eye of faith. The manner of our Lord’ s presence cannot be explained, but His presence in some supernatural form is there, or the text has no proper sense. III. The highest act of worship in the Church.1. The faithful Christian, in preparation for this holy act, examines himself, and confesses his unworthiness. 2. Then we make an offering of our stores, which, though small, is at least a symbol of homage. 3. Then the oblation of bread and wine is blessed and taken into His service--an offering of the first-fruits, in acknowledgment that life’ s bounties are His gift. 4. Then comes an oblation of greater significance. The worshipper offers himself with a free heart to receive Christ, and in return gives himself to God. 5. Above all, we come nearest to the work of heaven itself, where the Church worships God in the presence of the Lamb as it had been slain. So in the Church below our highest act of worship is celebrated in that place, where the Lamb of God and His sacrifice is brought most near to us. (C. W. Furse, M.A.)“ This do in remembrance of Me” If Christ had said, “ Build Me some fine cathedral that shall stand as a memorial to Me,” how we would have poured out our contributions that somewhere in this world there might stand some central temple, over which the cross on which He hung should tower throughout the ages! But the cathedral would have passed into hands of men corrupted by ambition. He made His monument of loving hearts. Only this do: Sometimes sit down together; sometimes remember that last occasion when I grasped the hands of those I loved, looked into their faces, and heard their voices. He longs to be remembered as love always longs to be remembered. He wanted not His name to be blotted out of human memory, nor His personality to be forgotten from throbbing hearts. He commands and guides you in many things. He gives you opportunity to serve His children, His poor, in many ways; but there is only one personal request He makes of you, that now and again, at some supper table, with simply bread and wine, you shall, as they that love Him have throughout all ages, perpetuate His memory and show your love for Him. (Lyman Abbott.)The remembrance of Christ I saw behind an hotel in Switzerland a fine garden, and I unexpectedly found there American flowers, and being far away from home, and half homesick, they afforded me great pleasure. Every one of them seemed like a message to me full of affection by association. So the remembrance of Christ in the Lord’ s Supper rekindles our love to Him. (H. W. Beecher.)Expressive symbols I cannot bring back my little child, but I can take a locket and look at his face, and he springs to life in my inward thought. There are scenes in my childhood that I cannot tread again, but a very simple memorial, a little dried flower, or some little yellow faded note brings back again the sweet sense of an early experience. And so, by some such very simple symbol, we can bring again before us the Saviour broken for us, His blood shed for us, His love so great, dying to give us life. (H. W. Beecher.)The purpose of the Lord’ s Supper We soon forget objects which are removed from our sight; and our Lord, who knows and pities this weakness of our nature, has given us an abiding memorial of Himself. He has appointed an ordinance for this very purpose, to remind us of His love. “ All our fresh springs” are in our crucified Lord, and therefore He brings Himself frequently before us as our crucified Lord that we may go to Him as the great source of our mercies, and take of His blessings. (Dean Bradley.)The Lord’ s Supper, a simple memorial We need not look for great things in order to discover great truths. To those who reach after God, He will reveal His deepest secrets through things insignificant in themselves, within the routine of common lives. No event occurs more regularly than the daily meal, none, perhaps, gathers around it so many pleasant associations. Its simplest form, in Christ’ s time, consisted in eating bread and drinking a cup of wine. Into this act, one evening, He gathered all the meaning of the ancient sacrifices, all sacred and tender relation between Himself and His followers, and all the prophecies of His perfected kingdom. That the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread.-- Christ taking bread, and our taking it from Him I. He took bread.1. Why did Christ choose so cheap and common a thing to exhibit His body in? (1) Herein He graciously provided for the poor. Had He appointed some costly recipe, the poor could not procure it for themselves, and the charity of the rich would not purchase it for others. (2) Had He instituted it in some precious element, people might have imputed the efficacy thereof to its natural worth and working, not to Christ’ s institution. Christ therefore chooseth a thing so mean in itself, that it cannot eclipse God of His glory; none can be so mad as to attribute to plain bread itself such spiritual operation. Let us take heed how we despise the simplicity of God’ s ordinance. Say not with Naaman, “ Are not Abana and Pharpar,” etc. Is not the bread at the baker’ s, and the wine at the vintner’ s, as good as that in the sacrament? And far be it from us to seek with our own inventions to beguard that which God will have plain. Rather let us pray, that our eyes may be anointed with that eye-salve, to see majesty in the meanness, and the state in the simplicity, of the sacraments. 2. But amongst such variety of cheap elements, why was bread preferred? To show our bodies can as well subsist without bread, as our souls without a Saviour. It is called “ the staff of bread” ; other meats are but as “ pretty wands to whisk in our hands. Without bread no feast; with bread no famine. II. He said unto them, Take, i.e., in their hands, and put it to their mouth; not as the custom lately introduced in the Romish Church, for the priest to put it in the mouth of every communicant. But it is pleaded, that it is unmannerly for laymen to handle Christ’ s body; and therefore it is most reverence to take it with their mouths.1. There is no such clown in Christianity as he who will be more mannerly than God will have him. It is most reverence for us to do as God commands us. Ahaz tempted God in saying, be “ would not tempt Him” (Isaiah 7:12). Those do little better who, more nice than wise, strain courtesy not to take Christ’ s body in their hands, when He reaches it. 2. Take it strictly, and our mouths are as unworthy as our hands to receive Christ’ s body. But, seeing it is Christ’ s pleasure to come under the roof of our mouth, let Him also pass through the porch of our hands. The rather because it seemeth that we entertain Christ’ s body in more state, and with more observance towards it, when the more servants attend it, the more members of our body using their service in receiving it. 3. The Romish custom loseth the significancy of the hand of faith. The taking Christ’ s body in our hands mindeth us spiritually by faith to apprehend and lay hold on His mercies and merits. (T. Fuller, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:24 And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat.The Lord’ s Supper 1. It is remarkable that we are indebted to Paul for the most particular account of this service, because he was not one of those who were present on the night of its institution. Nor did he derive his knowledge from those who were present (Galatians 1:11-12). The striking agreement between this report and that of those who were present is one of the evidences of the truth of Scripture. 2. Thoughtful men know the value of particular customs, medals and inscriptions, to certify any historical event. Now, the observance of the Lord’ s Supper is a standing historical evidence of the truth of the Christian religion. It is to be traced backwards for hundreds of years to the night in which Christ was betrayed; but no farther. There we lose the clue, because the institution then had its origin. I. The nature of the ordinance. It is commemorative.1. Who is it that is to be particularly remembered? Christ claims our grateful recollection on the ground of-- (1) His dignity. Rank and power impress all beings: but there never was such rank on earth as that which attached to the person of Christ. He was in possession of the attributes of Godhead. (2) His condescension. He passed by the nature of angels, and was “ found in fashion as a man.” (3) His love. A love that “ passeth knowledge.” Christ’ s love has been compared with the love of Jonathan to David. But that was love for a friend: this is love for enemies. That was love for love: this is love for hatred. 2. What is it that is commemorated? (1) The death of Christ--a death entitled to this distinction. Many men are remembered who are not entitled to that honour; many have had monuments raised to them, whose name ought to have been blotted out. I find the death of Christ observed by God the Father. “ My Father loveth Me because I lay down My life.” And we are told that in heaven the great event which is celebrated is the death upon Calvary. “ Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” We may well, therefore, celebrate that death. (2) The second coming of Christ. Just as Israel had manna so long as they were in the wilderness, but when once they came into Canaan, the manna ceased; so when Christ comes we shall not want anything to remind us of Him. II. The temper in which this service should be observed by us.1. We are called to remember the person of Christ, and the great events connected with His person, in a manner corresponding with the dignity of His person; and the vastness of the benefits flowing from His sacrifice, as expected by us at His second coming. 2. We are to draw near with fervour and lively gratitude. The ordinance itself is a eucharistical one. Hence we find our Saviour Himself, when He had instituted the supper, sung a hymn. (J. Beaumont, M.D.)The Lord’ s Supper: its end and our duty I. The author of the institution. In every action it is good to know by what authority we do it. For what can reason see in bread and wine to quicken or raise a soul? (1 Corinthians 8:8). The outward elements are indifferent in themselves, but authority giveth them efficacy. He that put virtue into the clay and spittle to cure a bodily eye, may do the same to bread and wine to heal our spiritual blindness. The outward elements of themselves have no more power than the water of Jordan had to cure a leper; their virtue is from above. II. The duty enjoined. To take bread, and to give thanks, and eat it; and so of the cup. And if this be done with a lively faith in Christ, this is all. “ To do this” is not barely to take the bread and eat it: this Judas himself might do; this he doeth that doeth it to his own damnation. And that we may do it, besides the authority and love of the Author, we have all those motives which use to incite us unto action.1. Its fitness to our present condition. As God sent Adam “ a help meet for him,” so He affordeth us helps attempered to our infirmity. As Laban said to Jacob, when they made a covenant, “ This stone shall be witness between us,” so God doth say to thy soul by these outward elements, “ This covenant have I made with thee, and this that thou seest shall witness between thee and Me.” 2. Its profitableness--a will extended, a love exalted, hope increased, faith quickened, more earnest looking on God, more compassion on our brethren, more light in our understanding, more heat in our affections, more constancy in our patience; every vicious inclination weakened, every virtue established. What is but brass it refineth into gold; raiseth the earthy man to the participation of a Divine nature. 3. Its delightfulness. In the action of worthy receiving is the joy of a conqueror; for here we vanquish our enemy: the joy of a prisoner set at liberty; for this is our jubilee. Here is Christ, here is heaven itself. 4. Its necessity. For if this sacrament could have been spared, our Lord, who came to beat down the ceremonies of the law, would not have raised up this. He calleth and commandeth us to His table, to feed on the body and blood of Christ, and in the strength thereof to “ walk before Him and be perfect.” III. When are we to do it? “ As oft as ye do it” implies that you do it often. It is not necessary to say how often. Every man’ s want in this should be a law unto him. If we come like unmannerly guests, once is too often; but if we come prepared we cannot come too often. The truth is, the sacrament is fit for every day, but we are not every day fit for it. A great shame it is that any man should be dragged to a feast. And if we loved “ the cup of blessing,” we should not fear how oft it came into our hands. IV. Its end. “ In remembrance of Me.” We must open the register of our soul, and enrol Christ there in deep and living characters. For the memory is a preserver of that which she receiveth. But we must inquire whether we remember Christ as we should: whether Christ be hung up in this gallery of our soul only as a picture, or whether He be a living Christ, and dwelleth in us of a truth. For can he remember a meek Christ, who will be angry without a cause? Can he remember a poor Christ that maketh mammon his God? Can he remember Christ, who is as ready to betray Him as Judas, and nail Him to the cross as Pilate? Better never to have known Him, than to know and put Him to shame! (A. Farindon, B.D.)Sacramental grace The outward part of the sacrament is not only a sign of the inward part or thing signified, but a sign that the inward grace is given to us, the means whereby it is given, and the pledge or seal to assure us of its being given. The elements are not the sign of a hostelry, like a painted board that reminds the weary pilgrim of the comforts he may enjoy within, if he can obtain them; but they are the signed and stamped conveyance of that which makes him rich and purchases repose, the note of one who will never fail, in receiving which we receive that which it is appointed to represent by him who offers it. In taking a note of the bank, he who receives it is assured that he receives the value it represents; and that bit of paper, worthless in itself, may be worth to him a large estate. (G. D. Hill.)The Lord’ s Supper, a symbol “ Do you then,” men ask, “ reduce this sacrament to make it only a symbol? “ I confess my inability to appreciate the force of the depreciatory innuendo. Does not a symbol mean all that it symbolises? Has it not the same honour and sanctity attaching to it as that which it represents? Are not symbols the most sacred things on earth? Why is it that men will take a tattered piece of silk and nail it to the mast, and blow themselves and the ship to atoms rather than any enemy’ s hand should touch that flag? It is only a symbol. Why is it that in one corner of the battle-field “ the swords’ flash is brightest, and the pistols’ ring is loudest” round a blood-stained banner? It is only a symbol--but a symbol of England, and of all the freedom, the honour, the truth, the heroism, that that word “ England” means! Thus, for the eye of faith and the heart of love these symbols mean all that they recall and represent. We are to eat that bread and drink that wine in remembrance that His body was given, and that His blood was shed for us. (T. T. Shore, M.A.)The Lord’ s Supper the sample of the Christian life (Text, and Colossians 3:17):--One of the saddest things about the Christian life is that it seems to be split into two parts. Is the distinction between sacred and secular a valid one? is there any reason why a man’ s prayers should be more devout than his business? Look at these two passages. The same consecration is claimed for the most trivial acts of daily life, as is claimed for the sacred communion. I. All the objects around us are to be regarded as symbols and memorials of our Lord. Bread and wine are common things: the act of eating and drinking is not an elevated one; a supper-table is not a very holy place. And when Christ selected them He showed us that all material things were fitted and intended to impart the same teaching. The unity of the Maker, the all-pervading influence of one Divine Spirit, make everything sacred, and put every object to witness to some Divine truth. Every day we walk amidst the “ outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,” and this wonderful world is one great sacrament.1. All the elements stand as types of spiritual things--the sunshine of the “ light of the world,” the wind of the Spirit, the water of the stream of life and drink for thirsty souls, and the fire of His purity and of His wrath. 2. All objects are consecrated to Him. The trees of the field speak of the “ root of David,” and the vine of which we are all branches. The everlasting mountains are His “ righteousness,” the mighty deep His “ judgments.” 3. All the processes of nature have been laid hold of by Him. The gentle dew falls a promise, and the lashing rain forebodes a storm, when many a sand-built house shall be swept away. Every spring is a prophecy of the resurrection, every harvest a promise of the coming of His kingdom. 4. All living things testify of Him. He is Lord over the fish, the fowls, the beasts. 5. All occupations of men are consecrated to reveal Him. He laid His hand upon the sower, the vine-dresser, the shepherd, etc., as being emblems of Himself. 6. All relations between men testify of Him--father, mother, brother, friend, etc. In a word, every act of our life sets forth some aspect of our Lord and of our relation to Him, from the moment when we open our eyes in the morning, up to the hour when night falls, and sleep, the image of death, speaks to us of the last solemn moment, when we shall close the eyes of our body on earth, to open those of our soul on the realities of eternity. If you would know the meaning of the world, read Christ in it. II. Every act of our life is to be done from the same motive as that holy communion. “ This do in remembrance of Me … discerning the Lord’ s body.” “ Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” i.e., for the sake of the character, as revealed to you, of Him whom you love.1. Is that sacred motive one which we keep for select occasions and special acts of worship? I am afraid that the most do with that Divine reason, “ the love of Christ constraineth me,” as the old Franks with their long-haired kings--they keep them in the palace at all ordinary times, only now and then bring them out to grace a procession. There is no action of life which is too great to bow to the influence of “ This do in remembrance of Me” ; and there is no action of life which is too small to be turned into a solemn sacrament by the operation of the same motive. Do you and I keep our religion as princes do their crown jewels--only wearing them on festive occasions, and have we another dress for working days? 2. Is it not something to have a principle which prevents anything from degenerating into triviality, or from pressing upon us with an overwhelming weight? Would it not be grand if we could so go through life, as that all should be not one dead level, but one high plateau, because all rested upon “ Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” ? Ah! it is possible--not to our weak faith, perhaps; but the weakness of the faith is not inevitable. It is possible, and therefore it is duty; and therefore the opposite is sin. To have my life with one high, diffusive influence through it all, is like one of those applications of power where a huge hammer is lifted up, and comes down with a crash that breaks the granite in pieces, or may be allowed to fall so gently and so true that it touches without cracking a tiny nut beneath it; or it is like that mighty power that holds a planet in its orbit, and yet binds down the sand-grain and dust-mote to its place. III. All life, like the communion of the Lord’ s Supper, may be, and ought to he, a showing-forth of Christ’ s death. The death of Christ, which is shown forth in the holy communion, as a death for us, and the ground of our hope, is to be shown forth in our daily walk, as a death working in us, and the ground of our conduct (2 Corinthians 4:10-11). There is not only the atoning aspect in Christ’ s death, but the example of the way by which we are to “ mortify our members which are upon earth,” because “ we are dead with Him, and our life is hid with Christ in God.” No man manifests the death of Christ by any outward act of worship, who is not feeling it daily in his own soul. It is in vain for us to say that we are relying on Christ, unless Christ be in us, slaying the old man and quickening the new. You do “ show forth the Lord’ s death till He come” when you “ crucify the old man with his affections and lusts,” and “ rise again into newness of life.” The fact is better than the symbol--the inward communion more true than the outward participation. IV. This communion is in itself one of the mightiest means for making the whole of life like itself. In this ordinance, as it were, is the reservoir: out of it there come the streams that freshen and gladden the piety of daily life. Only remember, not the outward act, but the emotions which it kindles, are the reservoir. Not the taking that cup in your hand, but the deeper glow of feeling which is legitimately kindled then, and the intenser faith which springs therefrom; these are the fountains which will nourish verdure and life through our dusty days. And so, if you want to live in this world, doing the duty of life, knowing the blessings of it, doing your work heartily, and yet not absorbed by it; remember that the one power whereby you can so act is, that all shall be consecrated to Christ, and done for His salve! (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Take, eat I. Take--1. Knowingly (1 Corinthians 11:29). (1) What it is in itself: bread (1 Corinthians 10:16).(2) What it represents unto us: the body of Christ. 2. Humbly. Considering-- (1) God’ s greatness that gives.(2) Our vileness that do receive (Isaiah 6:5). 3. Believingly. (1) That Christ is really present with us (Matthew 18:20.(2) Doth really offer His body to us.(3) That if we worthily receive, we are really partakers of all the merits of His death and passion (1 Corinthians 10:16). So that-- (a) Our sins shall be pardoned (Matthew 26:28). (b) Our natures cleansed (Acts 3:26). 4. Thankfully. (1) That He was pleased to offer Himself for us.(2) That He is now pleased to offer Himself to us. II. Eat, not take and lay up; not take and carry about; not take and worship; but take and eat. Take and eat bread, but yet My body--1. With repentance (Exodus 12:8).2. Faith.3. Thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4-5). III. Uses. 1. Prepare yourselves for this spiritual banquet.2. Receive it with faith.3. Feed with thankfulness.4. Endeavour to get that nourishment from it, as to serve God better hereafter. (Bp. Beveridge.)This is My body.--The body of Christ in the sacrament What are we to understand by this? I. Negatively. Not that it is transubstantiated. This error was broached by Damascene and Amalarius; opposed by a synod at Constantinople of 338 bishops, in the East; Paschasius Radbertus, Bertramnus, Johannes Scotus Erigena, and Berengarius, in the West. The word transubstantiation was coined in the Lateran Council. This--1. Is not grounded on Scripture. (1) Not on John 6:55. For this-- (a) Was said before the sacrament was instituted (verse 4). (b) Does not prove bread to be turned into Christ’ s body, but Christ’ s body into flesh. (c) Is to be understood spiritually (verses 50, 51, 56). (2) Not on the text (see Genesis 41:26; Daniel 2:38; 1 Corinthians 10:4). 2. Is contrary to the Scriptures. When Christ said this there could be nothing but bread; for His body was not yet offered (see 1 Corinthians 10:16; 1 Corinthians 11:25; Matthew 26:20). 3. It takes away the nature of the sacrament, there being no sign. II. Positively.1. “ This is My body” ; that is, the sign and sacrament of My body (see Genesis 17:10-11; Exodus 12:11). 2. “ Which was broken for you.” (1) How broken? Bruised, pierced (John 19:33-34). He suffered torment. (2) For what? (a) God our Governor has given us laws to observe (Genesis 26:5), and annexed promises and threatenings (Leviticus 18:5; Galatians 3:10-12). (b) Man has broken these laws (Psalms 14:1-3), and so is obliged to the punishments. (c) These punishments he cannot bear, without being entirely miserable (Matthew 25:46). Hence Christ, the Son of God, undertakes to bear them for him (Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:6). This He could not do, unless He became man. Neither must He be man only, but He must suffer (Hebrews 9:22). These His sufferings are the things represented by the bread and wine. (3) For whom? Believers (John 3:16). (4) What benefits bare we by these sufferings? It is only by them-- (a) Our sins can be pardoned (Matthew 26:28). (b) God reconciled (Romans 5:1). Our natures renewed (Acts 3:26). Our souls saved (Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 5:9). Conclusion:1. Admire the love of Christ in dying for us.2. Be always mindful of it.3. Frequent the sacraments, especially appointed to put us in mind of it, but come preparedly. (1) Penitently.(2) Believingly.(3) Charitably. (Bp. Beveridge.)Which is broken for you.-- The broken Christ I. A manifestation of the power of sin. When once threatened with being broken by the stones that malice would have hurled at Him, He asks, “ For which of these good works do ye stone Me?” It was because of His good works that an evil world hated Him, and hates Him still. There is an innate antagonism between selfishness and love. Moses in hot anger broke the two tables of stone on which the law of God had just been inscribed; but the Jews, with fixed and relentless purpose, broke Him who was the living embodiment of the law. And that achievement reveals how sin stand’ s at nothing, though it is most Divine. Our conflict with sin is conflict with the powers by which Christ was broken. II. A model for our self-sacrifice. He was broken thus, not in pursuit of any dream of ambition, or struggle for any personal satisfaction. It was in the one peerless work of redeeming the world.1. Selfishness is ever seeking to keep what it has whole. Health must never be broken for neighbourliness, patriotism, or religion. Home must never be broken by giving up of sons or daughters to missions. Property must on no account be broken for distribution in charity or maintenance of worship. The Church must not be broken to help to form the nucleus of some other church much needed. 2. And yet what is broken is often the most beautiful. When is light more rich and varied than when it is broken in the prism? And is the ocean more beautiful when it ripples tamely upon the sandy shore, or when the crested billows break in wild majesty upon some rockbound coast? So with the self-denials that mean brokenness--brokenness of tastes, desires, comforts, possessions, and even affections. 3. What is broken is often the most useful. When the bark is bruised the balm is poured forth for healing; when the wheat is ground it becomes an element of nourishment; when the spices are pounded their odours fill the air. So self-denial has given to science, patriotism, and religion their apostles and martyrs. 4. For beauty and usefulness in man’ s individual character, there must be brokenness. What is there for imperious temper, hard indifference, stubborn resistance to God’ s will, but brokenness? III. An emblem of the universality of His mission,1. He was broken that He might be distributed, that His teachings, influence, grace, might eventually pervade the whole human race. By giving broken bread, as an emblem of His broken Self, to all His disciples, He taught them that His love, life, grace, are designed for the nourishment of all. 2. And in our dealings with Him and His system, we must ever remember this. The true Church can never be a mere treasure-house for hoarding up privileges and graces. Like its Lord and Master, it must suffer much brokenness. IV. The highest expression of the love of God. Our language has no words to describe Giver or Gift. But its influence testifies to the worth of the Gift. The woman who broke the alabaster box on her Lord gave unreservedly the best she had, and the whole house was filled with fragrance. So, when God’ s gift was broken, His influence, like the odours of a very precious ointment, began to fill the whole world. (U. R. Thomas.)This do in remembrance of Me.-- In remembrance I. Other memories will come, but must not crowd out the one memory. The following remembrances may be natural, and profitable, but they must be kept in a secondary place:--1. Of ourselves when we were strangers and foreigners. 2. Of our former onlooking and wishing to be at the table. 3. Of our first time of coming, and the grace received since then. 4. Of the dear departed who once were with us at the table. 5. Of beloved ones who cannot be with us at this time because they are kept at home by sickness. 6. Of many present with us, and what grace has done in their cases. We may think of their needs and of their holy lives, etc. 7. Of the apostates who have proved their falseness, like Judas. However these memories may press upon us, we must mainly remember Him for whose honour the feast is ordained. II. The ordinance is helpful to that one sacred memory.1. Set forth, the signs display the person of our Lord as really man, substantial flesh and blood. 2. Placed on the table, their presence betokens our Lord’ s clear familiarity with us, and our nearness to Him. 3. Broken and poured forth, they show His sufferings. 4. Separated, bread apart from wine, the flesh divided from the blood, they declare His death for us. 5. Eating, we symbolise the life-sustaining power of Jesus and our reception of Him into our innermost selves. 6. Remaining when the Supper is ended, the fragments suggest that there is yet more bread and wine for other feasts; anti, even so, our Lord is all-sufficient for all time. Every particle of the ordinance points at Jesus, and we must therein behold the Lamb of God. III. That sacred memory is is itself most needful for us. It is--1. The continual sustenance of faith.2. The stimulus of love.3. The fountain of hope.4. A recall, from the world, from self, from controversy, from labour, from our fellows--to our Lord.5. The reveille, the up-and-away. It is the prelude of the marriage supper, and makes us long for “ the bridal feast above.” Above all things, it behoves us to keep the name of our Lord engraven on our hearts. IV. This symbolic festival is highly beneficial in refreshing our memories, and in others ways.1. We are yet in the body, and materialism is a most real and potent force; we need that there be a set sign and form to incarnate the spiritual and make it vivid to the mind. Moreover, as the Lord actually took upon Him our flesh and blood, and as He means to save even the material part of us, He gives us this link with materialism, lest we spirit things away as well as spiritualise them. 2. Jesus, who knew our forgetfulness, appointed this festival of love; and we may be sure He will bless it to the end designed. 3. Experience has ofttimes proved its eminent value. 4. While reviving the memories of the saints, it has also been sealed by the Holy Spirit; for He has very frequently used it to arouse and convince the spectators of our solemn feast. Conclusion: 1. To observe the Supper is binding on all believers, to the extent of “ oft.” 2. Only as it assists remembrance can it be useful. Seek grace lovingly to remember your Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The nature and importance of the Lord’ s Supper I. The different names descriptive of this ordinance.1. “ Breaking of bread.” Bread is considered the chief support of life, and, among the Jews, breaking of bread was a sign of mutual friendship. Thus Christ’ s body was broken for the sins of men. 2. “ Communion” --which may signify either a participation or communion between the receivers themselves, or between the receivers and the thing received. In both senses it is applicable to the Lord’ s Supper (1 Corinthians 10:16). 3. “ Eucharist” --which signifies thankfulness or thanksgiving, and frequently occurs in the New Testament as a general expression of gratitude. Taking this view of the ordinance, how should our hearts overflow with adoring gratitude, love, and praise, whenever We approach the Lord’ s Table! 4. “ Sacrament” --which originally signified a religious oath which the Roman soldiers took to their commanders. So does every Christian solemnly engage to maintain irreconcilable warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 5. There are two other terms often applied to this ordinance, both of Levitical origin. They are “ oblation” and “ sacrifice.” II. In celebrating the Lord’ s Supper, according to His last solemn command, “ This do in remembrance of Me,” we view Christ as the great atonement, and the only sacrifice for sin. In this sacred ordinance the Church invites the attention of men “ to behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” III. Our obligation duty, and interest all combine to enforce obedience to this last, solemn, and dying command of christ. (N. Meeres, B.D.)The Supper of the Lord I. It affords a visible and permanent testimony to the truth of the gospel. II. It calls in the senses to the aid of other powers and faculties for the promotion of piety. III. It provides a public test of our religious sincerity. IV. It tends to increase our love of that Saviour to whose memory it is especially dedicated. V. How well calculated is it to humble the impenitent sinner! VI. It cheers the heart of the true believer. (J. W. Cunningham, M.A.)In remembrance of Me 1. Were a stranger, who had never heard of Christ, to come into church while we are seated at the Lord’ s table, he would naturally ask, “ What does this observance mean?” And the answer, no doubt, would rise to the lips readily enough, “ We commemorate the dying of Him whom we call Lord and Saviour.” And yet, would not much remain still unexplained? Would it not still seem strange that our highest act of worship should centre in a memory of one whose death was a dishonoured death? There is no other religion whose believers can look back to a founder who was content to say, “ Be true to My memory. That is all I command. Let your most solemn worship embody the expression of this remembrance.” 2. You may have heard of the power of a pure and noble memory of, e.g., a well-loved home, to keep back the foot from falling and the soul from death; or of a generous and trustful love which has been a breastplate to the heart tempted to unworthy ways. But in that remembrance of Christ of which the sacrament is the visible expression, there is something more than we find in the best human memory. I. Let us see what Christ’ s memory is, what is implied in remembrance of Him. The sacrament is a memorial of--1. One who lived a human life, and yet a life such as none else has ever lived. 2. Who, at a time when the world was full of darkness and unrest, came into it with a message from God for all whose hearts were weary, whose minds were dark. His life was one that gladdened other lives, and bore about with it one living message of peace and goodwill. And is it not well, amid all the worldliness, and selfishness, and untruth of man’ s society, to be able to look back to a life in which these evil principles had no place, in which all was truth, honesty, earnestness and Love? 3. Who revealed God the Father. Think of what the world would be to us without this truth, and of what it will be to us, when we come to lie at “ the last low verge of life” ; and as you think of this, and remember that all our knowledge of this blessed truth comes from Christ, do you not feel that there is an unequalled urgency and solemnity in that last charge to us, “ This do in remembrance of Me” ? 4. One who closed His perfect life by the sacrifice of Himself. It is indeed this, more than aught else, that the sacramental symbols bring home to us. Think, then, how but for that we had been without hope and without God in the world. II. If such then be His memory, shall we not remember Him as He has given us commandment? But is that commandment altogether fulfilled when we have eaten the bread and drunk the wine?1. If we would be really true to the memory of the Master, it must be by showing forth, in our whole life, the power of His Divine example. There are stately tombs, on which in the lapse of ages the graven record of love and sorrow has waxed dim, and the very name recorded has been lost, and the tomb stands there a dumb witness to an unknown memory; and just such, no better, would be our remembrance of our Lord, if it were professed only while we celebrate the sacrament of His body and blood. But if it expresses a real union with our Lord, a real devotion to Him, a real sharing of His spirit, then in this sacrament we indeed eat of the Bread of Heaven and drink of the Water of Life. 2. Now suppose the stranger mentioned at the beginning had got his answer, and gone away, and were to return after a time and see us going about our daily works, might he not be inclined to say to us, “ What has become of that sacred memory of which you spoke to me? I see no trace of it among you. I understood He was one who was pure and true and unselfish; and I see you serving your own ends. You told me that He died for you; and I look about for the memorials of such a love as that, and cannot find it.” Let us be careful not to bring reproach upon our Master’ s name. 3. If there be one here who is burdened with the consciousness of sin, who hears the voice which is saying to us now, “ This do in remembrance of Me,” speaking to him in sorrow because of his faithlessness, let him be warned and recalled to a better spirit, and truer life; and he will find that that voice will change its tone of sorrow and reproach for one of encouragement and consolation, that will say, “ Abide in Me, and I in you; let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (R. H. Story, D.D.)In remembrance of Me 1. This Epistle is prior in date to any of the Gospels, consequently we have the earliest account of the institution of the Lord’ s Supper. More than that, the account is entirely independent of any oral tradition, for the apostle distinctly affirms that he received this narrative from none of the guests in that upper chamber, but from the Host Himself. We can therefore trace the celebration to a period very near to the death of Christ, and thus we have a strong presumption of the historical accuracy of the story, and a view of the aspect in which it was regarded by the primitive belief of Christendom. 2. The occasion for the utterance is characteristic of Paul, and instructive to us. Had it not been for some abuses in Corinth we should never have had one word about this ordinance; and in that event there would have been scarcely any reference to it outside the Gospels. Let us regard the Lord’ s Supper as-- I. A memorial.1. The words are used in the institution of that Passover which our Lord, with sovereign authority, brushed aside in order to make room for His own rite. “ This day shall be unto you for a memorial.” The text therefore has reference to the Exodus, and is meant to substitute for the memories so stirring to Jewish national pride and devout feeling the remembrance of Christ as the one thing needful. 2. This is Christ’ s distinct statement of the purpose of the Lord’ s Supper, and you will find nothing additional to it in the New Testament. 3. Notice of what the Lord’ s Supper is a memorial--“ of Me.” “ You have remembered Moses and his deliverance; forget him! The shadow passes, and here I stand, the substance! Do this; never mind about your old Passover--that is done with. Do this in remembrance--no longer of dead Pharaohs and exhausted deliverances, but of an everloving friend and helper; and of a redemption that shall never pass away.” (1) What a marvellous, majestic prevision that was, that looked all down the ages and expected that to the end of time men would turn to Him with passionate thankfulness! And more wonderful still, the forecast has been true. (2) And as majestic as is the authority, so tender and gracious is the condescension. He does not rely upon His mighty love and sacrifice far the remembrance, but He consents to trust some portion of our remembrance of Him to mere outward things. Surely we need all the help we can get to keep His memory vivid and fresh in spite of the pressure of the visible and temporal. II. As a means of grace.1. I know only one way by which grace can get into men’ s souls, and that is through the occupation of a man’ s understanding, heart, and will, with Christ and the gospel that tells of Him. And the good that any outward thing does us is that it brings before us the truth on which our hopes depend, and knits to our heart the Christ and His love. 2. This Communion is obedience to a definite command, and so has the blessing which always follows upon obedience. And this blessing, and the one that comes from having our thoughts turned to Him, and faith and hope kindled towards Him, exhaust the whole of the good that the service does to any man. 3. All that is confirmed by the remarks in the context about the mischief that it sometimes does to people. We read about an unworthy partaking, which is defined: “ Whoso eateth and drinketh (not “ unworthily,” for that is an unauthorised supplement), “ eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’ s body,” i.e., unworthy participation is one which does not use the external symbols as a means of turning thought and feeling to Christ and His death; and unworthy participation does a man harm, as unworthy handling of any outward rite does. I try with words to lead men to look to Christ. If my words come between you and Him rather as an obscuring medium, then my sermon does you harm. You read a hymn. The hymn is meant to lead you up to Christ; if it does not do that, then it does you harm. If through the outward ritual we see Christ, we get all the good that the outward ritual can do us. If through the outward rite we do not see Him, if the coloured glass stay the eye instead of leading it on, then the rite does us harm. III. A witness for Christian truth.1. Christ Himself has appointed this institution and selected for us the part of His mission which He considers the vital and all-important centre--“ This is My body, broken for you. This is the new covenant in My blood, shed for the remission of sins.” Not His words, not His loving deeds, not His tenderness, does He point us to; but to His violent death, as if He said, “ There is the thing that is to touch hearts and change lives, and bind men to Me.” 2. Forms of Christianity which have let go the Incarnation and the Atonement do not know what to make of the Lord’ s Supper. They who do not feel that Christ’ s death is their peace, do not feel that this rite is the centre of Christian worship. I may be speaking to some who regard it as unnecessary. My brother, Christ knew what He meant by His work quite as well as you do, and He thought, that that the part of it which most concerns us to remember was this: “ that He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures.” 3. And as plain as the teaching is of this ordinance in reference to what is the living heart of Christ’ s work for us, so plain is it in reference to what is our way of making that work ours. We eat that we may live. We take Christ, the fact of His death, love, personal life for us to-day, and by faith we partake of Him, and the body is assimilated to the food, and so in that higher region we live. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)The remembrance of Christ 1. Christians may forget Christ. It seems at first sight too gross a crime to lay at the door of converted men; but if startling to the ear, it is, alas! too apparent to the eye. Forget Him who never forgot us! Who loved us even to the death! The incessant round of world, world, world; the constant din of earth, earth, earth, takes away the soul from Christ. While memory will preserve a poisoned weed, it suffereth the Rose of Sharon to wither. 2. The cause is apparent. We forget Christ, because regenerate as we are, still corruption remains. Consider-- I. The glorious and precious object of memory.1. Christians have many treasures to lock up in the cabinet of memory. They ought to remember their election, their extraction, their effectual calling, their special deliverances. But there is one whom they should embalm in their souls with the most costly spices. One I said, for I mean not an act, but a Person. 2. But how can we remember Christ’ s person, when we never saw it? Well, it is true we cannot remember the visible appearance, but even the apostle said, though he had known Christ after the flesh, yet, thenceforth after the flesh he would know Christ no more. You may know Him after the spirit; in this manner you can remember Jesus as much now as any of those favoured ones who once walked side by side with Him. 3. Let us remember Him in His baptism, in the wilderness, in all His daily temptations and hourly trials, in Gethsemane, in Pilate’ s hall, at Calvary. You can very well carry all this away, because you have read it often; but you cannot spiritually remember anything about Christ, if you never had Him manifested to you. What we have never known, we cannot remember. II. The benefits to be derived from a loving remembrance of Christ. It will tend to give you--1. Hope when you are under the burden of your sins. 2. Patience under persecution. 3. Strength in temptation. 4. Victory in death. III. A sweet aid to memory. Behold the whole mystery of the sacred Eucharist.1. The power to excite remembrance consists in the appeal made to the senses. Here the eye, the hand, the mouth, find joyful work, and thus the senses, which are usually clogs to the soul, become wings to lift the mind in contemplation. 2. Much of the influence in this ordinance is found in its simplicity. Here is nothing to burden the memory. He must have no memory at all who cannot remember that he has eaten bread, and that he has been drinking wine. 3. Note--The mighty pregnancy of these signs. Bread broken--so was your Saviour broken. Bread to be eaten--so His flesh is meat indeed. Wine poured out, the pressed juice of the grape--so was your Saviour crushed. Wine to cheer your heart--so does the blood of Christ. Wine to strengthen and invigorate you--so does the blood of the mighty sacrifice. 4. But before you can remember Christ, you must ask the assistance of the Holy Spirit. There ought to be a preparation before the Lord’ s Supper. Take heed to yourselves (verse 27); mind what you arc doing! Do not do it carelessly; for of all the sacred things on earth, it is the most solemn. IV. A sweet command. It is important to answer this question--“ This do ye.” Who are intended? Ye who put your trust in Me. “ This do ye in remembrance of Me.” Christ watches you at the door. Some of you go home, and Christ says, “ I thought I said, ‘ This do ye in remembrance of Me.’ “ Some of you keep your seats as spectators. Christ sits with you, and He says, “ I thought I said, ‘ This do ye in remembrance of Me.’” ( C. H. Spurgeon.)The commemoration of Christ’ s death We are to remember-- I. What He was from eternity: God (Romans 9:5). II. What He became: Man (John 1:4). III. What He did, and how He lived.1. Humbly (Matthew 11:29).2. Charitably.3. Righteously (1 Peter 2:22; Matthew 3:15).4. Inoffensively (Matthew 17:27).5. Obediently. IV. What He suffered.1. Contempt (Isaiah 53:3).2. Pain in His body (Isaiah 53:3).3. Grief of heart (Matthew 26:37; Luke 22:44).4. Death. (1) A shameful,(2) A painful,(3) A cursed, death (Galatians 3:13). V. Whom He suffered so much for: for us (Isaiah 53:5-6). VI. What benefit we have by it.1. Pardon (Romans 5:1).2. Reconciliation to God (2 Corinthians 5:11).3. Mortification of sin (Romans 8:1-2; Matthew 1:21).4. Grace here.5. Glory hereafter (John 3:16). VII. What He did after His death.1. He rose again (Romans 4:25).2. Ascended (Acts 1:11).3. Sits at the right hand of God (Romans 8:34).4. Maketh intercession for us (1 John 2:1-2).5. Will, ere long, come and judge us (2 Corinthians 5:10). Conclusion: For preparation--1. Review your lives.2. Examine your hearts (1 Corinthians 11:28). (1) The strength of your sins.(2) The growth of your graces. 3. Pray God for His assistance. (Bp.Beveridge.)Christ remembered at His table Remember--1. Your guilt and wretchedness, which rendered His interference for your deliverance so absolutely necessary. 2. The amazing magnitude of that love and compassion which induced Him to undertake our cause. 3. The holiness of the doctrines which He taught, and the purifying tendency of the precepts which He inculcated. 4. The sufferings He underwent, and the death He endured for you. 5. The position which He now occupies, and the glorious rewards which He has provided for all His faithful followers. (R. Cameron.)The sacrament a feast of alliance This idea must be-- I. Explained. This feast is one of--1. Reconciliation.2. Friendship.3. Union. II. Limited. It is a feast, but a solemn feast. III. Justified. It is a feast of sacrifice. IV. Improved: 1. Come with a contrite heart to this feast.2. Let it be a source of consolation to you. (I. S. Spencer, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:26-27 And after the same manner also He took the cup.The sacramental cup He doubleth the elements, to show that in Christ is not only necessary and sufficient, but also plentiful and abundant, with assured redemption. To blame, then, is the Church of Rome, which is guilty of that fault whereof Benjamin was taxed; they have “ stolen away the cup.” If “ to steal the chalice” be the phrase whereby men express the highest sin, what sacrilege is it to steal the wine of the chalice, from whom it belongeth? But let us hear what these Romanists plead for themselves. I. Flesh and blood go always together. It is superfluous, therefore, to give the laity the blood the second time, who by concomitancy had received it before. Answer--What God hath put asunder, to be taken severally and distinctly, let no man join together. II. There be many inconveniences, yea, mischiefs, attend the laity’ s receiving of the wine; as, its sticking in their beards, spilling of it, etc. Answer--God, in the omnisciency of His wisdom, surveyed the latitude of all occurrences, yet, beholding all future inconveniences present, He appointed the laity to drink of the cup. Wine was then as subject to spilling; it hath not since gotten a more liquid or diffusive quality. III. In several places no mention is made of wine, but of bread only (Acts 2:42; Acts 2:46; Acts 20:7). Answer--Either “ bread,” by a synecdoche, is here put for bread and wine; or else that phrase importeth their ordinary meetings and civil feasts. But a cart-load of these exceptions are “ weighed in the balance and found too light” to outpoise Christ’ s institution. Let us not be so foolish as to depart from God’ s written Word in the sacrament, concerning giving the laity the cup, for the company of human arguments on our side; but let us stick to our commission. (T. Fuller, D.D.)The sacramental cup Remembrance-- I. Begets humiliation. II. Quickens hope. III. Inspires new activity through gratitude. IV. Lifts our longings heavenward. (T. A. Nelson.)Price of the sacrament Cleopatra put a jewel in a cup, which contained the price of a kingdom: this sacred cup we are to drink of, enriched with the blood of God, is above the price of a kingdom. For as oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’ s death till He come. Frequent communion In the primitive Church the Lord’ s Supper was celebrated every day: and fit it was, needing as they did constant cordials in the time of persecution. This frequency soon abated, and St. Ambrose reproves the negligence of the Eastern Churches, who received it but once a year. The Church of England requires her children to receive at the least thrice a year. But hear those who say that it is to be but seldom received. I. The Passover was celebrated but once a year; in whose place the Lord’ s Supper succeeds. Answer--The Passover was so restricted by God; in the Lord’ s Supper we are left to our own liberty. Finding, therefore, our continual sinning, and therefore need thereof to strengthen us in our grace, we may, yea, must oftener use it, especially seeing all services of God under the gospel ought to be more plentiful than under the law. II. Things done often are seldom done solemnly. Manna, if rained every day, is not dainty. The frequent doing of it will make men perfunctory and negligent therein. Answer--Then sermons should be as seldom as Apollo’ s smiles, and prayers should not be presented to God every day, lest the commonness of the duty should bring it into contempt. Rather ministers are to instruct their people to come with reverence, notwithstanding their frequent repairing thereunto. III. But long preparation is requisite to this action; and therefore this sacrament cannot often be received. Answer--After the first grand preparation, where, by faith and repentance, we are first estated in God’ s favour, other preparations are not so difficult in doing, or tedious in time, as being but the reiterating of the same again. The good housewife that scoureth her plate once a week hath less work than she that doth it but once in a twelvemonth. Often preparing makes the work easy, and fits men the sooner for the sacrament. (T. Fuller, D.D.)The Lord’ s Supper I. A commemorative ordinance.1. The sacrament was instituted at the time of the feast of the Passover, and this was the memory uppermost in the minds of the disciples. Afterwards they saw as we see in the light of the perfected revelation, how fitly on that night was instituted the memorial of deliverance from a bondage greater than Egyptian, and from the deadlier peril of a death that never dies. 2. But what were the thoughts of the Redeemer? There stretched out the whole course of suffering which He had set Himself resolutely to travel. It was “ the same night on which He was betrayed.” It was the last supper table. Very deeply under such circumstances as those would the words sink into the hearts of the disciples. We, too, must enter into the Saviour’ s sorrows. For us, if we believe in Him, He breaks the bread and pours the wine, and when we eat and drink we do “ show forth His death till He come.” 3. And this is what we commemorate. His death-- (1) Not His life, though that was lustrous with a holiness that knew not the shadow of a stain. (2) Not His teaching, though that embodied the fulness of a wisdom and truth that was Divine. (3) Not His miracles, although His course was a march of mercy. (4) His death--His body, not glorious, but broken: His blood, not coursing through the veins of a conqueror, but shed for man. You are to see your sins laid upon Him; your souls washed by Him; your doom reversed by Him; your life secured by Him; and thus “ show forth His death--till He come.” II. A confirmatory ordinance.1. Its perpetuity seems to stamp it as an ordinance, confirming, on the one hand, man’ s faith in God, and on the other God’ s fidelity to man. The disciples had followed Christ’ s fortunes through evil and good report; but they were more faithful witnesses after this night than they had ever been before. And when in obedience to His command they partook of the ordinance which He had bequeathed to them, it is no wonder that they should come away from each successive celebration of the communion of His body and blood with braver purpose. And it is so with God’ s people still. By thus “ waiting upon the Lord” in His own enduring ordinance “ they renew their strength,” etc. 2. The sacrament confirms the two things which it exhibits--the death and the second advent of the Lord. It seems to link the humiliation and the royalty, the accomplished passed and the assured future together. It is the wedlock of the believer’ s memory and the believer’ s hope; the memory which yet lingers round the Cross; the hope which already revels in the glory of the throne. 3. For the confirmation of your faith and of your devotedness God has set up this sacramental sign. It is to confirm your faith-- (1) In His death. It is to confirm your faith-- (a) In its reality--that it was not a prolonged swoon. (b) In its vicariousness, to show you that His life was offered--“ the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” In its efficacy as an accepted atonement. (2) In His coming-- (a) In its certainty that the Church is not for ever orphaned of His presence. (b) In the recompense that awaits you; for the day is coming when all wrongs shall be redressed, sin eradicated, Satan trampled under foot, the glad welcome, the abundant entrance, the triumphal and eternal song. 4. Now you are called to meet the Saviour in His confirming and witnessing ordinance. If thou seekest Jesus surely He will not send thee empty from His own table away. But for you who do not love the Saviour, there is no grace in the sacrament for you. Like the sun and rain, they will shine and fall upon the stone, and the stone will remain insensible, because it has no hidden principle of life; but if they fall upon the flower they will foster the growth, and develop the beauty, and bring out the fragrance, because the principle of life is there. III. A covenanting ordinance, and this follows upon the two preceding.1. It is not only a sign but a seal: a solemn federal act which involves mutual pledges--pledges of fidelity on the one hand, and of blessing on the other. Says the Psalmist: “ I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” And in the next verse is the translation of the symbol: “ I will pay my vows unto the Lord, now in the presence of all His people.” And your participation in the Holy Communion is to be thus regarded as the fresh act of your espousals. If you eat and drink without discerning this great purpose, you eat and drink unworthily. 2. But I am speaking to those who love the Saviour. There is a mortal distrust, of yourselves which causes you to hesitate. Well, that you may take this Holy Sacrament for your comfort, remember that there are two parties to the covenant, and that the sacrament is the Divinely instituted seal of the fidelity of God’ s promise to you. The Lord speaks to the father of the new world, from which the waters have been but recently assuaged. “ I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of the covenant between Me and the earth.” Here in the sacrament is the rainbow of the new and the better covenant. Behold the renewed pledge of salvation purchased, and blessing conferred upon you all who believe. Oh! the simplicity of the condition--upon him that believeth in Jesus. (W. M. Punshon, LL.D.)The Lord’ s Supper This passage is instructive when regarded in its bearing upon great and ever-recurring controversies. Around the observance of the Lord’ s Supper a multitude of irregularities had arisen. Here, then, if anywhere, was the opportunity for the apostle to glorify the sacrament, and to surround it with all those symbolic rites which would make its desecration impossible in the future. But we hear nothing of priest, altar, lights, incense, and genuflexions; but simply of a state of heart of those who unite in the act. I. The true significance of the Lord’ s Supper. It is a “ proclaiming” (R.V.) the death of Christ until He come.1. The Lord’ s Supper is a memorial of the one fact in the Master’ s story which every natural feeling would have led His followers to conceal, and there was not a feeling of horror at the thought of the Cross which they had not experienced. The thought so familiar to us, but which the world has learned from Calvary only, of victory through suffering and the crown won by the Cross, was unknown to them. The Cross was a sign of defeat and disaster. No wonder that Peter should cry: “ That be far from Thee, O Lord.” The humiliation and despair of the day after the crucifixion baffle description. More pathetic utterance could hardly be spoken than “ We trusted that it had been He who should have redeemed Israel.” 2. There are few facts more remarkable than the revolution of feeling which is shown in the action of these men in regard to the Lord’ s Supper. In the hour of their reviving faith, it was the Cross to which they gave prominence, and the one characteristic of early Church life was the keeping of the feast by which they proclaimed “ the Lord’ s death till He come.” A festival of the Incarnation, or of the Transfiguration, or of the Resurrection, would have been intelligible. But this is the memorial of His death. 3. And could anything have set it forth with more impressiveness as the distinctive truth of Christianity? Other systems have had teachers, leaders of genius and power, and lawgivers. But where else do we find a Saviour who has died for the sins of men? Christ’ s claim rests not on the profundity of His wisdom, but on the infinitude of His love. So there is a fitness in the Supper as the proclamation of the gospel. The guests are not the wise or the holy, but sinners who have learned, to put their trust in Christ. They eat the bread and drink the wine as a confession that in His death alone is their hope of eternal life. II. The influence which this view of the Lord’ s Supper should exert on us. The apostle points out distinctly when be says: “ Let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.”1. What miserable trifling are all the questions which men discuss with so much heat as compared with this! Forms of observance--what are they all when weighed in the balances with the spirit of the observance? Surely the first and chief question must be as to our right to a place at the table, and as to our preparation for filling that place with consistency. Here is a meeting-place between God and the soul. This is a renewed act of faith and most solemn confession, and this is the point in which all proving of ourselves converges; and it is one evil result of certain theories that their tendency is to keep this out of view. The attention is fixed on the priest and the altar rather than on the relations between Christ and the soul of the individual worshipper. The whole reminds us of Micah when, having detained the wandering Levite, he exclaimed, “ Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.” He who comes filled with the solemn awe of the altar and the priest, and allows these to interrupt his communion with Christ, “ feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside.” 2. Here, then, is the one question for each communicant, What is the death to me? It is not enough that I hold as an article of my creed that Christ died for sinners. This act of communion is a profession of my personal trust in that death to deliver me from my sins. It is in the light of the Cross that we begin to understand something of the infinite tenderness of the Divine heart, and so to learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin. 3. What may be the special benefits to the soul which comes in humble faith to this banquet of love, it would be presumption in any man to decide. Who would under take to determine the possibilities of spiritual growth which may be the result? Here, as everywhere, to faith all things are possible. (J. Guinness Rogers, B.A.)The objects of the believer’ s contemplation in the Lord’ s Supper I. In this ordinance the believer contemplates the full accomplishment of the infinitely important objects which that death was designed to attain.1. In the sufferings and death of our Redeemer exhibited in the Lord’ s Supper faith discerns the character of the true God unfolded, and His transcendent glory displayed, with far more brightness than by all the works of creation. 2. In the death of Christ, as represented in fide Lord’ s Supper, the believer by faith discerns the price of his own salvation and the only foundation of his hope before God. 3. The believer contemplates in the death of Christ, as represented in the Lord’ s Supper, the source of all his spiritual blessings and a never-failing spring of strong consolation in his afflictions. 4. The believer, in the ordinance of the Supper, views by faith our glorious Messiah’ s death as accomplishing a happy reconciliation between men and angels, and as opening to both new discoveries and new employments. II. In this ordinance the believing Christian perceives a lively and affecting representation of all the circumstances connected with the death of Christ and the blessings to be thereby conveyed to his people.1. All who sit at the sacred table partake of these elements and affectionately distribute them from one to another; thus we are reminded that there is a sufficiency in Christ to supply the wants of all His people, and that they are all children of the same family, eating at the same table, drinking of the same cup, and bound by every endearing tie to love one another and to live as brethren. 2. After partaking of the sacred symbols they retire from the communion table, from the delightful service of the sanctuary, to mingle in the duties and toils and trials of life. For it is only in the temple not made with hands that their fellowship shall be uninterrupted and their joy be full. 3. At the first celebration of the sacrament the condescending Saviour Himself was present with His disciples and gave them the cup and spake words of consolation to their fainting minds. Thus it still is as to His spiritual presence; He is in the midst of them to do them good; the cup of blessing which in His name we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ. III. The believing Christian contemplates the sacrament of the Supper as a sacred memorial of his inestimable Friend, the best beloved of his soul; and as a feast of commemoration, designed to keep up the believing and sanctifying remembrance of what Scripture testifies concerning Him,1. Ye shew forth the Lord’ s death; the Lord of angels and men; the Lord of heaven and earth; the Lord of providence and grace. It wonderfully enlarges and elevates the mind of devout communicants when they can enter into the contemplation of their Redeemer’ s personal greatness; as the brightness of the Father’ s glory; as upholding all things by the word of His power; as King of kings and Lord of lords; and as the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever. 2. Again, when showing forth the Lord’ s death, “ do it in remembrance” that He is the Mediator of the New Testament, or better covenant. When you are engaged in this ordinance you ought to rest on the sure promises of that covenant which was sealed with the blood of the Testator; be persuaded of their truth, embrace them, and plead their fulfilment. 3. Once more, when showing forth the Lord’ s death, not only remember that He died in the character of Mediator between an offended God and offending creatures, but survey the gradual progress of His work from its commencement before the worlds were framed to its consummation in the glorifying of all the elect. IV. We are to view this ordinance as a solemn gospel feast, a sacred Christian festival.1. In the everlasting gospel provision is made for the most indigent of mankind; and in this sacred ordinance the poor and needy feed with satisfaction on the rich blessings of the great salvation. 2. Provision is not the only idea which enters into our mind under the general term of a feast or supper; nourishment also is included, and when applied to this sacred ordinance it suggests this reviving sentiment, that by the right participation of the Lord’ s Supper humble believers are strengthened with the inestimable blessings of that well-ordered covenant which the great Master of the feast makes with all who give themselves to Him. 3. Besides nourishment and provision the comparison of the sacred ordinance before us to a feast or supper conveys to the mind all the animating ideas of fellowship and intercourse with the whole Church of Christ. V. This ordinance is represented, in the words of the institution, as a distinguishing badge of Christianity and a mark of separation between the friends of Christ and the children of the world.1. Those who have a right to participate of this holy ordinance are in Christ, and are new creatures. 2. They lay aside the sins which beset them, and separate themselves from whatever is displeasing to their heavenly Father. They are awake to the infinite evil of sin, and are brought through Divine grace to hate it perfectly, as displeasing to God by whom they lived and on whom they rely. 3. Those who are prepared to show forth the death of Christ, love Him above all that this poor world can give or promise. VI. We now direct your meditations to the connection between the death of Christ and His second coming as the Sovereign Judge of quick and dead. His death prepared the way for all the triumphs of the general resurrection, and the sacred ordinance of the Supper is a standing pledge, that He who was once offered up to bear the sins of many will come the second time without a sin-offering for the complete salvation of His people. (A. Bonar.)Of the end of the Lord’ s Supper The Corinthians were a Church planted by Paul, watered by a long preaching among them. But notwithstanding all his pains he receives news of some corruptions crept in and overspreading that Church.1. Concerning the carriage of men and women in the Church.2. The celebration of the Lord’ s Supper.3. The use and exercise of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:17). The apostle makes a transition from the first to the second, and taxeth them with their divisions. Observe divisions in a Church are usually attended with sad consequences. They despoil the Church of its beauty and ornaments; they here hindered a communion with one another. All communion is founded upon union; divisions shook that and brought in gross miscarriages about the Lord’ s Supper. For the reformation of those abuses the apostle reduceth them to the consideration of the first institution. Observe, in all reformations we are not so much to mind what this or that custom of the Church is when there is a clear word to walk by. Christ overthrows polygamy by reducing the number of persons married to the first institution (Matthew 19:4; Matthew 19:9).1. How soon will corruptions creep into the best Church! The devil will sow his tares where God sows His wheat. 2. Human ceremonies are not to be urged, especially when they by abuse degenerate into superstition, carnality, and profaneness. Divine institutions, because of God’ s sanction, are not to be laid aside though abuses creep in. What is man’ s must be discarded, what is God’ s must be preserved. For the first doctrine. The Lord’ s Supper is chiefly instituted for the remembering and showing forth the death of Christ. It is not a bare historical remembrance of the death of Christ. For then--1. Every profane man who assents to the history of Christ’ s death, and believes the acting of this tragedy on the Cross, and hath a notional belief of the ends of it, might be partaker of this ordinance. But the apostle puts a bar to that (verse 28). 2. A man could not then receive more unworthily, or incur a greater damnation in this than in other acts. But here the apostle fixeth a particular guilt of the body and blood of Christ when received unworthily (verses 27-29). As Christ’ s death was not a bare dying, but a death with high and glorious ends, so our remembrance of it is not to be a bare historical but a practical remembrance and declaration. As Christ’ s remembrance of the promises of His Father was not only an assent to the truth of them, but a recumbency on Him for the performance, so our remembrance of the death of Christ ought to be. It is not a speculative remembrance only, as when a man sees a picture of a prince, but such a remembrance as a man hath when he sees the picture of a dear friend absent from him at that time; he remembers not only his person, but the mutual love between them, the actions his friend hath done for him, which stirs up a sense of gratitude at that time. I shall show--1. This is the end of the institution.2. What it is in the death of Christ that is here remembered and shown forth.3. How we should show forth this death. (1) The remembrance and declaration of the death of Christ is chiefly intended hereby. For the explication consider-- 1. God was always careful of appointing and preserving memorials of His favour. The pot of manna and Aaron’ s budding rod were to be preserved in the ark as standing monuments of God’ s kindness. Stones were appointed to be set up for a memorial of the division of the waters of Jordan to give the Israelites passage to the conquest of Canaan (Joshua 4:5). The passover was instituted as a memorial of the Israelites’ affliction. And is there not much more reason for a standing memorial of that mercy of which all those were but the types? It hath been the custom of all nations to have an anniversary commemoration of those heroes who have been the instruments of some public happiness to them, and of all societies to commemorate their benefactors. And is there any reason to deny that to the great Benefactor of mankind, the Redeemer of the world? 2. These memorials are necessary-- (1) Because of the nature of our affections, which rather follow the orders of our sense than the commands of our souls, and are more excited by sensible than invisible objects. Most things we cannot understand but under sensible representations; we understand not God’ s power, goodness, justice, but by the objects we see those attributes conversant about. Hence are those frequent metaphorical resemblances of spiritual things in the Scripture, and our Saviour sets Himself forth to us under the notions of bread, wine, Bridegroom. (2) In regard of the inconstancy of our affections. What our affections rouse themselves up to receive at the first approach, they afterwards begin to flag like the strings of an instrument that sound well at the first tuning, but quickly slack and need a watchful ear and careful hand to wind them up. We want, therefore, those memorials to keep up our hearts in a warm and glowing temper. (3) In regard of the natural ingratitude and enmity we have to a crucified Christ, and the weakness of faith. What the world did, that doth every man’ s heart naturally, account the Cross foolishness. How is our faith weak when Christ is absent from us! He hath therefore instituted a symbol of His spiritual presence, whereby our minds might exercise themselves as well as the eyes of men did behold His body. 3. What it is in the death of Christ that is here set forth. (1) The painfulness of His death. It is the picture of Him as He hung upon the Cross. (a) This was the intent of the ancient passover. The lamb was to be killed, the flesh roasted with fire (Exodus 12:6-8). (b) Of the elements in this sacrament. Bread signifies as passing through various kinds of sufferings to be made fit for food, reaped when ripe, thrashed when housed, ground to powder and baked to be made fit for bread. The actions testify the painfulness. (2) The intention of this death for us. It is in this ordinance represented as a sacrifice-death. He is our Passover sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7-8). In His institution it was, My body broken for you, My blood shed for you, as an expiatory sacrifice. (3) The sufficiency of this death for us. It would never else be remembered. We remember no more than what was done; we remember a whole Christ broken. God by covenant with Christ could challenge no more, and justice after the striking of that match could demand no more. Whence ariseth a redundancy of merit, an overflowing merit for ten thousand worlds, were they in being and in a sinful state. (4) The acceptableness of this death to God. All that Christ did He did by order as His Father commanded Him. Had not His death been acceptable to His Father He would not have ordered us to remember it. (5) The present efficacy of this death. It is now of efficacy, and will be to the second coming of Christ. Why else should it be remembered? To what purpose should we commemorate it if it did not retain an everlasting efficacy? (6) How we should show forth and remember this death. 1. Reverentially. (1) With a reverence of the holiness of God.(2) With a reverence of the justice of God. 2. Holily. We must undertake such religious services with suitable dispositions of heart. (1) With mourning hearts for sin. A broken Christ must not be remembered without a broken heart.(2) With deep considerations of the cursed nature and demerit of sin. It must needs be bitter, killing, condemning, cursed sin which brought Christ to such a bitter death.(3) With strong resolutions against sin. It is a sad thing to be Christians at a supper, heathens in our shops, and devils in our closets. 3. Believingly. (1) We should profess our adherence to Him. The showing forth His death is solemnly to cleave to Him alone for the pardon of our sins, the justification of our persons, and the sanctification of our natures.(2) Look up to Christ in His death as a Conqueror. It is the Lord’ s death; He was a Lord in His death; He was a King upon the Cross as well as a Priest, as He is a Priest in heaven as well as a King. His death was His victory, His ascension His triumph. Regard it, show it forth, not simply as a death, but a conquering death.(3) Plead this death with God.(4) Plead this death against sin and Satan. Show it against every charge. Can the sins of men be stronger to condemn than the blood of God is to save? 4. Humbly. (1) Consider in this representation what we should have suffered.(2) Consider the deplorable misery wherein we were. How deeply were we sunk into the mire that nothing could pluck us out but the Son of God! 5. Thankfully. Such mercies as the death of Christ require high and raised thanksgivings. (1) Blessing God for His love in offering up His Son to death.(2) Blessing Christ for His love in dying.(3) The costliness of this redemption by the death of Christ should excite us to show it forth with thankfulness.(4) The gain we have by it should excite us to it. Death was bitter to Him, but comfortable to us. By His blood are the promises sealed; by His blood all the treasures of grace, mercy, peace, happiness, riches of glory, are gathered together for us. Use:1. If the Supper be a showing the death of Christ, it is then no sacrifice, but the commemoration of a sacrifice. Sacrifices imply some kind of expiation and atonement; this is a natural notion. But the Supper is not intended as an expiation of sin or a satisfaction to God. In a sacrifice something is offered to God, in a sacrament something is exhibited to us. 2. How should the death of Christ run much in our thoughts and our affections be raised! The Lord’ s Supper is to be frequently celebrated and participated of. “ As often,” implying, it ought often to be done. For explication.1. How often is not determined. 2. Nor can there be a constant time fixed for every particular person. Because there are varieties in the cases of good men, who may by some emergency find themselves hindered one time and not another. 3. It was anciently often participated of. Some think every day from that of Act 2:46. 4. Yet to be frequent in it is agreeable to the nature of the ordinance and necessary for the wants of a Christian. The too much deferring cloth more hurt than the frequent communicating. The oftener we carefully and believingly communicate the more disposed we shall be for it. It ought not to be neglected upon these reasons,1. Because of the Author. It is a feast of God’ s providing. The great God appointed not any trifling ordinance; His wisdom appoints none but what His power can make worthy instruments; His goodness will appoint none but what His love will make highly beneficial; the contempt of it is a slighting both of His wisdom and grace. If Jordan be appointed for the healing Naaman’ s leprosy (2 Kings 5:10), the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, shall never be medicinal. When God appointed lamps for the defeat of the Midianites (Judges 7:20), had Gideon slighted them as too weak, and assaulted them with his numerous host, he had received a rout instead of a victory. 2. The time when Christ instituted it shows it is not worthy of our neglect. It was a little before His death (1 Corinthians 11:23). 3. The ends of it declare the unworthiness of neglecting it. (1) The remembrance of Christ. How can we say we love Him if we do not mind Him? What value have we for Him if He be not in our thoughts? Well, but we may remember Christ otherwise without this ceremony. We may, but do we? (2) It is a seal of the covenant. This is the common nature of a sacrament to be a seal of the righteousness or justification with God by faith in Christ (Romans 4:11). It is not only a sign which represents, but a seal which confirms the benefit. (3) It is a renewing our covenant with Him. (4) It is a communion with God. 4. The benefits of this ordinance require frequency. These benefits are many. (1) Weakening of sin. Not physically, but morally. The lively representation and consideration of the death of Christ with all its circumstances is a strong incentive and assistant to the mortifying sin in us. (2) Nourishment of the soul. (3) Increase and exercise of grace. Christ is the storehouse and fountain of all the treasure of life and peace, but His ordinances are the channel. (4) Sense and assurance of love often comes in by it. (5) Union with Christ is promoted. Use:1. How much is the neglect, if not contempt, of this institution to be bewailed! (1) It concerns such to inquire whether the reasons of their neglect be valid against a positive command. (2) Was it appointed to be neglected? Did Christ take such care to institute it and we take care to avoid it? (3) How can such free themselves from unworthy reflections upon Christ? It is either an act of wisdom or folly in Him. If of wisdom, why are we so foolish as not to observe it? If of folly, why do we at all believe in Him whom we count a foolish Saviour? (4) Is it neglected because the elements are so mean and the thing so easy in itself? Had any Israelite neglected to turn his eye upon the brazen serpent the poison in his blood had digged his grave. (5) Or do we think Christ is come again that we neglect it? (6) Why doth any one neglecter of it who hath faith observe any other command or institution? (7) Or is it unfitness that is the cause of the neglect? Hath any man heard of repentance and faith and holiness, and yet hath nothing of them? What a miserable case is this! (8) Consider what you lose and what danger you incur. 2. Use: Is of exhortation to observe it and that frequently. Though a dying Saviour is remembered, yet a living Saviour is sought for in it; and shall not we be as ready to seek a living Christ in the sacrament as the women were to seek a dead Christ in the sepulchre? (Matthew 28:1). Let us consider some questions. (1) Will any believer be guilty of disobedience to the Author of his faith? (2) Is Christ so mean a Friend as not to be remembered? The memory of a good friend should be very precious. (3) Why should we not often be in those ways where we may meet with our best Friend? (4) Have you no graces that need strengthening? (5) Why will any true believer gratify Satan? The motions to hinder those that are gracious must either be from God or Satan. From God they cannot be, who is no enemy to the ordinance He hath appointed for them. (6) Why should any believer deny to pay Christ the debt of thankfulness for His great love in that way which He hath appointed? It is a thanksgiving, a thankful remembrance, therefore anciently called the Eucharist. We have handled two doctrines from the words. There is one more yet behind concerning the duration of this ordinance. You show the Lord’ s death till He come. There is especially a twofold coming of Christ mentioned in Scripture. 1. His coming in the flesh.2. His coming to judgment. The doctrine then is--the Lord’ s Supper is a lasting and continuing institution, not to be put down at the pleasure of any man. It will not be repealed till Christ come. Another gospel is not to be expected (Galatians 1:6-7, etc.), and therefore while the gospel endures the appendixes, the institutions annexed to it will endure. The ordinances of Christ are like the pillar of fire and the cloud which guided the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, and did not withdraw from them till they entered into Canaan.1. All the ordinances of Christ are to continue in His Church, then certainly this. 2. Sacraments were thought by God needful for men in all their several states in the world. Sacraments were judged necessary by God in innocent nature. The Tree of Life had a sacramental signification of life upon Adam’ s obedience. Much more in lapsed nature have we need of those sensible things for the support of our faith in the promises of God. After the Fall there were various institutions brought in by degrees. Adam and Abel and Noah had their sacrifices as significant of the Messiah promised to them and expected by them. Abraham had an addition of circumcision. The Passover and other rites were added under Moses. And God always had some conduit-pipes through which to pour out the blessings of His grace upon the souls of His creatures. 3. All laws once settled are of force till they be repealed by that authority which did enact them. 4. The covenant is perpetual, and therefore the seals are perpetual. 5. The state wherein we are requires the continuance of it and of other ordinances. (1) In regard of our constant decays. Our bodies would moulder to dust were they not daily nourished; and is there not as much need of nourishment for our souls? (2) In respect of our weakness, some intercourse there must be between God and us if we be happy. Use:1. Christ will always have a Church in the world. A Church is the seat of ordinances. 2. It is in no man’ s power to add to or detract from Christ’ s institutions. Not a pin in the temple He will have altered till He gives order. God is a jealous God, and careful of His sovereignty. 3. See Christ’ s love and bounty. Christ would not leave His people without a durable legacy. 4. This ordinance must not be contemned. The passover was to be observed, much more the Supper settled by Christ. (Bp. Hacket.)The Lord’ s Supper a showing forth of Christ’ s death I. The manner of His death, its violence and painfulness. The first promise spoke of a bruised Saviour. The patriarchal and Levitical sacrifices represented Him as a slain victim; and the prophets described Him in a similar way. And if we look into heaven, it is the same. He is adored there as one who has been slain. So we rightly regard this ordinance as setting forth, not Christ’ s death only, but His violent death on the Cross. II. Its efficacy. The institution of this ordinance by Christ is a declaration by Christ that He has removed the Divine displeasure from His people, and brought them within the full sunshine of the Divine favour. He would not call on us to celebrate continually a work which is not accomplished, or only half accomplished. This would be like a vaunting general ordering a column to be raised for a victory that was never won. It is like a continual echo of His own dying cry, “ It is finished.” And our celebrating this sacrament becomes in consequence a repetition on our part of this cry, a declaration that we believe in the full sufficiency of His atonement. III. The necessity of its particular application to ourselves. We do not merely look at the sacred elements of the Lord’ s Supper, we eat and drink them. Without eating and drinking we might show the manner and efficacy of Christ’ s death; but this partaking becomes an emblem of that faith which applies the sacrifice of Christ to the soul. In His own strong language, it “ eats the flesh of the Son of Man and it drinks His blood.” Conclusion: Learn--1. That a knowledge of the gospel itself is needful for a right understanding of this sacrament. It is a picture of the gospel: an embodying of its great truths in visible things. If we understand the gospel, we find no difficulty in understanding this sacrament. And then in its turn it illustrates the gospel, enabling us to understand it better. But unless we understand the gospel, we shall be in the same situation with many of the ignorant Jews under the law. The shadows of “ good things” will take the place of those “ good things” themselves, “ carnal ordinances” will be confounded with spiritual blessings, and the emblems of a dying Saviour will be more to us than that dying Saviour Himself. Go through Roman Catholic countries--there is the crucifix, the elevated host, adored; the great Saviour Himself practically despised, and His gospel scarcely heard of or known. 2. That Christ’ s gospel must be highly valued and loved by us before we can rightly attend to His holy Supper. 3. That the Lord’ s Supper should be celebrated by us frequently. Is it a showing of His death? Then the more frequently His death is shown forth in this world of sinners the better. 4. That this sacrament is to be celebrated perpetually. It is to be a standing ordinance in the Church, unlike circumcision or the Jewish sacrifices and feasts which have passed away. It is to be celebrated till the heavens are opened and the Son of Man is revealed. Then the sacrament will have done its work. We see now a picture only; but when Christ comes, we shall see the original. (C. Bradley, M.A.)The Lord’ s death 1. These words seem contradictory. If He was Lord, how could He die? If He died, how could He be Lord? Why show forth the memory of the Lord’ s death? Why not say as little about it as possible? Is it not keeping up the memory of His shame? Why not show forth His birth? He never said a word about that. He founded no birthday festival. Why not forget His death in His resurrection? 2. Note that for historical purposes the event is always called His crucifixion, but for religious purposes His death. We do not say about a man who is hanged that he died, but that he was killed. And so on the Lord’ s side it is always said that Christ died, on man’ s side that He was slain. I. The Lord Himself always magnified the event. He never treated it as part of the common lot, or availed Himself of the consolation of despair, saying, it can come but once--the sooner come, the sooner done. His martyrs often said that. Christ made it the supreme fact in His history. It is easy for you who are getting on towards seventy to talk about your death. What is it to die at thirty, when you are quite strong--perfectly well? What is it at thirty--to make death the supreme thought of the mind--the meridian of your calculations? You cannot enter into it. But this is what Christ did. II. The Lord never spoke of His death as a fact complete in itself. Now we do: we say the end cannot be far off. But Jesus never referred to His death as a full stop. He always connected it with His resurrection. He was always talking about coming back again. His life is a beautiful whole--not to be broken into parts, or studied in fragments, else the results of His ministry would be humiliation, victory of the enemy. What am I to make of this April day? At six it was so mild and beautiful; and at nine it was drizzling. And then, after ten, it was so bright; and just now it was so dark I could see nothing but for the gas, and presently it will be teeming with rain. Do not break the day off at any of these points, and say, What do you think of that? God says, Let it alone; take the whole year, and see what I make of it. And so Christ says, “ Say nothing of this till the Son of Man be risen from the dead.” The last fact explains the preceding facts. III. The Lord made the celebration of His death the one festival in the Church. There have been some poor black days in your life--you say let them be forgotten. Christ does not say so--nay, in view of this black day in His life, He boldly said that except men did eat His flesh and drink His blood, they had no life in them. He never spoke of His death as a disaster. He came upon it as from eternity, travelling in the greatness of His strength. Other men celebrate their triumphs--this Man His Cross; other conquerors tell of the banners they have wrested from the hand of the enemy--this Man celebrates His overthrow. IV. The Lord never asked His tormentors to be pitiful, or in any way to mitigate the agony of His crucifixion. And this would be the less remarkable but for the fact that He did ask His Father if it were possible to let the cup pass from Him. So He was not insensible to pain. But when He comes to men, He asks no favour. Nay, when people lament His fate, He says, “ Weep not for Me.” And it is the more remarkable, because Pilate set the door open, and said in effect, Here is a way of escape; art Thou the King of the Jews? He put his question in a tone that offered deliverance. And yet this very self-same man, whom we have seen in this agony of blood, avails not Himself of the door so opened. Truly such a death had a meaning in it. Conclusion: Now in view of these facts, it becomes a serious question whether the reason given for this commemoration is equal to the necessities of the case. Why do you celebrate His death instead of His birth--His resurrection--the triumphal parts of His history? I answer--He was delivered for our offences. Why keep up the memory of His death? I answer, He was bruised for our iniquities. Why keep up the memory of His Cross? I answer, while we were yet sinners, He died for us. Will you, after hearing these answers, tell us, on the other hand, why we should leave such a death uncelebrated? (J. Parker, D.D.)Practical influence of the death of Christ To “ show forth” here means to pro-claim. In communicating we set forward the death of Jesus, according to the views we may entertain of it. The most important views will be brought before us if we consider it as it is described in Scripture-- I. As the foundation of all our hopes of God’ s favour and of eternal life. In it we see One who was God’ s equal suffering in His human nature as the only means by which sin could be expiated and sinners saved. We cannot doubt that this atonement is sufficient, and see, therefore, in the death of Christ the complete removal of all barriers to our salvation, and a way thrown open for our restoration to blessedness. II. As the source of the motives by which our conduct ought to be regulated.1. What could be more fitted to make us feel deeply and realise strongly our obligation to devote ourselves to God’ s service than this gift of God’ s love? 2. Is there any sin which the contemplation of Christ’ s death should not prompt and enable us to subdue--any grace which it is not fitted to implant and to cherish? Are any of you disposed to be proud?--then think of Him who humbled Himself. Are any of you disposed to be selfish?--then think of Him who submitted to a cruel and shameful death for the good of those who had no claim upon His regard. Would any one see an example of compassion and fortitude--of love to God and love to man, in circumstances well fitted to touch his heart and to produce decided imitation?--let him look to the death of Christ. III. As the great ground of our consolation amid trials and afflictions.1. That the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering reminds us of the important and salutary place which suffering holds in the moral government of God, and cordially reconciles us to the great principle that it is by much tribulation that we must enter the kingdom. 2. Christ, having endured the Cross, being now set down at the right hand of God, is an encouragement to His people to bear their trials with resignation, and to press on with diligence--Christ’ s success having ensured theirs, and the result in His case being substantially a pattern of what is to be the result in ours. 3. The death of Christ is peculiarly fitted to afford believers encouragement and consolation in looking forward to their own encounter with the last enemy. The King of terrors is indeed a formidable foe, but Christ, by dying, has deprived him of all power to hurt; and when we know this we shall no longer be subject to bondage through the fear of death, but shall be enabled to say, “ O Death, where is thy sting?” etc. Conclusion: These are some plain views of the death of Christ as set before us in the Scriptures. As often as ye eat that bread, and drink that cup, you show them, and thereby pledge yourselves to hold them forth more fully in the whole tenor of your conversation. (W. Cunningham, D.D.)The ordinance of the interval between Christ’ s going and Christ’ s coming Christians--1. Represent Christ. They defend and declare His truth; uphold and make known His honour; illustrate and maintain His laws. 2. Copy Christ. All He is, they desire to be. All He has, they expect to share. All He requires, they are glad to do. 3. Commemorate Christ. He is the tie which binds them all together; the light which gives to each his colour; the circle which prescribes to each his course. Before He left them He said, “ Do this in remembrance of Me.” And till He returns He continues to say, “ Ye do show the Lord’ s,” etc. I. Of what does this ordinance consist?1. What is it that is fed? (1) Not the body only. “ If any man hunger, let him eat at home” (chap. 11:34). (2) But-- (a) The memory, because it goes back to the Cross. (b) The faith, because it goes up for the grace. (c) The heart, for it goes forward to the glory. 2. What is it on which the faithful feed? Not on the material Christ. “ The natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in heaven, and not here.” The food is not on an altar to satisfy the claims of God, but on a table to satisfy the soul of man. To man physical, the things taken are bread and wine. To man spiritual, the things appropriated are the body and blood of Christ. II. To what does the ordinance refer?1. It is a doctrine solidified into an act. It is a profession published by a feast. It is a sign as to the past, and is a seal as to the future. Like a milestone by life’ s wayside, it has two faces: one tells whence we come; the other, whither we are going. It is the old oath in which the great army of the Cross have sworn fealty to their Lord. It is the old well, at which all the pilgrims have rested and been refreshed on their way to Zion. It is the old cry, by which, in gloom or joy, the saints encourage one another to go on. It is the old challenge, by which the true men distinguish friends from foe. 2. It represents His death; for the broken bread and the poured-out wine find their parallel only at the Cross. 3. It implies life; for only living souls can feed together on that bread from heaven. 4. It promises immortality; for they who really feed upon the living Christ, in their living spirits, by a living faith, have this prospect given: “ If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (John 6:51). III. To what does the ordinance point? “ Till He come.”1. To the glory of Jesus. Intelligent love delights in the Master’ s honour, His glorified body, His grand espousals, His many crowns. 2. To the gathering of the redeemed in the heavenly banqueting house. (1) For the perfect communion.(2) In the presence of the ever-loving Lord. 3. But if at the table we show the Lord’ s death, what do we show in the world? (1) Servants of the Crucified, are we dead with Him?(2) Saved by His dying love, are we severe to living men?(3) Talking of the dawn, are we walking in the dark?(4) Pointing to heaven, are we cleaving to earth? (J. Richardson, M.A.)The sacrament of the Lord’ s Supper a standing ordinance God often appointed standing memorials to perpetuate great and extraordinary events. Aaron’ s rod and the pot of manna; the stones taken from Jordan; the Passover, etc. And the apostle tells that the Lord’ s Supper was appointed to commemorate not Christ’ s birth, temptation, etc., but His death. I. Why the sacrament was designed to commemorate Christ’ s death in particular. Because--1. It was the most striking scene that ever took place with respect to Him or any other being. It was rendered so by many singular circumstances. 2. It was the strongest expression of His marvellous love to this sinful and perishing world. “ Greater love hath no man than this,” etc. But Christ suffered death for sinners, and that in a most painful and humiliating way. 3. It alone made atonement for the sins of the world, and laid a foundation for the pardon and salvation of all penitent, believing sinners. All Christ did before His death, and all He has done since, and all He ever will do hereafter, depends upon His death, and without it would be of no avail. II. Reflections.1. This exhibition of a crucified Saviour is a solemn address to our understandings, and calls for our most serious and fixed contemplation upon the most glorious truths which can employ the minds of heavenly intelligences. 2. This significant ordinance addresses your hearts, as well as your understandings, and calls for the most grateful affections to the Father and Son. 3. As the ordinance reminds you of Christ giving Himself for you, so it equally reminds you of your obligations of renewedly giving yourselves to Him. III. Improvement. Since the sacrament was appointed to be a memorial of Christ’ s death, then--1. Christians with good reason experience much comfort and derive much benefit from it. 2. Those who never find any satisfaction in it have reason to fear that they are enemies to the Cross of Christ. 3. None are duly prepared to observe it who do not cordially approve of the vindictive justice of God. It was this which rendered the death of Christ necessary, and which it was the design of His death to display. 4. It is of great importance to maintain this sacred ordinance. The continuance of the Christian religion in the world greatly depends upon the continuance of the memorial of Christ’ s death. 5. If the sacrament be a standing memorial of Christ’ s death, then we may see how little the gospel is prized by the great body of the Christian world. (N. Emmons, D.D.)A persuasive to frequent communion I. For the perpetuity of this institution, implied in those words, “ For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord’ s death till He come” : or the words may be read imperatively and by way of precept, show ye forth the Lord’ s death till He come. So that it is a vain conceit of the enthusiasts concerning the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, when, as they suppose, all human teaching shall cease, and all external ordinances and institutions in religion shall vanish, and there shall be no farther use of them. Whereas it is very plain from the New Testament, that prayer, and outward teaching, and the use of the two sacraments, were intended to continue among Christians of all ages. And if this be the end and use of this sacrament, to be a solid remembrance of the death and sufferings of our Lord during His absence from us, that is, till His coming to judgment, then this sacrament will never be out of date till the second coming of our Lord. The consideration whereof should mightily strengthen and encourage our faith in the hope of eternal life so often as we partake of this sacrament. II. The obligation that lies upon all Christians to the frequent observance and practice of this institution, I shall briefly mention a threefold obligation lying upon all Christians to frequent communion in this holy sacrament.1. We are obliged in point of indispensable duty, and in obedience to a plain precept and most solemn institution of our blessed Saviour, that great Lawgiver. 2. We are likewise obliged hereunto in point of interest. The benefits which we expect to be derived and assured to us by this sacrament are all the blessings of the new covenant. 3. We are likewise particularly obliged in point of gratitude to the careful observance of this institution. Can we without the most horrible ingratitude neglect this dying charge of our Sovereign and Saviour, the great Friend and Lover of souls? A command so reasonable, so easy, so full of blessings and benefits to the faithful observers of it. III. Third particular I proposed, which was to endeavour to satisfy the objections and scruples which have been raised in the minds of men, and particularly of many devout and sincere Christians.1. That the danger of unworthy receiving being so very great, it seems the safest way wholly to refrain from this sacrament, and not to receive it at all. But this objection is evidently of no force if there be as great or greater danger on the other hand, viz., in the neglect of this duty. Nay, of the two it is the greater sign of contempt wholly to neglect the sacrament, than to partake of it without some due qualification. And indeed scarce any man can think of coming to the sacrament but he will by this consideration be excited to some good purposes, and put upon some sort of endeavour to amend and reform his life. But, on the other hand, as to those who neglect this sacrament, there is hardly anything left to restrain them from the greatest enormities of life, and to give a check to them in their evil course: nothing but the penalty of human laws, which men may avoid and yet be wicked enough. For if this be a good reason to abstain from the sacrament for fear of performing so sacred an action in an undue manner, it were best for a bad man to lay aside all religion, and to give over the exercise of all the duties of piety, of prayer, of reading and hearing the Word of God, because there is a proportionable danger in the unworthy and unprofitable use of any of these. I cannot more fitly illustrate this matter than by this plain similitude: he that eats and drinks intemperately endangers his health and his life, but he that to avoid this danger will not eat at all, I need not tell you what will certainly become of him in a very short space. There are some conscientious persons who abstain from the sacrament upon an apprehension that the sins which they shall commit afterwards are unpardonable. But this is a great mistake. To draw to a conclusion of this matter: such groundless fears and jealousies as these may be a sign of a good meaning, but they are certainly a sign of an injudicious mind. For if we stand upon these scruples, no man perhaps was ever so worthily prepared to draw near to God in any duty of religion but there was still some defect or other in the disposition of his mind, and the degree of his preparation. But if we prepare ourselves as well as we can, this is all God expects. We cannot surely entertain so unworthy a thought of God and our blessed Saviour as to imagine that He did institute the sacrament not for the furtherance of our salvation, but as a snare, and an occasion of our ruin and damnation. 2. Second objection, which was this. That so much preparation and worthiness being required to our worthy receiving, the more timorous sort of Christians can never think themselves duly enough qualified for so sacred an action.1. That every degree of imperfection in our preparation for this sacrament is not a sufficient reason for men to abstain from it. For then no man should ever receive it. For who is every way worthy? The graces of the best men are imperfect. And if we will neglect the use of these means, it is to no purpose for us to pray to God for His grace and assistance. 2. The total want of a due preparation, not only in the degree but in the main and substance of it, though it render us unfit at present to receive this sacrament, yet does it by no means excuse our neglect of it. One fault may draw on another, but can never excuse it. We will not do our duty in other things, and then plead that we are unfit and unworthy to do it in this particular of the sacrament. 3. The proper inference and conclusion from a total want of due preparation for the sacrament is not to cast off all thoughts of receiving it, but immediately to set about the work of preparation, that so we may be fit to receive it. IV. Fourth and last thing I proposed, viz., What preparation of ourselves is necessary in order to the worthy receiving of this sacrament. Which I told you would give me occasion to explain the apostle’ s meaning in the last part of the text, “ But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.” I think it very clear from the occasion and circumstances of the apostle’ s discourse concerning the sacrament that he does not intend the examination of our state, whether we be Christians or not, and sincerely resolve to continue so; and consequently that he does not here speak of our habitual preparation by the resolution of a good life. This he takes for granted, that they were Christians and resolved to continue and persevere in their Christian profession. But he speaks of their actual fitness and worthiness at that time when they came to receive the Lord’ s Supper. But let a man examine himself, that is, consider well with himself what a sacred action he is going about, and what behaviour becomes him when he is celebrating this sacrament instituted by our Lord in memorial of His body and blood, that is, of His death and passion. But some will say, Is this all the preparation that is required to our worthy receiving of the sacrament, that we take care not to come drunk to it, nor to be guilty of any irreverence and disorder in the celebration of it? I answer in short, this was the particular unworthiness with which the apostle taxeth the Corinthians, and which he warns them to amend. It is of great use for Christians by way of preparation for the sacrament to examine themselves in a larger sense than in all probability the apostle here intended. And because this work of examining ourselves concerning our state, and of exercising repentance towards God and charity towards men is incumbent upon us as we are Christians, and can never be put in practice more seasonably and with greater advantage than when we are meditating of this sacrament, therefore besides our habitual preparation by repentance and the constant endeavours of a holy life, it is a very commendable custom in Christians before their coming to the sacrament to set apart some particular time for this work of examination. The best preparation for the sacrament is the general care and endeavour of a good life. And he that is thus prepared may receive at any time when opportunity is offered, though he had no particular foresight of that opportunity. (J. Tillotson, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 Whosoever shall eat … and drink … unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.Eating and drinking unworthily I. The sin consists in doing it--1. Ignorantly.2. Irreverently.3. Uncharitably.4. Sensually. II. Its guilt includes--1. A contempt of Christ’ s sacrifice.2. A denial of its efficacy; and by implication.3. A repetition of His sufferings. III. Its punishment.1. Condemnation.2. Temporal chastisement (1 Corinthians 11:30) corrective in its design (1 Corinthians 11:32). IV. Its prevention is secured.1. Not by neglect or abstinence.2. But-- (1) By self-examination.(2) Faithful and conscientious self-discipline (1 Corinthians 11:31). (J. Lyth, D.D.)Worthy or unworthy 1. Verse 27 has operated as a hindrance to the approach of many of our best to the Lord’ s table; but it is not so appalling as it looks. “ Unworthily” must be understood relatively to human ignorance and imperfection; otherwise it would act as a bar to the approach of any. Were the right based upon righteousness there would be none but the Great Host at the table. The unworthy are they whose habitual temper is unchristlike, who, being unworthy, are content with their unworthiness. The qualified are those who wrestle with their bad spirit and tendencies, and who pant to be worthier men and the true children of God. 2. A sacrament is an outward sign of an inward experience. And this is the profanation--when he who gives the sign does not yearn for the thing signified. 3. The scruples that hold some back from the Lord’ s table are-- I. As to the age at which a person should make public declaration of his discipleship. Now, the condition of time does not enter into the question at all. The spirit of life in man does not regulate its arrival by the chronometer. When the hour of conscious life in God and conscious fellowship with Him comes, then also comes the hour when you may give the sacred symbolic signs, and take your seat at the guest table of the Lord, no matter how young in years you may be. And, indeed, till the hour does come when you freely place yourself at the disposal of Christ’ s influence, you have no right to claim a place at that board, no matter how many your years. II. That their minds are unsettled by doubt. Well! the doubting temper is not the most blessed; but at the same time all doubts are not sins. It is not seldom by doubt that God leads us to faith. And as long as doubt does not spring from worldliness or levity; as long as it does not shake our faith in God, in Christ, and in conscience; as long as it drives us to the feet of God in prayer, and not away from them in pride; as long as we wish to believe the things we find it hard to believe, so long may doubt be a schoolmaster to bring us home to Christ. Doubt of dogma is no sin; indifference to Christ’ s claims is; and the Lord has spread this table for the loving and the docile, not for the clear-headed system-maker and the scientific expert. The doubter who sits in the scorner’ s chair, deriding, jeering, sneering, let him alone stay away! and let the reverent and lowly listening doubter come, and Christ, the Host, will not withhold His hand. III. The consciousness of personal unworthiness of nature. But, if that table were only for the worthy, it were arrogance in any mortal man to appear. Christ invites not the righteous but the sinful to come. Indeed, it is in the feeling that we are unworthy that our only qualification lies. It is not that we be holy, but that we aspire to be holy; and in whomsoever there is this desire, no matter how poor and imperfect his actual attainments are in such, and not in the self-satisfied Pharisee, you find the true disciple who may take his place at the guest table of the Lord. (J. Forfar.)Worthy and unworthy communicating I. The sin, unworthy eating and drinking of the sacrament.1. One may do an action worthily in a threefold respect. (1) As “ the labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7). This exact worthiness may claim a reward due unto it, and the denier doth this worthy party wrong. Now no saint can receive with this worthiness, as appears by the humble confessions of Jacob (Genesis 32:10), Jn Baptist (Matthew 3:11). So communicants say, “ We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table.” (2) Though not in a perfect and exact proportion, yet in some fitness unto that which is required (Matthew 3:8; Colossians 1:10; Ephesians 4:1; Philippians 1:27)--i.e., let not your life shame your belief; let not your practice be inconsistent with your profession. And we must know that sins of infirmity, through God’ s mercy, may subsist with this worthiness. In this acception to “ eat worthily” is to eat so fitted and prepared as may bear some resemblance and agreement to the solemnity of the work we go about. (3) The worthiness of acceptance, when God for Christ’ s sake is pleased to take our actions in good worth. That is well spoken which is well taken; and that man is worthy who by God is accepted so to be (Revelation 3:4). 2. Two sorts of people, then, do eat and drink unworthily. (1) The unregenerate who (Hebrews 6:1) have not as yet “ laid the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith.” Without this foundation, the fair side-walls of a good nature, and the proud roof of all moral performances, will both totter and tumble to the ground. (2) The regenerate, but guilty of some sins unrepented of, who eat unworthily till they have sued out a special pardon out of the court of heaven. II. The sinfulness of the sin. “ Shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.” As those that deface the stamp or abuse the seal of a king are traitors, so the unworthy receivers of these elements, which personate and represent Christ’ s body, sin against the body of Christ itself. Christ’ s person is out of the reach of your cruelty; as for His picture, it is with us in the sacraments; and unworthy receivers show to the shadow what they would do to the substance if it were in their power. Conclusion: Men generally hate Pilate and Judas, being more angry with them than David with the rich man that took away the poor man’ s ewe lamb; whereas in some sense it may be said of many of us, “ Thou art the man.” Yet, as for those which hitherto have not taken notice of the heinousness of this sin, let me say to them what St. Peter doth (Acts 3:17). And let us all pray with David (Psalms 51:14). (T. Fuller, D.D.)Worthy and unworthy communicating Perhaps no words in all the Bible have given so much distress as these, yet they need not have given any distress at all. The sufferers have created clouds in their own sky. I want to lift the cloud and to-- I. Recall the circumstances to which Paul addressed himself.1. In connection with other abuses there arose a peculiar method of celebrating the Lord’ s Supper. As it was originally instituted after a common meal with Christ and His disciples, people at Corinth said, “ We must have a meal first.” In conducting that the rich brought their viands and their rich wines, the poor what they could; and this love feast became a revel. The rich man held up his viands and mocked the poor man, and the poor looked with hungry eyes upon the rich man’ s banquet; and after they had been thus infuriated alike by passion and by drink, they proceeded to add to their intoxication by the very wine that was meant to symbolise the sacrificial blood. Now you see the exact purport of the apostle’ s words. He says, “ Have ye not houses to eat and drink in? etc. Take care, this is not for gluttons and drunkards. You do not come to it in a right spirit, you misconceive its meaning, and if you do not take it worthily you eat and drink damnation to your soul.” 2. Now there is no church in England in which this practice is indulged. Your mistake has been in applying the word “ worthily” to yourself instead of to the Supper. You must take it in a manner worthy of it, quietly, reverently, self-distrustingly, casting yourself with your sin upon the heart of the Saviour. That is to take the Lord’ s Supper worthily. How can I speak in terms strong enough against the rubbish about people making themselves fit to come to the Lord’ s Supper? Shame on the Pharisaism that gets itself ready to come, and blessings on the penitence that comes all tears and yearnings and self-distress, and says, “ Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee.” Unfitness may arise from two opposite points: the man who thrusts forth a drunken hand to take this cup, and the man who takes it with a hand soaped and dried in the tub of his own morality. These two hands thrust a sharp cold arrow into the Lord’ s heart. I will presently sit there and say, “ God be merciful to me, a sinner.” II. What is the true and proper idea, then, of the Lord’ s Supper?1. It is a memorial. (1) Christ did not say, “ This do because ye are angels amongst men,” but “ This do in remembrance of Me.” Is He worth remembering? He took just what was going on, and made it sacred by His touch and blessing. He did not go to far countries and bring rich luxuries which only wealth could supply. He never said anything about morally trimming ourselves up for the purpose of being fit for it. All the fitness He requires is to feel our need of Him. (2) Now, why should any of us go away from this sacred opportunity? Take the children away? Take the poor, broken-hearted sinner away? Take away the poor soul that loves Christ, but knows nothing about theological metaphysics? God forbid. Take away the man who thinks he is fit to sit here, the man who thinks he is conferring patronage upon the table. (3) Then is this feast to be taken without any self-examination? I think not. There must be self-examination, but beware, if you please, of vivisection. A man may lacerate himself, and he will find noworthiness in his own nature. I examine myself to find whether I am really penitent. 2. Being an act of memorial it is an act of love. Make a ceremony of it, and all the pathos is gone, all the deep, holy significance evaporates. 3. It is also an act of happy prospects. It goes back to the past, and it sets forth the Lord’ s death till He come. III. Many endeavour to persuade us that the word “ damnation” ought to be softened into condemnation. Let the word stand; only apply it properly. If we had been spending the last hour in eating and drinking, in gluttony and wine-bibbing, the word “ damnation” would itself be too gentle a word to apply to our case. (J. Parker, D.D.)Desecration of the Lord’ s Supper The man who tramples on the flag of his country, insults his country; and he who treats with indignity the representative of a sovereign, thereby offends the sovereign himself. In like manner, he who treats the symbols of Christ’ s body and blood irreverently is guilty of irreverence towards Christ. (C. Hodge, D.D.)The unworthy receiving of the Lord’ s Supper I. What unworthy receiving is.1. Something negatively. (1) Unworthy receiving is not proper only to a man in a natural state. The apostle chargeth here unworthy receiving, not only upon the professing, but the regenerate Corinthians. (2) Unworthy receiving is not to be measured by our sensible joy or comfort after receiving. Two men that have perfect health, have not equal stomachs, nor equal appetites, and consequently not the same joy in their meals, yet both in health. We should more consider how graces are acted, than how comforts are dispensed. God’ s dispensations are not equal to all; some have no tastes, others full draughts; so we may have more joy than strength, others more strength than joy. But-- 2. Positively that is an unworthy receiving. (1) When evil dispositions and beloved sins are not laid aside and for-saken. (2) When, though beloved sins are discarded, yet there is not a due preparation suitable to the quality of the institution. (3) It is an unworthy receiving when we rest only in the ordinance, expecting from the work done what we should expect only from Christ in it. When we content ourselves with Elijah’ s mantle, without asking for the God of Elijah. (4) When there is a garishness and looseness of spirit in the time of our attendance. Not discerning the Lord’ s body, say some, not minding the Lord’ s body, but letting the thoughts run at rovers, which should be fixed upon Christ’ s dying. II. The sinfulness of this. It is a contracting the guilt of the body and blood of the Lord. He that doth despite to the image or arms of a prince, would do the same to his person were it as much in his power.1. It is an implicit approbation of the Jews’ act in crucifying Christ. If we are not affected with that state of Christ, we consent to, and approve of that act of His crucifiers; not positively, but privatively; not having that temper and affection of spirit which such an action doth call for from us. They were the authors of the first crime, and an unworthy receiver the abettor. 2. It exceeds the sin of the Jews in some circumstances, as well as that exceeded this in others. That was against His person, this against His propitiation. 3. In regard of the relation the ordinance hath to Christ. There is an analogy between the bread and the wine, and the body and blood of Christ. The nearer relation anything hath to God, the more heinous is the offence. It disparageth the whole covenant of grace. How base a disposition is it to sit down at the table of a man with an hostile mind against him, to slab the master of the feast at his own table while he is treating and entertaining us with dainties! 4. It is a great sin, as it is against the greatest testimony of His love. III. The danger of this sin: he eats and drinks damnation to himself. That which is not melted by the sun grows into a greater hardness. Christ, as a sacrifice on the Cross, was pleasing to God; as the murdered Innocent a burden of guilt on the Jews: so as He is grateful food in the sacrament to a worthy receiver, He is the bane of an unworthy communicant, by reason of his unholiness. IV. The use.1. The manner of duties must be regarded as well as the matter. The matter of this ordinance is participated by both the worthy and the unworthy receiver: the manner makes the difference. 2. The holiness of an ordinance will not excuse a miscarriage in it. Some are nourished by this ordinance, others pollute themselves. The fruit is not according to the holiness of the ordinance, but the disposition of the receiver. 3. The sins of those that draw nearest to God are the blackest. 4. The ground of our mischief is always in ourselves. It is not from the emptiness of the ordinance, that is a full cistern; nor from the shortness of God’ s grace, He is an overflowing fountain; but from want of those graces, or of exercising those graces which are the bucket to draw, and the mouth to drink. 5. We see here the base nature of sin. It changeth the brightest ordinances, makes the waters of the sanctuary bitter, turns food into poison, and a cup of salvation into one of damnation. 6. If an unworthy receiver be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, a worthy receiver hath a special interest; in the body and blood of Christ. He hath as much advantage thereby as the other hath guilt. 7. Should not all of us, that have at any time of our lives been partakers of this ordinance, reflect upon ourselves, yea the best of us? 8. How then should we take heed, whenever we approach to the Lord’ s table, of any unworthy demeanour towards Him, whereby to contract such guilt, and incur such displeasure? (Bp. Hacket.) 1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself Self-examination I. Its necessity.1. At all times.2. Especially when we draw near unto God.3. Most of all before communion. II. Its exercise. Should be--1. Particular, including a review of our state, need, sins, temptations, etc.2. Faithful, according to the Word of God and the light of His Spirit.3. Frequent.4. Earnest, with a sincere desire and purpose of amendment. III. Its advantages.1. Security from sin.2. Confidence before God.3. Freedom from condemnation. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Self-examination The Lord’ s Supper a sacrament. Roman oath of soldier. At communion soldiers are at headquarters to report, be inspected, and receive fresh orders. Each should ask-- I. Have I a right to be here? Am I enlisted? II. Have I the qualities of a soldier?1. Am I obedient? 2. Is my obediences (1) Unselfish?(2) Unquestioning?(3) Prompt?(4) Entire?(5) Cheerful? 3. Am I reliable? Wesley said that with three hundred reliable Christians he could shake the gates of hell and set God up in the world. Havelock’ s “ saints” were known to be always ready. 4. Am I watchful? Our enemy is able, crafty, without honour. 5. Have I proper discipline? 6. Am I diligent in knowing and doing my duty? III. As a soldier, what have I done?1. Have I conquered myself?2. Do I show signs of conflict and victory--the fruits of the Spirit?3. Have I any captives for my Captain? IV. What do I want at the table?1. To eat and drink simply to get spiritually fat? Soldiers need sinew and muscle, not adipose tissue.2. To appear well before men? They judge our lives, not our professions.3. To get inspiration for better service?4. To get strength, so as to continue faithful to the end? V. We must be our own examiners.1. The world or our brethren cannot see our hearts.2. God does not judge us here. He gives means and tests.3. God will not even examine us at last. Our own open hearts will be our judges. (Homiletic Monthly.)Self-examination This advice is not peculiar to Christianity. It is an axiom which forms the groundwork of all social well-being. The words “ Know thyself” were sculptured on all the noblest public buildings of Greece. Self-knowledge lies at the root of all true wisdom, and is the ground, work of religion. Until we know our sin, we shall not seek for forgiveness; until we know our weakness, we shall not crave for strength. A man’ s worldly affairs would soon plunge him in ruin if he did not exercise needful supervision, and our spiritual affairs will bring us far worse ruin if we do not give them requisite attention. Consider-- I. The duty enjoined.1. To examine does not mean a mere passing glance, but a thorough searching. 2. Let a man examine himself. There is a universal spirit of curiosity, and, generally speaking, it is an agreeable business to enter into the concerns of others. But when it comes to self, it is irksome, for it is very painful to a man’ s vanity. He would like to feel rather better than other men. But if he dives down into his own inner nature, the result is a most humiliating disappointment. And so we would, like the ostriches who hide their heads in the sand, and thereby think that they are screening their whole bodies, rather not know the truth, because we justly surmise that that truth is unpalatable. II. The subjects of inquiry.1. Our position as regards God--whether we are pardoned and reconciled. Our own hearts will give us the answer in a moment if once we ask the question. 2. The course of our daily conduct. Do we carry out into practice the faith we profess, and the love which ought to be our ruling principle? III. The method of carrying out the action. There must be--1. Frequency and regularity. The act must not be an isolated one, performed occasionally, once a year or once week--it must be the constant effort of our souls. 2. Prayerfulness. Of our own selves, we can never hope to be impartial, or persevering, or true. And we shall find out more and more every day how much depends upon Divine grace. (W. H. Davison.)Self-examination These words show how we should be prepared for a worthy receiving the blessed sacrament. Wherefore examine-- I. Your knowledge (1 Corinthians 11:29). We are to know--1. The Author: Christ, who was Author (1 Corinthians 11:23)-- (1) Not as God;(2) Nor as man;(3) But as God-man, and Head of the Church. 2. The institution (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Where observe-- (1) What Christ did.(2) What He said. 3. The nature. (1) It is a sacrament,(2) Wherein, under the outward signs of bread and wine,(3) Christ is signified to us (1 Corinthians 11:30). 4. The end. (1) To remember Christ’ s death (1 Corinthians 11:24-26).(2) To represent it. “ This is My body.”(3) To offer it (Matthew 11:28; Isaiah 55:1).(4) To convey it.(5) To seal it (Romans 4:1 l). 5. The uses. (1) Examine whether ye know these things.(2) Endeavour to know them more and more (2 Peter 3:18).(3) Improve your knowledge to practice. II. Your repentance.1. Wherein doth repentance consist? (1) In conviction of our sins (John 16:8-9). (a) Of original sin (Psalms 55:5). (b) Actual (Psalms 51:3-4). (c) Habitual (Romans 7:24). (2) Contrition for them. (a) Because they transgress so righteous a law (1 John 3:4). (b) Displease so gracious a Father (Isaiah 6:5). (c) Defile so precious a soul (Titus 1:15; Isaiah 1:6). (d) Deprive us of so great happiness and blessing (Isaiah 59:2). (e) As makes us obnoxious to eternal miseries (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). (3) Conversion from them (Ezekiel 33:11). (a) Sincere (Joe 2:13). (b) Universal (Ezekiel 18:31). (c) Constant. 2. What necessity of repentance in the receiving of the sacrament? (1) No repentance, no faith (Mark 1:15).(2) Christ is there offered only to the penitent (Matthew 11:28).(3) By repentance our hearts are prepared to receive Him there offered. 3. Uses. (1) Examine whether you have repented. (a) Are you sorry for your sins? (Psalms 38:18). (b) Are you out of love with them? (c) Are you resolved to forsake them? (Psalms 17:3; Psalms 39:1). (2):Repent. Without repentance-- (a) No pardon (Ezekiel 18:21-22). (b) No peace (Isaiah 48:22). (c) No duty accepted (Proverbs 15:8). (d) You must perish (Luke 13:3). III. Your faith.1. By the grounds of it: the testimony of God. 2. By the effects of it, as-- (1) Love to God.(2) Thankfulness for Christ.(3) Humility in ourselves.(4) Compassion for the poor.(5) Charity to all. 3. Reasons. Without faith we cannot-- (1) Discern the Lord’ s body (1 Corinthians 11:29).(2) Receive anything.(3) Improve what we receive. (Bp. Beveridge.)Self-examination is-- I. A duty fob all times.1. Examination is a duty of no quick dispatch; for it is to take a strict survey of all the passages of our life; to follow our thoughts, which have wings, and fly in and fly out; to number our actions, and weigh them all in the balance of the sanctuary; to anatomise our hearts, which are “ deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9); to follow sin in all its labyrinths, to drive it out of the thicket of excuses, and by the light of Scripture to take a full view of ourselves. 2. The right performance of this duty requires great care and diligence, because we are our own greatest enemies, our own deceivers, parasites, and murderers. 3. Examination must not end in itself; but we must propose the true end, and draw all up to it; which is, to purge the conscience, to supply what is defective, to repair what is defaced, to beautify what is slurred, to complete what is imperfect; which is, to renew ourselves in the inward man. Therefore what is here to “ examine,” is in 1 Corinthians 11:31 to “ judge,” ourselves. For what a vain work were it to examine a thief, if we do not judge him! We must try and examine our actions as the Levites did their sacrifices, and not offer them up if there be any blemish on them; that so we may “ prove to ourselves what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). Examination is but lost labour without amendment. A survey is the extremity of folly, if I see the faults in my spiritual building, and then let it fall to the ground. II. A duty especially when we approach the Lord’ s table. Here thou dost as it were renew thy covenant, and here thou must renew thy examination.1. Examine your repentance, therefore, whether it be true and unfeigned, whether it be moved and carried on by a true spring--hatred of sin and love of Christ: whether it be constant and universal. 2. “ Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith” or no; “ prove yourselves, whether Christ be in you” (2 Corinthians 13:5). Faith is the salt which seasoneth all our actions: nor will Christ admit us to His table without it, nor give Himself to those who do not believe in Him. Faith is the mouth of the soul, and with it we receive Christ. The faith, too, must be one which worketh by love, and that both towards God and towards our brethren. For these two are inseparable, and bear witness one to the other: my faith begetteth my charity, and my charity publisheth and declareth my faith. Let them therefore both meet and be united in our trial and preparation to this sacrament, which is a sacrament of union, not only of the Head with the members, but of the members one with another under one Head. 3. Let us “ examine” ourselves, and “ consider” Him that inviteth us (Hebrews 3:1). “ Consider” Him-- (1) As our High Priest.(2) As our Teacher.(3) As our King and Lord. Who hath most command over thee, the prince of this world, or this King? (A. Farindon, B.D.)Self-examination Some make this to be a bare permission, that if they will they may do it; others, a counsel that they should do it; others, a command that we must do it, which is the truest. I. The necessity of self-examination. The reasons are taken--1. From the majesty of Him whose presence we approach. What prodigious state did Ahasuerus, an earthly prince, stand upon! (Esther 2:12). “ Behold, a greater than” Ahasuerus “ is here.” 2. From the great profit which we receive thereby, if we come prepared. 3. From the grievousness of the punishments, if we are unworthy receivers. The sacrament is not like to those receipts which, if they do no good, do no harm. If it brings not profit and spiritual grace, it draws great punishments on us. II. Its nature.1. A Christian’ s eyes ought to be turned inward, chiefly on himself: yet how many are there whose home is to be always abroad! They say not with the soldiers, “ What shall we do?” (Luke 3:14); but with Peter, “ What shall this man do?” (John 21:21). Yet a man’ s examining of himself excludes not his examination of those who are committed to his care, as pastors their flock and fathers their children. 2. In examining of the word, learned men run in three several streams. Some prosecute the metaphor of a goldsmith, searching the purity of his gold (1 Peter 1:7). Others, because bread and wine to be taken in the sacrament are both food and physic, insist on the similitude of a physician, giving preparatives to his patient before he receives the physic. A third sort make “ examine” here to be as magistrates question offenders. We will follow the latter.1. A man, in examining himself, must personate three, and act three several parts--the part of the offender, of the accuser, of the judge. The part of the accuser may be well performed by “ conscience” ; for, besides her office to be the register and recorder of the soul, it is also the attorney-general of the King of heaven in our hearts, to press the evidence against us after the indictment. As for our reason and judgment, that must supply the office of a judge, acquit or condemn us. 2. But here, it is to be feared, men will be partial to themselves in two respects. (1) In not giving their conscience fair play; what in whole they cannot silence they will in part interrupt: (2) It is to be feared our judgment will not be upright, but partial and favourable to us. Wherefore this is a sound and safe rule: let us account ourselves to be worse than upon examination we find ourselves to be (1 Corinthians 4:4). 3. Seeing, then, that a man is to act three parts, we may observe that a Christian, though alone, may make company for himself (Psalms 4:4; Psalms 43:5). Had men the art of these self-examinations and soliloquies, they need not, to put away melancholy and to avoid solitariness, repair to the schools of drunkenness, there to seek for bad company, that there they may drive away the time. III. The interrogatories, whereupon every man is to be examined, are these.1. Whether thou dost repair to receive the sacrament with a competent measure of knowledge? 2. Whether dost thou come with unfeigned repentance for thy sins past? 3. Whether dost thou come with a lively faith, relying upon God in Christ for the pardon of thy sins? 4. Whether dost thou come with love undissembled, freely from thy heart to forgive all injuries committed against thee? 5. Whether dost thou come with an earnest desire and longing to be made partaker of these heavenly mysteries? 6. Whether dost thou come with thankfulness to the God of heaven for this His great blessing? (T. Fuller, D.D.)Questions for self-examination The three questions which the Rev. Philip Henry advised people to put to themselves in self-examination before the sacrament were--“ What am I?” “ What have I done?” and “ What do I want?” Self-examination, constant One of the holiest of the Church’ s saints, St. Bernard, was in the habit of constantly warning himself by the solemn query, “Bernarde, ad quid veniste?” --“ Bernard, for what purpose art thou here?” Self-examination could assume no more searching form. (Archdeacon Farrar.)The duty of self examination I. In general.1. It is much neglected.2. Exceedingly necessary.3. Highly beneficial. II. In particular. Before the Lord’ s Supper it is requisite--1. To keep us from sin.2. To secure it unspeakable benefits. III. Respects especially--1. Our view of the ordinance.2. The state of our souls.3. The immediate frame and disposition of our minds. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Examination before communion 1. The Lord’ s Supper is not for all men, but only for those who are able spiritually to discern the Lord’ s body. 2. It is not meant for the conversion of sinners, but for the edification of disciples. 3. Hence the need of examination, lest we intrude ourselves where we have no right to be. I. The object of the examination.1. That the communicant may eat and drink. “ So let him eat.” He is not to examine in order to justify his stopping away. 2. That he may know that the responsibility rests with himself. The examination is not by priest or minister: he examines himself. 3. That he may communicate solemnly, and not as a matter of course. He is to make heart-searching inquiry, and so approach the table with self-humiliation. 4. That he may come to the table intelligently, knowing to what he comes, and why, and wherefore. 5. That he may do so with confidence and joy. After examination he will know his right to come, and feel at ease. Many good results would follow if this examination were universally practised. The examination should be as frequent as the eating of the bread. No man has reached a point at which he is beyond the need of further self-searching. II. The matter of the examination. Points of examination may be suggested by the following thoughts:1. It is a feast. (1) Have I life? The dead sit not at banquets.(2) Have I appetite? Else how can I eat?(3) Have I a friendship toward the Lord who is the Host?(4) Have I put on the wedding garment? 2. Jesus bids us show forth His death. (1) Have I faith in His death?(2) Do I live by His death? 3. Jesus bids us do this by eating bread. (1) Is this eating a symbol of a fact, or is it a mere mockery?(2) Is Jesus really and truly the food of my soul? 4. Jesus bids each believer do this in union with others. (1) Am I truly one of His people, and one with them?(2) Am I dwelling in love with them all? 5. This cup is the New Covenant in Christ’ s blood. (1) Am I in covenant with God in Christ Jesus?(2) Do I rest in that covenant for all my hopes? 6. Jesus calls His people to remember Him in this Supper. (1) Can I remember Christ? Or am I attempting a vain thing?(2) Do I know Him? How else can I remember Him?(3) Are my past dealings with Him such as I wish to remember?(4) Is He so loved by me that I wish to bear Him in my memory? Our profession, experience, conduct, hopes, and designs should all pass the test of this self-examination. III. The duty after examination.1. To eat of the bread. Not to neglect communion, or postpone it, or to go away trembling from the table; but to partake reverently. 2. To drink of the cup. This is specially commanded. 3. To eat and drink so as to discern the Lord’ s body. Having the mind awake to see Jesus symbolised in this ordinance. 4. To give thanks unto the Lord for so great a privilege. Twice did our Lord give thanks during the Supper, and at the close He sang. Is is not a funeral, but a festival. Conclusion:1. Ye who have come to this table heedlessly, repent of your wicked intrusion, and keep away till ye can come aright. 2. Ye who have never come at all, remember, if you are not fit for the communion below, you are not fit for heaven above. 3. All of you, bethink yourselves of Jesus, and having examined yourselves to your humbling, behold Him to your consolation. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Self-examination in regard to the holy communion I. What notions do I form of the holy communion? II. In what views do I intend to celebrate this solemn act? Are these views adequate to the nature of the subject and its design? Are they worthy of a rational worshipper of God, of a well-taught and reflecting Christian? What is it properly that I seek in the observance of this religious rite and expect from it? III. Am I now in that frame of mind that is suited to the celebration of this solemn act? Am I really actuated by Christian sentiments? Do I perceive, do I feel the high value of the objects the memorial whereof I am going to celebrate? Are they often present to my mind and always interesting to my heart? (G. J. Zollikofer.)The advantages of self-examination Self-examination is advantageous, as it-- I. Gives us a true sense of our condition. II. Inclines us to be favourable and tender in our censure of others. III. Renders us cautious lest we continue to offend. No man would make himself his own enemy by wilfully committing sin, were he fully aware, at the time, of the sentence of condemnation which he must afterwards pass on himself. IV. Prevents us from entertaining vain confidence and presumption. (J. Williamson.)The qualifications required in communicants 1. Among these may be reckoned faith. Faith presupposes knowledge. “ For how shall men believe in Him of whom they have not heard?” It also implies such a firm persuasion of religious and moral obligation as produces obedience in its various branches. 2. But to faith communicants must add humility. 3. Reverence is another requisite in those who approach the holy table. The want of a serious frame of mind on such an occasion would betray an abandoned character and a corrupt heart. 4. Farther, repentance is required in all who show forth Christ’ s death in the sacrament of His Supper. “ What,” said one of the most enlightened philosophers of antiquity, “ what must the gods think of the gifts of the profane, when a virtuous man would blush to receive presents from a villain?” 5. Farther still, grateful affection to God and our Redeemer is another qualification expected in every communicant. 6. Finally, it is required of them who would partake worthily of the Lord’ s Supper, that they examine themselves respecting their love to mankind. If you have any animosities, now dismiss them; exercise mutual forgiveness, and let former quarrels for ever cease. (T. Laurie, D.D.)Examination required in every communicant First, by the grievousness of the sin; such a person makes himself guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, as we see in verse 27. Secondly, by the doleful consequence that follows upon it: “ He eats and drinks damnation to himself,” as we see in verse 29. We must not rush upon the sacrament. There must somewhat be done before we can receive it. “ Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” The reasons of this are--First, because naturally we are not invited guests, we are not such as are invited to the Lord’ s Supper; we are children of wrath, and as long as we are in such an estate, we cannot come aright to the communion. First we must prove ourselves invited guests. A second reason is, though thou be invited, it may be thou art not disposed. Thirdly, suppose we were both invited and disposed, yet this is not enough; this is a solemn ordinance of God, and an ordinary disposition will not serve the turn. First, the matter of the duty commanded; that is to eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Secondly, the manner of doing the duty; not only to eat of that bread, but so to eat; and not only to drink of that cup, but so to drink. Thirdly, the rule of direction how to come in a right manner to partake of it, that is, by examining of ourselves, “ Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” Fourthly and lastly, the benefit following that direction. Now the reasons of this are--First, because the same Lord that commands the matter, commands the manner too. The Lord will have His service well done, as well as done. Secondly, another reason is, because circumstance overthrow actions, if they be not rightly and duly observed. A garment, though it be never so good, if the tailor handle it not well it is marred in the making, if he bring it not to a right form, and make it in a right manner, the man that is to have the garment is disappointed. So timber, though it be never so excellent, though it be all oak, or elm, or whatsoever tree, though it be never so fit for building, if the artificer deal not well in handling it, the inhabitant that comes there may curse the day that ever he came there. So it is in all the ordinances of God and the matters of religion, we must not only do them for matter, but for manner too; for that either makes or mars them. Thirdly, another reason is, because only the right manner of doing duties gets the blessing. Why do we do the duties if we do not do them so as we may get the blessing? Now except we observe the right manner of doing them, all is to no purpose. Fourthly, another reason is, the example of Jesus Christ: Christ hath given us an example that we should do as He did. Now He did not only do that which His Father bid Him do, for matter but for manner, both in all the words He spake, and in all the deeds that He performed. Fifthly and lastly, except we do it in a right manner, except as we come to the duty, so we come to the right manner, we can never glorify God. The glory of God lies in the manner of doing of things. “ So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Another use shall be, what may be the reasons why people are so willing generally to do duties for the matter, and care not to do them in a right manner. It shall not be amiss a little to show the mystery of this thing. The first is this, because the matter of the duty is easy, but the manner is difficult. Secondly, another reason is this, because the matter of duties may be done with a proud heart; there is no duty but a man may do it with a proud heart, and never be humble. Thirdly, another reason is, because the matter may stand with an unholy life. A man may do a duty for the matter of it, and yet be unholy. This is plain; how many thousands are there that pray, and yet are vain, and covetous, and carnal! The last reason is, because the matter of duties brings not the cross upon a man. Thirdly, if we ought to be careful to perform duties in a right manner, let us be exhorted in the fear of God to go and quicken all our duties, to bring a soul into so many bodies; we have bodies of praying, and bodies of hearing, and bodies of receiving the sacrament, and of good duties; let us get a soul into them, labour to do them in a right manner. The bare duty is like a carcass. Let us consider, first, we do not partake of any ordinance at all, except we do it in a right manner. I remember a fit place for this in Numbers 11:14. It is said there, “ The stranger shall eat the passover, and partake of it according to the ordinance, and the manner of it.” Where the text puts in the ordinance of the passover, and the manner of it. For it is all one. Secondly, consider, it is nothing but hypocrisy, when a man prays and doth not pray in a right manner. Thirdly, consider, it makes the ordinance of God of no effect. Thus they make the commandments of God of none effect (Matthew 15:6). Lastly, it cannot please God, it is only the right manner of doing duties that pleased God, as in 1 Thessalonians 4:1. The third thing is the rule of direction, how we may come to the right manner of receiving the sacrament, that is, by preparing of a man’ s self; and the preparation is here set down by the specification of it, namely, in examining himself, “ Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.” The general scope of the words, and the apostle’ s meaning in them, is this, that “ Every man must prepare himself before he come to the Lord’ s table.” The reasons of this are--First, because the sacrament is an ordinance of God. Now all the ordinances of God require preparation. Now man is naturally unprepared for it. First, a man must fell his wood, and then cut it, and hew it even, and carve it, and plane it fit, and prepare it, before he build. So a man must hew down his own heart, he must humble his own soul, and qualify all within him, and so be sanctified, before he be fit. Secondly, another reason is, because the Lord Christ hath made great preparations to provide the Lord’ s Supper; therefore we must be prepared to eat it. You know what a great deal ado there was before the Supper was made. Christ must be incarnate, and fulfil all righteousness. Thirdly, another reason is, because the Lord Christ, when He administers Himself in this heavenly mystery, He offers to come into the soul, and He looks for good entertainment; and therefore of necessity there must be preparation for it. You see when a mortal man, an earthly prince, or a nobleman comes to another man’ s house, what a deal of preparation there is to provide for him! Lastly, because the sacrament of the Lord’ s Supper is a part of Christ’ s last will and testament. (W. Fenner.)Self-examination I. For the duty, to examine ourselves; everything is valued to be of more or less worth, according to the usefulness and fitness it has to its end, peculiar to it, as it is such or such a thing, The goodness of a house does not consist in this, that it has a beautiful outside, or splendid rich furniture within; but that it affords convenience for habitation, to keep out the injuries of weather, and to be fitted for the use and comforts of life: for this is that which answers the true proper end of a house. That is a good ship, that is a good sailer, and so built as to endure storms, and live in a rough sea, and perform a voyage well; and if it be not so, though it should have all its cordage and shrouds of silk, and be all inlaid and gilt, that would not be enough to make it deserve that name. So not only in artificial things, we ourselves have devised, but in things natural too, when we apply them to our use we judge of their worth by their usefulness. A horse, let him be of never so fine a shape, and have never so gaudy trappings on, we do not value him for that; we may say he is a fine horse indeed; but if he be broken-winded, if he be also a heavy goer, he is no good horse for all his finery, as being unsuitable to that use we design a horse for. And thus is it to be in our making an estimate, and passing a judgment upon ourselves. He alone is a good man who answers that end for which man was created. And what is that? To act, and think, and discourse, and behave himself all over like a man, according to the rules of right reason. If a poor heathen philosopher were alive now to take the poll of men, and try them according to the bare standard of natural reason, how many hundreds of men would he throw aside as nulls and cyphers, things utterly insignificant to those names they are called by, for one that might pass for current coin? For when all covetous, ambitious, voluptuous, vicious, debauched persons are cast on one side, and all idle, formal, empty, slight, ignorant, pretending people put on the other side, there would be very few left in the middle road of virtue, very few that might fairly challenge the name of men. But then we have a further pitch to fly still, a more severe test to bring ourselves to our examination, as being by God’ s special favour designed for a higher end--to have communion and fellowship with Himself. It is not enough for us to be good men, but we must be good Christians too. And if good men are so scarce, that the cynic lighted a candle at noon, and carried his lanthorn about to find out an honest man, how scarce must good Christians needs be! Come, then, let us inquire into ourselves, and take the candle of the Lord, which He hath set up in each of our souls, our own conscience along with us, to help us to discover ourselves to ourselves; and if we do not find ourselves to be such as God requires and expects we should be, let us beg of Him earnestly, in the sense of our own wants, that He would make us such as He would have us to be. II. Examining is every one’ s duty, and the subject is himself. People are generally too forward in examining others, and are so taken up with impertinence and things that do not concern them, that they have no time to be acquainted with themselves; like idle travellers, that can tell you a world of stories concerning foreign countries, and are very strangers at home. Study of ourselves is the most useful knowledge, as that without which we can know neither God nor anything else aright, as we should know them. And it highly concerns us to know ourselves well; nor will our ignorance be pardonable, but prove an everlasting reproach; when poor ruined self shall curse negligent sinful self to all ages, and with direful imprecations upon that day and hour that first joined them together. Again, God has given man that advantage above all other creatures, that he can with reflex acts look back and pass judgment upon himself. Come, then, let us step aside awhile into ourselves, and taking every one his conscience along with him, examine and try what we can find there, and that according to this apostle’ s division of man (1 Thessalonians 5:23), into three parts, the spirit, soul, and body, which he makes to be the entire and complete man.1. First, then, for thy spirit. Dost thou find a principle of life and light in it? dost thou feel the influences of God’ s Spirit upon it, illuminating thy understanding, and in bright characters imprinting on thy mind the resemblances of Divine nature, and writing His law in thy heart, and convincing thy reason of supernatural truths, and by this means fastening thee close to Himself, and making thee one with God? Or is thy intellectual faculty still darkened and estranged from God? 2. In the next place, examine the inclinations of thy soul. Dost thou find thy will readily to give her assent to the convictions of thy understanding, and kindly to embrace that light which is conveyed into thee by the Spirit? How makes she her elections and choices, according to the dictates of the Spirit, or according to carnal suggestions? 3. In the last place, take thy body, thy flesh, into examination. Are thy carnal affections raised heavenward, and possessed with things above? Dost thou hate sin for sin’ s sake? and art thou heartily displeased with thyself after the commission of any sin, under the sole apprehension of God’ s displeasure? Dost thou find at thy devotions and meditations that thy heart burns within thee, being set on fire with celestial flames of zeal? On the contrary to all this, do thy desires stream forth in a full current to other objects, the profits and pleasures and preferments of this world, and take up with things here below? and art thou not led along with worldly vanities, the examples of the multitude, and the enticements of the flesh? In a word, has thy spirit been guided by the direction of God’ s Spirit, thy will inclined to a full compliance with His holy will, and thy outward man made conformable to thy inward man, being renewed with the renewing of the mind according to righteousness? If this great work be completed in thee, O happy thee! that hast got thy head above the clouds, and like Enoch, walkest with God, and hast thy conversation in heaven, filled with blessed assurances and foretastes of ensuing joys and glories, being steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity. But if this spiritual life be but imperfectly begun in thee yet, and thou findest the willingness of thy spirit is clogged and retarded by the weakness of thy flesh, be of good courage, however, and apply that answer which was given to St. Paul to thyself, that God’ s grace is all-sufficient for thee; and make thy humble and constant addresses to God for the continual supplies thereof, which may assist thee to get the perfect victory over all thy corruptions. Thou hast been negligent and remiss in the duties of thy life, and hast not endeavoured to acquaint thyself with God, or with thyself in private. (A. Littleton, D. D.)Examination before communion The duty required for preventing the sin and danger of unworthy communicating is self-examination. It is a metaphor taken from goldsmiths, who try the truth of their gold by the touchstone, the purity of their gold by the fire, and the weight of it by the scale. We have here-- I. The person examining: “ Let a man examine.” II. The person examined--it is “ himself” ; he is to call himself to the bar of conscience, and to put questions to himself. Concerning--1. His state, whether he has a right to come or not. 2. His sins and shortcomings. 3. His wants and necessities. 4. His ends and designs; whether it be to obey the charge of his dying Saviour, to show forth His death, renew and seal his covenant with God, get nearness and communion with Him, nourishment to his soul, and supply to his wants. 5. His graces and qualifications, particularly as to knowledge, faith, repentance, fear, love, thankfulness, holy desires, and new obedience. (J. Willison.)Qualifications for communion--suggested by its nature It is-- I. A sign: qualification, knowledge. A knowledge not of any branches of learning, nor of theology in all its varied departments, but of the significance of the ordinance, “ discerning the Lord’ s body.” The Corinthians erred here. II. A seal: qualification, faith. It not only represents gospel blessings as a picture, but, rightly received, secures them as a seal. Its blessings depend-- 1. Not on the administrator. He has no power to confer nor to intercept the blessing. 2. Not on other communicants. They can neither direct nor divert the blessings. 3. But simply on the faith of the comumnicant himself. Faith is the hand that takes the proffered gifts of grace. Without faith it is no sacrament. With faith it becomes a sacramental seal. Worthiness is therefore not sinlessness, but the sinner’ s humble trust. III. A feast: qualification, hunger. “ Let us keep the feast.” The Corinthians sinned in regarding it a carnal feast. This feast is prepared by God’ s gracious bounty. He welcomes to it all who hunger for His blessings. “ Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” IV. A memorial: qualification, love. Memorials are heart-offerings. Enemies never erect memorials. Christ desires to be remembered. He has chosen His own memorial. Who shall build it? The heart that loves. A sacrilege for any other to approach. Worthiness is love. If the condition of approach is love, shall any one be content to stay away? (Homileict Monthly.)Hungering after Christ a qualification for communion When the Lord spreads His table to feast His friends, He calleth not them who have no appetite; and therefore thou must examine thyself whether thou hast a hungering after Christ. If a man have his victuals taken from him, he grows hungry and is discontented. How then cometh it to pass that our bodily hunger is so sensible, when yet our soul’ s hunger is not felt of us? He that is in this estate, a-starving, and feels it, is not that man ready to die? Before we come therefore to the Lord’ s table, let us labour to get an appetite, for, I say, God thinketh such precious meat at this ill bestowed upon them that have no appetite unto it. But it is not sufficient for a man to hunger, and never go about the work; but as a hungry man is eager to feed, nothing should keep him from it. A man that is ready to die for hunger will give all that he hath rather than he will go without meat. Even so the soul, when it is once pinched and hunger-bit, and seeth bread in heaven, it presenteth itself before God, beggeth as for life that God would bestow His Son for cure. So that I may truly say, “ The kingdom of heaven suffers violence” (Matthew 11:12), and nothing shall withhold the violent from taking it, when they come into the presence of God. (R. Sibbes, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 11:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.Eating and drinking unworthily I. Explication.1. What is meant by eating and drinking? Not the body and blood of Christ, but sacramental bread and wine. 2. What by unworthily? Not according to Christ’ s institution. 3. What by damnation? Judgment. He sins, and so must expect punishment. II. Doctrine. It behoves every one to have a great care he doth not receive unworthily. Who are unworthy receivers?1. The ignorant receivers. (1) Such as know not the fundamentals of religion, that is (Matthew 28:19)-- (a) God the Father (John 17:3). (b) God the Son. Who He was; what He became; what He suffered; what He did; what He is; for whom He undertook these things; what benefit we receive from them. (c) The Holy Ghost. (2) Such as know not the state of their own souls. (3) That know not the nature of the sacrament, even that it is an ordinance instituted by God, wherein, under the outward signs of bread and wine, Christ, with all the benefits of His death and passion, is represented, sealed, and conveyed to the worthy receiver. (4) Examine-- (a) How may we know whether we know God? By our love to Him, trust on Him (Psalms 9:10), desire for Him, joy in Him, fear of Him. (b) Ourselves. By our thoughts of ourselves, and our constant endeavour to get ourselves bettered. (c) The sacrament. By our desire of it, and preparation:for it. 2. The impenitent (Acts 2:33). (1) What is repentance? (a) To sorrow for the sins we have committed. (i.) Heartily (Joe 2:13). (ii.) Sincerely. (iii.) Universally. (iv.) Constantly. (b) To turn from the sins for which we sorrowed-- (i.) With full purpose of heart. (ii.) In obedience to God. (iii.) From all sin. (iv.) To a right end. (2) How appears it that the impenitent is unworthy? (a) They cannot discern the Lord’ s body. (b) They mock the ordinance by acting and living contrary to it, and provoke God. 3. Examine-- (1) Your heart, thoughts, affections.(2) Your life, words, actions (Jeremiah 9:17-18). (Bp. Beveridge.)Eating and drinking unworthily I. The sin. Thoughtless, impenitent, irreverent participation of the holy communion. II. The cause.1. Not discerning the Lord’ s body.2. Through ignorance and unbelief. III. The consequences. Not necessarily eternal damnation, but condemnation, entailing, it may be, temporal chastisement (1 Corinthians 11:30), yet with a merciful design. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The danger of unworthy communicating I. The necessity of communicating suitably, and in a right manner.1. God commands it (1 Corinthians 11:28). The matter and manner of all duties are linked together in the command of God. What God hath joined, let no man put asunder. 2. No duty is pleasing to God, unless it be done in a right manner. 3. Nothing is a work theologically good but what is done in a right manner (Hebrews 11:6). There was a vast difference betwixt Cain and Abel’ s offering (Genesis 4:4-5; cf. Hebrews 11:4). Cloth may be good, and yet the coat base, if it be marred in the making. 4. Though the work be in itself good, yet if it be done not in a right manner, it provokes God to inflict heavy strokes on the doer (1 Corinthians 11:31). 5. Only the duty done in a right manner prospers and gets the blessing. Our meat can do us no good, and our clothes cannot warm us, if we do not use them in the right manner. 6. If we communicate not in a right manner, we do no more than hypocrites actually do, and pagans may do. 7. God gets no glory otherwise from us in our duty (Matthew 5:16). II. Why it is, that though the right manner of communicating be the main thing, yet many content themselves with the bare doing of it, neglecting the doing of it suitably, and in a right manner.1. Because to communicate is easy, but to communicate in a right manner is very difficult. 2. Because they obtain their end by the bare performance of the duty. As-- (1) Peace of mind. Many consciences are not so far awakened as to give men no rest without doing duty in a right manner, yet they will not hold their peace should a man neglect duties altogether. (2) Credit in the world. It is no small matter to have a name, and to seem good. 3. Men may get duties done, and their lust kept too; they may go to a communion table, and to the table of devils too; but to do duties in the right manner is inconsistent with peace with our lusts (Psalms 66:18). 4. Because men mostly have low and mean thoughts of God and His service (Malachi 1:6-8; cf Hebrews 12:28-29). 5. Because men mostly are acquainted with fellowship with God to be had in duties; they know not the necessity of it, nor the excellency of it. Hence they are not at pains about it. (T. Boston, D.D.)Of the subjects of the Lord’ s Supper 1. A trial of grace, whether it be inherent or no. It is a showing the death of Christ: there must be therefore a search, whether those graces which suit the death of Christ, and answer to the ends of it, be in the subject. 2. A trial of the state wherein those graces are. Since the Supper is not worthily received but by an exercise of repentance, faith, and love, it is necessary to inquire into the state of those graces and their vigor or languor in the soul. By this are excluded from this ordinance-- (1) All persons incapable of performing this antecedent duty. Either in regard of natural inability, as children, infants. And in regard of a negligent inability, as ignorant persons, who neglect the means of knowledge, or improve them not. (2) All persons who cannot find upon examination anything of a Divine stamp upon them in the lowest degree. This command of self-examination evidenceth to us-- (a) That a Christian may come to the knowledge of his state in grace; otherwise it would be wholly fruitless to examine ourselves. (b) No necessity of auricular confession: to tell all the secrets of the life to a priest. So let a man eat of this bread and drink of this cup. So, not otherwise, it is a hedge planted against every intrusion, so not without examination, and a fitness upon it. For the first. All men outwardly professing Christianity are not in a capacity to come to the great ordinance of the Supper. If all men were capable, pre-examination were not then necessary. In prosecution of this doctrine we shall lay down some propositions. 1. Only regenerate men are fit to come to the Lord’ s Supper. No man in a natural state but must needs eat and drink unworthily, for he retains his enmity against God and Christ. Sanctified persons only are the proper guests. An unregenerate man cannot perform the duties necessary. It is bread belonging to children; unrenewed men are not yet in a state of sonship. (1) Faith is a necessary qualification, but unrenewed men have not faith. An unbeliever receives the elements, not the life and spirit of a sacrament. (2) An unrenewed man is not in covenant, and therefore no capable subject. (3) This sacrament is a sacrament of nourishment; unrenewed men therefore are not fit for it. They are dead (Ephesians 2:1), and what hath a dead man to do with a feast? Men must be alive before they be nourished. Dead branches receive no sap from the vine. (4) This sacrament is an ordinance of inward communion with Christ. But unrenewed men can have no inward communion with Him. They cannot have that joy which ought to be in a converse with Christ. Bosom communion belongs only to bosom friends: others are but intruders, and will receive no countenance from Christ. (5) This ordinance is to be received by true Christians only. But renewed men only are such. Christianity is an inward powerful work, not a paint, an image. The form of godliness doth not constitute a man a Christian, but the power of it (2 Timothy 3:5). Freemen only have a right to the privileges of the city, and true, Christians to the privileges of the Church. 2. Men guilty of a course of sin, though secret and unknown to others, are unfit for this ordinance. What sins debar a man from this ordinance? (1) Not such which are infirmities incident to human nature. Every sin doth not impede the operation of faith about the proper object. (2) But a course in wilful and frequent breaches of a known command debars a man. (3) Such cannot in that state perform the duties requisite in this ordinance. Faith is a necessary qualification; but a denial of subjection to Christ is an evidence of a gross infidelity. Practices are the clearest indexes of faith or unbelief, evil works deny God in His promises and precepts. (4) Such contemptuously undervalue the blood of Christ, and therefore are unfit for this heavenly ordinance. It is no better than a mocking of God to come to His table with a professed enmity in the heart against Him. (5) Such cannot receive any good from this ordinance. He can design no good to himself with a resolution to continue in his sin. Doctrine second: It is every man’ s duty solemnly and seriously to examine himself about his interest in Christ, his habitual grace, his actual right and fitness for the Lord’ s Supper before his approach to it. Every ordinance hath a preparative: meditation is to usher in prayer, prayer is to sanctify the Word, the Word and prayer to sanctify other ordinances. This institution hath examination for its harbinger to prepare the way of its access to us, and our access to it.1. This self-examination or preparation is necessary. God required it in all duties. Purification went before sacrificing. The preparation and examination of themselves as to ceremonial uncleanness was strict before the passover, which was inferior to this ordinance, as the legal state was to the evangelical. The mercy to be now remembered is greater, the duties of preparation and devotion ought not to be less. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice, and eat of the part appointed for the feast (1 Samuel 16:5). (1) It is necessary to clear up a right. There is an outward acceptation of Christ and His laws without a true and inward change of heart. (2) It is necessary for the exciting of grace. That the soul may be excited before; that there may not be an ebb in our affections, when there is a flood of our Saviour’ s blood; that we may not have little thoughts in the presence of great and adorable objects. (3) It is necessary to prevent sin. The apostle’ s direction to them to examine themselves implies the want of it to be the cause of those miscarriages among them, which he taxeth in the preceding verses. 2. As it is necessary, so it is universal. Let a man examine himself. Not some men, but every man; the most substantial Christian, as well as the weakest. I shall only mention two things. (1) Let a man examine himself as to his sentiments concerning the nature of the institution. (2) Let a man examine himself what soil he hath contracted since the last time he was with God, whether the interest of God hath prevailed in our hearts above the interest of the flesh. Do we invite Christ into our souls, and shall we not examine every corner and search out the dirt and cobwebs which may be offensive to Him? The Spirit of Christ is a dove, and doves love clean places. But-- 3. We should inquire whether we have habitual grace or no; whether there be those uniting, gluing graces--faith and love. The second grace to examine ourselves about and to exercise at this ordinance is sorrow for sin. This is necessary to the Supper. The way to an heavenly repast, as well as the way to heavenly mansions, is through the valley of Baca. Since repentance is necessary, let us examine ourselves what of this grace there is in us. (1) What is the spring of our sorrow? (2) What is the subject of the sorrow? Is it the sin of nature? do we judge that the greatest sin, and not regard it, as the common people do the stars, imagining them no bigger than a candle, when they are of a vast bigness? (3) What are the adjuncts of the grief? Is it in some measure proportionable to our sin, proportionable not to the law, but to the gospel? The first cannot be attained by us, because the injury done to God is infinte. Is the league between sin and the soul broken? 4. Love to God is another grace we are to examine ourselves about. (1) Spiritual affections to God are required in all duties, much more in this. The highest representation of a loving Saviour suffering, ought to have a suitable return of affection. Now for the trial of this love. (a) Let us not judge ourselves by a general love. (b) Nor let us judge ourselves to be lovers of God because of our education. (c) Nor let us judge ourselves by any passionate fits of love which may sometimes stir in our souls. But let us examine-- (1) The motives and object of our affection. (2) What is the nature of our love? (a) In regard to the prevalency of it. Do we love Christ solely? (b) In regard to the restlessness of it. Can nothing but Christ and the enjoyment of Him content us? (c) What are the effects and concomitants of our love? Are we careful to please Him, though with our own shame? 5. Another grace to be examined is love of God’ s people. This is the badge of a disciple (John 8:34-35). (1) This is necesssary in all duties. Would we pray, our hands must be lifted up without wrath and doubting (1 Timothy 2:8). (2) But more necessary in this ordinance. (a) It represents the union of believers together. The bread being made up of several grains compacted together (1 Corinthians 10:16). For we being many are one bread and one body. This ordinance was instituted to solder believers together. They have the same nourishment, and therefore should have the same affection. (b) No benefit of the ordinance without this grace. Let us examine ourselves as to this grace. And that we may not mistake, every difference in judgment is not a sign of the want of this grace. But this love is true-- (1) When it is founded upon the grace of a person. (2) It must be a fervent love. With a pure heart fervently (1 Peter 1:22), not in appearance and faintly. (3) A love manifested most in their persecutions. To be ashamed of believers in their sufferings is, in Christ’ s interpretation, to be ashamed of Christ Himself. 6. Another grace to be examined and acted is desire, a holy appetite. (1) This is necessary in all duties. In hearing the Word the desire must be as insatiable as the infant’ s cry for milk (1 Peter 2:2). (2) But in this ordinary more necessary. (a) It is a feast, and appetite is proper to that. (b) The greater the longings, the greater the satisfaction. (c) This is the noblest affection we can bestow upon God. (Bp. Hacket.)Mystical bread and wine Like as if a rebellious subject should no more regard his king’ s seal than other common wax, it might rightly be said that he doth no more esteem him than other men; so when we come to the Lord’ s table, if we take irreverently the mystical bread and wine as common food, we make the Lord’ s body and life to be like the common body and life of humanity. (Cawdray.)Unworthy communicating It was a smart and piercing speech of St. Ambrose to Theodosius, offering himself to the table of the Lord, What, wilt thou reach forth those hands of thine, yet dropping with the blood of innocents, slaughtered at Thessalonica, and with them lay hold upon the most holy body of the Lord? Or wilt thou offer to put that precious blood in thy mouth? etc. The like may be said to many coming to the sacrament, that instead of washing their hands in innocency, they rinse them in the blood of innocents. What! will they reach forth those hands of theirs, defiled with blood, with the blood of oppression, those fingers of theirs defiled with iniquity and with those hands and fingers touch those holy mysteries? with those lips of theirs, that have drivelled out such a deal of filthy communication, with those mouths which have drunk of the cup of devils; with those mouths and lips, will they offer to drink the precious blood of Christ? is it not sin enough that with their sins they have already defiled their hands, fingers, lips, mouths, but that now also they will needs come and defile the Lord’ s table? and impudently crowd into the sacrament, when they come piping hot out of their sins and provocations? (R. Skinner.)Worthy receiving A man is not said to be worthy in regard of any worthiness in himself, but in respect of his affection and preparation, and in regard of his fit and seemly receiving. As we used to say the king received worthy entertainment in such a gentleman’ s house, not for that he was worthy to receive him, but because he omitted no compliments and service in his power fit to entertain him; even so I say, we are not worthy of Christ, that He should enter into our houses, that He should come under our roof. But, notwithstanding, we are said to be worthy when we do all things which are in our power fit for the entertainment of Him. If we come not in pride and in our rags, but with repentance, joy, comfort, and humility, then are we worthy. (R. Sibbes, D.D.)The worthy receiving of the Lord’ s Supper Consider-- I. What worthiness to partake is.1. What is meant by worthiness to partake. (1) Not a legal worthiness, as if we could deserve it at the hands of God (Luke 17:10). Those who are that way worthy in their own eyes, are altogether unworthy. (2) But it is a gospel-meetness and fitness (Matthew 3:8). And much of that lies in coming with a deep sense of our vileness and emptiness (Isaiah 4:1). 2. Wherein does this worthiness to partake consist? (1) In habitual meetness for it, in respect of a gracious state. A dead man is not fit for a feast nor a dead soul for the Lord’ s table. (2) In actual meetness, in respect of a gracious frame. Not only life, but liveliness is requisite (Psalms 80:18), A sleeping man is not fit for a feast; and therefore even a true believer may communicate unworthily, as some in Corinth did (1 Corinthians 11:30; 1 Corinthians 11:32). II. The duty of self-examination necessary for worthy receiving of the Lord’ s Supper.1. The rule or touchstone by which we must examine. (1) Beware of false ones. (a) The common guise of the world. It is not enough that ye are like, aye, and better than many (Luke 18:11). (b) One’ s being better than sometime before (2 Corinthians 10:12). (c) The letter of the law. The Pharisee (Luke 18:11); and Paul before his conversion (Romans 7:9). (d) The seen practice of the godly, which is an unsafe rule, because you cannot see the principle, motives, and ends of their actions. (2) The only true rule or touchstone in this case is the Word of God (Isaiah 8:20). God hath given us marks in the Word, by which one may know whether he be in Christ or not (2 Corinthians 5:17); whether born of God or not (1 John 3:9), and the like. 2. The matter about which we are to examine ourselves--the state of our souls before the Lord. (1) The reason is, this sacrament is not a converting, but a confirming ordinance. It is a seal of the covenant, and so supposes the covenant entered into before by the party. It is appointed for nourishment, which presupposes life. And if it were not so, what need of self-examination? (2) But more particularly, because there are some graces, namely, knowledge, faith, repentance, love, and new obedience, which in a particular manner are sacramental graces--these are to be examined. III. The necessity of self-examination.1. To prevent the sin of coming unworthily to the Lord’ s table. If we rush on this ordinance without previous examining ourselves, how can we miss of communicating unworthily? 2. To prevent the danger of coming so, which is eating and drinking damnation to one’ s self. The danger is great-- (1) To the soul (1 Corinthians 11:29).(2) To the body (1 Corinthians 11:30). (T. Boston, D.D.)Not discerning the Lord’ s body. Discernment of the Lord’ s body The Saviour is here making a spiritual feast for His people, presenting Himself to them under the form of bread and wine; you are, therefore, not to look on these as mere dumb signs, but as objects which speak most distinctly to your spiritual ear. It behoves every Church, that is, every company of believers-- I. To realise the presence of the Lord among them as His guests and friends. At His table you are to meditate of His love--to sit down and commemorate His sufferings on your behalf; His object is to make you happy; He commands you to take this as a pledge of His friendship; you must not stop short at the mere symbol; this is, in effect, His body that was broken for you, and this is His blood which was poured out for you on the accursed tree. His hands, His feet were pierced for you--His side, too, was pierced, after He had given up the ghost: His sufferings were such as no tongue can tell, and such as cannot be known to mortal man. His affection for you was written in blood, and that blood was His own! That bread and that wine tell you that He died for you; and that in so doing He made “ an end of sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness.” “ He is now able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.” “ Eat, then, oh! friends, and drink, oh! beloved,” is His language. As He died for you, so He now lives for you: and at the close He will come again, and take you unto Himself, that you may be for ever with the Lord. II. To reciprocate the feelings of the Lord Jesus. The soul must and will speak to the praise of sovereign mercy. That we may properly discern the Lord’ s body, we must--1. Discern the evil of sin. Where is sin painted in colours so dreadful as here? 2. Discern the relation of man. What is the depraved creature man worth to his Maker? He is lost for all the ends which he ought to answer. Divine mercy could not reach him, apart from a proper Mediator and an atonement for sin. After this redemption he needed the exercise of Divine power to create him anew. The Cross, clearly seen, is death to human glorying. There is no room for it there! Go then, Christian, to His table, and take a fresh lesson from your Lord, who, with all His perfections, was made lowly in heart, since the more you share of this, the more abundantly will you possess rest to your own soul. 3. Discern the beauty of holiness and the necessity of cultivating it. Can you have a more impressive lesson on the evil of sin than the table of the Lord affords you? Will you prepare a second Cross for Christ, and with your own hands nail Him to it? Is there anything in the universe so full of beauty as holiness? Is it not the interest of every creature to press after a close resemblance to our Judge and our Creator? 4. Discern His sovereign and unutterable love. Were we not all enemies, full of selfishness, a god to ourselves, and a rule to ourselves, living without God, and having no hope in the world? Yet He came to die for these very enemies. (The Christian Witness.) 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.The punishment for unworthy partaking I. The punishment. Here are three steps to the grave: weakness, sickness, temporal death.1. Learn that God inflieteth not the same punishment for all, but hath variety of correction. And the reason is, because there are divers degrees of men’ s sins. God therefore doth not, like the unskilful empiries, prescribe the same for all, but wisely varieth His physic. 2. Let us, then, endeavour to amend, when God layeth His least judgment upon us. Let us humble ourselves under His hand when He layeth but His “ little finger” upon us; for light punishments, neglected, will draw heavier upon us. 3. Let magistrates and men in authority mitigate or increase the punishment, according to the nature of the offence. For probable it is that those who were least offenders here were punished with weakness; the greater, with sickness; the greatest of all, with death temporal. II. The cause.1. All sicknesses of the body proceed from the sin of the soul. I am not ignorant of second causes; but the fountain of all these fountains is sin. And not only the sins which we have lately committed, but those which we have committed long ago (Job 13:26). Job being grey was punished for Job being green; Job in his autumn smarts for what he hath done in his spring. Do we, then, desire to lead our old age in health. I know of no better preservative than in our youth to keep our souls from sin. 2. But how came St. Paul to know that this sickness proceeded from the irreverent receiving of the sacrament, especially since they were guilty of four other grand sins? Since they were guilty of factious affecting of their ministers, going to law under pagan judges, suffering an incestuous person to live amongst them unpunished, denying of the resurrection of the body, why might not St. Paul think that any one or all of these might be the causes of this disease? (1) Because this sin was the sin paramount. The others were felony, robbing God of His glory; this was high treason against the person of Christ, and so against God Himself. Learn we, then, though God of His goodness may be pleased graciously to pardon sins of an inferior nature and meaner alloy, yet He will not let him escape unpunished who irreverently receive the body and blood of His Son. (2) Because the apostle perceived some resemblance betwixt the sin committed and the punishment inflicted. For, as a physician, when a disease puzzles all his rules of art to trace it to some natural cause, will be ready to put it down to poison, so St. Paul, seeing the Corinthians to be punished with a strange and unusual sickness, suspected that they had eaten some poisonous thing, and on inquiry he finds that it was the sacrament irreverently received: it being just with God to turn that which was appointed to be preservative for the soul, to prove poison to the body, being not received with due preparation. (T. Fuller, D.D.)Judged, not condemned I. “ For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.”1. Just then there was a more than average prevalence of disease and mortality, and Paul had authority to trace it to its source. Our Lord has solemnly warned us against drawing such inferences arbitrarily (Luke 13:1-5). We are prone to this sort of presumption. But here St. Paul was speaking in the Spirit, and was authorised to knit together a particular sin and punishment. And I cannot read in this record the “ thus far and no farther.” I catch here the faint echo of the thought that God our Father has us all in His school, and is carrying on our education for a life beyond death by a direct providential dealing with us in the way of mental and bodily chastisement. “ For this cause” --because of such and such a sin, with which the man would not deal for himself--“ many are weak,” etc. 2. To some minds the idea of punishment may be repulsive and demoting. To me it is a thought of hope: it speaks of a living and personal God, not willing that I should perish. The chastening hand, St. Paul tells us, stops not short sometimes of taking the very life itself. There are even deaths which condemn not but only chastise the sinner. 3. Read it in its simplicity, and what comfort is here for some comfortless mourners! Let the Christian mother hush her agony over the grave of some soldier or sailor son taken away in the very dawn of manhood, with immature piety, and believe that still, for all that, the young life was taken, not in wrath, but in chastisement; taken, perhaps, that it might expand in a purer and a higher companionship. II. Yet St. Paul goes on to teach us that even these judgments might be turned aside. “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.”1. So unwillingly does God afflict, that, if the same end, which is our good, could be otherwise reached, it would be. It is our refusal to judge ourselves which, as it were, compels God to judge. Do it upon yourselves, and the rod drops from His hand. 2. St. Paul carefully guards against the idea of any self-infliction of suffering, by varying the word when he speaks of our judging. To “ judge” becomes then not to punish, but simply to discern. To “ judge” ourselves is to look ourselves through and through, so as to distinguish between the precious and the vile. 3. Do not look upon this duty with repugnance. God and you are on one side in the matter. He bids you to do what is necessary for yourself in the way of judging, and so to answer the one purpose, which is that of your not being left in self-deceit. 4. Many shrink from this self-intuition from the dread of long and difficult processes. Will they just bethink themselves of that fountain opened for sin and uncleanness? III. The final cause of that judging which is chastening--“ That we should not be condemned with the world.” Weakness and sickness--even the last sleep itself--all have this merciful character within the Church of Jesus Christ. They are to prevent the everlasting “ damnation.” Nothing short of apostasy, the wilful and obstinate “ standing away from the living God,” can throw a man back out of the Church of the Divine chastisement into the Cosmos of the Divine condemnation. (Dean Vaughan.)The punishment of unworthy receivers Now, the verse that I have read to you is a part of that use of terror which the apostle makes against the unworthy receivers of the sacrament; and it contains God’ s severe punishment against those that come unworthily: wherein note three things. First, the cause of their punishment, which is the unworthy eating of the communion: for this cause many are sick and weak among you, and many are fallen asleep. Secondly, the punishment inflicted for this sin--weakness, sickness, and mortality. Thirdly, there is the delinquents, which are you, Corinthians: many are sick and weak among you, and in them all others that come unpreparedly to the sacrament. Whence we may observe this point of instruction: that God doth most severely punish the unworthy receivers of the sacrament of the Lord’ s Supper. He punished the Corinthians here with sickness, weakness, fevers, pestilence, death temporal, and God knows how many with death eternal. Now the reason why the Lord doth so severely punish both with temporal judgments and with spiritual curses the unworthy receivers of the sacrament, is, in regard of the author of the sacrament, who is Christ; and that not only as He was man, but Christ as He was God did institute the same. When the Lord delivered the Law upon Mount Sinai, He commanded the people to sanctify themselves; yea, if a beast did but touch the mountain, he must die for the same, even be stoned to death, or thrust through with a dart (Hebrews 12:1-29.). Much more, then, now, when the Lord doth deliver the gospel, especially the groundwork and masterpiece thereof, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that in the most blessed manner that ever God exhibited Himself unto man; how much more doth God require purity and holiness, that all such as come to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in the blessed sacrament should be sanctified, purging their hearts, and cleansing their souls from all their sin and uncleanness! The second reason is in regard of the matter of the sacrament, which is Christ also; who, as He was the efficient cause, so in regard of sacramental relation He is the matter of the communion (1 Corinthians 10:16). Now the better matter anything is of, the more heinous is the defilement of it. A master will not be so angry for casting his earthen vessels into the mire as he will be for casting his rich jewels. A third reason is in regard of the form of the sacrament, which is Christ too. If thou shouldest clip the king’ s coin, I will say that thou art a traitor. Oh, what a traitor art thou, then, yea, accursed traitor in the account of God and Christ, if thou clippest His holy communion, if thou clip it of thy examination and due preparation, and so come hand over head, not regarding so holy an ordinance: thou sinnest against the court of heaven. The last reason is in regard of the end of the sacrament, which is Christ also. Is it so, then, that the Lord doth so severely punish the unworthy receiver of the sacrament? Take notice, then, from whence cometh all sickness, weakness, and mortality, and the reason why the Lord doth send so many kind of sorrows, crosses, and miseries upon men; namely, because of the unworthy receiving of the Lord’ s Supper. And, beloved, we shall never see the Lord take away His judgments here from the earth until we betake ourselves to a more diligent and holy receiving of the sacrament. Many there be that expound these words in a spiritual sense; many are sick and weak, and many are fallen asleep, that is to say, many have their consciences seared, and their hearts hardened, etc.; and this is true also, that because men come unpreparedly, they have their hearts hardened, and their consciences seared, and their soul plagued with many spiritual plagues. But it is as true also in temporal judgments. King Belshazzar, that abused but the holy vessels of the temple, and the cups thereof, what a small plague befel him for it (Daniel 5:27-28). Wherefore let us take heed of unprepared coming to the sacrament; for God will not hold such guiltless. And now to conclude: As the Cherubim stood before Paradise with a naked sword to keep Adam out, that he might not enter and so eat of the Tree of Life, so I bring with me the sword of God, to run it up to the hilt in the heart of every ungodly man, every rebellious and impenitent sinner that dares presume to rush upon this holy ordinance of God with a polluted heart. (W. Fenner.)For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.-- Self-judgment I. There is in us a capacity of judging ourselves. We can overlook our own acts and feelings; we can pronounce sentence upon them. It would be no mercy, but a great degradation, if we were excused from this jurisdiction. II. The Lord will not excuse us from it. He takes the office which we abdicate. He judges when we will not judge. III. This capacity is blunted by censoriousness.1. The besetting sin of the Corinthians was that of judging others. They were ever determining that this man was not so wise or so spiritual as themselves. And on this very account they could not judge themselves; the faculty lost its edge; it exhausted itself in unprofitable, unlawful efforts. It was ever busy looking outward for motes; the consciousness of the beam within became continually less alive. 2. Most of us are agreed that we live in a critical rather than in a creative age. Politicians, artists, religious men, all: alike are critics; some censors of their predecessors as well as of their contemporaries. And just as it was with the Corinthians, we have lost to a very great degree the power of judging ourselves. IV. How it may be restored (verse 32).1. Much is said in pulpits about the blessed effects of God’ s discipline upon men. Some of the very best are constrained to say, “ Suffering has brought forth an amount of evil in us which we did not know there was in us before.” And thanks be to God it did! Now you know Him and yourselves a little better than you did before, For it is this revelation of what is dark in us which drives us to His Light. God’ s judgments are not mere punishments, but are meant to awaken in us that slumbering faculty without which we are not truly men, because we are not truly showing forth the image of God. He comes amongst us that our criticism may be turned to a more practical and glorious service, that we may not “ be condemned with the world.” 2. What is the condemnation from which this judgment rescues us? The world, considered as apart from God, is condemned to a very hopeless kind of darkness. Its members cannot see any light which should guide their own footsteps, for they confess no light but what proceeds from themselves. All God’ s chastisements, therefore, are to purge the Church of its worldly elements, not by making if, censorious and exclusive (for there are essentially worldly elements), but by making each man see in himself all the evil which he has detected in his brother. (F. D. Maurice, M.A.)God’ s judgment and our judgment I. The purpose of God’ s judgments. Paul’ s words imply two great propositions.1. God’ s chastisements are judgments. A most strange assertion, on the ordinary acceptation of judgments as special interferences of Providence to punish some special evil! But if the word means to discern between good and evil, then this strange assertion becomes merely a statement of the result which afflictions ever produce in the heart and conscience of a Christian: they make us discern the good and the evil, the fleshly and the spiritual in our own selves, as we never saw them before. Many a man in the quiet days of sickness and pain has found a light searching him, and separating the true from the false. It is ever in the whirlwind and darkness of adversity that we learn to say with him of old, “ I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee; wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes.” 2. The design of God’ s judgment is to save us from condemnation. The spirit of the world is the choice of darkness rather than light, therefore to be condemned with the world is to be left in ever-deepening blindness to all the light and glory of God. That doom of being given up to one’ s self, and being ruined by the secret idolatries and evils of self, is the doom into which every one of us would fall if God’ s chastisements, which are judgments, did not deliver us from its peril. (1) Sometimes He breaks the concealed idol of the heart. We did not know it was an idol until it had gone. (2) Sometimes He permits us to have our own way, and allows us to discover its vanity. (3) Sometimes He prevents man’ s will from ever being fulfilled. This is the meaning of the chastening judgments of God. Let us accept it heartily and broadly, even when we cannot trace it. Let us not limit it to individuals. It is true of nations, and has been true of this England of ours again and again. It is true of Churches; hence the meaning of chastenings as the response to the most earnest prayers: it is God’ s method of revealing the hindrances to their growth, of manifesting the impediments to their spiritual power. II. The necessity of self-judgment. Two questions meet us here--1. If God be judging us why are we bound to judge ourselves? Because-- (1) Every chastening is a voice of mercy calling us to exercise the faculty of judgment which God has given us. (2) Past sorrow and disappointment revealed the secrecy of the heart’ s life, and the necessity for guarding that life. (3) If we let our wonderful inner life go unwatched, we shall need continued and repeated chastisements. 2. How is this work to be accomplished? Paul implies that we have the faculty of judgment, but dare not use it; God chastens thus that He may awaken it. In trust on His education let us judge ourselves. (1) Let us bring our spirits into His light by prayer--one flash of that light may reveal to us the meaning of our lives. (2) Guard the springs of action--the beginnings of sin. Let a man slothfully allow himself to move in a path that is dubious, and which he fears to examine, and God will hedge in his way with thorns, and send him deep desolate sorrow, that he may not be “ condemned with the world.” III. The blessings which self-judgment would bring.1. Confidence. But does not self-searching create doubt, and wither the energy of action? Not when exercised in the trust that God will reveal us to ourselves. “ Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” 2. Insight into God’ s truth and love (verse 28). (1) Those Corinthians are asleep because they did not judge themselves--asleep to all the beauty of the Christian sacrament. If we let our spirits go unwatched the beauty and power of sacraments will fade. (2) Let us believe that God is testing us; that Christ’ s light is dwelling in us; and in that belief guide our spirits and guard them; then, all God’ s works will become a sacrament of love and glory! (E. L. Hull, B.A.)Self-scrutiny Let us consider the difficulty, the advantages, and the means of forming a correct estimate of ourselves. I. The difficulty. The portions of our character, which it most concerns us to understand aright, are, the extent of our powers, and the motives of our conduct. But on these subjects everything conspires to deceive us.1. No man, in the first place, can come to the examination of himself with perfect impartiality. His wishes are all necessarily engaged on his own side. 2. We can always find excuses for ourselves, which no other person can suspect. Frivolous as the apology may be, it appears satisfactory, because, while no one knows its existence, no one can dispute its value. 3. Few men venture to inform us of our real character. We are flattered, even from our cradles. 4. We fondly imagine that no one can know us as well as we know ourselves, and that every man is interested to depreciate, even when he knows, the worth of another. Hence, when reproved, it is much more easy to conclude that we have been misrepresented by envy, or misunderstood by prejudice, than to believe in our ignorance, incapacity, or guilt. Nothing, also, more directly tends to swell into extravagance a man’ s opinion of his moral or intellectual worth, than to find that his innocence has, in any instance, been falsely accused, or his powers inadequately estimated. II. The advantages.1. An intimate knowledge of ourselves is absolutely necessary to the security and improvement of our virtue and holiness. 2. The knowledge of ourselves would preserve us from much of the calumny, the censure, and the contempt of others. 3. A man who knows himself will know more of others, than one who boasts of studying mankind by mixing with all their follies and vices. 4. Self-knowledge will preserve us from being deceived by flattery, or overborne by unmerited censure. 5. He who examines himself will learn to profit by instruction. 6. If we will judge ourselves, we shall not be judged, at least, by the Judge of heaven and earth; that is, we shall not be unprepared for the judgment-seat of Christ. III. The means by which this knowledge may be attained.1. Suspect yourselves. Do not be afraid of doing yourselves injustice. When you suspect, watch your conduct; and detect, if you can, your predominant motives. Depend upon it, you will struggle hard to deceive yourselves. Compare yourselves, then, with the Word of God, and with one another. 2. But, above all, look up to the Father of lights, lay yourself open to the eye of almighty mercy, and cry, “ Lord, who can understand his errors? cleanse Thou me from secret faults.” (J. S. Buckminster.)The judge within If the question be asked, How can a presumed criminal be his own judge? the answer lies in the constitution of the human soul. Every man has within him a faculty which discharges by turns all the offices of a court of justice. Conscience is the counsel for the prosecution; it collects the evidences of guilt, sets them out, weighs their value, marshals them in their separate and collective strength, urges the conclusion to which they point. But conscience is also the counsel for the defence. Although outside the court, it stands by no means alone. It is assisted, often to its great embarrassment, by three uninvited and very importunate junior counsel, who are very nearly relate to each other--self-love, and self-conceit, and self-assertion. But yet, even on the side of the defence, conscience may sometimes have something honest and substantial to urge against the prima facie aspect of the case for the prosecution. And then, having concluded the case for the prosecution and the case for the defendant, conscience weighs out and balances the conflicting statements by a debate within itself after the fashion of a jury, as though it had many voices, but a single mind, And, once more, conscience, being thus warder, and counsel on both sides, and jury, cloths itself at last in the higher majesty of justice, ascends the seat of judgment, and pronounces the sentence of the Divine law; and when that sentence is a sentence of condemnation, and has been clearly uttered within the soul, the soul knows no peace until it has sought and found some certificate of pardon from the supreme Authority which conscience represents. Self-judgment in the sense recommended by the apostle is not as easy a process as might at first appear. It has several obstacles, several enemies to encounter who have long made themselves at home in human nature, who are certain to do their best against it. And of these the first is a want of entire sincerity, and this involves a charge, the justice of which will be always disputed, but especially when it is made against the temper and disposition of men of our own time; for, probably, there is one thing on which we pride ourselves as characterising us more than the generations who have preceded us--it is that we are the devotees of truth. It might seem that we had taken as our own the old Homeric motto, “ Let us have light, even if we perish in it,” so strong is this passion for truth, so seemingly noble, so far-reaching, so actively at work in all directions, whether of public or of private life, around us! But is our passion for truth equally ardent in all directions?--is there not one quarter in which we shrink from indulging it? Is it not often the case that while we are eager to know everything, even the worst, about public affairs and the affairs of our neighbours, about persons high in state, and about our humblest acquaintances, there is one state of affairs, and there is one person about which the great majority of us is often content to be very ignorant indeed? A second enemy to a true self-judgment is moral cowardice. Observe, I say moral cowardice--a very different thing from physical. The man who could head a storming party without a minute’ s hesitation is not always willing to meet his true self. If the truth is to be told, are not a great many of us like those country folk who are afraid of crossing a churchyard path after nightfall, lest they should see a ghost behind a tombstone? Our consciences are but cemeteries, in which dead memories are buried close to or upon each other in forgotten confusion. Some of you may have noticed an account of the conduct of a distinguished and learned Englishman who nearly lost his life in Egypt a short time ago. He was travelling in order to prosecute his favourite studies, and was returning to his boat on the Nile, after examining some antiquities in the neighbourhood, when he trod by chance on a cerastes--a snake of the species one of which, nineteen centuries ago, ended the life of the fallen Cleopatra. When he felt that he had been bitten, and a moment’ s glance had shown him the deadly reptile, he lost not a moment in making his way to the boat, which was, happily, only a few yards distant. He called for a hot iron, and then, with his own hands, he applied it to the wound, holding it there until he had burnt out the poisoned flesh down to the very bone. “ Had you acted with less decision,” so said a distinguished physician to him on his return to Cairo, “ your life must have been forfeited.” With matters of conscience we, it seems, are less capable of heroism, though a great deal more is really at stake. A third enemy to a true self-judgment is the lack of perseverance. As we are constantly being tempted, and often yielding more or less to temptation, we should be constantly bringing ourselves to the bar of conscience, which is the bar of God. Unless we take care, the determination to persevere, to be true to ourselves, is likely to become weaker and more intermittent as our natural faculties decay with the progress of time. Much will take place within which will never have been reviewed on this side the grave. There have been sovereigns of earthly realms--such as the Roman Emperor Hadrian, and the Caliph Haroun Alraschid--whose senses of the responsibility of empire have been such as to compel them to do more than official duty would prescribe, to inspect their dominions and to visit their subjects as far as they could personally, perhaps in disguise, and so to relieve distress and to encourage meritorious efforts, and to correct injustice, and to promote well-being and prosperity, and thus to strengthen the defences of the Empire, and remove the motives to insurrection and disorder. And if a man, as a Christian, should be absolute ruler within and over his own body, if his conscience is true, he best self-governs as well as reigns if it does not hold its office merely at the good pleasure of a democracy of passions, each of which is playing for its own hand, and which collectively may proclaim a republic:in the soul to-morrow morning, and send their present ruler about his business--no doubt with a pension. If, I say, a triumph of all the forces of moral disorder is not to take place within the human soul, its ruler must be constantly inspecting it, constantly judging it, that he may finish his royal course with joy, and arrest the stern judgment that must else await him by thus constantly anticipating it. The motive for this self-judgment follows--“ We should not be judged if we would judge ourselves.” Does this mean that a man who deals truly and severely with himself may always expect to escape human criticism? This is only very partially true. It is true, no doubt, that so far as we judge ourselves in matters which affect our intercourse with others, endeavouring to bring that intercourse into strict accord with the principles and the terms of the law of Christ, we shall diminish the opportunities for hostile criticism on this score. In this sense self-judgment brings with it in this world its own reward. In whatever degree we cultivate self-discipline--the sincere, pure, humble, kindly, patient temper which is prescribed by the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ--in that degree we diminish the friction with our brother men in the struggle of our own common life, and so we escape the judgments which such friction provokes. But it does not follow that those who judge themselves severely are thereby always excepted from the unfavourable judgments of other men, for a very large number of men not only pass judgments upon the words and acts of others of which they can take some sort of cognisance, but also, and, strange to say, with equal confidence, upon the motive and secret characters of others, of which, from the nature of the case, they can have no real knowledge whatever. Added to which the great majority of men resent, perhaps almost unconsciously, a higher standard of life and conduct than their own. When one of the greatest of the heathen set himself to consider what would happen if a really perfect man were to appear upon the earth, his decision was an unconscious prophecy. “ Men,” he said, “ would put such a man to death.” Men who are not themselves holy are impatient of holiness, and pass hard judgments, if they can do nothing more, on those who aim at it; and thus it has happened that all the great servants of God, although judging themselves severely, have been again and again judged by their fellowmen with much greater severity. So it has been with nearly all the finest characters in the Church of Christ. They have passed their lives constantly under a storm of calumny and insult, and only when they have left the world have they been recognised as having been what they were. Nor is this wonderful in the case of those who at their very best only approached perfection, if it was also true in His case who alone was perfect. A man, then, who judges himself severely cannot on that account expect to disarm human judgments; but he may do much more: he may anticipate, and by anticipating he may arrest, the judgments of God, for the judgments of God light not on all sinners, but only on unrepentant sinners; and self-judgment is the effect and expression of penitence--it is the effort of the soul to be true to the highest law of its own being, which is also the law of its Creator. Self-judgment shows us what we are. It does not of itself enable us to become other than we are; it does not of itself confer pardon for the past or strength to do better in the time to come. It bids us look out of and beyond ourselves to a Divine compassion which is also a Divine justice, which, if we will, we can, by that complete and whole-hearted adhesion of the soul to truth, which the Bible calls faith, make in reality and for ever our own. It makes a man pray at once more intelligently and more earnestly--more intelligently because when he has had himself up for a strict judicial investigation at the bar of his conscience he knows what he needs, not in a vague way, but in detail, and precisely instead of complaining to God in general terms of the corruption of his fallen nature--a complaint which makes him in his own estimate not worse than any of his neighbours--he lays his finger upon certain acts of evil which he, and he only, so far as he knows, has committed. He prays as for his life, and when his prayer is crowned with victory he understands what he owes to having judged himself honestly, and how, having judged himself, he will not, through God’ s mercy, be judged as an unrepentant sinner at the last. (Canon Liddon.) 1 Corinthians 11:33-34 When ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.“ Tarry one for another” 1. These words glance at a state of things of which happily we can form little idea from any existing analogy. No one thinks now of bringing or sending food to satisfy his hunger. No one thinks of making distinctions between rich and poor, nor of beginning, in violation of the principle of fellowship, to eat and drink before the rest. We all tarry one for another. 2. But are not these words fall of meaning and value even to us? You sometimes picture to yourselves the Church lifted high above the world, with aspects and motions to the world above. But innumerable ties bind her also to the earth. She looks on to victory and rest, but also far around, to see who are coming to share in it. She makes no tarrying, and yet she tarries for all who need her help. Tarry-- I. For the young. You cannot look for the steady tread of those who have long been in the way in the ease of those who are just coming into it. Joseph and Mary went a day’ s journey homeward before they missed their Son. So I seem to see the Church of manhood and womanhood more than a day’ s journey ahead, with no yearning desire after the Church of adolescence. But when they found the young Jesus He was in the temple about His Father’ s business. Reverence the children--the Church of the future. It is not given to fathers and mothers to divine all that their children may yet be and achieve. Tarry for them. Help the struggling thought; throw gentle airs and warm sunshine around the budding affections. Say “ well done” when it has been well done. And when ye come up to the chief festival of life, do not seem as if you could comfortably come alone. Say to them, “ Come with us,” until they respond, “ We will go with you, for we perceive that God is with you.” II. For the weak.1. There never was an army without the sick and lame. But they are cared for as true soldiers. There never was a family of many children that had not some weaker than the rest. Where the law of love prevails, they are cared for in proportion to their weakness. Have you heard how in a band of workmen there are weak men; and when the others see their weakness, they will edge in a little help on each side, so as to keep that part of the work square with the rest, that the weak may claim full wage at the week’ s end? 2. “ We, then, that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.” The tender spirit of the New Testament in regard to weakness and the weak is everywhere. It had its source in the heart of our blessed Lord, who had compassion on the multitudes when He saw them. It filled the hearts, and it pervades the writings of His apostles. It is one of the notes of the true Church. It is her law which I now enforce. Some are fainting; but when they have rested awhile they will come. Some are hungry; when they are fed they will be stronger. Some have been sick; nothing can recruit them but time and gracious weather and kindly nourishment. Tarry one for another, and the weak shall be as David, and David as the angel of the Lord. III. For the doubting. Not for the captious and the insincere, but for those who are honestly seeking for light.1. A company of people, travelling through a forest, come to a place where many paths meet. Most of them are in no doubt which path to take. But some are in doubt. How, then, should they be treated by those from whom they part? Are we to cry, “ Farewell; we shall see you no more. Go your ways into famine and death” ? Are we not rather to say, “ We shall tarry for you; not indeed by staying our own progress, but by calling to you, by lighting our camp-fires at night, that you may see where we halt? You will not go far without seeing that you are wrong, and then take the path that leads right into ours. We shall be waiting for you.” 2. There are many wanderers that are to be waited for. There are honest doubts, only to be resolved by time and light. IV. For the stiricken. They are perhaps out of sight; for they are apt to fall out of the company. As the great Sufferer, now the great Conqueror, waits for us all, let us wait for one another. V. For the whole world. Enemies as they are now, in the future they are to be friends. Let none doubt how the long conflict is to end. The Church can never submit herself to the world; but the world shall ground its weapons, and hold out the hand of friendship to the Church, and the conciliation shall be perfect. Conclusion: But to those of whom we have been speaking, for whom we have asked all patience and consideration, I would say, Be sure that you do not wait. Make haste; others are tarrying for you. (A. Raleigh, D.D.)One missing Sir Michael Costa was having a rehearsal with a great number of singers and musicians. When the mighty chorus pealed forth with the strains of the organ, the beating of drums, and the clashing of cymbals, one man who played the piccolo (a small kind of flute with very high notes) thought he was not needed and ceased to play. The conductor suddenly stopped, threw up his hands, and when all was quiet, cried, “ Where is the piccolo?” The keen ear of the master missed it, and he felt that the chorus was incomplete. How many are missed by the great Master of assemblies, when He gathers His friends into His banqueting house! 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.Spiritual gifts The particular gifts to which St. Paul was referring were not exactly as a whole like anything that is to be witnessed in the Church now. They produced effects which challenged the attention of the eye and the ear, and were calculated to fire the imagination. St. Paul mentions nine of these gifts. Of these the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom and prophecy, were such as might be found on no inconsiderable scale at the present day diffused in the Church of Christ. The word of wisdom would seem to be an eminent power of apprehending revealed truth in its relations towards the general field of human thought and human knowledge--as we should say, of apprehending it philosophically. The word of knowledge implies an insight into the several departments of revealed truth, and into their mutual relations towards each other; while prophecy means not simply prediction of the future, but especially the power of stating truth and duty clearly and forcibly to others. And the gift of faith here mentioned would he probably something distinct from the faith of ordinary believers--an extraordinary illumination of the believing soul, making God and the world unseen so vividly present to it that all obstacles to duty seem for the time straightway to vanish. This, too, is to be found in some gifted Christians in all ages of the Church. The five other gifts are at least less ordinary. There were Christians at Corinth who had the gift of healings, and others a more extended gift of working miracles; cases, these, plainly, in which the fire of the Holy Ghost, possessing, enlightening, warming the believing soul, made itself felt through the soul and body of the believer upon surrounding nature, and produced effects for which no natural causes that were known would account. Others, again, had the gift of discerning spirits--something deeper, that is, than any insight into character, although analogous to this great and uncommon gift. A power they had of seeing in other souls the exact endowment with which the Holy Ghost had furnished them--what in them was really the work of grace--what only the counterfeit of nature. Others, again, spoke with tongues--probably, as at Pentecost, in foreign languages, sometimes with a view to missionary work among the strangers who were to be found about the port and in the streets of Corinth; probably also, and more frequently still, in a mystic language to which no known human tongue corresponded, yet in which an entranced and illuminated soul might at times alone be able to express itself. Others, again, had the gift of interpreting tongues--:probably the mystic language of devotion, which, but for the gifted interpreter, would have died away upon the ear of the audience without leaving even an idea behind. It was natural that the exercise of such endowments as these should have led to a great deal of discussion at Corinth, where the subject was continually and practically brought before the eyes and ears of Christians. Questions were eagerly asked; they were often hastily and erroneously answered. They were at last referred to the apostle. St. Paul answers these questions, and in doing so he lays down principles of permanent and vital importance. First, every single gift, he says, even the very least, is important, because all come from a single source--the Divine and eternal Spirit living and working in the Church of Christ. Secondly, he rules that the gifts do differ in importance, and that their importance is to be measured by their practical value to the soul and to the Church of Christ. On this account he decides that the gift of tongues which excited such extraordinary ,enthusiasm at Corinth is really a less important gift than the relatively quiet and tame gift of teaching or prophecy, simply because the latter is of greater service to others--of greater service to the Church. Thirdly, he will not allow that the possession of any gift whatever ought to make the possessor an object of jealousy. Being a gift it implies no sort of merit in the possessor at all, but only in the giver. It is given, too, not for the advantage, not for the credit of the possessor of it, but simply for the good of the Church at large. No gift, accordingly, could be possessed by the heathen outside the Church who cursed the blessed name of Jesus; and no gift rendered its possessor independent of others in the holy body, or could be wholly monopolised for the advantage of the possessor. The eye could not possibly say to the foot, “ I have no need of thee.” And, lastly, all these gifts were inferior to those which were shared by all Christians, even the very humblest in a state of grace--love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, especially the graces of faith, of hope, of charity. Especially were they inferior to the last and greatest of these, the grace of charity--the love of God for His own blessed sake because He is what He is; the love of man in and for God. The importance of this knowledge to us at the present day appears to me to be undeniable, for we live at a time when men are disposed to ignore the very existence of the spiritual world--the presence and action of the Holy Comforter upon the souls of men. This is, perhaps, partly a reaction from some fanatical ideas about His work which were to be found here and there in a past generation; but it is much more largely due, I apprehend, to the immense place which the material universe holds in the thoughts and especially in the imaginations of the present generation. We have explored the realm of matter; we have subjugated it; we have made it at once our friend and our slave in ways undreamt of by our forefathers. Beneath all material splendour, even the greatest, there is at bottom an aching void, because man was made for something higher and nobler than matter--because he cannot find his real satisfaction in matter. He was made for God, and all that reminds man of his real destiny--yes, I will say it, of his true nobility--has a claim upon his ear and upon his heart that cannot be permanently ignored. And when the apostle cries, “ Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant,” he touches a chord to which man sooner or later responds, because in his deepest self man is, and knows himself to be, a spirit. His real self is a deeper and more central thing than can be touched by these merely outward surroundings; and therefore man cannot permanently, even in this very metropolis of the world’ s material civilisation, forget that higher gifts than any which matter can furnish him are really within his reach, and that he does not well to be ignorant of them. But then some who know that something higher than matter is their true aim and portion do not always fix their eye upon the really spiritual. They mistake intellect for spirit. But man’ s reason and thought is but an instrument of his deepest self--of his indestructible personal being. Spiritual gifts are higher, far, than merely intellectual gifts. The latter imply nothing as to the moral excellence of the inmost being itself. Voltaire’ s brilliancy was undeniable, but who would exchange solid peace of soul for a power of making the epigrams which delighted Paris, but which could not bring one hour of true rest or happiness to their gifted author? Do I say that material or intellectual gifts are worthless? God forbid! They have, too, come from Him. His gifts to the old heathen world, its astonishing cultivation of reason, of fancy, of language, its vast and varied efforts in the way of constructive enterprise, its burning passion, its abundant genius for art, its vigorous talent for administration and for government, were and are still worthy as coming from Him. Even although these gifts were frequently, or, rather, almost as a matter of course, misused, debased, by the pervading presence of sin, they were in themselves admirable, and we do well to honour and admire them if only because of their Author. And all that He has given in addition to the modern world, outside the kingdom of His Son, and independently of it--our material and intellectual progress in all its departments--is matter not for depreciation, still less for secret fear, but for thankful and generous acknowledgment, if only we remember that there are higher gifts beyond; that, when our architects, our merchants, our engineers, our historians, our poets, our metaphysicians, have done their best, there still remains a sublimer sphere from which an apostle whispers, “ Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.” Doubtless we here touch, as so often in the kingdom of Jesus Christ, upon mystery--that is to say, upon a truth of the reality of which we are convinced, but the full account and reason of which is, in our present state of being and knowledge, beyond us. Who shall attempt to picture, much less to describe, the process whereby He, the Eternal, the Uncreated, overshadows, enwraps, penetrates, moulds, changes, burns, our finite and created spirits, bathing them, if we will, through and through with His light and with His warmth, endowing them with powers which, according to the original terms of their natural structure, are altogether strange to them, fitting them by anticipation here, amid the scenes of sense and time, for a higher and a better world? Who indeed shall say, since who knows enough of the nature and intrinsic capacities of spirit to attempt the description? From age to age the gifts of the Spirit may vary in their form; substantially they are the same to the very end of time; and, next to the atoning death of Jesus Christ and the power of His blood to cleanse our sins, there is no fact of equal practical importance to human beings who are living and must die. In conclusion, one or two practical considerations. Now these words furnish us with a guide to the true idea of education, with a test and criterion of some current educational theories. When I hear of schemes of education which are only schemes for packing the mind full of facts, and which include among those facts almost everything except what bears upon that one subject which it is of most importance for a human being to know, a voice from above sounds in my ears, “ Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren of this generation, I would not have you ignorant.” What will it profit to have measured and weighed out the whole realm of matter--to have explored and studied all the achievements of human thought; if, after all, God’ s gifts to the soul--His gifts of a new birth, of a real redemption, of a new insight into truth, of a robe wherein one day the soul may appear even before Him in His sanctity and in His justice without trembling and without confusion--if these are altogether ignored? So, too, in the sentence of the apostle I see a rule for forming friendship. Perhaps before the idea of a universal brotherhood in Christ had dawned upon the conscience of the world, a single sincere attachment between two human beings had a significance which we to-day can with difficulty appreciate. But, at any rate, the ancients were right in estimating very highly the moral importance of friendship; for a friend--and there is scarcely a truth which a young man ought more carefully to lay to heart--a friend at once reflects and moulds character. His influence penetrates in a thousand ways into the recesses of thought and of feeling. He leaves his mark there, most assuredly. He is a help or a hindrance; he is a blessing or a curse, as the case may be. What is his real character? What are the qualities of his heart? What, properly speaking, are his spiritual endowments? What is his amount of faith in the unseen--of hope in an eternal future--of love of God and of man? And, lastly, here is a rule for all steady and systematic efforts at self-improvement. Let us make the most of the means of grace, as they are termed, while we may. Of the certificated channels through which these gifts must reach us--of prayer, first of all, of the Divine Scriptures, of the holy sacraments--life is too short, my brethren, to allow any man to know or to do everything. There is much of which we may safely, and even profitably, be ignorant; but as immortal beings we dare not ignore, we dare not neglect, the gifts which the eternal Spirit bestows upon us here that hereafter they may robe us in a happy immortality. (Canon Liddon.)Concerning spiritual gifts 1. This Epistle is well fitted to disabuse our minds of the idea that the primitive Church was in all respects superior to the Church of our own day. We turn page after page and find little but contention, errors, immorality, etc. 2. At this point, however, the primitive Church is differentiated from our own, and it would have been surprising had the revolution which Christianity introduced not been accompanied by abnormal manifestation. The new Divine life, suddenly poured into human nature, stirred it to unusual power. People who yesterday could only condole with their sick friends, found today that they could impart to them vital energy. Men brought up in idolatry and ignorance suddenly found their minds filled with new and stimulating ideas which they felt impelled to impart. 3. The Spirit of Christ does not produce these manifestations now because-- (1) They are no longer required. When you sow a plot you stick twigs round it that the unseen plant may not be trodden down, but when the plants have become as tall as the twigs, then these are useless. So miracles helped the young Church’ s growth; but she has now become sufficiently visible and understood to need them no more. (2) The disturbances produced by the first impact of these new’ Christian forces could not be expected to continue. New political or social ideas suddenly possessing a people, as at the French Revolution, inspire with an energy which cannot be normal. 4. Nothing could be more natural than that these gifts should be overrated. They came to be prized for their own sake, and, as usual, what was useful could not compete with what was surprising. 5. Paul now explains the object of these gifts and the principle of their distribution. (1) He reminds them that their previous history sufficiently explained their need of instruction (1 Corinthians 12:1-2). The first thing needed to guide them, therefore, was a criterion by which they could judge whether so-called manifestations of the Spirit are genuine or spurious (1 Corinthians 12:3). Very early men were found in the Church who could not reconcile themselves to the accursed death of Christ. They believed in His gospel, miracles, kingdom, but the Crucifixion was a stumbling-block. And so they held that the Divine Logos descended upon Jesus at His baptism, but abandoned Him before the Crucifixion. This degradation of Jesus was not to be tolerated, and to own His lordship was the test of a man’ s Christianity. And this is the only sure test to-day. No wonderful works he may accomplish prove his possession of Christ’ s Spirit (Matthew 7:22-23). (2) And as to the gifts themselves, they should be no cause of discord, for they have everything in common: they have their source in God; they are for Christ’ s service; they are forms of the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). (3) The new life assumed various forms and sufficed for all man’ s needs. As the sun in spring develops each seed according to its own special character, so with this new spiritual force. Christian influence does not clip all men after one pattern like trees in an avenue, but causes each to grow according to his own individuality, one with the rugged irregularity of the oak, another with the orderly richness of the plane. 6. That society is an organism similar to the human body, is not an exclusively Christian idea. It was a common Stoic doctrine, and in the earliest days of Rome Menenius Agrippa uttered his fable which Shakespeare has helped to make famous. But although this comparison is not new, it is now being more seriously and scientifically examined and pushed to its legitimate conclusion. Paul suggests-- I. That the unity of Christians is a vital unity (1 Corinthians 12:13). This unity is not a mechanical unity, as of shot in a bag; nor a forced unity, as of wild beasts in a menagerie; nor a unity of mere accidental juxtaposition, as of passengers in a train. But as the life of the human body maintains all the various members and nourishes them to a well-proportioned and harmonious growth, so is it in the body of Christ. II. That the efficiency of the body depends upon the multiplicity and variety of its members (1 Corinthians 12:17; 1 Corinthians 12:19). The lowest forms of life have either no distinct organs or very few; but the higher we ascend the more numerous and distinctly differentiated are the organs. The same law holds good of society. Among uncivilised tribes each man is his own farmer or huntsman, and his own priest, butcher, cook, and clothier. But as men become civilised the various wants of society are supplied by different individuals, and every function is specialised. The same law necessarily holds true of the body of Christ. In a society in which Christianity is just beginning to take root, it may fall to one man to do the work of the whole Christian body, etc. But as it advances towards a perfect condition its functions and organs become as multifarious and distinct as the organs of the human body. Every member therefore has something to contribute to its good and to the work it does. And it is for him to discover what his Christian instincts lead him to. The eye does not need to be told it is for seeing, or the hand that it is for grasping. And where there is true Christian life, it matters not what the member of Christ’ s body be, it will find its function, even though that function is new in the Church’ s experience. III. That as there is to be no slothful self-disparagement in the body of Christ, so must there be no depreciation of other people (1 Corinthians 12:21). When zealous people discover new methods, they forthwith despise the normal ecclesiastical system that has stood the test and is stamped with the approval of centuries. One method cannot regenerate and Christianise the world any more than one member can do the whole work of the body. Paul goes even further, and reminds us that the “ feeble” parts of the body are “ the more necessary” ; the heart, the brain, the lungs, etc., are more necessary than the hand or the foot, the loss of which no doubt cripples, but does not kill. So in the Church it is the hidden souls who, by their prayers and domestic godliness, maintain the whole body in health and enable more conspicuously gifted members to do their part. Contempt for any member of the body of Christ is most unseemly and sinful. IV. That “ the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal,” and not for the glorification of the individual. However beautiful any feature of a face may be, it is hideous apart from its position; so is the Christian who attracts attention to himself and does not subordinate his gift to the advantage of the whole body of Christ. If in the human body any member is not subservient to the one central will, that is recognised as disease: St. Virus’ dance. If any member ceases to obey the central will, paralysis is indicated. And equally so is disease indicated wherever a Christian seeks his own ends or his own glorification, and not the advantage of the whole body. (M. Doris, D.D.)Of spiritual gifts 1. The ancient prophets had clearly predicted that the Messianic period should be attended by a remarkable effusion of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord, before His crucifixion, promised to send the Holy Ghost (John 14:1-31., etc.), and after His resurrection He said, “ These signs shall follow them that believe,” etc. (Mark 16:17-18; cf. Acts 1:5). On the day of Pentecost these promises and prophecies were literally fulfilled. 2. The peculiarity of the new dispensation consisted-- (1) In the general diffusion of these gifts. They were extended to all classes-- (2) In their wonderful diversity. 3. Under circumstances so extraordinary it was unavoidable that many disorders should arise. (1) Some claimed to be the organs of the Spirit, who were deluded or impostors. (2) Some were dissatisfied with their gifts, and envied those whom they regarded as more highly favoured. (3) Others were inflated, and made an ostentatious display of their powers. (4) Many persons were desirous to exercise their gifts at the same time. 4. To the correction of these evils the apostle now devotes himself. Note-- I. The criterion by which they might decide whether those who pretended to be the organs of the Spirit were really under His influence. Do they blaspheme Christ or do they worship Him? If they recognise Jesus as Lord, then they are under the influence of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 12:1-3). II. These gifts, whether viewed as graces of the Spirit, or as forms of ministering to Christ, or the effects of God’ s power, are but different manifestations of the Holy Ghost, and are all intended for the edification of the Church (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). III. Their arrangement.1. The word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. 2. Faith, the gift of healing, the power of working miracles, prophesying, and the discerning of spirits. 3. The gift of tongues and their interpretation (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). IV. They are not only the fruits of the spirit, but are distributed according to His sovereign will (1 Corinthians 12:11). V. There is in this matter a striking analogy between the Church and the human body. For--1. As the body is one because animated by one spirit, so the Church is one because of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. 2. As the unity of life in the body is manifested in a diversity of organs and members, so is the indwelling of the Spirit by a diversity of gifts and offices. 3. As the very idea of the body as an organisation supposes this diversity in unity, the same is true in regard to the Church. 4. As in the body the members are mutually dependent, and no one exists for itself alone, so also in the Church. 5. As in the body the position and function of each member are determined by God, so also these gifts are distributed according to the good pleasure of their Author. 6. In the body the least attractive parts are those which are indispensable to its existence, and so in the Church it is not the most attractive gifts which are the most useful. VI. Inferences from this analogy.1. Every one should be contented with the gift which he has received just as the hand and the foot are contented with their position and office in the body. 2. There should be no exaltation of one member of the Church because of his gifts. 3. There must be mutual sympathy between the members of the Church, as there is between the members of the body. One cannot suffer without all the others suffering with it. No one lives, or acts, or feels for itself alone, but each in all the rest (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). Conclusion: What the apostle had said with regard to these spiritual gifts, applies in all its force to the various offices of the Church, which are the organs through which the gifts of the Spirit are exercised (1 Corinthians 12:28-31). (C. Hodge, D.D.)Spiritual gifts I. The distribution of spiritual gifts.1. The distribution is as varied as that of bodily and earthly gifts. (1) One penetrates into the depths of the wisdom of God in nature, history, human life, and in the plan of salvation. (2) Another communicates the sum of human knowledge in books or by speech. (3) To another there is given a special spiritual power which is able to sustain him under the most trying circumstances. (4) Or there are gifts of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues. Our own time is not wanting in spiritual gifts. Think of the spirit of investigation, and of the multitude of singers, preachers, leaders, and praying men. No village is too small in which may not be found a trace of spiritual gifts. 2. There are gifts enough, but no one person possesses them all. Hence all man-worship is entirely out of place. No self-exaltation is permissible. Every one has his limitations, which he cannot transcend without paying the penalty. And hence all discontent at our time and art is also out of order. 3. Every one has some kind of a gift. Often there creeps over us a feeling of gloom in view of more glorious gifts and greater successes on the part of others. But in God’ s sight humility and fidelity are of more avail than glory and splendour. Employ, then, thine own gifts without envy and without hindrance. He that cannot construct a magnificent park can plant roses in his little family garden. II. The right use of spiritual gifts.1. “ There are diversities of gifts,” but what is the Spirit whence they come and which they serve? The greater the gifts the greater the responsibility; a Saul becomes a Paul, but how many have reversed this course! 2. “ There are differences of administrations.” 3. There are diversities of operations. 4. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. (K. Gerok, D.D.)Spiritual gifts and inspiration I. The apostle lays down a broad general principle respecting spiritual inspiration (1 Corinthians 12:3).1. This made the broad separation between the, Church and the world, and is far above all distinctions as to gifts. It is far more important to ascertain that a man is a Christian than what sort of Christian he is (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). In what we differ from the world and not in what we differ from other Christians consists our distinction in the sight of God. Does baptism teach of a difference between Christians (1 Corinthians 12:13)? There are varieties, but they are all of “ the selfsame Spirit.” 2. Let us bring this home personally. What is it that waked up the energies of these Corinthians most? Was it that which stimulated the apostle at Athens (Acts 17:16)? or was it rather the difference between party and party? What is it that wakes up the polemical energies of this day? Is it opposition to evil, or is it opposition to some doctrine held by other Christians? Were half the energy spent in trampling down sin which is spent in religious controversy, the kingdom of God will soon be established in this world; but “ if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” II. The place and value assigned by St. Paul to differences of spiritual gifts.1. These differences are the very conditions of Christian unity. The distinction between a society and an association is that artificial association binds man to man on the principle of similarity, while natural society binds men together in diversity. The idea of the Church presented in the Bible is that of a family which is not a union of similarity, for the father differs from the mother, etc., and yet together they form a most blessed type of unity. 2. St. Paul carries on this principle, and draws out of it special personal duties; he says that gifts are granted to iudividuals for the sake of the whole Church. After this he applies the principle to-- (1) Those possessed of inferior gifts. These are-- (a) Not to envy. Observe here the difference between the Christian doctrine of unity and equality, and the world’ s doctrine of levelling all to one standard. The intention of God is not that the rude hand should have the delicacy of the eye, or the foot power of the brain, but to proclaim the real equality of each in mutual sympathy and love. (b) Not to despond. There are few temptations more common to ardent spirits than to repine at their lot, believing that in some other situation they could serve God better. St. Paul says that it is the duty of every such man to try to be himself, to do his own duty; for here in this world we are nothing apart from its strange and curious clockwork; and if each man had the spirit of the Cross it would not matter to him whether he were doing the work of the mainspring or of one of the inferior parts. (2) Those gifted with higher powers. These duties were-- (a) Humility. They were not to despise those who were inferior. As with the natural body the rudest parts are the most useful, and the delicate parts require most care, so is it with the body politic; the meanest trades are those with which we can least dispense. (b) Sympathy (1 Corinthians 12:26). How little, during eighteen hundred years, have the hearts of men been got to beat together! Nor can we say that this is the fault of the capitalists and the masters only, it is the fault of the servants and dependents also. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The work of the Spirit in modern life What the apostle saw the Divine Spirit doing on the limited area of the early Church, we can see Him doing at large in modern civilised society. Wherever the minds of men are kindled into activity, redeeming them from the thraldom of merely animal existence, there the inspiration of the Divine Spirit is at work. Of this the grandest forms are-- I. The satisfaction of the passionate desire filling so many hearts, eagerly asking, what is true? For that is equivalent to, What is Divine? What is it that really represents to us God’ s thought and way of working?1. This gift of the Spirit of truth is condemned by the worldly-minded, because it leads men to question what seems settled. 2. Men under the inspiration of this Spirit are not all impelled into the same departments of inquiry. (1) One man goes off upon the scientific track and wants to know the truth about the outboard universe. (2) Others again, feeling that mountains and rivers and animals can tell them little about the most entrancing matter, turn to ask, What is the nature of God and His relation to man? That which inspires this question is the voice of the great Father saying within us, “ Seek ye My face.” II. The revelation of beauty.1. The faculty which perceives the beautiful, wrought on by the Divine Spirit, was never so generally active as at the present day. (1) One of the most remarkable developments of the human mind is its recent awaking to the beauty and poetry of the external nature. The elder poets and painters did not go to nature for the inspiration of their masterpieces, but to man and to mythology. People travel in thousands over seas and continents to see a grand waterfall, or a sublime range of mountains. (2) Musical thought and feeling again has never attained to such wonderful expression, and in the whole history of the world we have never heard such bursts of glorious song as we have heard from Bach, Handel, etc. 2. I know that neither poetry, nor painting, nor music, will of themselves renew a man’ s moral nature; but if you can inspire along with the love of truth and goodness a love of the grand and the beautiful, you have done a great deal to assist the more direct religious influences. 3. The day will come when religion shall be more closely associated with its natural friends of culture and art, and in combination shalt consecrate the family life and drive out the demon of intemperance. III. The gift of goodness or beneficence.1. Gifts of healing were among the spiritual gifts, and we must surely reckon them amongst the most precious gifts vouchsafed to modern days. Human life is besieged by a whole army of diseases and dangers, both of mind and body, so that he who gives his whole mind and energy to prevent, or to heal them, is a gift of God to the sufferer. When every medical man shall become a deep student of his art, seeking for all the new light which God sends, untrammelled by the traditions merely of his profession, he will become a faithful minister of that Spirit who has called him to His Divine work, and an unspeakable blessing to society. 2. “ Government” is another item. This, whether local or imperial, must be regarded as one of the greatest of modern boons. Any one who helps to govern a city well, to promote the health and security of its inhabitants, even though he may get scant gratitude for his services, is as clearly a minister of God as he who preaches the gospel. And any man who helps to govern a nation well, who seeks to lead a people on by just laws and wise policy, stands in the front rank among God’ s eminent servants. The prosperity of a whole nation depends upon such men being at the helm of the national ship. 3. Gifts of speech have become ours in a far more wonderful way than those of the Apostolic Church. The universe has become vocal, and the distant sun and planets are full of speech, telling us something of their own tale. The buried monuments of extinct empires have arisen to tell us the story of their history. Languages which were spoken in the grey dawn of the world speak to us again through the labours of scholars who have wrought at ill-requited work. Nearly all the speech and dialects now spoken in the wide world have been mastered and made intelligible to us. The eastern world speaks to the western as easily as two persons conversing in the same room, and the telegraph girdles the globe with fiery thought and flashing speech. And consider how the channels of communication from mind to mind are multiplied in all civilised communities. There is the greatest of all modern miracles--the daily newspaper, and it would be endless to speak of the books and periodicals that are printed in all departments of inquiry or imagination. And then consider how God has gifted some men with the powers of speech as orators. Think what this modern English tongue becomes in their use of it--flexible, rich, majestic, for the expression of every variety of thought and feeling. (C. Short, M.A.)The unity of the Christian Church is its diversity 1. There are various believers, but one faith (1 Corinthians 12:1-3). 2. There are various ordinances, but one Ordainer (1 Corinthians 12:4-6). 3. There are various operations, but one work (1 Corinthians 12:7-11). (Pastor Pfeiffer.)The Christly assembly Every member of this community-- I. Has passed through a radical change (1 Corinthians 12:1-2).1. This is a change from the spirit of the Gentiles or the world to the Spirit of Christ--the most radical change that can take place in a man. 2. This is described-- (1) Negatively. No man who has experienced it has anything irreverent or profane in his spirit towards Christ (1 Corinthians 12:3). (2) Positively (1 Corinthians 12:3). “ Can say,” not of course merely the words, for all could easily do that, but with the heart and life. 3. This is the production of the Holy Ghost. No man is a member of the true Church who has not come under the control of the Spirit of Christ. There are such who are found in no Church, and there may be Curches where no such are found. All such, however, wherever found, belong to the Church of the “ firstborn written in heaven.” II. Has received special endowments from God (1 Corinthians 12:4-12).1. These may be divided into-- (1) Those of intellect. “ Wisdom,” “ knowledge,” etc. (2) Those of “ faith,” operating faith in words, deeds, and “ discernment.” (3) Those of langunge. “ Tongues,” speaking and interpreting. 2. Now all responsible men have-- (1) Intellect of some kind and amount. (2) Faith of some sort. Man has an instinctive tendency to believe, hence his credulity is proverbial. And he is necessitated to believe: he could not carry on the business of life without faith. (3) A language of some kind or other. 3. The man who has come into possession of the Christly Spirit and purpose, and is thus a member of the genuine Church, will receive-- (1) A new force and elevation of intellect. (2) A new object and energy of faith. (3) A new style and emphasis of expression, a new tongue. 4. This great variety of endowments reveals-- (1) The sovereignty of the Spirit. Why did He bestow any at all? Still more, why so different to different men? The only answer is because it pleased Him so to do. “ He worked all things after the counsel of His own will.” (2) His affluence. He is the inexhaustible Fountain, not only of all life, but of all spiritual endowments. (3) His benevolence. All these varied endowments are for “ profit.” 5. Since all our endowments are the free gifts of God, there is no reason for those of the humblest to be dissatisfied, nor for those who have the most splendid to be exultant. III. Should regard these endowments as parts of a vital whole, ie., of the “ body of Christ.” As the soul resides in, directs, and reveals itself in the body, so Christ in the true Church (1 Corinthians 12:12, etc.). Great is the variety in the various faculties, organs, and parts of the human body. Some are larger and more comely than others, but each, even the most insignificant and uncomely, are equally essential (1 Corinthians 12:22, etc.). How preposterous would it be for one part of the body to contend with another for importance and supremacy! Yet not more absurd than for one member of a Church to contend with another. (D. Thomas, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 12:2 Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols.The great change and its obligations Observe-- I. The condition of the heathen.1. Worshippers of dumb idols.2. Carried away by their lusts.3. Led by the devil and his agents. II. This condition was yours.1. Literally in past times.2. Spiritually in your own former experience. III. The change in you has been effected by God’ s grace.1. Through the gospel.2. By the agency of others.3. Hence your obligation to send it to the world. Christianity and heathenism Two things are here expressed-- I. The dead silence of the state of heathenism--the idols standing voiceless, with neither mouths to speak, nor ears to hear--silent amongst their silent worshippers. “ The oracles are dumb.” This is contrasted with the music and speech of Christianity, “ the sound of a mighty, rushing wind,” “ the voice of many waters,” which resounded through the whole Church in the diffusion of the gifts, especially of prophesying and tongues. II. The unconscious irrational state of heathenism, in which the worshippers were blindly hurried away by some overruling power of fate, or evil spirit of divination or priestly caste, without any will or reason of their own to worship at the shrine of inanimate idols. This is contrasted with the consciousness of an indwelling Spirit, moving in harmony with their spirits, and controlled by a sense of order and wisdom. Possibly there is the further intention of impressing the superiority of the conscious over the unconscious gifts of the Spirit. (Dean Stanley.)No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and … no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. Jesus anathema The first thing needed by a Church so inexperienced was to know what was the true character of the Divine influence. The apostle says every utterance, be it prophecy, tongue, or doctrine, which amounts to saying “ Jesus is accursed,” is not Divinely inspired. But to whom can we attribute this language? To the Jews or unbelieving Gentiles who treated Jesus as an impostor, and saw in His ignominious and cruel death a token of the Divine curse (1 Corinthians 1:23)? No; for how could Christians be tempted to esteem such as inspired? Besides, we have here to do with discourses uttered in church; and how would anti-Christians have been allowed to speak there? Does, then, Paul admit the possibility of discourses from Christians to this effect? Remember the powerful fermentation of religious ideas then called forth by the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, the apostle speaks of teachers newly arrived in Corinth, who preached another Jesus and raised a different spirit to that which the Church had received. It was therefore not only another doctrine, but another breath, a new principle of inspiration, which these people brought with them. In 1 Corinthians 16:22 he devotes to anathema certain persons who love not Jesus when the Lord shall come, which would be very severe if it were not a return for the anathema which they threw in His face. How was this possible in a Christian Church? We must observe the term “ Jesus,” detecting the historical and earthly person of our Lord, and hear in mind that from the earliest times there were people who, offended at the idea of the ignominious punishment of the Cross, and the unheard abasement of the Son of God, thought they must set up a distinction between the man Jesus and the true Christ. The first had been, according to them, a pious Jew. A heavenly Being, the true Christ, had chosen Him to serve as His organ while He acted below as the Saviour of humanity. But this Christ from above had parted from Jesus before the Passion, and left the latter to suffer and die alone. It is easy to see how, from this point of view, one might curse the Crucified One who appeared to have been cursed of God on the Cross, and that without thinking he was cursing the true Saviour, and while remaining without scruple a member of the Church. Cerinthus taught this doctrine, and Epiphanius affirms that this Epistle was written against him. The Ophites, or serpent worshippers, too, who existed before the end of the first century, asked those who wished to enter their churches to curse Jesus. In stating this first negative criterion, the apostle therefore means: However ecstatic in form or profound in matter may be a spiritual manifestation, if it tends to degrade Jesus, to make Him an impostor or a man worthy of the Divine wrath, if it does violence in any way to His holiness, you may be sure the inspiring breath of such a discourse is not that of God’ s Spirit. Such is the decisive standard which the prophets, e.g., are summoned to use when they sit in judgment on one another (chap. 14:29). (Prof. Godet.)The denial of Christ I. Its forms.1. Infidelity makes Him an impostor.2. Socinianism robs Him of His Divinity.3. Impenitence and unbelief resist His claims and authority.4. All by denying practically declare Him accursed. II. Its cause. The want of the Spirit. Hence a man is governed in his views and conduct either by a depraved reason or corrupt natural sense. III. Its consequences.1. Delusion.2. Misery.3. Ruin. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The confession of Christ I. What it implies.1. A full conviction of His supreme authority as Lord and Christ.2. A believing trust in Him.3. A willing submission to His authority. II. How is it elicited? By the Holy Ghost, who--1. Enlightens.2. Convinces.3. Assures.4. Sanctifies--him that believeth. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The confession that Jesus is Lord by the Holy Ghost Note-- I. The general impotency of man in spiritual duties. Here we see--1. The universality of our loss in Adam. No one hath any power to do this. Which notes their blasphemy that exempt any man from the infection of sin. 2. Where this impotency lies--in man. “ No man.” Which notes their blasphemy that say man may be saved by his natural faculties as he is man. 3. By just occasion of that word “ can,” is able, we see also the laziness of man who, though he can do nothing effectually and primarily, yet does not do so much as he might do. II. What this spiritual duty is wherein we are all so impotent.1. An outward act, a profession; not that the outward act is enough, but that the inward affection alone is not enough neither. To think it, to believe it, is not sufficient; we must say it, profess it. 2. And what? (1) That Jesus is: not only assent to the history, and matter of fact that Jesus was, and did all that is recorded of Him, but that he is still that which He pretended to be. Caesar is not Caesar still, nor is Alexander, Alexander; but Jesus is Jesus still, and shall be for ever. (2) That He is the Lord. He was not sent hither as the greatest of the prophets, nor as the greatest of the priests; His work consists not only in having preached to us, nor in having sacrificed Himself, thereby to be an example to us; but He is Lord. He purchased a dominion with His blood. He is the Lord, not only the Lord paramount, but the only Lord, no other hath a lordship in our souls and no other any part in saving them but He. III. This cannot be done but by the Holy Ghost.1. All recalls but one are excluded, and therefore that one must necessarily be hard to be compassed. The knowledge and discerning of the Holy Ghost is a difficult thing. 2. As all other means are excluded, so this one is included as necessary. Nothing can effect it but having the Holy Ghost, and therefore the Holy Ghost may be had. (J. Donne, D.D.)Jesus the Lord I. The truth that Jesus is the Lord. The man Jesus for thirty-three years acted as a man in connection with men, and at last died. This man is the Lord. The word he uses is almost invariably the translation of Jehovah in the LXX., a version in common use among the apostles. Now if Paul, as a Jew, called Jesus Jehovah, he must have demanded for Him all those attributes which his nation was wont to associate with that name; and that he did claim these attributes for Jesus no candid and qualified reader of his sermons and epistles can doubt. II. This tremendous truth is so transcendent that it cannot be accepted without Divine help. No man of himself can affirm it--can state it as the natural conviction of his judgment. When you tell me that Jesus was born, lived, taught, and died, I understand you; for you have narrated a natural event; but when you tell me that Jesus is the great God, you transport me from the sphere of intelligible statement and testimony into wonderland. I do not mean that the Godhead of Christ is naturally inconceivable, but simply that the doctrine is above me. I cannot say that Jesus is God unless you add some other power to my mind, or stimulate to an unnatural intensity the powers I have. St. Paul affirms that no man can: and if St. Paul had not affirmed it we should have found it out. The history of controversy has repeated it in every age. Modern philosophers maintain this in a spirit of boasting, ill concealed beneath an affectation of scientific certainty; as if it had been left for them to discover; whereas Paul asserted it from the first. And he has described this temper of mind with as much candour and accuracy as if he had been a philosopher himself! “ The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,” etc.; neither can he know them. The natural men have been unconsciously repeating Paul’ s words from his day to ours. Now there is a portion of this wonderful truth which is historic--the works and the resurrection of Jesus. These were visible facts, and might be supposed to lie within the realm of observation and testimony. But see how the natural men treat them--as they dare not treat any other history. They first say that Jesus cannot be God, and then they read the gospels to explain away New Testament facts. I do not blame these men because they are unable to say that Jesus is the Lord, any more than I would rate a blind man for not knowing the sun; but I should censure the blind man if he declared there was no sun because he could not see it. III. The evidence by which this grand truth can be affirmed. The internal persuasion of the Holy Ghost. This leads us at once into the region of the supernatural. Here we part company with the wise, and the scribe, and the disputer of this world. Here we speak in parables to them that are without. The Spirit is the author of the expression or manifestation of the Christian religion. The lips of prophets were touched, and the pens of scribes were moved, by Him; the holy child Jesus was conceived by Him; the dispensing of the glad tidings, that that child was a light to lighten the Gentiles, was entrusted to Him. Now, the first step towards the confession of the Godhead of Christ is the conviction of sin by the Holy Ghost. The misery following such a conviction of sin will make a man strive against it, and learn by bitter failures his helplessness. When I preach Jesus to a man in this state, with his self-despair and his eager cries for help, he not only sees no difficulty in accepting the Godhead of Christ, but he grasps it as the only truth that can give him comfort. He wants a God-mediator because he has sinned against God. He must take his forgiveness from Him against whom he has sinned; and, being pardoned, he must render Him the full and loyal service of his heart and life. That which makes Jesus our final resting-place is His Godhead: that which gives an omnipotent potency to His blood is His equality with the Father. How easy for those whom the Holy Ghost has convinced of sin, and who have imagined under the tyranny of its power what a counter-power that must be which could redeem us from it--how easy for such to admit that Jesus is God! (E. E. Jenkins, D.D.)The impossibility of truly believing and savingly confessing Christ, but by the Holy Ghost I. The statement in the text needs explanation. It does not mean that a person cannot repeat the words, “ Jesus is the Lord,” but by the Holy Ghost. What, then, is the true meaning, of the text? It is that none can without the Holy Spirit make this confession--1. With a firm belief of its truth. 2. With a firm reliance on Him for salvation. In order to our relying on Jesus Christ for salvation two things are necessary. (1) We must feel our need of such a salvation. (2) We must believe that there is such a provision made for our salvation in Christ Jesus, neither of which we can do without the influence of the Holy Spirit. 3. With a full purpose of living to His glory. II. We are here instructed--1. In the nature of true religion. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ lies at the foundation of all true religion. That glorious truth, “ Jesus is the Lord,” that He who died upon the Cross for our sins is “ the Lord,” this truth is the great turning point of salvation, and whoever truly believes it is brought into a state of salvation. By the belief of this glorious truth he is also prepared for God’ s service, to confess Him before men, and to maintain a conduct, according to His will, in the face of all difficulties from within and from without. 2. In the need of the Holy Spirit. We cannot know and believe that “ Jesus is the Lord” so as to have our hearts savingly affected by it, so as to depend on Jesus as our Saviour, so as to be renewed thereby after His image in righteousness and true holiness. To attain this faith the special operation of the Holy Ghost is needful. 3. The peculiar office of the Holy Ghost. How He works, and by what means. (G. Maxwell, B.A.)The work of the Holy Ghost necessary to man I. The need of the Spirit’ s work. It is a matter of needful preliminary consideration, that we dwell upon the guiltiness of our own nature. And no man wants more evidence than that which he finds concurrently upon the page of the Bible and in the volume of his own heart; he has only to look into the former to see what is holy and right and good; he has only to look into the latter in order to see how utterly we have departed therefrom. And this condition is not to be changed by any power which we can set in motion. It is not to be changed by the force of education. It is true that we may train and discipline our children to a certain outward course; we may bind upon them the necessity of maintaining a certain line of conduct, but this has nothing to do with the heart. It is not even by the ordinances of God’ s appointment that we can ensure the conversion of souls. II. The mode of the Spirit’ s operations. It is a marvellous work which is wrought upon the soul of every man who passes from a state of nature into a state of grace. It is a change of desires, hopes, purposes, objects--a new birth. We can trace it by its results; we cannot always trace it by its accomplishment. “ The wind bloweth where it listeth,” etc. But we are certain that if the effect be really and truly wrought upon any man the results will be manifest. “ The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” etc. When the evil has been removed, when the hardness has been subdued, when the door of the understanding has been opened to admit the truth of Christianity, and when the door of the heart has been unclosed to all its blessed influences, the man comes to pursue earnestly and diligently those things for which he had once no esteem. (S. Robins.)Faith a gift of the Spirit Perhaps there is no one habit which Scripture attributes more often, either explicitly or implicitly, to the agency of the Holy Spirit than a sound and lively faith; and there is none, therefore, which the soul will more carefully seek and cherish. Faith, in the sense in which we are here concerned with it, is the belief of a professed revelation of God to man, on the authority of God who made it, and a lively faith is such a conviction of its truth as causes it to operate as a motive on our affections and lives. It is itself, then, a habit of the intellect, and appears, so far, to become moral only at the point where it influences, rather than is influenced by, the will. And in this light, as a moral motive, coupled too, as it often is in Scripture, with those effects which it should produce on the will, there seems no greater difficulty in viewing faith as a work of the Spirit than in so regarding repentance, love, or obedience. But in the prior intellectual process--the conviction of the understanding by the force of proof--there is a difficulty which has been felt probably by most minds. There appears, as far as can be seen, no more reason to seek or expect Divine interposition to correct or prevent a logical error, than to stay the effects of any physical power which we ourselves have set in motion. Either would be a miracle which God may work, but which we have no authority to suppose He will. We can no more refuse to believe what is proved, or believe what is destitute of apparent proof, than the eye can reject or change the forms and colours thrown by external objects on the retina. How then can the reception of a doctrine by the reason be affected by the operations of Divine grace? If it is proved, must it not be believed? This difficulty, however, such as it is, is not peculiar to Scripture, or religious truth, or the question of the Holy Spirit’ s influence. It belongs equally to the acknowledged fact that, on almost every subject, men, apparently of equivalent power of intellect, with precisely the same evidence before them, arrive at widely different conclusions. Thus it is every day in history, in politics, in much that is called science, in the judgment we form of each other’ s characters and conduct, and even in the credit that is given to alleged events almost within the sphere of our own observation. Whether it be that a partial and temporal blindness of the judgment is superinduced by the force of passion and the tension of the will; or whether, as seems more probable, attention, the optic glass, or rather the eye of the mind, is directed by the prevailing emotion excited by the subject in question, with more intensity on a certain class of considerations bearing upon it, while others it glances over slightly, or entirely disregards--even as the bodily eye gazing fixedly on one object is as blind for the time to all the rest as if they were not--so that from all the topics which should have been considered in due weight and measure, it culls those only which lead to the desired conclusion, or gives them such undue prominence in the field of vision that the judgment, deceived and misled, arrives, at a partial, though acceptable, decision--these are questions which may be left to the metaphysician to solve. It is enough for us that the fact is admitted, that everywhere, but in the necessary truths of demonstrative reasoning, the conclusions of reason are actually modified by the wishes, interests, or prejudices of the reasoner; so that belief is not merely the result of intellect, but is, in perhaps a large majority of cases, the mixed product of the moral and intellectual faculties combined. And if this be true where the feelings and passions are only remotely affected, and should not be so at all, how much more will it have place when the subject-matter is religion, which must teach the tenderest part of our moral nature; which strikes on hopes and fears; which bears directly on every affection, passion, motive, habit, and act; which, if admitted to be true, requires a complete revolution in the whole inner man and in great part of the outward conduct. The choice of arrangement of the materials with which reason is to work is much in the power of the will; and the will is prejudiced, and cannot, or will not, honestly do its part. It is not, then, surprising that our Lord should have attributed unbelief always to moral, never to purely intellectual causes (see John 3:18-20; John 5:40-44; John 7:17). It will follow, too--which is the point more immediately before us--not only that in the formation of a sound and living faith there is room for the agency of the Holy Spirit, but that without His aid such faith cannot exist. For if the character of our belief depends not merely on the correctness of the reasoning process, but much more on prior operations of the will, by which the antecedents and materials of reason are selected and arranged, and if our moral nature is in our unregenerate state warped and impaired so as to have a disinclination to what is good and a bias to what is evil, it is evident that the gospel, placed before such a tribunal, must be tried by a prejudiced and incapable judge; that, being wished false, and admitting of objections capable of being magnified and coloured into refutations, it is certain to be found false; and that nothing can rectify the balance of judgment, and place truth on an equal footing with falsehood, but the same external and Divine power which changes and renews the will of man, and enables it to love right instead of wrong, and to desire in all things to know and to do God’ s will. Let us now, in further illustration of what has been said, endeavour to trace in one or two instances the process by which moral causes, acting on the intellect, may lead to avowed or practical belief.1. In a certain class of minds infidelity and heresy alike seem to owe their origin to intellectual pride. To believe is to, adopt the same opinions which have been the creed of multitudes before, and to be confounded in the mass of unreasoning minds which have received implicitly the same traditionary tenets. Objections, on the other hand, have an air of novelty. There is at least the appearance of power in striking out difficulties. It is an intoxicating pleasure to feel different from other men--that is, in our own judgment, superior to them--and the brain often reels under it. Besides this, there is a prejudice against the gospel from the mere circumstance of its being old. In every science new discoveries are making daily. In history, in politics, in science, men have been long mistaken, why not in religion also? With such feelings and prepossessions the mind catches up objections to Christianity, or to some of its doctrines, as just what it was expecting to find. It dwells on them; it magnifies them by the exclusion of other presumptions, till they fill the field of mental vision and leave no room for truth. Humility and faith are kindred gifts of the same Spirit. 2. Another source of unbelief is even more evidently moral. It arises when the soul would hide from God after displeasing Him by wilful sin. Some, for example, smother accusing thoughts in worldly amusements and the dissipation of frivolous gaiety. But many--far more, probably, than can be known till the secrets of all hearts are disclosed--take refuge in a kind of partial unbelief. There are difficulties in revelation, and in some of its doctrines--light as a feather, indeed, when weighed impartially in the balance against the accumulated evidences of truth, but not of course without weight when poised and pondered over by themselves. Such the writhing soul is glad to seize. Suppose the gospel should not be true? his obligations are imaginary, and his guilt and ingratitude are unreal. (Bp. Jackson.)The necessity of Divine influence in the study and use of Holy Scripture I. What progress may be made in the study and use of Scripture without the special influence of the Holy Spirit.1. It is obvious that, without such special influence of the Spirit of God, it is possible to arrive at a merely speculative belief in the truth of Scripture. Men of keen faculties in other pursuits do not forfeit them on approaching the Word of God. 2. It is possible for an individual, without the special influence of the Holy Spirit, to obtain a general acquaintance with the contents of the sacred volume. The strongest eye will make the largest discoveries. 3. It is possible, without the special influence of the Holy Spirit, to feel the highest admiration for parts of the sacred volume. 4. Such an individual may proceed clearly and strikingly to display the contents of the sacred volume to others. He may be a man of lively imagination, and conjure up the most attractive images for the illustration of the truth. He may be a master in composition and therefore able to describe forcibly what he sees distinctly. But, nevertheless, all these powers and faculties may be called into action without the operation of any principle of piety, and therefore without the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit on the soul. II. What is that knowledge and use of Scripture of which the Holy Ghost must be considered as the exclusive Author.1. It is by the Holy Spirit we are led to make a personal application of the holy Scripture to our own case. 2. It is the Spirit of God alone who endears the promises of Scripture to the heart. They nominally called Christ “ Lord” before, but they now use the expression in a higher and more appropriate sense. They are entirely His. They “ yield their members as instruments of righteousness” to Him. 3. It is the Holy Spirit alone who brings the Word of God effectually to bear upon the temper and conduct. As soon as this new influence is felt on the soul our chains begin to drop from us. Conclusions:1. Let the text teach us not to confound the results of our natural powers with the fruits of the Spirit. 2. Let the text teach us the transcendent importance of seeking habitually and devoutly the presence and influence of the Spirit of God. 3. If He does not lead us to “ say that Jesus is the Lord” --to acknowledge Him, practically and spiritually, as our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Teacher, our Example--the whole of Scripture is as to us a dead letter, and we have “ received the grace of God in vain.” (J. W. Cunningham.)The Lordship of Jesus the ground of unity I. There are reasons for believing that the expression, “ Jesus is Lord,” was the primitive form of Christian creed, out of which all other more elaborate forms have grown (Philippians 2:11).1. This simple formula contains in germ the whole faith, both objectively and subjectively. We cannot heartily accept this without accepting with it the truths of His incarnation, atonement, resurrection, reign. It includes also all that we need for our own spiritual welfare. If He is Lord, we are His, He is ours. 2. So full and so mighty is this confession of faith that we cannot heartily make it save by the power of the Holy Ghost (cf. St. Matthew 16:16-17). To make it on the authority of others, or because our reasoning faculties have been convinced of its truth, is not sufficient. It is real only when the Holy Spirit has convinced our spirit that it is a living truth. II. From the above considerations we can gain some guidance is the search after unity among Christians. If the essential primitive creed that “ Jesus is the Lord” be held spiritually--1. It may be permitted us to differ as to the exact methods in which He works upon our spiritual being. St. Paul allows that there are diversities of gifts, differences of administration, differences of operation. 2. We shall learn not to contradict the spiritual experiences of others because they have been gained by methods differing from our own. Our creed is a creed of affirmations, not of denials. The spiritual education of St. Peter differed from that of St. John, and both differed from that of St. Paul or St. James, yet they are united in their belief in the one Lord. (Canon Vernon button.)The teaching of the Spirit of God I. The lesson we are to learn, to say. “ Jesus is the Lord.”1. It is but short, but it is the whole gospel. Here is Jesus, “ a Saviour” and “ the Lord,” and as they are joined together in one Christ, no man must put them asunder. If we wilt have Christ our Saviour, we must make Him our Lord: and if we make Him our Lord, He will then be our Saviour. Had He not been the Lord, the world had been a chaos, the Church a body without a head, a family without a father, an army without a captain, a ship without a pilot, and a kingdom without a king. 2. What it is to say it. It is soon said: it is but three words. The devils themselves did say it (Matthew 8:29). And if the heretic will not confess it, saith Hilary, “ what more fit to convince him than the cry of the devils themselves?” The “ vagabond Jews” thought to work miracles with these words (Acts 19:13). To say it taketh in the tongue, the heart, the hand, i.e., an outward profession, an inward persuasion, a constant practice answerable to them both. (1) We are bound to say it (Romans 10:9; 1 John 4:15). (a) But if to say it were sufficient, there needed no Holy Ghost to teach it. We might learn to say it as the parrot did to salute Caesar. And indeed, if we take a survey or the conversation of most Christians, we shall find that our confession is much after the fashion of birds. (b) Some dare not but say it for very shame, lest those they live with should confute them. Yet the voice may be for Jesus and the heart for Mammon. “ It is a voice, and no more.” Thus they may name Him who never name Him but in their execrations. (2) As there is “ a word floating on the tongue,” so there is the word of the heart, when by due examination we are well persuaded that Jesus is the Lord. We call it “ faith,” which as a fire will not be concealed (Jeremiah 20:9; Psalms 39:3; Psalms 116:10). Sometimes we read of its valour (Hebrews 11:33); its policy (2 Corinthians 2:11), its strength; but that faith should be idle, or speechless, or dead, is contrary to its nature. Now there are many who maintain the truth, but by those ways which are contrary to the truth (2 Timothy 3:5); crying, “ Jesus is the Lord,” but scourging Him with their blasphemies, and fighting against Him with their lusts. Therefore-- (3) That we may truly say it, we must speak it to God as God speaketh to us; who, if “ He saith it, will make it good “ (Numbers 23:19). And as He speaketh to us by His benefits, so must we speak to Him by our obedience. For if He be indeed our Lord, then shall we be under His command. II. The teacher. As the lesson is difficult, we must have a skilful master.1. Good reason that the Holy Ghost should be our teacher. For as the lesson is, such should the master be. The lesson is spiritual; the teacher a Spirit. The lecture is a lecture of piety; and the Spirit is a Holy Spirit. It is not sharpness of wit, or quickness of apprehension, or force of eloquence, that can raise us to this truth. 2. “ Christ dwelleth in us by His Spirit” (Romans 8:11). Who teaches us-- (1) By sanctifying our knowledge of Christ; by showing us the riches of His gospel, and the majesty of His kingdom, with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship. (2) By quickening, enlivening, and even actuating our faith. For this Spirit “ dwelleth in our hearts by faith,” maketh us to be “ rooted and grounded in love,” enableth us to believe with efficacy (Ephesians 3:17). 3. A teacher then He is. But great care is to be taken that we mistake Him not, or take some other spirit for Him. And it doth not follow, because some men mistake and abuse the Spirit, that no man is taught by Him. Because I will not learn, doth not the Spirit therefore teach? And if some men take dreams for revelations, must the Holy Ghost needs lose His office? 4. But you will say perhaps that “ the Holy Ghost was a teacher in the apostles’ times, but doth He still keep open school?” Yes, certainly. Though we be no apostles, yet we are Christians; and the same Spirit teacheth both. And by His light we avoid all by-paths of dangerous error, and discern, though not all truth, yet all that is necessary. III. His prerogative. He is our “ sole instructor.”1. “ There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” And there are diversities of teachers, but the same Spirit. (1) The Church is “ the house of learning,” and “ the pillar of the truth.” (2) The Word is a teacher: and Christ by open proclamation hath commanded us to have recourse unto it. (3) We are taught also by Christ’ s discipline. 2. All these are teachers; but their authority and efficacy is from the Spirit. The Church, if not directed by the Spirit, were but a rout or conventicle; the Word, if not quickened by the Spirit, “ a dead letter” ; and His discipline a rod of iron, first to harden us, and then break us to pieces. But the Spirit bloweth upon His garden the Church, and the spices thereof flow (Son 4:16); He sitteth upon the seed of the Word, and hatcheth a new creature, a subject to this Lord; He moveth upon these waters of bitterness, and then they make us “ fruitful to every good work.” Conclusion: Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly, that “ Jesus is the Lord,” and assure thyself that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak? Mark well then those symptoms of His presence. Remember--1. That He is a Spirit, and the Spirit of God, and so is contrary to the flesh, and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it, or let it loose to insult over the spirit. 2. That He is “ a right Spirit” (Psalms 51:10); not now glancing on heaven, and having an eye fixed and buried in the earth. 3. That He is a Spirit of truth. And it is the property of truth to be always like unto itself, to change neither shape nor voice. (A. Farindon, B.D.)Who have, and who have not, the Spirit I. Who do not speak by the spirit of God, and have not His influences. “ They that call Jesus accursed” (Leviticus 27:21; Leviticus 27:28).1. The test put on Christians by their persecutors was, that they should revile and blaspheme Christ. Pliny, writing to Trajan, says, “ When they” (the Christians) “ could be induced to call on the gods … and, moreover, to revile Christ, to none of which things it is said that those who are in reality Christians can be compelled, I thought they ought to be released.” And the Jews not only uttered blasphemies against Christ themselves, but extorted them, if possible, from those they apprehended to be His disciples (Acts 26:11). The apostle, therefore, here signifies that those who reviled Christ had not the Spirit. This is applicable to those who in any way detract from the glory of Christ, or that do not acknowledge Him to be Lord. 2. It includes-- (1) All that blaspheme Him, or account Him, an impostor; as all infidels, heathens, Jews, Mohammedans, and whoever does not acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah (John 8:24; 1 John 4:3). (2) All that reject Him (Acts 4:11). (a) As a Teacher, not receiving the whole of His doctrine as infallibly true. (b) As a Mediator, not making His atonement or intercession the ground of their justification (Romans 9:31; Romans 10:3). (c) As a Saviour from sin and its consequences. (d) As a King, by disobeying His laws. For, as the chief end for which the Holy Spirit is given to us is to glorify Christ, if we neglect, or be indifferent about, Him, it is certain we are not inspired by that Spirit. II. Who have the Holy Spirit? All that “ say that Jesus is the Lord.”1. What is implied in saying this? To say so is-- (1) To believe and confess that, although He was despised and persecuted, yet He was the Lord Christ promised to the patriarchs, foretold by the prophets (Malachi 3:1; Psalms 110:1; 1 John 4:2; Matthew 16:16); anointed and qualified to be our Teacher, our Redeemer (Isaiah 59:20-21; Hebrews 2:14), our Saviour, our Owner, our King (Philippians 2:11), our Lord and Master (Romans 14:7-9), our Judge (Romans 14:9-12). (2) To believe and confess Him to be the Son of God, in a sense that no other being is His Son (1 John 4:15; Matthew 16:16; Hebrews 1:3, etc.); therefore, to be the “ heir” and “ lord of all” --to be “ Immanuel, God with us” (Romans 9:5). It is impossible He should sustain His offices, or be our Lord, if He be not God. 2. The importance of it. (1) It is the end of His life, death, and resurrection, that He should be acknowledged such (Philippians 2:6-11). (2) It is necessary to our salvation, and certainly connected with it (Romans 10:8-10; 1 John 4:13-15). (3) It tends to the glory of God, and the salvation of others. 3. It can only be said “ by the Holy Ghost.” It must be said-- (1) In the mind believingly and sincerely; therefore, it must proceed from knowledge which we cannot have but by the Spirit (Matthew 11:27; 1 Corinthians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 2:12; John 16:13-15; Ephesians 1:17; 2 Corinthians 4:6). (2) In the heart, affectionately (Romans 10:10; and 1 Corinthians 16:22; 1 Peter 2:7-8); but this love we cannot have but by the Spirit (Romans 5:5). (3) With lips, openly, whatever it may cost (Romans 10:9; 2 Timothy 2:8-14; Matthew 10:25; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 10:32-39), which we cannot do of ourselves, or without faith and a new birth (1 John 5:4-5), and, therefore, without the Spirit. (4) By the life, consistently. (J. Benson.)Spiritual discernment I. What does this statement mean? The Holy Ghost must--1. Convince us of its truth.2. Reveal to us its importance.3. Inspire us to trust in it. II. Upon what is it based? It is--1. Necessarily a matter of revelation.2. Contrary to the carnal mind.3. Superior to human reason. (W. W. Wythe.)Divine grace necessary to the right appreciation of revealed truth It seems a very simple thing to say that Jesus is the Christ, and yet the apostle declares that no man can do this but by the Holy Ghost. This is cutting down human power to a very low point indeed; and if that be so, then must the whole of Revelation be a sealed book to us, unless laid open by the Spirit of God. I. The text does not assert the incompetency of the human understanding in matters of religion. Though the understanding was greatly injured by the fall, nevertheless in the main it still faithfully executes its part. But it can only judge of things according to the representations laid before it; and if those representations be incorrect, it may deliver a wrong judgment, and yet be no ways in fault. E.g., we lay a case before a lawyer; he delivers a favourable opinion; nevertheless, when we go into court, the verdict is against us. Now, it is possible enough that the lawyer may have been to blame, but the case may not have been fairly submitted to him; a colouring may have been thrown over certain facts, which has distorted them. Then surely the lawyer is not in fault. II. The understanding may be deceived.1. By the senses. Let us suppose a man born with impaired senses, but with a clear understanding. Suppose that his eye distorts everything, or is unable to discriminate colours; suppose his touch imperfect, or his ear faulty. Now what will the powers of the man’ s understanding avail him when such senses make their report? Would he not himself require to be made the subject of a rectifying process ere he could frame any true and fitting conceptions of the world in which he is placed? 2. By the affections. There are in all of us faculties by which we love and by which we hate certain things; the former is in right order if it fix on nothing but what is worthy of our love, and the latter if it fix on nothing but what is worthy of our hatred. But if, like the diseased eye or ear, they misrepresent objects, what will the understanding be able to do, seeing that the impression transmitted to it of evil may make it seem good, and of good may make it seem evil? And is not man in his natural state a being with depraved affections, though he may not be a being with vitiated senses? By nature he regards as worthy of his best love what God would have him despise, and gives his aversion to that which God would have him value; he seeks happiness where God asserts that it cannot be found, and denies that it exists where alone God would place it. The task demanded from the understanding by religion is, that it determine that in God is man’ s chief good, and that in obedience to God is also true happiness. But whilst the affections in their natural state give preference to some finite good and shrink from God’ s service, how can the understanding deliver the verdict required by religion any more than it could form a correct notion of a tree, if the senses represent it as lying on the ground in place of springing from it? III. The Holy Spirit is required to work on that by which the understanding is deceived, i.e., in the heart; removing the corrupt bias from the affections, and purifying them so that they shall find their chief good in God, ere the head can apprehend the great truths of the gospel, confess their force, and bow to their authority. Men often profess to count it very strange that we should make them out incapable of understanding spiritual things, when they have confessedly so much power in other departments of knowledge. The proper answer is, that the affections are to spiritual things what the senses are to natural things. If, then, the affections misrepresent the objects of which they have to give impressions to the understanding, the result will be of the same kind as if the work were done by the senses. The Holy Ghost did not come to give a new understanding, for there was strength enough in the head; He came to set in order those faculties through which the understanding is necessarily influenced. And it follows indubitably, from such passages as our text, that until a man has submitted himself to the influences of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the meaning of the Bible, and yield himself to the duties of religion. (H. Melvill, B.D.)Real submission to Christ the effect of Divine influence I. The manner in which a true Christian is here described.1. He says “ Jesus is the Lord.” The term “ Lord” is here used to signify Christ’ s Messiahship, including His authority and dominion. “ He is Lord of all.” Christ has authority-- (1) To teach, to prescribe the faith of His followers, to enact laws for His Church, to direct and command in all things pertaining to our present duty, and our hopes for the future. (2) To rule. As Lord of all, He is the head of that mediatorial government which externals over the world, for the sake of His Church which is in the world. His reign is a reign of grace. His throne is in the hearts of the faithful, who are made willing in the day of His power, and find their pleasure in their obedience. (3) To pardon and save. When on earth He had power to forgive sins; and He is now “ exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give remission of sins.” We are required to look unto Him, that we might be saved. (4) He will hereafter come in the clouds of heaven with all authority to judge. 2. But what is meant by saying that Jesus is the Lord? (1) That to say it aright you must cordially receive Christ, and trust in Him as your Redeemer and Saviour (John 1:12-13). (2) With this is connected a spirit of submission, and a practical acknowledgment of His lordship over us. To say He is the Lord, and yet to refuse to obey Him, is to mock Him with vain words. (3) To this must be joined those exercises of the mind which are the proper workings of faith, the fruits of the Spirit of grace. II. The work of the Holy Spirit in producing a cordial subjection to Christ the Lord.1. The human mind shows a reluctance to that spiritual reception of the gospel which is meant by saying that Jesus is the Lord. 2. It is not to be expected that the heart, under this wrong bias, will cure itself. Nor can so desirable a change be effected, except by our heavenly Father’ s gracious assumption of this work to Himself (Ezekiel 36:26). The scriptures connect the sanctification of the Spirit with the belief of the truth. What occasions the rejection of the authority of Jesus the Lord? Is it not ignorance and unbelief? And how shall these be removed but by instruction and evidence? These are to be obtained from the Word of God, and it is by means of His own truth as there revealed that souls are renewed and reconciled. His Spirit helpeth our infirmities, and “ worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). Conclusion:1. Let us infer, for our improvement, the great importance of the work of the Holy Spirit in the concerns of our salvation. 2. Let us all carefully use the means whereby our souls may be quickened to all holy obedience. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.Diversities of gifts 1. The glory of the Apostolic Church was not merely in her faith, zeal, conversions, or martyrdoms; but above all, and as their source--in the possession of the Holy Spirit. 2. Her miraculous gifts have been long laid aside; but the Holy Spirit is still the glory of the Church, endowing her with even nobler gifts; and of them the text is still true. There is variety in unity. I. In spiritual, endowments.1. There is the greatest diversity-- (1) In the natural order. (a) Take a family. One has more ability than another, and the abilities run in such different lines as make the same treatment or destination impossible. (b) Take the little world of school. Each boy has his own capacity, one seemingly promising, another the opposite according to our artificial standard--a standard to be reversed in after life. (c) Take the greater world. What diversities here--the orator, and the man of no utterance, but a man of deeds; the poet and the stern man of facts, etc. And all these diversities are for the well-being of man, and we are not to despise any of them. (2) Now granting that religion is the work of the same God, should we not anticipate a kindred diversity in His spiritual gifts? All Christians have their spiritual talents, some five, some two, etc., but every man according to several ability. All God’ s children-- (a) Are taught of the Lord by a Divine illumination. But how great the diversity between the apostle soaring in inspired vision and the unlettered Christian who simply knows her Bible true--her Saviour sufficient. (b) Are, in common, partakers of like precious faith; but here there are diversities between the faith that staggers not at promised impossibilities, and the faith that can only say, “ Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” (c) Love Christ. But what striking diversities between the love that rejoices to surrender all for Him, and the love that can but keep the garments unspotted and is ever ready to wax cold! From this diversity, then, it follows that some will become more remarkable for faith, some for love. Some have the grander, sterner qualities predominating; others have the softer, more gentle. 2. Over all these diversities there is a pervading unity of the one Spirit that creates and sustains them. As all the diverse works of nature prove the unity of the Creator, so all the gifts of grace bear the broad arrow of His hand. Some are like great rivers diffusing fertility through an empire, sustaining a mighty population on their banks, and bearing great navies on their bosom; others are as little rills, which serve only to gladden the eyes of a household or two, and then disperse into the great waters; yet all of them are channels, filled with the same living water; each has its own flow from the one mountain range, each is of the like quality, each has its own separate beauty. (1) The humblest gifts of grace have a use and a value, surpassing all gifts of genius and wealth, and are not to be despised. True science finds its field not merely in scanning the firmament, but in studying the flowers. (2) Nay, the more lowly and obscure these graces are, the more they are like Him whose chief glory shines in His condescension. The humblest gifts are the Divinest, for they do not inflate the heart with the sense of its own greatness. And in a higher world, may it not be found that these humble ones were the highest in God’ s esteem, because the least mixed up with self? II. In spiritual ministry. “ Property has its rights, it has also its duties” --so have natural gifts. And the greater a man’ s powers, the more sacredly is he bound to minister to the welfare of humanity. And all gracious powers are held by the like condition. The Church is like a great palace where every man has his post, and the humblest ministry is as necessary as the most distinguished. In a great steamship, it is not enough that there be the master to issue instructions, the pilot to steer, the engineer to control its mighty powers; but there must be those who perform the meanest services, else all the skill and power of the others will be useless. So in the Church. What lives of power and productiveness were those of Paul, Luther, Knox, etc. How insufficient seem other ministries in comparison; yet the faithful steward of a few things is as useful in his way and as honourable as the faithful occupant of the most splendid office. There is a ministry of--1. Parental instruction. You cannot transfer this to another hand, even were you anxious to do so to the wisest and best. You alone can travel the pathway to the affections and confidence of the youthful heart. For your children’ s sake and for your own soul’ s sake, renounce not this ministry. It is your noblest blessedness and theirs to have these children made yours by the double tie of nature and of grace. 2. Sympathy. This brings us into immediate communion with the Spirit of Jesus, who has consecrated all the sorrows of humanity by His own. In the Primitive Church this office was heralded by gifts of healing. These are gone, but we can sympathise with distress, and by that chord touch the heart, and gain a hearing for Christ. “ Mercy is twice blessed,” etc. 3. Liberality. What a magnificent power of blessing to the Church is a rich man who, with a heart delivered from selfishness, is willing to use his Master’ s stores in his Master’ s service! 4. Prayer. The Church is mightiest on her knees. III. In spiritual operations. Nothing could be more infinitely varied than the operations of God in nature and in providence. There is the tempest, as well as the soft west wind; the gentle breath of spring, and the summer heat. And there are corresponding diversities in God’ s dealings with the sinner.1. In the act of preparation for, or in the want of it. In the sunrise in our own land the darkness of night gradually passes into the pale grey of dawn, the grey into the saffron, and the saffron into the ruddy tints of morning, and how these in their turn melt away in the bright light they herald. Whereas, in tropical lands the sun rises at once. And is it not the same with the dawn of new life on the soul? I have stood on the sea-shore, and for a considerable time could not tell whether the tide was coming in or going out. Again, I have stood beside it when its mass of waters was tossed by the fierce tempest, and when it swept all before it, as it rolled its mighty waves to the shore. And in these different aspects of the ocean we have a picture of the diverse experiences of the soul in passing through the great change. Take the case, e.g., of Lydia and the gaoler, John and Paul. 2. In the after experience of the Christian life. Some advance with uninterrupted progress. There are others whose course is like that of Israel of old in the wilderness. With some, the course is all among the deep shady valleys; others are walking on the high ground, always in the sun. The one class go on their way with joy and singing, the other advance with timid step, going, and weeping as they go. But however opposite the experiences of God’ s children, and however diverse their paths, they are all led by the right way, by the one Spirit to the one home. (J. Riddell.)Diversities of gifts God hath distributed variety of gifts and graces in different degrees amongst His people. Every man hath his proper gift of God, and the gifts and graces of all are this way made useful and beneficial. Job was exemplary for plainness and patience; Moses for faithfulness and meekness; Josiah for tenderness. Athanasius was prudent and active; Basil heavenly and of a sweet spirit; Chrysostom laborious and without affectation; Ambrose reserved and grave. One hath quickness of parts, but not so solid a judgment; another is solid, but not so ready and quick. One hath a good wit, another a better memory, a third excels them both in utterance. One is zealous, but ungrounded, another well principled, but timorous. One is wary and prudent, another open and plainhearted. One is trembling, another cheerful. Now, the end and use of Churchfellowship is to make a rich improvement of all by a regular use and exercise of the gifts and graces found in every one. One must impart his light, and another his warmth. The eye, viz., the knowing man, cannot say to the hand, viz., the active man, I have no need of thee. Unspeakable are the benefits resulting from spiritual and orderly communion; but they are all cut off by dissentions; for as faith is the grace by which we receive all from God, so love is the grace by which we share the comfort of all among ourselves. (J. Flavel.)Diversity of nature Break off an elan bough three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in the whole bough (provided you do not twist it about as you work) you find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even have one complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why it does so, since there is not one line of it like another. (J. Ruskin.)Unity in diversity I. Intellectual progress consists in discovering the unity which underlies all diversity. In early ages everything appeared to be totally different from everything else. “ God’ s many and lords many” found in the material universe a convenient playground for their manifold caprices. The history of science is a record of the discovery in this primeval chaos of the unifying principal of law. Phenomena that seemed altogether dissimilar have turned out to be merely different operations of the same force. The apple which falls to the ground once seemed to have nothing in common with the moom which does not so fall; but now we know that both are equally under the control of gravity. Shooting stars may even yet appear to many to be extreme examples of lusus naturae; but investigation has proved that these eccentric objects contain animal remains which shows that in the most distant parts of the universe the same biological forces were ages ago at work which are in operation here and now. II. This unity in the midst of diversity is to be found, also, in the spiritual sphere.1. There are “ diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.” These gifts may be roughly divided into the secular class, which includes gifts of teaching, healing, and government; and the religious class, which includes those of prophecy and of tongues. What the gift of tongues precisely was I do not know; but the unholy emulation to possess it St. Paul shows was foolish and wrong. In comparison with charity or enthusiasm of man for men it was nothing worth. The crucial test by which spiritual gifts may be known, and their relative value determined, was “ profit.” Even a secular endowment, such as the power of healing, becomes a gift of the Spirit to him who uses it for the welfare of his fellow-man. Such a desire is an inspiration that can only come from above, and this inspiration transforms what would otherwise be a mere natural endowment into a gift of the Spirit. The mistake of the Corinthians was similar to one not uncommon in the present day. It is sometimes imagined that a clergyman, as such, is in a unique degree under the guidance of the Spirit. In spiritual matters there is no exclusive prerogative. I pity the clergyman who has never been ministered unto when he went to minister. Profitableness is the test of spiritual gifts. He is the most highly gifted man who does the most good. 2. Not only do different gifts proceed from the same Spirit, but there are different developments of the same gift. The office of the Spirit is not to provide us with an infallible set of doctrines, or with an immaculate set of actions; but to give us powers, instincts, emotions, and sentiments, which will be differently developed in different individuals and according to different circumstances. “ God fulfils Himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.” Barren uniformity is death. Our spiritual life consists in our co-operation with God, and the co-operation of different individuals under different circumstances leads of necessity to a diversity of opinions and practices. The same desire to honour God may manifest itself in the most diverse ways. Some think it incumbent to go through an elaborate ritual, while to others a bold simplicity will seem more in harmony with worship. Some will feel that music draws them heavenwards; others that it ties them down to earth. Some will find that they can hardly pray without a form of words; others that they can hardly pray with it. There are diversities of working, yet it is the same God who worketh. What we have to look for in the spiritual as in the physical spheres is not uniformity but unity--the unity manifested through diversity. 3. This is a lesson which many find it very hard to learn. Some time ago the author of “ Religious Denominations” was told that in the North of Scotland there was a sect nearly dying out, the members of which were peculiarly sure that they alone were in the way of salvation. He went to the house of the chief representative of this expiring sect. The man was away, but the wife admitted that they had lost member after member from unsoundness of views, until at last, as she pathetically put it, “ There is only just myself and my husband left, and I am not so very sure of him.” Now, we may smile at this foolish old woman, yet she is only an extreme specimen of many who seem to find supreme comfort in the assurance that God’ s Spirit is working only in the very select few who agree in doctrine and practice with themselves. 4. In heaven, if not on earth, men will discover that their differences were much less, and their agreement much greater than at the time appeared. All honest seekers after God are in heart united, whether they know it or not; though distinct as the billows, they are one as the sea; though distinct as the colours of the rainbow, they are as the pure white light which those colours compose. The mount of truth has many paths; those who are ascending it by different ways look too often upon each other with suspicion and contempt; but they will all be led onwards and upwards by the Holy Ghost, till eventually they find themselves standing side by side before the throne of the Eternal. (Prof. Momerie.)Unity with diversity “ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,” but there are distinctions in the Divine nature: in the Old Testament He is called Elohim, plural noun joined to singular verb; and in the New He is spoken of as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Again, the moral law is also one summed up, like the Divine character, in love; but it has a diversity of applications. There is unity with variety in-- I. The works of God.1. In the matter of the universe. Matter is the same in all time and in all space. Chemistry and geology both prove this. But in what a diversity of modes does it appear: in earth, water, air, and fire; in the trunks, branches, fruits, etc., of plants; in the bones, muscles, etc., of animals. 2. In the forces of the universe. The sum of force is always one and the same. If you consume it in one form it appears in another. A large portion of it coming from the sun is taken up by the plant, which is eaten by the animal, and becomes in us the power which we use to serve our purposes. But in what a diversity of modes does this force appear; in matter attracting matter, and holding atoms and worlds together; in elements combining according to their affinities; driving our steam engines, heating our homes, quivering in the magnetic needle, blowing in the breeze, smiling in the sunshine, striking in the lightning, and living in every organ of the body; ever changing and yet never changing; imparting unceasing activity, and yet securing an undisturbed stability. 3. In the orderly arrangement of the matter and forces of the universe. He who created the elements and their properties has so disposed them that they fall in order like the stones in a large building, or soldiers in companies, every one with a duty to discharge. The issue is-- (1) Beneficent and highly complex laws, such as the revolution of the seasons. What a number of agencies, e.g., are involved in the periodical return of spring. (2) The adaptation of law to law, so as to bring about individual events. This is what constitutes providence. This providence is general, reaching over the whole, because it is particular providing for every being, and for all wants. 4. In our mental talents and tastes. The mind is suited to the position in which it is placed in the world, and the world is adapted to the minds which are to observe and use it. Man’ s intellect, formed after the image of God, delights in unity with variety, and nature presents these everywhere. II. In the word of God. This was written at very different times by different men in different styles and about different topics: but there is unity from beginning to end. It is one creed in regard to God, Christ, man, this world and the world to come. This arises--1. From the circumstance that there is one God inspiring the writers. As “ the Lord our God is one Lord,” so the Word He has inspired is also one. While “ all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God,” it “ is profitable” for a variety of purposes. 2. From the whole being a development of the one plan of redemption. There is a universal harmony in nature, but somehow a discordant element has been introduced. Looking within, we find conscience indicating that man is not at peace with God nor with himself. Looking without, we see wars, bloodshed, disease, disappointment, and death. All these things can be traced directly or indirectly to sin. Now the Word of God reveals a way by which this discordance is removed. In its evolution the plan assumes various forms, the patriarchal, the Jewish, the Christian. But it is substantially the same along the whole line. God appears everywhere as a holy God, saving sinners through the suffering of His Son. Except in the degree of development there is no difference between God as revealed in Eden, on Sinai, and on Calvary. The first book of Scripture discloses to us a worshipper offering a lamb in sacrifice, and the last shows a lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the Throne. In heaven they “ sing the song of Moses the servant of God and of the Lamb.” 3. From the unity with variety in the experience of believers. In essential points the experience of all is alike, and has been so from the beginning; but because the Spirit works in a certain way in the breast of one believer, this is no reason why He should work in the same way in the heart of every other. He suits His manifestations to the difference of their state and character. III. There is an accordance between the works and Word of God and yet there is a difference.1. Both come from God and therefore reflect His character, but in a somewhat different light. The works manifest His power and His wisdom; the Word His holiness on the one hand and His mercy on the other. 2. There are times when science and Scripture seem to contradict each other; but only as one branch of science may seem to be inconsistent with another. Geology, e.g., requires long ages to explain its phenomena, whereas astronomy seems to say, that so long time has not elapsed since the earth was formed by the rotation of nebulous matter, every one believes that sooner or later the seeming inconsistencies will be cleared up. Account for it as we may, there is a general correspondence between Genesis and geology, and with such correspondences we may leave the apparent irreconcilabilities to be explained by future investigation. At times it is not easy to reconcile profane history with Scripture; but ever and anon the monuments of Egypt, Nineveh, and Moab, tell us that the Old Testament gives us a correct picture of the state of the nations in ancient times. 3. I might dwell on the numerous analogies between nature and revelation. Both give the same expanded views of the greatness of God; the one by showing His workmanship, the other by its descriptions. “ The heavens declare,” etc. Both show that there is only one God; the works, which are bound in one concatenated system, and the Word when it declares that “ the Lord our God is one Lord.” Note--Two points brought into prominence by recent science. (1) The operation of evolution. It is not proved, as some would aver, that there is nothing but development. For there cannot be development without some previous seed. We see a like operation in the kingdom of grace the Jewish economy is developed out of the Patriarchal, the Christian out of the Jewish; and the seed planted eighteen hundred years ago has become a wide-spread tree. (2) The state of things in which we are placed. The frivolous may feel as if the Scriptures have drawn too dark a picture of our world; but all who have had large experience of human life acknowledge that the account is a correct one. How much of history is occupied with the narrative of desolating wars. We boast of our splendid cities, but in every one of them you will find crime and misery fermenting. There are warring elements in every human bosom, and in every society. Any one seeking to remove the causes of discord will be sure to irritate and to meet with determined opposition. The greatest men have been martyrs, who, in order to pull down the evil, have had themselves to perish. And science gives the same picture. What mean these discoveries of worlds being formed out of warring elements? What means the “ struggle for existence” ? Science, as well as Scripture, shows that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. The two are thus seen to be in curious correspondence; but they differ in this, that while both speak of a troubled day, the latter and more comforting revelation assures us that “ at evening time there shall be light.” (J. McCosh, D.D.)Allegorical time-keepers On the face of a watch are three workers, and an ignorant man would conclude that the second hand was the most important. But you might remove that, and even the minute hand, and yet be able to tell the time if the steady hour hand were left. So there are diversities of operations in the Church, and we are liable to form wrong conclusions as to their relative value. We have little fussy men, who can turn round sixty times before another man will turn round once, but they are not always the most reliable as to spiritual time, nor are they the most important workers in the Church. What we want is men and women of steady, reliable character, on the dial of whose conduct the true time is always registered. I once went into a clockmaker’ s at noon, and the clocks were striking the hour. There were “ diversities of operations,” but “ the same spirit” actuated them all, viz., to tell everybody that it was twelve o’ clock. It was amusing to hear little clocks tip off the whole twelve before larger ones had got more than nicely begun. But each did its own work, according to its own promptings, and found no fault with others because they had different methods of doing the same thing. The effect of a quarrel would have been loss of time and damage. I learn from this--1. That all Christians should be busy at their great life-work. 2. That Christian activity must be prompted and controlled from within. 3. That uniformity of method is impossible, and therefore that each should work in his own way, and find no fault with those whose methods may differ. 4. That method is quite secondary. What is the quality of the work done? Let me describe the clocks I saw. I. The clock that did not strike. A fine-looking clock, which only told the time to the eye, whereas others told it to the ear as well. Now, as a rule, all true Christians are made to strike, but now and then you will come across one who appears to lack the striking weight or the bell; but, in many cases, if you look on the dial of their conduct you will find it unvarying as the sun. I have often lain awake at night wondering what time it was, when suddenly the faithful clock struck off the answer. It is a great blessing to the world, in the midst of its moral darkness, that there are so many Christians who fearlessly publish the time. II. The clock that made only a buzzing noise. It went through all the motions of striking without making one the wiser as to what it was trying to tell. So some well-meaning people go through all the motions of bearing witness for the Master, but no one can understand them. This, however, is in very many instances the result of habit or inconsistency. I knew a most powerful political speaker who, in relating his Christian experience, seemed to be afraid of everybody present; and I know good sisters, whose voices can ring all over the place, who can only mumble their Christian experience. III. The clock that struck too much. There was a clock that appeared to like to hear itself strike, and was little short of a nuisance: yet the bending of a little wire, about the eighth of an inch, would have made it as orderly as any in the room. So those who pray and speak too long in our churches only require a gentle, brotherly suggestion, and the trouble in many cases would be at an end, yet not in all. For, when very highly tempered, the wire sometimes breaks in bending, and then I have known them to sink themselves in ill-natured silence, and scarcely as much as tick in public afterwards. Some of these great talkers are very poor tune-keepers. I have heard them strike off “ Twelve o’ clock, spiritual noonday here,” when the hands on the dial of their conduct scarcely indicated spiritual sunrise. IV. The clock that needed starting. I thought perhaps it was out of gear or not wound up, but the gentleman told me that it was in going order, but that he had forgotten to start it. So there are persons who just need the gentle touch of Christian encouragement to start them in the path of righteousness. And in the Church there are many who would pray in the prayer-meeting, labour in the Sunday-school, or give liberally if they once got started. V. The clock that was not plumb--which was just in the act of stopping. There was something under it. How many church members are swayed all to one side by things that are inconsistent with the Christian character. While in such an attitude you may ask, but you can receive no spiritual blessings. VI. The one feature the clocks all had in common. I noticed amid all the “ diversities” of size, mechanism, and “ operations,” that all these clocks had a tendency to run down. So with all Christians. You may be as punctual at church, and as exemplary in your department as usual, and be running down all the time. The pendulum of profession may continue to wag when the mechanism is clogged with the dust of worldliness or forbidden pleasures. No Christian can run on time, if left to himself, for a single hour. What, then, must be the condition of those who live loose from God six days out of seven. Some clocks are so made that they can run for weeks and keep good time; but I never knew a Christian that could do it, and I have known many who gave it a fair trial. Conclusion: I well remember my first watch. Sometimes it would rattle off an hour in fifteen minutes, while at other times it could not make an hour in twenty-four. I spent a good deal of time in finding out the time and giving it to my watch, by turning the hands into proper position. My father at length, to save time I presume, took it to the watchmaker, and I thought my watch was ruined as the man took it to pieces, but when the job was done, it could keep its own hands to the true time without any help from mine. Many in our churches act towards themselves as I did towards that old watch. Their inner mechanism is clogged and deranged by the dust and defilement of sin. When they perform any Christian duties it is all mechanical and outside work with them. You cannot keep time from the outside. You must come under God’ s cleansing and regulating hand before you can run the way of His commandments. (T. Kelly.)The dispensation of the Spirit The ages of the world are divisible into three dispensations.1. Of the Father when God was known as a Creator; creation manifested His eternal power and Godhead. 2. Of the Son when God manifested Himself through man; the Eternal Word spoke through the inspired and gifted of the race. Its climax was the advent of the Redeemer. 3. Of the Spirit in which God has communicated Himself by the highest revelation, as a Spirit mingling with a spirit. There is a twofold way in which the operations of the Spirit may be considered. I. Spiritual gifts conferred on individuals. In verse 28 these are divided into two classes; the first are those capacities which are originally found in human nature, elevated and enlarged by the gift of the Spirit; the second are those which were called into existence by the sudden approach of the same influence. Just as if the temperature of this northern hemisphere were raised suddenly, and a mighty tropical river were to pour its fertilising inundation over the country, the result would be impartation of a vigorous and gigantic growth to the vegetation already in existence, and at the same time the development of life in seeds and germs which had long lain latent in the soil, incapable of vegetation in the unkindly climate of their birth. Consider--(1) The natural gifts. (a) Teaching is a gift, natural or acquired. To know is one thing; to have the capacity of imparting knowledge is another. (b) Healing is no supernatural mystery; long and careful study of physical laws capacitate the physician for his task. (c) Government, again, may be learned, but there are some who never could so acquire it. Some men seem born to command. Now the doctrine of the apostle was, that all these are transformed by the Spirit so as to become almost new powers. (2) Supernatural gifts. Of these we find two pre-eminent gifts. (a) The gift of tongues was not merely the imparted faculty of speaking foreign languages; it would rather seem that the Spirit of God, mingling with the soul of man, so glorified its conceptions, that the ordinary forms of speech were found inadequate for their expression. In a far lower department, when a man becomes possessed of great ideas, his language becomes broken, But it often happens that when perfect sympathy exists, incoherent utterances--a word--a syllable--is quite as efficient as elaborate sentences. On the day of Pentecost all who were in the same state of spiritual emotion as those who spoke understood the speakers; to those who were sceptically watching, the effects appeared like those of intoxication. A similar account is given in chap. 14. (b) The gift of prophecy seems to have been a state of communion with the mind of God, more under the guidance of reason than the gift of tongues. 2. Upon these gifts we make two observations. (1) Even the highest were not accompanied with spiritual faultlessness. Disorder and vanity might accompany these gifts, and the prophetic utterance itself might be degraded to mere brawling, therefore St. Paul declared the need of subjection and rule over spiritual gifts; the spirits of the prophets were to be subject to the prophets; if those endowed with tongues were unable to interpret what they meant, they were to hold their peace. There is nothing precisely identical in our own day with these gifts, but there are those which stand in a somewhat analogous relation. The flights of genius appear like maniac ravings to minds not elevated to the same level, and are perfectly compatible with moral disorder. The most gifted of our countrymen was “ the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind.” The most glorious gift of poetic insight is too often associated with degraded life. (2) The gifts, which were higher in one sense, were lower in another; as supernatural gifts they would rank thus--tongues--prophecy--teaching; but as blessings to be desired, this order is reversed. The principle upon which that was tried was that of a utility whose measure was love (1 Corinthians 14:19). Our estimate is almost the reverse of this: we value a gift in proportion to its rarity. One of our countrymen has achieved for himself extraordinary scientific renown, but the same man applied his rare intellect to the construction of that simple lamp which had been the guardian of the miner’ s life. The most trifling act which is useful is nobler in God’ s sight than the most brilliant accomplishment of genius. II. The spiritual unity of the Church--“ the same Spirit.” There are two ideas of unity: sameness of form and identity of spirit. Some have fondly hoped to realise an unity for the Church of Christ which should be manifested by uniform expressions in everything. There are others who have thrown aside entirely this idea as chimerical; and who, perceiving that the law of the universal system is manifoldness in unity, have ceased to expect any other oneness for the Church of Christ than that of a sameness of spirit, showing itself through diversities of gifts. Among these was Paul.1. All real unity is manifold. Feelings in themselves identical find countless forms of expression. In the world as God has made it one law shows itself under diverse, even opposite manifestations. 2. All living unity is spiritual, not formal. You may have a unity shown in identity of form; but it is a lifeless unity. The illustration given by the apostle is that of the human body. Uniformity here would have been irreparable loss--the loss of every part that was merged into one. The body’ s unity is the unity of a living consciousness which animates every separate atom of the frame, and reduces each to the performance of a function fitted to the welfare of the whole. 3. None but a spiritual unity can preserve the rights both of the individual and the Church. Some have claimed the right of private judgment in such a way that every individual opinion becomes truth, and every utterance of private conscience right; thus the Church is sacrificed to the individual; and the universal conscience, the common faith, becomes as nothing. Again, there are others who, like the Church of Rome, would surrender the conscience of each man to the conscience of the Church. Spiritual unity saves the right of both in God’ s system. It respects the sanctity of-- (1) The individual conscience. “ Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” The belief of the whole world cannot make that thing true to me which to me seems false. (2) The individual character. Out of the millions of the race, a few features diversify themselves into so many forms of countenance, that scarcely two could be mistaken for each other. There are no two leaves on the same tree alike; nor two sides of the same leaf, unless you cut and kill it. Each man born into this world is a fresh new soul intended by his Maker to develop himself in a new fresh way. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The gifts of Christianity Christianity claims to be, and is, in the belief of all its truest sons, a universal religion. And consider what that means. It means that it is a religion for all peoples, whatever their land, whatever their character; for the emotional races of the south as well as for the sterner and harder dwellers in the north, for the subtle and dreamy oriental as for the strong and practical inhabitant of the west. It means that it is a religion for all ages; that it can adapt itself to changing times. It means that it is a religion for all classes; that it can appeal to the rich as to the poor, to the cultivated intellect of the few as to the untrained reason of the many, to woman as to man, to the child as well as to the old. It means that it is a religion for all temperaments. Let us see what right Christianity has to claim to be and to do all this. Through what agencies dues it work? Are they fitted to make it accomplish the end of its being? Let us never forget, in the first place, that the one great agency to which it must look, nay the one which is its very life and inspiration, is the Holy Spirit of God. Without Him there can be no religion, no Christianity; without His work and influence no soul of man can be born again unto the kingdom of heaven. And if there is one attribute of His working which is dwelt upon more than another in the Bible it is its diversity. You cannot set limits to it; you cannot assign reasons for it. It can seize hold of a self-seeking Balaam or a narrow-souled Saul and make them its mouthpieces as easily as it can rest upon an Elijah, or a John the Baptist, or a St. Paul. It is on this boundless power, this power to change and to exalt, this power to fire the various capacities of men, to give them new strange gifts, that the apostle dwells so eloquently in this passage in the Corinthian epistle. And then pass on to another agency, which is in one sense not another, but the same; I mean the Book which the Spirit of God has inspired and which the Church of Christ bears in her hand for the teaching of the nations. What is the character of it? Not, as might have been expected, a short and logical and exact book of reference. The Bible is a book of what marvellous variety! Truly a book of marvellous diversity and yet of no less marvellous unity, for the golden thread of God’ s purpose of salvation in Christ runs through it and binds it in one from its beginning to its end. There is yet another agency which Christianity must use, and that is the Church. St. Paul, in the passage on which I am dwelling, makes it clear that here too, in his view, is to be the same diversity in unity. The Church is to be one, to know but the “ one Body, and one Spirit, and one Hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all” : and yet it is to find place and play for all manner of minds and characters, as the body finds work for all its differing members. “ God fulfils Himself in many ways” ; there is room in the church for all temperaments, and characters, and minds; her true aim as a Church is to follow up the work of the Spirit, not to attempt to manufacture Christians after a single exemplar, but rather to take what is strongest and best in the character of each, and to make it do service to God; not to crush the enthusiasm out of a St. Paul, or the independent thought out of an Augustine, or the artistic power out of a Fra Angelico, or the poetry out of a Milton, or the scientific spirit out of a Livingstone, but to turn their special gifts to God’ s ends and consecrate them to all holy purposes. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, differences of ministries, but the same Lord, diversities of operations, but the same God which worketh all in all. And yet, in spite of this universality of which we have been boasting, it is useless to shut our eyes to the fact that there is much failure to mourn over, much success that is only partial at best, in the progress of Christianity. Are there no Christians who have faith without charity, whose belief in Christ is a belief of the mind, whose religion is dogma without love, bigotry without humility? We may well ask, if Christianity is what, it claims to be, whence come these failures? And when we set ourselves to, answer that question, the first thing we find is that one failure is due to another. If the religion of Christ has failed in this or that part of the world, it is because it has not got thoroughly hold of the nation which preaches it. Yes, if we want to find the explanation of the comparative failure of Christianity among the races of the world, or among the labourers of our own land, we must seek it in this, that we are only one-sided Christians ourselves. But then we carry our inquiries a step further back. Why is it that there is so much of this one-sided Christianity? And the answer to that is that men do not entirely realise the ideal which is set before them. For that ideal is this--that every part, and power, and capacity, and tendency within them must be illuminated and inspired by the Spirit of God, given over to His supremacy and to His government, subordinated and made obedient to His will. Man is a many-sided being; and it is not enough, it is not the whole of the religion of Christ, if the intellect is convinced but the conscience silenced, if the emotions are kindled and the life untouched. The surrender, if surrender it is to be called where surrender means victory, must be complete; the service of the heart to God, if service it be where service is perfect freedom, must be unreserved and unqualified. But I shall be told very likely that I am contradicting myself; that a surrender, a service, a uniformity, a harmony so complete is practically just that dead level, that absence of diversity, which just now I disclaimed. But that is not so. God asks you for all your powers, but He does not ask you to exert them all in equal measure; He does not demand the same interest, the same fruit from your mind and heart if one is by nature greater than the other. He leaves you free. Thus with one man religion is the consecration of his intellect to God. The truth of Christ’ s message and mission has come upon him like a revelation; it fills his thoughts; the conviction that has seized him bears him on like a flood; it is life to him now to learn more and more of the knowledge of God. Or, again, with another, religion is the consecration of the will and the affections; the salt which saves him from moral corruption and decay. The strength of his life, the flower of his service to God, is not intellectual, but moral and spiritual. His part in the great warfare is less an active one than one of stedfastness and rest. In quietness is His strength. And yet once more: the religious life may be the consecration of the energies. We are familiar all of us with men who have neither exceptional ability nor any singular power of self-restraint; but whatever they do they do it with their might, seeing but one thing in front of them and making for that with every power and capacity that they possess. Theirs is no ambition to be in the vanguard of the march, but to save the stragglers and strengthen the weary and the weak as they falter and fail. Well for you if God’ s Spirit takes your intellect and makes it His own; well for you if He uplifts you to a life of holiness lived in the very presence of God; but if neither of these lots may be yours, then pray Him to make you one of His workers, wherever your field may lie. (H. A. James, B.D.)Diversities of gifts in the Church The work of God, the life of His Church--how strange, confused, and mixed, and accidental it looks, as we pass our eyes over the surface! And St. Paul, here, in my text, is looking on at his Church at Corinth; and he is hard pressed by accidents of circumstance, and by local details. Disordered as it may all look in its crude outward scene, to him, looking below, it is all under the control of a single principle, it is all the evidence of a single Supreme Agent. There is no accident and no chance, but everywhere one determining Force, and that Force is the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost. He it is who is the swing of all these eddying motions. Wherever men believe, it is He who makes faith possible; and all varieties of human character, all the distinctions of personal peculiarities, do but display His solitary activity. Wherever and however, and so far as, men, through whatever means, loyally confess that the Man Jesus is the Christ of God, there we are to recognise, and to reverence, the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has no higher task than that which is set for it, and circumscribed for it, by the body of Christ. Wherever it speaks or works, it will be perfectly certain to make Jesus, the Man, prominent and emphatic. It will testify to His authority; it will make yet more precious His bodily appearance; it will magnify His historical position. Nothing that lowers the importance of Jesus, or dissolves His supremacy, or makes light of His unique value, can come from the Spirit. “ No man, speaking with the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed.” The Incarnation, then, operates upon the world of man with perfect regularity of law through the one Agent. He is the Worker, this Spirit of God; what, then, is His work? how does He apply the Incarnation of Jesus Christ to men? He does so in two modes, that to the outsider might seem contradictory, but which are but the effects of this one cause. First, the effect of the Spirit’ s stirring is seen in the outburst of spiritual gifts. Each soul is quickened by a new impulse; it thrills with a sense of fresh-born vitality; and new powers spring forth, and gifts break out from it. St. Paul watched the Spirit at work in that new church of his at Corinth; and how strong was that new wine, and how fiery the flame--how loud and full the prophecy! Each soul, made alive in Jesus, is brimming with the glory of its new endowment, the stress and storm of the Spirit are shocking these souls into ecstasy. Here it was intellectual insight, there it was prophetic vision; here it was spiritual passion, there it was administrative capacity. That was the outcome of the Spirit, the outbreak of individual freedom from experience. And then St. Paul looked, and there was another vision and another sight altogether. There he saw arising a stately and orderly fabric, the Church of God, the body of Christ. There he watched it, laying limb to limb, until the body came together, by joints and sinews, compacted together and bonded. There was the double vision: on the one side, an inner inspiration of individual souls exalted, varied, and ecstatic; on the other side, an outer assertion of visible order, administrative, complete, whole, and harmonious. And yet here was this point: contradictory as these effects might look, they are the symptoms, the outcome of one and the same Spirit. If the Spirit that quickens the individual gifts be the same that builds up the corporate Church, then, on the one hand, the inner and private experiences of souls need not view with suspicion and dislike the discipline of ecclesiastical rule or theological formulae; neither, on the other hand, ought the ecclesiastical system to condemn or distrust the freedom of individual spiritual experiences. Let us take the first point. These individual spiritual experiences, however manifold and varied, in being required to harmonise themselves with the Church order and with the formulated creed, are not asked to yield to some arbitrary restraint, to submit their claims to some general convenience not their own, to conform to a conventional expedient, necessary, perhaps, but still a bondage. Every corporate rule springs out of the same source as the individual experience. The Spirit that gives inner special personal experience is the same Spirit that builds the Church. In asserting their own peculiarities, no one gift can attribute a value to itself which it must not by the same necessity attribute to all the rest, for its one value comes to it from the Spirit in which they equally share. Whatever prerogative one gift possesses, that same advantage must all the other gifts possess. That purpose with which He allots the gift to this man must be the same with which He allots that other gift to that other. He who authorises the gift authorises the end, and if that ultimate purpose have no valid right, neither has the gift. And what is that purpose?--edification--the building of the body of Christ, the edification of all separate individual capacities to the enrichment of the corporate Church. If the Spirit who fills and frames the ecclesiastical fabric is still and always the Spirit that stirs into action all the manifold variety of individual gifts, then the Church, the system, ought not to have to condemn or dislike these inner spiritual experiences. Yet there is a very natural repugnance here. To us, loving the sweet calmness of the Spirit’ s orderly working, there cannot but be a shock as we face the turmoil and confusion which often beset the outbursts of His work in individual souls. Surely here is something repellent, something out of harmony with God’ s mind, something out of kinship with Christ’ s ancient heritage! So many instinctively feel, and, when they feel so let them remember that the Spirit always has its double manifestation, remember that the same Spirit which shapes the sweet fabric which they love so dearly is the same Spirit who, as He stirs in the individual soul, shapes it into those passionate outbursts; those upheavals, they are His proper material, out of which He delights to build; not another spirit enkindles them, but He Himself. And, as He raises them, so He will not confront them as a foe, but will approach them as One who is at home with them, who is aware of their inner significance, who can greet them as a friend. True, He may have many a great lesson yet in store for these experiences. He does not for a moment desire that they should remain as they are in their present temporary disorder. But, for all that, He will not come to them as that which is to Him alien, shocking, or distressing. He will know the secret that is alive in all this stormy outpouring? As it bends down, then, in gracious seemliness, it will be in fullest sympathy. “ Come to Me,” it will be saying to all souls made alive in the Spirit, “ come under My discipline, conform to My rule, not because you are bad, or dangerous, or human, or erring, not because you need some arbitrary external repression, but come to Me and obey My gift. You are already My own, of My malting, My inspiration. I awoke you because I needed you; I have a place for you in the work; for Me and by Me you were made; find, then, in Me your peace.” And for ourselves we will remember, finally, that there is but one rule laid down by St. Paul to govern all our treatment of gifts and spiritual experiences, whether in ourselves or others--the rule of love, of edification. Love, first in relation to gifts not our own. Love will rejoice to recognise by how many paths men are brought to Christ, to recognise how infinite are the resources of the Spirit. It will be quick to recognise how sacred are individual diversities. It will respect all it can, find work in all it can, just because it is the very character and note of the one Spirit to exhibit His excellence in infinite diversity of operation. The first aim of love is to make its gift intelligible to all, useful to all, a common possession, a common good, and a common joy. (Canon Scott Holland.)The gifts of the Spirit I. Their nature. They are--1. Ordinary. These the Spirit conveys to us through our own endeavours, as he who both makes the watch and winds up the wheels of it may be said to be the author of its motion. Amongst these we may rank oratory, philosophy, etc. And God ordinarily gives these to none but such as labour hard for them. God is ready to do His part, but not to do His own and ours too. 2. Extraordinary. These are entirely from God, as, e.g., the gifts of miracles, healing, etc., which might indeed be the object of men’ s admiration and envy, but never the effect of their endeavours. Some will perhaps inquire how long these extraordinary gifts continued in the Church. Just as long as the settling of a new religion in the world required. Wherefore the purpose of miracles being extraordinary, and to serve only for a time, they were not by their continuance to thwart their design, nor to be made common by their being perpetual. The exact period of their duration can hardly be assigned; but certain it is that now these are ceased, and that upon as good reason as at first they began. For when the spiritual building is completed, to what purpose should the scaffolds any longer stand? II. Their diversity. What is meant by this diversity of gifts. Note here--1. Something by way of affirmation, which is variety. This variety is-- (1) For use. In the Church there are, and must be, several members having their several uses and stations (verse 28); the employment of so many parts subserving the joint interest and design of the whole--as the motion of a clock is a complicated motion of so many wheels fitly put together; and life itself but the result of several operations, all issuing from and contributing to the support of the same body (verses 29, 30). As in the natural body the eyes do not speak, nor the tongue see, so neither in the spiritual is every one who has the gift of prophecy endued also with the gift and spirit of government, etc. Now God has use of all the several tempers and constitutions of men, to serve the Church by. E.g.--(a) Some men are of a sanguine and cheerful disposition. And these are fitted for the airy, joyful offices of devotion. Again, there are others of a reserved arid severe temper, and these are the fittest to serve the Church in a retirement from the world, and a settled composure of their thoughts to meditation, and in dealing with troubled consciences. (b) Some, again, are of a fervent spirit; and God serves His Church even by these as being particularly fitted to preach the rigours of the law to obstinate sinners. And on the contrary, there are others again of a gentler genius, and these are serviceable to speak comfort and refreshment to the weary, etc. And thus the gospel must have both its Boanerges and its Barnabas; the first, as it were, to cleanse the air and purge the sold, before it can be fit for the smiles of a Saviour. (2) For ornament--to dress and set off the spouse of Christ. Where would be the beauty of the heavens and the earth; where would then be the glory and lustre of the universe, if our senses were forced to be always poring upon the same things without the quickening relish of variety? And, moreover, does not such a liberal effusion of gifts equally argue both the power and the bounty of the giver? 2. As this diversity of the Spirit’ s gifts imports variety, so it excludes contrariety; different they are, but they are not opposite. There is no jar or contest between them, but all are disposed of with mutual agreements and a happy subordination; for as variety adorns, so opposition destroys. The spirit of meekness and the spirit of zeal, e.g., do equally serve and carry on the great end and business of religion. III. Their lessons.1. If the Spirit works such variety and multitude of supernatural gifts, it is but rational to conclude that He is a being superior to nature, and so God. 2. This great diversity of the Spirit’ s gifts may read a lecture of humility to some, and of contentment to others. God, indeed, has drawn some capital letters, and given some men gifts, as it were, with both hands; but for all that none can brag of a monopoly of them. He has filled no man’ s intellectual so full, but he has left some vacuities that may sometimes send him for supplies to lower minds. Moses with all his knowledge and ruling abilities required Aaron’ s elocution; and he who “ speaks with the tongue of angels” may yet be at a loss when he comes to matters of controversy. And this should prevent the despondency of the meanest understandings (verses 21, 22). Let not the foot trample upon itself because it does not rule the body, but consider that it has the honour to support it. Nay, the greatest abilities are sometimes beholding to the very meanest. The two talents went into heaven as easily as the five. 3. We have here a touchstone for the trial of spirits; for such as are the gifts, such must be also the Spirit from which they flow. 4. This emanation of gifts from the Spirit assure us that knowledge and learning are by no means opposite to grace; since we see gifts as well as graces conferred by the same Spirit. (R. South, D.D.)The Trinities I. Personal.1. The same Spirit.2. The same Lord.3. The same God. II. Real. 1. Gifts.2. Administrations or offices.3. Operations or works. III. Actual. 1. Dividing.2. Manifesting.3. Profiting. The three real are the ground of all. The three personal are from whence those come. The three actual are whether they will.(1) Divided.(2) So divided as to make manifest.(3) So made manifest as not only-- (a) To make a show but to some end. (b) That end to be not “ the hurt or trouble,” but “ the good.” (c) The good, not private, of ourselves, but common, of the whole body of the Church. (Bp. Andrewes.) 1 Corinthians 12:5-6 There are differences of administration, but the same Lord.The agencies of the Church I. Are widely diversified.1. Every branch has its own sphere.2. Every member his own office. (1) Differing in character, importance, scope.(2) Yet all necessary. II. Are under the control of the same Lord--Christ, who--1. Appoints every man his duty.2. Supplies him with grace.3. Observes and rewards his conduct. III. Are directed to one end. Hence the meanest office--1. Is honourable.2. Is useful.3. Should be faithfully fulfilled. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Differences of administrations Glycera, the flower-girl, knew so well how to diversify the combination and arrangement of her flowers, as with the same flowers to make a great variety of nosegays. So that when the painter Pausias tried to emulate her skill he failed, for he could not vary his painting so many ways as Glycera did her nosegays. Thus the Holy Ghost disposes and arranges with so much variety the instructions of devotion which He gives us by the tongues and pens of His servants that, although the doctrines are always the same, the treatises which are made out of them are very different, according to the different ways in which they are put together. (St. Francis de Sales.)There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God. The diversity of the Divine operations These words suggest practical reflections as to-- I. The vast variety of classes for whom Christian work is carried on. Such work is work--1. For all varieties of need. (1) Bodily. The hospital; the sanitary enterprise of any form is included. (2) Mental. All true educational work, not least of all when it aims at fixing a ladder that shall rise from the gutter to the university, is included. (3) Moral. Every crusade for temperance and chastity is included. (4) Spiritual. The proclamation, in its manifold fulness, of the gospel that converts, comforts, and edifies is included. (5) National. Right endeavour in the cause of peace, of land reform, etc., is included. 2. For the needs of people of all ages--the child, the youth, the adult, the aged. 3. For the needs of people of all places. The prediction as to the usefulness of the men of the early Church (Acts 1:8) seems to hint at what we call (1) City missions--“ witnesses for Me in Jerusalem.”(2) Home missions--“ and in all Judaea.”(3) Colonial missions--“ and in Samaria.”(4) Foreign missions--“ and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” II. The vast variety of means by which Christian work is carried on. There are methods in which the individual is a potent force, and others in which the elaborate machinery fulfils a useful function. There are spheres for highest culture, and others for simplest speech, domains for the pen and for the tongue. True Christian enterprise is hydra-handed. It touches the unnumbered strings on the great harp of humanity, sometimes gently, as with the delicacy of woman’ s fingers, and sometimes mightily, as with the smiting of a seraph’ s hand. III. The one motive spirit under whose influence Christian work is carried on. In all and through all who are true to Christ there is one impelling motive, i.e., love to Him. This is the great unifying force at the central heart of all Christly men. (U.R. Thomas.)The Divine operations I. Are richly exemplified--1. In nature.2. In the Church. II. Are wonderfully varied. III. Are singularly harmonious. IV. Exhibit the glory of the one God--His1. Wisdom.2. Power.3. Love. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The diversity of the Spirit’ s operations The witnessing of the Spirit admits of degrees. Just as a rich man’ s window may be wider than a poor man’ s, and so the sun may make his house the more light, that the things within it may be better discerned, yet the poor man may really enjoy the beams of the sun, and see what is in his house; so the poorest, the weakest believer may know the Spirit hath shined into his heart, as well as others that enjoy brighter beams than he hath been acquainted with. (T. H. Leary, D.C.L.) 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. The manifestation of the Spirit As there are diversities of gifts, so are there diversities of measures in which these gifts are bestowed. Three degrees of the power of the Spirit are mentioned in Scripture. I. For some special occasion. This is but transitory and occasional. It was granted to men in ancient times, as when Balaam prophesied and Samson displayed his strength. The phrase generally used for this is, “ The Spirit of the Lord came upon him.” the subject of this influence was not necessarily a man of holy life He was but used as an instrument, and for the hour brought into acquiescence with the Divine will. II. For salvation. This is the continuous possession of the Spirit as a new life. It is described in such terms as “ led by the Spirit,” “ walking after the Spirit,” “ to be spiritually minded,” which “ is life.” The entrance into this state is regeneration--the inclination of the will to God. This is “ eternal life.” III. For exalted service. This is the new life in its fulness, the flowering and fruiting of the plants of Divine grace. It is called being “ filled with the Spirit.” It is the development of Christian life, at times attained by a sudden influx of the Divine power, and termed the baptism of the Holy Ghost. (J. Hunt Cooke.)Grace given to individuals for the general good By the word “ manifestation” is intended the same thing as is set forth in the phrases, “ gift,” “ administration” and in this context, doubtless, the allusion is to miracles. By the phrase, “ profit withal,” is to be understood, for the advantage of others, i.e., as the context proves, of the Church in the first instance, and then, through the Church, of the world at large. The transition from the miraculous gifts of early times to the graces in which the Spirit is now more commonly manifested, is easy and appropriate; the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one of you to profit withal. What, then, are the manifestations of the Spirit which are peculiar to no one age of the Church? There is a manifestation of the Spirit in the miracle of a changed heart, evidenced by a holy life, and by this manifestation of the Spirit, God now speaks to men, and calls upon those thus gifted to profit the brethren. Is a man meek, gentle, longsuffering, temperate, and kind? He is so to use these graces as to profit others. Is a man blessed with joy and peace? He is, through the instrumentality of these gifts, to profit others. Has a man a strong faith? He is to exercise it to the general benefit. Has a man clever and vigorous hope, well grounded on Christ; he is to exercise himself to the general advantage. Is one full of charity? Such a one needs not to be told he is to be solicitous for his fellows. Let us see in what manner this may be done, and let us take the several particulars in the order just enumerated. Is any meek, gentle, longsuffering, temperate, and kind? Let him remember that his example is much needed in an age of retaliation, impatience, and extremes! I will pass on now to consider the case of him who is blessed with joy and peace. And let those who thus are warranted in relying on the favour of God, and who derive an awful joy, and not fear alone, from the contemplation of His holiness, let such love to recollect how they may profit the Church by speaking of their own consolation to the mourning penitent. Have you the gift of faith? It is that yon may profit others. First, by its instrumentality in keeping your spiritual life vigorous, whereby you may be an example in all things. One holy example is better than a thousand sermons. The former may convince, the latter must. But there is another way in which we are called upon to exercise our faith to the advantage of all. Faith alone can give our prayers audience in the presence chamber of Divinity. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much; but prayer is not, cannot be effectual unless it be the prayer of faith. Pray for the conversion of sinners, and the good estate of the Church through the guidance of her great and glorified Head, Christ Jesus. So those whose hope is strong will do well to let their conviction that they are walking humbly with their God incite them to build others up in the same reverent confidence; while those whose love comes up to the gospel’ s standard will be fain to benefit others; nay, in benefiting others it is that this manifestation of the Spirit is made. He who believes, and he who hopes, may forget that the Body is not one member, but; many; and so they may come to forget that the manifestation of the Spirit is given to them to profit others; but he who loves cannot forget this; hence “ love is the fulfilling of the law.” Hence, charity is the chiefest grace, the most valuable for time, no less than the only one needed in eternity! He who loves is using the gift of grace for the general good; he is a living member of the Body of Christ. (A. Watson, M.A.)But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. In the first verse of this chapter St. Paul proposeth to himself an argument, which he prosecuteth the whole chapter through, and, after a profitable digression into the praise of charity in the next chapter, resumeth again at the fourteenth chapter, spending also that whole chapter therein; and it is concerning spiritual gifts, “ Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant,” etc. These gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit of God, bestowed on them for the edification of the Church, the Corinthians, by making them the fuel either of their pride in despising those that were inferior to themselves, or of their envy in malicing those that excelled therein, abused to the maintenance of schism, and faction, and emulation in the Church. For the remedying of which evils the apostle entereth upon the argument, discoursing fully of the variety of these spiritual gifts, and who is the author of them, and for what end they were given, and in what manner they should be employed, omitting nothing that was needful to be spoken anent this subject. In this part of the chapter, entreating both before and after this verse of the wondrous great, yet sweet and useful variety of these spiritual gifts, he showeth that howsoever manifold they are, either for kind or degree, so as they may differ in the material and formal, yet they do all agree both in the same efficient and the same final cause. In the same efficient cause, which is God the Lord by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:6), “ Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all” And in the same final cause, which is the advancement of God’ s glory, in the propagation of His gospel and the edification of His Church, in this verse, “ But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” By occasion of which words we may inquire into the nature, conveyance, and use of these gifts. First, their nature in themselves and in their original; what they are, and whence. They are the works of God’ s Spirit in us, “ the manifestation of the Spirit.” Secondly, their conveyance unto us--how we come to have them, and to have property in them; it is by gift: “ It is given to every man.” Thirdly, their use and end; why they were given us, and what we are to do with them. They must be employed to the good of our brethren and of the Church; it is given to every man “ to profit withal.” Of these briefly, and in their order, and with special reference ever to us that are of the clergy. By “ manifestation of the Spirit,” here our apostle understandeth none other thing than he doth by the adjective word χαρίσματα in the first, and by the substantive word χαρίσματα in the last verse of the chapter Both which, put together, do signify those spiritual gifts and graces whereby God enableth men, and especially Churchmen, to the duties of their particular callings for the general good. Such as are those particulars, which are named in the next following verses, the word of wisdom, the word knowledge, faith, the gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues. All which, and all other of like nature and use, because they are wrought by that one and selfsame Spirit, which divideth to every one severally as He will, are therefore called πνευματικὰ, “ spiritual gifts” ; and here φανέρωσιςτοῦπνεύματος, “ the manifestation of the Spirit.” The word “ Spirit,” though in Scripture it have many other significations, yet in this place I conceive it to be understood directly of the Holy Ghost, the Third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity. For first, in 1 Corinthians 12:3, that which is called the Spirit of God in the former part, is in the latter part called the Holy Ghost. “ I give you to understand that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” Again that variety of gifts, which in 1 Corinthians 12:4 is said to proceed from the same Spirit, is said likewise in 1 Corinthians 12:5 to proceed from the same Lord, and in 1 Corinthians 12:6 to proceed from the same God, and therefore such a Spirit is meant, as is also Lord and God, and that is only the Holy Ghost. And again, in those words in 1 Corinthians 12:11 : “ All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.” The apostle ascribeth to this Spirit the collation and distribution of such gifts according to the free power of His own will and pleasure, which free power belongeth to none but God alone, “ Who hath set the members every one in the body, as it hath pleased Him.” Which yet ought not to be so understood of the Person of the Spirit; as if the Father and the Son had no part or fellowship in this business. For all the actions and operations of the Divine Persons (those only excepted which are of intrinsical and mutual relation) are the joint and undivided works of the whole three Persons, according to the common known maxim, constantly and uniformly received in the Catholic Church, Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa. And as to this particular concerning gifts the Scriptures are clear. Wherein, as they are ascribed to God the Holy Ghost in this chapter, so they are elsewhere ascribed unto God the Father, “ Every good gift and every perfect giving is from above, from the Father of Lights” (James 1:1-27.), and elsewhere to God the Son, “ Unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ” (Ephesians 4:1-32.). Yea, and it may be that for this very reason in the three verses next before my text, these three words are used: “ Spirit” in 1 Corinthians 12:4, “ Lord” in 1 Corinthians 12:5, and “ God” in 1 Corinthians 12:6, to give us intimation that these spiritual gifts proceed equally and undividedly from the whole three Persons: from God the Father, and from His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and from the eternal Spirit of them both, the Holy Ghost, as from one entire, indivisible, and co-essential Agent. But for that we are gross of understanding, and unable to conceive the distinct Trinity of Persons in the unity of the Godhead, otherwise than by apprehending some distinction of their operations and offices to usward, it hath pleased the wisdom of God in the holy Scriptures, which being written for our sakes were to be fitted to our capacities, so far to condescend to our weakness and dulness as to attribute some of those great and common works to one person, and some to another, after a more special manner than unto the rest; although indeed and in truth none of the Three Persons had more or less to do than other in any of those great and common works. This manner of speaking Divines used to call appropriation. By which appropriation, as power is ascribed to the Father, and wisdom to the Son, so is goodness to the Holy Ghost. And therefore, as the work of creation, wherein is specially seen the mighty power of God, is appropriated to the Father; and the work of redemption, wherein is specially seen the wisdom of God, to the Son; and so the works of sanctification and the infusion of habitual graces, whereby the good things of God are communicated unto us, is appropriated unto the Holy Ghost. And for this cause the gifts thus communicated unto us from God are called πνευματικὰ, “ spiritual gifts,” and φανέρωσιςτοῦπνευματος, “ the manifestation of the Spirit.” We see now, why Spirit? but then, why manifestation? The word, as most other verbals of that form, may be understood either in the active or passive signification. And it is not material, whether of the two ways we take it in this place, both being true, and neither improper. For these spiritual gifts are the manifestation of the Spirit actively, because by these the Spirit manifesteth the will of God unto the Church, these being the instruments and means of conveying the knowledge of salvation unto the people of God. And they are the manifestation of the Spirit passively too, because where any of these gifts, especially in any eminent sort, appeared in any person, it was a manifest evidence that the Spirit of God wrought in him. As we read it (Acts 10:1-48.), that they of the circumcision were astonished “ when they saw that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gifts of the Holy Ghost,” if it be demanded, But how did that appear? it followeth in the next verse, “ For they heard them speak with tongues,” etc. The spiritual gift, then, is a manifestation of the Spirit, as every other sensible effect is a manifestation of its proper cause. We are now yet further to know that the gifts and graces wrought in us by the Holy Spirit of God are of two sorts. The Scriptures sometimes distinguish them by the different terms of χάρις and χαρίσμα; although those words are sometimes again used indifferently and promiscuously, either for other. They are commonly known in the schools and differenced by the names of Gratice gratum facientes and Grutiae gratis datae. Which terms, though they be not very proper (for the one of them may be affirmed of the other, whereas the members of every good distinction ought to be opposite), yet because they have been long received (and change of terms, though haply for the better, hath by experience been found for the most part unhappy in the event, in multiplying unnecessary book-quarrels)we may retain them profitably, and without prejudice. Those former, which they call Gratum facientes, are the graces of sanctification, whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do acceptable service to God in the duties of His general calling; these latter, which they call Gratis dates, are the graces of edification, whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do profitable service to the Church of God in the duties of His particular calling. Those are given Nobis, et Nobis, both to us and for us, that is chiefly for our own good; these Nobis, sed Nostris, to us indeed, but for others; that is, chiefly for the good of our brethren. Those are given us ad salutem, for the saving of our souls; these ad lucrurm for the winning of other men’ s souls. Those proceed from the special love of God to the person, and may therefore be called personal, or special; these proceed from the general love of God to His Church, or yet more general to human societies, and may therefore rather be called ecclesiastical or general gifts or graces. Of the first sort are faith, hope, charity, repentance, patience, humility, and all those other holy graces, “ fruits of the Spirit,” which accompany salvation. Wrought by the blessed and powerful operation of the Holy Spirit of God, after a most effectual but unconceivable manner, regenerating, and renewing, and seasoning, and sanctifying the hearts of His chosen. But yet these are not the gifts so much spoken of in this chapter; and namely in my text, every branch whereof excludeth them. Of those graces of sanctification, first, we may have indeed probable inducements to persuade us that they are, or are not, in this or that man. But hypocrisy may make such a semblance that we may think we see spirit in a man in whom yet there is nothing but flesh, and infirmities may cast such a fog that we can discern nothing but flesh in a man in whom yet there is spirit. But the gifts here spoken of do incur into the senses and give us evident and infallible assurance of the Spirit that wrought them; here is φανερωσις, a “ manifestation of the Spirit.” Again, secondly, those graces of sanctification are not communicated by distribution--Alius sic, alius vero sic. Faith to one, charity to another, repentance to another; but where they are given they are given all at once and together, as it were strung upon one thread and linked into one chain. But the gifts here spoken of are distributed, as it were, by dole, and divided severally as it pleased God, shared out into several portions, and given to every man some, to none all; for “ to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another” the word of knowledge,” etc. Thirdly, those graces of sanctification, though they may and ought to be exercised to the benefit of others, who by the “ shining of our light” and the “ sight of our good works” may be provoked to glorify God by walking in the same paths; yet that is but utilitas emergens, and not finis proprius; a good use made of them upon the bye, but not the main proper and direct end of them, for which they were chiefly given. But the gifts here spoken of were given directly for this end, and so intended by the giver to be employed for the benefit of others and for the edifying of the Church; they were given “ to profit withal.” It then remaineth to understand this text and chapter of that other and later kind of spiritual gifts, those graces of edification, or gratiae gratis datae, whereby men are enabled in their several callings, according to the quality and measure of the graces they have received, to be profitable members of the public body, either in Church or Commonwealth. Under which appellation (the very first natural powers and faculties of the soul only excepted, which, flowing a principiis speciei, are in all men the same and like), I comprehend all other secondary endowments and abilities whatsoever of the reasonable soul, which are capable of the degrees of more and less, and of better and worse; together with all subsidiary helps any way conducing to the exercise of any of them. Whether they be, first, supernatural graces, given by immediate and extraordinary infusion from God; such as were the gifts of tongues and of miracles, and of healings, and of prophecy properly so called, and many other like, which were frequent in the infancy of the Church, and when this Epistle was written, according as the necessity of those primitive times considered God saw it expedient for His Church. Or whether they be, secondly, such as philosophers call natural dispositions, such as are promptness of wit, quickness of conceit, fastness of memory, clearness of understanding, soundness of judgment, readiness of speech, and other like, which flow immediately a principiis individui, from the individual condition, constitution, and temper, lure of particular persons. Or whether they be, thirdly, such as philosophers call intellectual habits, which is, when those natural dispositions are so improved and perfected by education, art, industry, observation, or experience, that men become thereby skilful linguists, subtle disputers, copious orators, profound Divines, powerful preachers, expert lawyers, physicians, historians, statesmen, commanders, artisans, or excellent in any science, profession, or faculty whatsoever. To which we may add, in the fourth place, all outward subservient helps whatsoever, which may any way further or facilitate the exercise of any of the former graces, dispositions, or habits, such as are health, strength, beauty, and all those other bona corporis, as also bona fortunae, honour, wealth, nobility, reputation, and the rest. All of these, even these among them which seem most of all to have their foundation in nature, or perfection from art, may in some sort be called πνευματικὰ, “ spiritual gifts” ; inasmuch as the Spirit of God is the first and principal worker of them. Nature, art, industry, and all other subsidiary furtherances, being but second agents under Him, Him and as means ordained. And now we have found out the just latitude of the spiritual gifts spoken of in this chapter, and of the manifestation of the Spirit in my text. From whence not to pass without some observable inferences for our edification, we may here first behold, and admire, and magnify the singular love, and care, and providence of God for and over His Church. Those active gifts, and graces, and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mystical body of Christ, are a strong manifestation that there is a powerful Spirit of God within, that knitteth the whole body together, and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body. Secondly, though we have just cause to lay it to heart, when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us, yet we should sustain ourselves with this comfort, that it is the same God that still hath care over His Church. And therefore we may, not doubt but this Spirit, as He hath hitherto done from the beginning, so will still manifest Himself from time to time, unto the end of the world; in raising up instruments for the service of His Church, and furnishing them with gifts. Thirdly, where the Spirit of God hath manifested itself to any man by the distribution of gifts, it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him, by exercising those gifts in some lawful calling. II. Consider we next, and in the second place, the conveyance of these gifts over unto us; how we come to have a property in them, and by what right we can call them ours. The conveyance is by deed of gifts; the manifestation of the Spirit “ is given to every man.” Understand it not to be so much intended here that every particular man hath the manifestation of the Spirit, as that every man that hath the manifestation of the Spirit hath it given him and given him withal to this end, that he may do good with it. The variety both of the gifts meet for several offices, and of the offices wherein to imply those gifts, is wonderful; and no less wonderful the distribution of both gifts and offices. But all that variety is derived from one and the same fountain, the Holy Spirit of God; all those distributions pass unto us by one and the same way, of most free and liberal donation. Possibly thou wilt allege thy excellent natural parts--these were not given, but thou broughtest them into the world with thee; or thou wilt vouch what thou hast attained to by art and industry--and these were not given thee, but thou hast won them, and therefore well deservest to wear them. Deceive not thyself. But the truth is, the difference that is in men in regard of these gifts and abilities ariseth neither from the power of nature nor from the merit of labour, otherwise than as God is pleased to use these as second causes under Him. Whatsoever spiritual abilities we have, we have them of gift and by grace. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man. A point of very fruitful consideration for men of all sorts, whether they be of greater or of meaner gifts. And first, all of us generally may hence take two profitable directions; the one, if we have any useful gifts, whom to thank for them; the other, if we want any needful gifts, where to seek for them. I must now turn more particularly to you to whom God hath vouchsafed the manifestation of His Spirit in a larger proportion than unto many of your brethren, giving unto you, as unto His firstborn, double portion of His Spirit, as Elisha had of Elijah’ s, or perhaps dealing with you yet more liberally, as Joseph did with Benjamin, whose mess, though he were the youngest, he appointed to be five times as much as any of his brethren. It is needful that you, of all others, should be put in remembrance, that those eminent manifestations of the Spirit you have, were given you. First, it will be a good help to take down that pride which is so apt to engender in the soul through abundance of knowledge, and to let out some of the corruption. It is a very hard thing to know much, and not to know it too much. Secondly, every wise and conscionable man should advisedly weigh his own gifts, and make them his rule to work by, not thinking he doth enough if he do what law compelleth him to do, or if he do as much as other neighbours do. But thirdly, though your graces must be so to yourselves, yet beware you do not make them rules to others. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man; let no man be so severe to his brother as to look he should manifest more of the Spirit than he hath received. Now, as for you to whom God hath dealt these spiritual gifts with a more sparing hand, the freedom of God’ s distribution may be a fruitful meditation for you also. First, thou hast no reason, whosoever thou art, to grudge at the scantness of thy gifts, or to repine at the Giver. How little soever God hath given thee, it is more than He owed thee. He hath done thee no wrong, may He not do as He will with His own? Secondly, since the manifestation of the Spirit is a matter of free gift, thou hast no cause to envy thy brother whose portion is greater. Thirdly, if thy gifts be mean, thou hast this comfort withal, that thy accounts will be so much the easier. Merchants that have the greatest dealings are not ever the safest men. And how happy a thing had it been for many men in the world if they had had less of other men’ s goods in their hands. The less thou hast received, the less thou hast to answer for. Lastly, remember what the preacher saith in Ecclesiastes 10:10 : “ If the iron be blunt, then he must put to the more strength.” Many men that are well left by their friends and full of money, because they think they shall never see the bottom of it, take no care by any employment to increase it, but spend without either fear or wit; whereas, on the contrary, industrious men that have but little to begin withal, yet by their care and providence, and painstaking, get up wonderfully. It is almost incredible what industry, and diligence, and exercise, and holy emulation are able to effect, for the bettering and increasing of our spiritual gifts; so, though thy beginnings be but small, thy latter end shall wonderfully increase. By this means thou shalt not only profit thyself in the increase of thy gifts unto thyself, thou shalt also profit others by communicating of thy gifts unto them. Which is the proper end for which they were bestowed, and of which we are next to speak. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. To profit whom? it may be himself. It is true, “ If thou art wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself,” said Solomon; and Solomon knew what belonged to wisdom as well as another. He that is not good to himself, it is but a chance that he is good to anybody else. He that hath a gift, then, he should do well to look to his own, as well as to the profit of others, and as unto doctrine (1 Timothy 4:16), so as well and first to take heed unto himself, that so doing he may save himself as well as those that hear him. This, then, is to be done; but this is not all that is to be done. In wisdom we cannot do less; but in charity we are bound to do more than thus with our gifts. You see, then, what a strong obligation lieth upon every man that hath received the Spirit to call his gifts into the common treasury of the Church, to employ his good parts and spiritual graces so as they may some way or other be profitable to his brethren. It was not only for the beautifying of His Church that God gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers; but also, and especially, for more necessary and profitable uses; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12). The stomach eateth, not to fill itself, but to nourish the body; the eye seeth, not to please itself, but to espy for the body; the foot moveth, not to exercise itself, but to carry the body; the hand worketh, not to help itself, but to maintain the body. Now this necessity of employing spiritual gifts to the good and profit of others, ariseth first from the will and the intent of the Giver. My text showeth plainly what that intent was. The manifestation of the Spirit was therefore given to every man, that he might profit withal. Certainly, as nature doth not, so much less doth the God of nature make anything to no purpose, or barely for show, but for use; and the use, for which all these things were made and given, is edification. He that hath an estate made over to him in trust and for uses, hath in equity therein no estate at all, if he turn the commodities of the thing some other way, and not to those special uses for which he was so estated in it. It is a just thing with the Father of Lights, when He hath lighted any man a candle by bestowing spiritual gifts upon him, and lent him a candlestick, too, whereon to set it, by providing him a stay in the Church, if that man shall then hide his candle under a bushel and envy the light and comfort of it to them that are in the house, either to remove his candlestick or to put out his candle in obscurity. As the intent of the Giver, so, secondly, the nature and quality of the gift calleth upon us for employment. It is not with these spiritual gifts, as with most other things, which, when they are imparted, are impaired, and lessened by communicating. Here is no place for that allegation of the virgins, “ Lest there be not enough for you and for us.” These graces are of the number of those things that communicate themselves by multiplication, as the seal maketh impression in the wax, and as fire conveyeth heat into iron, and as one candle findeth a thousand, all without loss of figure, heat, or light. Had ever any man less knowledge, or wit, or learning, by teaching of others? Had he not rather more? Thirdly, our own insufficiency to all offices, and the need we have of other men’ s gifts, must enforce us to lend them the help and comfort of ours. Surely, then, those men, first of all, run a course strangely exorbitant, who, instead of employing them to the profit, bend those gifts they have received, whether spiritual or temporal, to the ruin and destruction of their brethren. Abusing their power to oppression, their wealth to luxury, their strength to drunkenness, their wit to scoffing, atheism, profaneness, their learning to the maintenance of heresy, idolatry, schism, novelty. Be persuaded, in the second place, all you whom God hath made stewards over His household, and blessed your basket and your store, to “ bring forth of your treasures things both new and old;” manifest the spirit God hath given you, so as may be most for the profit of your brethren. Thirdly, since the end of all gifts is to profit, aim most at those gifts that will profit most, and endeavour so to frame those you have in the exercise of them, as they may be likeliest to bring profit to those that shall partake of them. “ Covet earnestly the best gifts.” You cannot do more good unto the Church of God, you cannot more profit the people of God by your gifts, than by pressing effectually these two great points, faith, and good works. These are good and profitable unto men. I might here add other inferences from this point, as namely, since the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one of us, chiefly for this end, that we may profit the people with it, that therefore, fourthly, in our preaching we should rather seek to profit our hearers, though perhaps with sharp and unwelcome reproofs, than to please them by flattering them in evil; and that, fifthly, we should more desire to bring profit unto them than to gain applause unto ourselves. (Bishop Sanderson.)The gifts of the Holy Spirit These are-- I. Profitable. Some are more showy, others are more useful.1. For the conversion of sinners.2. For the edification of saints. II. Diverse.1. The word of wisdom.2. The word of knowledge.3. Faith, such as became the confessors and martyrs (Hebrews 11:1-40.).4. Gifts of healing (Acts 3:4).5. Working of miracles.6. Prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:24-25).7. Discerning of spirits (Acts 5:3-4; Acts 5:9).8. Divers kinds of tongues (Acts 2:4).9. The interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 14:27). III. Bestowed upon each and all by the same spirit (verse 11). Let there be no rivalry in the Churches. IV. Should unify the Church into one body (verses 12, 13). V. Should be coveted earnestly (verse 31). To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly. (L. O. Thompson.)Diversity of operations, but one Spirit Note the specific methods of the Spirit’ s operation-- I. In the church.1. As a breath, wind. See Ezekiel’ s vision of the valley, Christ breathing on His disciples, and the rushing, mighty wind of Pentecost. Symbol of life, quickening inspiration. 2. Refreshment. Water the type. “ If any man thirst,” “ I will pour water,” etc. Fertilising, cleansing of the outward. 3. Inward purifying. Fire the symbol. “ He shall baptize with … fire.” “ I am come to send fire on earth.” Also of vital warmth, zeal, fervour. 4. Consecration. Anointing. Oil the type. Settling apart, enduing with power. II. With the world.1. A reprover (John 16:8-11).2. Strives with men (Genesis 6:3; Acts 7:51).3. Enlightens by revealing Christ.4. Regenerates by awakening faith in Christ. (Homiletic Monthly.)The distribution of gifts in the Church is I. Liberal. To every man. II. Wise. Designed for the profit of--1. The individual.2. The whole Church. III. Suitable.1. Wisdom and knowledge contribute to enlargement of view.2. Faith to edification and increase.3. Gifts of healing, etc., to the confirmation of the truth. IV. Sovereign. By the Spirit--as He will--hence all glory belongs to God. (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 12:11 But all these things worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.The work of the Spirit I. Christ promised that He would be present with His Church unto the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). And this is that which differenceth His Church from any other society. If Christ be not present there is no Church. The foundation is wanting; and where there is no foundation, the higher the building, or the more glorious its appearance, the sooner it will fall. II. Christ is thus present with His Church principally and fundamentally by His Spirit (John 14:1-31; John 15:1-27; John 16:1-33). Christ hath no vicar but the Spirit. Some say that Christ is no otherwise present than by outward ordinances. I grant that these are pledges of His presence, and instruments wherewith, by His Spirit, He doth effectually work. But make them Christ’ s whole presence, and we have no better Church state than the Jews. III. This presence of the Spirit is promised, and given unto the Church by “ an everlasting covenant “ (Isaiah 59:21). IV. It is from hence that the ministry of the gospel is “ the ministry of the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:6-8).1. There were never but two ministrations, the one the ministration “ of the letter and of death,” the other “ of the Spirit and of life” ; the one of the law, the other of the gospel. Any other is antichrist’ s. 2. The ministration of the Spirit must signify-- (1) That the Spirit is the efficient of the ministration, giving spiritual gifts to the ministers of the gospel, to enable them to administer all gospel ordinances to the glory of Christ and the edification of the Church. (2) The communication of Him, and so the effect of the ministration (Galatians 3:2). Then it follows that, so long as there is the preaching of the gospel, there is the communication of the Spirit. V. The general end, why the Spirit is thus promised unto the Church. God hath promised unto Christ a kingdom and Church in the world for ever (Psalms 72:17; Isaiah 9:7; Matthew 16:18). The accomplishment of this promise must depend upon the Spirit. If He should cease as to either of His operations, either in working internal saving grace or spiritual abilities for gospel admimistrations, the Churh must cease. VI. The Holy Ghost thus promised and given furnishes the ministers of the gospel with spiritual abilities in the discharge of their work; and without it they are no way fitted for it.1. Read Matthew 15:14-30. Note in this parable-- (1) That wherever Christ calls and appoints a minister in His house, He gives him spiritual abilities for that work by the Holy Ghost. He set none at work, but He gave them talents. (2) For men to take upon them to serve Christ who have received none of these spiritual abilities is a high presumption, and casts reflection on Christ, as if He called to work and gave no strength, as though He called to trade and gave no stock, or required spiritual duties and gave no spiritual abilities. (3) Those who have received talents or gifts of the Holy Ghost are to trade with them. 2. Read Romans 12:4-8. Note here-- (1) That this discourse concerns the ordinary state of the Church in all ages. (2) That gifts are the foundation of all Church work. (3) That not only does work depend on the administration of gifts, but the measure of work depends upon the men, sure of gifts (Ephesians 4:8-13). VII. As spiritual gifts are bestowed unto this end, so they are necessary for it. The way whereby the world lost the spiritual ministrations of the gospel was by the neglect and contempt of spiritual gifts, whereby alone they can be performed. VIII. That there is a communication of spiritual gifts in all gospel ordinances we know by experience. This is derided by scoffers, but we plead the experience of humble Christians who have a spiritual acquaintance with these things. (J. Owen, D.D.)The operations of the Spirit are I. Rich in their variety. Gifts--1. Of power.2. Of grace. II. Free in their dispensation. III. Sovereign in their distribution. IV. Beneficial in their design. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Variety in unity I. The divine worker.1. “ Every good and perfect, gift is from above.” Bezaleel and Aholiab were filled with the Spirit of God even as Moses and Aaron. The tact of the man of business, the fancy of the poet, the skill of the scientist are all from Him. 2. So in the spiritual sphere. Spiritual life is His gift; that life is preserved by His renewing, and all its progressive developments must be referred to Him. All aspirations after purity, all high purposes of consecration are from Him. In whatever way we are able to strengthen the Church and bless the world, the gift is a talent entrusted to us by Him. 3. There is great comfort in this thought. Men who have done eminent service pass away, and sometimes the anxious inquiry will arise, Where shall the host of the Lord find its leaders? Fear not! His gifts never fail, and His Church can never be abandoned. Moses died, but Joshua conducted the people to the promised land. Stephen fell a martyr, but the gap in the ranks was more than filled by Saul. Our Lord told the disciples that it was good for them that even He should be taken away, that the Comforter might come. II. The characteristic of His works. Variety in unity. Variety is everywhere a condition of strength and beauty.1. We should soon weary of landscapes in which the same features were ever reproduced. There would have been little beauty in the firmament if star had not differed from star in glory. 2. Intellect has been able to render humanity real service because it has had “ diversities of gifts.” We want men of science and men of action to reduce their thoughts to practice; some to give strong and noble impulses, and others to apply the check of caution and experience; some to bear us aloft to the world of fancy, others to detain us among the hard realities of life. 3. So in the highest region of all. (1) The ages of the Church’ s story have been marked by different characteristics. There have been missionary ages, ages of defence, ages of quiet building to which we owe the great works of our theology, ages of pulling down so as to reform, to purify, to revive, and ages of suffering--heroic times. Here is variety, and the wise observer will see the presence of God’ s Spirit in all, and admire the wisdom that has made all contribute to the prosperity of the Church. (2) So is it with the various sections into which the Church has been divided. Men formed with different powers and temperaments, trained amid diversified circumstances, are sure to arrive at different conclusions. As to questions of Church polity, some will be sticklers for authority, while others will be concerned to maintain the rights of the individual Christian. In ritual some will attach importance to external beauty, others will refuse to depart from primitive simplicity. Some may be moved by an irrepressible enthusiasm, others will adhere to a mere formal service. Some may state truth in a way which may be offensive to men of culture, while others may seek to present it philosophically and disgust men of earnest heart. Yet everywhere we may feel that the work of the Church is more thoroughly done as the result of the diversified agencies enlisted on its behalf. (3) The same manifoldness is seen, too, in individual character and experience. The story of no two souls is exactly alike. (a) There are varieties of agency. Always the same truth must be the power of God unto salvation, but there are many avenues by which it obtains admission to the soul, and gains power and dominion there. In one the conscience is awakened to agonising convictions of sins; others are led by soft and gentle hands into the ways of peace. Lydia and the jailor were converted in the same city by the agency of the same apostle; but to the one the Spirit came in the “ still small voice” ; to the other He spoke in the terrors of an earthquake. Some are brought to enter the kingdom through a great “ fight of afflictions,” and others are drawn as “ by the cords of love.” Here the work is instantaneous, there gradual. One is converted by the appeal of the preacher, another by solitary meditation on the truth, another by the artless words of a little child. (b) There are diversities in the result. In all there is faith in Jesus, but with innumerable points of difference. In some there is a burning enthusiasm, in others holy quiet. One is all activity and daring; another, like Mary, loves to sit at the feet of Jesus. One is a Boanerges, another a Barnabas. These, then, are the phenomena, and they are just such as we might have expected. “ The wind bloweth where it listeth.” Sometimes its music is soft and sweet, anon it is clear and shrill, and again it is deep, solemn, and sad. Conclusion:1. We have here a rebuke of intolerant exclusiveness. There is a strong tendency in most men to expect that piety should be cast in one mould, and fashioned after one pattern. 2. We have a call to earnest diligence. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. Whatever gift the Spirit bestows on any man--by whatever impulse He stirs the soul, the design is that the talent should be used for the advancement of Divine glory. (J. Guinness Rogers, B.A.)Ethnic and Christian views of Divine influence So much of our knowledge comes through the senses, it is not wonderful that many persons believe that all our knowledge comes through the senses. So large a part of our time is occupied with this outward world of sights and sounds, no wonder many think that this is all we have to do with. What is spirit, what is soul, but a higher development of matter? What do we know of either, except what we see through forms of material organisation? This is modern materialism, which does not deny spirit but maintains that all we know of it is what comes to us from without, through forms of matter. It is not curious that multitudes of men should have been materialists; for matter impresses itself constantly and necessarily on all. But the really curious fact is that the great majority of mankind should have always been Spiritualists; believing in spirit more than in matter--in the infinite more than the finite; believing not in evolution, but emanation; accepting as the origin of the universe a dropping downward out of the infinite, into the finite, or a creation of the world by the Gods. I. Christianity differs from all other religions, in maintaining the universality of this influence. Other religions, so far as I know, have limited inspiration, either to a few select souls, as prophets and saints; or, secondly, to some select class; as priests; or, thirdly, to those who sought it by seclusion, by meditation, by solitary prayer, by self-denial, going apart into caves and cells to macerate the body by starvation and asceticism. But on the day of Pentecost, in the first words which Peter said, he declared that the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled--“ It shall come to pass, in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.” Accordingly, through the Book of Acts, and in all the Epistles, we find that wherever the gospel was preached, all were told that they were to receive the Holy Spirit. All Christians were inspired; but their inspiration showed itself in different ways. It inspired some of them with knowledge, helping them to a clear sight of truth. It inspired some of them with wisdom, helping them to see what was the best thing to be done in any emergency. It inspired some of them with faith, enabling them to feel the presence and love of God amid bereavement, loneliness, bitter disappointment, and sharp trial. It inspired some of them to be good physicians, tender and careful nurses of the sick. If they saw a man or a woman who had a gift of healing, they said, “ She is inspired by the Holy Ghost to heal disease, as the Apostle Paul is inspired to preach.” Gifts were special, but the inspiration was universal; one and the same for all, from the lowest to the highest. God was in every heart in this happy community of brothers and sisters. This, therefore, is one of the characters of the true Christian doctrine of Divine influence, that God’ s influence comes to all of us whenever we wish for it. This is what Jesus says: “ If a hungry child asks his father and mother for bread, will they give him a stone? No! Do you think, then, “ that if any of you ask God for power to do right and be right, He will not give it to you? So certain it is that God will give His Holy Spirit to them who ask Him.” II. According to the New Testament, the Divine influence is not only universal, but it is continuous, constant, a never-flowing stream, descending into every open soul. It is not only for all men, but it is at all times. Undoubtedly there are seasons when the human heart is more tender, more susceptible, more open to Divine influence, than at other times. So in this opening season of the year, the seeds and buds are more susceptible to the influence of the sun. The buds are swelling by millions on the trees; every day they become a little larger; presently they open into delicate, soft leaflets; then they hang out their pretty forms more and more unfolded. Some immense force is pushing them from within, and attracting them from without. The small plant in the sick girl’ s window in some narrow city lane feels the same influence; the weeds and grasses over ten thousand miles of latitude feel the influence. Every twenty-four hours swells this tide of vegetable life which flows in upon us like the ocean. Thus, too, there are doubtless spring seasons in the human soul, when we are more susceptible to Divine influence than at other times. God is not necessarily nearer than at other times, but our hearts are turned more towards Him. III. A third peculiarity of the Christian view of Divine influence is, that it considers inspiration as natural, rational and practical.1. It is rational. It does not come to confuse she mind, but to give it more insight, deeper knowledge. Part of our knowledge comes to us from the outward world by observation; but another part, and often the best part, comes to us from within, by intuition. 2. The Divine influence, according to Christianity, is not only rational, but also practical. We have seen that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of “ healing.” We also read of the “ gifts” of “ helping,” of “ governing,” of “ discerning of spirits.” One man who believes in inspiration, and looks up for it, will be filled with a Divine power of helping those in difficulty, of showing them what they ought to do, of lending a hand to a weak brother or sister. Another man will, in answer to his inward prayer, be gifted with executive ability to direct and guide and govern. We know how some persons can govern without seeming to govern. Some are born leaders, but some are also inspired leaders. They are enabled by a power not their own to guide, repress, restrain, uplift, and bring together many hearts, till they beat as one. This is also a gift of the Holy Ghost. And others are made discerners of spirits. The eye is made clear and penetrating to discern shams. The hypocrite and deceiver is unmasked in their presence. These various powers of the soul are all as much quickened and fed and vitalised by the Holy Spirit as that of the prophet who speaks with the tongue of men and angels, or the rapt devotee who wears the stones with his knees in constant prayer. It is one spirit by which all God’ s servants are baptised into that one body, the invisible church of good men and women. 3. Although this influence is supernatural it is also natural. The Divine life, flowing down through human souls into the world, must be, and is in harmony with the same Divine life flowing down into the world through external nature. Consequently, wherever God sends a fuller tide of religious inspiration into any period, it is followed by a greater growth of art, science, knowledge and civilisation. What we ought to believe, therefore, is that God is always inwardly near to us, in the depths of our soul, and always ready to strengthen us, and lighten our darkness, when we turn inward to Him. But it is a mistake to speak of any irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit. God respects our freedom, and, if we choose to resist these tender attractions and illuminations, they are never forced upon us. Let us not harden ourselves against the voice within, whether it comes to give us better insight into truth, or to show us how acceptably to work: whether it open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hands to act, our lips to speak, or our hearts to love. (James Freeman Clarke.)One Spirit, many gifts But now these best gifts of God, as well as all His other gifts, are in danger of being profaned by men. And it seems that the Corinthians did profane them. They employed the power of speaking new languages, as well as other spiritual gifts, to their His glory, and not to God’ s glory alone. His mystical body, the Church, is like His natural body, or any of our bodies, in respect that although it is made up of many members, each having its own office, yet it is truly, strictly, mysteriously one. What makes it one, and binds it together, is the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in each person’ s soul and body, to unite him truly to Jesus Christ. Thus are Christians put in mind of the one Church, to which all alike belong; and they are also put in mind of the diversity of gifts, whereby each member is made different from another. First, to the weaker and less honourable member he says, you are not to be cast down nor discontented, as if no one cared for you, because others have higher places than you. “ Nay,” it might be said, “ you surely have in you the same life, the same blood, that any other limbs of the body have. The pulse which beats in you comes from the heart, the power and will which guides you from the head; you are as much a member of the Man as any of the limbs which are most precious. If you hear instead of speaking, if you move instead of ruling, if you act instead of ordering, you are not therefore the less parts of the body.” And much more should we quiet with the same gracious words all discontented and envious thoughts. Are you not a member of Christ? and what is it, in comparison of so great mercies, if another man is more learned, more respected, richer; or healthier than you are? The weak then are not to envy the strong, and the strong on the other hand are not to despise the weak. “ The eye is not to say to the hand, I have no need of thee; neither again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” Those who are above others, either in learning or in dignity, are of course in some danger of becoming proud and contemptuous. Let this then be the lesson settled in our hearts; to believe that we are Christian brethren indeed, and to cherish in our hearts true brotherly feeling one towards another. Now, then, with this deep faith in Christ’ s Holy Spirit, as having really been given to dwell in our hearts, let us think on any other person, whomsoever we will, as being also partakers of the same Spirit. Consider; if he were partaker of the same blood with us, if it were our brother or sister after the flesh, should we not be full of love for him? Again, because this Spirit deals not with all exactly alike, but divides to every man severally as He will, how should the remembrance of Him fail to make us content in our places, orderly and diligent in our duties? since wherever we are in God’ s work, He assigned us our place. Are you then a rich and prosperous person? do not trust in your own riches: beware of thinking that you can do without the poor, that you need them not. Are you, on the contrary, a poor man? Then beware how you allow yourself to think sadly on the rich, as being better off than you are. Such thoughts are too likely to end in repining and envy. Again, are you in comparison learned? are you able to read the Scriptures? yet do not trust in your reading: do not think that you can make out your duty, and save yourself well enough: you still need the prayers of Christ’ s afflicted and poor. Are you, on the other hand, an ignorant person, and does it mortify you to see and feel that you know much less than most others? care not for it, but turn your thoughts to the infinite and wonderful truth, which, as we all know, belongs to us and to the very wisest alike. Are you so far blameless as to have kept, by God’ s mercy, your soul and body from wilful deadly sin? You know it is altogether the work of God’ s Spirit: believe and think of this; it will keep you from pride and self-righteousness. (Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts for the Times.) 1 Corinthians 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members … so also is Christ.Of the great variety of men’ s characters in the Church The law of variety in unity obtains-- I. In nature.1. No two leaves of the same tree, no two faces, even of twins, entirely correspond. Science, however, is continually bringing to light an unity and simplicity of type in things apparently different. What objects can present a greater superficial difference than quadrupeds and fishes, both of which, however, being vertebrates, are formed on the same general plan? 2. And the resemblance is not only of ground-plan, but of agency. The same power of gravitation which ties the planets to the sun, and retains them in their orbits, causes the leaf or the fruit to fall to the ground. The same power of electricity which rives the oak, attracts light substances towards chafed sealing-wax. The same refraction of the rays of the sun produces the rainbow, and makes the tiny dewdrop to twinkle with the prismatic colours. 3. The various parts of the universe work together for one end. Strong forces are at work in and around the earth, which, if allowed unlimited sway, might peril the planet’ s existence; but they play into one another’ s hands, and hold one another in equipoise. II. In the Word of God. The Scriptures are a collection of books written under various circumstances at different times. We have histories, biographies, poetry, aphorisms, prophecies, rituals, letters. But however dissimilar, they are one organic whole, knit together by a certain plan and principles. The prophecy of the Seed of the woman, which should bruise the serpent’ s head, is manifestly the nucleus round which the whole Bible has formed itself. The entire Old Testament looks forward to Messiah historically, typically, and prophetically. III. In the Church. Shall we not expect to find the same feature here, for the Church, quite as much as Nature and Scripture is God’ s workmanship?1. The members of the Apostolic Church had various gifts, the phenomena of which were different, but all the results of the agency of one Spirit, and all working together for the glory of one Saviour. These supernatural gifts had something in the natural endowments of the possessor’ s mind corresponding to them. Thus, e.g., corresponding to the gift of tongues, some persons have now a great facility of acquiring languages; corresponding to the girt of prophecy, we find in others a natural gift of high and fervid eloquence; some persons even nowadays have such a wonderful art of imparting what they know, that we can hardly be said to have lost the gift of teaching; others are admirably adapted for government; while even the gift of miracles itself rests on the power of mind over matter, of which power we have exemplifications in a natural way even nowadays. 2. The character and temperament of each individual Christian is different from that of his neighbour. Thus St. John represents the contemplative and studious disciple. St. Peter is the great bulwark and rock of the Church, breasting its perils and responsibilities gallantly, before St. Paul appears; Apollos is an eloquent declaimer, “ mighty in the Scriptures” ; Barnabas has a still small voice of consolation; while Paul, in powers of physical and mental endurance, in the expansiveness of his affections, is God’ s chiefest instrument for the diffusion of the glad tidings. These are some of the moulds in which Christian character was cast, and in which we may expect that it will continue to be cast nowadays. Conclusion:1. Let us not distress ourselves that we were not brought to God in the same way as some others. God’ s ways of influencing the human mind for good vary, first, with the original character of the mind, on which the Holy Ghost has to operate; and, secondly, with the acquired shape which that mind has taken from circumstances in which it has been thrown. On the same page of Scripture there is the record of Lydia, who became a Christian through the gentle opening of the heart, and of the gaoler who was shaken with strong alarm, as if over the pit of hell; nothing else would have broken bonds so firmly riveted. 2. Our method of serving God must depend on our capacities, endowments, position, and opportunities. It may not be a high or a widely influential work which we are doing for God, but then He may not have called us to such a work. “ I would undertake to govern a hundred empires,” said Dr. Payson, “ if God called me to it, but I would not undertake to govern a hundred sheep unless He called me.” 3. Learn a lesson of large charity. We ought, if rightly minded, to rejoice in the exuberance and variety of the spiritual gifts possessed by Christians, just as we delight in the rich variety of Nature or the Word of God. God’ s purpose is that each Christian should exhibit, in the peculiarity of his circumstances, education, moral temperament, and mental endowments, a new specimen of redeeming love and grace. By various discipline here He fits and polishes each living stone for the place which it is destined to occupy in the spiritual temple; and when all the stones are made ready, He will build them together each into his place, and exhibit to men and angels their perfect unity. (Dean Goulburn.)Different work given to different people If we examine a thistle we find that each of the purple fringes of which the head is composed is a distinct flower, so that the plume of the thistle is not, in reality, one flower, but a collection of flowers. Each part has its own work to do, and is changed in shape or colour, according to its work. One part produces honey; another attracts, by its colour, insects to fertilise the plant; another helps to produce seed. Each part has its own excellent quality, and the effect of their combined labour is to promote the welfare of all. (H. Macmillan, LL.D.)The Church: unity in diversity; diversity in unity The apostle’ s discourse is of spiritual gifts. These were largely distributed among the Christians of Corinth--to largely, it would seem, for the grace that went along with them. The diversity in unity here affirmed by the apostle of the gifts communicated to the early Church, pertains to the Church in its entire structure. It is, in fact, the law of its composition--an identity of character and experience, combined with an endless diversity in the details. The most palpable exemplification of this law is that which is offered by the diverse outward forms in which the Church exists. It is not the visible Church which the apostle affirms to be one; but the true Church--the Church made up of the regenerated and saved, who are confined to no one communion, and are known to God alone. But it is not without its significance that He has permitted the visible Church to be cast in many separate moulds. He might have prescribed a polity with such distinctness, and enjoined it in such terms of authority, that all churches would have conformed to it. But He saw fit so to frame His instructions on this subject as to leave room for a diversity of interpretation. The fact is indisputable, that to one class of minds this form of worship is the more edifying; to another, that. In this view we may refer to the visible Church as illustrating the principle of diversity in unity. The principle, however, finds its legitimate sphere within the brotherhood of real believers. This phrase, in fact, defines the sense in which they are affirmed to be one; they are “ real believers” : this makes them one. So the apostle teaches in the passage before us: The body of Christ (the Church) is one: “ for (verse 13) by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free.” It is through the anointing of the Spirit men are born again, and so engrafted into Christ as to become members of His body. This is the communicating of a new nature which makes them one, as really as the natural birth, the possession of a common humanity, makes them one. External diversities are of no consequence in either case. The child of the hovel, the wigwam, the palace, it matters not where or when he is born, he inherits the common nature and belongs to the race. So with the new birth, it merges all outward distinctions.1. This unity includes a common head. “ Christ is the Head of the Church.” Union with Christ is indispensable. 2. It denotes, further, a oneness of faith. Diversities of belief there certainly are among real believers. All Christians concur in the necessity of “ repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 3. They are also of one purpose. The various members of the body, controlled by a single will, work together for the same ends. The members of Christ’ s mystical body have a common aim. 4. They are united, too, by the bonds of a mutual sympathy. In the human body, if one member suffers, all suffer; if one rejoices, all rejoice. But this unity is not monotony. The Church is one. But it is one as the body is one; as the animal kingdom is one; the vegetable; the mineral; the whole realm of nature. The formula of definition in all these cases is, Unity in diversity, and diversity in unity. The Christian Church began in this way, and began gloriously. The Day of Pentecost supplied the mould in which it was to be cast. “ Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians.” What an assemblage was this! And as it set out, so it has continued. Contemning all distinctions of climate, empire, language, and religion, the Church has gone on, gathering into its ample fold people of all lands and tongues and faiths; cementing them into one harmonious whole; and that, without disturbing the elements which mark their several nationalities. But we may see this diversity in unity without convening the Church Ecumenical. It is the law of the kingdom everywhere. In the apostolic age, the household of faith comprised persons of every rank and occupation. And this variety has been perpetuated. The ministry has never been without its Johns and Pauls, its Thomases and Peters, its sons of thunder and its sons of consolation. Let me name Baxter, Owen, Bunyan, Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Hall, the Wesleys, the Erskines, Romaine, President Edwards, Whitefield, Dwight, Robert Hall, Chalmers, Davies, Mason, the Alexanders. What a galaxy is this! Every star is brilliant; but no two shine with the same lustre. And as with the ministry, so with the people. To delineate the variety which pertains to the many members of the one spiritual body would be to describe the numerous sorts of people aggregated in a community. For the Church recruits itself indifferently from the vast outlying masses of humanity. It appropriates to itself all ages, sexes, and conditions. Of course the training to which it subjects them demands the lopping off of excrescences and the healing of disorders which, neglected, would consume the life. But within the wise and wide limitations prescribed by the Divine Husbandman, it allows all the trees and shrubs transplanted into its enclosure to follow out each the law of its own growth. The pine is not expected to become an oak; nor the orange a vine; nor the violet a rose. This rule is observed even in respect to the methods by which the dead branches are engrafted into the True Vine and made alive. It is the prerogative of the one Almighty Spirit to effect this; here is the unity. But He does it in a great variety of modes; here is the diversity. Nor in conversion only. He carries the same variety of modes and means into the culture and development of the immortal germ deposited in regeneration. The efficiency in all instances is His own. And the one agency He has Himself prescribed, in His Word. But who can describe the paths along which He leads His people, and the endless combinations of proverbial and gracious influences by which He conducts them step by step up the acclivities of the higher life, and fashions them to the “ likeness of the heavenly” ? The fact is patent to every one. Let us advert to a few of the more important aspects in which it offers itself to our contemplation. It will not be difficult to show that this Divine law of diversity in unity is as essential to the proper perfection of the Church as it is morally beautiful.1. Let me begin with this latter thought, the moral beauty of this arrangement. This is not a thing to be argued. Beauty is a matter not of logic, but of feeling. Its appeal is to a constitutional susceptibility. And it is a part of our constitution to crave variety. We do not want, painting to be all of one colour, nor a tune of one strain. The ocean would pall upon us if it were always still or always boisterous. We grow weary of looking day by day at the same people in the same situation, unless they are our intimate friends. And as to our friends, we would not have them all alike if we could. It is one of the charms of the domestic state, the variety there is in families. He who made man made the Church; and of course adapted it to this as well as to every other part of his nature. No one can complain of the New Testament as a monotonous book; nor feel that when be has seen one of its personages he has seen all. We love the Church all the more because its unity, like that of a garden, effloresces in a grateful variety of fruits and flowers. 2. The principle of diversity in unity upon which the Church is constructed illustrates the power and efficacy of Divine grace. The palpable fact which meets the eye is that while grace is more than a match for depravity in its worst forms, it renews and elevates all the nobler traits of humanity; and in either case, without disturbing identity of character. In man’ s hands these various types of character might be bent or broken; they could never be renewed. Changed they might be, but not changed without sad contortion or mutilation. Too often has the experiment been tried. A wonderful achievement it is, as wonderful in power as in love, that of imbuing a whole community with a new life, from its very nature pervading, elevating, and controlling, and yet so incorporating it with all the natural faculties and functions as to aid their proper working and their true development. We cite it as one of the fruits of that diversity in unity which enters radically into the constitution of the Church. 3. It is still more to our purpose to refer to the wisdom, perhaps we may say the necessity, of this principle, in view of the mission assigned to the Church. It is not for man to say that anything is absolutely necessary to God in effecting His purposes which He has not declared to be so. But we may speak of the perfect adaptation of the principle we are considering, to the ends for which the Church was established. Not to name other topics, the Church is appointed to be, under God, the Teacher and Guide of the world. Its business is to disciple all nations. It needs, therefore, labourers of every sort and every variety of talent. With fewer gifts in kind, some portions of its work would be neglected. If it is to carry Christianity through the globe, it must have men whose constitutions and training fit them for the various climates of the earth. It must have men of iron nerve who can face dangers. It must have men of the requisite scholarship to grapple with strange languages and preach to strange peoples. In its home-field there is room for the exercise of every kind of gift. A scheme so vast demands a corresponding variety and affluence of talents. And this want is provided for in that diversity which, as we have seen, enters into the constituency of the Church. There are ministers of every grade of culture and with every kind of gifts. How, otherwise, could the ministry fulfil its design? The people vary indefinitely. And who can survey the broad acres which the Church is cultivating, without rejoicing in the combination of gifts employed in carrying forward the work? A radical part of this agency lies in the silent power of example; the simple routine of a quiet and upright life. Some are breaking up the fallow ground. Some are sowing. Some are nurturing the precious grain. And others reaping and gathering the crop. But all are servants of the great Taskmaster. The unfolding of such a subject suggests the practical lessons which grow out of it.1. One is a lesson of instruction and encouragement in respect to religious experience. We have seen that this is of no uniform type. Certain elements are essential, but beyond these it partakes of a very great variety. We are not, then, to set up this or that instance of conversion, nor this or that form of the Christian life, as the standard by which all others are to be tested. God has His own methods for bringing men into His kingdom. The only safe or authorised mode of trying our state is to come to the law and the testimony. 2. As unity in diversity is the law of the Church, it is the duty of all its members to cherish and promote the spirit of unity. The apostle points out the effect of a schism among the members of the body, as illustrative of a divisive spirit among the members of the Church. The divisions among Christians have always been the opprobrium of religion. 3. As diversity in unity is the law of the Church, let us try to learn what are our own gifts, and to fill each his own place. To learn what this is, we must ask His teaching in prayer. We must consider our situation and circumstances. We must endeavour to find out what gifts we have, and how they can be used to the best purpose. 4. There is one other lesson which I would gladly enforce if the time would permit, viz., a lesson of charity in judging of the Christianity of others. (H. A. Boardman, D.D.)Christ the head, the Church His body The appellation “ Christ” is here applied, not to the person or our Lord, but to His Church, intimating that she is identified with her Saviour; and being given to the Church as a body, indicates the harmony and union of all its parts. I. The union of believers with Christ. This is here represented as corresponding with that which subsists betwixt the head and the members of the body. (Ephesians 4:15-16; Colossians 1:18). This reminds us that Christ is--1. The same nature with ourselves, even as the head is of the same nature with the body (Hebrews 4:16-17). 2. The governing power in the Church, as the head is of the body. In the head the eyes are stationed like watchful sentinels; the ears receiving the information conveyed by sound; the organs of taste and smell discerning things that differ, and contributing eminently both to our safety and to our enjoyment; the tongue, the interpreter of thought: there, in short, is the countenance, the seat of beauty, giving to man an impress of dignity not found in any of the inferior animals. Now the superior endowments of this capital of the human frame afford a fit emblem of the honour and supremacy of Him who is constituted our spiritual Head. 3. The vital principle, the source of life and feeling to the whole body. Christ our Head, in whom dwell all wisdom and all power, imparts and sustains the principles of the spiritual life. II. Their relation to one another.1. The members of the body are many, and differ exceedingly, and yet in a machine so complex each movement and circumvolution is exactly fitted for its specific end. Of the many bones, e.g., of the hand or foot, not one could change its place without injury to the limb to which it belongs. In like manner, every muscle, nerve, and artery has its own place and office, which no other could supply. So in the mystical body of Christ there are many members, with each its own office. One Christian excels in the intelligence of the eye, another in the discrimination of the ear: one has the activity and adaptation of the band, another the firmness and perseverance of the foot: one has the energy of the arm, another the tenderness of the bosom (verses 4-11). 2. This diversity occasions a dependence of the several members upon one another (verses 21, 22). Let no believer, however mean, be discouraged; let no believer, however eminent, presume that he is independent. The analogy suggests the mutual sympathy that should subsist among believers (verse 26). The tenderness each should cherish our fellow-Christians, the zeal each should render. 4. This mutual co-operation has the happiest results. In the natural body, when the eye is quick to discern, the hand diligent to execute, the foot steady to pursue, the ear open to hear, and the tongue ready to return a right answer, the combined exertion of our powers secures ends which their separate and unconnected attempts could never have attained. In like manner the efforts of the several members of the body of Christ are then successful when they are honestly and affectionately combined. (H. Grey, D.D.)The Church the body of Christ I. What this implies. That its members, like a living organism, are--1. Animated by one spirit (verse 13).2. Mutually dependent (verses 14-18).3. United for one end (verses 19, 20). II. What it requires in the several members.1. Humility and contentment (verses 21-24).2. Unity and sympathy (verses 25, 26).3. Gratitude and fidelity (verses 27-31). (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 12:13-20 For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. Of union with Christ Consider-- I. How Christ’ s redemption is applied to a sinner. By uniting the sinner to Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30). Men must not think to stand afar from Christ, but must unite with Christ, and so partake of the redemption purchased by Him, as the poor widow drowned in debt, by marrying the rich man, is interested in his substance. II. There is a real union betwixt Christ and believers. Consider--1. The terms by which this union is expressed. Christ is said to be in believers (Colossians 1:27; Romans 8:10), and they in Him (1 Corinthians 1:30). He is said to dwell in them, and they in Him (John 6:54). They are said to abide in one another (John 15:4). Believers have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). They are so joined as to be one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). 2. The several real and proper unions which it is resembled to. The vine and the branches (John 15:5); the head and the body (Ephesians 1:22-23); merit eaten and the eater (John 6:56); yea, to that betwixt Father and Christ (John 17:21). 3. If this union be not a true and real one, the sacrament of the supper is but a bare sign, and not a sea1. III. What is that union. There are three mysterious unions in our religion--the substantial union of the three persons in one Godhead; the personal union of the Divine and human natures in Jesus Christ; the mystical union betwixt Christ and believers, which is that wherein Christ and believers are so joined that They are one Spirit and one mystical body (1 Corinthians 6:17 and text). In this union the whole man is united to a whole Christ. The believing soul is united to Him (Ephesians 3:17). His body also is united to Him (1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:14). They are united to Him in His Divine nature (Colossians 1:27), and in His human nature (Ephesians 5:30), and so through the Mediator unto God (2 Corinthians 6:16). IV. The bonds of this union. All corporal union is made by contact; but Christ is in heaven, and we on earth, and so we can have no such union with Him; and if we had, what would it profit? (John 6:63.) But this union is spiritual (1 Corinthians 6:17), and so are the bonds of it. And they are two.1. The Spirit on Christ’ s part, whereby He taketh and keepeth hold of us (1 John 3:1-24. ult.). And the distance betwixt Christ and believers, as great as is betwixt heaven and earth, cannot hinder the joining of our souls and bodies to His, since the Spirit is an infinite Spirit, everywhere present. 2. Faith on the believer’ s part (Ephesians 3:17). Thereby the believer apprehends, takes, and keeps hold of Christ. It is by that we receive Christ (John 1:12), come unto Him (John 6:35), and feed on Him (verse 56). And its fitness for this. V. The author and efficient cause of this union.1. The Spirit of Christ comes in the Word, and enters into the heart of the elect sinner dead in sin (Galatians 3:2). 2. That quickening Spirit works faith (Ephesians 2:8; Colossians 2:12). Hereby the soul lays hold on Christ, and actually unites with Him. VI. The. Properties of this union.1. A true, real, and proper union, not a mere relative one. 2. A spiritual union (1 Corinthians 6:17). 3. A mysterious union (Ephesians 5:32; Colossians 1:27). 4. A most close and intimate union (1 Corinthians 6:17; John 6:56; Ephesians 5:30). 5. An indissoluble union (John 10:28-29). 6. It is the leading, comprehensive, fundamental privilege of believers (1 Corinthians 3:23). All their other privileges are-derived from and grafted upon this--their justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. (T. Boston, D.D.)Unity in Christ the secret of man’ s life: “ all one” by faith in Christ, the one life of all There is a joy familiar to you, from the experience of daily life, which may assist you in understanding the nature of the blessing to be derived from the Lord’ s Supper. All of you have felt refreshed by meeting a friend. The very sight of him may have done you good, like a medicine. If you have ever tasted the blessedness of communion with a Christian friend, you will understand still better the nature of this spiritual food. The Ethiopian eunuch tasted it when he went on his way rejoicing, after Philip had come up into his chariot, and conversed with him about the One of whom he was reading. Still more did the two disciples learn the lesson on the way to Emmaus, where they met with Jesus, although in the guise of another-man, a fellow-traveller on the road. They had “ meat to eat” of which others knew nothing, while He was thus manifesting Himself to them in another way than He does to the world. They and He were becoming one in spirit. They were growing up into Him, drinking into His spirit. Before they parted they had become one. I. Elsewhere, as well as at the communion table, communion with Christ makes Christians one, and so feeds their spirits. This oneness is food to man’ s spirit, and is to be found in Christ alone, so that it is the secret of true Christians. All men in their spirits are seeking this oneness, more or less conscious that it is the food of their spirits, the secret of happiness; in fact, eternal life. Without faith in Christ this oneness is not attained at all, and therefore man’ s spirit, starved, stinted of its appropriate nourishment, remains unsatisfied, and is tormented with unquenchable longings, and disappointment in all the broken cisterns to which he resorts. Faith it is that gives friendship its substance, its strength, its eternal life; that alone keeps man from hungering and thirsting after some better nourishment suited to his spirit’ s immortal nature and eternal longings. Faith alone binds the bond of perfectness between master and servant, between buyer and seller, between ruler and subject, between the citizens of one community or the members of one Christian Church. In all these, and the other channels of intercourse between man and man, without faith love is awanting, or is impure and imperfect. The parties, therefore, do not become one. For love is unity. Man’ s delusion is to expect unity without love, and love without faith. Men know that they cannot be happy till they become one; but they believe that they can become one without drinking into Christ’ s one spirit, without being rooted and grounded in the love of God, without becoming one as the Father and the Son are one, through faith beholding in the Son the revelation of the Father, claiming sonship in Christ, and, therefore, brotherhood in the Lord, and thus coming to reconciliation in the Redeemer. Communion with Christ alone feeds man’ s spirit; and it is food in proportion to his faith, and love, or charity. It is food by bringing him in spirit and in truth into God’ s presence, into the secret of the Lord, into the revelation of God’ s grace and glory in the covenant, and in the kingdom, into conscious fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, in all his fellowship with his fellow-Christians and fellow-men. II. Sacramental communion brings “ all into one,” and, so far as it does so, is a communion feast--faith discerning the Lord’ s body--believers there and thus becoming one in spirit.1. They feast by coming, through Christ’ s body and blood discerned by faith, all to one Father. Saw you ever the child that was long away from home in the moment of his glad return, rushing into his mother’ s arms, pressed to his father’ s bursting heart, welcomed back into the bosom of the family that have been counting the years of his absence, and watching for the blessed hour when they shall see him again, one of their circle in everything? Did not the soldier thus returning, from this or that battle-field and long campaign, find it food to his drooping heart to feel himself one again, and still one as ever, or more than ever, with those whom he loved and left behind sorrowing? Still more did not the prodigal, received back to forgiveness, live again, breathe freely, return to life and renew his strength, as he heard his father’ s lips once more pronounce, “ My son,” and knew that there was a father’ s heart still welcoming him upon earth, however unworthy he had proved himself by his misconduct? So it is to the communicant in the bread and wine of the communion. They point to the body broken for him, to the blood of the new covenant shed for the remission of his sins, and thus to the bond of perfectness between him and the living God his Father in heaven. They bring him near consciously, and ill spirit, to that Father. 2. They feast by coming, through Christ’ s body and blood discerned by faith, to one another, and nearer all to one another. It is a family feast, one Father’ s board spread for all the members of His one family, without respect of persons. All are brethren, who are to sit side by side at one table, eat one common bread, and drink one cup of communion, the cup of brotherhood. Without the spirit of brotherhood we have nothing better than the shadow. Our feast is a counterfeit, a work of the flesh. Nay, it is worse, a substitution of the lust of the flesh for the love of the Spirit. “ Little children, love one another.” This is the feast. It is a feast of love; and those only who love one another in the Lord are communicants here; those only have communion in the body and blood. The “ new commandment” is the law of the communion table, the bond of perfectness in the new covenant. 3. They feast by coming near, or nearer, through the body and blood discerned by faith, to that kingdom of God in which all are one. In that body and blood we are to discern written the new covenant in Christ, the kingdom of God and of heaven brought near, so near that we can claim the place of citizens, and enter into a blessed fellowship with all, whether on earth or in heaven, who bow the knee to Jesus, and call Him Lord, taking on them His yoke. In the name of Jesus we are to receive and use all, calling nothing “ common or unclean,” which He hath sanctified. This is the liberty of the children of God, a liberty which we are to guard with the utmost jealous, but which we are also to beware of abusing. Our life in this kingdom is to be a life of God--heavenly, holy, Christ-like--“ not of the world, as He was not of the world.” (R. Paisley.)The sameness of religion We often read of water, of living water, of drawing water out of the wells of salvation, and of thirsting and drinking. By which expressions are undoubtedly meant the inward spirit and experience of religion, with the many comforts and blessings of it. Now, says the apostle, whatever be our character or circumstances in other respects, yet having felt the renewing influence of the grace of God, we have been all made to drink into one spirit. We have all hungered and thirsted after righteousness, have all been led to the same fountain-bead, and have all, in our different proportion, drank of the same Divine blessings which freely and largely flow thence. I. As to that diversity of natural and external circumstances which attends the profession of religion, it will be necessary to take a general view of it, in order to set the contrast in the stronger light, and especially as the apostle himself directs us to it in the very text.1. It is obvious to every one, that there is a wide difference among those who fear God, in respect of their outward and worldly circumstances. Religion is not confined to any particular nation or age of the world, nor to any particular rank or condition of men. 2. There is a remarkable difference among good men as to their intellectual capacities and their natural tempers. These, be they what they may, are not the tests by which the characters of the disciples of Jesus are to be decisively determined. 3. The difference may be considerable, in respect of the particular dispensations, forms, and means of religion they may be under. The same degree of light hath not been enjoyed, nor hath the same mode of worship obtained from the beginning. 4. The diversity there is of spiritual gifts infers no real diversity as to religion itself. 5. There may be, and often is, a difference as to the degree of religion, though it still retains the same nature. There are, in the language of Scripture, babes, young men, and fathers in Christ; some weak, and others strong in faith. II. Wherein consists that uniformity in religion which our text mentions as a peculiar commendation of its real and intrinsic excellency.1. By the sameness of religion is here meant, the exact similarity there is in the spirit and temper of all good men. As the several individuals of mankind are all made of one blood, and as the same faculty of reason in a greater or less degree is common to each of the human species, so what the Scripture calls “ a new creature” is one Divine or spiritual nature common to all the people of God. 2. The main expressions of inward religion may be comprised in this short account of it. It first humbles the heart of man--then inspires it with Divine hopes and joys--by this means refines and sanctifies it--and so makes it capable of a pure love and exalted friendship. And in respect of each of these particulars there is an exact uniformity, at least in a degree, among all the people of God. They have all been made to drink into the same spirit. III. The grounds or reasons of this uniformity.1. They are all of the same nature. It is acknowledged indeed that there is a strength of genius, and a softness of natural temper in some, which renders them more amiable than others; yet the principal outlines of human apostacy are much the same in all. This inference is likewise with the same force of reason to be drawn from a contemplation-- 2. Of the one grand source or origin whence religion is derived. It is from above, the offspring of God, and the genuine fruit of the influence and operation of His Spirit. Now as no fountain can send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter, so we may be very sure that what is the effect of a Divine influence on the souls of men must be of the same pure and spiritual nature and tendency. And for the like reason we may safely conclude in the general, that however the circumstances of particular persons may in some respects differ, yet the manner of the Divine operation on the hearts of men is much the same. Religion will begin then in our humiliation, and advance through various degrees of sanctification, till it rises to a perfection of happiness and glory in the heavenly world. 3. The great and important ends which religion proposes, clearly evince the simplicity and uniformity of it. The glory of God, our own happiness, and the welfare of society are acknowledged to be the principal objects of this great concern. (S. Stennett, D.D.)Christians ingrafting into Christ I. What is this body of Christ, which the Spirit of God doth ingraft His people into? First, it is the Church of God; as the apostle saith (Colossians 1:18), “ He is the head of the body, the Church.” So that the Church is the body of Christ, that same peculiar company of men and women, as St. Peter calls them, “ You are a chosen generation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). The author to the Hebrews calls them, “ the assembly of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23). Now I call this invisible, for though their persons, and courses, and manner of life be seen and known, and they may be known who they are, yet all of them were never known, nor ever will be (2 Timothy 2:39). Secondly, it is such a company as is gathered out of all nations under heaven; as St. John speaks (Revelation 7:9). Thirdly, this same godly company are a company of predestinated men unto eternal life. Fourthly, it is such a godly company as is gathered by the Word of God. The Word of God gathers them together. Fifthly, they are such a company as are made one, knit and combined together in Christ, though themselves are never so many, and never so remote and distant from one another. It is true, you are different among yourselves: one is a master, another a servant, one is a rich man, another a poor man--so there is a difference; but they are all one in Christ Jesus, they have all one and the selfsame faith, they have all one and the selfsame Father, there is but one Lord, and one Spirit to quicken and unite them all. Thus we see what this body of Christ is. II. Now in the second place, what is it to be put into this body; to be implanted into it? I answer--First, it is a part of a man’ s ingrafting into Christ; for the ingrafting of a man into Christ, and into the body of Christ, are not two things, but God doth them by one and the selfsame act, as you may see (Romans 12:5). It must needs be the same work, for the putting a man into Christ in whom are the other members, that very act makes a man to have fellowship with Christ, together with all the other members. Secondly, this likewise is done by faith. Then in the third place, it makes a man have a common life with all the rest of the members of Jesus Christ. As you may see (Colossians 3:4), “ When Christ which is our life shall appear, ye also shall appear with Him in glory.” Christ who is our life. In the fourth place, it makes a man to be of one consent with all the people of God everywhere (Zephaniah 3:9). Fifthly, all this is for mutual profit, and help, and care, and sympathy. III. In the third place we must show, that the spirit doth this, and why he doth it. First, that it is the Spirit that unites and tieth all these members together. This makes them hang together, therefore it is called the “ unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). Now the reason why the Spirit of God doth do this, is--first, because none else besides the Spirit is able to do it. For by nature we are woefully different from the body of Christ, we are of another nature, of another kind, of another life; nay, we are contrary to it. Secondly, there is none so fit as the Spirit of God to do it. Thirdly, how the Spirit of God doth this; and that is two ways, as the Scripture reveals to us. The one is, by being one and the same Spirit in all the members of Christ. He comes into them, and dwells in them as one and the selfsame Spirit, and so makes up this union. The same Spirit that was in Paul was in Peter; and so all the rest of the members of Christ one and the selfsame Spirit is in them (1 Corinthians 3:16). Secondly, the Spirit doth this by uniting and tying a knot between these members. He doth unite them, and make them hang together in one; He makes them to be of one heart. IV. Now I come to the uses. First, is it so that the Spirit of God doth unite all the saints of God together in one body? Then here we may see the reason of the difference of men in the world. Some companies have a different spirit; but all the saints of God have the Spirit of God which makes them hang together. Secondly, doth the Spirit of God join all the saints of God together in one body? Then that which God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Thirdly, here we may see how to try our acquaintance, and whether the company we join ourselves unto be good or no. If our company be right, the Spirit of God tieth the knot. The last use is this: is it so that the Spirit of God joins all the saints of God together in one body? Then we should have a fellow-feeling with all the members of Christ. But how shall we have a fellow-feeling with the members of Christ? First, we must inform ourselves as much as we can concerning one another. Secondly, we should visit our fellow-members. As it is said of Moses, though he were a great courtier in Pharaoh’ s court, yet he went out to look upon his brethren’ s burdens (Exodus 2:11). Thirdly, we should lay to heart their afflictions. (W. Fenner.)The true unity of the Church I. Is spiritual.1. In its nature.2. In its origin. II. Surmounts all earthly distinctions.1. Of nationality.2. Denominationalism.3. Of condition. (J. Lyth, D.D.)For the body is not one member, but many.-- Human connections Round about God is a universe of connections. Nothing stands single. The economy of universal administration is that of borrowing and lending. The root takes from the soil; the soil from the sun. There is no bulk of matter so large that it can stand alone by itself. The great worlds all lean on each other. Systems depend on systems, as worlds on worlds. They are “ all parts of one stupendous whole.” From inanimate nature turn to human society. Here we find the same law.1. We can trace it in all the stages of man’ s development. What is there so dependent as a babe? What do we not all owe to mother-love and father-love? How many eyes saw for us, how many feet ran for us, etc., when we were young. Furthermore, when the babe has become a man he is more dependent than ever. For man is dependent to the extent of his wants; and as a man grows, a great crop of wants grow up with him. 2. Indeed, society is only a partnership, and is more a confession of weakness than a proof of strength. Society is only a polite system of borrowing and lending. We talk of men being the architects of their own fortunes, of being self-made. But how? Because in them was the power of absorption. Their minds had in them that imperial quality which enabled them to tax the sources of all knowledge, and compel the universe of matter and of thought to bring tribute to the feet of their growth. But plant any man or woman rightly, i.e., give them favourable connections, and they will grow. Plant them wrongly, and their growth will be checked. 3. Consider the favourable connections in which men to-day, in this country, stand. Formerly, everything was against the individual. Government, religion, wealth robbed him indeed, the old civilisations were organised robbery of the individual. To-day government is nothing, religion is nothing, unless they assist man. The world, in all its combinations of law and love, has become his friend. If he is ignorant, it helps him to knowledge; if rude, it teaches him the lesson of refinement; if poor, it pushes him up toward riches; if blind, it teaches him to see with his fingers; if dumb, it instructs his lips to talk without sound. The whole drift of modern civilisation is to make man’ s connections benevolent and helpful. Under such conditions it is a shame for one not to succeed. Knowledge, virtue, manliness, and womanliness, piety, to-day are possible to all. 4. It is through the connections which the civilisation of his age weaves around a man that he ministers benevolence unto men, rather than by any self-created channels. There is a conscious benevolence, but what a man gives by his hand is nothing compared to what he gives through his activities. It is only as we apprehend how closely we are connected with people that we become sympathetic with them. Love demands contact, and is grown by it. If you desire to love men, go among them. Why do men call so fine an instrument as human nature base, when it is only loosened in its strings and weakened in its frame? Cannot the frame be rebraced and the strings strung anew? And when this has been done, and the hand of the Maker sweeps it again, and the latent harmonies roll forth, shall it be base then? And it is only as you live in close connection with men that you can ever know how splendid they are in their possibilities. Christ took human nature in order to know it. He loved men because they were brethren. And so to-day the saviours of men are the lovers of men. To help a man’ s body out of a slough you must take hold of it with your hands and lift, and so to help a man’ s mind and soul up your mind and soul must take hold of his and lift. 5. There is no other way by which society can be held together save by the principle of mutual benevolence, ministering to mutual dependence. The strong must bear the infirmities of the weak, or the universal order of creation would become chaotic and destructive. For the universe is peopled with weakness. Look at the natural kingdom. How few are the oaks, and how many are the rushes! Yet there is not a spire of grass, a bird, nor a worm, so low and weak as to be beneath God’ s care. And if the strong should ignore the principle of love, the world would be swept backward and downward to the depth in which it lay when Christianity was born. Not only, however, do the strong help the weak, but the weak help the strong. The grasses give protection to the roots of the oak. And so, through all the orders of life, from trees to men, you will find that the humble things are needed by the proud and the lofty. The millionaire needs the tailor more than the tailor needs the millionaire. The branches of the tree need the soil more than the soil needs the branches. Therefore, if any of you who are poor, and have few talents, have been saying, We are of no use; if we only had talents, or money, or knowledge, or power, we might help people; say so no more, for however small and weak and lacking, you are not lacking, you are not useless. If you cannot be great trees, be grasses only, and know that grasses beautify the world. 6. The author of our religion, above all other men, recognised the responsibility of His human connections. He lived amid the weakness of the world, and did what He could to make it strength. The people were not slow to apprehend His goodness nor to love Him for it. They followed Him in throngs; and as they followed He continued to do them good. All this was done for our example. (W. H. H. Murray.) 1 Corinthians 12:20-25 But now are they many members, yet but one body.The members of the body of Christ I. Their unity. “ One body.” II. Their diversity. The eye, the hand, etc. III. Mutual dependence. IV. Admirable compensations. V. Common interests. (J. Lyth, D.D.)A living unity requires 1. The combination of many members.2. The harmonious arrangement of parts.3. The inspiration of one Spirit.4. Co-operation for one common end. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Helpful co-operation “ I stood awhile ago and looked at a drinking-fountain. A marble angel, beautifully sculptured, stood pointing to heaven. Then came polished granite inscribed with gilt letters, and massive slabs of stone. But I noticed that the water came through a small brass pipe, and the people drank from an iron cup attached to an iron chain. And the marble angel pointing heavenwards would have done nobody any good but for the brass pipe and iron cup. Think if the pipe had said, ‘ If they do not make me of gold I will not belong to the thing’ ; or if the cup had said, ‘ I must be of silver, or I shall be ashamed to be there at all.’ No, I thought I heard the music of the three--common water, common cup, common pipe--all co-operating to furnish the refreshing draught.” Every one should keep to his own station In the ringing of bells, whilst every one keeps his due time and order, what a sweet and harmonious sound they make! All the neighbour villages are cheered with the sound of them. But when once they jar and check each other, either jangling together or striking preposterously, how harsh and unpleasing is that noise! So that as we testify our public rejoicing by an orderly and well-tuned peal, so, when we would signify the town is on fire, we ring the bells backward in a confused manner. It is just thus in Church and commonwealth: when every one knows his station and keeps their due ranks, there is a melodious concert of comfort and contentment; but when either states or persons will be clashing with each other, the discord is grievous and extremely prejudicial. (J. Spencer.)Mutual support “ It was only the other day,” says one, “ I noticed a lofty hill, crowned with a sturdy and thick wood. ‘ How often,’ I reflected, ‘ have the proud tops of those trees shaken off “ the injuring tempest!” In many a storm they have battled nobly, and conquered. Had these trees been scattered over the surrounding hills, each separate and alone, these noble branches would long ere this have been broken and peeled by the pelting of many a storm. The rushing wind would have long ago twisted and split these exposed trunks, or would have carried them down into the valley beneath. At present they shelter and sustain each other, bidding defiance to the tempest.’ I noted down the thought, as illustrative of the benefits of church-fellowship.” And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee.-- The least of service to the greatest 1. It is beautiful to observe what close links there are between the several classes in a community, and how the breaking of any one would go far towards dislocating the whole social system. “ The king himself is served by the field” ; the throne is connected with the sod; the illustrious occupant of the one depends on the tiller of the other. It is literally from the -field that all the arts and comforts of civilised life spring. When you look on a community; with its nobles, merchants, preachers, men of science, artificers, you may perhaps think little of the peasantry. Yet you have only to suppose the peasantry ceasing from their labours, and there would be an almost immediate arrest on the businesses and enjoyments of our stirring community. A land covered with palaces, but without cottages would be a land of costly sepulchres. Does not this effectually expose the preposterousness of that pride which would put a slight on the poor. 2. But let us consider this great fact under a somewhat more practical point of view. Suppose the case of a community from which was banished everything like want, so that, though gradations of rank might still exist, there should be everywhere sufficiency. This is a state of things for which many philanthropists ardently long, as the very perfection of the social system. But we know not how to join in this longing for universal affluence. The country in which it would be hardest to make progress in genuine piety would be that in whose habitations none were to be found requiring the succours of Christian benevolence. One of the most fatal tendencies in our nature is the tendency to selfishness. And who can fail to see that the having amongst us objects which continually appeal to our compassions is wonderfully adapted to the counteracting that tendency? Why, then, should we hesitate to pronounce the poor among the benefactors of a community? We can imagine such a revolution in the circumstances of this country, that many of its public structures might no longer be required for the purposes to which they were originally devoted. But it would not be the downfall of our warehouses, museums, or arsenals which could fill us with apprehension for the spiritual well-being of our people. Whilst you swept away buildings which belong to us as a rich, intelligent, and powerful people, we should feel that though there might be much in the removal that was humiliating, there might be much also that was profitable. But when you come to remove structures reared for the shelter of the miserable, we should feel the removal an indication that henceforward there would be little appeal to the sympathies of the heart, and we could therefore anticipate the rapid growth of selfishness. It may be perfectly true that the indigent cannot do without the benevolent, but it is equally true theft the benevolent cannot do without the indigent. Whensoever you give ear to a tale of distress, and you contribute according to your ability to the relief of the suppliant, you receive as well as confer benefit. The afflicted one keeps, by his appeal, the charities of your nature from growing stag, ant, and thus may be said to requite the obligation. 3. It were easy to enlarge on the utter uselessness of orders or individuals who may be likened to the more honourable members of the body, were there not other orders or individuals who may with equal fitness be likened to the less honourable. Of what avail, for example, would be the courage and skill of a general without troops to obey his commands? of what the ingenuity of the engineers, were there no labourers to employ his inventions? of what the wisdom of the legislator, without functionaries to carry his measures into force? If Christian ministers be likened to the eye or the head, they depend on the very lowest of the people as they prosecute their honourable and difficult employment. For if the presence of suffering be the great antagonist to selfishness, the poor of his flock must be a clergyman’ s best auxiliaries, seeing that they help to keep the rest from that moral hardness which would make them impervious to his most earnest remonstrance. (H. Melvill, B.D.)Mutual dependence I. Is a general law.1. In nature.2. In the world.3. In the Church. II. Arises out of--1. Individual imperfection.2. Difference of position and function. III. Is divinely ordained.1. For the common benefit.2. By promoting mutual-- (1) Love.(2) Support.(3) Unity. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Working men, hear! So thoroughly is society balanced, that if you harm one part you harm all. The man who lives in a mansion and the man who breaks cobble stones affect each other’ s misfortune or prosperity. Dives cannot kick Lazarus without hurting his own foot. They who throw Shadrach into the furnace get their own faces scorched. What if the eye should say, “ I am overseer of this physical anatomy; I despise those miserable fingers!” What if the hand should say, “ I am a first-class workman; if there is anything I hate it is the eye, which does nothing but look!” Oh, silly eye! how soon you would die if you had not the hand to support and defend you! Oh, silly hand, you would be a mere fumbler in the darkness if it were not for the eye. Relief will come to the working classes of this country through-- I. A better understanding between capital and labour. Their interests are identical; what helps one helps both; what injures one injures both. Show me any point in the world’ s history where capital was prospered and labour oppressed, or where labour was prospered and capital oppressed. Show me any point in the last fifty years where capital was getting large accumulation, and I will show you the point at which labour was getting large wages. Show me a time when labour was getting large wages, and I will show you the point where capital was getting large profits. Every speech that capital makes against labour or that labour makes against capital is an adjournment of our national prosperity. When capital maligns labour it is the eye cursing the hand. When labour maligns capital, it is the hand cursing the eye. The distance between capital and labour is only a step, and the labourers there will cross over and become capitalists, and the capitalists will cross over and become labourers. Would to God they would shake hands while they are crossing. The combatants in the great war are chiefly men who have never been obliged to toil, and men who could get labour but will not have it. I want it understood that the labourers are the highest style of capitalists. Their investment is their muscles, nerves, bones, skill, health. II. Co-operative association. That plan by which labourers become their own capitalists. Thomas Brassey declared, “ Co-operation is the one and only solution of the labour question; it is the sole path, by which the labouring classes, as a whole, will ever get their share in the rewards and honours of our advanced civilisation.” Thomas Hughes, Lord Derby, John Stuart Mill, men who gave half their lifetime to the study of this question, all favour co-operative association. Our working people will he wiser after a while, and the money they fling away on hurtful indulgences they will put into co-operative associations, and they will become capitalists. III. More providence and forecast. “ Oh,” you say, “ you ought not to talk that way in the hard times.” I tell you hard times are not always to stay. I know working men who are in a perfect fidget till they have got rid of their last dollar. A young man worked hard to earn his six or seven hundred dollars yearly. Marriage day came. The bride had inherited five hundred dollars, and spent every dollar on the wedding dress. Then the young man took extra evening employment, which almost extinguished his eyesight! Why? To lay up something for a rainy day? No; that he might get a hundred and fifty dollars to get his wife a sealskin mantle. A minister told me, in Iowa, that his church and the neighbourhood had been impoverished by the fact that they put mortgages on their farms in order to send their families to the Philadelphia Centennial. It was not respectable not to go to the Centennial. Now, between such fools and pauperism there is a very short step. Easy and hard times change. In times of peace prepare for war. I have no sympathy for skinflint saving, but I plead for Christian providence. Some people think it is mean to turn the gas low when they go out of the parlour. Saving is mean or magnificent according as it is for yourself or for others. IV. More thorough discovery on the part of employers that it is best for them to let their employees know just how matters stand. I knew a manufacturer who employed more than a thousand hands. I said to him, “ Do you ever have any trouble with your workmen? Do you have any strikes?” “ No. Every little while I call my employes together, and I say, ‘ What you turned out this year isn’ t as much as we got last year. I can’ t afford to pay you as much as I did. Now, you know I put all my means into this business. What do you think ought to be my percentage, and what wages ought I to pay you? Come, let us settle this.’ And we are always unanimous. When we suffer, we all suffer together. When we advance, we all advance together, and my men would die for me.” But when a man goes among his employes with a supercilious air, and drives up to his factory as though he were the autocrat of the universe, he will have strikes, and will see at the end that he has made an awful mistake. V. The religious rectification of the country. Labour is appreciated and rewarded just in proportion as a country is Christianised. Why is our smallest coin a Benny, while in China it takes six or a dozen pieces to make one penny? Show me a community that is infidel, and I will show you a community where wages are small. Show me a community that is thoroughly Christianised, and I will show you a community where wages are comparatively large. Our religion is a democratic religion. It makes the owner of the mill understand he is a brother to all the operatives in that mill. I do not care how much money you have, you have not enough money to buy your way through the gate to heaven. I do not care how poor you are, if you have the grace of God in your heart no one can keep you out. The religion of Christ came to rectify all the wrongs of the world, and it will yet settle this question between labour and capital. The hard hand of the wheel and the soft hand of the counting.room will clasp each ether in congratulation yet. The hard hand will say, “ I ploughed the desert into a garden” ; the soft hand will reply, “ I furnished the seed.” the one hand will say, “ I thrashed the mountains” ; the other will say, “ I paid for the flail.” The one hand will say, “ I hammered the spear into a pruning-hook” ; the other hand will answer, “ I signed the treaty of peace that made that possible.” Then capital and labour will lie down together, and there will be nothing to hurt or destroy in all God’ s holy mount, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it! (T. De Witt Talmage, D.D.)Nay, much more are those members of the body which seem to be more feeble necessary. Power of the feeble I. The gifts of the first rank. They are of two kinds.1. Supernatural--such as, speaking in unknown tongues, curing diseases, prophesying. 2. Natural, relating to-- (1) The heart;(2) The Intellect. II. The feebler gifts.1. Humility.2. Fidelity.3. Purity of manners and of thought.4. Truth.5. Contentment.6. Activity in God’ s cause.7. Charity--that is, true love. III. The fact that these obscure gifts are the most necessary to--1. The individual who possesses them.2. The Church. (A. Vinet, D.D.)The uses of the feeble I. The true Church has members seemingly feeble.1. There are those who are destitute of that to which the world attaches the idea of power. (1) Great wealth is power in the world’ s estimation, and he that is without it is feeble. But the most perfect excellence appeared in the form of worldly destitution; hence Christ seemed a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness. High officialism is power in the estimation of the world. It sees power in the general marshalling his armies, in the statesman guiding the destinies of his country, etc. But one long life of goodness down in the region of obscurity, where many Christians live, passes away unnoticed. (2) Great mental endowments are power in the estimation of the world. But the majority of Christians are not often blessed with such endowments, and therefore, however good, they seem feeble. 2. There are those who work out their mission in a quiet and unostentatious spirit. All who have most of the spirit of their Master thus work. The most powerful things are the most silent. Gravitation wheels suns and systems about immensity without noise. II. The seemingly feeble members are vitally necessary. It is important to have men of great endowments in the Church. Such men have often rendered signal service in the cause of truth. But the Church may get on without great endowments, but dies without piety. Great piety is more “ necessary” than great endowments--1. To the individual. The latter not only often exist apart from the former, but often militate against it by fostering pride. Genius often lights a torch that leads the soul astray. 2. To the Church. It is not the reasonings of the philosopher, the eloquence of the orator, that have done most for the Church, but the holy lives, the earnest prayers, of humble saints. 3. To the world. What does society require most at the present moment? More science, laws, inventions, openings for trade? No; but more embodied piety. This is the salt which can alone prevent its corruption, the light that can reveal to all the path of peace. Conclusion: Our subject--1. Shows that the conditions of our highest interests are available to all. If our well-being and influence for good depended upon great talents, the case of the millions would be hopeless, but consisting as it does in simple goodness, all can attain the happiness they seek. 2. Urges us to recognise and reverence goodness wherever seen. See it in the humblest cottage, and in a frame worn and wan with poverty; and, seeing it, honour it as a ray from “ The Father of Lights.” (D. Thomas, D.D.)A place for the feeblest At the outbreak of the American Civil War there were many sturdy men who were thoroughly heart and soul with the movement for the liberation of the slaves. Many of them were small farmers who could hardly be spared from their farms; but still, where there’ s a will there’ s a way. One day about this time a gentleman was going along the highway, and he saw a small boy at the plough. He asked how it was that he was obliged to do work that was not the work of a lad at all, but of a grown man. “ Well, you see, sir’ ,” said the lad, “ father’ s fighting, and mother’ s praying, and I’ m working. We’ re all doing what we can!” The feeble are necessary Feeble souls are like those tracks of land which have neither depth nor richness of soil, yet, however arid, produce something to serve the world. The sandy and stormy deserts of the Cape are covered with heath of every line and form, to beautify the scene and to charm the traveller’ s eye. Even so the feeblest soul can display some phase of feeling and character that shall add a beauty to its sphere. The world wants the heath as well as the oak, and the genial heavens shine alike on both. “ Even the most feeble are necessary.” (D. Thomas, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 12:25-26 There should be no schism in the body.Schism may be destructive A screw in the crank of an engine of an express train at full speed thus addressed itself to the surrounding machinery: “ I’ m very small, but exceedingly important. Without me the whole fabric would come to grief. Upon me depends the successful working of the whole engine. Now just you observe how important I am!” and then without more ado the screw leapt from its socket, involving the whole train in hopeless wreckage. (Great Thoughts.)Schism I. Its nature.1. Its rise--a division of opinion. In this stage it existed among the hearers of the Saviour concerning the Messiahship of Jesus; and John informs us “ so there was a division (schism) among the people because of Him.” While it proceeds no further, it becomes the obvious duty of believers to endeavour by earnest prayer, diligent investigation of the Scriptures, and calm friendly conference, to come to the same mind. 2. Its progress--a breach of friendship, either by unkind words or unkind treatment, by partial or obvious neglect, from a want of love to the brethren and concern for their interest and welfare, or from regarding any member or members of the Church as inferior, useless, or unnecessary. 3. Its results. (1) It divides the interests of the people of God.(2) It destroys the spirit of prayer.(3) It exposes religion to contempt.(4) It brings misery or ruin to the individual who excites or promotes it. II. The duty of believers as respects it.1. By exercising great care in the admission of persons into the Church. 2. By watchfulness over our own tempers--guarding against every proud, haughty look, word, or action. We must cultivate mutual forbearance, and impartiality in our treatment of, and expressions concerning, our fellow-members, and the ministers of the gospel. We must be very watchful over the tongue. Many schisms have commenced in an unguarded trifling word. We must shun all false doctrines. 3. By submission to Church discipline. 4. By prayer. Communion with God conforms us to His image, and that image is love. (J. Hicks.)Of schism In general there can be no such thing as schism but in cases where there, is an obligation to unity and communion; so that in order to define the nature of it we must find out some centre of union which is common to all Christians.1. As for uniformity of sentiment in matters of speculative belief, that can never be the common centre of Christian unity, because it is in the nature of things impossible. For in order to this, all mankind must have exactly the same strength of understanding, the same advantages, the same manner of education, the same passions, prejudices, and interests. Besides, if all Christians must concur in the same way of thinking about every controversy in religion, whose opinion shall prevail, and be made the public standard? Are the majority to decide for us? How shall we determine, without collecting the vote of every individual, who are the majority? Are the majority always in the right? Or must we, for the sake of uniformity, profess (believe we cannot) against truth and reason? Will not this make all religion dissimulation and hypocrisy? But if uniformity of opinion cannot be secured in this way, shall we not be governed by the most learned and pious Christians, who are neither influenced by irregular passion, nor swayed by criminal prejudice? I answer, that who are really the most learned and pious will be matter of endless dispute, and can never be certainly fixed. They are fallible as well as others; and have frequently maintained such principles as derogate highly from the honour of God, and are of vast disservice to religion. It appears then from what has been said, that to endeavour to bring all mankind to the same sentiments in matters of religious controversy is an absurd, romantic scheme, and represents religion as nothing else but outward formality, artifice, and craft. The same may be said of uniformity in external modes of worship and discipline, viz., that this, likewise, cannot be a necessary term of Christian communion. For it will be altogether as difficult to determine who are to settle external rites and ceremonies, and forms of Church-government, as articles of speculative belief. Besides, the lawfulness, expediency, or Divine authority of any particular form is as much a matter of private opinion as the truth or falsehood of doctrinal propositions; and therefore it is as natural to expect a variety of sentiments about it. Let me add to this, that a variety of sentiments in religion, while moderation and mutual charity are maintained, can do no hurt, whereas an attempt to introduce public uniformity has been a constant source of schisms in the Church, and will infallibly keep alive a spirit of animosity. And finally, when there is a difference of opinions, and a variety of outward forms, this is just such a state of things as wise man would expect, if all were honest and impartial inquirers; whereas if one set of principles and the same scheme of worship were universally to prevail, it would not look like human nature; it would have nothing of the appearance of sincerity; and, consequently, must lead an indifferent spectator to conclude that religion was all complaisance, courtliness, and carnal policy, and did not spring from a conviction of the understanding, or a free deliberate choice. 2. I would make a few observations, relating to the nature and guilt of schism, and so conclude. (1) It appears, that let there be ever so many differences amongst Christians, as long as mutual charity is preserved there cannot be the guilt of schism. A man that holds the common faith of the gospel, leads a holy life, behaves peaceably, and has charity for all, notwithstanding the little varieties by which they are distinguished from each other, does not differ from any church so far as it is formed on the essential principles of Christianity; but only takes that liberty of judging for himself which reason allows and revelation comfirms to him; a liberty to differ from fallible expositions of Scripture, from civil constitutions, or ecclesiastical ordinances of rather less authority. (2) Differences among Christians are not only innocent while unity of affection is preserved, but there are many cases in which a separation from a particular church is absolutely necessary. (3) None who are truly honest, who are not swayed by irregular passions, or vicious prejudices, but, upon a deliberate impartial inquiry, according to their capacity and advantages, think themselves obliged, in conscience, to dissent from their brethren; no such persons as these, I say, can possibly incur the guilt of schism. For this would be to make honesty itself a crime; and at the same time that we suppose it a man’ s duty to act according to the light and directions of his conscience, to reproach and condemn him for it. And shall not we treat involuntary errors with candour and humanity? (James Foster.)And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.-- The sufferings of all in the sufferings of one Look upon this-- I. As a fact.1. The sufferings of the unfortunate in a community affect each. The sufferings of the merchant whose business breaks down, of the agriculturist whose crops fail, of the operatives who are thrown out of work, affect more or less each individual in the State. 2. The sufferings of the criminals in a community affect each. There is the swindler whose schemes, after enriching his own coffers, break down, spreading disasters far and wide. There is the murderer, whether by assassination or by war, his sufferings, for sufferings he has, affect all in some way or other. The record of the assassin’ s life, trial, and execution, brings a pang into many a heart. So also wars bring suffering, in some form or other, to every individual in a community. 3. The sufferings of the non-industrious in a community affect each. There are tens of thousands in every civilised community who lounge their existence away in drawing-rooms, clubs, and taverns: they consume all and produce nothing. They sigh out their miserable existence under the weight of ennui; each one of the community is more or less affected. The common stock of human subsistence depends upon labour, and is limited: they therefore who partake of that stock without labour are social thieves. These sufferings may be in body, through deprivation of some comfort, or necessary, or in mind. (1) By a painful sense of responsibility. (2) By a painful sense of disgust for the race. Who can see human nature swindling, murdering, idling, debauching, without feeling ashamed of the race to which he belongs. II. As a duty. We are commanded to “ bear each other’ s burdens,” to “ weep with those that weep,” etc., in fact, to follow Christ. And what was Christ? The incarnation of a Divine philanthropy. Now, the duty of every man is, as a member of the race, to suffer by practical philanthropy with and for a suffering world: so suffer for it as to pray, labour and die for it, if need be. Conclusion--1. Do not be too severe on criminals. The vilest criminal that England ever produced has been nursed and matured by the conjoint influences of each man’ s life: each member of the State has contributed a something to produce it. 2. Live to purify the moral atmosphere of the world. One day we believe the atmosphere of the world will be so pure with holiness that human snakes and poisonous reptiles will no longer live therein. Contribute your part to this end, send into it the noblest thoughts, to circulate and breathe into it the purest influences of love and light. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The unity of the body in suffering As when by chance a thorn is planted in the heel, all the body manifests a fellow-feeling; back, hands, stomach, and thighs are drawn together, hands like attendants or esquires approach the wounded part and proceed to extract the painful fixture; head stoops, eyes look sad, the brow is delved with parallels of solicitude. (Chrysostom.)The unity of the body in suffering When one’ s finger is hurt such is the fellow-feeling which spreads along the body to the soul until it reaches the ruling principle, that, the whole condoling with the part afflicted, the man says not “ my finger is in pain,” but I have a pain in my finger. (Plato.)Membership of a body 1. Was there ever a truer remark than that of the text? A particle of dust in the eye, an irritable nerve in one tooth, a sprain in the foot, and what an instant cessation of the enjoyment of life! What does a day’ s pleasure become when an aching head or an inflamed eye has to be carried about through it? On the other hand, when one member is specially honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Imagine that a particle of dust has lurked in the eye for a night and a day; now imagine it removed, and what a positive sense of pleasure is diffused through the whole frame! Every other part is found as it were to congratulate the relieved part. Such is the truth from which St. Paul here draws his spiritual lesson. 2. It is not good for man to be alone; in one sense it is not possible. A poor, stunted character would that be which was wholly self-contained. That is what fallen human nature runs to; but it does not love it when it sees it in a living example. No one thinks selfish a term of praise. And God, well knowing this tendency, has interposed at every turn to save us all from it. I. He has set us in families, and the tendency of family life is to counteract selfishness. What do we see to be the effects of the practical want of a home? But alas, we may live in exemplary, Christian homes, and not learn the lesson of membership of a body; not learn the debt of gratitude which the eye owes to the hand for obeying its indication, and the head to the foot for executing its mandate; not learn how a son should deport himself towards a mother, or a brother deal with a sister. II. That which, for one part of the human family, can be done only by the home, is done for another by various subsidiaries. What especially qualifies a public school to be of use in forming the character is the fact that it is a body, an organised whole made up of parts, each one of which has its own definite work, which yet affects and is affected by every other. I know nothing so satisfactory, in connection with school games, as their influence in leading boys to value skill or strength not so much as a means of individual success or reputation, but as a means of security for the success or reputation of the school. It remains to be seen whether the school feeling will bear good fruit hereafter. And that it may do so, let us pray that school patriotism may be carried into its legitimate field. If, e.g., you see one of your schoolfellows sin, suffer with him; give yourself no rest till you have done something to save a soul from death. III. Patriotism is one of the ways in which the feeling of collective life ought to be shown. God has designed our country to be the highest object but one of our thoughts and cares on earth. IV. But we are the body of Christ, and members in particular. See that you live together as those who are so. Let no act ever be done inconsistent with the proper working of the various parts and members of the whole Christian body. Never say to yourselves, I am too insignificant to be of any account amongst Christ’ s members, nor to another, we have no need of thee. Christ’ s object in having an earthly body is that we may help one another. Be not selfish in your religion: heaven is not so won. The individual life will be healthy and vigorous in proportion as it expands and diffuses itself towards those around. Let not Christian life be the beauty of a few exotics scenting a room; but rather that of a garden of the Lord, watered, tended, and bearing fruit; in the full light, in the free air; having in the midst of us that tree of life, the leaves of which are not for the privilege of the few, but for the healing of the nations. (Dean Vaughan.)The benevolence of the gospel I. God bestows upon us nothing merely on our own account but for the good of others. We should all sympathise in the sorrows, and rejoice in the joys, of each other, as if they were our own. This principle is not peculiar to the Church. It enters into the very idea of a society, that we are reciprocally affected by whatever affects every member.1. Take, e.g., the family. Let but the youngest and the least considerable suffer, and what a shade of sadness is spread over the whole household! When the family grows up to maturity, it might, at first, seem as though the chain which once bound them so closely together had been severed. The thought of each other rarely breaks in upon the pressing cares of each one’ s daily occupation. But let any of these brothers attain to high distinction, and what a lustre is at once reflected on all who bears his name! Or let a member disgrace himself by crime, and how mournfully the disgrace settles down upon his kindred. 2. But we are members of a larger society. Our happiness in the community is subject to the same law. If our fellow-men around us suffer, we shall suffer also, unless we do all in our power to relieve them. Let a deadly epidemic alight upon some neglected neighbourhood, and it will be wafted to the dwellings of the opulent, and the pestilence will utter in solemn accents the words of the text. 3. Take a more extensive field. How often has the form of social organisation been constructed for the sole benefit of the few, rather than the whole! You will see the face of the land here and there beautified by the mansions of the proprietors, while the million, the children of ignorance and vice, herd together in cabins like brutes. All this goes on quietly, it may be, for generations. At last, some famine or some giant act of oppression maddens the multitude to frenzy, and all at once the fabric of government which ages had cemented crumbles into dust. 4. Or we may observe the relations of a single individual to a whole nation. Suppose that a Government lays its hand unrighteously upon the smallest portion of the property of a citizen. It may be, for instance, the ship-money of Hampden, or the trifling tax on tea that inaugurated the American revolution. At once the shock is felt by the remotest citizen of the realm. One member has suffered, and all the members have suffered with it. By inflicting injustice on a single citizen, the Government has outraged the moral sentiment of the nation. And it must retrace its steps; or else, unless the love of liberty be wholly extinguished, a revolution must ensue. II. If God has made our happiness to depend upon the course of life here indicated, He has done so to teach us His will. A moral necessity is thus laid upon us. We cannot live to ourselves without doing violence to our conscience and incurring the consequences of disobedience to God. But, in a matter of so much importance, we are not left to the unassisted light of natural religion. The Bible teaches us this doctrine on every page. Our Father imposes upon us no duty of which He has not set us the example. We are to imitate His boundless beneficence, by using the talents of every kind which He has committed to us for the good of others. We are to imitate His self-sacrificing love in the plan of redemption, by carrying the good news of salvation to the lost. Such was the Spirit of Christ, and we are told that unless we have the Spirit of Christ we are none of His. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Conclusion: We are spending our probation under the most solemn of all possible conditions. The choice between two modes of life is presented to every one of us. Will you live unto yourself, and lose your own soul, or will you live unto God, and enter into the rest that remaineth? Now is the time for decision. (J. Wayland, D.D.)Social responsibility St. Paul was thinking mainly of moral, not of physical, sufferings. The Church at Corinth had been guilty of grave crimes which ought, he contends, to be felt as a misfortune weighing upon all. Does our estimate of crime correspond to the spirit of these words? It is notorious that our interest in a great trial is just that we feel in a novel. It is very interesting, very horrible, but we have nothing to do with it. We observe the criminal as if he were a wild creature in the Zoological Gardens; and then when he is convicted and sentenced we say, “ He is rightly served; let us have no maudlin sentimentality; society is well rid of the rascal.” And so we shut up our novel and fall back on tamer subjects--our everyday duties--till some new excitement presents itself. Now is this justifiable, Christian or warranted by the facts? Note-- I. The principles which ought to govern a Christian’ s thought in his estimate of a great criminal case.1. Every criminal is, to a certain extent, the product of the spirit of the society in which he has passed his life. Just as certain marshy districts are favourable to the growth of noxious insects or diseases, so particular moods of popular feeling are favourable to the growth of crime. Of course no criminal is altogether the helpless unconscious victim of his circumstances. A man’ s free will is never necessarily enslaved by anything external to himself. Yet most of us are largely governed by the influences amidst which we pass our lives. For many to breathe an atmosphere of moral corruption is to become almost inevitably criminal. Now who is responsible for this atmosphere? “ Not I” would be the answer of most of us, and no doubt we have not contributed directly to this or that particular crime; but have we contributed nothing to that state of feeling which makes the crime natural to the criminal? Nay, there is a general stock of moral evil in the world to which we all contribute by the sin we commit just as every small house in London does its little something to thicken the air. And this touches us all like the common atmosphere we all breathe. If one suffer, therefore, all of us should suffer with him. 2. All guilt is relative to a man’ s opportunities in the sight of God. Our Lord insists again and again that a man’ s responsibility exactly corresponds with his opportunities of knowing what is right. “ Woe unto thee, Chorazin,” etc. “ To whom much is given,” etc. This we practically ignore. We think of the poor man who has been denied our advantages as if he had acted from the same level of knowledge, etc., that we occupy. But his grave crime may, in him, mean less unfaithfulness to light and grace than what we deem our little peccadilloes. If we kept this in mind when one member suffered we should all suffer with him. 3. There should be a deep sincere conviction of our own condition as sinners before God; we shall then have no heart to be hard on others. Our own capacity for evil is only checked by the grace of God. “ If it were not for the grace of my Maker,” says St. Augustine, “ I should have been the worst of criminals.” II. What have been, what ought to be the effects of this Christian way of looking at crime?1. The softening of the penalties of criminal law. The conscience of society stays its hand with the whisper, “ Who art thou that judgest another?” 2. Constant efforts to cut up its roots by schools, reformatories, Christian charity, etc. 3. The resolve to live nearer to God ourselves. We cannot influence legislation, or found institutions for the reformation of criminals, but we can all do something within our own souls which will help to purify the corrupt moral utmost, here. (Canon Liddon.)Or one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it. The duty of all to rejoice at the honour given to their brethren I. Rejoicing is a Christian duty--required--1. On our own account.2. On account of others. Here an unselfish sympathy with another’ s honour--not merely not to envy it, but to rejoice in it. II. What this rejoicing at the honour paid to others may be the means of. Of--1. Increasing their joy.2. Demonstrating your love and sympathy.3. Engaging and confirming their love to you. (T. Robinson.) 1 Corinthians 12:27 Niw ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.The body of Christ I. True Christians, as the body of Christ, manifest His personal presence among men. In Christ incarnate “ God was manifest in the flesh.” Just as really is Christ manifest in His Church. II. The body of Christ reveals the mind of Christ. So closely do body and mind correspond, that the mind sometimes fashions the body to its own character. Essential characteristics, if not every thought and feeling, are revealed in gesture, gait, and countenance. The human body of Christ served the same purpose in expressing His mind. Now He has another manifestation. He is formed in us and thus expresses Himself as truly as once through flesh and blood. These “ living epistles are known and read of all men,” written over with Christ’ s thoughts, as those thoughts were once written on His own face. We are Christians only so far as we embody and reveal Christ to men. III. These members of Christ’ s body are the instruments for the execution of His will. The body is the servant of the soul. Such was Christ’ s body on earth. It is now laid aside for other organs, even His Church, who are “ members of His body, of His flesh and His bones” . Here is the radical idea of Christian service. We are not independent to follow our own purposes, but the will of Christ. While the hands and feet are involuntary instruments moved by the soul, the organs of Christ’ s body act freely, although God worketh in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. Though not losing identity or individuality, they are so assimilated to each other and to Christ that they freely act together with the harmony of the most nicely adjusted machine. Again, Christ now is not limited to any spot at once, but is everywhere, in every Christian heart. Were He to get complete possession of all the members of His body and of all the agencies which they command, what rapid and sweeping successes would He achieve! When the Church is sanctified, when no member is paralysed or dormant or reluctant, but the whole are “ clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners,” how soon will the world be redeemed! (H. Mead, D.D.)The body of Christ The chemist mixes his various elements together in the battery, and when they are brought together, and the conditions are fulfilled, electricity is there. He does not summon electricity from some remote distance; but already dormant in these elements was the electric power, and when they are combined, instantly the electric power springs into existence. So Christ says, “ In each one of you Christians there is a dormant power. I am in you, but there is more of Me in all of you together than there is in any one of yon separate and individually; and when you have combined around My banner and My name to do My will, there springs into existence, not merely the strength that comes from union, but the Diviner help that comes from this, that I am in the midst of that organisation, the spirit that inspires the body.” It becomes at once more than human--it becomes Divine--the body of Christ. (Lyman Abbott.)The body of Christ God has chosen the most familiar objects to be the emblems of Christ and His Church--tree, rock, house, wheat, bread, and here the human body. In the “ body.” I. All life is is the head. If you separate the smallest particle of the body from it, that moment it dies. And so the Church is in such union with Christ that if you wilfully break the union by sin or unbelief, you are, spiritually, as dead as an amputated limb! II. All feeling and all springs of power and action lie in the head. When any spot in the body is injured, a nerve communicates the fact to the brain, and there is the suffering. And then, from the brain, a nerve communicates back to the injured place what is to be done under the circumstances. And so whatever touches any living member of the Church, either for weal or woe, it goes up at once to Christ; and from Him again there flows down to you the never-failing cords of His sympathy, guidance, and power. III. The different parts of our body are all held together by their meeting in the one head. So there is no real unity of Christians, except as they all meet and unite in the one Christ. Christ is, and must be, the centre piece of the arch of unity. If that centre piece is not there, the arch will fall! IV. No one part of the body can communicate with another except through the head. My right hand cannot touch my left but through the head. Just so it is in the Church. All true service and charity must be through Christ. If I have been kind to any one it is the Head has done it, from first to last. V. Some members are counted “ more honourable” and some less, but all belong to the same “ head,” and so share in the same dignity. So it is with the Church. The poorest, meanest man that walks this earth, if he be a “ child of God,” is in the Head. You meet him there; he is equal with you there. Conclusion:1. Away with all selfishness, pride, isolation! We are all one body. 2. This principle reaches beyond this world. In heaven itself there is “ the Body of Christ.” And there is nothing greater than that. The saints in glory are my fellow-members in it. (J. Vaughan, M.A.)The body of Christ and its members I. The Church is the body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 1:22-23; Ephesians 4:12; Colossians 1:24).1. Note the resemblances. (1) As the body reveals the soul, so the Church reveals Christ. What we love is in our friends, not the body. That is but the casket. But we know nothing of their souls except through the body. They are revealed to us by the glance of the eye, the tone of the voice, the deeds of love. So Christ is never seen directly. The salvation of men depends on the Church’ s revelation of Christ. (2) As the soul acts by the body, so Christ acts through the Church. The soul is the seat of the affections and motives, but the body must carry out its purposes. The soul of the parent goes out after the children who are scattered over the world. The body must write with pen and ink the messages of love. A neighbour longs to help some sick one. The body must be robbed of sleep that the neighbour may be helped. So Christ, the soul of the Church, loves and desires to save all men. But wherever men are saved, it is usually by the action of “ His body, the Church.” (3) As the soul speaks through the body, so Christ speaks by the Church (1 Corinthians 6:1-5; Matthew 18:17-18). 2. If all this be true-- (1) How great is the honour which Christ has put upon us!(2) How great is our responsibility!(3) How important that we should see to it that we do not become a body without a soul--a Church without Christ! II. Individual Christians are members in particular, i.e., each in his appointed place. The teaching of the previous verses is--1. That we are all members or parts of the body of Christ. We may have nothing that brings us into prominence, and yet we are component parts of the body. Without us it would be incomplete. 2. That we all have a part in the work of the body. No part of a living body is without a function which it alone can perform. So in the body of Christ our office may be a humble one, but it is one to which we are Divinely appointed. 3. That the meanest offices are often most important. How the disorder of one small obscure part of the body hinders the whole;--pleurisy or tic! So in the body of Christ. If the Church is hindered we need to make it a personal matter. “ Lord, is it I?” Again, the less prominent offices in the Church are just now more necessary. We have had much preaching; we want religion lived in little things. (J. Ogle.)The body of Christ and its members There are several analogies between our bodies and the Church as the body of Christ, viz. I. These are our bodies because our spirits possess and animate them. So Christ’ s spirit vitalises the Church. II. Our physical and psychical natures are so closely joined that they constitute a virtual unity. So Christ says of His Church, “ As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us.” III. Our spirits are in most sensitive sympathy with all parts of our bodies. If any part is cut or bruised, to that at once goes the mind in painful consciousness. So Christ bears all our sorrows, and carries our grief in His sympathetic spirit. IV. Our spirits are alert that they may defend and otherwise help the bodily members. If a missile comes near, it is the soul that, looking through the eyes, sees it and warns the nerve to spring the muscle that moves the proper part of the body to avoid it. Such is Christ’ s watchfulness for His people. V. Our spirits frequently, in their deeper wisdom, order the body to receive pain--e.g., to present a hand to the surgeon’ s knife, to endure fatigue, etc. So Christ ordains suffering for the discipline of His people. VI. Our spirits impart the strength of their courage to our bodies, that they may endure pain without flinching, the resolute will holding the shrinking nerve; moral courage the source of truest physical heroism. So Christ’ s grace is sufficient for us, VII. Our spirits are constantly training our bodies to easy, almost unvolitional obedience, e.g., we learn to do, as if instinctively, many things that at first are performed only with difficulty--to strike the notes on a piano, to read without definite thought of the letters, all that we mean by “ second nature.” So Christ is training our souls to obey His precepts with liberty, without constant pressure of the sense of duty. Perfect sainthood will be as natural as the processes of physical motion. VIII. Our spirits are constantly modifying the aspect of our bodies, stamping character upon the countenance, and expressing disposition by manner and mien. So Christ, by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, sanctifies us. IX. Our spirits keep our bodies alive so long as they are associated. There can be no death until the soul is withdrawn; then only does the tabernacle of the flesh fall. So Christ is the life of all the members of His body. And as His promise is, “ Lo, I am with you alway,” we can never die. “ Because I live ye shall live also.” (J. M. Ludlow, D.D.)Union of Christians with Christ, and with each other I. The union of Christ with His Church. This is sometimes illustrated by images borrowed from the relations of domestic life: those of master and servants, parent and children, husband and wife; sometimes by images derived from works of art, or from natural history: He Himself represents it by the union of the vine with its branches. The Scripture idea of Christ represents Him as identified with the Church, which is called the fulness or complement of Christ: so that Christ would want something essential to Him, without the Church. In the text believers are styled His body, which implies--1. The participation of a common nature. In the former part of this chapter the apostle had spoken of the union of Christians, and those who participate of one Spirit. Christ makes them all His own, by the communication of His own Spirit; just as the natural members are united with the head. They receive, out of His fulness, grace for grace. Notwithstanding the difference of nature and of office between Him and them, yet the graces of Christians are of the same origin, and nature, with His. Every real Christian is animated by the same views, desires, tempers, principles of conduct, with his Divine Master. “ If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” The difference between Christians and men of the world is not a difference in degree; it is a difference in nature. 2. The direction which Christ has over His Church. He is the supreme authority who prescribes all our duties. All religion emanates from Him as Lord of all. It is the work of the Spirit to establish His authority in the heart: a sceptre by which He gently, yet effectually, subdues His people. 3. The affectionate union which subsists between both. The Church is loved by Christ as His body, endeared to Him by the most tender ties. In love to it He descended from His throne to the Cross. Such love as the Father has to Him He has to the Church. And, by analogy, we ought to have the same love to Him, manifested by walking in His steps, consecrating ourselves to Him who so loved us. Like loves like; and if Christ is the pattern and friend of His people, how entire, intense, and constant, ought to be our devotedness to Him! II. The union of Christians with each other. “ We are members in particular.”1. Every member of the natural body, however mean, feeble, and obscure, is a member; so should no Christian be overlooked, however humble, since he stands in a sacred relation to Jesus Christ. To despise the image of God in the natural man implies a profane disregard of that God who made man in His own image; but to despise this image in the spiritual man is a higher species of impiety. 2. There exists an affection and sympathy between all the members. In the system of animal life, which is probably a modification of the spirit that animates the whole, the functions of all the rest are affected by one. Thus Christians are to feel for each other, “ bear one another’ s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” ; they are not to say, as Cain, “ Am I my brother’ s keeper?” 3. There is no schism in the body, so long as it is in a natural and healthful state; otherwise it tends to decay. Thus, for one member of Christ to envy others, is as unnatural and destructive as a division in the animal system. 4. There are different offices in the body; some parts are organic, as the eye, the ear; these are instruments of sense, and peculiarly important. Thus, in the Church, some are apostles, some evangelists; but all are not such, yet each has his own place and use; each may contribute his portion to the general good. (R. Hall, M.A.)Members of Christ and their service “ A member of Christ.” Now, what “ member” will you be? If you are “ a member of Christ,” you must do the member’ s part. If you say, “ I will be like the hand,” what will you do? You must work usefully with your hand, you must work for God, you must give to God. Or, with your feet, you must run with messages. Be very useful. Think, “ Perhaps I shall be a missionary, with my feet beautiful on the mountains, to the heathen. I will do it for Christ’ s sake.” Or, “ I will always listen to good things.” Be the ear. Or, with the eye, look at the beautiful things from heaven. Or, like the tongue, speak of God, of goodness, and of happiness. Then you are a useful “ member of Christ.” Remember, if you have got Christ in your heart, then you are “ a member” indeed. (J. Vaughan, M.A.) 1 Corinthians 12:28-31 And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles.Help-work The words which I have taken as my text occupy, you will remember, a somewhat exceptional position. They occur in the midst of what seems at first a systematic classification of gifts in the apostolic Church and the functions resting on those gifts: they come in between “ gifts of healing” and “ diversities of tongues.” The two terms do not meet us elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament. It is open to us, under the view of interpreters, to identify them respectively with the offices of the deacons, and bishops, and elders of the Church; but it is also open to us to believe that the terms occur to St. Paul’ s mind as covering, each of them, a special class of supernatural gifts, or of natural gifts purified and illumined by the higher gifts, of the course of which the diaconate and presbyterate were indeed the representative exponents, but which were to be found also in those who are not called to either of those special functions. Every member of that Church which the Eternal Spirit governs and sanctifies has a vocation. The history of the word which we render “ helps” sufficiently explains its meaning--to lay hold as with a firm and loving hand on one who totters and stumbles and is on the point of falling. That is its sense as I find it in an old lexicon. In that sense it meets us in the words St. Paul addressed to the ministers of Ephesus when he bids them so minister that they may “ support the weak,” a sufficient proof, I take it, that we may not limit the word to the function of the diaconate, As in every grace, so in this; what from one point of view is a special gift of God is from another the development of a natural capacity, and with the capacity there is a natural delight in its exercise. The wild flower, which on the wayside might have been withered by the parching winds or degenerated into a weed, is transplanted into the paradise of the great Gardener, and watered by the dew of His blessing and fostered by the warmth of the eternal sunshine of His love it becomes a goodly flower, bright in its varied hues and fragrant as the spices of Lebanon. The observer of the child nature will tell you, from experience well confirmed, that there are few children in whom this desire to help is not, in a greater or less measure, a motive spring of action. They delight in their little gifts: little ministries and services to parents, to brothers, sisters, friends, and teachers. All they seek is a recognition by Word or look, by loving glance or smile, that their service is appreciated. Their labour of love, however small it may be, is its own exceeding great reward. The next stage of life to most men is for the most part less favourable to the growth of the ministering spirit. The life of the public school, with its struggle for existence, its inevitable self-assertion, its competitive exercise. The boy has to learn to make a just estimate of his powers of body and mind, to assert his own rights, sometimes also to uphold the rights of others by fighting for them. It is well on the whole it should be so. To be weak is miserable, and strength of body, brain, and will, cannot be secured without collision. When these early years are over, and the boy passes into the man, it is at once right and wise to form a distinct plan. To yield to the passing impulse of the moment is to drift he knows not whither. What forms of help-work, then, are possible for those living, as you live, in the midst of tasks and duties? Of that which has seemed to some the chief, if not the exclusive meaning of the helps St. Paul speaks of, “ supporting the weak,” in the sense of ministering to the sick, I do not suppose you have much experience or opportunities. That gift belongs more, on the whole, to women than to men, and your efforts at direct nursing might perhaps be clumsy and inefficient. For those who are without that special call for ministration, it may not be a bad training of their capacity for service to visit sometimes the wards of the hospital to read to the patients there, or talk with them, or better still, as meeting what is often a real want with the disabled poor, write letters for them to their friends. A more familiar and easy form of help given to the weak is found, I need hardly say, in the work of teaching the young. And then among the functions of true friendship there is that of helping the weak, not in body, but in mind and will. You may know one who has been dear to you as a brother, companion in sports or studies, who is infirm of purpose, drifting on the impulse of sin, on the waves of doubt. I know all too well the difficulty of that form of helping, the hindrances of shyness, reserve, self-distrust, which check the utterance of the faithful words that may avert the threatened evil. You fear to make matters worse, to lose your hold on affections which are as yet unstable only. Among the means of work those of helping those whom we call the poor hold, of course, a permanent place. Their lot is in the nature of the case for the most part a hard one, even if they have fallen in the struggle for existence through no fault of their own. More often, it may be, their lot is all the worse because it is made harder by their faults. Help in this case calls for the higher gift of government. Happily, in this instance, the guidance is not far to seek. Work in subordination to others, to the minister of a parish or to the society which by its very title undertakes to organise charity, supplies the missing link. To love all you can and to help all you can is the true way to the highest culture, and works out a higher spiritual completeness than any forms of aestheticism, asceticism, and shall I say athleticism, in which, according to men’ s character and temper, they too often seek for that completeness. I have dwelt chiefly upon the manifestation of the gift--the ἀντιλήψεις of which I have spoken. I must say something as to the source from which it springs, the source which is the secret of its permanence. One hears much of the religion of Humanity, of the altruism which they oppose alike to the ordinary self-consciousness of mankind and to the loving charity of the mind of Christ. That religion, it is said, supplies us with a sufficient motive for the love of sacrifice, if not what that sacrifice implies, the sacrifice of self. I believe no striving to serve is without its fruit, that in this life or in the life to come he who seeks shall find, that a man may learn faith by virtue, and that in due time faith may ripen with knowledge. I reverence the saints, even of Buddhism or of Islam, and still more those of the dark ages of Christendom, in whom I find that likeness of the future of Christianity. All the same, I hold it to be capable of proof that that likeness has never been so vivid and distinct as when it hath been a conscious reproduction of the Divine original, a true Imitatio Christi. (Dean Plumtre, D.D.)Helps 1. It has been thought that these were assistant-ministers, or assistant-deacons, or deaconesses, or attendants, who took care that strangers were accommodated, and managed various details. But whoever they were, they were thought worthy to be mentioned with apostles, teachers, etc. Probably they had no official standing, but were the sort of brethren who can always stop a gap, and who are only too glad to make themselves serviceable in any capacity. 2. Bunyan has described that part of their work, which is most valuable. He describes Help as coming to Christian when he was in the Slough of Despond. When we were going through a pass in Northern Italy, we saw, some three or four miles from the top, a man with a spade, who came down and saluted us. By and by we came to deep snow, and the man cleared a footway, and when we came to a very ugly piece of road, he carried some of the party on his back. Ere long came one of his companions with refreshments. These men were “ helps,” who spent their lives where their services would be requisite. They would have been worth nothing down in the plains. “ Helps” are of no use to a man when he can help himself. And just as the Royal Humane Society keep their men along the borders of the lakes in the parks when the ice is forming, so a little knot of Christian people should always be ready in every church, to give assistance wherever it may be required. Let me-- I. Give a few directions to these “ helps.” When you meet sinners in the Slough of Despond--1. Get them to state their case. When Help went to Christian he said first, “ What are you doing there? How did you get there?” I have found that the mere act of stating a difficulty has been the very means of at once removing it. 2. Enter, as much as lieth in you, into their case. Sympathy is a great power. 3. Comfort them with the promises. Help told Christian that there were good steps all the way through the mire. Now, you can point these poor sinking ones to the steps. 4. Instruct them more fully in the plan of salvation. 5. Tell them your own experience. Many have been able to get out of the Slough in this way. We have gone along the same road, and it would be very hard if we could not describe it. 6. Pray with them. When you cannot tell the sinner what you want to say, you can sometimes tell it to God in the sinner’ s hearing. As certainly as the electric fluid bears the message from one place to another, and the laws of gravitation move the spheres, so certainly is prayer a mysterious but real power. II. Describe those who can help. A true “ help” must have--1. A tender heart. There are some people who seem to be prepared by Divine grace on purpose to be soul-winners, just as there are some people who seem to be born nurses.. 2. A quick eye. There is a way of getting the eye sensitively acute with regard to sinners. 3. Quick ears. When they have these they listen, and by and by they hear a splash, and though it may be very dark and misty, they go to the rescue. 4. Rapid feet. 5. A loving face. Cheerfulness commends itself, especially to a troubled heart. 6. A firm foot. If I have to pull a brother out of the Slough, I must know how to stand fast myself, or I may fall in. Full assurance is not necessary to salvation, but it is very necessary to your success as a helper of others. 7. A strong hand. 8. A bending back. You cannot pull them out if you stand bolt upright. It is said that the sermons of Augustine are in bad Latin, not because Augustine was not a good scholar, but because the dog-Latin of the day suited his turn best to get hold of men. That preaching is best which fisherwomen understand. “ But the dignity of the pulpit!” says one. Well, the “ dignity” of a war-chariot lies in the captives dragged at its wheels, and the “ dignity of the pulpit” lies in the number of souls converted to God. You must condescend to men of low estate. III. Incite “ helps” to greater earnestness.1. Souls want help. Is not that enough? The cry of misery is a sufficient argument for mercy. 2. Remember how you were helped yourselves when you were in a like condition. Repay the obligation. 3. Christ deserves it. The lost lamb out there is His lamb; will you not care for it? That sinner is your Saviour’ s blood-bought one; he is a prodigal, but he is your Father’ s son, and consequently your own brother. 4. You would not want any other argument, did you know how blessed the work is in itself. Would you acquire knowledge? grow in grace? shake off despondency? help others. 5. You are called to this work. Your Master has hired you; it is not for you to pick and choose. To-night, then, try to do some practical service for your Master. If you do not, you will probably get the rod for correction. 6. We are getting nearer heaven, and sinners are getting nearer hell. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Governments The second of the two words which I have taken as including a large portion of the activities of human life for the good of others is even more directly figurative than the first. The seafaring life of the Greeks taught a race more gifted than most others with the power of interpreting the troubles of the world around them, and led them to see in the work of piloting the ship that which had its counterpart in the duties of those who were called to be rulers of mankind. Probably no similitude has taken so vast a hold on the minds of men as that which we find in the Republic of Plato, and in which he compares the democracy of his own time to an untrained crew in which every one thought that without any previous discipline he was competent to take the helm. He pictures the confusion which must ensue when men undertook that work without any knowledge of seas or sky, of stars or wind; how the man truly gifted with the power of steering would be despised and rejected as the demos of Athens despised and rejected the teachers of wisdom who gave them true counsels for their good. The thought of the word passed from Greece to Rome. The figurative meaning almost superseded the literal, and so became the Gubernator to Western Europe. I can scarcely doubt that one with St. Paul’ s experiences of perils by water, thrice shipwrecked, able to give wise counsel to master and mariners out of his own experience, would use the word with a full sense of the similitude under which it would be present in his thoughts. It was as familiar to him as the soldier’ s armour or the conflict for the prize and the training of the athlete. He paints Hymenaeus and Alexander as having made shipwreck concerning the faith. He warns men not to be carried about by every blast of false doctrine. Some men seem born with an innate capacity for this form of government in its most literal sense. They have the watchful eye, the ready hand, the sagacious forecast, which, working together, bring them to the haven where they would be. They need only to teach and to practise, and they rapidly become proficient. And passing from the literal to the figurative meaning, he saw that here also there was a gift of steersmanship, governments, as well as a governing power, which showed itself in helps. Discerning schoolmasters soon learn to see what boys are likely to take the lead among their fellows. They recognise in him one firm in purpose, ready to accept suggestions when they are reasonable, not shrinking from using his power when occasion calls for it. To most of you, of course, who are yet in the probationary stage of manhood, the opportunities of governing are few and far between. The influence of the young is for the most part, as I said, that of ministration. But not seldom, as your own experience or the history of the past may tell you, the one gift grows out of the other. The good subject ripens into the good ruler. Help leads to insight of character, and rubs off the angularities of temperament and self-assertion which impair the capacity for governing. That discipline where the capacity for ruling exists leads men on to the likeness of the ideal king, who reigns not for his own good but for that of his people, while without it the gift itself may degenerate into the pattern of the mob-ruling tyrant. We find this in the limits and the walks of duty which lie within your immediate reach. The teacher in the Sunday school develops into a professor of theology, or, as in two familiar instances, into the holder of one of our highest offices of state. The manager of the boys’ guild may become a faithful and wise steward in some wider organisation, in which he will give to every man his portion of meat in due season. You will stand face to face with some at least of the great problems of our times, the relations of capital and labour, the question of land tenure and the equitable division of its profits, the organisation of charity so that it may tend to elevate and not degrade, the problem how best to bridge over the chasm which yawns between the classes and the masses; these and other kindred inquiries can scarcely fail to meet you. It is easy, fatally easy, to ignore these problems, to follow the impulses of pleasure seeking, or of working for your own success. But England expects better things from you. You need to learn how to steer, to know the forces which are working around you, the currents and the drifts of thought which are sweeping over men’ s minds, the time when to spread your sails to the wind of public opinion and when to reef them, to discern the signs of the times, to free yourselves from the delusion of an unreal optimism or an equally unreal and far more perilous pessimism. And in close connection with these views of the gift of government there is a wide sphere of yet vaster questionings, which make the thinker, who is led to speculate, ponder on the course of the world’ s history, the mystery of man’ s life and of God’ s covenant, the wonders of our being, the origin of the evil which leaves its serpent trail alike in our individual lives and in the collective experience of mankind, the manner of the final victory over that evil. Here, also, the gift of steersmanship is needed. It is no voyage upon the summer sea on which the frail barque of the weak or untrained intellect may lightly launch. The thought comes to our minds that it is safer to stand on the shore and watch the surging waves from a position of security. The warnings may be unheeded, the impulses that sway the mind to look before and aft and muse upon many things are not easily repressed. All that we can attempt, with any hope of success, is to put before the inquirer the conditions of safe sailing in that vast sea of thought. We may tell him that there must be the temper of love and purity, for now as ever it is true that “ into a malicious soul peace will not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin.” There must be a recognition at once of the capacity and limitations of man’ s knowledge. The questioner must restrain himself to keep within the boundaries of the known or knowable. There must be reverence for the past in its strivings and aspirations and successes, the recognition of the increasing purposes which works throughout the ages, of the education of mankind in many varied manners and many different measures. The system of speculative thought in which the man thought to win his fellows to reach the desired haven may prove unseaworthy and founder in sight of shore. There may be with them in the ship, as in that night in the Adria, one whose prayer is mighty to prevail, to whom God has given the lives of his companions. Here, too, the highest form of the gift of government is that which has been rightly disciplined by the exercise of the earlier gifts of helps. “ Helps, governments.” I return to the two words from which I started as embracing wide reasons of all human activity. Each of you, as you look within the depths of your own personality, or in the environment in which you live, may find in yourselves the germs of one of those--ἀντιλήψεις, κυβερνήσ--possibly not seldom of both of these germs. It is yours to quicken them into life, to train by exercise the talents which you have to keep, as those who shall give an account to the Master who has bestowed them upon you. For the faithful exercise of those gifts there is a sure reward of ever-widening opportunities. With the will to do that which is indeed God’ s will, there will come a power sooner or later in this life, or behind the veil, to know the doctrine of the Christ, whether it be of God. (Dean Plumptre, D.D.)Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way. Holy covetousness I. All God’ s blessings are valuable. Amongst all His gifts there is nothing worthless. A breath of air, a drop of water, a beam of light, a crust of bread are incalculably valuable. Circumstances often occur in men’ s history when they feel their priceless worth. II. Some of these blessings are more valuable than others.1. Intellectual than material. 2. Moral than intellectual. Paul says without charity--love--we are nothing. III. The most valuable of these blessings should be earnestly sought. To covet some of the minor blessings is a sin. But we are justified in coveting these best things, because--1. There is no monopoly of them. Material good is limited. The more one has of it the less remains for others. But spiritual gifts are as free as air, as vast as immensity, as infinite as God. 2. The more one has of them the more generous he becomes. When a man gets into him this love, it burns up his selfishness and melts him into sympathy with the universe. 3. The more one has of them the more useful to the universe he becomes. The more he reflects God, the more light and happiness he pours forth on the creation. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The best gifts to be coveted Consider-- I. What some of the best gifts are.1. Negatively. (1) They are not those which are external to the soul’ s nature, such as money, power, or reputation. A Christian man is not forbidden to seek these in the right way, and when gained they may be employed for high ends. Yet neither Paul nor his Master would number them among the best gifts. (2) Nor are they all the gifts that touch our inward nature. Intellectual ability, taste, and culture are very precious, and Paul was far from despising them, yet he would be far from describing them as “ the best.” 2. Positively. He points us to those gifts with which love is connected. (1) In regard to God, reverence, humility, and trustfulness. (2) In regard to man, candid and generous judgment, and sympathy. (3) As regards ourselves, patience, contentment, courage, and fortitude. (4) As to things around, temperance of chastened desire. 3. That we may be convinced of their superiority, let us see how these differ from others. They-- (1) Enter deepest into our nature. The outer things of the world can scarcely be said to enter into our nature at all, except when their abuse corrupts it. Intellect, culture, and ambition may go deeper, but can they reach the centre? If the spiritual nature is left uncared for, the mind is a very cheerless home for happiness. The value of the gifts of love in the soul is that they reach the centre where happiness lies. As they go deepest, they become the ruling power, and make all else that a man possesses a blessing to himself and others. (2) Are the most lasting. We know how very quickly outward possessions may take their leave. And intellectual gains are not over secure. The stores of knowledge are in the keeping of a treacherous memory. More melancholy than the loss of empire is the saying of poor Swift, when reading one of his own works, “ What a glorious mind I had when I wrote that!” But let a man have the gifts of a loving, patient, self-renouncing heart, and the rule is that they grow richer and mellower as life advances. (3) Are most God-like. It is in a small degree that we can share God’ s wisdom; in a still smaller degree His power. But “ he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him!” II. The frame of mind we are to cherish towards these gifts.1. We are to covet them earnestly. The Corinthians were coveting each other’ s place, honour, and talent. “ If,” says Paul, “ you would only set your hearts on the right things, you may both desire and appropriate what belongs to your neighbour. Covet if you will, but let it be the gifts of charity and self-denial.” Here the word ceases to have any sin in it. If we covet our neighbours’ material possessions, we shall desire to dispossess him. If we covet his intellectual gifts, there will be envy. But if we covet his loving spirit, we are yielding to him our deepest affection and reverence. We are not so much taking from as rendering to him, lighting our taper at his fire, and adding it to the flame. The word of prohibition in the law thus becomes a word of command in the gospel. 2. We are to covet these gifts earnestly, making growth in them a constant and supreme desire. (1) Try to discover what is best in those around you and to rejoice in it. This is one way of making what is good in them your own without taking anything from them. It is a blessed work to go through the world trying to put men and things in the best light. (2) You should mingle much with those who have it in large degree. It is very difficult to live long among selfish people without becoming like them. But there is an unselfish world: live in that. Conclusion: In coveting earnestly the best gifts--1. We can never harm any one, neither ourselves nor others. Is there aught else of which this can he said? 2. We are sure to gain them. Of what else can this be affirmed? (J. Ker, D.D.)The Christian estimate of gifts I. In themselves. The gifts of the Church of Corinth were bestowed according to God’ s pleasure: they were “ divided to every man severally as He willed.” They were profitable to others. They were not the highest perfection of human nature, for a man might have them and yet perish. So it is with ours. Consider--1. What a gift is. It is that in which our main strength lies. One man is remarkable for intellectual, and another for moral qualifications. One is highly sensitive, and another unimpressionable. One has exquisite taste, and another, like the English, persevering and able to improve inventions. All God’ s gifts are not sublime. You would all acknowledge prophecy to be a gift, but St. Paul says the humblest faculties are also gifts. 2. All these are gifts, sometimes we fancy they are not, because sad moralists remind us that these things are vain. “ Beauty is fleeting; strength is soon but labour and sorrow; the path of glory leads but to the grave.” True, all these are transient; and because so, we are forbidden to set our hearts upon them; but still men covet them, and the apostle says it is right: God gave them: do you honour Him by despising them? They are good so long as they are desired in subservience to the greater good, but evil if they are put in the place of this. 3. They are to be earnestly cultivated. The world makes very little of charity; and religious men, perceiving the transcendent excellence of this grace, make very little of talents. Now, on the contrary, St. Paul prays that the whole soul, the natural man as well as the spirit, may “ be preserved blameless till the coming of Christ.” 4. He allows a distinction--“ the best gifts.” The same apostle who so earnestly urged contentment with the gifts we have, bids us yet to aspire. And just as St. Peter said, “ Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge,” etc, so would St. Paul have said, “ Add to your nobility of rank, nobleness of mind; to your strong constitution, health by exercise; to you memory, judgment; to your power of imitating’ , invention.” II. In comparison with graces. He who treads the brilliant road of the highest accomplishments is, as a man, inferior to him who treads the path of Love. For in the spiritual world a man is measured not by his genius, but by his likeness to God. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)Commanding gifts These which were so highly valued by the Corinthians are now no longer found in the Church, but there are other endowments to which all may lawfully aspire, so long as they are not substituted for the more excellent way. I. The power of popular address--the faculty of arresting attention and of exciting at will emotions of fear, hope, trust, joy, is indeed a commanding quality. II. The literary gift--the ability to inform the understanding, direct the judgment, by means of the press. III. The influence of a winsome manner, We meet with some, chiefly, though not exclusively, of the gentler sex, who, by the exercise of peculiar tact, charm, and grace, obtain access to rude and rugged hearts, which refused to yield to all ordinary influences. Conclusion:1. It may be said that these are natural gifts, and do not depend on cultivation. But here the rule holds good, “ to him that hath shall be given.” The man of moderate powers, by diligence rises above the expectations of his friends, while the man of genius often disappoints them. 2. The precept directs us to form a due estimate of the value, of these gifts, and our responsibility for the use of them, and cautions us not to depreciate or exaggerate gifts of which we have a very limited portion. 3. These gifts are not the essential characteristics of Christ’ s kingdom; however slender may be our pretensions to the possession of any of them, we may all pursue the more excellent way. (W. Webster, M.A.)The gifts of civilisation I. Since every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of Lights, etc., St. Paul’ s language may be applied to the universal interests of human society.1. The contrast has often struck observers between civilisation and Christianity. It is true that both have worked together; but in their aims and nature they are distinct, and may be opposed. And minds strongly under the influence of the one are apt to fear or shrink from the other. But no Christian can feel difficulty in believing that they both come from Him who has made man for this world, as well as intended him for another. 2. The world easily suggests very awful views of its own condition; but it would be far more dreadful if we must not see in its civilisation the leading and guiding hand of God. Nor should we be deterred from this because of its use, by luxury and pride, for impurity and wrong. The gifts at Corinth were foolishly and wrongly used. 3. Civilisation has indeed its dark side; there is much that is dreary and forbidding in the history of its growth; and who can look without anxiety at the dangers of its future? But its irreligious tendencies are not to be combated by simply decrying them. Let us look at the world as those who were put here to “ refuse the evil and choose the good.” (1) Follow the history of a great people, and consider what it brings forth. Observe the progressive refinement of human nature; how, as time goes on, men gain in power; how great moral habits strike their roots deep in a society--the sense of justice as justice, self-devoting enterprise, patriotism and public spirit. If nations have characteristic faults, there grow up in them characteristic virtues. Civilisation to us means liberty, a peaceful life, growing honour for manliness, unselfishness, sincerity. (2) And it has disclosed to us in the course of its development more and more of what is contained in human characters and capacities. We are, in this age, drawing forth with amazement discoveries which seem to be inexhaustible from the treasure-house of material nature. Think of the great forms of history, so diversified, so unlike one to another, so unexpected in their traits. Think of what fiction, with all its abuses, has done for us; multiplying and unfolding for the general knowledge types which would otherwise have been lost where they grew up; think of its world of ideal histories, revealing to man himself. Think again what has been bestowed on man in the perfecting of language. Think of the way in which new faculties, as it were, spring up in us of seeing and feeling; how, by art, by poetry, our eyes are more and more opened to discern in new ways the wonders of the physical universe and their meaning. Count over all our great possessions. Shall we venture to say that all this does not come from the Source of all beauty and all wisdom and all light? And what He gives, it is for us to accept and improve. “ Covet earnestly the greater, the better gifts.” This is indeed one side of the matter. But there is another and a higher. II. Covet earnestly what would be to be most desired and followed, even if man’ s part ended here, but remember that there is a yet more excellent way. Above God’ s greatest gifts is charity; for “ God is love.”1. It would still be true, even if this world were all, that this perfection of character is the highest achievement of human nature. 2. But this world, with all its wonderful results, is not all; we have a place in something wider and more lasting. We are sharers together in a great disaster, and in a great recovery, even now begun “ God so loved the world,” etc. That by which He makes us to understand and draw near to Him is His love for us. Henceforth the world knows Him if it knows Him at all, in the Cross. The world never can be the same after that, as it was before it. It has brought a new spirit into the world, with a Divine prerogative of excellence, to which all other things excellent and admirable must yield the first place. 3. There is something else to be thought of besides civilisation. We are not necessarily growing better men, though we may be doing a great work when we are dispersing God’ s manifold gifts of knowledge or ability. And what we are here for is, if anything, to become good; and goodness now means that spirit of love which joins man to man and lifts him to God. Side by side with our brilliant successes and hopes abide the conditions of our state--pain, moral evil, death. When a man enters into his closet and is still, and by himself looks in the face his awful destiny, he can hardly help feeling that the gifts of God for this life are for this life; they cannot reach beyond; they cannot touch that which is to be. As St. Paul argues, they are incomplete, transitory, and, compared with what we are to look for, but the playthings and exercises of children; they share our doom of mortality. One thing only “ never faileth.” In the next world, as in this, it is by love that creatures receive and show forth the likeness of their Maker. Conclusion: God has placed us to develope our full nature here; but He has placed us here, we believe, still more to become like Himself. So, while learning to understand, value, and use the greatest endowments which the course of things has unfolded in human society, remember that there is a way for you to walk in which carries you far beyond them, and opens to you even wider prospects, more awful thoughts, a deeper train of ideas and relations and duties which touch us in what is most inward, to the very quick. We are sinners who have been saved by a God who loved us. (Dean Church.)The best gifts We begin in order with the counsel or exhortation, “ Covet earnestly,” etc. Wherein again we have three particulars more. Thus I say are all those abilities which any in any kind whatsoever, or to any purpose, are endowed withal. This it is thus far useful to us, as it serves to engender all meekness and humility in us. So likewise further it holds well for the improvement and exercise of these gifts which God hath given us, that we be no niggards or restrainers of them, but good stewards of the manifold grace of God. “ Freely ye have received, freely give.” The dignity and excellency of them may be briefly laid forth unto us in three particulars: First, from their original and conveyance, when we shall consider how we come by them, and how they are indeed transmitted unto us. Now if there were no more but this in it, there were very good reason certainly why we should a little look after them. But secondly, that’ s not all, there’ s a further ground for our embracing them besides, and that is by considering them substantially, what they are in their own nature, and that impression which they leave upon the subject in which they are: these gifts if we do but consider them in themselves, they are very amiable and lovely, and so make those persons further to be who are endowed with them. They are special ornaments and beautifyings to them. Thirdly, and especially for their use and improvement and those gracious ends which they lead unto. So much therefore now for that, viz., the first particular considerable in this first general, and that is the object propounded, “ gifts.” The second is the qualification of this object by way of comparison or distinction, and that is the best or better gifts. First, for that which is implied, there are some gifts which are better than others. Consider wherein this distinction does consist, namely, in what respect some gifts are said to be better than others. First, gifts sometimes are counted better as they are anything more rare and unusual. Those which can do somewhat which few else can do besides, they do from hence for the most part esteem themselves. Thus it is with some scholars, just as it is with some books which have a price set upon them more from their scarcity than from the matter of them or any intrinsical worth which is in them. But this is not such a betterness as the apostle does intend in this place. Secondly, gifts are sometimes counted better as they are more glorious and conspicuous in the eyes of the world; thus there are some which are especially more than others, which have a greater lustre upon them. It is neither those gifts always which are most rare and unusual, nor yet which are most conspicuous and plausible, which are truly the better gifts. Therefore thirdly, to speak home to the point, there are two things especially which the apostle does here mention to us. And gifts may be said to be better in a twofold respect. First, gifts are said to be better intrinsically and materially as considered within their own compass and sphere. But then secondly, gifts are said to be better extrinsically, or extensively in their effects, as they do more communicate and enlarge themselves beyond the subject, in which they are to the good of other men. Thus those are the best gifts which do tend best to edification. The second is that which is expressed, that if there be any gifts which are better than others, those are they which we for our particulars of all others are to apply ourselves to, “ Covet earnestly the best gifts.” This the apostle here requires, and he does it but upon reasonable considerations. First, that common and general inclination which is in all men in everything else; there is nothing else in any kind whatsoever, which men do at any time desire or look after, but they would have the best of it as near as they can; even there sometimes where worse might serve their turn, and might be good enough for them, their mouths water after that. The best garments, the best houses, the best provisions, the best preferments. Wouldst thou have that which is good, and be the worst of all thyself? What an incongruous and unsuitable thing is this! Secondly, the consideration of the nature of the soul itself, that calls for as much from us. The better the soul is considered in its own substance and essence, the better would those things be which should qualify it, and which it would be endued withal. The better gifts do best become the better part. Thirdly, in reference also to practice and execution; therefore the better gifts, that we may accomplish the better performances and may do the most good. The operations are answerable to the principles; those which have but mean gifts, they can consequently do but mean services. This does therefore justly come home to the consciences of many persons in the world; there are some which look after none of these gifts at all; like Gallio they care for none of these things. If they may have but so much as to subsist on and to thrive in their temporal condition, that is all they take care for or trouble themselves withal. Give them but the livings, and let others go away with the gifts. Again, there are others which any gifts will very well please them, and serve their turn; which many times want judgment to discern of the better gifts, which they should give themselves unto. That this may be further rightly unfolded, we must add these following limitations by way of explication. First, that these words here of the apostle, they are not to be taken exclusively, but only emphatically. Not as denying us a liberty to look after other gifts, but as carrying us more especially to these which are of higher consideration. It is lawful and also commendable to covet meaner gifts likewise, such as knowledge and learning. This will be easily cleared unto us upon this account. First, because it is that which does bring us into a nearer likeness and similitude to God Himself; that is undoubtedly the most excellent way which does make us most conformable to Him who is the chiefest excellency. Now this we are not so much by our gifts and parts as we are by the work of grace in our hearts. Indeed it is true that we are made like unto God in some sort, in the natural faculties of our soul, our reason, understanding, etc. But this is not all, nor the chiefest; no, but so far forth as we are new created and made over again by the sanctifying work of God’ s Spirit in us. Secondly, grace is the more excellent way and such as is beyond common gifts, as the end is better than the means which are ordained and appointed thereunto. Thirdly, it is more excellent also in regard of the effects and consequents of it. For it gives peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost. We are not saved as we have greater parts than others, more knowledge and enlightening in our understandings; but rather as we have more grace than others, and more love and flexibility in our affections. The consideration of this point may serve as a good rule unto us whereby to estimate both ourselves and other men; and that is not so much by the former as rather by the latter. Let us not think ourselves the better men so much by our wit and learning as rather by our piety and religious grace. And so much also for that second point: that grace and godliness is the most excellent way. The third is that which follows from this second, and that is this: that it is a duty which lies upon us to pursue the latter above the former, to covet the more excellent way, above the better gifts, grace before other accomplishments. And surely not without very good cause and ground for it. For first, we shall otherwise be defective in the most principal accomplishment of all. There is an argument in the very title which he gives it when he calls it “ the most excellent way.” What a folly is it to mind things which are inferior! Secondly, we shall be otherwise able to do less good with such gifts as these are; where there are the better gifts without the more excellent way, there will not be that improvement of those gifts as it is fitting there should be to God’ s glory, and the good of the Church or commonwealth in which a man is and whereunto he belongs. Take a man that has nothing but parts, and has not grace for the ordering of his parts, and he will do but very little or no good with them. Nay further, thirdly, such as these will oftentimes do so much the more hurt. St. Paul had very good reason, when he had made mention of the better gifts, to propound immediately upon it the more excellent way, because those without this are but so much the more hurtful and pernicious. Iniquity when it is armed with learning is so much the more dangerous. What does all this now come to, but so much the more strongly to enforce this present exhortation of the apostle, which we have here now before us, upon ourselves. To couple these two both together in our endeavour, which he does here together in his speech. And further, as we are to mind godliness and religion in the chiefest place, that also which is chief and most principal in it; there is the excellent way considerable in the excellent way, in opposition to that which is meaner and inferior in it. There is the form and outside of religion, and there is the power and efficacy of it. We should not be only formal Christians, but real; not only remiss Christians, but zealous; not only slight and superficial Christians, but sound and solid and substantial. Again still further, to explain this point of the excellent way a little more unto us, as we are to endeavour after this simply considered in itself; so likewise in reference to our several performances for the particular exercise and execution. There are some kind of actions and performances in religion, which as concerning the right and better discharge of them are mixed of parts and piety both. They require the better gifts, and they require the more excellent way for the doing of them. And we should not satisfy ourselves in the one without the other. Again yet further, we should be careful so to order and dispose of our gifts for the getting and improving of them, as that withal we do not prejudice our graces, and hinder and obstruct them; we should take heed of losing ourselves in our studies, as concerning the frame and temper of our hearts. Labour to advance in learning, but still remember to keep up in grace. Lastly, this excellent way, it does not only refer to the getting of grace ourselves, but likewise to the promoting of it in others. And this was that which the Apostle Paul in this place did seem especially to aim at in these Corinthians. Humility and thankfulness in the enjoyment of gifts, and charity and faithfulness in the improvement of gifts, is the most excellent way in order to the gifts themselves. The second is the proposition of it, that we have in this word, “ I Show it unto you.” Show it? How did he show it? Two ways, as we may conceive more especially. First, he showed it in thesi; and secondly, he showed in hypothesi. He showed it in the practice. He showed it in his doctrine and ministry, First, he showed it them in his doctrine, and by way of simple proposition he published it and declared it unto them, And that at large here in this Epistle in the chapter immediately following. The apostle showed unto these Corinthians the most excellent way; and he showed it first of all in his doctrine. Here are divers things which from hence I might very pertinently insist upon; as--First, we see here that religion is capable of demonstration. It is such as may be clearly evidenced and demonstrated and made good to those who will not be peevish and refractory and perverse. Again secondly, in that the apostle here speaking of his preaching and writing and ministerial dispensation says, “ I show it unto you.” We see here in what kind of way preaching and teaching is to be carried. In the demonstration of the Spirit and power (1 Corinthians 2:4). It is not enough for us simply to propound truths, but as near as we can to evidence them and demonstrate them. Therefore we are here especially to take heed of anything which may be any hindrance or prejudice hereunto. Secondly, he showed it also in his own practice and example. This we may gather from the next chapter, “ Though I should speak … without charity,” etc. “ Though I should,” is here as much as “ I do not,” and this is another kind of showing, which does belong to all ministers else whosoever they be, without which the other showing will do little or no good at all. The Apostle Paul, as he was a sound teacher, so he was likewise a follower of that which himself did teach. This is requisite to be, thereby to make our doctrine more effectual and full of success. Who will believe our report when we do not believe it ourselves? (Thomas Horton, D.D.)Grace and love beyond gifts The Church of Corinth abounded most with spiritual gifts, and so they did most abuse them. All had not those spiritual gifts, some had those that had them despised those that had them not; and those that had them not envied those that had them. Paul, therefore, that he might heal this distemper, tells them that though the way of gifts be an excellent way, yet the way of grace and love is more excellent and most to be desired. I. There is a way of gifts distinct from the way of grace, and vice versa. All the saints have grace, but all have not gifts. Grace is that excellency whereby we are made like to God in Christ; gifts, that whereby we are serviceable for God in the Church. A man may have a gift and yet no grace in prayer or in preaching, and may have the gift, and yet not the saving grace of faith. II. But what excellency is there in the way of gifts?1. They are useful. The sun is an excellent creature, because he doth good to others. Though there be excellent commodities in other countries, yet if you have no means of transport, you are no better for them; therefore there is a great use of shipping. So by these gifts, the grace that grows in one man’ s heart is transported into another’ s (Ephesians 4:1-32.). If you cannot reach a book you take a stool, and then you are able to take it down; the stool are these gifts. 2. They add excellency to that which is the most excellent. Ordinarily, if a worse thing be added unto a better, the better is defiled, e.g., when lead is added to silver. But now grace is the greatest excellency in the world, yet add gifts to it, and grace itself is made the more excellent; for as the temple did sanctify the gold, but the gold did beautify the temple; so grace sanctifies gifts, and gifts beautify grace. III. Wherein is grace and love most excellent.1. Love-- (1) Is not an empty thing (1 Corinthians 13:1).(2) It never fails.(3) It is not easily provoked, etc. 2. Grace-- (1) Is the proper effect of the Spirit; gifts are, opus ad extra.(2) Affords no hold for sin. IV. Application:1. To those that have gifts. It calls upon you all for to bless the Lord, and to seek the more excellent way. For gifts and grace differ-- (1) In their nature; the one are a dead grace, the other a living gift. (2) In their disposition, for grace is contented with the simplicity of the gospel, gifts are not contented. The Corinthians, who excelled in gifts, adulterated the gospel with their swelling words: and the Galatians with false doctrine. A child in a cornfield is most taken with the coloured weeds and daisies; but the husbandman is taken with nothing but the corn. So a man that hath gifts only, when he comes to a sermon, or a prayer, is much taken with the fine expressions; but the man that hath grace looks at the spirituality and the power of those things that are there delivered. (3) In their effects; grace hath a good hand at suffering as well as at doing; gifts have a very good hand at doing, but an ill hand at suffering. (4) In their abatement and quenching: if a man have grace and fall into sin, that sin will hinder and quench the former actings of his grace; but if a man have gifts only, and he fall into sin, that sin hinders not his actings, he can pray as he did, etc. A candle painted upon a board, if put into water, is not quenched thereby; because it is a dead and not a living candle. 2. To those who have either no gifts at all, or very weak gifts. It calls upon you to be of good comfort. The way of gifts, indeed, is an excellent way; yet if God has led you in a more excellent way, have you any cause to complain? Will you complain for want of that, which if you had in abundance, you would have less time to tend your own souls? Or, will you complain for want of that, which if you had without grace, would be your undoing? (W. Bridge, M.A.)A comparison, between gifts and graces I. Graces are better than gifts. Gifts were necessary in the early ages of the Church; as outward illustrations of the new spiritual facts, as evidences of the Divine authority of the preachers of the gospel, and as fitting them to carry their message to all nations. And there are still gifts bestowed on the Church. We speak of a person having a gift for preaching or teaching, or praying or giving, etc. The Redeemer’ s kingdom needs consecrated learning, eloquence, etc. But the apostle sets graces above gifts, a thing surely very remarkable in his case. II. What graces and gifts have in common.1. A Divine origin. “ What have we that we have not received? By the grace of God we are what we are.” 2. A purpose to effect. Both are for the use of edifying. If we have gifts we are to use them in kindly and wise actions, helping our brothers to carry their burdens, or teaching them how best to lay stone upon stone. If we have graces, then we are enabled to exercise a holy influence, inspiring and inspiriting souls. 3. Both can grow and suffer loss. III. What graces have that gifts have not.1. Graces have the power to come to all, and enrich all. In any very large sense gifts can only be for the few. 2. Graces last for ever. The things which we have must one day drop out of our hands; the dead hand holds nothing. What we are in ourselves we must he for ever. 3. Graces have the power of working always. Gifts are dependent on men’ s wills, and those wills are often wholly self-ruled. We very seldom can get the full benefit of the gifts of the gifted. But if a man have a grace, he cannot help working for his fellow-men and for Christ. (R. Tuck, B.A.). 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Charity Each of the apostles had a predominant feature of character. Paul’ s was faith; John’ s love. And yet it was not to John that the office was assigned of expounding his own especial grace. The reason for this is, if Paul had exalted faith only, and John love only, we might have conceived that the judgment of each was guided by his peculiarities of temperament. But when the gifted apostle counts gifts as nothing in comparison of love, no doubt remains. I. The description of this grace (verse 4-7).1. This is needed, because no single word can express its fulness. Many of these qualities are what we should assign to other graces, e.g., patience, “ suffereth long” ; generosity, “ envieth not” ; humility, “ vaunteth not herself” ; dignified demeanour, “ doth not behave itself unseemly,” etc. But it is in the co-existence of all that the real life of the under-root of love was shown. 2. The apostle here describes a Christian gentleman. The difference between high-breeding or courtesy, i.e., manners of the court, the characteristic of the high-born, and Christian courtesy is, that the former gracefully insists upon its own rights; the latter gracefully remembers the rights of others. The Spirit of Christ does really what high-breeding only does outwardly. A high-bred man is urbane even to persons whom he is inwardly cursing; and hence the only true deep refinement comes from Christian love. And hence, too, we understand what is meant by elevating and refining the poorer classes. Christianity desires to make them all gentlemen. Only read this description of Christian charity, and conceive it existing in a peasant’ s breast. Could he be rude, selfish, and inconsiderate? Would he not be a gentleman in heart? II. The reasons for its superiority to gifts.1. Its permanence--“ Charity never faileth.” (1) Prophecy--the power of interpreting Scripture, is a precious gift, but a time will come “ when they shall not teach every man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord, but all shall know Him from the least to the greatest.” (2) Tongues, also, shall pass away. Suppose a man had known fifty languages in the days of St. Paul, how few would be of use now! (3) Knowledge also “ shall vanish away,” for it is but a temporary state of the human mind, e.g.,--(a) That of the physician, which arises out of the existence of disease: were there no disease, his knowledge would disappear. (b) It is the same with gifts of healing: when the time comes in which “ they shall hunger no more, and thirst no more,” when sickness and death shall cease, this power shall be needless. (c) So also with the knowledge of the lawyer. Were there no wrongs done, the necessity of legal knowledge would be at an end. (d) The same with science, which is ever shifting and becoming obsolete. The science of St. Paul’ s day is only curious now. 2. Its completeness. Gifts are only means to an end. Love remains, the perfection of our human being, just as stem, flower, bud, and leaf in the tree are all subservient to the fruit. St. Paul uses two illustrations to make this plain (verse 11, 12). (1) Just what childhood is to manhood, the most advanced manhood is to our heavenly being. There are many things now which subserve a high purpose, but do not belong to the highest state. Patriotism, ambition, exclusive friendship, will then disappear, and be succeeded by higher impulses. (2) Just what the going out of a room lighted through horn windows into the clear daylight would be to us now, will be the entrance of the purified spirit into God’ s realities out of this world of shadows--of things half seen--of restless dreams (1 John 3:2). (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)Charity There is no royal road to learning, but there is one to heaven--charity. To love is to be in possession of eternal blessedness. I. All gifts are of little worth if not directed and controlled by love (verses 1-3) Paul takes the gifts upon which the Corinthians prided themselves, and affirms that all these are useless if love does not regulate their operations.1. One man noted for his eloquence. But suppose he uses his gift for his own advantage, or to stir up the passions of his audience! 2. Another has vast knowledge, but what is the use of it if he has not love to communicate it, and that in the best way? It is one of the most dangerous gifts a man can possess. 3. Faith is nothing without love. 4. Liberality is nothing without love (verse 3). You gave five pounds to a charitable restitution; why? Because you wanted to get rid of the collector, or because you thought it would bring custom? 5. Zeal without love is nothing. Paul says, “ I can conceive of a man being burned through obstinacy or a false notion of heroism, but it will avail nothing if there is no love in his heart.” And so, now, it is possible to be zealously affected in a good cause from the worst of all motives, viz., self-exaltation. II. A description of love (verses 4-8). The man who has real love in his heart is--1. Long-suffering and generous. 2. Contented. “ Charity envieth not.” Not that we should never strive for anything higher and better; but we should always be thankful for our position, and not constantly grumbling because some one else is a little ahead of us. 3. Humble. “ Charity vaunteth not herself, is not puffed up.” Nothing is more offensive than that spirit of assumption which “ pats one on the back,” and patronises as though it were an embodiment of the wisdom of all the ages. 4. Considerate of another’ s feelings. “ Doth not behave itself unseemly.” 5. Unselfish. “ Charity seeketh not her own.” The motto of most is, “ Take care of number one.” 6. Calm. “ Is not easily provoked.” Love has power to command all the other faculties, and to make them obey. 7. Unsuspicious. “ Thinketh no evil,” and with this may be put purity. “ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” The best construction possible is put upon everything; on the other hand, where sin is really shown, love does not spare the sinner. 8. Magnanimous. “ Beareth all things,” or “ covereth all things.” The tendency of love is to hide rather than expose the faults of others instead of blazoning them abroad. 9. Trustful. “ Believeth all things.” Not that the charitable man is credulous, but he “ thinketh no evil,” i.e., when the conduct of others is concerned he always believes the best report. 10. Hopes for the best. “ Hopeth all things.” When an investigation is going on Love says, “ I hope that man will come out clear.” 11. Endures all things. Does not murmur or repine in times of sorrow--will bear anything for the welfare of another. Put all these characteristics together, and you have Jesus Christ, for in Him only do they all meet. Why, then, did Paul put such a high ideal before us? In order that we may try to reach it. III. The greatness of love.1. Gifts are transient. Those special gifts of tongues, etc., have long since passed away, and others have come in their place--eloquence, knowledge. These, however, are fleeting; but when these shall fail, Faith, Hope, and Charity will remain. 2. Love--it includes all. 3. Love is the perfection of knowledge (verses 9, 10). This is illustrated by his personal experience (verse 11). (A. F. Barfield.)Charity This chapter is a noble hymn; scarce anywhere else does Paul seem so wholly possessed with his subject. The very words themselves have something about them of the grace which they describe. They sound like angelic harmonies. I. See how the apostle tears up by the roots many a sign of acceptance on which men are accustomed to rely.1. What a noble thing it is to have the power of speech to move men’ s souls! No wonder that men put such a price upon eloquence. However, so long as it is employed in mere worldly interests, whose soul is the better for it? If charity breathe into it and give it life, it is well. But if you substitute fine talking, dressed out with the names of God and Christ, it is not a blessing to you, but a curse. Learn to love, and away with the ready tongue and fluent profession. 2. Even in worldly matters, and, specially, in God’ s works, knowledge is a great and noble thing, and much more so when conversant with things Divine. But men are led to fancy that this is religion itself. But though your minds were so enlarged that they could contain all mysteries and all knowledge, yet if charity be not there, not only is all this knowledge cold and dead, majestic like some great building, but with no soul in it; but it profits nothing, it will not bring you on one step to heaven! 3. But to come to better things, e,g., faith. Great is the might that lies within it. Yet faith without love is no better than the belief of the evil angels, though it works miracles. 4. The apostle waxes bolder and denies the seal of salvation, even to beneficence, if it could exist alone. Nay, to that sublimest effort of faith, by which the martyrs gave their very bodies to the flames, he refuses the assurance of God’ s love if charity be absent. An admirable thing, if you please; so great as, perhaps, to be beyond the comprehension of most men in our age, when too many Christians would not sacrifice a finger to Christ, much less give the body to be burned! yet, in the lack of love as the source of it, it is not capable of profiting any of us at the great day of the Lord! II. What, then, is this Divine virtue?1. As charity is not the mere giving to the poor, though that is a duty, so still less has the thing which counts all religion the same anything to do with this Divine grace. If the world’ s notion of charity be right, it is the easiest thing that can be; and you have only to be an infidel to have it. 2. Measure your charity, and frame your standard of it, by Him who is perfect truth and perfect love. You, then, who profess yourselves Christians, are you impatient to affronts and injuries, unable to bear anything that opposes your own will? if so, ye have not charity; for charity “ suffereth long and is kind.” Are you jealous of other men’ s praises and possessions, looking on them with an evil eye? if so, charity dwelleth not in you; for charity envieth not, etc. 2. This charity, which surpasses all other graces, does in deed and in truth contain them all. That it is no other than the Christian life; a manifestation in daily and hourly action of a Divine principle within, which testifies to its own heavenly origin. Christ is this living charity, and hath left an example that we should follow His steps. Aye, and He is still among you, not only stirring within the soul, but speaking oftentimes, and acting in the form of charity. Whenever you see a gentle and long-suffering spirit, there you see Christ! Whenever you see an earnest love for men’ s souls, and labour for them, there you see Christ. Christ is in His disciples, and His disciples in Him! They are one with Him, and He one with them, in a Divine and unspeakable unity! (J. Garbett, M.A.)Christian charity I. Its nature. Charity means love. As to its properties, it comprises complacency, gratitude and benevolence. Its objects are--1. God. This constitutes the first great commandment of the moral law; God is the object of love, as it comprises complacency in the contemplation of His perfections, and gratitude in the contemplation of His blessings. 2. Man. This is the second great commandment--the love required not excluding complacency and gratitude, but consisting principally in benevolence. (1) To those who share the same spiritual privileges and are therefore in the highest sense brethren. (2) To men simply as men. It is impossible for any one to be a Christian without being a philanthropist. II. its manifestations.1. Toward God. (1) Belief of His truth. Faith produces love, but love in return lends a higher and more powerful energy to faith. (2) The study of His character. We cannot conceive of love but as meditating upon its object. (3) Obedience to His commandments. “ If a man love Me, he will keep My words,” etc. (4) Activity in His cause. They who are thus animated will desire that others may love Him also. (5) Anticipation of His kingdom. Here it blends with hope. 2. To man. These manifestations are presented in the verses directly succeeding the text. Note the importance of these manifestations, in relation-- (1) To the Church. All that love can think and do, in forbearance, forgiveness, humility, sympathy, and benevolence, is demanded on behalf of those who are united in the same community with ourselves; and not only to these, but to all who own the Christian name. The whole Church must cultivate this towards the whole Church, ere it can ever approximate to the fulfilment of its responsibility, both in relation to the glory of God and the happiness of man. (2) To the world. Beyond the manifestations presented here there is one which the present state of the unconverted world does most solemnly demand, viz., pity. Christianity calls on us to be almoners of the Divine bounty to the souls of men, and we have to carry to them the gospel. This will purify their pollution and redress their wrongs. III. Its pre-eminence. Passing by the superiority of love to miraculous gifts or natural amiable dispositions, note two facts in which its pre-eminence consists.1. Love partakes of the Divine nature. This cannot be stated of a large proportion of the other graces, viz., repentance, faith, hope, etc. But “ God is love” (1 John 4:7; 1 John 4:12; 1 John 4:16). 2. Love is perfected and perpetuated in the celestial state. Other graces prepare for heaven, but do not enter it, e.g., repentance, faith, etc. But love is there; and love is all. (J. Parsons.)The unreality of religion without love Nothing is more dangerous in religion than unreality. It may pass muster, and be undetected, in secular things, but it is soon discovered in people who profess and call themselves Christians. St. Paul had in the previous chapter rebuked the Corinthians for their mistaken view of spiritual things. He had done his utmost to lead them up to the realisation that they were then “ as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal” --mere voice, and nothing more. He had also promised to show them a more excellent way. It is the way of charity, or perfect love. I. A great fact. All things are valueless without love. Bishop Wordsworth describes this love (ἀγάπη) as “ love to God and to man in God and for God” (1 Corinthians 8:1). The life and work of the Lord Jesus Christ show us the power of love over human hearts. He used no artifice, no violence, no ostentation. The great secret of His power was that His was the acme of love (John 15:13). II. A great motive. St. Paul would have us look to our motives (1 Samuel 16:7). That is not always charity which seems so, just as “ all is not gold that glitters.” The great motive is wanting. Even martyrdom, without love, is a hollow and useless sham. It is as worthless as a great sounding of brass and a tinkling of cymbals. It is a thing “ without life, giving sound” (1 Corinthians 14:7). III. A great characteristic. How are we to know, then, what is truly charity and what is not? We must test it. The genuineness of everything is discovered by tests.1. That which looks like a sovereign is often discovered to be of base metal by its ring upon the counter, or by the application of an acid. 2. A house sometimes looks well built and habitable, but when the rain descends and the floods come, and beat upon it, the fall thereof is great (Matthew 7:27). 3. Those who seem to be our best friends are often actuated by the most selfish motives, and would be the last to give us help if we needed it. In all these cases the test brings out the true characteristics. The great characteristic of true charity is unselfishness. Wherever it is found, that quality will be at the root of all its actions. IV. A great consolation. All men long for something that will last. We live in a world of change. St. Paul answers, “ Charity never faileth.” In love we have something which will not be old-fashioned in time or eternity. It will never wear out. (F. St. John Corbett.)Love is God-like It is the aim of religion to lift men out of their natural unregenerate selves, and, so far as their human nature is capable of such exaltation, to make them more like God: to produce and increase in them some feeble counterpart of that moral goodness which we worship in the perfection of the Divine Being. Now charity is the road which alone brings us on this heavenly journey, and each one of the several exhibitions of the same blessed spirit, which are detailed for us by St. Paul in the chapter now before us, is one more added to the golden steps that carry the Christian higher and higher towards the throne of God. I said that by the practice of charity men are made more like God, for, if we take those parts of the description of it which are applicable to the case, we shall find that they are a description not only of what man ought to aspire to be, but of what God Himself is, so far as He reveals Himself in His dealings with men. I do not mean that the picture was so intended, but that so it is. “ Charity suffereth long and is kind” --and do not we find by daily experience that this benign long-suffering is one of the attributes of the Most High? If it were not so, where should we sinners be to-day? “ Charity envieth not.” Of course the Creator cannot envy His creature, but it is conceivable that He might grudge him good: the heathen often surmise this of their gods: but our God “ giveth to every man liberally’ and upbraideth not.” Charity “ is not easily provoked.” “ God is a righteous Judge,” says the Psalmist, “ strong and patient, and God is provoked every day,” and yet, as he implies, still withholds the chastisement, “ if a man will not turn,” then, and then only, “ He will whet His sword.” Charity “ thinketh,” or better, “ imputeth not the evil” : and so our Father, instead of saddling us with our sins the instant we commit them, is ever ready to help us out of them, to rid us of them if only we will be rid, not to impute them to us, but to forgive and forget them for His dear Son’ s sake. Charity “ never faileth.” It is the very spirit of God’ s treatment of man. It is because His love fails not, and never can fail, that we dare either enjoy the present or look forward to the future. Now the more excellent a way is, the harder it is to reach it and to walk in it: and if the principle of charity be at the root of God’ s dealings with us, it need not surprise us that we find much difficulty in producing any genuine copy of the Divine pattern in our dealings with one another. And yet we must do so, or fail altogether in godliness. It may therefore be of service to take some three or four of the chief aspects of our many-sided life in which the exercise of charity is called for, and ask ourselves how far we exhibit or fail to exhibit it in them.1. Take first our religion. If there be any subject in which our charity should be deep-seated and unquestionable, one would think it should be this. The solemn nature of the matter treated of, the deep importance of the issues, the sense of human feebleness and ignorance in face of the infinite and the unseen, the consciousness of our own personal failures and inconsistencies--these things, one would think, should make us very tender, both in judgment and act, towards other “ seekers after God.” And yet nowhere is charity more starved and stunted than it is among the differing professors of a common faith. Imagine a number of travellers all bound for the same distant and as yet unvisited country, each furnished with a map of the road. The maps agree as to the main direction, and indeed have most of their chief features in common, but they vary often in minor particulars. Will they all fall to quarrelling and hate one another because of these differences? What hard thoughts, what harsh unsympathising judgments, the staunch Churchman often forms of his Dissenting brother, and his Dissenting brother forms of him! How suspicious and antagonistic is the attitude of Protestant to Catholic! But it may be urged, How can I look lovingly on my neighbour, and tolerate his ways and his opinions, when I believe them to be thoroughly mischievous? Am I to stand by and see error triumph unopposed? Certainly not; it is our duty to oppose it: but there are two ways of opposing it. The one is dogmatic, dictatorial, pugnacious. It will admit no possibility of weakness or imperfection in its own position, no element of good in that of the adversary. It hates compromise. It struggles for triumph, not for truth. The other is based on meekness and moderation. It believes that it has possession of a truth, but it claims no exclusive patent for proclaiming it. It sees, and cheerfully pays honour to, the truth and goodness which are mixed up with the error of an opposite party. It yearns not for triumph, but for harmony. Certainly, a man whose opposition is animated by this spirit is a very dangerous and effective combatant. He is not indifferent to truth: he is its devotee. What he is indifferent to is the triumph of a faction. The character looks fair and noble, surely, when thus sketched in the general, but when we come to try to work something of the pattern of it into the texture of our own daily lives, it will not harmonise with the stuff already there, and the business bristles with difficulties. Pride has to be overcome, dislike reasonable or unreasonable, ancient prejudices, our own self-esteem. This person or this party, whom you or I dislike, does not seem like other persons or parties. 2. We will turn now to another wide field of action-politics. The more deeply men feel, the more impatient of opposition are they apt to be, and the more angry at anything that runs counter to their own persuasions. Next to religion there is nothing of a public kind about which men feel more deeply than politics, and hence the frequent need in this sphere also of the blessed influences of a Christian charity. Difference of opinion has too often culminated in personal animosity, and it has seemed more hard than ever for political opponents to see any good in each other’ s views, or any nobleness in their aims. If this be so, it becomes the special duty of the preacher to assert aloud the claims of charity to be reverenced and practised in the political arena. She would not stop the strife, but she would moderate it. It is as unchristian as it is foolish to impute bad or low motives to an opponent where there is any hope that we may be mistaken. 3. The next field over which we will cast a glance is that of literature. Surely in the great republic of letters, if nowhere else, every citizen will be candid and courteous towards his fellows! But it is not always so. Even great and good men have yielded to the temptation to be uncharitable here. It is a noble saying of Aristotle’ s, when he is about to canvass Plato’ s Theory of Ideas, that both being dear to him, it is a sacred duty to prefer the truth to Plato. Let us have the truth, here as in all other subjects, before all things; that of itself never can harm us, but let us have it spoken in love. The exclusive pursuit of truth is not inconsistent with the purest charity. The calm and patient examination of another’ s arguments, the respectful consideration of his position, the readiness to be convinced of error where it can be shown to exist, the reluctance to impute ignorance or stupidity, the absence of all tinge of personality, the scorn of snatching a momentary victory at the expense of truth, which we mark in some great controversialist--how much more noble and powerful they are than whole reams of brilliant but insincere invective. 4. The relations which we have so far looked at have been all more or less of a public character: before concluding let us give our thoughts for a while to the demands of charity in the private region of domestic life. It is an old and a true saying that “ Charity begins at home.” Here if anywhere the Christian should exhibit that spirit of forbearance, of unselfishness, of unwearying, uncalculating kindness, of optimism in judging of the characters, motives, actions of those about him, which are the parts of charity. The occasions for its exercise are as numerous as the hours of the day. Happy the family where this sweetest and wholesomest of influences reigns supreme, and is shared in by all its members. Such a household becomes the nursery of true public virtues. How unhappy are that man and woman who have linked their lot for life together, and yet have made no preparation to carry out the Divine behests of charity in the insignificant things of daily life. They may bear a brave face to the world, but what profit is that to them, if the simple sweetness of the domestic hearth be marred by peevishness, or hardness, or a cutting tongue, or wilfulness, or mere want of sympathy? We have thus traversed, in however cursory a manner, some of the great fields in which charity works. There are other fields on which we have not entered, nor is there much need to do so, for though “ there be diversities of operations it is the same Spirit which worketh all in all.” If it be true that he that offends in one point of the law is guilty of all, no less is it true that he that has grasped what the genuine spirit of charity is in any one great relation of life will be able to understand it in all. (E. H. Bradby, M. A.)Christian charity William Tyndale, the translator of the Scriptures, had many enemies, who persecuted him with cruel hatred, but to whom he bore the tenderest charity. It is recorded that to some of them he said one day, “ Take away my goods, take away my good name!--yet so long as Christ dwelleth in my heart, so long shall I love you not a whit the less.” Charity difficult of attainment A Brahman on hearing this chapter read, exclaimed, “ Who can act up to that?” (Dr. Duff.)Eloquence without charity Two introductory truths are suggested by the context--1. That there is great diversity in the talents with which heaven has endowed mankind. Some men are distinguished by one faculty and some by another. Some by the faculty of creating, some by the faculty of combining, some by the faculty of oratorically presenting, thought. These faculties exist in various degrees of strength; in some they are dwarfish, in some gigantic. 2. That without charity the highest kind and degree of talent is of little worth. Note-- I. That it is possible for eloquence of the highest type to exist without charity. We find it--1. In party politics. Many party speeches, fashioned after the highest models and delivered with all the graces of the art, beat with selfish ambition and burn with envious spleen. 2. In party theology. Some of the discourses on polemic theology are, in all the attributes of true eloquence, unexcelled, but they are all aglow with acrimonious zeal for certain dogmas. 3. In party Churchism. II. That eloquence of the highest type without charity is utterly worthless--“ brass,” giving out a mere clanking sound. It is worthless--1. In itself. What would you give for two pieces of brass forming a cymbal. Whatever their marketable value may be, for musical purposes they are not worth a “ penny whistle.” What worth is there in an organism unless it has life? and what worth is there in sentences, however eloquent, unless they have charity? 2. In its influence. The sounds you get out of the cymbal produce rather an irritating than an inspiring or calming influence upon the listener. What moral good can speeches without charity accomplish? Eloquence without charity is like the roar of a winter’ s north-easter, irritating and destructive; but eloquence with charity is like the quiet south-wester in spring, rearming all things into life and touching all things into beauty. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Charity, emblem of The Egyptian hieroglyphic representing charity is a naked child, with a heart in his hand, giving honey to a bee without wings. The child represents the humility of charity; the heart in its hand, the cheerfulness of charity; giving honey to the bee without wings, the worthiness and helplessness of the object of charity. The importance of charity Consider-- I. What is that charity which is the substance and reality of all true religion.1. Negatively. (1) Not mere almsgiving. (2) Nor that kindly disposition which naturally distinguishes some persons without any religious principle. (3) Nor any affection which by human skill and labour can be produced in human nature. Education and example do much to restrain the outward expression of the malevolent passions; nay, it is a part of courtesy to hide them, but they are still there. 2. Positively. Charity, as described here, is a grace only of regenerated human nature. It springs only from love to God. “ The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Here the apostle speaks of this principle chiefly, as his subject required, in its acting towards men. II. The manner in which the apostle enforces its importance and necessity. He places it--1. Above all miraculous gifts. He does not depreciate them, but he exalts charity. 2. Above the most profuse almsgiving and the loftiest zeal. 3. Above knowledge. 4. Above faith and hope. Conclusion:1. We see the tendency of men to mistake the external circumstances of religion for religion itself. 2. Let us elevate our views to the true character of the religion of Christ. Love is its principle, its vital flame. 3. Let us mark how much of religion exists in temper. 4. Rejoice in the prospect of a future state, which this chapter opens. (R. Watson.)Charity, regard for It is recorded of the excellent Bishop Ken, that when his copy of the Bible was examined after his death, it opened spontaneously at Paul’ s great chapter of the Corinthians on charity. (J. Thomson.)Charity, want of, not confined to theological circles One doctor says bolus, and another says globule. Globule calls Bolus a butcher, and Bolus calls Globule a quack, and the hydropathist says, “ Beware of pick-pockets.” And Bolus will not speak to Globule, though Globule says, “ Let us make it up, and begin again” ; and Bolus says, “ Never; as long as I live I will leech and blister and cup and bleed and do things with scientific vigour.” (J. Parker, D.D.)Charity, worthlessness of gifts without All gifts, all graces, all talents, natural or acquired, are ungraceful, or wanting in that one essential, which is the complement or the supplement of them all, without this charity. Take it as of a circle, and it is wanting in that which makes it round. The lines from its centre do not go straight to its circumference. They are disproportioned; they are not equi-distant. Take it as of a building, and there is want of symmetry. The thing is deformed. It may have due length, but not due breadth. It may have breadth and length, but no depth. It may have due breadth, but not due height. It may have all these, but have no foundation. Such is any or every work without charity. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)Christian love I. Its essentiality.1. The apostle contrasts it with the highest and richest endowments possible to man. (1) The mastery of all languages.(2) To voice forth God’ s purposes.(3) To interpret all secret things and comprehend all truth.(4) To be inspired with the highest supernatural faith.(5) To be moved with the noblest philanthropy and by the spirit of martyrdom. 2. Though possessing all these highest gifts, the apostle declares that without love to God the Christian is nothing. Nothing-- (1) In view of God’ s purpose of grace, to make His children to be “ conformed to the image of His Son.” (2) In view of the highest characteristic of the Divine nature. “ For God is love.” (3) In view of the essential attribute of Christian character--“ He that loveth, not knoweth not God.” “ This is life eternal to know Thee,” etc. II. Its characteristics.1. Long-suffering.2. Tender-hearted.3. Unenvious.4. Meek.5. Modest.6. Not arrogant.7. Unselfish.8. Unresentful.9. Unsuspecting. 10. Has no sympathy with sin. 11. Loves the truth. 12. Hides faults. 13. Charitable. 14. Sanguine. 15. Firm in trials. III. Its superiority.1. In permanence-- (1) To prophecies.(2) To tongues.(3) To knowledge. 2. In nature. Superior-- (1) To faith, because faith expresses helpless dependence on God, and love expresses the exercise of the most exalted attribute of God. (2) To hope, because hope expresses desire for the good of ourselves, and love expresses desire for the highest good of others. Practical lessons:1. How opposite the Divine and human estimates of true glory. 2. How equal is God’ s plan for human good. All cannot speak with tongues; all cannot master science and knowledge, but all can love. 3. Do we believe the testimony which the Holy Spirit bears in this chapter? (D. C. Hughes, A.M.)Christian love I. Gifts are of less value than graces. Still they are of great value. Do the best with all you have. Eloquence is useful in proclaiming truth. Insight is helpful to the teacher. Knowledge is needful: we cannot love an unknown person. Faith works wonders (Hebrews 6:1-20.). Almsgiving and faithfulness unto death are required. But all these without love are worthless in God’ s sight. Yet, how often intellect, genius, and learning win the higher praises! A bright lad may be a bad boy. Without love teachers may fail. II. Christian love is the chief grace. It is very different from natural love to kindred and to the world. It comes from God (Romans 5:5). It is to be shown to men. God requires it; His children need it; we are better, holier, happier for manifesting it. Love to men shows our love to God, as stars reflect the light of the sun. Love is here personified, for no Christian is yet so perfect as to sit for the portrait (verse 4). Love did not write the old proverb, “ Forbearance ceases to be a virtue.” Kindness makes real gentlemen. Envy leads to unfairness and cruelty. Jealousy gives the eye a wrong cast. Love hushes boasting, reduces self-display, and takes the wind out of puffing pride. It imparts magnanimity, meekness, and a true estimate of one’ s self (Romans 12:16-18; verse 5). In the school of love good behaviour and unselfishness are taught. Her pupils do not take mean advantage of each other, nor quick offence at trifles, nor keep a note-book of evil things. They learn politeness, fairness, self-possession, purity, and candour (verse 6). Love gives joy. Iniquity brings sorrow. We must hate sin (Romans 12:9) while loving the sinner. A loving heart is a home for truth. Falsehood knocks there in vain. Love and truth are boon companions (verse 7). It is hard to say, “ Let the righteous smite me” (Psalms 141:5), and to bear a rebuke; it is harder to believe in the justice of it, to hope well of people who injure us, and to wait patiently for God to bring good out of our troubles (Genesis 45:5; Genesis 1:20). Love makes us docile, tolerant, trustful and trustworthy, hopeful, patient. It beareth--roofs over--things which should not be exposed. It is the ivy growing over castles once noisy with crimes (1 Peter 4:8). III. Love is the ceaseless grace (verse 8). It is “ a flower whose petals never fall off.” In heaven we shall not need the special uses of gifts which are now meant for the Church on earth. These uses shall cease (verses 9, 10). The partial loses itself in the complete. Dawn passes into day. Steps to heaven will be put away when we get there, and have all things that are promised. We are here to grow in knowledge in childhood and employ our gifts till we come to the full stature of Christian manhood (verse 11; Ephesians 4:11-13). Faith now helps us to see images of heavenly things; but it will end in sight. Still there will always be knowledge and trust. Hope will result in possession, and still there will be expectation (verses 12, 13). (W. M. Blackburn, D.D.)The apostolic doctrine of love 1. This passage stands alone in the writings of St. Paul, both in its subject and its style. It is the climax of the Epistle. The evil tendencies of the Corinthian Church met their true correction in this gift, without which the Christian society would fall to pieces--just as the civil society had appeared to philosophers and statesmen to be doomed to dissolution without φιλία or mutual harmony. Unlike mere rhetorical panegyrics on particular virtues every word tells with double force because aimed against a real enemy. It is as though wearied with discussion against the sins of this Church, Paul had at last found the spell by which they could be overcome, and uttered sentence after sentence with the triumphant “ Eureka.” 2. But the very style shows that it rises above any immediate or local occasion. On each side of this chapter argument and remonstrance still rage; but within it all is calm; the sentences move in almost rhythmical melody; the imagery unfolds itself in almost dramatic propriety; the language arranges itself with almost rhetorical accuracy. We can imagine how the apostle’ s amanuensis must have paused, to look up into his master’ s face at the sudden change in his style, and seen it as it had been the face of an angel, as this vision of Divine perfection passed before him. I. The word Αγάπη, is peculiar to the New Testament. The verb is used in classical Greek, but only in the lower sense of acquiescence, esteem, or caressing. It is in the LXX we first find it employed to designate what we call “ love” ; and it is there introduced (probably from its likeness in sound to the Hebrew words to represent ahab and agab, both expressive of passionate affection, drawn from the idea of panting after a desired object. The Greek world exhibited in a high degree the virtue of personal friendship, which was so highly esteemed as to give its name (φιλία) to affection generally. Domestic and conjugal affection, strictly speaking, there was not. The word which most nearly approaches to the modern notion of love (ἐρος) expressed either a merely sensual admiration of physical, or an intellectual admiration of ideal beauty. The Alexandrians expressed benevolence to man by the word “ philanthropy” which was, however, an abstraction to be panegyrised, not a powerful motive to be acted upon. In contradistinction to all these, and yet the crown and completion of them all, is the “ love” of the New Testament. It is not religion evaporated into benevolence, but benevolence taken up into religion--love of man for the sake of love to God; love to God showing itself in love to man. II. Its origin. It is perhaps not too much to say that it was derived expressly from “ the revelations of the Lord.” It is, in all probability, from the great example of the self-sacrificing love shown in the life and death of Christ, that love to man for the sake of love to God is the one great end of existence (John 13:34; John 15:13). Until Christ had lived and died this virtue was almost impossible. The fact of its having come into existence, the urgency with which the apostle dwells upon it, is itself a proof that He had lived and died as none other had lived and died. This is confirmed by observing that the word and idea which thus first appear in the writings of St. Paul receive their full meaning and development in those of St. John, who, without doubt, received them from the example and teaching of Christ. III. The contrast between the apostolical view of love and later representations.1. Usually it is employed for almsgiving, yet this is the very sense with which the apostle expressly contrasts his own employment of the word (verse 3). 2. Sometimes it is used for “ toleration” or “ forbearance,” as when we speak of a “ charitable construction,” in “ charity with our neighbours.” But this sense, though founded on “ charity thinketh no evil,” and “ is not easily provoked,” is inadequate. As there may be almsgiving without love, so there may be toleration without love. Here our conceptions of charity soon come to an end, but this new commandment of Christ and His apostle is exceeding broad. (Dean Stanley.)Love, charm of When Dr. Doddridge asked his little daughter, who died so early, why everybody seemed to love her, she answered, “ I cannot tell, unless if is because I love everybody.” This was not only a striking but very judicious reply. It accords with the sentiment of Seneca, who gives us a lovecharm. And what do you suppose the secret is? “ Love,” says he, “ in order to be loved.” No being ever yet drew another by the use of terror and authority. (W. Jay.)Love, comprehensiveness of Love is the brightest star in the Christian firmament, and the fairest flower in the garden of God. It comprehends all virtue, honour, goodness, purity, sincerity, magnanimity, and whatever else can adorn the human character. For what is holiness but love supreme? and what is heaven but love perfected? and what are all the Christian virtues and graces but so many modifications of the same Divine principle? Mercy is love sparing the guilty; kindness, love blessing the needy; pity, love sympathising with the sufferer; justice, love rendering to all their due; beneficence, love distributing its bounty; gratitude, love reciprocating its favours; fortitude, love sustaining its burdens; penitence, love bewailing its sinfulness; fidelity, but love performing its promises. And what is faith but love confiding? zeal, but love contending? peace, but love reposing? joy, but love exulting? hope, but love expecting? patience, but love enduring? meekness, but love forbearing? And worship is love adoring the Divine Excellence; prayer, love supplicating its heavenly Father; praise, love pouring its glad melody into the ear of God; preaching, love proclaiming the riches of the love that passeth knowledge; the holy eucharist, love celebrating love’ s sublimest mystery and transcending triumph; and all Christian work is love bringing its best sacrifice to the altar of the Love eternal, and laying its richest tribute at the nail-pierced feet. (J. Cross, D.D.)Love, the essence of Christianity Gustave Dore said to the Rev. Frederick Harford one day, “ My friend, I am a Roman Catholic a professed Roman Catholic. I was baptized in that Church, and I stick to it: but if you wish to know my real religion I will tell it to you. It is contained in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’ s First Epistle to the Corinthians.” Then he recited it through from the beginning to the end, without hesitation or missing one word. When he had finished he turned to Canon Harford and said, “ Have I made any mistakes? and--and, believing in that chapter as I do, might I be considered a Christian?” Canon Harford’ s reply was, “ Any man living up to that chapter might be called not only Christian, but Christianissimus.” Love, the essence of religion Nothing is more common than to find even those who deny the authority of the Holy Scriptures, yet affirming, “ This is my religion.” Nay, even a Jew, a Spanish physician, then settled at Savannah, used to say with great earnestness, “ Paul of Tarsus is one of the finest writers I have ever read. I wish the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians were written in letters of gold; and I wish every Jew were to carry it with him wherever he went.” He judged (and herein he certainly judged right) that this single chapter contained the whole of true religion. (John Wesley.)Love: from God the source As the water exhaled from the sea falls in refreshing rains and reviving dews upon field and forest, meadow and mountain, thirsty soil and withered herbage, and then by a thousand channels flows back again to the sea; so charity, coming forth from God, scatters its blessings among the children of men, and with its gathered revenue of love and praise returns to the bosom of God. God is its Alpha and Omega--the fountain whence it issues, and the ocean where it empties. Love to God is the tree; love to man is the delicious fruit it bears. Love to God is the mountain spring; love to man is the fertilising stream it sends singing through the landscape. We love God for His own sake, man for God’ s sake; the child, because we love the Father. (J. Cross, D.D.)Love: gifts compared with Gifts-- I. Have no value in themselves; may occasion mischief; love is intrinsically excellent; gives value to everything. II. Do not necessarily make a man useful; love makes him active and self-sacrificing. III. Cannot save; love is salvation already begun. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Love: growth and power of We know that in this world, love, like all the other of the higher emotions, is the weakest when we are young, and that it grows in power with exercise and age. We have to ripen in love as well as in all other things. A youth does not love as a middle-aged person can. Love is a thing first of leaves, then of blossoms, and at last of fruit. We sometimes connect together the manifestations of it which we see in this life, to get a large view of what it will be in the future life. In this world we occasionally see, in parents and brothers and sisters, or experience in ourselves, that which gives us a somewhat accurate conception of the Divine power of love which we shall possess in the world to come. There is nothing which love cannot do. It is the only thing that walks without touching the ground. It never grows weary. Nothing in the soul is superior to it. Let love be an active feeling there, and all the other faculties come eagerly before it, and willingly lay down their crowns and coronets at its feet. It governs without command. All other feelings open to it as flowers to the sun. There are ten thousand things in life from which we gain some idea of what this supereal nature is. What if every soul was affected by every other soul, as some are affected by those who have the mysterious power of sympathy, so that every chord in their nature quivers at the touch, as the chords of a piano quiver when the keys are touched? What if every soul were so royal with this spirit that each word, and look, and posture, and gesture, radiated joy and gladness upon every other soul? How blessed will be the time when there is this commerce, this freedom, this universality of this wonderful heart-power! How doth this Divine emotion cleanse both those who exercise it and those who receive its benefactions! By it God maintains the household. From its secret springs He nourishes the new generations of men. Even afar off from its source it shines with power enough to guide the world and lead men up the ways of civilisation. What, then, shall be its redemptive and educating power in heaven? (H. W. Beecher.)Love: the gauge of true manhood I do not distinguish men one from another merely by the difference of their thought-power. Still less do I distinguish them by the difference of their executive power. There must be a deeper gauge than these. Still less do I distinguish them by their external differences, as where one is high and another is low; where one is rich and another is poor; where one is wise and another is unwise. The point where true manhood resides is in the neighbourhood of love. In the copiousness, the variety, the endlessness, the sweetness, and the purity of the element of love, you shall find the measure that God applies discriminating between one and another. (H. W. Beecher.)Love: importance of I. Without love gifts are worthless.1. They are inefficient.2. Confer no real honour.3. Profit us nothing before God. II. Sanctified by love they are of inestimable worth.1. The tongue is touched with fire.2. The intellect is filled with spiritual light.3. Faith triumphs over sin.4. Good works are a sacrifice well pleasing to God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Love: the importance of Love is the first outgoing of the renewed soul to God--“ We love Him, because He first loved us.” It is the sure evidence of a saving work of grace in the soul--“ The fruit of the Spirit is love.” It lies at the very foundation of Christian character; we are “ rooted and grounded in love.” It is the path in which all the true children of God are found; they “ walk in love” --the bond of their mutual union; their hearts are “ knit together in love” --their protection in the spiritual warfare; they are to put on “ the breastplate of love” --the fulness and completeness of their Christian character; they are “ made perfect in love” --the spirit through which they may fulfil all the Divine acquirements; for “ love is the fulfilling of the law” ; that by which they may become like their Father in heaven, and fitted for His presence; for “ God is love,” and heaven is a world of love. (Tryon Edwards, D.D.)Love: indispensableness of I. Though many external virtues may seem to exist without it. There might be--1. Great gifts of speech.2. Great grasp of understanding.3. Great fulness of faith.4. Great almsgiving.5. Great martyr enthusiasm--yet with all this if a man has not love he is a spiritual “ nothing,” a moral “ nobody,” a nonentity in the great realm of being, where whosoever dwells in love dwells in God and God in him. II. Because it inspires, ensures, and energises all such virtues. The virtues described are desirable. “ Covet them.” But they are only ensured by love, and are certain to be found, and to be found in their fulness, where love is. It is the true inspiration and energiser. Without love such virtues are--1. Mere sound. 2. Mere appearance “ I am nothing” --only the semblance of moral manhood. 3. Mere abortive effort, “ it profiteth me nothing” --it is labour in vain. Whereas not one of these virtues but will flourish where love is. St. Augustine’ s great saying, “ Love, and do what thou wilt” is warranted by “ Love is the fulfilling of the law.” (U. R. Thomas.)Love: extent of Clever men can tell to a nicety the exact distance between the earth on which we live and the moon; they can even tell just how far the sun is from us. They can even measure how far it is from one of the twinkling stars that shine in the sky at night to another; they know the size of the stars, and their weight. But not even the cleverest of all the clever men that ever lived can say how far one single little loving deed can go, or say where its influence will end. Love is infinite and everlasting. When the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, he that loveth and “ doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (Baldwin Brown, B.A.)Love: the life of the soul The soul may sooner leave off to subsist than to love; and, like the vine, it withers and dies if it has nothing to embrace. (R. South, D.D.)Love: no gift like it This is one of the passages of Scripture which an expositor scruples to touch. The bloom and delicacy passes from the flower in handling. But although this eulogium is its own best interpreter, there are points in it which require explanation and enforcement. Note-- I. The supremacy of love.1. The extraordinary gifts of which the Corinthians were so proud may profit the Church, but they are no evidence of the ripe Christian manhood of their possessor. (1) Suppose I speak all possible languages, and have not love, I am but a mere instrument played upon by another--sounding brass, etc. (2) Take the gifts of prophecy, miracles, etc. Without love, however, they may profit others, they neither bring me into closer connection with Christ nor give assurance of my sound spiritual condition. (3) Take almsgiving. The young ruler lacked but one thing: to sell his property and give to the poor. But, says Paul, “ though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,” etc., I may do this from a love of display, or from an uneasy sense of duty. (4) But martyrdom? Well, at one period martyrdom became fashionable, just as suicide once became fashionable. 2. Too often it is a man’ s snare to judge himself by what he does rather than by what he is. But no eye to advantage or to public opinion can enable a man to love. Love must be spontaneous from the soul’ s self, the unconstrained, natural outcome of the real man. Love cannot be got up. It is the result of God entering and possessing the soul. “ He that loveth is born of God.” And therefore it is that where love is absent all is absent. And yet how the mistake of the Corinthians is perpetuated from age to age. The Church is smitten with a genuine admiration of talent. Do parents sufficiently impress on their children that all successes at school and in early life are as nothing compared to the more obscure but much more substantial acquisition of a thoroughly unselfish spirit? II. Its positive excellence (verses 4-7).1. It is possible that Paul may have read the eulogium pronounced on love by the greatest of Greek writers five hundred years before: “ Love is our lord, supplying kindness and banishing unkindness, giving friendship and forgiving enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; careful of the good, uncareful of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear--pilot, helper, defender, saviour; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest; in whose foot steps let every man follow, chanting a hymn and joining in that fair strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men.” Five hundred years after Paul another eulogium was pronounced on love by Mohammed: “ Every good act is charity; your smiling in your brother’ s face; your putting a wanderer in the right road; your giving water to the thirsty, or exhortations to others to do right. A man’ s true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in this world to his fellowman. When he dies, people will ask, What property has he left behind him? but the angels will ask what good deeds he has sent before him.” Thomas a Kempis dwells on its varied capacity. “ Love,” he says, “ feels no burden, regards not labours, would willingly do more than it is able, pleads not impossibilities, because it feels sure that it can and may do all things. Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, and delightful; strong, patient, faithful, prudent, longsuffering, manly, and never seeking itself; it is circumspect, humble, and upright; sober, chaste, steadfast, quiet, and guarded in all its senses.” 2. Paul’ s description of the behaviour of love is drawn as a contrast to the unseemly and unbrotherly conduct of the Corinthians. III. Its permanence.1. As compared with gifts of which the Corinthians were so proud (verse 8). These gifts were for the temporary benefit of the Church. They were the scaffolding which no one thinks of when the building is finished, the school-books which become rubbish when the boy is educated, the prop which the forester removes when the sapling has become a tree. But knowledge? The knowledge of God and of Divine things--is not this permanent? No, says Paul. (1) When a boy begins the study of Euclid, the first proposition he learns is absolutely accurate and true; he may add to it, but he can never improve upon it. His knowledge is imperfect in amount, but so far as it goes it is absolutely reliable. But when we are walking on a misty morning and see an object at a distance, our knowledge is imperfect in the sense of being dim, uncertain, inaccurate. We see that there is something before us, but whether a man or a gatepost we cannot say. A little nearer we see it is a man, but whether old or young, friend or no friend, we cannot say. Here the growth of our knowledge is from dimness to accuracy. Both the figures used by Paul imply that our knowledge of Divine things is of this latter kind. They loom, as it were, through a mist. We are at present in the state of childhood, which cherishes many notions destined to be exlploded by maturer knowledge. (2) The other figure is still more precise. The word here rendered “ glass” was a common figure among the rabbis to illustrate dimness of vision. If they wished to denote direct and clear vision, they spoke of seeing a thing face to face. They had a common saying, “ All other prophets saw as through nine glasses, Moses as through one.” The rabbis, too, bad another saving, “ Even as a king, who with common people talks through a veil, so that he sees them, but they do not see him, but when his friend comes to speak to him he removes this veil, so that he might see him face to face, even so did God speak to Moses apparently, and not darkly.” 2. Paul’ s crowning testimony to the worth of love is given in verse13. He does not mean that love abides while faith becomes sight and hope fruition. For faith and hope pass away only in one aspect of their exercise. If by faith be meant belief in things unseen, this passes away when the unseen is seen. If hope be taken as referring only to the future state in general, then when that state is reached hope passes away. But faith and hope are really permanent elements of human life, faith being the confidence we have in God, and hope the ever-renewed expectancy of future good. But while faith maintains us in connection with God, love is the enjoyment of God and the partaking of His nature; and while hope renews our energy and guides our aims, it can bring us to no better thing than love. (M. Dods, D.D.)Love: power and office of Love confers on the gifts of the Spirit their proper character and work.1. It renders the unintelligent utterance of ecstasy significant (verse 1). 2. It raises the gifts which are significant and powerful, such as prophecies and faith to the rank of moral virtues (verse 2). 3. It ensures for those gifts which are themselves moral virtues such as kindness to the poor or the sacrifice of one’ s life for others; their fitting reward. (Principal Edwards.)Love: the sum of all virtue I. The nature of a truly Christian love. All true Christian love is one and the same in its principle, whatever the objects toward which it may flow.1. It is all from the same Spirit influencing the heart. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of love, and when He enters the soul love also enters (Romans 15:30; Colossians 1:8; Philippians 2:1; Romans 5:5; 1 John 3:23-24; 1 John 4:12-13). 2, It is from the same motives. Both are loved for God’ s sake. II. The truth of the doctrine that all virtue is summed up in Christian love. We may argue this--1. From what reason teaches of the nature of love. (1) Love will dispose to all proper acts of respect to both God and man. (a) Love to God will dispose a man to honour, worship, obey, put confidence in, submit to, and walk humbly with Him. (b) Love to man disposes men to all duties towards their neighbours (Romans 13:10). (2) Whatever performances or seeming virtues there are without love are unsound and hypocritical. If there be no love in what men do, then there is no true respect to God or men in their conduct; and if so, then certainly there is no sincerity. 2. From what the Scriptures teach us. (1) Of the law and word of God in general (Romans 13:8; 1 Timothy 1:5; Matthew 22:40). (2) Of each table of the law in particular (Matthew 22:38; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8). 3. From what the apostle teaches us viz., that “ faith works by love” (Galatians 5:6). By this it is evident-- (1) That true love is an ingredient in true and living faith, and is what is most essential and distinguishing in it. A practical or saving faith is light and heat together, while that which is only a speculative faith is light only. (2) That all Christian exercises of the heart and works of the life are from love; for we are abundantly taught in the New Testament that all Christian holiness begins with faith in Jesus Christ. Conclusion: We may use this subject in the way of--1. Self-examination. From love to God springs love to man (1 John 5:1). Have we this love to the children of God? This love leads those who possess it to desire and endeavour to do good to their fellow-men (1 John 3:16-19). Is this spirit, which dwelt in Jesus Christ, in our hearts and lives? 2. Instruction. This doctrine shows us-- (1) What is the right Christian spirit (Luke 9:55). This may, by way of eminence, be called the Christian spirit; for it is much more insisted on in the New Testament than anything else. (2) What is real Christian experience? Love is the sum and substance of it. When persons experience true comfort and spiritual joy, their joy is the joy of faith and love. (3) The amiableness of a Christian spirit. (4) The pleasantness of a Christian life (Proverbs 3:13-17). (5) The reason why contention tends so much to the ruin of religion (James 3:16). (6) What a watch and guard should Christians keep against envy and bitterness of spirit! For these things are the very reverse of the real essence of Christianity. (7) Hence it is no wonder that Christianity so strongly requires us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). 3. Exhortation. To seek a spirit of love; to grow in it more and more; and very much to abound in the works of love. (Jonathan Edwards)Love: the test of religion Is your religion the religion of-- I. Of profession. II. Of intellect. III. Of enthusiasm. IV. Of good works. V. Of orthodoxy. VI. Or of love? (J. Lyth, D.D.)Far, but not far enough Note--I. How far a man may go in religion, and yet be nothing.1. We may speak well on religion, and yet be nothing. Beyond all doubt Judas had the power of speaking; and to all appearance there was no difference between his speaking and the speaking of every other of the twelve. 2. We may have knowledge, and be nothing. Had not Balaam great knowledge? Yet he never had the saving grace of God. 3. We may do miracles, and yet be nothing. Did not the magicians in Moses’ time do many wonderful things? Did not our Lord tell us that many in the last day shall say, “ Lord, Lord, have we not in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them I never knew you” . 4. We may give all our substance, and yet be nothing in the sight of God. Many in the Middle Ages did so; many an old cathedral or religious house shows still what men did from false principles in the matter of giving money. It is not the quantity of our gifts, but the quality that God regards. 5. We may even die for our opinions, and yet be nothing. Has not many and many an one laid down his life before Juggernaut, and thus showed the sincerity of his belief in his poor, miserable, false idol? There is a zeal that is taught by the Spirit of God, and a zeal also that is “ not according to knowledge.” These are solemn things. Let us not be content with a little religion. Remember Lot’ s wife--how far she went; remember Demas, Judas Iscariot, the sixth of Hebrews. II. What is this grace of charity, without which we are nothing ? I know no more simple definition of charity than this: “ the mind that was in Christ Jesus” towards His fellow-men. (Bp. Ryle.) 1 Corinthians 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy … and have not charity, I am nothing. Strong love These are the words of a man of high culture, who could prophesy and work miracles, and had attained great faith, to the most learned nation in the world. See how he loads the scales and strikes the balance of head and heart !All the rest is as light as a feather compared with love. I. Why should love rank thus high?1. “ God is love.” God has knowledge, and wisdom, and power infinite; but He is never said to be knowledge, etc. Love is His essence, the rest are His attributes: and whatever comes nearest to the image of God is the finest condition of man. 2. The greatest deed ever done was the result of “ love.” 3. The first-fruit of the Holy Ghost is love. So we have a Trinity of love. 4. What brings salvation? Say that I believe every truth in the Bible. That is all nothing. “ The devils believe and tremble.” But when I believe and feel it is all for me, it is mine immediately I love. I cannot help loving when it is so personal to myself, and that moment I am saved. 5. And what moves to good actions and makes them continuous? Love. There are plenty of things which will give impulse and start, but there is only love which will give continuance. “ Love,” and only love, therefore, “ is the fulfilling of the law” 6. What will be the subject of the great Judgment Day? Love. “ Inasmuch as ye have done,” etc. 7. And what will heaven be? Perfect love. 8. And what is the whole summary of the law by which we try ourselves? “ Thou shalt love.” That is the great subject of self-examination this Lent. 9. And why are we to be sorry for our sins, and so humble? From sorrow for having been so very ungrateful to so good a God. This is the true spirit of all Lenten exercises, without which it would not be acceptable to God, nor do us any good. II. How is this prerequisite for all that is good and pleasing to God, and all that shall make our very being in His sight to be obtained?1. Take clearer and loving views of God, always waiting and yearning to receive back His prodigal. 2. Take grand views of the power of the Cross. And as you see it, feel “ That is all for me.” 3. Cherish every good emotion of the Holy Ghost. Especially look to Him as the love-maker, and ask Him to create love in that heart of yours. 4. And then, as working with Him, who is working in you, do stronger battle with your temper, pride, selfishness. 5. Then go and do some acts of love. Acts make motives, as well as motives make acts. Do acts of love, that you may get the spirit of love. 6. But remember above all that all life, which is life indeed, is the result of union with Him, who is the life. The life of love depends upon that union; without it, love will soon die. Having Christ, you will have love; but the more you have of Christ, the more you will always say, “ I am nothing, because Christ is everything.” (J. Vaughan, M.A.)Love superior to gifts I. In its nature.1. Noble as were these gifts, they were simply intellectual or executive, not moral. So distinct is charity, the moral product of the Spirit’ s regenerating power, from these extraordinary gifts, that Paul in this discourse could eliminate it, and represent the highest endowments as existing without it. Look on the prophet of Midian. You can almost feel the thrill of his inspiration. And yet the name of Balaam is a synonym of the wickedness of all who love the wages of unrighteousness. Who can read the story of Jonah without admiration of his message and of contempt for the man? Our Lord gave to His twelve disciples power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease, and Judas Iscariot was amongst them. The apostles had power to heal the sick, but not grace enough to prevent them from striving which should be the greatest. They had faith to cast out devils, but they all forsook Him and fled, and one denied Him. In this Corinthian Church, which seems to have been distinguished above all others in miraculous force, these gifts were accompanied with glaring inconsistencies. 2. Charity, on the other hand, is moral. It is the product of the Spirit in the moral nature. It is the single element of holy character; and all moral excellence must be traced back to love, even as under the searching analysis of the spectroscope it has been suggested that all material substances may be traced to a single element. (1) God is love; but that love differs in its forms of expression with the different relations of its exercise. In relation to right and wrong, justice; in relation to need and suffering, mercy; in relation to pardon, grace. (2) And so all human goodness is resolved into love. (a) Love, in relation to God’ s majesty, is adoration, worship; in relation to His will, submission; in relation to His command, obedience; to His superiority, humility; to His grace in Christ and to His declarations, faith; to His bestowals, gratitude. (b) So love, in relation to human need, is beneficence; in relation to injury, meekness; in relation to trials, patience; and in relation to the want and the woe of a lost world for which Christ died, it is the pity and the love and the longing which find expression in intercession and in service. 3. Thus, in its very nature, is charity superior to all gifts. Gifts were a power conferred, charity is the Divine requirement; in gifts, God’ s natural attributes are represented; in holy love, His moral perfection. Miraculous gifts are super-imposed by the Spirit. In love the Spirit communicates Himself to us in His own true nature. Love unites the soul in fellowship and sympathy with God, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God. II. In the fact that it was the end for which all, supernatural endowments were given. They were the scaffolding of that temple whose shrine is love. And so gifts of miraculous power would be withdrawn, but love would be eternal. There is no more need of miracles. But the Spirit’ s distinctive work continues, and we receive not the power of Christ, but the Spirit of Christ; not the arm or the lips of Christ, but fellowship with the heart of Christ. No miracle so much declares the excellence and the might of the Spirit as the conversion of such a man as Bunyan, the production of such a character as that of John Howard, or such triumphant resignation as that of the dairyman’ s daughter. Thus secondary are gifts, and thus pre-eminent is charity, intrinsically good, god-like, enduring. For this let the Church long rather than for the return of miracle, that thus, “ ye being rooted and grounded in love,” etc. Conclusion:1. There is entering into the religious thinking and experience of our time an element which greatly needs the antidote of this discussion. Men are eagerly gazing for prodigies of the Spirit, miracles of healing, etc. 2. So also what claims and aims to be a superior type of piety, places emphasis on what relates to intellect and power, rather than on character. Natural gifts now, like those that were supernatural, are desirable. Consecrated in love, they shall be sources of a princely Christian power; but gifts do not indicate the genuineness or the degree of holy devotion. Jesus has said that in the great day “ many will say unto Me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name,” etc. (A. H. Coolidge.)The worthlessness of gifts without love I. Prophecy--i.e., preaching. Great power of setting forth the truths of the gospel often co-exists with a bitter, exclusive, uncharitable spirit. Has not the hatred of theologians become a byword? Look at the language of so-called religious publications, and judge by it of that which is current where they circulate. What is our religious influence upon the world without, with all our preaching, religious meetings, reports, pleadings for good and for God? Are not our hospitals, reformatories, missions, church-buildings, struggling or languishing--striving to exist by continually strained artificial appeals from the pulpit and from the platform? Is it not true that, having this gift of utterance in abundance, yet as to any worthy effect on the vast mass of wealth and talent about us we are next to nothing? And this because of our want of love. II. The understanding of mysteries and all knowledge.1. What St. Paul intended we may gather from his own expressions, viz., the mystery of God’ s purpose in revealing the gospel to the Gentiles; “ in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He refers, therefore, to sacred things, and the knowledge of the truths of salvation. 2. There is such a thing as a very accurate and thorough knowledge of Christian doctrine; nay, more, a power of reasoning able to enter thoroughly into, and carry further, speculations on the deep things of God; and yet all this taken up and carried on in a cold and selfish and unloving spirit. Some of the soundest theologians have been some of the keenest haters. It is perhaps one of the commonest temptations of those who are much versed in theology to forget the necessity of allowing for those who differ from them. And what have been the consequences? (1) A considerable portion of the knowledge of Divine things has remained shut up as the possession of one or other of the Churches. (2) A proficient in doctrinal distinctions has almost always been a person dreaded and shunned as exclusive and narrow-minded. III. Faith and power to work miracles.1. Faith is realising belief in the truth of God. The faithful man not only yields assent to, but believes and lives in, God’ s revelation concerning His Son. And that no less than this is meant is evident; for Paul’ s supposition is dealt with also by our Lord, when He says, “ No man that can do a miracle in My name can speak lightly of Me.” 2. I suppose, if we are to translate what is said into the language of our own day, we have a man working by means of faith great victories over himself and others, mighty in word and deed; and yet such an one is nothing. Why? Because these spiritual endowments are held and exercised in an unloving spirit. Thus even Divine truth loses its power for good: with such an one, even the birth of the Spirit is cut off in mid-youth, and comes to an untimely end: beneath such an one, even the Rock of Ages crumbles away like the shifting sand. (1) We uphold essentials in a wrong spirit. Is our usual behaviour to, and method of speaking of, the so-called Unitarian such as to induce him to re-examine the grounds of a faith which can bring forth such fruits? (2) We put that first which should be second. The first and indispensable care for every Christian and every Christian body is the spirit of love. No difference of belief can be truly conscientious unless it be subordinated to the spirit of love. If you are a Christian, you must love me before you can conscientiously differ from me. (Dean Alford.)The life of the affections 1. Ours is an age of great intellectual activity. In former times, first physical strength, then birth or hereditary rank, then and almost till now, wealth, have successively been the measures of greatness. But now the aristocracy of the world is an aristocracy of intellect. But there is danger that, while we rejoice in having found something better than men used to seek and strive for, we may not recognise that which alone is supremely good. Religion is the life of the affections; and in the reverence now paid to intellect there is danger that religion be undervalued, and that the affections, which are its throne, receive much less than their due regard and cultivation. 2. By the religious life I mean a life, not of mere proprieties, but of love. It includes, first, the thankful recognition of a present God, and the exercise of the affections in worship and obedience; then and thence, the cherishing of sincere brotherly love towards our fellow-men. I. The life of the affections is essential to the full development and healthy working of the intellect. The affections are our highest faculties. They have the nearest view of truth, and the strongest hold upon it. Of the men who have essentially connected their names with the progress of the race, there has been hardly one whose mind was not trained by religious faith. There exists an essential connection of cause and effect between the life of the heart and that of the mind, and the highest walks of intellectual greatness cannot be reached without the keenness, breadth, and loftiness of vision which religion alone can supply. There are many men who exert no intellectual influence, simply because they have no moral power. They are shrewd, well-informed, and of admirable executive capacity; and yet you cannot render them confidence, because their views are all sordid, narrow, and selfish. II. Compare the life of the affections and that of the intellect as to the promise of success and attainment. In every path of intellectual effort the prizes are but for few. But the high places of moral excellence are within the reach of all. How much nearer absolute perfection can we approach in the moral than in the intellectual life! Our growth in knowledge is growth in conscious ignorance. But of the life of the affections, of that love which mounts to the throne of God, and excludes none of His children from its embrace, the Divine Teacher has said, “ Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The wisest men have always been outgrown in a few generations. We look down on all ancient wisdom as men used to look up to it; and future generations will learn in their infant schools truths that have but just dawned upon the greatest minds of the present day. But a good man the world never outgrows, never looks down upon. III. Compare the life of mere intellect with that of the afffctions as to the power of resisting temptation. It is a common idea that a clear mind and an accurate perception of the qualities and tendencies of actions are enough to save one from moral degradation. But I have known men, second to none of our day in mental power and culture, ensnared in palpable and gross meanness, and many of the highest mental endowments sleep in early graves dug by their own profligacy. But the affections, fixed on a present God, and filling the life with charity, have power over every meaner propensity of our nature. The soul that prays has ever at hand a name in which it can bid the tempter depart. IV. The life of intellect has its meridian and then its decline. One must expect to see more recent wisdom preferred to his own. And he who is thus set aside, if possessed of no moral resources, grows almost uniformly unhappy and misanthropic. But moral qualities fade not with declining years. The plants of our Heavenly Father’ s planting are all evergreens. Nor yet is the good man, in his old age, thrust aside, or willingly spared from his post of duty. Veneration and love for him only grow the more intense and tender as his steps tremble on the margin of eternity. V. It becomes every prudent man to take some account of that only event, death, which is sure to all. Did you know death to be close at hand, as it may be, is there anything in mere attainments which would nerve you to meet the last hour with serenity, confidence, and hope? (A. Peabody, D.D.)Man-worth The greatest thing in the universe is mind, and the greatest thing in mind is love. This love, however--1. Is not the gregarious sentiment which links us to, and gives us an interest in, our species. All sentient creatures have this. It is a blessing, but not a virture. Man is no more to be praised or blamed for its existence than he is for the colour of his skin. 2. Nor is it theological love; that affection which one has for those of his faith and sect, but which will look coldly upon all besides--which reduces the gospel to a dogma, and man to a bigot. 3. Nor is it sacerdotal love--that love which speaks from ecclesiastical chairs about the cure of souls and Church extension, but whispers no accents of sympathy for the woes of the race. 4. But it is a generous moral sympathy for the race springing from love to the Creator. “ If a man love God, he will love his brother also.” Jesus was the incarnation of this love, the love which alone can confer real worth on humanity. Man, without this love, is nothing-- I. In relation to nature. As nature would be nothing to a man whose senses were sealed up, or whose reflective faculty was paralysed, so it is nothing to a man who has not a loving heart. To such a man the world is merely a larder to feed him, a wardrobe to clothe him, a market to enrich him, or, at most, a riddle to amuse his intellect. Love entering the heart of a selfish man touches all nature into a new form. To the sensual, nature is gratification; to the thinker, it is theory; to the loving, it is heaven. II. In relation to Providence. If I have not love, Providence ministers no real good to me. I am amidst its influences, not like the healthy man, feeling “ the buoyant throbbing of new life flowing from salubrious wind and quickening scenes, but like one whose system is the subject of a mortal disease, having no power to appropriate the healthy elements. As the mortally diseased must say, I am nothing to the health-giving economy of nature, so the unloving must say, I am nothing in relation to the spiritual blessings of Providence. But love in the heart makes Providence a minister for good--and for good only. Like the bee, it transmutes the bitterest fruit into honey; like the AEolian harp, it turns the wildest wind into music. “ Tribulation worketh patience,… because the love of God is shed abroad, in the heart.” III. In relation to Christianity.1. Christianity is a revelation of love, and none but the loving can rise to its meaning. Mind destitute of this generous element, however powerful in philosophy, etc., will be as incapable of understanding it as the wayward boy the workings of a mother’ s heart, or the frozen-souled miser Howard’ s philanthropy. 2. Still more, that “ which renders us incapable of entering into its meaning, unfits at the same time from applying its overtures. It is a system of “ great and precious promises,” “ which offer God’ s strength in weakness, His guidance in perplexity, etc. But is there one who, uninspired with love, dares apply a single promise? IV. In relation to the community of the good. Wherever they exist they have the same bond of union, the same principle of inspiration, and the same standard of worth. What is that? Wealth, learning, talent, birth? Such is the corrupt state of society here, that if a man have any of these, especially the first, he is recognised as a respectable member, however cold and callous his heart. But in the great community of the good love is everything. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Intellect without love I. How much can it achieve?1. It is capable of inspiration.2. Can penetrate to mysteries.3. Acquire all knowledge. II. How little is it worth? It cannot--1. Change its heart.2. Conquer sin.3. Please God.4. Secure heaven. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Knowledge without love There is a well-authenticated tradition of a famous argument between that great scholar and divine Bishop Horsley, and Dr. Cyril Jackson, dean of Christ Church. They sat late into the night debating the question whether God could be better reached through the exercise of the intellect, or through the exercise of the affection. Unwillingly, but step by step, the bishop, who advocated the claims of intellect, retreated before the arguments of his friend, till at length, in a spirit which did no less honour to his humility than to his candour, he exclaimed, “ Then my whole life has been one great mistake.” Certainly that conclusion had been already anticipated by St. Paul; and the extreme antagonist theory, whether put forward by primitive Gnostics, or by paradoxical schoolmen, or by the cold sceptics of the last ago, has never found an echo in the great heart of the human family. For men perceive that a pure intellectualism is apt to fall short even of the lower measures of duty. When it is unbalanced by a warm heart and a vigorous will, the mere cultivation of mind makes a man alternately selfish and weak. Selfish; if, for instance, to the prosecution of a private speculation or to the assertion of a private theory, the faith, the moral vigour, the broadest and highest interests of others are sacrificed or postponed. Weak; when the entire man is cultivated intellect and nothing else, neither love nor resolution; when the clearness of intellectual perception contrasts grimly with the absence of any practical effort; when mental development, instead of being the crowning grace of a noble character, is but as an unseemly and unproductive fungus, that has drained out to no purpose the life and strength of its parent soul. Instead of protecting and illustrating that Truth which really nerves the will for action, intellect has too often amused itself with pulverising all fixed convictions. It has persuaded itself that it can dispense with those high motives, without which it is itself too cold and incorporeal a thing to be of practical service in this human world. It has learnt to rejoice in its own selfish if not aimless energy; but it really has abandoned the highest work of which it was capable; it has left to an unintellectual enthusiasm, to men of much love, if of inferior mental cultivation, the task of stimulating and guiding the true progress of mankind. (Canon Liddon.)Faith and love 1. What is charity? St. Paul answers by giving a great number of properties of it. Which of all these is it, for if it is all at once, surely it is a name for all virtues? And what makes this conclusion still more plausible is that St. Paul calls charity “ the fulfilling of the law” : and our Saviour makes our whole duty consist in loving God and our neighbour. And St. James calls it “ the royal law” : and St. John says, “ We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.” 2. It is well, by way of contrast, to consider the description of faith in Hebrews 11:1-40, which starts with a definition of it, and is then illustrated in a series of instances. How then is it that faith is of so definite a character, and love so large and comprehensive? 3. Now the reason is what at first sight is the difficulty. The difficulty is whether, if love be such as here described, it is not all virtues at once. In one sense it is, and therefore St. Paul cannot describe it more definitely. It is the root of all holy dispositions, and grows and blossoms into them: they are its parts; and when it is described, they of necessity are mentioned. Love is the material out of which all graces are made, and as being such, it will last for ever. “ Charity.” or love, “ never faileth.” Faith and hope are graces of an imperfect state, and they cease with that state; but love is greater, because it is perfection. Faith will be lost in sight, and hope in enjoyment; but love will increase more and more to all eternity. Faith and hope are means by which we express our love: we believe God’ s Word, because we love it; we hope after heaven, because we love it. Faith, then, and hope are but instruments or expressions of love; but as to love itself, we do not love because we believe, for the devils believe, yet do not love; nor do we love because we hope, for hypocrites hope, who do not love. Balaam had faith and hope, but not love. “ May I die the death of the righteous” ! is an act of hope. “ The word that the Lord putteth into my mouth, that will I speak,” is an act of faith; but his conduct showed that neither his faith nor his hope was loving. The servant in the parable, who fell down at his lord’ s feet, and begged to be excused his debt, had both faith and hope. He believed his lord able, and he hoped him willing, to forgive him. But he had neither love of God nor of his brother. There are then two kinds of faith in God, a good and a worthless; and two kinds of hope, good and worthless: but there are not two kinds of love of God. In the text it is said, “ Though I had all faith, yet without love I am nothing” : it is nowhere said, “ Though I have all love, without faith I am nothing.” Love, then, is the seed of holiness, and grows into all excellences, not indeed destroying their peculiarities, but making them what they are. 4. But here it may be asked, whether Scripture does not make faith, not love, the root, and all graces its fruits. I think not. In our Lord’ s parable of the Sower we read of persons who, “ when they hear, receive the word with joy,” yet having no “ root,” fall away. Now, receiving the word with joy, surely implies faith; faith, then, is certainly distinct from the root. However, it is allowable to call faith the root, because, in a certain sense at least, works do proceed from it. And hence Scripture speaks of “ faith working by love.” And in this chapter we read of “ faith, hope, and charity,” which seems to imply that faith precedes charity (see also 1 Timothy 1:5). In what sense, then, is faith the beginning of love, and love of faith? I observe faith is the first element of religion, and love, of holiness; and as holiness and religion are distinct, yet united, so are love and faith. Faith is to love as religion to holiness; for religion is the Divine law as coming to us from without, as holiness is the acquiescence in the same law as written within. Love is meditative, tranquil, gentle, abounding in all offices of goodness and truth; and faith is strenuous and energetic, formed for this world, combating it, training the mind towards love, fortifying it in obedience, and overcoming sense and reason by representations more urgent than their own. Moreover, it is plain that, while love is the root out of which faith grows, faith by receiving the wonderful tidings of the gospel, and presenting before the soul its sacred objects, expands our love, and raises it to a perfection which otherwise it could never reach. And thus our duty lies in faith working by love; love is the sacrifice we offer to God, and faith is the sacrificer. Yet they are not distinct from each other except in our way of viewing them. Priest and sacrifice are one; the loving faith and the believing love. Faith at most only makes a hero, but love makes a saint; faith can but put us above the world, but love brings us under God’ s throne; faith can but make us sober, but love makes us happy. (J. H. Newman, D.D.)Faith and charity The unity of the Bible is a unity of spirit within a changeful individual variety. The writers care little for seeming contradiction. St. James and St. Paul would have smiled if they heard their several views of faith pitted against one another. They would have said, “ We are at root agreed, but we each follow a different radius from the same centre.” St. Paul would have been exceedingly surprised if he had heard that the text was considered as in the slightest degree lessening the full value of Christ’ s saying, “ If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed,” etc. In fact, St. Paul balances this statement as Christ Himself would have done, and we shall follow him to-day, and balance the glory of faith by the glory of charity. The phrase is strange on the lips of the apostle who, more than all the others dwelt on faith; but for that very reason it has additional force. Note-- I. The need of this balance.1. There have been times when faith has been insisted on, and love put in the background. Men had faith--they did remove mountains--but they grew to be nothing because they lost love, and the mountains were only removed to be rebuilt. Wherever we look in the history of religion we find that faith without love does nothing for the progress of man. 2. There have been times when love has been so insisted on as to put the necessity for a clearly conceived statement of faith into the background. (1) Such teaching made religious life first too sentimental, and then often hysterical. The idea of God lost the sternness necessary to check sin, and the result was a widespread immorality. (2) Another form of the same thing is found in those who maintain that love to man is enough, without faith in God; and the result is that while the body is helped and the mind strengthened, the soul, left untouched, grows hard. The history of philanthropy without faith in God is written in loss of the culture of the highest feelings, in despondency, and often in revolutionary excess. Mazzini saw that with regard to the French Revolution. Faith in God, in his view and in that of all great prophets, was necessary as the balance of love of man. II. Faith in God is nothing without love of man, and nothing without love of God.1. It is nothing without love of man. (1) There is a faith without love which takes scorn for its companion. It arises chiefly in those who have become one-sided from having been brought up in a closed circle of opinions. They despise then those who contradict them, just as the one-sided scientist despises those who deny theories which seem proved to him, or as the extremely cultured person has scorn of him whom he calls a Philistine. The religious man suffers more than the rest, for the very life of his religion is love to man, and he ceases, in proportion as he loses love, to be religious at all. With scorn, how can you befit all things for men, believe and hope all things for them, endure all things that they may advance? The faith in God which has in it any scorn of others is without charity, and is nothing, and you who have, or seem to have it, are also nothing. (2) Another kind of faith which has a tendency to lose love--the impetuous faith. It is full of love to man, of longings for his progress. It believes and hopes all things for all men, and in idea it does not fail in love. But in practical life it sometimes sins against love for the very sake of love. Suppose that a man who feels that faith in God, as a Father of men, and in immortality as the destiny of man, are the very pillars of the universe, meet those who quietly deny these truths, he will feel this denial, not as a personal insult, as the man who scorns others does, but as an injury done to the whole human race he loves. But the intensity of his feeling will lead him into violence of his words; and forgetting that the question is for God, the advocate of charity forgets that charity doth not behave itself unseemly, and does not seek her own. The result is, his faith and he are for the time nothing. He has done harm to God’ s cause, and to his own influence. What should be his guard? (a) He should remember that the questions he supports do not stand by his support, but by God’ s. He should have truer faith; for in losing love he has also in reality lost faith. If his faith were firm, he would not think that a few doubts or many sceptics could shake the pillars of heaven. (b) And he should recall in society the words, “ Love beareth all things.” Make love the ceaseless companion of faith, and then faith will not fail. Make faith intense enough, and then love will not fail. 2. There is a faith in God without love of God, which is also nothing. (1) Faith in a creed only, and not in a Divine Spirit that dwells within us. Such a faith leaves you a nothing, and in itself it is nothing also--the mere froth of the wave. But love of God in marriage with faith in a creed about Him are living powers. It is all the difference between saying, “ I believe that the seamen of England in some small ships destroyed the great Armada, and it is an interesting story,” and saying, “ I believe it, and I love my nation for it; I rejoice to belong to a people capable of such great doing, and every drop of my blood thrills when I hear the tale.” That is faith and love together, and it produces results in thought and action. So mere faith in God’ s fatherhood is only assent to a statement; but when we feel Him as our Father, our whole heart, brimming over with love, grows passionate with desire to be like Him, and do His will. (2) Faith in God without love of Him may be faith in an abstract idea to which we give His name. We may confess Him as the Thought that makes the universe, or as the Order that keeps it in harmony, or as the Movement that builds or unbuilds it. And it is wise and right to so believe. But, first, it is not a belief which will do for the whole of life. It is not human; it may do for rocks and stones and trees, but not for men, women, and children. It may do to explain the earthquake and the outburst of the morning, but not the shattered heart or the rapture of the soul. It may satisfy us as we see the building of the crystal, but it will not satisfy us as we watch the building up of our child’ s character. Nor will it satisfy us as we consider through ages past the upbuilding of the human race, for into that upbuilding an almost infinite disorder seems to enter--sin and sorrow, and it would seem aimless sacrifice. Oh, then, in order to be at rest, to be able to work and worship with hope and joy, to have the heart to be something and not nothing, we must add love of God to faith in God. For only when we love Him do we understand and feel that He loves us, and that His love will make clear and right at last, not only the tangle of our child’ s character, but the tangled web of the whole world of men. (Stopford A. Brooke, M.A.) 1 Corinthians 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and … give my body to be burned.True charity I. “ Though i bestow all my goods to feed the poor.” Literally, “ bestow all my substance in food” : turn it all into charitable doles. Well, all this lavish benevolence will bring no profit if unaccompanied with love.1. A man may be liberal from the mere bent of his natural disposition. (1) “ But is it not a blessed thing to have such a disposition? “ Yes; but the brightest lamp leaves many corners dark and cheerless, while the bright day spring flows into every nook. So it is with the human character, according as natural liberality, or Divine love, prompts it to action. Under the first, much may be bright and lovely, but there will ever be left lurking spots of darkness--enmities, prejudices, partialities, etc.; whereas, if lighted up by Divine love, all these will be resisted and vanish by degrees, and the man will become just and large-hearted. The naturally liberal may give to satisfy his wish and ease his desire of giving; true Christian charity gives in self-denial, often withholding where nature prompts to give; often giving where nature would fain withhold. (2) Of those who bestow largely without the spirit of love, the indiscriminate almsgiver is one of the chief examples. Not one of the characteristics of love here described is in operation upon him. The indolent giving way to an amiable propensity, the hypocritical getting rid of a troublesome duty, must not for an instant be confounded with the yearning and painstaking self-denial of Christian love. 2. A man may bestow all his goods to feed the poor, out of motives of mere display. (1) “ But is it not a laudable thing to give as befits a man’ s station and income?” That depends on the motive. One man bestows up to the mark which is required of him. If he goes further than this, he expects, and gets, no small share of credit. But in this I can see nothing laudable. But another man bestows as responsible to God. He acts not up to, but down upon his earthly position; not as sparing that which is his own, but administering that which is not his own. Now, love is set free, and in that alone is capable of working great and lasting good. (2) But such is the infirmity of our nature, that the existence of a motive is by no means a guarantee for its full operation. There may be conscientious bestowal in a hard, rigid spirit of duty, without kindliness of heart or manner, just as the seed may appear in the plant, but after all be nipped by unkindly skies and winds. And of a bestowal so defective, what our text says is true. Note how true it is found to be in our public legal provision for the poor. Not that we could in our present state of society do without such a provision. But no one thanks us for it, no one is softened by it: all look to it as a sort of right, and feel no gratitude to its bestowers. II. “ If i give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing” --i.e., all toil, all sacrifice, etc. How different would have been the history of the world and the Church, if this had been borne in mind by Christians!1. How many lamentable instances have we seen of self-denial on a vast scale, followed by rule and prescription, where every sign of the spirit of love was wanting; nay, where hatred and rancour not only burned in men’ s breasts, but led on to wars and massacres, nominally for the truth’ s sake! On what is the greatest amount of self-denying labour spent among men? What answer could be given, but that it is but after all for ulterior objects? 2. And then rise to a higher kind of sacrifice. How often do we see men earnestly devoting themselves, even without any prospect beyond, to the interest or advancement of some favourite scheme, the maintenance of one side of some debated question? Sometimes substance, and family, and peace of mind, are offered generously up; many a man is a wreck of some hopeless voyage, but evermore fitting himself out again for undertaking it afresh. Then again, as in the former case, but here even more, there is temptation, from the very glory of self-sacrifice, to make it unworthily. Often have the words of our text been literally verified. The body has been burned, but no flame of love was lit up in the soul: the martyr has met death with smiles perhaps on his persecutors, but with unsubdued polemical hatred. And many who have not reached this consummation have stripped themselves of all they had, and have gone forth into deserts, there to become renowned in the eyes of the Church, and thence to launch their anathemas upon others, wiser perhaps and better than themselves. Well indeed might it be written, that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. And just in proportion to this character of our hearts is the necessity of constant and unwearied watchfulness, that in our own case neither our bestowals nor our self-denials may be without love, but indeed all prompted and regulated by it. And how may this be? Now as at the first, by the Spirit of God. (Dean Alford.)Jewish charity The Jews, according to Maimomides, reckoned eight degrees of charity in almsgiving. The first was, to give, but with reluctance or regret. The second was, to give cheerfully, but not in proportion the need of the recipient. The third was, to give proportionately to the need, but not without solicitation and entreaty on the part of the poor. The fourth was, to give unsought and unsolicited, but putting the gift into the hand of the receiver, and that even in the presence of others, exciting in him the painful feeling of shame. The fifth was, to give in such a way that the beneficiary should know his benefactor without being known of him, as those did who folded money in the corners of their cloaks that the poor as they passed might take it unperceived. The sixth was, to give knowing the objects of the giver’ s bounty, but remaining unknown to them, after the manner of these who conveyed their alms by some secret agency to the dwellings of the indigent, making it impossible for them to ascertain the source of their relief. The seventh was, to give both unknowing and unknown, like those benevolent persons who deposited their gifts privately in a place prepared for that purpose in the temple and in every synagogue as you are supposed to do in the alms-boxes at the door, from which the most respectable poor families were regularly supplied without ostentation or observation. The eighth and most meritorious of all was, to anticipate charity by preventing poverty, to help the worthy brother by satisfying the claims of his creditors, assisting him to redeem some forfeited portion of his inheritance, furnishing him remunerative employment, or putting him in the way of obtaining it, so that he should be able to secure an honest livelihood without the hard necessity of holding out an empty hand to the rich. These were the eight steps in their golden stairway of charity, but the highest of them does not rise to the level of the Pauline platform; for a man might give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet have no charity; and wanting this, his utmost alms, showered from the top of the ideal stairs, shall profit him nothing. (J. Cross, D.D.)The greatest performances and sufferings vain without charity I. There may be great performances and sufferings without love.1. Great performances (Philippians 3:3; Luke 18:11-12). Many have been exceeding magnificent in their gifts for pious and charitable uses from fear of hell, hoping thereby to make atonement for their sins, others from pride, or from a desire for reputation. 2. Great sufferings. Many have undertaken wearisome pilgrimages, or spent their lives in deserts, or suffered death, of whom we have no reason to think they had any sincere love in their hearts. In the Crusades thousands went voluntarily to all the dangers of the conflict, in the hope of thus securing the pardon of their sires and the rewards of glory hereafter. And history tells us of some that have yielded themselves to voluntary death, out of mere obstinacy of spirit. Many among the heathen have died for their country, and many as martyrs for a false faith. II. Whatever men may do or suffer, they cannot make up for the want of love.1. It is not the work or the suffering that is, in itself, worth anything in the sight of God. “ The Lord looketh not on the outward appearance, but on the heart.” 2. Whatever is done or suffered, yet if the heart is withheld from God, there is nothing really given to Him. 3. Love is the sum of all that God requires of us. And it is absurd to suppose that anything can make up for the want of that which is the sum of all that God requires. As to things without the heart, God speaks of them as not being the things that He has required (Isaiah 1:12), and demands that the heart be given to Him, if we would have the external offering accepted. 4. If we make a great show of respect and love to God, in the outward actions, while there is no sincerity in the heart, it is but hypocrisy and practical lying unto the Holy One (Psalms 78:36). 5. Whatever may be done or suffered, if there be no sincerity in the heart, it is all but an offering to some idol. In all such offerings, something is virtually worshipped; and whatever it is, be it self, or our fellow-men, or the world, that is allowed to usurp the place that should be given to God, and to receive the offerings that should be made to Him. Conclusion: It becomes us to use the subject--1. In the way of self-examination. If it be indeed so--that all we can do or suffer is in vain, if we have not sincere love to God in the heart--then it should put us upon searching ourselves whether or no we have this love in sincerity in our hearts. There are these things that belong to sincerity-- (1) Truth--that is, that there be that truly in the heart of which there is the appearance and show in the outward action (Psalms 51:6; John 1:47). (2) Freedom. Christ is chosen and followed because He is loved. (3) Integrity--wholeness. Where this sincerity exists, God is sought, and religion is chosen with the whole heart. (4) Purity. 2. To convince the unregenerate of their lost condition. If by all you can do or suffer, you cannot make up for the want of love, then it will follow that you are in an undone condition till you have obtained God’ s regenerating grace to renew a right spirit within you. 3. To exhort all earnestly to cherish sincere Christian love in their hearts. If it be so, that this is of such great and absolute necessity, seek it with diligence and prayer. God only can bestow it. (Jon. Edwards.)Goodness without love I. Its common forms.1. Benevolence.2. Attachment to the truth. II. Its worthlessness.1. It cannot please God.2. It fails in motive.3. It profits nothing. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Vanity of self-immolation E.g., when a Buddhist ascetic leaps upon the blazing pyre, immolating his body that he may immortalise his spirit, what does it profit him? Nothing; the fanatic is in love with himself, and with no one else; he seeks his own soul happiness, whether in the shape of a coming deification or a present glorification of self. It is quits possible that this image of a Buddhist priest with his “ ineffectual fires” suggested the thought of this text to Paul; more especially as this text was written in 57 A.D., before the outbreak of Nero’ s fiery persecution. The apostle, just before his visit to Corinth, had been staying in Athens, where he had certainly seen an altar to the “ unknown God,” and had probably seen or heard about, “ the tomb of the Indian,” with its epitaph, “ Here lies Zarmanochegas, who made his own self immortal.” (Canon Evans.)Self-martyrdom The cynic philosopher Peregrinus, who was for a considerable time a Christian, burnt himself publicly at the Olympic games, in imitation, as he said, of Hercules; ending a life of extravagance and villainy by an act of the wildest vainglory and ambition. During the dark ages it was no uncommon thing for religious bigots to prove the tenets of their faith by the fervency of their zeal, and their obstinacy was often taken for strength of argument. Under the pontificate of Alexander VI a certain monk in Italy offered himself to be burnt in confirmation of opinions which he professed. This was received as an incontestable proof of their truth, till another monk arose, as obstinate as the former, and made the same offer to establish opinions directly contrary. The history of all ages and countries abounds with examples of inflexible zealots who are ready to burn others, or to be burnt themselves, for the cause which they espouse; for zeal hath no necessary connection with truth, and as little with charity. (A. McDonald.) 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Charity suffereth long, and is kind.Christian love I. Suffers long. The Greek denotes having the power “ to hold the mind long,” i.e., it is the opposite to rash anger. There are persons who, when they are afflicted by Providence, or provoked by man, are unable to hold their minds. Like the water which has mastered the dam, so do some men’ s unhappy feelings rise and overspread their families and neighbourhood. But when one has failed in his duty towards the charitable man it may grieve him, but he seeks for grace to bear the trial. He holds his mind long; and while not forgetful of the demands of justice, is influenced by the spirit of forgiveness. II. Is not easily provoked. If a man’ s spirit be fully imbued with an affectionate complacency towards God and man, he is not thrown into bitter resentments by unjust usage. He is “ slow to wrath.” Provocations must and will arise. The state of the health, mind, temperature, circumstances, will make a man more disposed to fretfulness or reserve, one day than another. “ Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” A family pique has overthrown an empire, and a bodily sensation directed the course and given the feeling to a man’ s life! But the spirit of the charitable man does not soon become acid. His injured feelings do not ferment into vinegar. III. Beareth all things, or “ covereth all things.” “ Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins.” As you would conceal a defect in your person, or cover up what was offensive on your grounds, so does the spirit of the gospel lead us to hide a brother’ s infirmities from the animadversion of others. The spirit of envy and revenge would lead you to speak of the misconduct of others with exasperated feelings. But here an objection has arisen. “ How unmanly is this charity which you commend! Are we then to be trampled upon? “ Not so: love can feel injured, and seek redress, but not recklessly and bitterly; and when in pursuit of her rights she is all the while calm and kind and universally benevolent. IV. Endureth all things. Christian love remains under its burdens. Bad usage from man and affliction from God it teaches us to sustain. Let the conduct of Christ illustrate the spirit of His own religion. He was not impatient with the ignorant, or revengeful upon His persecutors. (Isaac Taylor.)Features of love These features are-- I. Manifold. There are some landscapes that are almost tame; some faces not featureless, but not marked and vivid. Not so with love. It is the landscape of Devonshire rather than Lincolnshire; of Switzerland rather than Holland. Read this description--there is no monotony, eye bright, brow clear, lips strong and definite. II. Harmonious.1. There is the presence of all that could complete character. Patience, kindness, joy, fortitude. “ Strength and beauty are in the sanctuary” ; the full diapason of the music of morals. 2. There is the absence of any element that could be disfigurement or discord. “ Envieth not, is not puffed up,” etc. III. Beautiful. There is not one virtue in this description that is not like a splendid Corinthian column. Nothing deforms the landscape, nothing disfigures the face. Rather every element heightens the loveliness. There is not only a wealth, but a wealth of the beauties of love. IV. Permanent. “ The grass withers, the flowers fade” ; even “ the human face Divine” grows old, the brow wrinkled, the eye dim, the mouth weak. The beauty of love is imperishable. “ Love never faileth.” The word “ faileth” pictures either a flower whose petals never fall off, or an actor “ who is never hissed off the stage, has its part to play on the stage of eternity.” (U. R. Thomas.)Christian love Why has the Church assigned this chapter to Quinquagesima Sunday, the Sunday immediately preceding the season of Lent? We shall be able to answer that question if we consider what the season of Lent means, and why it has been set apart as a season of special humiliation, self-mortification, and prayer. Lent is the introduction to Good Friday and Easter Day. It is meant to prepare us better to realise and understand the great mystery of godliness, the unsearchable riches of God’ s truth, so beautifully summed up in the words of Jesus (Luke 18:31-33). We cannot take one step forward into the knowledge of God’ s truth without love. Love is the very first condition without which it is impossible to see even the outside of the great mystery of godliness. Let a man look at the Cross of Christ, and without the light of love it will be foolishness to him, Or let him look at the power of God manifested in the resurrection of Christ, and without the light of love: it will be a riddle to him. Love is the microscope which reveals the hidden and deep things which the careless eye scans without any sense of their inexpressible beauty and value. You have noticed, have you not, on a calm and sunny day, how softly and how beautifully the clear bright sky above us is reflected in the still surface of some deep pool of water? The sky, you know, is, as it were, received into the bosom of the water. Now, God’ s truth is just like the sky above; and the heart that is full of love--love to God and love to man--the heart that is steeped in love is just like the still surface of the deep and steady pool. It can receive the truth into itself and reflect it. If we suffer the gusts of passion, of hatred, and envy, and malice, and uncharitableness, and ill-will to sweep over our hearts and ruffle them, we shall become quite incapable of receiving and discerning the truth. We shall be no longer like the steady lake which receives the glorious sky so beautifully into its bosom, and mirrors it back so faithfully. Surely, then, we have great need to pray for love; we have great need to pray that God will send His Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity. Where shall we find anything fairer, anything pleasanter to behold or more joyful to possess than charity? Is selfishness, or ill-will, or pride, or vanity, or any other thing that is not of God, either more beautiful to look upon, or more delightful to hold, than charity? Oh, then, let us, as the apostle bids in the first words of the next chapter, “ follow after charity.” So doing, we shall be laying hold of that which is imperishable. (Canon D. J. Vaughan.)Love as a regulator 1. Every great engine is brought to precision of movement, to the quiet and steady exertion of power, by means of a governor or regulator. The world is full of jarrings and disturbances, and man finds a strange warfare going on in his own breast. Such was the state of things when Christ came. He saw the need of some Divine principle of life to act as a regulator both in the individual and in society. This regulator is love: the life of the soul; the all-pervasive and all-controlling energy of our spiritual being. 2. The apostle, in his vivid analysis of this Divine principle, looks upon it as embodied in character. He tells how this lovely personage will think, speak, and act in the midst of unloveliness and sin. He views love as a person in her attitude-- I. Towards self.1. She is modest and unassuming. “ She vaunteth not herself.” While she maintains a true self-respect and a wise estimate of her own worthiness she never displays arrogance or self-conceit. 2. “ She seeketh not her own.” The belittling limitations of selfishness are not permitted to dwarf the outgoings of her generous heart. II. Towards the truth.1. This is one of affectionate desire and rejoicing. Here truth is also personified. Both experience profound satisfaction in the enlightenment and ennobling of man. 2. In reference to truth and its ultimate triumph love is also trustful and hopeful. “ She believeth all things.” This does not signify credulity, for there is nothing so wise and discerning as love. Discerning but not doubtful, she rejoices to accept every revelation or manifestation of God. 3. Her temperament, or, better, her faith is buoyant and cheerful. “ She hopeth all things.” Expects good instead of evil; is not foreboding and gloomy; trusts a kind Providence; believes in the possibilities of men. III. Towards others.1. “ Love suffereth long.” In the face of provocation where others would be vehement with passion, she maintains her own serene dignity. This is almost identical with “ not easily provoked,” “ beareth all things,” “ endureth all things.” These manifold expressions reveal love as a personage of great moral strength, as well as of unrivalled loveliness. She maintains constant equipoise of spirit. 2. “ Is kind.” Her self-forgetful love makes her gracious, benignant, generous, and forgiving under all circumstances. 3. “ Envieth not.” Competition is the most conspicuous trait of men in their relations one with another. To live without envy is a miracle of grace. 4. “ Does not behave itself unseemly.” She has a delicate discernment of what is appropriate at all times and places; is never indecorous or unrefined. 5. “ Thinketh,” or “ taketh not account of evil.” Not suspicious or self-seeking by nature, she does not impute evil to others. 6. “ Rejoices not in unrighteousness.” The world seems to take delight in the downfall of others. Yet love grieves and blushes at another’ s immorality. (D. W. Pratt, M.A.)Love suffereth I. What? Unkindness, opposition, injury, etc. II. How? 1. Long.2. Patiently.3. Without resentment. III. Why? 1. For Christ’ s sake.2. For man’ s sake.3. In hope. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Love suffereth long I once undertook a duty the like of which I would never attempt again. A widow lady had a son--a poor prodigal. He had spent his all, and was fast making inroads upon his mother’ s little competence. Some friends had suggested that I should call upon her, and offer a gentle expostulation. I did so. I fancy that I can see her now--her white hair and her widow’ s cap. She patiently heard my message, but she turned to me in tears, and said, “ Yes, Mr. Garrett, you are very kind, you mean well, and all you say is true; but still, after all, he is my son!” (C. Garrett.)The long-suffering of chastity is not feebleness, cowardice, indifference, nor imbecility; but a principle perfectly consonant with the largest mental endowments, the loftiest aims and the noblest endeavours, with freedom of speech, firmness of purpose, and unwearied perseverance in well-doing; while it is totally opposed to all temporising expedients, vacillating policies, and inconstant endeavours. Christ is our example of long-suffering charity; yet witness how He clears His Father’ s temple of the sacrilegious throng, and rebukes the wickedness of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is the depth of the river, not its shallowness, that makes it so smooth and gentle in its flow; and the mountain stream, which in the drought of summer went brawling from rock to rock and from pool to pool, with a thousand disturbances of its surface and misdirections of its course, now, when the autumn rains have fallen, or the winter snows have melted, and tributary torrents have swollen it to full flood, guides with an evenness and beauty between its green banks, with a placidity of strength and a unity of might which, while pleasant to behold, is terrible to withstand. Even so charity, subordinating all the feelings and faculties of the soul to one Divine impulse, and consecrating all to one holy and benevolent purpose, flows on with a mild and gentle majesty, undisturbed by rude speeches and unkind actions, and never diverted from its aim by the annoying accidents of society, straight forward to the vast ocean of blessed being, its destined union with God in Christ, and all that is great and good and happy in the universe. The tranquil meekness of charity, therefore, is perfectly consistent with true grandeur of soul, and of all true grandeur of soul is itself an essential element; even as the most perfect harmony consists with the mightiest tones in music, and the nicest cultivation of plants contributes to their most stately forms and most luxuriant fruitfulness, and the careful discipline of domestic animals results in the development of superior stature, with more strength of muscle, and greater fleetness of course, and whatever else belongs to the utmost perfection of their nature. (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity disposes us meekly to bear injuries Meekness is a great part of the Christian spirit (Matthew 11:1-30). And meekness, as it respects injuries received from men, is called long-suffering, the fruit of the true Christian spirit (Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 4:1-2; Colossians 3:12). Note-- I. Some of the kinds of injuries that we may receive from others. Some injure others--1. In their estates by unfairness and dishonesty in their dealings. 2. In their good name, by reproaching or speaking evil of them behind their backs. 3. In their thoughts, by unjustly entertaining a low esteem of them (Job 5:21; Psalms 140:3). 4. In their injurious treatment. II. How such injuries ought meekly to be borne.1. The nature of the duty enjoined. It implies that injuries should be borne-- (1) Without doing anything to revenge them. (2) With the continuance of love in the heart, and without those passions that tend to interrupt and destroy it. (3) Without our losing the quietness and repose of our own minds and hearts (Luke 21:19). (4) With willingness to suffer much in our interests and feelings for the sake of peace, rather than do what we have opportunity, and perhaps the right, to do in defending ourselves (1 Corinthians 6:7). 2. Why it is called long-suffering. (1) Because we ought meekly to bear not only a small injury, but also a good deal of injurious treatment from others. (2) Because in some cases we should be willing to suffer a great while in our interests, before we improve opportunities of righting ourselves. III. How that love, which is the sum of the Christian spirit, will dispose us meekly to bear such injuries.1. Love to God and Christ has a tendency to dispose us to this; for it-- (1) Disposes us to imitate Him, and therefore disposes us to such long-suffering as He manifests (Exodus 34:6; Romans 2:4; 1 Timothy 1:12-16). (2) Disposes us thus to express our gratitude for His long-suffering exercised toward us. (3) Tends to humility, which is one main root of a meek and long-suffering spirit (Ephesians 4:2). (4) Disposes men to have regard to the hand of God in the injuries they suffer, and not only to the hand of man, and meekly to submit to His will therein (2 Samuel 16:5; 2 Samuel 16:10). (5) Sets us very much above the injuries of men. (a) Because nothing can ever really hurt those that are the true friends of God (Romans 8:28; 1 Peter 3:13). (b) Because the more we love God, the more we shall place all our happiness in Him. 2. Love to our neighbour will dispose us to the same. Long-suffering and forbearance are always the fruit of love (Ephesians 4:1-2; Proverbs 10:12). Conclusion: The subject--1. Exhorts us all to the duty of meekly bearing the injuries that may be received from others. Consider-- (1) The example that Christ has set us (2 Corinthians 10:1). He meekly bore innumerable and very great injuries from men. (2) If we are not disposed meekly to bear injuries, we are not fitted to live in the world, for in it we must expect to meet with many injuries from men (Matthew 10:16). (3) In this way we shall be most above injuries. He that has established such a spirit that the injuries received from others do not disturb the calmness of his mind, lives, as it were, out of their reach. (4) The spirit of Christian long-suffering, and of meekness in bearing injuries, is a mark of true greatness of soul (Proverbs 16:32; Proverbs 14:29; James 3:13). (5) The spirit of Christian long-suffering and meekness is commended to us by the example of the saints. (6) This is the way to be rewarded with the exercise of the Divine long-suffering toward us (Psalms 18:25-26; Matthew 7:2; Matthew 7:14-15). 2. But some, in their hearts, may object-- (1) That the injuries they receive from men are intolerable. (a) Do you think the injuries you have received from your fellow-man are more than you have offered to God? (b) Do you not hope that as God hitherto has, so He will still bear with you in all this, and that notwithstanding all, He will exercise toward you His infinite love and favour? (c) When you think of such long-suffering on God’ s part, do you not approve of it, and think well of it, and that it is not only worthy and excellent, but exceeding glorious? (d) If such a course be excellent and worthy to be approved of in God, why is it not so in yourself? (e) Would you be willing, for all the future, that God should no longer bear with the injuries you may offer Him, and the offences you commit against Him? (f) Did Christ turn again upon those who injured and insulted and trod on Him, when He was here below; and was He not injured far more grievously than ever you have been? (2) That those who have injured you, persist in it, and do not at all repent, but go on doing it still. But what opportunity could there be for long-suffering, if injury were not persisted in long? (3) That your enemies will be encouraged to go on with their injuries. But you do not know this, for you have not an insight into the future, nor into the hearts of men. And, beside, God will undertake for you if you obey His commands; and He is more able to put a stop to the wrath of man than you are (Romans 12:19). (Jon. Edwards.)The patience of love I. Its manifestations. There may be a world where love is not strained and taxed as it is here. Here there is certainly scope for the manifestation of patience in--1. The relationships of life.2. The antagonisms of life.3. The philanthropy of life. And in all these it is claimed and will be manifested in-- (1) Gentleness,(2) Unsuspiciousness,(3) Tolerance,(4) Forgivingness,(5) Continuance. II. Its beauty. Love is--1. Sensitive, yet patient. Not hard and servile.2. Anxious, yet patient. Eager, not apathetic. III. The explanation. Because love cares for the beloved rather than for self. Self is thrown away in the interests of others, the welfare of others, This patience and all the powers of love are in its self-sacrifice. (U. R. Thomas.)The patience of Christ’ s love God suffereth Himself to be conceived in the womb of a mother, and abideth the time: and being born, waiteth to grow up: and being grown up, is not eager to be acknowledged, but putteth a further slight upon Himself, and is baptized by His own servant, and repelleth the attacks of the tempter by words only. When from the Lord He became the Master, teaching man to escape death, having well learned, for salvation’ s sake, the forgiving spirit of offended patience: He strove not: He cried not: the shattered reed He did not break, the smoking flax He did not quench--God did put His own Spirit in His Son with perfection of patience. None that desired to cleave to Him did He not receive: no man’ s table or house did He despise. Yea, Himself ministered to the washing of His disciples’ feet (even of him who betrayed Him). He scorned not the sinners nor the publicans. He was not angry with that city which would not receive Him. He healed the unthankful. He gave place to those who laid snares for Him. He, at whose side, if He had desired it, legions of angels from heaven would at one word have been present, approved not the avenging sword of even a single disciple. In Malchus the patience of the Lord was wounded. Wherefore also He cursed the works of the sword for ever after, and by the restoration of soundness to him whom He had not Himself hurt, He made satisfaction through patience, the mother of mercy and charity. The Lord Jesus is long-suffering and kind: is patient and gentle. I pass in silence the Crucifixion, for it was for that that He came in the world: yet, was there need of insult, alas! that He might undergo death? But being about to leave the world, He desired to be filled to the full with the pleasure of patience. He is spit upon, is beaten, is mocked, is foully clothed, and still more foully crowned. Wondrous constancy in long-suffering and patience! (Tertullian.)Charity is considerate Louis XIV in a gay party at Versailles thought he perceived an opportunity of relating a facetious story. He commenced but ended abruptly and insipidly. One of the company soon after leaving the room, the king said, “ I am sure you must all have observed how uninteresting my anecdote was. I did not recollect till I began that the turn of the narrative reflected very severely on the immediate ancestor of the Prince Armigue, who has just quitted us; and on this as on every occasion, I think it far better to spoil a good story than to distress a worthy man.” (W. Baxendale.)Love is kind 1. In spirit.2. In action.3. To all.4. At all times.5. Without selfish ends. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The kindness of love Like the last word, this is one in frequent use by our apostle. He employs it--1. As an avowal of his own attitude to men.2. As an injunction to others.3. As a description of God. The thing he here indicates is rather the fragrance of the whole flower of love than any one of its petals, the lustre of the entire diamond rather than any one of its facets. Kindness is-- I. A charm of the Christian life. The word is a beautiful word, and is the expression of a beautiful grace; sometimes being rendered gentleness, goodness--in the Rheims’ version-benignity. It is not simply a manner, but a moral loveliness that shines through all manner. II. An obligation of the Christian life. It is not an ornament to be worn at option, but the constant garb of our life, not a work of supererogation, but a necessary, essential, and elemental duty. (U. R. Thomas.)The kindness of Christian charity It is like the teeming cloud, emptying its copious blessing upon the thirsty soil. It is like the swelling stream, overflowing its banks to enrich the plantations of the valley. It is like the fruitful field, pouring its golden harvest into the exhausted granary. It is like the generous oak, shaking the genial dew from its branches upon the humbler herbage at its roots. Nay, it is like God’ s incarnate love, walking the sinful world, chasing sorrow from the abodes of men, shedding the light of immortality into the valley of the shadow of death, and amidst the dissonances of human selfishness singing a melody which charms the angels down from heaven! (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity benignant In things lawful and things indifferent it bends to the partialities and predilections of others, studying to please all for their good to edification. It would not needlessly crush the wing of an insect, much less inflict upon a rational and immortal being an evil remediless and everlasting. It is eminently pacific and conciliatory; as far as possible without any compromise of the Christian law, endeavouring to live peaceably with all men, and labouring in many ways to promote the harmony of human society. As the sea is composed of drops, and the earth is compacted of atoms, and the daylight is only a profusion of inappreciable rays, and forest and field are refreshed and beautified by millions of imperceptible particles of dew, so it is the aggregate of little things that makes the happiness or unhappiness of domestic and social life; and charity is attentive to the minutest circumstance that can affect the comfort and welfare of mankind, planting here a lily and there a rose where she cannot convert the whole desert into a paradise, pouring in a thousand tiny rivulets to swell the great ocean of human blessedness, and thus impressing the universal conviction of her kindness. (J. Angell James.)Longsuffering and kindness Dr. M’ Crie, in his life of the late Sir Andrew Agnew, M.P., says; “ We were speaking one day of the difficulty of confessing Christ before the world. It was affecting to hear Sir Andrew acknowledge this difficulty, who had borne Christ’ s reproach so manfully in all places. He told me, that when he first began to take up the cause of the Sabbath, there were many worldly men who disliked him so much that they seemed anxious to stare him out of their company, and that he had felt this particularly at the New Club. One honourable baronet, not satisfied with this species of annoyance, when he saw that Sir Andrew had courage enough to despise it, and to frequent the club regularly every day notwithstanding, began speaking at him, and acting as rudely as he could towards him. One morning Sir Andrew was waiting for his breakfast at the club, when the baronet to whom I allude came in, apparently in great agitation. Sir Andrew, perceiving this, asked him if anything was wrong; to which he replied that his lady had last night had an attack of paralysis, and that she was dangerously ill. Sir Andrew said he felt for him sincerily, and expressed his sympathy warmly. Next morning he met him again with his two sons, who had come to see their mother, and he asked for Lady--with much interest. The answer was that he had been sitting up with her all night, and that she was no better. Ultimately, however, she did recover; and on one occasion afterwards, the baronet referred to came up to Sir Andrew, and with feeling that did him great honour, said, ‘ Sir Andrew, there are many people who like to laugh at you and abuse you, because of your Sabbath principles, and I confess that I have been among the number, but I trust I shall never so far forget myself again.’ Charity disposes us to do good I. The nature of the duty of doing good to others. And here three things are to be considered, viz. 1. The act. Persons may do good-- (1) To the souls of others, which is the most excellent way of doing good. (2) In outward things, and for this world (Matthew 25:35-36). in three ways Christianity requires us to do good to others. (a) To give to others (Luke 6:38). (b) To do for others (1 Thessalonians 2:9; Hebrews 6:10). (c) To suffer for others (Galatians 6:2; 1 John 3:16). 2. The objects of this act are often spoken of in the Scriptures by the expression, “ our neighbour” (Luke 10:29, etc.). We are to do good-- (1) Both to the good and to the bad (Matthew 5:43).(2) To friends and enemies (Matthew 5:44).(3) To the thankful and the unthankful (Luke 6:35). 3. The manner in which we should do good to others. This is expressed in the single word “ freely.” This seems implied in the words of the text; for to be kind is to have a disposition freely to do good. And this doing good freely implies-- (1) That our doing good be not in a mercenary spirit (Luke 6:35; Luke 14:12-14). (2) That we do it cheerfully or heartily, and with real good-will to the one we would benefit (1 Peter 4:9; 2 Corinthians 9:7; Romans 12:8; Deuteronomy 15:10). (3) That we do it liberally and bountifully (2 Corinthians 9:8; 2 Corinthians 9:11; Deuteronomy 15:8; Proverbs 11:25; 2 Corinthians 9:6). II. That a Christian spirit will dispose us thus to do good to others. And this appears from two considerations.1. The main thing in that love which is the sum of the Christian spirit is benevolence, or good-will to others (Luke 2:14). 2. The most proper and conclusive evidence that such a principle is real and sincere is its being effectual. The proper and conclusive evidence of our wishing or willing to do good to another is to do it. The Scriptures therefore speak of doing good as the proper and full evidence of love (1 John 3:18-19; James 2:15-16). Conclusion:1. What a great honour it is to be made an instrument of good in the world (Genesis 12:2). Eastern kings and governors used to assume to themselves the title of benefactors, that is, “ doers of good,” as the most honourable that could think of (Luke 22:25). 2. Thus freely to do good to others, is but to do to them as we would have them do to us. 3. How kind God and Christ have been to us (2 Corinthians 8:9; 1 Peter 1:4). 4. What great rewards are promised to those that freely do good to others (Psalms 18:25; Acts 20:35; Matthew 25:34-40). (Jon. Edwards.)Charity envieth not.-- Charity not envious To see that envy is utterly incompatible with charity, we need but glance at some of its characteristic qualities and fruits. I. Charity is disinterested goodness; envy is unmingled selfishness. It would grasp all riches, absorb all enjoyment, engross all admiration and esteem. Every superior and every rival would it destroy, and live alone in an impoverished or depopulated universe. The envious man, like Gideon’ s fleece, would absorb every particle of moisture that falls from heaven, and leave all around him dewless as the desert. II. Charity is the brotherhood of the heart; envy is as malicious as it is selfish. Joseph was hated by his brethren because he was beloved by his father, and because his dream made him their superior. And Haman was full of indignation against Mordecai because he held a high place in the favour of the king. And the same evil spirit inflamed the wrath of Saul against David. The envious man resents the good of others, as if it were an injury to himself. Envy is like the ocean, which because it cannot shine as the firmament does, would shroud the starry lustre of the latter with its vapoury exhalations. Nay, in order to enjoy the glimmer of its own rushlight, it would extinguish the sun and leave the world in darkness. III. Charity is a meek and gentle spirit; envy is as outrageous as it is malicious. It is “ cruel as death and insatiable as the grave.” There is in its hate an inhuman fierceness, in its action a diabolical fury, which respect no dignity, reverence no sanctity, pause abashed at no splendid array of virtue. What slew Caesar, and banished Cicero and put out the eyes of Belisarius, but a merit too great for wealth to reward or envy to endure? Envy murdered Abel at his altar, and nailed the Son of God upon the Cross. Envy first blighted the bloom of paradise, and ever since it has raged through the scene of its ruin, filling the earth with dire confusion, and every evil work; and well saith the wisest of ancient monarchs, “ Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous, but who can stand before envy?” IV. Charity is ready unto every good work; envy is mischievous. There is no injury it would not inflict upon its happier neighbour. It would poison your peace and blacken your fame. Who shall set bounds to its wickedness, or limit its baleful power? Has it not rifled the richest treasuries, thwarted the shrewdest policies, conquered the mightiest warriors, and subverted the proudest thrones? If there is any exemption from the inflictions of envy, it is only in the case of those who have nothing for which they can be envied, whose obscurity is their fortress, whose poverty is their panoply. The tornado may spare the willows, but woe to the oaks! Never pitying, never relenting, envy follows its victim to the very grave, and tramples upon his ashes, and desecrates his memory, and persecutes his posterity. V. Charity is free from deceit; envy is hypocritical. Pride, anger, gluttony, drunkenness, etc., are ordinarily frank and open. But envy, conscious that it is an unnatural disposition, having more the rancour of a fiend than the temper of a man, and branded by common consent with a stigma deep and foul, conceals its real nature. As Bishop Ball says, “ It is indeed a most reputable and orthodox vice, a regular church-going sin, dressing like virtue and talking like piety. It has a great zeal for religion, a keen sense of public justice, and is much shocked at the inconsistencies of good people. It exults when the hypocrite is unmasked and exclaims--‘ Ah! I told you so; I always suspected him.’ It is also most benevolent; and when adversity overtakes a brother, prays devoutly that it may be the means of promoting his humility and other Christian graces.” VI. Charity is fraught with Divine peace and contentment; envy is miserable. Hating and hated, can it know anything of a good conscience and a cheerful mind? Deceitful and treacherous, must it not be like the troubled sea that cannot rest? Baffled and chagrined, will it not become desperate, and turn its fangs upon itself, and devour its own vitals? Conclusion: Charity and envy are as much opposed as light and darkness. Charity is from above; envy is from beneath. Charity is the fruit of the Spirit; envy is the work of the flesh. Charity is the outgrowth of the new heart; envy is the product of the carnal mind. Charity is as pure as the mountain stream; envy is as foul as the city sewer. Charity is as harmless as the gentle dove; envy is as deadly as the viper’ s fang. Charity is as tranquil as the summer evening; envy is as restless as the troubled sea. Charity is as tender and pitiful as an angel; envy is as heartless and cruel as a demon. Charity is the spirit of Christ and the temper of heaven, envy is the rankling selfishness which makes the immitigable woe of the lost, the wormwood and gall transfused through all the faculties and feelings of a reprobate immortality. No two principles could be more antagonistic and irreconcilable. (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity inconsistent with an envious spirit I. The nature of envy.1. A spirit of dissatisfaction with, and opposition to, the prosperity and happiness of others as compared with our own (Esther 5:13; Numbers 11:29; Genesis 37:11). 2. A dislike of their persons for it (Esther 5:9; Genesis 37:4-5). II. Wherein a Christian spirit is the opposite of such a spirit. A Christian spirit--1. Disallows of the exercise and expressions of such a spirit. 2. Tends to mortify its principle and disposition in the heart (Philippians 4:11). 3. Disposes us to rejoice in the prosperity of others (Romans 12:15). III. Why it is that a Christian spirit is thus the opposite of a spirit of envy.1. A spirit and practice entirely contrary to an envious spirit is much insisted on in the precepts of Christ and His apostles (Romans 13:13; 1 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:21, etc.). 2. These precepts are strongly enforced-- (1) By the Christian scheme of doctrine. For there we are told how God has not begrudged us His well-beloved Son, nor the highest honour and blessedness in and through Him. How far Christ was from begruding us anything that He could do for or give us! (2) By its history. And particularly is this true of the history of the life of Christ, and the example He has set us. 3. The true spirit of Christian love will dispose us to yield to the authority of these precepts, and to the influence of the motives enforcing them. (1) By its own immediate tendency; for love does not grudge, but rejoices at the good of those who are loved. (2) By inclining us to humility. It is pride that is the great root and source of envy. Conclusion: The subject--1. Should lead us to examine ourselves, whether we are in any degree under the influence of an envious spirit. 2. Exhorts us to disallow and put away everything approaching to it. (J. Edwards.)On envy Envy is a sensation of uneasiness arising from the advantages which others are supposed to possess above us, accompanied with malignity towards those who possess them. The character of an envious man is universally odious. All disclaim it; and they who feel themselves under the influence of this passion carefully conceal it. But it is proper to consider that among all our passions, both good and bad, there are many different gradations. Sometimes they swim on the surface of the mind, without producing any internal agitation. They proceed no farther than the beginnings of passion. Allayed by our constitution, or tempered by the mixture of other dispositions, they exert no considerable influence on the temper. Though the character in which envy forms the ruling passion be one too odious to be common, yet some tincture of this evil disposition mixes with most characters in the world. The chief grounds of envy may be reduced to three. I. Accomplishments, or endowments of the mind. The chief endowment for which man deserves to be valued is virtue. This forms the most estimable distinction among mankind. Yet this, which may appear surprising, never forms any ground of envy. No man is envied for being more just, more generous, more patient, or forgiving than others. This may, in part, be owing to virtue producing in every one who beholds it that high degree of respect which extinguishes envy. But probably it is more owing to the good opinion which every one entertains of his own moral qualities. Some virtues, or at least the seeds of them, he finds within his breast. Others he vainly attributes to himself. Those in which he is plainly deficient he undervalues; on the whole he is as worthy as his neighbour. The case is different with regard to those mental abilities and powers which are ascribed to others. As long as these are exerted in a sphere of action remote from ours, and not brought into competition with talents of the same kind, to which we have pretensions, they create no jealousy. They are viewed as distant objects, in which we have not any concern. Even then, envy is, properly speaking, not grounded on the talents of others. For here, too, our self-complacency brings us relief; from the persuasion that, were we thoroughly known, and full justice done to us, our abilities would be found not inferior to those of our rivals. What properly occasions envy, is the fruit of the accomplishments of others; the pre-eminence which the opinion of the world bestows, or which we dread it will bestow, on their talents above ours. Mere rivality, inspired by emulation, would carry no reproach; were not that rivality joined with obliquity, and a malignant spirit; did it not lead to secret detraction, and unfair methods of diminishing the reputation of others. Let such as are addicted to this infirmity consider how much they degrade themselves. Superior merit of any kind always rests on itself. Conscious of what it deserves, it disdains low competitions and jealousies. They who are stung with envy, especially when they allow its malignity to appear, confess a sense of their own inferiority; and, in effect, pay homage to that merit from which they endeavour to detract. But in order to eradicate the passion, and to cure the disquiet which it creates, let such persons further consider how inconsiderable the advantage is which their rivals have gained by any superiority over them. They whom you envy are themselves inferior to others who follow the same pursuits. Public applause is the most fluctuating and uncertain of all rewards. Within what narrow bounds is their fame confined? With what a number of humiliations is it mixed? To how many are they absolutely unknown? Among those who know them, how many censure and decry them? II. Advantages of fortune, superiority in birth, rank, and riches, even qualifications of body and form, become grounds of envy. Among external advantages those which relate to the body ought certainly to hold the lowest place, as in the acquisition of them we can claim no merit, but must ascribe them entirely to the gift of nature. Yet envy has often showed itself here in full malignity. It would have proved a blessing to multitudes to have wanted those advantages for which they are envied. How frequently has beauty betrayed the possessors of it into many a snare, and brought upon them many a disaster? Short-lived at the best, and trifling at any rate, in comparison with the higher and more lasting beauties of the mind. But of all the grounds of envy among men superiority in rank and fortune is the most general. Hence the malignity which the poor commonly bear to the rich, as ingrossing to themselves all the comforts of life. Alas! all this envious disquietude which agitates the world, arises from a deceitful figure which imposes upon the public view. False colours are hung out: the real state of men is not what it seems to be. The order of society requires a distinction of ranks to take place; but, in point of happiness, all men come much nearer to equality than is commonly imagined. The poor man possesses not, it is true, some of the conveniences and pleasures of the rich; but, in return, he is free from many embarrassments to which they are subject. When you think of the enjoyments you want, think also of the troubles from which you are free. Often, did you know the whole, you would be inclined to pity the state of those whom you now envy. III. Superior success in the course of worldly pursuits is a frequent ground of envy. Among all ranks of men competitions arise. Wherever any favourite object is pursued in common, jealousies seldom fail to take place among those who are equally desirous of attaining it. “ I could easily bear,” says one, “ that some others should be more famous, should be richer than I. It is but just that this man should enjoy the distinction to which his splendid abilities have raised him. It is natural for that man to command the respect to which he is entitled by his birth or his rank. But when I and another have started in the race of life, upon equal terms, and in the same rank, that he, without any pretension to uncommon merit, should have suddenly so far outstripped me; should have engrossed all that public favour to which I am no less entitled than he;--this is what I cannot bear; my spirit swells with indignation at this undeserved treatment I have suffered from the world.” Complaints of this nature are often made by them who seek to justify the envy which they bear to their more prosperous neighbours. But if such persons wish not to be thought unjust, let me desire them to inquire whether they have been altogether fair in the comparison they have made of their own merit with that of their rivals? and whether they have not themselves to blame more than the world for being left behind in the career of fortune? The world is not always blind or unjust in conferring its favours. Supposing, however, the world to have been unjust with regard to you, this will not vindicate malignity and envy towards a more prosperous competitor. You may accuse the world, but what reason have you to bear ill-will to him? You, perhaps, preferred the enjoyment of your ease to the stirs of a busy or to the cares of a thoughtful life. Ought you then to complain if the more laborious have acquired what you were negligent to gain? Consider that if you have obtained less preferment you have possessed more indulgence and ease. The causes that nourish envy are principally two, and two which, very frequently, operate in conjunction: these are pride and indolence. The connection of pride with envy is obvious and direct. The high value which the proud set on their own merit, the unreasonable claims which they form on the world are perpetual sources, first of discontent, and next of envy. When indolence is joined to pride the disease of the mind becomes more inveterate and incurable. Pride leads men to claim more than they deserve. Indolence prevents them from obtaining what they might justly claim. Disappointments follow; and spleen, malignity, and envy rage within them. As, therefore, we value our virtue or our peace, let us guard against these two evil dispositions of mind. Let us be modest in our esteem, and by diligence study to acquire the esteem of others. So shall we shut up the avenues that lead to many a bad passion, and shall learn, in whatsoever state we are, therewith to be content. Finally, in order to subdue envy, let us bring often into view those religious considerations which regard us particularly as Christians. Let us remember how unworthy we are in the sight of God; and how much the blessings which each of us enjoy are beyond what we deserve. Let us nourish reverence and submission to that Divine government which has appointed to every one such a condition in the world as is fittest for them to possess. (H. Blair, D.D.)Charity not envious Envy is one of the most malignant and, if we except vanity alone, the most empty of all human passions. Other affections have some good thing in view either real or apprehended; but envy has nothing for its object except an ill-natured pleasure in the hurt of our neighbour. Charity is quite inconsistent with envy, and, whenever it prevails, expels that malicious passion from the heart. Has God bestowed on others larger measures of knowledge and understanding, of honour and respect, of riches, of power and authority, of any blessing, spiritual or temporal? The charitable man, though eclipsed in these respects, does not look up to those who eclipse him with an envious eye. He takes not an ill-natured pleasure in the disappointments and misfortunes, in the decline and fall of those above him He does not attempt, by malicious detraction, to depreciate the merits of those who excel; and, though unable to rise to their standard, he does not enviously endeavour to bring them down to his own, and to keep all mankind on a level with himself He considers worldly blessings as the gifts of God, who may bestow them on what persons and in what degrees He pleases; and, satisfied with his own condition, he rejoices to see the glory of the giver advanced and the ends of the gift answered, who ever may be chosen by Providence for the accomplishment of these ends. (A. Donnan.)Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.-- Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up I. The evils indicated.1. Assumption.2. Vanity. II. Their offensiveness. They imply--1. Contempt for.2. Disregard of the feelings and claims of others. III. Their consequent inconsistency with love. Love-- 1. Is humble in spirit and deportment.2. Willingly offends none. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Charity vaunteth not itself “ It was my custom in my youth,” says a celebrated Persian writer, “ to rise from my sleep, to watch, pray, and read the Koran. One night as I was thus engaged, my father, a man of practised virtues, awoke. ‘ Behold!’ said I to him, ‘ thy other children are lost in irreligious slumbers, while I alone wake to praise God.’ ‘ Son of my soul,’ said he, ‘ it is better to sleep than to wake to remark the faults of thy brethren.’” (Family Circle.)Vaunting inconsistent with love We think we need not love God less, nor our neighbourless, by a little harmless talking of ourselves. But we do. We rob God, because in vaunting we forget that it all comes from Him, and we cannot possibly have anything whatever to vaunt or to boast of. We rob our neighbour because, unconsciously perhaps, we put him in a lower position than ourselves, and look down upon him, or we may make him envious of us. And we rob ourselves, because we deprive ourselves of the reward of any good we may have done. The grace of charity is deprived of its bloom, or indeed of its fruit, by vaunting or boasting. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)Diffidence of love Of all feelings, there is none of which men need be so little ashamed of as true love, and none which so much puts on all the appearance of shame. For love is born behind blushing defences. And after it has won its victories and subdued to itself the whole of life, it then more than ever has in it the necessity of hiding itself. For love, like the blood in the human body, though it be the cause of all the life that appears, is itself hidden within the veins and never seen. (H. W. Beecher.)Charity not proud To vaunt is to boast, to make an ostentatious display of our own qualities or achievements, it is the language of pride. I. the nature of pride.1. It is not to be confounded with that courtly demeanour which is so natural to some people, and so suitable to certain ranks in society. This is the use of our dignity, not the abuse of it. 2. It is an over-valuing of self. Was there ever a time when this hateful vice was more prevalent than it is at present? Does not the age vaunt its enlightenment and its progress? Do not persons of all classes vaunt their superiority in one respect or another? There is a pride of birth, of wealth, of power, of knowledge, of morality, and even of humility. II. The repugnance of such a spirit to charity. Charity is unselfish; pride is one of the many forms of selfishness. Charity yields to its neighbour due honour; pride claims all respect and honour for its own dignity. Charity accords to every man his proper place and merit; pride aims to impress its brother with a mortifying sense of his inferiority. Charity tenderly regards your sensibilities, and carefully avoids giving you offence; pride tramples upon all courtesy, and cares not whom nor how deeply it wounds. Charity sheds a benign influence over the heart, expanding it to all that is noble and magnanimous; pride folds the soul in upon itself, freezing up the genial springs of sympathy and affection. Charity is the spirit of those who veil their faces before the throne of God, and the temper of Him who for our sake humbled Himself to the death of the Cross; pride is the spirit of rebellion which of old, seeking to exalt itself against the God of love, plunged headlong into hell. Charity knows something of angelic blessedness; pride shares the misery of Satan. (J. Cross, D.D.)The spirit of charity an humble spirit As, on the one hand, it prevents us from envying others what they possess, so, on the other, it keeps us from glorying in what we possess ourselves. I. What humility is.1. A sense of our own comparative meanness. (1) As regards God (Genesis 18:27). (2) As regards our fellow-creatures. Man is very mean as compared with multitudes of a superior rank in the universe, and most men are mean in comparison with many of their fellow men. He that has a right sense and estimate of himself in comparison with God, will be likely to have his eyes open to see himself aright in all respects. All this would apply to men considered as unfallen beings. But humility in fallen men implies a sense of a tenfold meanness. (a) Man’ s natural meanness consists in his being infinitely below God in natural perfection, and in God’ s being infinitely above him in greatness, power, wisdom, majesty, etc. (b) The truly humble man, since the fall, is also sensible of his moral meanness and vileness (Isaiah 6:5; Job 42:5-6; Psalms 51:17; Isaiah 57:15; Matthew 5:3). 2. A disposition to a corresponding behaviour and conduct. Without this there is no true humility. The devils and damned spirits see much of their comparative littleness before God in some respects. Note-- (1) Some things in our behaviour toward God to which humility will dispose us. (a) To acknowledge our meanness or littleness before God. (b) To be distrustful of ourselves and to depend only on God. (c) To renounce all the glory of the good we have or do, and to give it all to God (Psalms 115:1). (d) Wholly to subject ourselves to God. (2) It disposes to a behaviour toward men answerable to our comparative meanness. It tends-- (a) To prevent an aspiring and ambitious behaviour amongst men (Jeremiah 45:5; Romans 12:16). (b) An ostentatious behaviour (Matthew 23:5). (c) An arrogant and assuming behaviour (Philippians 2:3; Ephesians 3:8). (d) A scornful behaviour (Romans 12:16). (e) A wilful and stubborn behaviour (Romans 12:19; 1 Corinthians 6:7; Matthew 5:40-41). (f) A levelling behaviour (Romans 13:7; Titus 3:1). (g) A self-justifying behaviour (James 5:16; Psalms 141:5). II. The spirit of charity is an humble spirit.1. It implies and tends to humility. (1) It implies humility. And this appears plain from two considerations: because a sense of the loveliness of God is peculiarly that discovery of God that works humility; and because, when God is truly loved, He is loved as an infinite superior. (2) It also tends to humility. (a) Love inclines the heart to that spirit and behaviour that are becoming the distance from the beloved. The devils know their distance from God, but they are not reconciled to it. And so love to man, arising from love to God, disposes to an humble behaviour toward them, inclining us to give them all the honour and respect that are their due. (b) Love to God tends to an abhorrence of sin against God, and so to our being humbled before Him for it. 2. It tends to draw forth such exercises of love as do especially imply and tend to it. The gospel leads us-- (1) To love God as an infinitely condescending God (2) To love Christ as an humble person (Philippians 2:6-8; Matthew 10:24; Matthew 01:25; Matthew 20:25-28; John 13:13-16). (3) To love Christ as a crucified Saviour. (4) To humble exercises of love, because it leads us to love Christ as one that was crucified for our sakes. Conclusion:1. Note the excellency of a Christian spirit (Proverbs 12:26; 1 Peter 3:4). 2. Examine yourselves, and see if you are indeed of an humble spirit (Habakkuk 2:4; James 4:6). 3. Let strangers to the grace of God seek that grace, that they may thus attain to this spirit of humility (Proverbs 16:5; Proverbs 6:16; Proverbs 29:23; 2 Samuel 22:28; Isaiah 23:9). 4. Let all be exhorted earnestly to seek much of an humble spirit, and to endeavour to be humble in all their behaviour toward God and men. (Jon. Edwards.)Charity not vain Charity endeavours to conceal its good works as the sea conceals its pearls and the earth its gold. It is not the ambitious sunflower that lifts its gaudy head on high, and expands its inodorous petals to the broad light of the noon; but the unobtrusive violet that hides its delicate beauty in the bank of a shady brook, and from its green seclusion perfumes the dewy twilight. Intent only on doing good, it cares nothing for the applause of the world, and seeks to build no temple to its own fame. Aming only at blessing others, it is comparatively a small matter whether it win another’ s blessing or incur another’ s curse. It sends no herald to announce its advent, blows no trumpet to proclaim its purpose, unfurls no banner to catch the eye of the world, saith to no son of Rechab, “ Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord” ; but, like its Divine example, goes about doing good, without causing its voice to be heard in the street, or letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth; and like those holy and blessed creatures who minister to the heirs of salvation and shed a thousand blessings from wings unseen, it conceals its beneficent agency even from its beneficiaries. King Hezekiah lost his royal treasures by an ostentatious display of them to the Assyrian embassy; and Chrysostom tells us that virtues, like precious stones, must be concealed to be kept; for if we display them publicly, we lose them, and vain-glory is the one thief that has robbed many of their treasure laid up in heaven. But this celestial visitant in the abodes of men carries her jewels in a safe casket--hides them in her own heart, while she herself lies hidden in the secret place of the Most High, and abides secure under the shadow of the Almighty. (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity opposed to vanity and pride The Siamese Twins seem to have been two perfect human beings, each possessing all the functions of life complete, though so bound together that the sundering of the ligament would probably have been fatal to both. I. Thus pride and vanity are two vices so closely related that they are seldom found apart, yet so distinct that we ordinarily have no difficulty in their identification and discrimination. Like two plants springing from the same root, they are both the products of selfishness, alike partaking of its qualities, but differing in form and aspect. Pride is an undue estimate of self; vanity is an inordinate desire of the esteem of others. The former makes a man odious; the latter renders him ridiculous. II. Charity is equally opposed to both. Humble, it is opposed to pride; modest, it is opposed to vanity. Humility and modesty, though as intimately related to each other, are as perfectly distinct as pride and vanity. Humility is opposed to pride, modesty is opposed to vanity. The former is the inward feeling of lowliness, the latter is its outward expression. The one makes a man sensible that he merits but little, the other renders him moderate in his demands and expectations. Both, therefore, are essential attributes of charity. Notwithstanding their distinction, it is difficult to separate them; for they run into each other, like the blending of two shades in painting, or two tones in music. (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity not boastful Charity does not boast of its connections, and talk of the dignity of its family, the lustre of its ancestors, the fortune and rank of its relations, and its intercourse with the great; as little does it magnify itself on account of its external possessions, and set forth in lofty terms its own riches, its credit and interest among men, its power and authority over others. Neither does it vaunt of its personal accomplishments and exalt itself above those whom it seems to excel in point of learning and knowledge, of wit and courage, of dexterity and address, or of beauty and strength. It does not even boast of its own good deeds, and take undue praise to itself from the things it has done and the actions it has performed. In every ease charity forbids us to seek our own gratification in the diminution of that of our neighbour whom we should love as ourselves. It modestly declines to talk concerning itself, and avoids every subject in conversation which tends to elevate its own merit, and to place that of another in an inferior point of view. (A. Donnan.)Doth not behave itself unseemly.--Love doth not behave itself, unseemly I. The conduct it avoids.1. Ill mannered.2. Reproachful.3. Unbecoming age, station, and place. II. The conduct it observes.1. It honours all men.2. Seeks to please all.3. Specially regarding the civilities of life; treating superiors with respect and inferiors with consideration. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Unseemliness is acting contrary to a scheme to form which is becoming, or due, or right. It is, in fact, to be deformed; for there is a deformity of mind as well as a deformity of body: and just as deformity may affect various members of the body, so also may it affect various qualities of the mind or soul. Hence we get an enormous range for this word unseemliness. Beauty is the very-type or attribute of God’ s creation. All things, as they originally left the Creator’ s hand, were beautiful, being “ very good.” All things were “ seemly” and “ comely.” Sin alone marred their fair proportion, and their seemliness and comeliness. Sin alone introduced deformity and undue proportion. Man was created “ seemly” in the image of God. The impress of God’ s love was upon the soul of man. God is love--charity. So love is not, and cannot, and doth not, behave itself “ unseemly,” unlike the image upon which it was formed or fashioned. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)The seemliness of the charity of Christ What dignity and yet what condescension! what perfect self-possession and yet what abandonment of self! what purity, what modesty, what retiredness! what humility in the King of heaven, without any loss of dignity, making fishermen His companions and intimate friends! He eats with the Pharisee, and yet is a guest of publicans and sinners! He is left alone with the woman taken in adultery and pardons her. He welcomes the Magdalen and forgives her. He converses with the woman of Samaria, to the astonishment of His disciples. He despises none. He hides not His face from shame and spitting. He gives His back to the smiters in the flagellation or scourging. He dies the shameful death of the Cross! and in all that unseemliness Divine charity is most seemly, most dignified, most attractive, most loving, most charitable. Yes, in His person, the person of very charity herself. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)Pleasant behaviour Accurate fitting of the parts of a machine is not all that is needed. Oil is required. Our life functions bring us together. Something is needed to make all work smoothly. Good manners, courtesy, pleasant behaviour is this oil which is needed. Some say: What have we to do with good manners between master and workmen? Every creaking bearing in the social machine means loss of power. All heating and friction must be avoided. “ Fair words butter no parsnips,” is an old adage. But they do much in a shop where the assistants are attentive and obliging. Customers will he more likely to come. So in all things. The faculty of mastership is largely behaviour. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 13:6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Charity cannot rejoice in iniquity, but must rejoice in the truth I. Iniquity expresses unevenness or inequality--a want of rectitude or moral principle. In its largest comprehension, as here used by St. Paul, it is the great falsehood brought in by the father of lies, antagonising the goodness of the Creator, and working infinite evil to His creatures. Warring against the love of God, it tends to subvert His authority and spread disorder and anarchy throughout His empire. How, then, can charity rejoice in iniquity? Desiring the welfare of an intelligent universe, how can she rejoice in that which must result only in wretchedness and ruin? II. The truth is the exact opposite of iniquity, and therefore the legitimate object of charity’ s rejoicing it indicates that which is fixed, settled, solid, certain, constant, according to fact or reality, to be confidently believed and relied upon. The truth by pre-eminence is God’ s gracious revelation to man contained in His written Word. The truth in human practice and human character is conformity of heart and life to the principles and requirements of that revelation. (J. Cross, D.D.)The purity of love I. It has no pleasure in sin.1. In the commission of it.2. In the contemplation of it in others.3. In the sufferings it occasions. II. Its joy is in the truth (righteousness).1. In the practice of it.2. In the triumph of it.3. The effects of it. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Rejoicing in iniquity Some are never content till they have arrested somebody’ s career of usefulness or honourable success, or cast a blight over some unblemished reputation, or marred the peace of stone harmonious family, or inflicted a wound upon some unsuspecting heart. For these ends they pry into your business matters, your social relations, your domestic concerns, the sacred privacy of your chambers, with a diligence worthy of the highest virtue, and an impertinence not unworthy of the lowest vice. They whisper a scandalous surmise, and enjoin the strictest secrecy, well knowing that they are giving it to every bird of the air, and sowing it broadcast on the winds of heaven. With a baseness of which Satan himself might be ashamed, they write an anonymous letter, rank with the poison of false kindness; making the postmaster an unconscious partner in their despicable enterprise, and converting the ever-welcome letter-carrier at your door into a messenger of hell. In their cowardly ambuscade they sit concealed, and by proxy play their masked batteries upon their victim, who knows not whither “ to turn, nor which way to escape, nor whose the hand that wounds him. With what a fiendish satisfaction do they enjoy the mischief they have done! with what an under-chuckle of infernal glee watch the writhings of the anguish they have caused. The Comanche is more humane in his warfare; the rattlesnake is more honourable in its attack. Such a one could laugh at chains, dance in dungeons, jest over guillotines, amuse himself with inquisitorial engines, enjoy his orgies on battle-fields reeking with blood, and with his boon companions--as my own eyes have seen--make a gambling-table of his brother’ s grave! He could trifle at the death-bed of a Paine or a Voltaire, frolic merrily around the Saviour’ s Cross, and find his sweetest music in the dirge of ruined souls. (J. Cross, D.D.)Delighting in the defective Erasmus tells of one who collected all the lame and defective verses in Homer’ s works, but passed over all that were excellent. So these, if they can spy anything defective and evil, they observe it, and gather all they can together, but will take no notice of that which is good and praiseworthy; like the kite who flies over the fair meadows and flowers, and lights only upon the carrion, or like flies that love only to be upon the sore, galled places of the horse’ s back. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)Rejoicing with the truth The gospel is the truth of God because it is the absolute wisdom, the Divine philosophy, of which all the efforts of the human intellect, and all the partial lights that had broken from heaven, were but the dawn (cf. Galatians 2:5; Ephesians 1:13; 3 John 1:3; all an echo of Joh 14:6). This revelation of God bursts upon man with the fulness of joy. The Son of Man Himself has been anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows, and He appoints also unto the mourner beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Abraham saw the day of Christ and was glad. The gladness of the early Church attracted the notice of the historian (Acts 2:46). We may conjecture that it was her joy that created song and broke forth even in ecstatic utterance. Who is not struck with the profound sadness of the later paganism of Greece and Rome? A Christian apostle alone can address to his readers without irony the exhortation to “ rejoice evermore.” In this hymn to love St. Paul personifies the gospel, and represents it as rejoicing. The truth rejoices in its power to create love; for as Augustine says, “ the victory of truth is love.” Then love created by the truth rejoices in the loveliness of the truth and rejoices with the truth in its love creating energy. It is the joy of the shepherd when he has found the lost sheep; the joy of the father when the prodigial has returned; of holy angels and of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Principal Edwards.)Rejoicing with the truth Charity does not only rejoice in the possession of truth, for that would be selfishness, but rejoices with it whenever she finds it in others. Possessing the whole truth herself, and yet being too humble and too loving to be arrogant in the possession of it, she rejoices as a part of herself, as it were very grains of truth in masses of error, by attracting them to herself by the truth which they hold, or seem to hold, or that remnant of a righteousness, which is, or seems to be, still left in them: remnants of righteousness even in the life of the unrighteous. Just as a magnet draws to itself grains of true metals out of a mass of sand, so she draws others to the whole truth. (J. B. Wilkinson, B.A.)True grace in the heart tends to holy practice in the life Negatively, the apostle declares that charity is opposed to all wickedness, or evil practice; and, positively, that it tends to all righteousness, or holy practice. I. Some arguments in support of the doctrine.1. Holy practice is the aim of that eternal election which is the first ground of the bestowment of all true grace (Ephesians 1:4; Ephesians 2:10; John 15:16). 2. That redemption, by which grace is purchased, is to the same end (John 17:19; Colossians 1:21-22; Titus 2:14). 3. That saving conversion in which grace is commenced in the soul is to the same end (Ephesians 2:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:7). 4. That spiritual knowledge and understanding, which are the inward attendants of all true grace in the heart, tend to holy practice. 5. From the more immediate consideration of the principle of grace itself, from which the same will be seen. And here-- (1) Because the faculty which is the immediate seat of it is the faculty of the will, which is the faculty that commands all a man’ s actions and practice. The will is the fountain of the practice, as truly as the head of a spring is the fountain of the stream that flows from it. (2) It is the definition of grace, that it is a principle of holy action. What is grace but a principle of holiness in the heart? And if grace be a principle, what is it a principle of, but of action? (3) The nature of a principle of grace is to be a vital principle. (4) Grace is an exceedingly powerful principle (2 Timothy 3:5). II. The truth of the doctrine with respect to the particular Christian graces. This is the case--1. With respect to a true and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 5:6; James 2:18). (1) The conviction of the understanding and judgment, which is implied in saving faith, tends to holy practice. If men are really convinced of the truth of the things they are told in the gospel, about salvation and an eternal world, it will act in such a manner as will tend to their obtaining this salvation. (2) So does that act of the will which there is in saving faith. He that, by the act of his will, does truly accept of Christ as a Saviour, accepts of Him as a Saviour from sin, and not merely from the punishment of sin. (3) So does all true trust in God. And herein a true trust differs from all false trust. A trust in God in the way of negligence, is what in Scripture is called tempting God; and a trust in Him in the way of sin, is what is called presumption, which is a thing terribly threatened in His Word. But he that truly and rightly trusts in God, trusts in Him in the way of diligence and holiness. 2. All true love to God. Love to our fellow-creatures always influences us in our actions. He that loves money is influenced in his practice by that love, and kept by it in the continual pursuit of wealth. And so he that truly loves God is also influenced by that love in his practice. 3. All true repentance. In the original, the word signifies a change of the mind; and men are said to repent of sin when they change their minds with respect to it. 4. All true humility. He that is sensible of his own unworthiness, will be disposed, by a sense of it, to carry himself accordingly both before God and man. 5. All true fear of God which is a holy solicitude or dread lest we should offend God by sinning against Him. 6. The spirit of thankfulness, and praise, which leads us to render again according to the benefits received. 7. Christian weanedness from the world, and heavenly-mindedness. 8. The spirit of Christian love to men. If the spirit of love to man be sincere, it will tend to the practice and deeds of love (Romans 13:9-10). 9. A true and gracious hope. A false hope tends to licentiousness--to encourage men in their sinful desires and lusts, and to flatter and embolden them even when they are in the way of evil. But a true hope tends to stir men up to holiness of life, to awaken them to duty, and to make them more careful to avoid sin, and more diligent in serving God (1 John 3:3). Conclusion:1. We may see one main reason why Christian practice and good works are so abundantly insisted on in the Scriptures as an evidence of sincerity in grace (Matthew 7:16-20; John 14:21-24; Ephesians 5:6; Ephesians 5:6). 2. In view of this subject, let all examine themselves, whether their grace is real and sincere. (1) Has your supposed grace such influence as to render those things in which you have failed of holy practice, loathsome, grievous and humbling to you? (2) Do you carry about with you, habitually a dread of sin (Genesis 39:9)? (3) Are you sensible of the beauty and pleasantness of the ways of holy practice? (4) Do you find that you do particularly esteem and delight in those practices that may, by way of eminence, be called Christian practices, in distinction from mere worldly morality? (5) Do you hunger and thirst after a holy practice? (6) Do you make a business of endeavouring to live holily, and as God would have you, in all respects? (7) Do you greatly desire that you may know all that is your duty? (Jon. Edwards.)Charity rejoicing with truth There is a bold double personification--Charity is one person; Truth is another. Truth is rejoicing, and charity, or Christian love, rejoices with her. Truth is by definition reality, or the thing that is; and for St. Paul the sum of all reality, the embodiment of all that is, the revelation of God in Christ. Moral truth, intellectual truth, all meet and harmonise in truth revealed. There is nothing in nature, there is nothing in thought, there is nothing in virtue outside and apart from Him who calls Himself in so many words “ the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” “ Charity rejoiceth not at iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth.” It is not needful to dwell at any length on the negative statement, “ Charity rejoiceth not at iniquity.” It can be no charity to take pleasure in unrighteousness. St. Paul makes it the very climax of wickedness to do so. But there are, at least, two cautions on this subject which ought never to be left unspoken. Records of crime solemnly judged, and terribly punished, if in any sense capable of corrupting us, carry with them their formidable lessons of consequence and of retribution. Even these, in all journals fit for circulation, are records not of offensive particulars, but of reserved and reticent generalities. What shall we say, then, of fictitious narratives of vice, vulgar or fashionable, of tales of which the very point of interest lies in their immorality, of novels presupposing and taking for granted a state of opinion in which profligacy is the rule, and virtue is the exception, in which modesty is made silly and ridiculous, and vice interesting, heroic, and charitable? Can any reprobation be too strong for the writers of such fiction, or any prohibition be too positive of its tolerance in Christian homes? The second caution needs to be spoken. Take heed how ye hear, and how ye read, in what spirit you look upon the crimes and vices of the sinful, what mind and heart you bring to the contemplation, whether it be the “ considering thyself lest thou also be tempted,” or the proud feeling which thanks God that he (the beholder) is not as other men are; whether it be the wicked sympathy which gloats over the sin, or the Christian which bewails and weeps over the sinner. “ Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth.” Other texts tell, as we have seen, of the struggles and hardships here below, of the truth which is the gospel. This one passage, perhaps almost alone tells of its joys. Then truth sometimes rejoices. It is a delightful thought. Let us give it room. Have we seen no triumphs of the gospel? By the nature of the ease they will come, on different evidence than that by which the victories of earthly conquerors are decided. There will be no assaults, no bombardments, no smoking ruins, and no blood-stained battle-fields to show where the gospel has taken an onward step towards that universal reign which is not the dream nor the vision, but the sure word of prophecy for the Christian. And yet the gospel triumphs have not been few. Traceable directly to the influence, slow, but sure, of Christian principles--of principles which had no place and no existence until Christ died--there have been such results as these: the elevation of women; the emancipation of the slave; the higher conception of the sanctity of life, whether shown in the diminution and greater mercifulness of war, or shown in the mitigation of a Draconic statute-book; the amelioration of the lot of the pauper, the lunatic, the prisoner, and the captive; the institution of hospitals for every form of disease, and associations for every enterprise of benevolence; the advance, let none gainsay it, of public opinion in its estimate of honour, humanity, and virtue; the improvement of habits, domestic and national; and the gracious and generous sacrifices by which education has become the enthusiasm of senate and people--its promotion recognised as a primary duty; its condition made a very test of a standing or falling State. Surely all these things, and a thousand others not included in that enumeration, show that the truth has rejoiced, and charity has rejoiced with her. But it is, no doubt, in her more through and more secret workings that the words of the text are more strikingly justified. It is but a tentative and distant approach that we can make to St. Paul’ s feeling, while we speak only of the triumphs of the gospel in a wide field and on a large scale. It is in the individual life that truth exercises the most salutary and saving of her influences. It is there that the light is kindled that is to shine before men to the Father’ s glory. Oh! it is not by magnificent attempts of a feeble or shallow conviction, aiming at great things in proportion to its neglect of the smaller, that the real cause of the real gospel is promoted, and made honourable. (Dean Vaughan.) 1 Corinthians 13:7 Beareth … believeth … hopeth … endureth all things. Love’ s labours Notice-- I. The multitude of love’ s difficulties.1. The difficulties of love are many, for the apostle sets forth the opposing armies as four times “ all things.” You will have to contend with “ all things” -- (1) Within yourself. Nothing in your original nature will help you. God has put within you a new life, but the old life seeks to smother it. (2) In the persons whom you are called upon to love. The best of the saints will try your patience; and as for the ungodly, everything in them will oppose the drawings of your love. (3) In the world, for the world lieth in the wicked one, and all its forces run against love. (4) In hell. The prince of the power of the air leads the van, and the host of fallen spirits eagerly follow him. Speak of crusades against the Paynim, what a crusade is this against hate and evil! Yet we shrink not from the fray. 2. Though love has many difficulties, it overcomes them all, and that four times. (1) By patience, which “ beareth all things.” Let the injury be inflicted, we will forgive it. (2) By faith: we trust in Christ, and look for Divine succour, and so we “ believe all things.” (3) By hope: we rest in expectation that gentleness will win, and that long-suffering will wear out malice. (4) By perseverance: we abide faithful to our resolve to love, we will not be irritated into unkindness. Baffled often, love “ endureth all things.” 3. Love conquers on all four sides. Love makes a hollow square. (1) Does God seem to smite love with afflictions? She “ beareth all things.” (2) Do her fellow Christians treat her ill? She believes everything that is good about them, and nothing that is injurious. (3) Do the wicked rise against her? She hopes that yet they may be brought to a better mind. (4) Do all her spiritual foes attack her with temptations and insinuations? She turneth patience against them, and by God’ s grace “ endureth all things.” 4. Love conquers in all stages of her life. (1) She begins in conversion, and the powers of evil are at once aroused to seek her destruction. Then she “ beareth all things.” (2) She gathers strength, and “ believing all things,” confesses her faith, and her fellow Christians are confirmed. (3) Advancing a little farther, though often disappointed, she “ hopes all things.” (4) And when infirmities and old age come, and she can do little else but sit still, she still perseveres, and accepts even death without complaining, for love “ endureth all things.” II. The triumph of love’ s labour. Her labours are fourfold.1. In bearing all things. “ Bear” might be translated “ cover.” The two ideas may be blended, however. Love bears all things in silence, concealing injuries as much as possible even from herself. (1) Think of this word “ covers.” (a) In reference to the brethren. It is not honourable to men or women to be common informers. Love stands in the presence of a fault, with a finger on her lip. She imitates the pearl oyster. A. hurtful particle intrudes itself and, unable to eject the evil, it covers it with a precious substance extracted out of its own life, by which it turns the intruder into a pearl. I would desire to keep ready for my fellow Christians a bath of silver, in which I could electroplate all their mistakes into occasions for love. As the dripping well covers with its own deposit all that is placed within its drip, so would love cover all within its range with love, thus turning even curses into blessings. (b) As to “ bearing all,” apply the text mainly to trials in dealing with the unconverted. Ignore any repulsiveness that there may be in them. Bear with their ignorance of the gospel, their hardness of heart, and their jests. Would you see the perfection of the charity that beareth all things? Behold your Divine Lord. Oh, what He has covered! 2. In believing all things. In reference-- (1) To our fellow Christians. True love believes good of others as long as it can, and when it is forced to fear that wrong has been done, gives the accused the benefit of many a doubt. When the thing is too clear, love says, “ Yes, but the friend must have been under very strong temptation,” or else that the good man must have been mistaken. Love’ s blind eye is to the fault, and her bright is for the excellence. It is said that once, in the streets of Jerusalem, there lay a dead dog, and every one reviled it. One spoke of its currish breed, another of its lean and ugly form, etc.; but one passed by who said, “ What white teeth it has!” Men said, as He went on His way, “ That is Jesus of Nazareth.” Surely it is ever our Lord’ s way to see good points wherever He can. (2) To the unconverted. She does not believe that they are converted, but she believes that their conversion is possible, and expects that the word she speaks will be God’ s instrument of salvation. Do you want a model of this? Look to your Divine Master once again. He had no faith in man’ s goodness, for “ He knew what was in man” ; but He had great faith in what could be done in men and for them, and for the joy that was set before Him in this He endured the Cross, despising the shame. 3. In “ hoping all things.” Love never despairs. (1) Hope all things about your brethren, and if you should be forced to see sad signs in them, yet, remember that some of the brightest believers have had their faults. Remember yourself, lest you also be tempted. (2) As to the unconverted, you will never do anything with them unless you hope great things about them. When the good Samaritan found the poor man half dead, if he had not hoped about him he would never have poured in the oil and the wine, but would have left him there to die. Would you see a model of this? Our blessed Lord despaired of none, but went after those whom others would have given up. 4. In enduring all things. This is perhaps the hardest work of all, for many people can be affectionate and patient for a time, but the task is to hold on year after year. In reference-- (1) To our fellow Christians, love holds out under all rebuffs. If your brethren are angry without a cause, be sorry for them, but do not let them conquer you by driving you into a bad temper. (2) To the unconverted. Our Lord said, “ I will make you fishers of men.” If you go out fishing for souls you will have to endure all things, for some whom you have been seeking for a long time will grow worse instead of better. III. The sources of love’ s energy. Love’ s art is learned at no other school but at the feet of Jesus, where the Spirit of love doth rest on those who learn of Him. Love wins these victories, for--1. It is her nature. The nature of love is self-sacrifice. 2. She has four companions. Tenderness that “ beareth all things” ; faith that “ believeth all things” ; hope and patience which “ endureth all things.” 3. She sucks her life from Christ. Love can bear, believe, hope, and endure because Christ has borne, believed, and hoped, and endured for her. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The wide scope of love Grief is near-sighted, and holds its trouble close up, but love is long-sighted, and takes the events of life, and looks at them in all points of view, and sees how they look against the east, and how against the west, how toward the north, and how toward the south, how above and how below, how against one background, and how against another. Love looks upon a thing all around, in its germs and in its fruits, in its presence and in its coming. It sympathises not with the limitation of grief, but with the largeness of that love of humanity which is in every event. (H. W. Beecher.)The magnanimity of love I. Beareth (covereth) all things--with a mantle of charity--as far as circumstances will admit. II. Believeth all things.1. To the advantage of its neighbour.2. Until convinced by the clearest evidence. III. Hopeth all things.1. Good of others.2. Or that can possibly alleviate the wrong.3. Or contribute to its amendment. IV. Endureth all things when there is no relief.1. Without a murmur.2. Without resentment.3. Without reproach. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Charity beareth all things The real meaning of the word is “ concealeth.” It does the very thing which it is always asking God to do, hides its face from, and shuts its eyes to, the sins of others. It is charity which applies to itself what it asks of God in the Miserere, and in the De profundis. It turns away its face from the sins of others, and in that deep of God’ s love it buries and conceals them.1. It is terrible to think what a keen eye we have for each other’ s faults. It is sad to think how clever we are at ferreting them out, either for our own or for our neighbour’ s amusement. Even the dead are sometimes not suffered to rest unmolested in their graves. True it is that they are out of the reach of the tongue of slander or uncharitableness, but the sin is not the less great for all that. 2. Now charity, so far from injuring the reputation of any person by exposing their faults, not only conceals them, but protects these very persons, and interposes a shield, as it were, between them and the attack of their enemies. The very meaning of the word protect is to hide or conceal, by interposing some object between one who would seek to injure another. No doubt, from time to time, cases will arise where faults have to be brought to light and plainly told. But we must make quite sure that it is our business to find them out, and when we do speak, to be careful that we are not gratifying any prejudice of our own. 3. But to bear all things, in the sense of concealing the faults of others, is indeed to have a Christ-like spirit. It is to resemble Him very closely. It is to walk very closely in His loving footsteps. When need arose our gentle Lord was stern and strong in His reproofs. But how often He passes over faults! How ready He is to make excuses for or to conceal or hide them! Let two instances alone suffice: first, in the case of the woman taken in the deadliest of deadly sins. Then, again, on the Cross. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)Charity willing to undergo all sufferings in the way of duty I. Explain the doctrine. It implies that those that have Christian love--1. Are willing not only to do, but also to suffer, for Christ (Luke 14:27). 2. Have the spirit to undergo all the sufferings to which their duty to Christ may expose them. They are willing to undergo all sufferings (1) Of all kinds. (a) Reproach and contempt (2 Corinthians 12:10). (b) Hatred and ill-will (Matthew 10:22). (c) Losses in their outward possessions (Philippians 3:8); in their ease and comfort (2 Corinthians 6:4-5). (d) Persecution (Hebrews 11:35-36): (e) Death itself (Matthew 10:39). (2) Of all degrees, like pure gold, that will bear the trial of the hottest furnace. II. Some reason or proof of the doctrine.1. If we have not such a spirit, it is an evidence that we have never given ourselves unreservedly to Christ. It is necessary to our being Christians that we should give ourselves to Him, wholly, only, and for ever. 2. They that are truly Christians, so fear God, that His displeasure is far more terrible than all earthly afflictions and sufferings. 3. They that are truly Christians, have that faith whereby they see that which is more than sufficient to make up for the greatest sufferings (2 Corinthians 4:17; Hebrews 11:24-26). 4. If we are not willing to close with religion, notwithstanding all the difficulties attending it, we shall be overwhelmed with shame at last (Luke 14:28-33). 5. Without this spirit which the text implies, we cannot be said to forsake all for Christ. If there be any one kind or degree of temporal suffering that we have not a spirit to undergo for Christ, then there is something that we do not forsake for Him (Luke 14:26, etc.). 6. Without this spirit we cannot be said to deny ourselves in the sense in which the Scriptures require us to do it (Matthew 16:24-25). 7. It is the character of all the true followers of Christ that they follow Him in all things. 8. It is the character of true Christians that they overcome the world (1 John 5:4). 9. The sufferings in the way of duty are often, in the Bible, called temptations or trials, because by them God tries the sincerity of our characters as Christians (1 Peter 1:6-7; 1 Peter 4:12-13). Conclusion:1. How happy those persons are represented in the Scriptures to be who have a spirit to suffer, and do actually suffer, for Christ (Matthew 5:10-12). 2. What glorious rewards God has promised hereafter to bestow on those that do willingly suffer for Christ (Matthew 19:29; 2 Timothy 2:11-12). 3. How the Scriptures abound with blessed examples of those that have suffered for Christ’ s sake! (Jon. Edwards.)Charity believeth all things Go tell a mother of the faults of her absent son. You must adduce the clearest evidence before she will yield her reluctant credence: and even then it is not yielded without many misgivings and conjectural qualifications in favour of her child. She demands whether you yourself witnessed the things of which you speak, or whether your informant were a truthful and unprejudiced person, or whether the report may not have originated in some unfriendly motive, or whether there be not some circumstance in connection with the facts that would give them a different aspect, or whether after all it were not some other child instead of her own. Rather than credit the report of her darling’ s culpability, she would believe a dozen persons in error, or even guilty of malicious falsehood. But, on the other hand tell her of the good and noble conduct of her boy; unexceptional deportment, his studious habits and proficiency in learning; and instantly you see the glad conviction beaming in her eye, and mantling all her features with sunny joy; and perhaps she adduces many confirmations of your encomium, and tells you the finest things concerning her son, and expatiates enthusiastically upon his rare and noble qualities. What is it but love that renders her so incredulous to what is said against him, and so ready to receive without abatement or qualification all that is uttered in his praise? And Christian love, operating in another sphere, differs nothing in this respect from natural maternal affection, powerfully inclining the heart to faith in the moral excellence of its object. The apostle tells us that “ faith worketh by love “ ; is it not equally true that love worketh by faith?(J. Cross, D.D.)Charity believeth all things If we really love a person we implicitly trust him. So, and in a far higher degree, if we really love God we cannot but believe in Him. True it is that the actions of our friends often perplex us, and even distress, but for all that we do not lose our love for them, and if our love be a rightly founded love, we do not lose our confidence in them. So must it be with God and us, our love and trust in Him must be so implicit and so unquestioning, that we must be ready with Job to say, “ Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” It is just the want of this child-like trustful faith which makes us suspicious about our fellow-men, and which, at the same time, makes us cold and incredulous, or unbelieving in our religion. On the one hand we are always afraid of being imposed upon or unduly influenced, on the other we are afraid of believing too much, and so we are apt to be reserved, to hold back coldly, not only from our fellow-men, but from God. Limits, and rightly there must be somewhere, but to believe too much is always safer than to believe too little: and probably to be imposed upon many times is safer and more charitable than to hold back once when we ought to go forward. (J. B. Wilkinson, M.A.)The faith of love I. Operates in manifold directions.1. There is a sense in which it finds exercise towards God. The heart that loves God is not tormented with the mysteries of His Providence. The lips of love say, “ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” In the midst of inscrutable events in individual or national life, the filial child of God “ believeth all things” about His wisdom and love. 2. It finds frequent exercise in relation to the imperfections of friendship. Often in social life there is need for the best construction to be put upon some word or some action. Love so believes in the beloved that it eagerly puts that construction. 3. It finds exercise in relation to mankind generally. With the true “ enthusiasm of humanity,” its views of men, its interpretations of men are inspired by a faith it is very unwilling to forego. And thus, as long and as far as possible, it “ believeth all things.” II. Is an unspeakable gain to men. For who cannot see that to have--1. Unbroken repose in God’ s government.2. Ungrudging trust in friendship, and--3. Unfaltering belief in humanity, exerts the highest influences on-- (1) Piety.(2) Philanthropy? (U. R. Thomas.)All the graces of Christianity connected I. The manner in which they are connected.1. They always go together. Where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting. 2. They depend upon one another. One cannot be without the others. To deny one would in effect be to deny another, and so all. 3. They are, in some respects, implied one in another. Thus, e.g., humility is implied in faith, etc. II. Some reasons of their being thus connected and dependent.1. They are all from the same source (1 Corinthians 12:4; 1 Corinthians 12:6). 2. They are all communicated in the same work of the Spirit, namely, conversion. There is not one conversion of the soul to faith, and another conversion to love, etc. 3. That they all have the same root and foundation, namely, the knowledge of God’ s excellence (Psalms 9:10; 1 John 3:6; 1 John 4:7). 4. That they all have the same rule, namely, the law of God (James 2:10-11). 5. They have the same end, viz., God. 6. They are alike related to one and the same grace, namely, charity, or Divine love, as the sum of them all. Conclusion:1. The subject may aid us to understand in what sense old things are said to be done away, and all things become new, in conversion (2 Corinthians 5:17). A true convert, the moment he is converted, is possessed not of one or two, but of all holy principles, and all gracious dispositions. 2. Hence, also, they that hope they have grace in their hearts may try one grace by another; for all graces go together. If persons think they have faith, they should inquire whether their faith was accompanied with repentance, etc. And so persons should examine their love by their faith. (Jon. Edwards.)Charity hopeth all things I. The limitation. We must tie our hope to God’ s promise, and limit one duty by another, our hope by our prayers. What God commands me to pray for, what He hath promised to give, may raise my hope, Some things there are which are not to be numbered “ amongst this all.” Some things are “ as good as nothing” ; and my estate may be bettered in being without them. Some things are worse than nothing; and my estate will be far worse if I have them. Some things are “ indifferent,” neither good nor evil; and a bare “ if” may make it either good or evil to hope for them. Some things are evil “ in their own nature,” and a great sin it is to hope for these. Some things appear evil to us, viz., affliction, poverty, disgrace: and these I am so far from hoping for, as that I may pray against them. II. The extension.1. All good things. For, to wait for the twilight with the adulterer; to catch at all opportunities which may be as steps to bring to the pinnacle of honour; to have “ our eyes still watching upon the prey,” is not hope, but lust, or ambition, or covetousness. 2. Future, absent goods; goods at a distance. For when the object is present, hope is no more. Charity “ is patient” (verse 4), draws in its breath, as it were, and stayeth, and defers, and prolongs itself (Romans 8:25). 3. Matters of difficulty. For hope loves to struggle with its object, and sometimes is increased by opposition, and made bolder by being frighted. But if the object be “ at hand and cheap,” my hope is lazy and asleep; “ hope above hope, hope against hope” (Romans 4:18), that, is hope indeed. The way of hope is hard and rugged. She passeth by the pomp of the world, and she treadeth dangerous paths. If a serpent be in the way, she feareth not; if a flower, some pleasing object, she gazeth not; but presses on forward, over riches and poverty, over honour and disgrace, over all relations and dependencies, and striveth forward to her object. 4. Good things, though hard to obtain, yet “ possible.” For charity is not foolish and indiscreet: it ploughs not, the air, nor sows upon the rocks. What is easy and at hand cannot raise a hope and what is impossible overwhelms and swallows it. What is ready to fall into my bosom, I need not hope for: and what I cannot have doth scarce produce a wish, much less beget a hope. (A. Farindon, D.D.)Charity hopeth all things Suppose the matter is investigated. What will charity do now? She “ hopeth all things.” May not some palliation be found which will relieve the case of its darker features? First appearances are often deceptive, circumstantial evidence is frequently fallacious, and even direct testimony cannot always be relied upon; and charity hopes that, though many things now look suspicious, some future discovery or explanation will make the innocence of the accused perfectly clear to all. People often form an unfavourable opinion of others from some error of their own, or from an ex-parte statement by a third person; and charity hopes that, when the other side comes to be heard, the opposing testimony may be sufficient to obliterate the false or passing impression already thus produced. Some speakers are always using superlatives; and charity hopes that the affair, having passed from tongue to tongue, a little embellished or exaggerated by every repetition, will be found less flagrant than at first represented. The world is largely given to lying, and defamation is one of the most prevalent vices of society, and envious tongues can never rest till they have blasted some overshadowing reputation or checked the career of some ambitious rival; and charity hopes that the allegation may turn out in the end to be altogether groundless, the despicable work of one of those depraved souls who are always trying to put out another’ s light that their own may shine the brighter. Wrong-doing sometimes originates in ignorance or infirmity, in misinformation or misjudgment, where there is no evil motive, where the intention is even friendly and benevolent; and charity hopes that, while the deed itself wears a questionable aspect, it may yet be made to appear that the error was more in the head than in the heart, that it was rather an involuntary mistake than an intentional wrong, and that better information in the future will prevent its repetition. The sinner is not always incorrigible, the worst offenders have occasionally been reformed, and no one ought to be delivered over to Satan for the first or second delinquency; and charity hopes that, if the accused is really guilty, and guilty to the full extent of the finding, he is not yet quite past all power of recovery, but may by proper means be brought to repentance and plucked as a brand from the burning. In short, amidst all that is unfavourable and discouraging, charity hopes on, hopes ever; unwilling to abandon her efforts in behalf of the beloved delinquent, still pursuing him with prayers and tears and tender remonstrances. Who has not seen the Christian mother patiently bearing With the irregularities of a wild and wayward son, hoping to reclaim him from his wicked ways, even when all others have given him up in despair? Who has not seen the meek and long-suffering wife, after years of cruel annoyance and guilty provocation, planning, toiling, watching, night and day, in hope of recovering a debauched and abandoned husband out of the snare of evil habit and vicious companionship, and raising him up from his moral degradation to the dignity of a virtuous and sober life? (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity hopes for others As we build up ourselves, so must we edify others also, “ in our most holy faith” ; and as we hope for all things for ourselves, so must we reserve a hope for those also who are tied in the same link and bond of love. When we see a house tottering, we must not make our censure a wind to blow it down; but hope that even a broken beam, a loose rafter, nay, the very rubbish itself, may in time be made a sound part of the building. When I see my brother fall, I must lend him my hand to help him up. If my hand will not help him, I must lend him my pity and compassion and prayer. And when all the rest fail, I must give him my hope. Charity hath an eye abroad as well as at home; nor doth she nurse up hope for herself alone, but makes it as catholic as the Church, nay, as the world. Saith Cicero, “ Hope lasteth as long as life lasteth, nor can it expire but with the soul.” And bow desperately soever we see our brother plunged in sin, yet we must hope well that his sickness is not unto death. And indeed why should we not hope well of every man, suppose he were a Judas, and by our Christian industry strive to recover his drooping soul, and to revive the flame of charity in his breast, which may warm him into a temperate hope? How know we but that the word of God through our ministry may of this stone raise up a child unto Abraham? Let our weak brother be “ lame hand and foot,” sick in head and heart; yet as long as there is life in him, our charity must visit him, and our hope make us active to his recovery; otherwise, like unskilful physicians, we shall suffer him to die under our hands, and then pretend his disease was incurable. The priest and the Levite, who saw the man wounded on the way, and passed by on the other side, are not proposed as patterns of our imitation, but the Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35). How sinful soever a man be, yet if he come behind, and but touch the hem of Christ’ s garment, the grace of God may cure him. Nay, were he dead in sin, who knows what God may do? (A. Farindon, D.D.)The hopefulness of love This quality of love follows as a consequence from the last-named element, viz., “ faith.” While this hopefulfulness is again a source of the next quality--endurance. The hopefulness of love. I. Is attested by 1. Its nature. For love will not let go any ground for expecting the best things concerning the admired, or for anticipating the best things concerning even the pitied. Unwilling to forebode ill, it is sanguine ever of good. 2. Its history. Love is always known to be declining when it is unhopeful. The infinite love is the God of hope. II. Gives life and beauty to love. Whilst love is a source of hope, hope again feeds the lamp of love. It suggests the better explanation of what seems mysterious in human or in Divine procedure, and thus it endows love with an eye that never grows dim. (U. R. Thomas.)Charity endureth all things Like the storks of Delft that when the city was burning, having vainly tried, to carry off their callow young, resolutely remained and perished in the effort to protect them, charity first exhausts all her energies in the service of miserable man, and then sacrifices herself for those she could not save. Rather, like the Roman soldier who kept his place at the Herculanean Gate of Pompeii till the fiery storm entombed him where he stood, she maintains her position to the last, and will be found erect in full armour at her post when the world’ s catastrophe shall fall. As J. A. James says, “ Her energies increase with the difficulty that requires them,” says the writer just quoted; “ and, like a well-constructed arch, she becomes firmer by what she has to sustain.” Charity is not a spark falling into the ocean, nor a snowflake descending into the voice, no; but a mass of gold cast into the furnace, and surviving the flame by which it is purified. Unchanged and unchangeable as her Lord, charity is superior to all adversity, to all hostility, to all the powers of earth and hell. Censures, slanders, curses, threatenings, cannot daunt her heroic spirit; nor losses, exiles, prisons, scourges, crosses, wear out her energies. She lies calm among the lions, and walks unharmed in flames. She smiles at the inquisitor’ s engine, and triumphs at the martyr’ s stake. Wearing her fetters more proudly than royal lady ever wore her jewels, and glorying in her wreath of thorns more than oriental princes in their diadems, she lives on through a thousand tribulations, invincible to the last hour of life, exulting in the last agony of death, and serenely falling asleep on the bosom of her Beloved, to awake satisfied with His likeness in the glory of immortality. (J. Cross, D.D.)The endurance of love Though not wholly dissimilar from the virtue described in the word “ beareth,” which suggested to us the tolerance of love, the characteristic here asserted is not precisely the same. This indicates the force of love to sustain quietly and to survive all persecutions and distresses inflicted by others. Indeed, our word “ endure” embodies the thought very completely. I. Love has to endure much This is strange, but it is true. Love is not requited with love, but often with misunderstanding and even with hatred. Error hates truth, selfishness hates love. Christ’ s biography supplies the climax of the proof of this. But all loving bears witness to the same experience. Does not God endure much? II. Love is able to endure much. The distresses and persecutions that seem to have force enough in them to blast and burn out all they oppose, have been again and again as harmless to love as the fiery furnace to the three Hebrew youths. Fierce fire cannot consume it; many waters cannot quench it. (U. R. Thomas.) 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 Charity never faileth;… prophecies shall fail;… tongues shall cease;… knowledge shall vanish away. Charity never faileth I. As the living principle in the heart of believers. In its essence it is the love of God within a man. It may vary indeed in its apparent intensity. It may seem almost extinguished; but, like the fire on the altar of sacrifice, it still exists, and is soon fanned up again into a flame when Jesus smiles. “ Of itself,” says Poole, “ it will never desert a man in this life, unless it be first deserted by him through deadly sin.” II. As an active grace of the Christian life on earth.1. View it in any of its manifestations. (1) Beneficence and self-denying liberality--“ the poor ye have always with you” ; and a claim ever arises from these. (2) Forgiveness of injuries, while these abound--and so long as human nature is what it is they will abound--every day affords occasions in which it is called for. (3) Kindness and forbearance to the faults and failings of others: in the present imperfect state such must ever be expected. 2. Nor less than this is it adapted to all circumstances and situations of life: to the poor and the rich, etc. There is no position in which the believer can possibly be found in which charity will not be an ornament and a delight. It will add glory to, and preserve the soul from, the dangers of the day of prosperity; and it will equally cheer it in the day of adversity. 3. It is adapted to every period of time, to the hour of death, to the day of judgment, yea, to heaven itself. 4. And so, in a more extended sense, and as regards the condition of the Church, no less than in individual cases. It is adapted to times of persecution and to times of peace; when the world frowns or when the world smiles. Charity is the best preservative against, as it is the only cure for, those petty jealousies which equally disgrace the Church and dishonour God. III. In supplying motives to exertion in the Redeemer’ s cause. In its comprehensiveness, it takes in the entire race, and aims at no lower object than to “ make known His ways upon earth; His saving health among all nations.” IV. As to the durability of its existence. It will last for ever, and live in heaven, as the life of glory there. Death cannot annihilate it. “ Love is heaven, and heaven is love.” To have it, therefore, now is to possess the foretaste of eternal joys. (J. T. Smith, M.A.)Charity never faileth Observe-- I. How gifts fail.1. Prophecy must be accomplished.2. Tongues superseded.3. Knowledge vanish before a brighter manifestation. II. How love never fails.1. Its work is never done.2. Its necessity can never be superseded.3. Its expression may be perfected, but in heaven as on earth its nature is the same. III. The inference.1. Love is better than gifts.2. Should be more earnestly desired. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Charity never faileth I. As a gift.1. The apostle had been speaking of temporary gifts. Supernatural endowments were granted to the Church for a season only. The apostle intimates that there is a gift of richer value, and that the time would come when these would be bestowed no longer, and when that only would remain. 2. What a catastrophe would it be were it to become extinct! But it cannot fail. So wide a channel was made for it by the mission of the Son of God, that to stop its onward flow were as impossible as to prevent the rolling of the ocean’ s waves. Love as it dwells in the believer’ s breast is only a reflection of the love of the Creator. Hence it is a gift which never fails. 3. The gift of charity will never fail on earth, how then is it possible that it should fail in heaven? The period will arrive when not only miracles will cease, but even the ordinary means for the edification of the Church. But love will even then abide. Upon the blessed inhabitant of the upper sanctuary it will stream in richest plenitude, direct from the eternal throne. II. An active virtue.1. It is a gift, but it is a gift to be employed, and on its exercise depends its value. Nor does it ever fail in this respect. It is ever seeking to do good, and to pour its gifts and blessings on the hapless sons of man. (1) Its pity never fails. Wherever it beholds an object of distress, its efforts are put forth to give relief. (2) Its liberality never fails. It is like an angel of mercy, which is never wearied with conferring favours, and never says you ask too much. (3) Its ingenuities never fail. It is ever occupied in forming schemes to carry out its generous designs. Spurious or defective charity may fail, but true charity will never fail. 2. Look again into the eternal world. How active is the principle of love among the hosts of heaven! On earth, love is more or less mixed up with other things; in heaven it will be free from all defect. The family will be one. They will have one common interest. Each will contribute to the happiness of all. Jealousies will not be there. No envious feelings can be there indulged. III. A source of pure and elevated enjoyment. What is so constant as the joy that springs from the activities of benevolence? Man’ s happiness will ever be increased in proportion to the largeness of his soul. When other springs of pleasure are dried up, this will continue to flow in copious and refreshing streams. In heaven, our Father’ s house, love will be more pure, more elevated, and more fervent; and hence it will be there, as it is on earth, but in a far higher measure, the source of never-ending satisfaction and delight. (Thornley Smith.)Charity never faileth It is a noble plant, full of vigorous life, that allows insects and reptiles to feed upon its bark and leaves, but grows on in silence and rears its head in beauty and majesty, and throws out its branches on all sides to the wind and the light, bright and fragrant with bloom and bending with abundant fruit. (J. A. James.)Love never fails I. As an evidence of pardon (Luke 7:47). The woman who was a sinner loved much because she had much forgiven. To whom little is forgiven the same loveth little. II. As an element of acceptable obedience (1 Corinthians 13:3). The acts of the unconverted are not considered by God. There is but meagre satisfaction in this passage for the moralist. Without love to Jesus our best deeds do not avail before God (Matthew 25:40). Doing for the brethren is doing for Jesus. An act of kindness or deed of love done for a child, far away from home and in need of sympathy and care, is regarded by the parent as a favour done to him. The mother is better pleased than if the deed of love had been done unto her. III. As an element of acceptable service (Revelation 2:4-5). The Church at Ephesus had left her first love; therefore the service she rendered was not pleasing to God. She must do her first works, which were seasoned with love, and cease to perform her duties mechanically in order that her efforts might be acceptable to God (1 Corinthians 13:1-2). Love is also the power-element of service. IV. As a sin resisting power (John 14:15). Love to Jesus produces righteousness. It enables us to keep the commandments, and is therefore a sin-resisting power (John 14:21). V. As an aggressive power (2 Corinthians 5:14). The constraining love of Jesus made Paul the aggressive man he was. VI. As a sustaining power (John 21:17). Peter repented, because he had in him the germ of true love for Jesus, and was sustained. Judas repented from remorse, and ultimately destroyed himself. Love to Jesus sustained Polycarp, Stephen, Latimer, Ridley, the martyrs, and the persecuted in all ages. VII. In producing confession (John 12:42-43). When men love position and power and the praise of men more than Christ they will not confess Him. When men love Jesus supremely they are swift to confess Him as Lord and Saviour (Romans 10:10). VIII. As a preparation for heaven (1 Corinthians 16:22). Without love to Christ no one is meet for heaven, but is devoted to destruction. The wrath of God abideth on him. (Hom. Review.)The immortality of love It will never fail as-- I. An element of moral power. It is the strongest--1. Sustaining power. 2. Resisting power. Love builds around the soul a rampart, invulnerable. 3. Aggressive power. We have not only to bear up under trials, and to resist temptations, but we have battles to fight. There is nothing so aggressive in the moral world as love. Man can stand before anything sooner than love. II. A principle of social unity. Deep in the heart of man is the desire for union with his fellow, isolation and division are naturally repugnant to his social nature. His ingenuity has been taxed for ages in the invention of schemes for union. As the result we have confederations based on political sympathy, material interests, theological dogmas, mere carnal affinities; but we are only one with those we love. But we can only love the lovable. III. A source of spiritual happiness. Love is joy.1. It expels from the mind all the elements unfavourable to happiness. 2. It generates in the mind all the elements of spiritual joy. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The imperishableness of love Either of the two explanations of this word “ faileth,” viz., “ falls down,” or is “ hissed off the stage,” conveys the same impression concerning love, namely, that it is permanent, it will never “ fall down” from inanition, nor be “ hissed off” because superseded. All the beauties of love, unlike those of face or landscape, are permanent. The imperishableness of love-- I. Is indicated by its capacity of meeting all demands made upon it.1. This is the conclusion from the previous assertions of this passage. 2. This is the result of our observation of every-day life. True levels equal to any exigency. It survives all else. II. Is a striking contrast to almost all else in human experience.1. This is the declaration of the passage following our text. All else “ ceases,” “ vanishes,” is “ done away.” 2. This is confirmed by human experience. Love is the great protest of our immortality. III. Is explained by its being divine not only in its origin and sustenance, but in its nature. Love is of God, and God’ s love never faileth, “ His mercy endureth for ever.” Ours is not an imitation of His, but an inspiration from it. His love is the life of ours. Hence ours is deathless. (U. R. Thomas.)Charity unfailing and everlasting Immortality is the crown of virtue. Riches perish, laurels wither, beauty fades, the fires of genius burn out, and the proudest monuments crumble. Even in Christianity there are many things which are only of temporary utility. Already all that splendid array of miraculous powers that distinguished the Apostolic Church is numbered with the things that were. For these were only the instruments and auxiliaries of that Divine system of which charity is the vital principle. These were only the temporary scaffolds of that spiritual temple of which charity is the precious material. We may change many of our opinions and practicers, and yet be Christians. But this great central principle of our religion cannot be sacrificed, without the subversion of Christ’ s throne on earth. It was proverbially the spirit of the first believers, and will be equally the temper of the last. (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity towards the dead The Duke of Marlborough and Lord Bolingbroke were in opposite political interests, and on most occasions ranged against each other. Some gentleman, after the death of the great commander, speaking of his character and avarice, appealed to Bolingbroke for confirmation. To his honor, he replied, “ The Duke of Marlborough was so great a man that I quite forget his failings.” (W. Baxendale.)The Holy Spirit for ever I. The Spirit of Christ is given to His people everlastingly, to influence and dwell in them (John 14:16-17). II. There are other fruits of the Spirit besides that which summarily consists in love, wherein the Spirit of God is communicated to His Church.1. Extraordinary gifts, miracles, inspiration, etc. 2. Ordinary gifts. These, in all ages, have more or less been bestowed on many unconverted men, in common convictions of sin, common illuminations, and religious affections. III. All these other fruits of the Spirit are but for a season, and either have already ceased, or at some time will cease. As to the miraculous gifts, they are but of a temporary use, and cannot be continued in heaven. And as to the common fruits of the Spirit, with respect to the persons that have them, they will cease when they come to die; and with respect to the Church, they wil1 cease after the day of judgment. IV. Love is that great fruit of the Spirit that never fails. Consider the Church--1. With respect to its members, as-- (1) It never fails in this world (Romans 8:38-39). (2) And it ceases not when the saints come to die. When the apostles went to heaven, they left all their miraculous gifts behind. But they carried love with them to heaven, where it was perfected. 2. As a body. Though other fruits of the Spirit fail in it, this shall never fail. Of old, when there were interruptions of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit there never was any interruption of this. And at the end of the world when the Church shall be settled in its eternal state, and all common and miraculous gifts shall be at an end, love shall be brought to its most glorious perfection in every individual member of the ransomed Church above. V. This reason for the truth of the doctrine which has thus been presented, viz., that love is the great end of all the other fruits and gifts of the Spirit. It is the end to which all the miraculous gifts that ever were in the world, are but the means. They were only means of grace, but love is grace itself; and not only so, but the sum of all grace. Application:1. There seems to be no reason to think that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are to be restored to the Church in the times of her latter-day prosperity and blessedness. Prophecy and miracles argue the imperfection of the state of the Church, rather than its perfection. For they are designed as a support, or as a leading-string, to the Church in its infancy, rather than as means adapted to it in its full growth. And then again that state will not be more glorious than the heavenly state; and yet the apostle teaches, that in the heavenly state all these gifts shall be at an end, and the influence of the Spirit in producing Divine love only shall remain. 2. The subject should make persons exceedingly cautious how they give heed to anything that may look like a new revelation, or that may claim to be any extraordinary gift of the Spirit. 3. The subject teaches how greatly we should value those influences and fruits of the Spirit which are evidences of true grace in the soul, and which are all summarily included in love. (Jon. Edwards.)Heaven, a world of love I. The cause and fountain of love in heaven.--The God of love Himself dwells there, and this renders heaven a world of love; for God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light. II. The objects of love that it contains.1. There are none but lovely objects in heaven (Revelation 21:27). All the persons that belong to the blessed society of heaven are lovely. The Father of the family is lovely, and so are all His children. There are no false professors or hypocrites there. 2. They shall be perfectly lovely. There are many things in this world that in the general are lovely, but yet are not perfectly free from that which is the contrary. 3. All those objects that the saints have loved above all things here while in this world shall be in heaven. III. The subjects of love in heaven. And these are the hearts in which it dwells. In every heart in heaven love dwells and reigns. The heart of God is the original seat or subject of love. The love of God the Father flows out toward Christ the head, and to all the members through Him. And the light of their love is reflected in the first place, and chiefly back to its great source. There is no enemy of God in heaven; but all, as His children, love Him as their Father. IV. The principle of love in heaven.1. As to its nature. It is altogether holy and Divine. 2. As to its degree. It is perfect. The love that dwells in the heart of God is absolutely perfect. The love of angels and saints to God and Christ is perfect in its kind, or with such a perfection as is proper to their nature. It is perfect with a sinless perfection, and perfect in that it is commensurate to the capacities of their nature. V. The excellent circumstances in which love shall be expressed and enjoyed in heaven.1. It is always mutual. It is always met with answerable returns of love--with returns proportioned to its exercise. 2. Its joy shall never be interrupted or damped by jealousy. 3. There shall be nothing within themselves to clog or hinder it in the saints. In this world they find much to hinder them in this respect. 4. It will be expressed with perfect decency and wisdom. 5. There shall be nothing to keep us at a distance from each other, or to hinder our most perfect enjoyment of each other’ s love. 6. We shall all he united in very near and dear relations. 7. All shall have property and ownership in each other. Love seeks to have the beloved its own; and Divine love rejoices in saying, “ My beloved is mine, and I am his.” 8. We shall enjoy each other’ s love in perfect and uninterrupted prosperity. 9. All things shall conspire to promote our love, and give advantage for mutual enjoyment. 10. We shall know that we shall for ever be continued in the perfect enjoyment of each other’ s love. VI. The blessed effects and fruits of this love, as exercised and enjoyed in these circumstances.1. The most excellent and perfect behaviour of all the inhabitants of heaven toward God and each other. 2. Perfect tranquillity and joy. Conclusion:1. If heaven be such a world as has been described, then we may see reason why contention and strife tend to darken our evidence of fitness for its possession. 2. How happy those are who are entitled to heaven! But here some may be ready to say, “ Without doubt; but who are these persons? By what marks may they be distinguished?” (1) They are those that have had the principle or seed of the same love that reigns in heaven implanted in their hearts in regeneration. (2). They are those who have freely chosen the happiness that flows from the exercise and enjoyment of such love as is in heaven, above all other conceivable happiness. (3) They are those who, from the love that is in them, are, in heart and life, in principle and practice, struggling after holiness. 3. What has been said on this subject may well awaken and alarm the impenitent. (1) By putting them in mind of their misery, in that they have no portion or right in this world of love (Revelation 22:15). (2) By showing that they are in danger of hell, which is a world of hatred. (J. Edwards.)Transitiveness of gifts All our present knowledge is limited in its range, defective in its evidence, incomplete in its nomenclature, and inadequate in its current media of communication; and these must be exchanged for clearer conceptions, ampler comprehensions, fuller demonstrations, better forms of expression, and easier methods of acquisition; and that which we value ourselves so much for possessing will vanish away in the superior revelations of eternity, as vanish the stars in the light of the rising sun. The practical sciences, the mechanic and aesthetic arts, and the teeming literature of the world--what will be their utility in the glorious life to come? If they were not necessary to man in the innocence of Eden, how can they be necessary to him in his “ paradise regained” ? What need of your agricultural, horticultural, and botanical systems, when the earth is restored to its original fertility, adorned with flowers that never fade, and fruits that never fail, among which wander all animals in the perfection of their strength and beauty? What demand for your theories of political economy, and the science of government, when God shall set His own King upon His holy hill of Zion? What call for architectural skill, and the arts of the sculptor and the painter--of the lapidary, the jeweller, and the chemist--amid the perfect forms and faultless hues of the New Jerusalem? How shall your lame and limping poetry and your feeble and faltering music presume to lift a note or strike a string amid the joyous minstrelsy of the redeemed and the unfallen, rolling forth as the sound of many waters and mighty thunderings? And what work shall be found for the legal profession where all: obey the royal law of love? and what service for the medical faculty where the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick? And what use will there be for their geographical and astronomical books--your maps of the earth and charts of the sky--when men shall be as angels, with glorious spiritual bodies, quick as the light and discursive as thought? And how shall the historian and the philologist employ their ample lore, when the confluent streams of history are lost in the ocean of eternity, and all the languages and dialects of the babbling earth have given place to the one tongue of the universal kingdom? And the author and the orator--what will they do when there is no more error to be corrected nor vice to overcome--when truth requires no farther apology and virtue no further vindication? And the statesman and the warrior--where shall their vocation be when all power and authority are given to the glorified Son of man--when nation shall never again lift up sword against nation, but “ the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever” ? And the preacher, the theologian, and the critical commentator--what shall become of their functions when “ the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He shall dwell among them” --when “ the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the world as the waters cover the sea” --when “ all shall know Him from the least even unto the greatest” ? And all your schools, colleges, universities, what place will be found for these in the original fatherland and everlasting dwelling of truth? Yea, and the very Bible; what is it but a primer for children, an elementary treatise for those who have just entered their novitiate and begun their studies for eternity, to be laid aside when we graduate into the higher spheres of intellectual and moral perfection? (J. Cross, D.D.)Charity enduring: gifts transient Observe-- I. Gifts are temporary.1. Imperfect in their nature.2. Adapted to an imperfect state.3. Must consequently pass away. II. Love is eternal.1. In its own nature.2. Is the end of all gifts.3. Must endure in a perfect state of being. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Charity abiding: gifts transient When Eliot the missionary to the Indians was an old man, his energy never sustained the slightest abatement, but, on the contrary, evinced a steady and vigorous increase. As his bodily strength decayed, the energy of his being seemed to retreat into his soul, and at length all his faculties seemed absorbed in holy love. Being asked shortly before his departure how he did, he replied, “ I have lost everything; my understanding leaves me, my utterance fails me, my memory fails me; but I thank God my charity holds out still; and I find that it rather grows than fails.” (J. H. Hinton.)Knowledge vanisheth away In my time in the University of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. The other day, just before I left Scotland, his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was this: “ Take every book that is more than ten years old and put it down in the cellar.” Knowledge has vanished away. Sir James Simpson was a great authority ten years ago--twelve years ago; men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and the whole knowledge of that day, within that short period, is now consigned by the science of to-day to the cellar. How true are the words of Paul: “ We know in part, and we prophesy in part” ! (Prof. Henry Drummond.)The vanishing gnosis How can knowledge ever vanish away? As long as there are sentient beings in the universe, so long must there needs remain the objects of the emotional faculty; as long as there are intelligent beings, so long must the objects of the intellectual faculties survive. The imperfect knowledge of yesterday may become less imperfect to-day, and may approximate to fulness of knowledge to-morrow. Unless we can conceive of a life--the higher life--without consciousness and intelligence, we cannot conceive how there should ever come a time, or ever exist conditions, when (for personal beings whose personality is not annihilated) knowledge should ever vanish away. Of all men that ever lived the apostle was the last man who would have put forth so dreary a view of the future state as his words at first sight seem to indicate. To him the blessedness of the life beyond the veil was supremely desirable, because in the spiritual world darkness and error would vanish, not light and knowledge. Who is content with the utmost range of knowledge attainable by creatures such as we? Who would care for a life where the yearning to know would find itself without an object? But how if this word γνῶσις, which our translators have rendered by the word knowledge, connote an idea which its English representative fails to convey? How if the γνῶσις of the apostle has proved untranslateable because we have never seriously studied its history, and so have failed to grasp its meaning? What then? Then may not a more careful scrutiny get rid of the difficulty which the passage as it stands represents? Nay! May not that passage contain the enunciation of a great law which the Church of Christ, by losing sight of, would be sure to suffer serious damage? Now it would be unadvisable to attempt anything like an exhaustive examination of the use of this word by St, Paul, or of the meaning it may be found to bear in the several passages in which it occurs. This much, however, is apparent to any careful reader of the Epistles, that the word γνῶσις was a term which was very familiar to St. Paul’ s readers, and that it was an ambiguous term of whose ambiguity the apostle on occasion did not disdain to avail himself. He speaks of a γνῶσις which is none other than the beatific vision which the saints of God have dreamt of, and which is the object of their loftiest hopes. But he speaks of a γνῶσις, too, which does not deserve to be called such. He speaks of a γνῶσις which will admit of no addition and no imperfection in its fruition, and of a γνῶσις which is by no means inseparable from the notion of childish dependence, of defective methods in arriving at it, even of a certain measure of empiricism. Nor is this all; it becomes evident on further examination that this ambiguous term was used at times to connote not merely intellectual apprehension, but a formulated summary of conclusions arrived at, the result of speculations which, when thus formulated, the intellectual faculty was required to accept as an authoritative setting forth of truth. In other words, this γνῶσις was a summary of dogmatic teaching which might be imperfect in its statements and yet serve a worthy purpose, though essentially limited in its view, and intended only as a step in the right road; or it might be not only imperfect but dangerous, delusive and mischievous, because it expressed conclusions arrived at from assumptions which were mere dreams, and so would necessarily be a γνῶσις falsely so called. In the one case it might be a Christian γνῶσις, which was good as far as it went. In the other case it was a competitive γνῶσις which its supporters set up as antagonistic to any expression of Christian belief, a summary of theosophic or mystical dogma with no real basis of truth on which to stand. Yet of both one and the other, the first being partial and so inadequate, the second being erroneous and so having no real vitality, the apostle says--“ As for knowledge it shall vanish away.” But is not this the great law abundantly observable in the history of all science in its various branches? Is it not the fact that in the department of pure mathematics the science of algebra slumbered for centuries, and when the awakened intellect of men resumed inquiries which for ages had been laid aside, the new discoveries or the new methods compelled the new thinkers to use new formulae, such new formlae being necessitated by established facts on the one hand and becoming the very conditions of progress in the apprehension of truth on the other? The dogma of yesterday had served its purpose, it expressed elementary truths which the childhood of the human mind had arrived at, but that which seemed final yesterday became antiquated or rudimentary to-day. When men are brought face to face with new truths, or with new aspects of truth, or compelled to investigate truth from a new standpoint, that moment they are compelled to resort to new expressions, to adopt new formulae, that is, to enunciate new dogmas, the old knowledge is in process of vanishing away. But truth is one thing, dogma is another. The formulae may suffer change, but the truth formulated changes not. But here it may be suggested that a distinction must be made between such truths as are formulated in theological dogmas, and those which are arrived at by the methods employed in the exact sciences. In fact so loose is our language and so vague is our vocabulary when we approach the discussion of questions in which our religious convictions and sentiments are supposed to be concerned, that nothing is more common than the assumption expressed or implied that scientific truth and what people call Divine truth are in some mysterious way moving as it were in different orbits, in different planes, and that what holds good of the one does not at all hold good of the other. What! Is not all truth Divine--all or none? Yes, and is not all truth a truth of science--all or none?--truth, that is, which is once formulated with sufficient precision for the logical faculty to exercise itself upon, however much or however little the higher reason may have helped us to embrace it before we had learnt to express it in scientific terms? It is in vain to attempt to evade the question which is being more and more rudely forced upon us. The question, Is there such a science as theology? science based upon axioms which are indisputable, requiring postulates which are reasonable, pursuing its inquiries according to strictly logical methods, engaged upon the investigation of facts and their correlation, weighing the significance of conflicting testimony, and fearlessly hailing the discovery of any new law? Is it a science whereby our race may hope to advance to the apprehension of some eternal truths? a science not one whit the less a science because it has a domain of its own? If not, it is hardly worth our while to trouble ourselves about it. Though even then observe, that the facts of the spiritual life remain. On the other hand, if it be a science, no matter in what stage it may at any moment be said to be, then assuredly it is only what we should expect, that this same story which history has to tell of other sciences should be found to be true of this one also. And that is exactly what we do find. Take whatever science you please, music, medicine, astronomy, and what is more certain than that that science has arrived at a certain point and then has ceased to be studied by competent students, and its further advance been arrested for centuries; the dogmas of such science, formulated a thousand years ago, being accepted as absolutely true, and assumed to have something like finality. For ages astronomers assumed that the sun moved round the earth--that was at any rate a dogma about which there could not conceivably be any dispute--a dogma above all others which could claim for itself catholicity, and stood alone as answering the most rigid conditions of catholicity. For ages the formulated science of architecture helped men to raise up to heaven those stupendous structures which are likely to last as the wonder and envy of mankind as long as the race lasts. And yet into that formulated science the very conception of the properties of the arch never entered. What appear to us the elementary truths of the science had no place in the early dogmas of architecture. In all these instances we are met by the historic fact that every science which deserves to be called such has had, must have, its periods of growth and rapid development, and its periods of torpor and repose. Men have grown weary or despairing of solving certain great problems, and have thrown them aside to deal with others. Then the tide has turned, and they have gone back with fresh enthusiasm and reawakened curiosity to the old difficulties, prepared themselves to attack them, perhaps from new points of view, perhaps according to new methods. And then new discoveries have been made, sometimes the results of patient years of research, sometimes by a flash of what we call genius, and sometimes they had been forced upon those who, by earnest toil and seriousness of aim and greatness of purpose, have put themselves into the attitude or receiving new truths and qualified themselves for expressing those truths in formulae which were necessary expansions of the development from previous dogmas. The time had come for the old γνῶσις to vanish away! And now another question comes to us. Granted that theology too is a science. In what stage may we venture to say that we find it now? The more we reflect upon it the more do we find ourselves compelled to acknowledge that theology, as a science, is, and has been for long, in a condition of torpor; it is, as it were, taking its repose, it has gone to sleep. But if theology as a science may be said to be asleep, even though it be exhibiting no signs or evidence of awakening activity, slumber is not death, it need not even imply exhaustion; it may be only heathful repose before the dawning of a new day. Even though they would persuade you that the old theology has received its quietus and the old dogmas are moribund or dead, be not afraid. It is the great law that every γνῶσις when it has served its purpose must vanish away, but only to be replaced by another γνῶσις which shall be grander and larger and more profound than that which we possess. Be not afraid to say the theology of the fourth century may not have been the theology of the second, nor the theology of the sixteenth century the theology of the twelfth, and peradventure the theology of the twentieth century may be very, very different in its dogmas and its formulae from anything that we can conceive of now. This science, too, may find another Copernicus to whom God may grant strange revelations, revelations, or if you dislike the word, discoveries, such as come to the holy and humble men of heart, guileless and true, such revelations as may perforce necessitate revolutions in our methods of investigation, in the terminology we employ, in the calculus which may be placed at our disposal. At least assure yourselves that imperfect light is better than darkness, and cloudland a better region to live in than chaos. (A. Jessopp, M.A.)We know in part The illuminated page of nature, on which God has written so many disclosures of His power and love--how small a portion of its wonders is man yet able to understand! Look at the tree which rises before your window, and shields you from the summer sun. You are familiar with its form, its foliage, and its flowers. But can you tell what is going on within it? Can you explain how it is, that, when the winds of autumn are singing their vesper hymn, the tree listens to their warning--how it forms and folds its leaves and blossoms, to have them ready for another spring? No. In the history of the simplest things in the vegetable and animal world there is much that man does not and cannot understand. Come, then, to our knowledge of human nature itself--how imperfect it is! how many new pages are opened from time to time which fill us with wonder and dismay! Perhaps you are able to tell how men will feel and act under the common circumstances of life; but who can tell the measure of the soul, or how deep and far man’ s powers and passions, in their wild energy, can go? We can understand benevolence in its common measure, when it gives what it does not want to others; but can we comprehend that love which warms and fills the martyr’ s heart? Passing finally to the knowledge of the Most High--are not clouds and darkness round about Him as of old? “ Canst thou by searching find out God?” Let those who have tried it reply. A short time before his death, Newton said, “ I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Here, then, we shall be told to reflect on human imperfection and be humble; for we see how little way the sight of man extends, how little man is able to know. But let us read our own nature aright. That “ we know in part” is not humiliating; it is the ground and necessary condition of man’ s chief prerogative, and of the only perfection of which he is capable. Consider the difference between human and Divine perfection, and this will be plain to every eye. Divine perfection consists in attributes, each and all of them unbounded, except by the impossibility of being greater. Divine power extends to all things that power can do; Divine wisdom embraces everything that exists, or will exist, or ever has existed; Divine holiness is holiness which cannot be enlarged nor exceeded. The perfection of these attributes is, that they can be no greater than they are. To God nothing can be added. But human perfection, by which I mean the greatest height to which humanity can aspire, consists in continual progress--in continually advancing towards perfection. It is plain, then, that to “ know in part” is not humiliating; it is not even an imperfection; it is a happy and honourable condition of our existence, for which we should be grateful to Him who made us. Had we been differently created, it must have been like the animals. What they know, they know in full; to them there is nothing “ in part.” What they know, they know as well in the first years of their existence as the last. And if man had not been created as he is, to “ know in part,” it must have been so with him; he must have had the instinct of an animal, the perfection of animals, for he could not have the perfection of God. Seeing, then, that improvement is the perfection to which human nature must aspire, let us next observe how this limited knowledge tends to induce and encourage it in every field of thought. Look again at the world of nature. Its wonders do not manifest themselves at once; if they did, the mind could not embrace them, or if it could, a heavy satiety, a lethargic self-satisfaction, would take the place of that restless energy which makes man labour and suffer to extend his knowledge. Everything opens gradually, as the sun rises, not full-orbed and fiery red, but gently heralded by the grey light and the kindling clouds. When you first point out to an intelligent child the wonders of nature, he fixes upon you his soft, dark, earnest eyes. The world seems enchanted. He asks where these things were hidden, that he never saw them before. He enjoys a deep delight, he finds a luxury in this gradual illumination of mind, to which he would have been a stranger had not God created him to know but in part. And so in maturer years, if the mind is kept from stagnation, into which it too readily subsides. Let a man give his attention to any department of knowledge, and he soon gives it his heart. He will leave all man loves at home, and encounter all man dreads abroad. The least new discovery fills him with rapturous joy. The glad energy, the intense devotion, with which he engages in the chase of knowledge, gives an idea of the manner in which the souls of the just will study the works and ways of God, and find everything radiant with happiness and eloquent with praise. It is the same with moral truth; by which I mean all truth which relates to God and to the nature and destiny of men. Our knowing but in part inspires that earnest desire to know more, which is compared to hunger and thirst for wisdom--a desire of truth which always burns in the breasts of those who are enlightened by the Word of God. With respect to mankind, also, it is true that partial knowledge inspires a desire to know more. I mean a real knowledge, for I would not give this name to that meaner sagacity which teaches us to distrust mankind. Who are they that complain most of men? They are those who dwell apart, who have none but selfish interests and pleasures, who never lift a hand to do good for others--these are they who talk of the fraud and falsehood of their race, while the lovers of mankind are those who go about doing good. The young always have this desire to know more of others. Alas, that rids generous affection should be driven back to their hearts, disappointed and dismayed, by what they see and hear! They find their parents talking with cold severity of others--of all others--of any others--even their nearest friends; and they listen with wonder and pain. Mankind are thrown apart and kept so; those cords of humanity, which untied would have been strong as the sheet-anchor’ s cable, become singly as weak as the silk-worm’ s thread, and the purpose of Christianity is not answered, which is to reconcile them to each other and make the divided one. So our knowing God but in part inspires an earnest desire to know more. It leads us on in religious improvement, and it makes that improvement a succession of bright revelations, in which man is continually learning what he thirsted to know. There are many things in the dispensations of Heaven which the thoughtful long to know, as the prophets and kings of ages past desired to look into the mysteries of God. “ What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” This hope of knowing hereafter is an anchor to the soul; it saves it from being wrecked in its own doubts and fears; it keeps it true to itself and its destiny, till it reaches the world where the wonders of Providence are unfolded to its astonished view, and it can read and understand them all. Above all, I would say that we cannot complain of the limitation of our knowledge till we make a better improvement of what we already know. Enough is already known to make us wise unto salvation. It remains that we apply it to our hearts and lives. (W. B. O. Peabody, D.D.)Now I know in part The Scriptures abound in reflections upon the weakness and short-sightedness of the human mind. Now, it is observable that the atheist and sceptic have taken up the strain of Scripture, and striven to turn,, its weapons against itself and its friends. “ How blind and weak, how poor and miserable,” they repeat, “ the creature to whom you yet assign so splendid a destiny! “ I accept the issue which atheism and infidelity thus present. I will reason for the magnificent prospects of man on the very ground here taken, of his weaknesses and diseases, his griefs and fears. I will show that there is no incongruity in Holy Writ, when in one breath it tells of man’ s miseries and vanities, and in the next of his unending life and glories. For, “ I know in part” : what does this mean, but that I have an idea of more knowledge than I actually possess, believe myself capable of greater acquisitions, and see the domain of wisdom stretching out beyond my present reach, and inviting my further pursuit? Why be straitened in my limits, but that my true element is the unbounded? Could we glorify man’ s present spiritual advances, and celebrate the complete beauty of his intellectual furniture, the argument for immortality would not be so strong. We might think the mind had drunk its fill here, and accomplished its destiny. The same argument might be pushed as to all the limitations, sadnesses, and defects of our nature. With what a wreck of plans and hopes, enterprises and calculations, is the shore of eternity strewn! If the soul’ s measure be in this weaver’ s shuttle of time, with no threads woven to reach across the span of earth, death is untimely and the tomb premature. Look out upon all nature, and see the exquisite perfection of every object there. From the blade of grass to the everlasting stars, there is no deviation from the law of order or the line of beauty. Everything seems to accomplish its work, and fulfil its design. There is nothing more to be wished or expected. The astronomer detects no lawless course, no really, however for a time apparently, irregular or straying motion. So perfect is nature, from the fine dust of the balance to the revolutions of the sky. But the human mind rises up the vast, lonely exception to this hair-breadth completeness of the world. Recogniser of the perfection of all things else, itself alone is imperfect. It conceives of a knowledge transcendent. It conceives of a purity shaming its pollution. It conceives of a blessedness to which earth’ s joys are but glimpses of light and breakings in a stormy sky. Now God, the perfect One, deals not in fragments, like some weak human artist who may overlay the walls of his chamber with attempts at an entire beauty. But if this human soul, in the very beginning of its aspirings, is to cease at death, then there is a fragment indeed, one colossal frustration and stupendous anomaly. Man, whom He made the lord of the universe, is the broken column, while everything beside is whole! Were there any sign of the soul’ s filling out its defects and putting away its limitations, the argument would be less strong. But its growth, marked at any point, followed in any direction, requires still a lengthened being. A late traveller observed in the city of Jerusalem the fragment of an arch on the wall of the temple; and, tracing it according to the principles of its construction, concluded it must have been designed to spring as a bridge across the adjoining valley. So, if this little arc of the human mind, which we can here trace, be constructed upon true principles, it must mount over the dark valley of the shadow of death, the stream of time must flow away beneath it while the course of an immortal destination opens before it. Else, denying this, we charge the Supreme Architect with fault. I would, then, found an argument for immortality on the apostle’ s declaration, “ Now I know in part.” Even did I adopt Hume’ s philosophy of universal scepticism, I should still say the intellect is made for truth, and must have time for its inquiry and doubt to end in the satisfactions of knowledge. I know this is the commonly accepted mode of reasoning. I know it is usual to draw religious arguments from man’ s positive abilities; but I would draw them from his vast defects. It is usual to draw them from his great triumphs; I would draw them from his signal failures. The train of reflections to which our text has led, accords with the old tenor of Scripture. The gospel of Christ speaks no flattering words to our vanity; it paints in no high colours our powers and acquirements. It rather digs beneath the highblown pride, fond fancy, and blind self-complacency of the human soul, to lay the foundation of that structure, which shall reach to heaven, in its feeling of weakness, in its confession of ignorance, in its sense of unworthiness, in its pangs of grief, and prayers for Divine aid. (C. A. Bartol.)Life: partial and perfect The Christian’ s experience of Christ is in this life only partial: partial love is followed by partial knowledge.1. He knows something of the welcome of Jesus.2. He knows something of communion with Jesus.3. He knows, too, in part, the spirit of service to Jesus.4. A Christian knows also, in part, likeness to Christ. But all these brightest moments, these deepest joys, these noblest moods, are to be eclipsed, forgotten, counted as nothing, “ when that which is perfect is come.” To the Christian this is coming. All else is going. What, then, can compare with the claims and the charms of the spiritual life? Suppose there were on earth a country where, in health, that which is perfect had come; where, in purity of character, that which is perfect had come; where, in all the tender relations of domestic life, that which was perfect had come; where, in society and in government, in cottage and in palace, that which is perfect had come; where, in man, and field, and air and sky, that which was perfect had come;--how ships would groan with human cargoes destined for its shores! In comparison, fields of gold and seas of pearl would cease to draw. Yet the brightest conception of such a state falls immeasurably below what the dying Christian finds in heaven. (Benjamin Waugh.)The limitations of knowledge The familiar context in which these words occur gives a peculiar colour to them. St. Paul in his estimate of the most conspicuous endowments of a Christian, places knowledge--the progressive knowledge of observation and reflection--in contrast with love. He sets the intellectual over against the moral. He implies that the knowledge of which he speaks belongs to the present in its essence, while love belongs to the present only in its form. But in doing this he does not disparage knowledge; on the contrary he reveals it in its true nobility. Christ declared (John 17:17) truth to be the medium of man’ s consecration. Under the necessary conditions of life knowledge is the minister of love. I wish to consider the limitation of knowledge and not the destination of knowledge. “ We know in part.” The fact itself is one which we shall do well to realise more distinctly than by a general acknowledgment. When this is done I hope that we shall see sufficient reasons for holding that this necessary incompleteness of our knowledge, which is at first sight disappointing, is, when duly weighed, fitted to bring stability to the results of labour, that it satisfies the conditions of progress, that it offers hope in the face of the dark problems of the present age.1. We know in part. This limitation is imposed upon us triply. Of all that is, of all that even we with our present faculties feel must be, we can know but a small fraction. Our knowledge is limited in range. And, again, our knowledge of that small fraction of being which is in any way accessible to us is bounded and conditioned by our human powers. Our knowledge is limited in form. And, yet once more, of theft which man could know, being what he is, if the personal powers and the personal experience of the race were concentrated in a single representative, what an infinitely small portion is embraced by one mind! Our knowledge is limited by the circumstances of life. So far the fact itself that we know in part is unquestionable and unquestioned. No one who ever presumptuously maintained that “ man is the measure of all things,” ventured also to assert that “ all things” which he measures owe their being to him. No one who has considered the slow development of the powers which man now enjoys in what appears to us to be his maturity would be willing to admit that his faculties exhaust in kind or in degree the possible action of being. Our knowledge, I repeat, is inevitably partial in regard of the object, and of the subject, and of the conditions of its acquisition. In each respect an infinite mystery enwraps a little spot of light. But while upon reflection we admit that our knowledge is thus limited, we do not, I think, commonly take account of the momentous significance of the fact. Many of us who are ceaselessly busy with our daily occupations do not habitually feel it. Many who have distinctly realised it, deliberately put it out of sight. That which we cannot know in the way of earthly knowledge is for us, they say, as if it were not. St. Paul follows a better way. He teaches us to see that these mysteries, and the full sense of limitation which they bring with them, are an important factor in our lives. He rounds life off on this side and that, not with a sleep, but with the glory of the invisible. And is it not true that we are made stronger as well as humbler by lifting up our eyes to the sky which opens with measurable depths above the earth on which we are set to work? 2. We know in part the fullest recognition of this fact is not only helpful but essential for the fulfilment of our several tasks. The practical or deliberate disregard of this relation of all our knowledge to the unknown brings with it urgent dangers. On the one hand we are tempted to make our own knowledge, our own thoughts, our own experience, an absolute standard. On the other hand we are tempted to apply a dominant method to subjects which do not admit it. There is no one, I suppose, who has not been sorely tried by both temptations. It requires a serious effort to enter with a living sympathy into the character of another man, or of another class, or of another nation, or of another course of thought: to feel, not with a sense of gracious superiority but of devout thankfulness, that here and there that is supplied which we could not have provided: to acknowledge how peculiar gifts or a peculiar environment, how long discipline or an intense struggle, have conferred upon others the power of seeing that which we cannot see. But it is to breadth of hope, to self-denial, to patience that we are called, as those who believe and seek to live as believing that we know in part. The immediate circumstances in which we are placed need, as we must feel, the exercise of such graces. There is on all sides an overpowering passion for clearness, for decision, for results which can be measured on demand. Art and history are trammeled by realism. A restless anxiety for fulness and superficial accuracy of detail diverts the forces which should be given to an interpretation of the life. We begin to think that when we can picture to ourselves the outside of things we have mastered them. So it is also in many respects with opinion. We are told that we must make our choice definitely between this extreme and that; that there can be no mean; that a logical necessity demands one precise conclusion or the other. In this way we lose insensibly the present consciousness of the great deeps of life. Portraiture becomes photography, and faith is represented by a phrase. The reflections from the mirror, the shadows on the wall of the cave, are taken for the realities which these fleeting signs should move us to seek. There is no outline in nature, however convenient or even necessary we may find it to draw one. A closer view of this one-sided and dominant realism, which is characteristic of our generation, shows what is at once its final issue and its remedy. For it is not fanciful, I think, to connect it with the great successes of the method of physical inquiry. We try, perhaps even without knowing of what spirit we are, to make the same method supreme over all knowledge. Meanwhile we are neglecting a different lesson which physics have to teach us and which we have not yet learnt. However paradoxical the statement may appear, physical study more than any other brings the invisible vividly before us. The world of the man of science is not the scene of conflict and disorder which we look upon with our untrained eyes, but an order of absolute law which he finds by the interpretation of a larger experience. He pierces beneath the seen to that which it indicates. So far he has read the thought of God. His partial knowledge is a sign for the moralist and for the theologian. 3. We know in part. We have seen that acceptance of this fact enables us to meet and to use the dangers and the lessons of limited views. The same words describe the process by which our efforts are made effective. We advance towards the limits of our attainable knowledge by the help of every fragmentary movement. We look upon the fullest vision of the truth in the combination of parts held separately. This is the Divine law of spiritual progress and of spiritual apprehension. It is not that any one mind or any one race can evolve the last deductions from the primal facts. The manifold endowments of the nations are made contributory in due order to the unfolding of the universal gospel. The history of Judaism and the history of Christianity prove the truth beyond doubt. Spiritual knowledge and with it spiritual life is furthered by the introduction into it of new elements from without. The seed which has the principle of life gathers from all around that by which the life is manifested in the fulness of its beauty. It has often been pointed out how every critical stage in the progress of earlier revelation was marked by the action of new races upon the people of God. Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, quickened fresh thoughts in Israel, and brought to light fresh mysteries in the Law. The Son of Man entered on the patrimony of the race made ready for His use. The course of Christianity up to the present time exhibits the accomplishment of the same law on a larger scale and with a more pervading application. Judaism was limited and preparatory. The Divine Presence was symbolised for the fathers by a cloud or by a glory. But Christianity is absolute and final. For us the Divine Presence is “ the Word made flesh,” “ the man Christ Jesus.” It is no longer any part of man, or any part of mankind to which the message of God is addressed or entrusted. The experience of our own lives offers an illustration of this growth through assimilation and loss. The unfolding of our separate powers is able to bring home to us what is fulfilled on a colossal scale in the broad history of human progress. One faculty after another is called into dominant activity, and yields in its turn to some fresh claimant. And here comes the trial of faith. We are tempted, as it may be, to linger with a vain regret round that which is ready to vanish away or to hasten prematurely the advent of that which is not yet mature. But the faith deals with all in a process of life. The conviction that every result, every triumph, every prize is given us to use and not to keep, saves us from the peril of stationariness and from the peril of innovation. He cannot rest who knows that the counsel of God is not yet accomplished. 4. And surely this paradox is the very joy of life. We know all: and we have still much to learn. Our strength is to feel that the end which is given to us is not yet gained. As long as there is movement there is hope. Because the central fact of our faith reaches to the utmost bounds of our being: because to the last our knowledge is limited, we bring together with loving reverence all that has been accumulated in the past, and we stand ready to welcome the new light which shall reveal the old treasures in fresh glory. It is not strange then that there should at all times be difficulties. Difficulties guide men to new regions of work for Christ’ s sake. We can feel, I repeat, in these different directions, in the spheres of personal life, of human fellowship, of cosmical dependence, how our partial knowledge witnesses to the existence of regions of vital energy not essentially unattainable but hitherto necessarily unexplored: we can feel that the darkest riddles of life lose their final gloom when we refuse to acknowledge that their solution must be found in the facts which we have been so far able to grasp: we can feel that the gospel of Christ incarnate and ascended deals with these latest questionings not by accident or by accommodation, but in its inmost nature: we can feel as the problems rise before us that our historic creed contains the answer to them, though it has not yet been drawn out, that our needs have not been left uncared for by eternal love, that it is through the sternest searchings of heart that the growing fulness of the truth is realised. The sorest trial of very many now is the sad suspicion that Christianity does not cover all which we know to be. Perhaps we have given colour to the fear by our own narrowness of sympathy. But from the first it was not so. And it is true still, true always, that our faith conquers not by the suppression or by the dissimulation of difficulties, but by interpreting them or by placing them in their right relation to what we see of the whole constitution and circumstances of the world. We do not then appeal to ignorance, but to the conditions of a partial knowledge: we do not transfer our hope to an imaginary scene, but find the pledge of its fulfilment in a completer revelation of this in which we toil and suffer: we do not offer any intellectual formulas as exhaustive and absolute, but we claim that now and at all times the faith should be regarded in connection with every human interest; we do not affirm the limitation of knowledge as a bar to inquiry, but as a bar to finality. We know in part.1. The words are a consolation. No one has ever set before himself a high ideal of work for the truth’ s sake without sadly noting at the close of his labour the scantiness of his achievements. His difficulties, perhaps, have grown clearer, but they have not grown less. At last he finds himself left face to face with mysteries, which appear in the form of irreconcilable opposites. The fundamental mystery of his finite being responsible to the Infinite repeats itself in many forms. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 We know in part, and we prophesy in part.We know in part I. The imperfection of our knowledge.1. We know but little.2. That little is mixed with much error.3. Includes much that is useless.4. Is very imperfectly apprehended. II. Its causes.1. Intellectual.2. Physical.3. Moral. III. Its lessons.1. Humility.2. Docility.3. Distrust of our own understanding.4. Hope. (J. Lyth, D.D.)We know in part The apostle says this not simply of the “ wisdom of this world,” but of Divinely-given knowledge. A reverence not according to knowledge has led Christians to forget this, and to argue as if inspired writers gave us final and complete knowledge about the ways of God. This is not so, and hence much that is fragmentary even in Scripture, and representations which cannot be harmonised yet. I. The part we do not know--by far the greater part; and the more we know, the more we seem not to know--as the outside of a circle gets larger as the inside is increased. Only beginners are proud of their acquirements; discoverers, who stand upon the boundaries of human knowledge, gazing with earnest eyes over the boundless untrodden region beyond, feel themselves unable to spell out the very alphabet of the universe of God.1. What do we know about the material world? Men observe that things have certain appearances, and that changes occur with a certain regularity; but why they appear so, and how these changes take place, which obviously are the most important points to understand, belong to the part we do not know. Why a star moves or a plant grows, it is useless to ask an astronomer or a botanist. 2. So in the spiritual world. How much of goodness and how much of trial make up the facts and events of our lives! But what can we know about them--how they come, and why? What an amount of ingenuity we spend upon these questions, and how much are we perplexed! But vain are our endeavours to get at the meaning. 3. It is the same in regard to the great facts of the Christian revelation. “ Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” Why was that necessary? How was it possible? That is the part we do not know; and we must content ourselves, having appropriate evidence, with the fact that it is so. Paul’ s eager mind did indeed press against the furthest boundaries of inspired knowledge; but he once stopped with, “ O the depth of the riches,” etc., and then turned to practical matters. II. The part we no know. It is natural to us to appreciate what we lack, and to undervalue what we have. In this, as in other respects, we are but children of a larger growth. As a thousand natural wonders and beauties lie at our feet which we have not eyes attentive enough to see, or minds awake enough to study, or hearts big enough to love: so with the marvels of Christ and Christianity, of which our tongues often speak parrot-like in hymns and prayers, yet the rich significance of which we seldom feel. Our prayer should be, “ Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” (T. M. Herbert, M.A.)We know in part We wish we knew more. To appreciate the fact that we know but little, and to understand some of the reasons why, will help us to be more reconciled to our own ignorance and to that of others, and will contribute to remove some of the obstacles that lie in the way of a completer knowledge. I. We are born with an eye graduated to some particular truth or truths, and not with a vision that spreads itself with equal facility over all truths.1. It is no fault of ours that we cannot see the Southern Cross. That constellation does not form part of the heavens under which God intended us to live. If it had fallen to our lot to dwell in Patagonia, then we should have lived under its blaze, and it would then have been impossible for us to make out the Great Bear. No eye is able to see everything, and each eye has an outlook of its own. 2. Truth is like a diamond, and you must shift your position in order to catch the particular flash from each individual facet; which is what in the matter of truth we do not and cannot do. We can migrate from latitude to latitude, and skip from street to street; but as regards truth, we can change neither our nationality nor our address; truth is fixed, and we are born fixed in our relation to it. We are individually created into a specific angle with the truth. Truth individualises itself to each eye and makes only minute donations to each. It is with us in this respect much as it is with objects in their relation to a sunbeam, where one sort of material will pull the blue out of it; another the green; another the red, and so on through the entire bundle of colour bound up in a white ray. In the same way, each mind picks the particular truth that is native to it. 3. It is the way we are made. It has its advantages; some one aspect of truth we have power to take hold of and to feel keenly. It results in each man having his own little patch of truth to cultivate, and by that means he doubtless gets more produce on to the world’ s market than he would do if he had a whole hundred acre lot to cultivate scatteringly. 4. That ought to keep us steadily at work on constructive lines, not destructive ones; telling what little we do see and know, and letting the rest go. A star is not brilliant because I happen to see it; it is brilliant because--it is brilliant. Exactly so it is of a truth. If there is some reality that your mind looks right into, but that your Christian neighbour has no sense of and no care for, it is not because he is a theological idiot, but because your little star does not happen to shine where he stands. II. We allow the one particular bent that we are born with to assert a despotism over us.1. If, e.g., there is some particular truth of God’ s Word that we have a native bias for, we shall be almost certain to make that determine for us the portions of Scripture that we shall admit to our thought and our confidence; much as the one glowing constellation that is in the direct range of our vision will be almost certain to prevent our scouring around to detect others imperfectly disclosed. 2. The same holds of other books as well as of the Bible. Look at the library of any Christian thinker, and you will be able to determine what his theological bent is. The very particularity of his view operates to keep it narrow, and his will only be those that he can use as whet-stones upon which to whet his particularity down to a thinner edge. 3. Then, too, the habit of thinking along some congenial line, not only weakens our interest in truth lying upon other lines, but sometimes even impairs our power of appreciating truth lying upon them. Just as a creature needs a different bodily construction to enable him to live upon land from what he does to exist in water, so, to a certain degree, a different equipment is required to live and think in a region of spirit from what is required to adapt one to a world of matter; and the more exclusively we are habituated to the former, the more awkward it will make us when we undertake to make any headway in the latter. Some of us use our scientific faculties so little that they become aborted and we lose all power to appreciate scientific facts. And the converse of that is equally true. 4. So that in these days, when there is being so strong a pressure brought to bear in behalf of those branches of knowledge that deal with matter only, if you want your boy to be a Christian, see to it that he gets his mind trained in those faculties that will especially be called in play in the discernment and appreciation of spiritual truth. III. By a deliberate act of our own will we veto the truth.1. Truth depends for its power upon the concurrence of the mind as much as light depends for its power on the concurrence of the eye. A truth coming to us always knocks at the door and then stands outside waiting till some one comes and answers. No man is likely to be persuaded against his will. We personally decide just how much God’ s Word shall do for us and how far it shall go with us. The preacher never drives it in; we let it in, and just as far as we choose. Good hearing is a far more difficult art than good preaching. 2. Christ had perfect confidence in the truth, and He had just as much confidence that when once the heart had taken the truth fairly in, something would come of it; the parable of the sower teaches that. It may rain as hard as ever it did in the days of old Noah, but the rain will start no grass so long as the downpour falls on to frozen ground. IV. There are certain elements of Christian knowledge that can come only with the years and indeed with the centuries.1. Experience is the only perfect teacher. We can of course crowd ourselves with facts, but that is not wisdom. Wisdom is gained by the process of somehow letting the threads of truth weave themselves into the tissue of our own life; and therefore it is not a thing to be hurried any more than you can hurry the growing of the corn. You will have to visit the country before ever you will quite understand what you have so painstakingly learned. Experience is expository; the Bible illuminates us but we illuminate the Bible. We make the Bible ours by our becoming its. We do not understand the publican until we have been on our knees by his side. We do not fathom the story of the prodigal until we have returned from the far country and have known what it is to stand in restored relations with that father. Is there any one of us who feels that he has more than merely begun to understand this chapter? 2. The simple change, too, that comes with our steady departure from childhood to manhood brings us on to a new side of some matters. Perhaps we have found out that life is not what we once thought it was going to be. Possibly the present is not quite so real as it used to be, and very likely the great future is growing upon us. One day I was looking at two large telescopic photographs of the moon, one taken when it was at its full, the other a week later. In the latter, some of the mountains that showed dull and lustreless in the earlier view, came out bright, as in the meantime the sun had passed along to the point where it could illumine the evening slopes, I remarked this to the dealer whose hair had been whitened by the years. “ Yes,” he said, very quietly, but quite cheerily, withal, “ Yes, the lights are very differently arranged when you get into the last quarter.” (C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.)Limited knowledge Knowledge is not always good. It profited our first parents little. God knew this then and He knows it now. Consider-- I. The assumption made--“ Now we know.” It is knowledge that makes man better than the brute, that makes him like God, that develops his power, that is his salvation. We know, indeed, and therefore stand out before the heathen, the Jews, the early Christians. We have privileges which are peculiarly our own, and which none have ever enjoyed before. II. The limitation enforced. “ We know in part.” Of all things finite, human knowledge is the most limited. It is limited--1. In its range.2. In power. III. The significance implied. This state of limited human knowledge has its purpose.1. It places us in our own proper position. We are tempted to make our own knowledge an absolute standard. We fix rules for morality, doctrine; we organise parties and call them perfect, because we imagine our knowledge is perfect; but the authors can only see in part. It requires a serious effort to understand that others have the power of seeing what we cannot see. 2. It alters the whole tone of our spiritual life on earth. It should (1) Remove fear, for what appears to us to be dark may in reality be light.(2) Remove doubt, for we must trust.(3) Lessen grief, for trials may be blessings in disguise. IV. The privilege bestowed. Our present limited knowledge is to some extent a blessing.1. It gives us something to look forward to--“ Then we shall know even as we are known.” All mysteries shall one day be revealed, and then all errors shall cease. 2. It prevents much sorrow. How fearful to know all that is before us! 3. It engages our thoughts on the practical rather than the theoretical. Love is the practical duty at present; for we can love even if we cannot know. (J. J. S. Bird, M.A.)Partial knowledge There is a partial knowledge that is-- I. A necessity. The knowledge of the highest creature must by the necessity of nature be partial. What he knows is as nothing compared with the knowable, still less with the unknowable. “ Who by searching can find out God?” II. A calamity. Our necessary ignorance is not a calamity, but a benediction. It acts as a stimulus. But ignorance of knowable things must be ever a disadvantage. Ignorance of ethics, political economy, laws of health, religion, entails incalculable injuries. Ignorance of these things is the night, the winter of intellect. III. Sinful. A partial knowledge of our moral condition, the claims of God, the means of redemption, where a fuller knowledge is attainable, is a sin. Ignorance of Christ in a land of churches and Bibles is a sin, and theft of no ordinary heinousness. It is a calamity to heathens, it is a crime to us. IV. Beneficent. Our ignorance of our future is a blessing. Were the whole of our future to be spread out before us, with all its trials, sorrows, death, life would become intolerable; it is mercy that has woven the veil that hides the future. Conclusion: Our partial knowledge should make us humble, studious, undogmatic, devout. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Our partial knowledge is:-- I. A discipline to diligence.1. We require our children to know, and then we give them, not the knowledge that they seek, but the key of that knowledge. Doubtless the teacher imparts knowledge, but his greater function is in wisely keeping it back until it is fairly won. So God teaches without telling; sets alluring objects of knowledge almost within sight and reach; sets ajar the doors of science, and writes up, “ Ask, and ye shall receive,” etc. 2. And no faithful seeker seeks in vain. Perhaps he finds somewhat other than he sought, as Saul sought the straying asses and found a kingdom. Men sought by alchemy for the philosopher’ s stone, the elixir of life, etc., and found them not, but found marvellous things in the quest, and by and by found themselves at the splendid portals of the great treasure-house of modern chemistry. Geography explored unknown seas for a new route to Cipango and Cathay, and lo! a new continent was given as her reward. Astrology adventured out vaguely among the stars, seeking she knew not what, and became transfigured into astronomy. 3. But ever with what is given is something yet reserved. Each new discovery discloses new questions yet to be answered. And what is true in the study of material things is even more impressively true in the higher study of man, and duty, and God. “ Ye shall know, if ye shall follow on to know the Lord.” II. A discipline to humility and patience. And so good a discipline is it that they who have learned the most are commonly the humblest, for they know how inadequate their knowledge is. For running through the very midst of human life, in its most intimate concerns, is a line of unanswerable questions. Along the seam between will and motive, foreknowledge and responsibility, eternity and time, spirit and matter, the absolute and the conditioned, are ranged the antinomies over which the only wisdom is to despair and be patient. And that is the wisdom which after these six thousand years of discipline, theology and philosophy are only now at last beginning to learn. III. A discipline to charity towards others whose knowledge is yet more narrowly limited or is on a different side from ours. We are vexed at their narrowness, and do not think what reason we give them or others to be vexed at ours. Probably none of us are aware where our knowledge is nearest akin to ignorance and error. Likely enough it is at the very point where we are most positive. We need, as a training in charity, to “ look upon the things of others” as well as “ upon our own things.” Vinet says, “ The men of two hundred years hence will be looking back with astonishment on some monstrous error that was unconsciously held by the best Christians of the nineteenth century.” This is the constant story of the past. And it is right that we should be reminded of it; not that we should cease to hold the truth or hold it with timorous or hesitating grasp, but that we should learn to hold the truth no longer in unrighteousness or in self-righteousness, but in love. IV. A discipline to faith. We speak of a man of great and settled faith, meaning a learned, confident theologian, who has surveyed and triangulated the whole field of sacred knowledge. Eternity, Trinity, Atonement, all these are quite clear and definite to him. Nay, rather, he is a man, so far as this goes, of no faith at all. He has not the necessary antecedent condition of faith that should bring him to the feet of the great Teacher, and to lay his hand in that of the only Guide. And you who, vexed by doubts and uncertainties and limitations, have been wont to say, “ But for these I might believe,” learn now to speak in a higher strain, and say, “ In spite of these--no; because of these I must--I do believe. To whom can I go but to Him who hath the words of eternal life? Blessed be God, who hath fenced up my way of knowledge that so I might learn to feel for the leading of His hand, and walk by faith, not by sight.” V. A discipline to hope. It is not for always, this which is in part, even though it is expedient for us now. It is the dimness which turns our mind toward the day-star and the coming dawn. This hunger and thirst unsatisfied are a continual promise of the coming time when I shall be filled. In this mood I can well afford to await that glorious time for which I am not yet prepared, but for which God is preparing me, when that which is perfect shall have come and these things which are in part shall be done away--when I shall see face to face and know even as I am known. (L. W. Bacon, D.D.)Present defect and future perfection I. A statement of present defect.1. The gifts themselves. (1) The knowledge is not ordinary but extraordinary, being the effect of supernatural influence (1 Corinthians 12:8). (2) The gift of prophecy comprehended much. Sometimes it meant the power of foretelling future events; sometimes celebrating the praises of God by a Divine afflatus; sometimes the power of teaching the doctrines of the gospel by the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. So it means here. (3) We may, however, apply the terms to that more ordinary knowledge and teaching which is the present qualification of all who have received the Spirit and have the knowledge of the truth of God. This is knowledge which none can possibly surpass, and which very few can equal. 2. The imperfection ascribed to these gifts. (1) The Spirit of God never gave a full development of all His revelations. Even the apostles themselves did not know all that it was possible to know respecting Jesus Christ. Paul, with all his knowledge, says, “ I have suffered the loss of all things--that I may know Him.” And as the knowledge was imperfect, so was the prophecy. The inspired apostle found himself on the shore of a boundless ocean, and exclaimed, “ O the depth of the riches!” etc. (2) And so to us the same imperfection attaches most strongly. The pride of our nature may induce us to imagine otherwise; but that pride will very soon be checked. The man who has studied the hardest, who has been most frequently wrapt into visions of future times--even he must still say, “ I know in part--I prophesy in part.” And I would ask a Christian of the highest class, if any illuminations, in which he has been enabled hitherto to rejoice, have permitted him yet to say, “ That which is perfect is come” ? Consider what you know of God--of His government of the universe, of the councils of His will, and of the connection of these with His actions--and then say how incomplete is your knowledge! Consider what you know of the mediatorial influence of Christ--of the fall transformation of the soul into His image--of the future state. You have, it is true, facts to believe, but you cannot comprehend their fulness; you study, you meditate, you explore--but you are soon lost; and you come to the conclusion, “ I know in part.” (3) And then some will say, “ Where there is so much mystery, there should be no faith.” But if you will reason thus on religion, extend your reasoning to life, to nature, to all around you. You know that you live; you sit, you think, you hear, you speak; but how soon will you find your knowledge, even on these subjects, limited and nonplussed! Here we must be content to see imperfectly--to comprehend as in enigma. We can only stand as it were on the threshold of the temple; it is in the future age that the veil will be rent, that the inner sanctuary will be open to our gaze, and the fire that burns on the golden altar revealed. 3. The reasons on which this imperfection is founded. (1) Man’ s moral pollution. The most sinful are always the, most ignorant. Adam by transgression lost much of his knowledge; and in proportion as transgression increased, ignorance abounded. Sin has a tendency to pervert the imagination, and forms an hindrance in the way of attaining the pure and sublime knowledge of religion. (2) Man’ s intellectual weakness. There is much in Divine knowledge that we have not a capacity for knowing. Engaged as we all are on material objects, and able to see only through the medium of our senses, what wonder is it if we be compelled to confess, “ We know in part” ? (3) The designs of God in connection with man’ s present and future state. It is not the design of God that we should know all. The future state is to make up for the defects of the present. It is this which makes heaven an object of such ardent desire to the Christian. II. An anticipation of future perfection.1. In regard to some future state of the Church upon earth. Look at the Church in our own day; see how abundantly our information has increased. Yet the Church is now in a very imperfect state compared with what it shall be in the last days; then “ many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” None shall say to his neighbour or his brother, “ Know the Lord,” etc. 2. In reference to the state of the Church in heaven. Then it will be truly said, “ That which is perfect is come.” (1) A perfection of purity.(2) Of power.(3) Of knowledge.(4) Of happiness. (J. Parsons.)Present imperfection and future perjection Observe-- I. The imperfection of our present condition.1. Gifts are but partially distributed.2. Are imperfect.3. Are adapted to a state of imperfection. II. The perfection of heaven.1. Certainly anticipated.2. Implies the removal of all imperfection and its causes.3. The consummation of our nature and its consequent happiness. (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.The perfect state I. What hope have we of it? 1. Founded on human instinct.2. Confirmed by revelation.3. Secured by faith. II. What relief will it bring?1. The removal of all defect.2. Consequently of all sorrow. III. What happiness does it promise? The perfection of our condition.1. Physical.2. Intellectual.3. Moral.4. Social. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The Christian doctrine of the perfectibility of man I. Futurity is the greatness of man, and hereafter is the grand scene for the attainment of the fulness of his existence.1. When depressed by conscious littleness of being, yet feeling that he should not be little, man may look to futurity and exclaim, “ I shall be great yonder! the immense futurity is mine! I may be content to be poor awhile in the prospect of that!” 2. It is most gratifying to see the Divine revelation connecting the condition of perfection, on any terms, in any sense, at any future period, with human nature. Looking at man, we seem to see a vast collection of little beginnings, attempts, failures--so that the perfectibility of man is ridiculed as one of the follies of philosophic romance. Then how delightful is it to see revelation itself, pronouncing it as possible! 3. This prediction of something “ perfect” to come, relates to knowledge. This is somewhat surprising. It seems much more easy to conceive of perfection in holiness. But knowledge is not a state of the dispositions, but an intellectual relation with anything which can come within the sphere of its apprehension. All things in the stupendous totality of existence are subjects for knowledge. To hear, then, of perfection in knowledge, in any, the most limited, accommodated sense, is very marvellous. II. Let us attempt to realise to our imagination such a state.1. The lowest point we can take is the exclusion of error. So that if the manner of apprehending be intuition, the objects will be made clearly self-evident; if by reasoning, the evidence will be explicit and the reasoning process infallible. It could not but be in the heavenly state a painful thing for the spirit, after exulting in the reception of a portion of knowledge, to find out that it had been imposed on. 2. It will be perfectly adequate to the infallible direction of all the activities of the superior state. Those activities we may well believe to be of vast extent and endless variety, and an infallible knowledge--what to do, and when, and by what means--will be vouchsafed. 3. Knowledge will doubtless be perfect in that we shall possess as much of it as is indispensable to our happiness, and be sensible that we do so. We shall not be in the condition of John, who looked on the sealed book and “ wept” because there was none to open it. 4. We shall possess always as much knowledge as for the time our faculties are actually capable of. Here there are a vast number of things kept in the dark from us, which we could understand if they were but declared; and there is sometimes a most restless wish to know them. Imagine then a continual enlargement of the intellectual capacity, and as it enlarges, a continual influx of new knowledge to fill it. III. We should take some advantage of the apostle’ s contrast between “ that which is in part,” and that “ perfect” which is to come. Note--1. The imperfect, partial nature of our means of knowledge. The senses, the grand inlets of our knowledge, must and do convey it in a most imperfect manner. Through them the spirit can receive only reports and images of the things. How it wishes to come at the things themselves! Language, again, is a most imperfect medium for the conveyance of knowledge, being framed upon our imperfect knowledge and partaking of all its defects. But “ when that which is perfect is come,” the mode, the medium, the instruments of our receiving and conveying knowledge must be something immensely different, whether or not in analogy with the present means. If there are to be senses and any artificial instruments of knowledge analogous to the present, let them be but as much superior to these as a “ spiritual body,” made like the glorified body of Christ, will be superior to this “ earthy,” mortal one, and it will suffice. But whatever shall be the means and manner of apprehending--the apprehension must be incomparably more intimate than in this world to satisfy the exalted intelligence. And that it will be so, the apostle intimates, “ I shall know even as also I am known.” 2. How emphatically our present knowledge is but “ in part “ as to the number and extent of the things known! Just think how many can be answered of all the questions we can ask. “ When that which is perfect is come,” it will not bring an answer to all possible inquiries; but it will be amazing and delightful to see what a multitude of things, of which we had but the faintest glimpses before, are brought into perfect manifestation. What a revelation there may be-- (1) In the vast enlargement of the mind’ s own proper power of knowing, while it looks from a higher eminence over a wider field. (2) In the direct disclosures and communications which the Divine Being may beneficently make. 3. But all these anticipations remind us but the more forcibly how we here “ know but in part.” (1) So “ in part,” that just the part which we want to attain is divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissevering principle or a dark veil fell down exactly at the point where we think we are near upon the knowledge we are pursuing. (2) So “ in part,” that we sometimes feel as if a disproportionate weight is thrown upon our faith. In our partial view, appearances may seem against what we nevertheless are required most firmly to believe. It is difficult to maintain this faith, but is happily aided by the Divine assurance that one day we shall know “ when that which is perfect is come.” (3) So “ in part,” that in many things we see far more of the evil than of the good. But we are sure that there must be a decided predominance of good in the empire of Him who is infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. And the anticipation of clearly seeing it so is a delightful radiance from heaven on our present dark abode. (4) So “ in part,” that we cannot agree one with another. The “ part” itself contains those shades and perplexities among which men must greatly differ. But when the “ perfect comes,” the grand illumination of each spirit will be rendered inconceivably delightful by coincidence of judgment. (J. Foster.) 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake,… understood, … thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.Childhood 1. This is the only reference which the apostle makes to his childhood, and without dwelling on the connection, the reference is beautiful and touching. He was born at Tarsus, of respectable parents, tentmakers probably. Whether he had brothers we cannot tell, but he had a sister, for “ his sister’ s son” came to him (Acts 23:1-35.) “ Circumcised on the eighth day,” his name was then called Saul, probably after the first king of Israel, who was of the same tribe. For the first few years of his life we may suppose him, like other children, chiefly given to play; while the daily associations of Jewish life and character would gradually mould his being. It would seem that he had a pious ancestry and kindred, for he says, “ I serve God from my forefathers.” Daily worship, reading from Old Testament Scripture, mingled with his earliest experiences, and unconsciously influenced his mind. That home of his childhood was intensely Jewish. A “ Hebrew of the Hebrews,” we must suppose him to have been educated with intense abhorrence for Christians and Christ. It is in reference to such things as these, he thought, when he used these significant words. 2. Turning from the apostle to ourselves, we might pursue a similar train of thought with regard to our childhood. (1) “ When I was a child,” one would say, “ I was surrounded, not like Saul, with religious influence, but with everything that was bad.” (2) “ My childhood,” another would say, “ was spent in what ought to have been a happy home, but misunderstanding and discord made it anything but that, and the effect is I am a misanthrope.” (3) “ Mine,” a third would say, “ was the childhood of frivolity and fashion. In all senses my childhood and youth were ‘ vanity.’ I was trained a trifler, and, as the result, I am mentally and morally a dwarf.” (4) “ When I was a child,” another would say, “ I was trained for heaven and for Christ, and so long as memory lasts, the recollection of my childhood will be to me an impulse to duty and a lustre to life,” and so on. But now let us look at what is common to childhood as such. I. How beautiful the Divine arrangement according to which childhood gradually unfolds! He who formed our first parents complete could as easily have done so with us. But it is best as it is.1. God has given us forms of beauty everywhere, but nowhere more strikingly than in the openings of life. 2. More than this, He has thus multiplied enjoyment. Each age, as each season, has its peculiar joys. 3. We see, too, an indication of the way in which the great Worker works always--ever gradually. Childhood gradually unfolds into youth. We foolish creatures are in haste for results; God teaches us alike in nature, providence, and grace to wait and be patient. 4. While thus acting what benefit does He secure? How great the benefit to the young, teaching them lessons of docility, patience, submission; and to adults forbearance, watchfulness, etc. Imagine life without childhood, home without children. 5. If there were no higher advantage, what a benefit is the naturalness of the arrangement! The child speaking, thinking, understanding “ as a child,” not trying to do more; so often rebuking thus our unreal and artificial modes of adult life. II. How important that we should recognise this Divine arrangement, and seek to obey it!1. Recollect the capacity of the child in your teaching. He speaks “ as a child,” and will only understand you as you do the same, and then not according to your meaning of the words, but his own, for he thinks “ as a child.” 2. Recognise this, too, in your expectations. You may not expect too much. They think and feel “ as children,” and not even grace will destroy the force of child nature. Nor ought you to wish it. III. How obvious our duty, such being the condition of childhood!1. You, dear children, must be willing to submit to such training as your condition requires. (1) Obedience is the first lesson God expects you to learn. Nor forget that disobedience to parents, or those who for the time stand in their place, is a great sin. Remember on the one hand Hophni and Phinehas, and Absalom, and on the other Timothy and Jesus. “ Honour thy father and thy mother,” which is the first commandment with promise. (2) Seek the Saviour. Of Josiah we read that when but eight years old his heart was tender, and he feared God. Your hearts are tender, not yet “ hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” ; while they are so, submit to the guidance of Jesus! 2. Parents, teachers, see that your duty is wisely and faithfully fulfilled. Strive to have an intelligent appreciation of what your work is. In each of those minds and characters under your care are latent powers. You are to develop them. How? As the sun does the bud of the flower--by shining upon them. Only thus will they unfold to you. IV. How much encouragement is afforded to those who are the guides and instructors of childhood.1. Were the material on which you are called to act stereotyped, your task would be hopeless. It is because it is so plastic that you may work with the prospect of success. We cannot tell how early the Spirit of God may work upon the opening mind of children. 2. Remember what God has said about this seed-time! “ Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.” Whence have the majority of Christian men and women had their origin? Has it not been from the ranks of pious families, Christian schools? (J. Viney.)Childish things 1. “ There is a time for everything,” and “ God hath made everything beautiful in his time.” We do not love the frost in spring. It is out of its season, but when, in December, it gives its own peculiar beauty to the landscape, we welcome it. So with the other seasons. 2. The spring, summer, autumn, and winter of our being are beautiful only in their time. Precocious childhood, prolonged infancy, or premature decay excite other feelings than those of admiration. Childishness is beautiful in its time, but only in its time. It would be a sad world if it were stripped of all the beauty and joy given to it by the innocence and playfulness of children. He is a hard man who can frown on the “ childish things” so unworthy the man, but so natural in them. 3. This life of ours is a parable introduced by the apostle to describe our inner spiritual life. There are the “ babes in Christ,” who require to be fed with milk; “ little children,” in whom the good seed is giving the promise of fruit; “ young men,” deficient in the wisdom which long experience alone can supply, but full of hope and zeal; “ strong men,” the pillars of the Church, the leaders in enterprise; and fathers, who, as shocks of corn, are fully ripe and ready to be gathered into the garner. This progressive improvement we ought all to manifest. 4. There is something belonging to our childhood which we should seek always to preserve--its freshness, humility, and truthfulness. Between childlikeness and childishness there is the widest difference. Christ’ s life teaches us that it is possible to unite the understanding of the man with the heart of the child. What are the childish things to be put away with our advancing intelligence and experience? I. Ignorance.1. The understanding of a child is necessarily feeble and his views crude; but we expect, as years pass on and education does its work, that the various faculties shall begin to develop themselves. 2. God dealt with the Jews as with children He did not give the substance of the truth, but only types and shadows--a series of pictures. So, too, the requirements of the law were designed for children. There was not the simple exhibition of erie great principle which the people were themselves to apply, but a multitude of distinct enactments. But the law has done its work as a schoolmaster, and now we are brought to Christ to receive other teaching, and walk after another rule, even the perfect law of liberty and love. 3. There are many, however, who would always be Jews. They love that which appeals to the senses, and have little sympathy with the purely spiritual aspects of religion. They want a system of exact law, drawing distinct lines of separation between the right and the wrong, and have no idea of that mighty, all-pervading principle of self-consecration begotten at the Cross. It is needful that we put away these childish things, and let men understand that our religion consists not in the submission to priestly authority, or the discharge of a dreary routine of sacred duties, or even in the cherishing of certain religious sentiments, but in the rule of an enlightened conscience, sprinkled from dead works in the blood of Christ, and taught by the Spirit of our God. We would walk not as those who are without law, but under the law to Christ. To feel that religion must not be a mere piece of mechanism, a skeleton without a soul, but a life of godliness--to find in well-kept Sabbaths and sacred ordinances helps to the attainment of this end--to rest with all a child’ s dependence on Christ, and yet to show a man’ s energy in Christian effort, these are among the highest attainments of Christian knowledge and the best evidence of spiritual maturity. II. Narrowness.1. It is perfectly natural for a child to attach undue value to his own surroundings. He has never seen the great city, and he ascribes to his little town an undone importance. He has never looked on the mountain, and the little hillock is to him a towering height. He has never wandered on the banks of some wide-spreading stream, and therefore he counts the rivulet with which he is familiar a river. How strong these feelings are we may perhaps learn from our own experience. Even after time, travel, and reading have enlarged our views, we are inclined to think that the little town with which we were familiar in early days was superior to others until a visit serves to break the spell. 2. The same feature is to be found in men whose want of education leaves them still in a state little better than that of children. There are dwellers in a remote part of our coventry who astonish strangers by their simple faith in the superiority of their own district. 3. How absurd this sounds--yet is it only a type of what we may see continually in religious things. (1) There are numbers who, in this respect, are nothing but children. They have never gone beyond the narrow confines of their own little community. Their reading is restricted to a certain class of authors who look at the truth from their standpoint. The result can only be a cramped intellect and a narrow heart. They do not see that there are other sides of truth. Their own poor sect is to them the Church of Christ. Such men are holding fast by “ childish things.” Greater breadth of view and truer charity of sentiment should characterise those who have become men. We cannot read the story of the Church without seeing that God has honoured men of the most opposite views and temperaments. We cannot take up our books of praise without having the same truth impressed upon us. (2) Here, however, as almost everywhere, there are opposite extremes against which we have to guard. The very idea of breadth has been brought into disrepute by the way in which some have employed it. The man who holds fast by his own deep and intelligent convictions of doctrine and duty is pronounced narrow. On the other hand, if a man desires to tone down the gospel to the supposed tastes of men until it has been robbed of all that is distinctive and glorious in its revelations, he is esteemed broad. No wonder that devout men should look with some feeling of dread upon these broad views of Christianity. Yet is it deeply to be lamented if in their recoil they are provoked to an un-Christian narrowness. Because others indulge in a latitudinarianism which trenches on unbelief, we are not to yield ourselves to the sway of a bigotry which can tolerate no difference of opinion. Liberty is a precious Christian right, not to be surrendered or compromised, even though unwise friends have abused its privileges. Charity is the chief of the graces, and though its sacred name may often be employed to cloak indifference, or even to excuse hostility to Divine truth, yet must we not fail to cultivate and manifest it in all our controversies. He shows the breadth of Christian manhood who is able to preserve fidelity without the sacrifice of charity. III. Feebleness.1. A child is necessarily weak, and only by slow degrees gains that muscular strength necessary for the discharge of the various functions of his physical life. His first efforts are sure to be failures. He lacks confidence even more than strength, for as yet he knows not his own power. But when the child becomes a man, we desire to see robustness and vigour. 2. So may it be expected that the first efforts of the Christian after holiness will be marked by weakness and attended with frequent failure. In the glow of his first love the young disciple fancies that nothing will be too hard for him to achieve. But soon experience teaches him--the evils of years cannot be repaired in a day--habits cannot easily be abandoned--passions that have been masters are not content to become subjects. But we have a right to expect that advancing years will bring with them increasing strength. What we have most to deplore is, that so many fail to manifest this progress. They are content to be as they have been for years. They sin and repent, make confession of their guilt, and straightway return to sin again. Possibly life is not extinguished, but assuredly it is very feeble and unhealthy. (J. G. Rogers, B.A.)The child and the man The contrast is very striking. “ I spake as a child.” When the child begins to speak, how broken the utterance is! The mother’ s ear, sharpened by love, is able to comprehend it; but the stranger finds the task too hard for him. “ I understood as a child.” How weak the understanding is--how uncertain--how liable to err! “ I thought as a child.” But what a poor illogical affair my reasoning was! What a marvel it is, the change of a little child into a man! The infant boy, Saul, in his nursery at Tarsus, and the man making Felix tremble, and Mars Hill ponder. But he uses this change in himself for the sake of illustration. Note-- I. The advance from Judaism to Christianity. Judaism was the childhood of the Church. I do not say this to insinuate any doubt of its Divine origin. The child is as much the creature of God as the man: just so, it is as clear that He spake by Moses as by Christ. But still there is a marked difference between the two dispensations.1. Judaism was adapted to those who, in religious knowledge and experience, were children. You teach the little ones chiefly through the eye: give them picture books, and assume pictorial attitudes. So the tabernacle was a picture-gallery, teaching precious truth--but to the senses mainly to reach the mind. 2. How different are the institutions of the gospel! Here are no altars, no priests. The Church has got out of the nursery into the study; and Christians are treated not as children, but as men. We are taught--especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews--that the ordinances of Judaism were merely figures for the time till Christ should come; but now what need of the type, when we have the antitype? Our sacraments are just the exceptions that prove the rule. 3. But see the tendency of the present day. It is to crush the manhood of the Church of Christ, and bring us back to a religion of ceremonies again. Ritualism is a second Judaising of the Church--a coming back to the nursery and babyhood again. II. The advance from early piety to mature.1. Early piety is one of the loveliest things I know--like the blossoms of the apple-tree in spring, or the first faint light on the horizon. Yet it is a very imperfect thing. The blossoms are not the fruit--the dawning is not the day. The young Christian is only a little child in the family of God. 2. But let him become a man in Christ Jesus--what an advance! The blossoms have gone--but here is the tree filled with the fruits of righteousness; the dawning has disappeared--but it is only swallowed up in the sunrise. There was a time when Paul knew little more than that he bad been a great sinner, and lay wholly at the mercy of the Lord. But he lived “ to comprehend with all saints the breadth and length,” etc. Oh, to attain a full manhood of Christian character! to have the greatest peace, to do the greatest good, to bring God the greatest glory! III. The advance from the earthly state to the heavenly. This was what the apostle had chiefly in his mind.1. He describes the earthly state of Christians as imperfect. What a lesson of humility! This great gifted man acknowledges how much he cannot teach! “ We know in part.” And so with the very aptest of scholars. John Howe says, “ Many of our conceits, which we thought wise, we shall then see cause to put away as common trash” ; and Owen, “ Notwithstanding all our confidence of our high attainments, all our notions of God are but childish in respect of His infinite perfections.” Down, then, with our foolish pride, our arrogant assumption! 2. But what is there awaiting us? We are looking through a dim window now, and things outside are a riddle; but then the window will be thrown open, and we shall see face to face (verse 12; 1 John 3:2), and the clear sight of Jesus shall complete our transformation. All that was dim in us shall become luminous, and we shall perfectly reflect the image of our Lord. 3. The change must begin here. We must be new-born babes on earth, if we are ever to reach maturity in heaven. “ Except a man be born again,” etc. Then we shall look down on this dim spot, and say, Then I was a child, but now I am a man. (F. Tucker, B.A.)The child and the man The feelings and thoughts of a child are true and just, in so far as they are the natural impression of the objects to which they relate. They are neither irrational nor false, but inadequate. The impression which the sight of the heavens makes on the mind of the child, is for the child a just and true impression. The conception which it forms of what it sees is correct in one aspect of the great object contemplated. Yet that impression is very different from that which is made on the mind of the astronomer. In like manner our views of Divine things will hereafter be very different from those which we now have. But it does not thence follow that our present views are false. They are just as far as they go, they are only inadequate. It is no part of the apostle’ s object to unsettle our confidence in what God now communicates by His Word and Spirit to His children, but simply to prevent our being satisfied with the partial and imperfect. (C. Hodge, D.D.)Childhood and manhood I. The saint’ s childhood.1. Speech corresponds with tongues (verse 8). 2. Understanding with prophecy.3. Thought with knowledge. II. The saint’ s manhood.1. Perfect power of expression.2. Glorified intellect.3. Full revelation of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The Christian a child in time, a man in eternity This is the case in relation to-- I. Speech. “ I spake as a child.” The Christian’ s speech in eternity will be characterised--1. By clearness. Our speech here, like that of children, is often unintelligible, mere jargon. The reason is our conceptions are ill-defined. Clear speech requires a clear head. In heaven thoughts are clear, and complete as balls of radiant crystal. 2. By reality. Our speech here, like that of children, is frequently nothing more than the vehicle of mental fantasies and conjecture. But speech in eternity is the organ of reality. Words there are things. They are truths made vocal. 3. By comprehensiveness. How meagre the vocabulary of a child! Our speech here, like that of children, is limited to a very small range of things. Not so in heaven. The soul will range over the whole domain of facts, receive true impressions of all, and speak them out. 4. By sublimity. Our speech here, like that of children, is not of the most exalted and soul-inspiring character. In heaven every word will be electric, every sentence radiant, and quickening as the sunbeam. II. Understanding, “ I understood as a child.” The Christian’ s understanding here is like that of a child in several respects.1. In feebleness. The child’ s intellect, like his body, in the first stages is very feeble. It is incapable of any great effort. It is thus with the Christian here. We say of such a man--he has a great intellect. But in reality what a small amount of truth can the most vigorous hold within his grasp! In heaven the understanding will be strong, unencumbered by matter, unchecked by disease, unclouded by sin. It will grow young with age and strong with exercise. 2. In sensuousness. A child’ s understanding is under the control of the senses. It judges by appearances. Is it not so with the Christian? He is prone to “ mind earthly things,” “ to judge after the flesh.” 3. In relativeness. The child judges of all things by their relation to himself. His father may be an author or a statesman, but the child knows nothing of him in those relations. As a father only he knows him. So with the understanding of a Christian. His conceptions of God are purely relative. Redeemer, Father, Master. Thus only is He regarded. What He is in Himself, what He is in the universe, he understands nothing. In eternity we shall “ see Him as He is.” 4. In servility. The child yields his understanding up to others. So it is often with Christians here. Not so in heaven. Each with a full consciousness of his individuality will be independent in his investigations and conclusions. III. Reasoning. “ I thought as a child.” How does the child reason? From an insufficiency of data. Having neither the power nor the opportunity of making an adequate observation and comparison, he draws his conclusions from passing impressions and unfounded conjectures. Thus it is often with the Christian here. His knowledge of the facts of God and the universe on which he reasons is so limited, that his conclusions are often inconclusive and puerile.2. From the impulse of desire. In all cases his wish is the father to the thought. It is too often so with the Christian here. Their likings control their logic. Not so in heaven. Conclusion: This subject teaches--1. The educational character of this life. The true view of this life is that it is a school for eternity. Be reconciled to this state. Struggle on till you “ put away childish things.” We shall leave this school soon for the family mansion and the grand inheritance. 2. The organic unity of man through all the scenes and stages of his being. Though the man here talks and judges and reasons very differently to what he did when a child, he is nevertheless the same being. Man in heaven is but the child matured. We shall never be greater than men. 3. The necessity of modesty in the maintenance of our theological views. (D. Thomas, D.D.)True manliness True manliness means the putting away childish things--rising out of the weakness and frivolity of childhood to the stature of a ripe Christian. Consider what are the chief characteristics of childhood. We see much that is pleasant and winning in them--openness, simplicity, a comparative innocence, and an absolute ignorance of many evil things. But we see, also, much that is not pleasant to see. Now we are not to put away the better things of childhood; but retaining these we are to put away-- I. Silliness. There are many things that we pardon in a child because it is a child. If a child makes a foolish remark, or does a foolish act, we say, in excuse, “ He is but a child--he will be wiser by and by.” But if, when the child grows up, and is still not wiser, we say, by way of reproach, that he is childish and ought, at his age, to know better. II. Selfishness. All young children show this more or less. Hence the greediness in children and their egotism, the frequent use in their mouth of the words “ I” and “ me.” And this is a fault which all parents should try to correct. But a selfish child has the excuse of ignorance; but a selfish young man or woman has not this excuse. They do know better. While this fault remains uncorrected in us we have not made, and we cannot make, any progress in true religion Learn from your Lord and Example to think of, to care for, to give to others. It is more blessed to give than to receive! III. Want of self control. They only are to be accounted manly who are masters of themselves, who act from reason not from passion. Remember what St. Paul says, “ Every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things” --in meat, drink, speech, pleasure, pursuit of earthly gains. The way to self-mastery is to be on the watch against all excess, all inordinate affection; to bring your bodies into subjection to the law of your mind; to look in all you do, not at what is most pleasant; but at what reason and conscience enjoin. (R.D. B. Rawnsley, M.A.)Analogy between our present state and a state of childhood I might observe that our pursuits, our cares, our sorrows, and our joys are too often like those of children, low, trifling, and frivolous. Were we properly affected and informed, we should pursue nothing eagerly but virtue. But how far is this from being the general temper of mankind! Where can we find true manliness and integrity--a steadiness not to be shaken by low passions--a love of truth not to be warped by silly prejudices, and an elevation of mind not to be depressed by the temptations and trials of this world? Children are apt to be wayward, and fickle, and capricious--one moment displeased with what the moment before they admired--delighted with toys, and grieving when a foolish fancy cannot be gratified. Such is also the case with men; nor can I view a courtier, who sets his heart upon a ribbon, in any higher light than I do a child who cries for a trinket, or is proud of his fine clothes. Our levities and inconstancies, our variable and peevish humours, our groundless attachments, our unreasonable prejudices and gross mistakes, all show our weakness, and prove us to be in the infancy of our existence. But it will be proper to explain this subject more distinctly, and to carry our ideas a little higher.1. Let us, therefore, consider that our present existence, compared with our future, is a childhood in respect of its duration. We are to exist for ever. What, then, is this life? How justly may it be called our childhood? The strict truth is, that it is no more than our entrance into being--our birth into the vast creation--the first glimmering of light at the dawn of day. 2. A gain, this life is our childhood in respect of improvement. At our best state in this world we may say of ourselves, with the utmost propriety, that we know nothing, and are nothing. We now mistake presumption for knowledge, a strange imagination for a sound understanding, and the delusions of passion for the perceptions of truth. Hereafter our intellectual powers will acquire vigour. We shall see intuitively those truths which we now are obliged to make out by long and intricate deductions. 3. I might go on to observe to you that we are now children in respect of power and dignity. Fluctuating at best and very feeble is our present condition. Hereafter our condition will be more fixed and stable. Our powers will be enlarged, and we shall rise to a dignity and weight in the universe of which we can now form no conception. 4. But it is necessary that I should endeavour to give you a yet more accurate view of this subject by observing to you that this life answers to the idea of a childhood, as it is an introduction to, and a state of education for, another and a higher state. Infancy prepares for childhood, and childhood for manhood. As we pass through these several stages, we are continually becoming more and more familiarised to the scene in which we are placed. And it is easy to perceive that were we to be brought into life full grown, or to be made men without passing through infancy and childhood, we should be totally incapable of relishing life, and as unfit for it as we should be for conversation, had we never been taught language; or for enjoyment and happiness, were we destitute of senses. Thus is the beginning of our existence here a natural and necessary preparation for mature life; and in like manner the whole of our mature life itself is a necessary preparation for that future life on which we are to enter at death. Should you ask me here in what manner, and by what means, this life is thus an education for another, I would answer, that it is so particularly by the instruction and the habits which are the necessary consequence to all of passing through this life; but that it is so principally by that instruction in righteousness, and those habits of self-government and virtue which we are put upon acquiring in this life. Virtue, you must always remember, is the grand condition of happiness under the Divine government. Without this we cannot be qualified for permanent existence, or any honourable situation in the universe. It is this, therefore, that we must chiefly be placed here to learn. It is proper to add, that as the Author of nature has so ordered our circumstances in this world as to make early life fit to be an education for mature life, so likewise has He so ordered our circumstances in mature life as to adapt it to the purpose of an education in virtue. We cannot proceed a step in life without finding opportunities for practising some virtue, without being required to resist some temptation, to check some wrong tendency, to discharge some duty, to govern some passion, to cherish some grace, or to stand some trial. Another sense in which our education in this world for another corresponds with our education in early or mature life, is the necessity we are under in both capacities of submitting to spirit and, sometimes, painful discipline, the reason and uses of which we may not be able to understand. Children are trained up by restraint and correction, the tendency of which they do not see, and which, therefore, they are apt to think hard and severe. So it is with us, as probationers and candidates for eternity. It is obvious that our happiness when men depends in a great degree on our conduct when young; and that the turn we take, the habits we contract, and the bent that is given us as we grow up from infancy to maturity, determine the colour and fate of all our subsequent days. Idleness and laziness in youth form a manhood void of worth and dignity; and a worthless and vicious manhood forms a wretched old age. On the contrary, virtuous, faithful, modest, sober, and well-educated youths always come out with advantage into the world. Such is the dependence of our happiness in the successive stages of the present life on our conduct in those which have preceded them; and such, likewise, is the dependence of our happiness in our future stages of existence on our conduct in our present existence. Every particular of what I have just observed of the latter, holds with respect to the former, and our seeing this to be the order of the Divine government in the one case, should silence all objections to the credibility of it in the other. Our education in youth for manhood (we all know) may miscarry, and through negligence and vice leave us deficient, ignorant, worthless, and unhappy; or, on the contrary, it may attain its end, lay the foundation of subsequent honour, and make us wise, and worthy, and respectable. The same is true of our whole education here for eternity. This also may miscarry; and instead of qualifying us for the habitations of the just, and a place among superior beings, it may leave us fit associates only for evil beings, or issue in our ruin; and one of the most terrifying of all reflections is, that in both cases these miscarriages are common. I shall conclude with desiring your attention to the following reflections.1. It leads us to reflect on the wisdom of God in ordering the scenes of our existence. He causes us to rise gradually, and to qualify ourselves for happiness, as a necessary condition of obtaining it. 2. The subject on which I have been discoursing should teach us patience under the trials of life, and reconcile us to all present difficulties. 3. The observations I have made should render us earnest in our endeavours to make this life what it is designed--a preparation for a better life--an introduction to glory--an education for the joys of angels. (R. Price, D.D.)The diversity of character belonging to different periods of life I. The apostle, by placing the characteristic of childhood in the speech, may possibly be understood to intimate that a child speaks before he thinks. Whether this be here particularly intended or not, it is certainly a fault very observable in such children as are not restrained, but very unbecoming and inconvenient in men. We readily and fully excuse a child who speaks without care or thought. Gaiety and inattention are natural to his age, and neither the subject nor the matter of his prate can be important. He talks of trifles only, and as they appear to his puerile conception. But when the mind is employed upon many subjects, the speech will of course be deliberate; some degree of slowness and gravity will still prevail in it, and a greater degree when the points under consideration are more difficult or more interesting. A mature understanding has constant, gentle exercise in the government of the tongue; and either remissness on the one hand, or eagerness on the other, will certainly betray itself in the discourse. Faults of these opposite kinds are to be found in young men of different dispositions; but both are to be referred to the same childish folly of speaking before they think. And thus a young man, by declaring opinions before he has well considered them, becomes afterwards unable ever to consider them without prejudice, and his thoughts, which should have governed his speech, are enslaved by it. Another part of the character of a child is, that he speaks all he thinks. Intending no ill, and suspecting none, he communicates all his sentiments and designs without reserve or caution. But the same unlimited openness is not suitable to the transactions among men. He cannot expect any success, nor indeed any reputation among them, who has not some degree of discretion and reserve and habitual secrecy. Nor is it only in the conduct of business, and to guard his own interests, that a prudent man will be often silent. He will not too freely discuss the characters of other men, nor speak too much of himself, lest he incur the reproach, in one case, of envy or ill-nature; in the other, of self-conceit or arrogance. II. The next note, by which the apostle distinguishes the characters of a man and a child, is taken from the difference of their inclinations. Those of a child are always governed by trifles. The things which strike his fancy, which offer him immediate pleasure, how minute, how momentary soever, are the objects of his pursuit. But manly prudence includes in it attention to different kinds of good; the power of comparing them with regard both to their itenseness and duration; and the habit of resisting the allurements of trifling, short-lived pleasures, and of being directed by views of greater and more lasting happiness. He who suffers his mind to be continually engaged by mere amusements, and drawn away by them from every serious employment worthy of a rational being, whether of furnishing himself with useful knowledge and virtuous habits at one period of life, or at another of providing for the interests of a family, a neighbourhood, or the public; though his years may not be few, nor his amusements the same as in his childhood, is yet in the eye of reason still a child: not indeed in innocence, for a constant attachment to things of little value is not a little criminal; but in folly and perverseness. III. In the judgment consists the third great distinction between the characters of a man and child. With little experience, and less exercise of his rational faculties, a child cannot have formed for himself any principles on which he may build real knowledge. He must of necessity learn many truths without the proper evidence of them, which yet he may afterwards by slow degrees discover. Nor are they the principles of knowledge only which he receives implicitly. Rules of conduct also he gathers from examples before he is able to understand their foundations. But it becomes a man to judge and act for himself: to examine as a critic, not receive as a disciple, all the reasoning proposed to him, and to direct his conduct by his own judgment, not by a blind submission to examples. He who takes his opinions without inquiry, though from the most accurate philosopher, has no more real knowledge than the child who takes them from his nurse. For in science that only is our own which we have earned by our attention and labour. What is cast upon us from the stores of others, without our claim or merit, loses its value in passing, and cannot enrich us. And he who in the regulation of his life is influenced by foolish fashions of which he has formed no judgment, or can give no approbation, may be justly charged with the negligence or the weakness of a child. (W. S. Powell, D.D.)Childish and manly love Let us examine this love as it manifests itself in the child, and afterward in the man. Love in childhood is but love “ in part.” It is lovely and lovable, but it is not perfect; it is not the truest love. The love of manhood takes up the germ of love in the child, like as the tree absorbs and develops the germ in the seed. The child’ s love is love, but it is founded in ignorance, and is the creature of impulse. I. That the attainment to manhood in love costs an effort. You are not only to develop out of the child’ s love, but you are to “ put away childish things.” II. Manhood in love puts away only childishness, not childlikeness. All that is good is to be kept by the growing man. The child’ s love is gentle, sincere, confiding, honest, simple; retain all this, and add to it, by putting away the “ childish” peevishness, and ignorance, and vacillations.1. One of the weaknesses of a child is his longing to outgrow childhood the apple-tree in blossom is beautiful. So is the perfect tree. A child when a child, a man when a man, are alike beautiful. 2. One of the greatest magnets on earth is a little child. A child is a purifier of our evil thoughts and passions. All that is thus excellent in the child retain, cultivate, put not away. III. The cultivation of a manly love, free from childishness, is worthy of manhood.1. When the powers of manly love are enlarged, it is easy to rid ourselves of childishness. 2. Manly love is quite likely to assert itself as we approach manhood. 3. Manly love is of the highest worth “ Greatest of these” is love. 4. Manly love moves the hand as well as the heart. It is self-sacrificing and yielding. 5. It is invincible. Becomes strong by “ long suffering.” It “ endures all things.” In conclusion--1. How can we be content with the unripe and the imperfect? We should become men; not be fickle, impulsive, ignorant in our love. 2. Paul’ s love enabled him to endure as a good soldier. His life was not child’ s play. Be strong, be manly; “ put away childish things” in manly love. (Thomas Armitage, D.D.)On the duties belonging to middle age As there are duties which belong to particular situations of fortune, so there are duties also which result from particular periods of human life. I. I begin with observing that the first duty of those who are become men is, as the text expresses it, to put away childish things. The season of youthful levities, follies, and passions is now over. Some things may even be graceful in youth, which, if not criminal, are at least ridiculous, in persons of maturer years. It is a great trial of wisdom to make our retreat from youth with propriety. It becomes us neither to overleap those boundaries by a transition too hasty and violent; nor to hover too long on one side of the limit when nature calls us to pass over to the other. There are particularly two things in which middle age should preserve its distinction and separation from youth; these are levities of behaviour, and intemperate indulgence of pleasure. Higher occupations, more serious cares, await you. Turn your mind to the steady and vigorous discharge of the part you are called to act. This leads me-- II. To point out the particular duties which open to those who are in the middle period of life. The time of youth was the preparation for future action. In old age our active part is supposed to be finished, and rest is permitted. Middle age is the season when we are expected to display the fruits which education had prepared and ripened. In this world all of us were formed to be assistants to one another. The wants of society call for every man’ s labour, and require various departments to be filled up. No one is permitted to be a mere blank in the world. This is the precept of God. This is the voice of nature. This is the just demand of the human race upon one another. One of the first questions, therefore, which every man who is in the vigour of his age should put to himself is, “ What am I doing in this world? What have I yet done, whereby I may glorify God, and be useful to my fellows? Do I properly fill up the place which belongs to my rank and station?” In fine, industry, in all its virtuous forms, ought to inspirit and invigorate manhood. This will add to it both satisfaction and dignity; will make the current of our years, as they roll, flow along in a clear and equable stream, without the putrid stagnation of sloth and idleness. Idleness is the great corrupter of youth, and the bane and dishonour of middle age. III. To guard with vigilance against the peculiar dangers which attend the period of middle life. It is much to be regretted that in the present state of things there is no period of man’ s age in which his virtue is not exposed to perils. Pleasure lays its snares for youth; and, after the season of youthful follies is past, other temptations, no less formidable to virtue, presently arise. The love of pleasure is succeeded by the passion for interest. In this passion the whole mind is too often absorbed; and the change thereby induced on the character is of no amiable kind. It deadens the feeling of everything that is sublime or refined. It contracts the affections within a narrow circle, and extinguishes all those sparks of generosity and tenderness which once glowed in the breast. In proportion as worldly pursuits multiply, and competitions rise, ambition, jealousy, and envy combine with interest to excite bad passions, and to increase the corruption of the heart. To these, and many more dangers of the same kind, is the man exposed who is deeply engaged in active life. No small degree of firmness in religious principle, and of constancy in virtue, is requisite, in order to prevent his being assimilated to the spirit of the world, and carried away by the multitude of evildoers. Let him therefore call to mind those principles which ought to fortify him against such temptations to vice. Let not the affairs of the world entirely engross his time and thoughts. From that contagious air which be breathes in the midst of it, let him sometimes retreat into the salutary shade consecrated to devotion and to wisdom. In order to render this medicine of the mind more effectual, it will be highly proper-- IV. That, as we advance in the course of years, we often attend to the lapse of time and life, and to the revolutions which these are ever effecting. In this meditation, one of the first reflections which should occur is, how much we owe to that God who hath hitherto helped us; who hath guided us through the slippery paths of youth, and now enables us to flourish in the strength of manhood. Bring to mind the various revolutions which you have beheld in human affairs, since you became actors on this busy theatre. To the future, we are often casting an eager eye, and fondly storing it, in our imagination, with many a pleasing scene. But if we would look to it, like wise men, let it be under the persuasion that it is nearly to resemble the past in bringing forward a mixture of alternate hopes and fears, of griefs and joys. While we thus study to correct the errors, and to provide against the dangers which are peculiar to this stage of life, let us also-- V. Lay foundation for comfort in old age. That is a period which all expect and hope to see; and to which, amidst the toils of the world, men sometimes look forward, not without satisfaction, as to the period of retreat and rest. But let them not deceive themselves. A joyless and dreary season it will prove if they arrive at it with an unimproved or corrupted mind. First, he who wishes to render his old age comfortable, should study betimes to enlarge and improve his mind; and by thought and inquiry, by reading and reflecting, to acquire a taste for useful knowledge. This will provide for him a great and noble entertainment when other entertainments leave him. Among the measures thus taken for the latter scenes of life, let me admonish every one not to forget to put his worldly affairs in order in due time. (H. Blair, D.D.)Expansion of mind The narrow dogma makes no allowance for the expansion of men’ s hearts and brains, and therefore becomes obsolete. The society which is based on rigid bigoted small rules and pedantic formulas breaks up, because no arrangements have been made for the inevitable expansion of the hopes and opinions of its members. There must be room for expansion. This is perfectly well understood in the arts, and practical men make proper arrangements in obedience to this law. The bars of furnaces must not be fitted tightly at their extremities, but at least must be free at one end, otherwise in expanding they would split the masonry. In making railways a small space is left between the successive rails, for if they touched, the force of expansion would cause them to curve or would break the chairs. Water pipes are fitted to one another by means of telescopic joints, which allow room for expansion. In every department there must be provision made for expansion. (Scientific Illustration.)Preparatory processes It frequently happens that the very insects which we most admire, which are decorated with the most brilliant colours, and which soar on the most ethereal wings, have passed the greater portions of their lives as burrowers beneath the surface of the earth. The well-known Mayfly or ephemera, so delicate in its gauzy wings, so marvellous in its muscular power, which enables the newborn being to disport itself in the air for a period which, in comparison with our own lives, is equal to at least forty years, and passing the greater portion of its terrestrial existence as an inhabitant of the air--has spent a life of some three years or more hidden from human gaze. Let this fact remind young people who are impatiently anxious to soar high in the world’ s notice, that there are preparatory processes necessary for aerial spirits.. The orator sustains the flight of his eloquence all the better, and the figures of his rhetoric are all the brighter, because he spends the first portion of his life burrowing in the useful obscurity of a library. Away from all distractions, in the seclusion of reading and meditation, he acquires the intellectual powers which enable him to rise to his proper sphere. (Scientific Illustration.)Human development I. Man in the infancy of his being.1. His speech imperfect, childish.2. His understanding weak, limited, easily deceived.3. His thought and reasoning, trifling, foolish, erring. II. Man in the course of development.1. Under instruction and discipline.2. Accumulating experience.3. Looking forward in hope, III. Man in his maturity.1. Fully developed in heaven.2. Bids farewell to the toys of earth.3. Has clearer perceptions, grander views, nobler objects. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The present life the infant state of man Note the truth of this. I. In regard to mankind in general. Man is a more noble being than he appears, and was designed for nobler ends than he attains.1. If God expended so much labour in creating men and the world they live in, that they might be happy and illustrate His glory, their present existence, unconnected with a future state, shows neither His wisdom, goodness, nor justice, but casts obscurity over them all. Men do not here receive the punishment due to their sins nor arrive at the perfection either of their powers or happiness. 2. The Author of our being, who designed us for immortality, placed us in this infant state to ripen as for a glorious and eternal manhood. Our greatest growth here, compared with our future dimensions, does not transcend the size of children. This world is only the nursery, or the cradle in which souls yet in swaddling bands are rocked for immortality. 3. How miserably do they overlook the dignity of man who contemplate him only in the present life. What wretched miscalculation to consume all their cares in making provisions for this infant state, and neglect to provide for the happiness of a vigorous and eternal manhood. II. In regard to worldly men. Their views, tastes, knowledge, pleasures, etc., all bespeak them children. Compared with the high and noble end for which they were made, what trifles they are pleased with and they pursue! Compared with the dimensions and dignity of a glorified saint, the wealth of Croesus and the honours of Caesar are mere playthings. Are they not children? Mark how they pursue their little pleasures without any dignified and manly aim--what want of foresight for their future well-being. Subject to disappointments and sorrows, the children often fret and cry. They speak as a child, understand as a child, etc. Ah! when will they become men and put away childish things? Cast aside your toys and raise your thoughts to objects worthy of men--to the kingdom and glory of God--to infinite interests and immortal concerns. Many deem it manly to neglect religion, and account it childish to yield to piety. But they appear to angels as one would appear to us who at the age of fifty should busy himself in making houses in the sand. And it would have been better for them always to have remained children. A child is satisfied with his baubles: but they, possessed of capacities which nothing but God can fill, remain restless and uneasy with all their toys about them. III. In regard to Christians themselves.1. They speak of Divine things as a child, using expressions which no more reach the extent of the subject than the prattling of children about the moon conveys a full idea of that luminary. They had no other language for these subjects than that of Scripture, which, being adapted to the weakness of our apprehensions, is little more than an association of images borrowed from sensible objects. But when they arrive at manhood they will use a language expressive of things as they are--a language no longer darkened with the shadow of figures, but taken from the very light of the subjects themselves, and as luminous as truth. 2. Here their conceptions of heavenly things are extremely crude. All are largely mingled with ideas borrowed from sensible objects. But when they arrive at manhood their conceptions will be correct. 3. In this life their understandings are feeble and contracted, are darkened by ignorance, are perverted by prejudice, are liable to errors and misconstructions of the Word of God. But in heaven they will all see eye to eye, and be united in the most sublime and delightful views of Divine truth. Here they are limited to a very imperfect knowledge of God’ s will, and are often pressed with doubts respecting their duty; but there all duty will be made plain. Here their views are confined to a small circle; “ there they will take in the universe, Here, with all the helps they enjoy, they know but little of God; there they will see as they are seen and know as they are known. No longer limited to the hopes and anticipations of childhood, they will have arrived at the full attainment of their supreme good. No longer confined to the company of children, they will enjoy the society of the glorious army of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, etc. No longer limited to the low pursuits of this infant state, all their faculties will be employed in the most noble, parts of the Divine service. How vastly their powers will be enlarged cannot now be told. Was Newton a child? Was Solomon a child? What then is a man? (E. D. Griffin, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass darkly.Seeing darkly I. We see through a glass darkly.1. There is a literal significance in these words. With our physical organs of vision we do not see essential realities. This is an elementary law of optics; our sensuous vision is only a mirror upon which realities cast shadows. 2. We see our fellow-men with double veils between ourselves and them--they hidden from us in a drapery of flesh, and we looking through the glazed windows of our own organism. How much do we really know of them? The lesson here is that we should think more charitably of our fellow-men. Under the hardest concealment there is some goodness that shrinks from exposing itself, and the most careless and frivolous have their moments of thought and devotion. If ever one man is truly revealed to another, it is only by the agency of love and sympathy. The lightnings of the satirist do not rend open the door of the deepest heart. 3. So it is with the forms and objects of the actual world, the chemist, the botanist, the physiologist, after all how much below the rind have they pierced? How soon they are balked? The moment they get below forms and positions, and certain relations of things, everything becomes as impalpable as the shapes that pass over the surface of the mirror. Science, with all it has achieved, is merely a catalogue of appearances; its terminology is merely a set of equivalents, words masking the deep facts which we do not know. The chemist boasts that he can almost reconstruct the original tissues of the human frame. But what then? He cannot give life; nay, he cannot even tell what it is. 4. Astronomy is the oldest and most complete of all the sciences. Yet the questions in Job are just as applicable to our day as to his. It is a singular fact that objects which are the most remote from us fall within the arrangements of this most complete science. The nearer we get to our personality, the more deep the problems become. Astronomy is so satisfactory only because we are not near enough to it to touch the real problems which it presents. The most familiar objects--how the grass grows, how the fingers move--become to us unexplainable. And if, then it is thus with the more familiar objects, how is it with unknown realities or those which are known only by intermediate revelations? 5. Now if the creations of God which are most intimate are confessedly but as shadows of shapes upon a mirror, how must it be with the infinite God Himself? We behold Him only through His works, and there as in a glass darkly. And so in regard to His providential dealings with us. We cannot take in the vastness of God’ s plan, surely, if we cannot take in the essence of His works! We behold only processes, parts of things. As the child that might come into the laboratory of his father, the chemist, could not begin to comprehend from the transaction in which the father was engaged the great work at which he aimed, so we, children all of us, in a thousand years see but one of God’ s processes, and yet we talk and act as though we saw the whole, and challenge the Almighty because everything is not made clearly consistent with our idea of His goodness. God’ s most beneficent agencies appear to us only in shadow at the best. And thus it is that even the most beneficent providences of God sometimes appear like the ministers of wrath. We see but the transient aspects of death; it is but a shadow on the mirror, and this is a lesson for our faith in all the workings of God. II. Although we see darkly, we do see something.1. It is not a mere reflection, it is a reality behind the reflection. There are shadows, but there never is a shadow without something to cast a shadow. And remember also it is we who see darkly, not that the things themselves are dark. Faith, therefore, is the only legitimate conclusion from the capacity of seeing at all. (1) What do you make of these instincts of something higher and something better that have prevailed in all ages of the world and in all souls? are all these the images of nothingness? How can we have the shadows without the substance, or have the forms of things mirrored before us that do not exist in reality? (2) And then the affections, the great working of man’ s love, there is the thing that Paul fell back upon in this chapter. Man’ s love assures us that in this depth of nature in which God has planted within us there must be something higher and better. 2. There is great grandeur in the fact that Christianity has not made a full revelation of the things to come. There is a reason for that in the discipline we need. Gradual growth must develop us and make us all that we should be; Christianity should not reveal everything to us. But at the same time, as a religion of benevolence, Christianity would have informed us if these great primary instincts played us false. Jesus Christ would have told us if these affections of Our nature prophesied untruly. Yes, we see darkly, but we do see. And in that fact there is proof that we shall see better face to face. 3. Even with this dim, imperfect mirror there are degrees of seeing. We all see darkly enough--the clearest-sighted of us--but sometimes there is a film upon the eye of the observer as well as upon the mirror. (1) Sometimes men have their eyes darkened all over with the scales of appetite, so that all that they see is distorted, is made abominable. (2) And sometimes then see nothing on the mirror of this life but a gigantic image of self. Like the giant of the Hartz Mountains, they see projected upon life merely an enlarged idea of their own wants and of their own greatness. (3) But there are men who apprehend the reality of things which come darkly, and feel that there is a substance back of those shadows. 4. It is a momentous period in our being when a man awakes to a sense of realities. That is conversion to come to a sense that there are spiritual realities beyond our present vision, to come to a sense that our souls, God, Christ, eternity are real. (E. H. Chapin, D.D.)The body, the dark medium of spiritual vision It needs no illustration to show that our vision of spiritual things is very dim. The cause of this is our subject: the medium is dark, that medium is the body. Through the five senses we gather all the lights that flash on our consciousness and form within us ideas. But why is it dark? The body tends-- I. To materialise the conceptions of the mind. We “ judge after the flesh.” II. To sway the decisions of the mind. “ The desires of the flesh “ often move and master the soul. III. To clog the operations of the mind. Business, sleep, refreshment, exercise, disease, all these interrupt the soul. Our visions of spiritual things being so dim. Conclusion:1. None should pride themselves in their knowledge.2. None should arrogate infallibility of judgment.3. We should anticipate brighter and fuller visions, when the medium is removed, and we “ see face to face.” (D. Thomas, D.D.)The enigma of life The idea seems to be that just as when a man looks into a metal mirror, such as the ancients used, sees only a dim and ghost-like reflection of himself; so we, gazing ever upon the world of the known, see at best but a shadow of the truth. And just as a man puzzling over a riddle which is insoluble, sees a half, or some less or greater portion, of the meaning wrapped up in it, so it is with reference to all our knowledge. It does but amount to a guess more or less near or wide of the truth. Truth is wrapped in a riddle, life is a great and unexplained parable, but what urges us on is the feeling that by and by we shall stand face to face with the reality, and shall no more have to content ourselves with its mere representation. I. The enigma of life. An enigma is a form of thought and speech which half reveals and half conceals the soul of truth. If you take any of those proverbs which form the current thought-coin of the world, you will find it to be only a hint of the truth to which it points. Hence almost every such saying may be capped by others which express the exact opposite. There are proverbs which tell us that to live for the day is the best wisdom, others which tell us to “ consider the end;” some which emphasise the value of money, others which warn that loss is more profitable than gain. For we are many-sided creatures, and truth, to seem like truth at all, must be chameleon-like in its aspect. Our Saviour deliberately taught the multitude in riddles, which are but transcripts of that immense parable of nature and human life on which we are ever gazing.1. Nature is full of oracles which never say quite clearly what is meant. God addresses us in an oblique, not in a direct manner. There are times of anxiety when we wish it would please God to speak to us no more in these riddles. But if the wish were granted it would be unbearable, and your prayer would soon be that this excess of knowledge might be again hidden from your soul. 2. What an enigma is human nature! Few of us know anything but the surface. The great masters in poetry go a little below, but not far. What is human nature? Good or evil? Or, neither good nor evil, but a mixture or conflict, a result determined by education and circumstance? None but the ignorant will undertake to answer such questions oft-hand. You or I know as much about it as Calvin or as Shakespeare, which is not much. The soul is the enigma of enigmas. It is the meeting-point of heaven and hell. It is the scene of contention of good and evil spirits. The angel and the demon, the saint and the sinner, are in each heart. We look from day to day into the mirror of conscience, and see an image fainter or clearer of self. We note changes in that self, yet find that self the same. Sometimes that image frightens us, and again, under the spell of music or of prayer, a celestial glory falls upon that image. II. What is the temper of mind that befits usin presence of this enigma?1. Evidently a lowly habit, the very opposite of all conceit and dogmatism about the great problems of existence. Things mean much more than they seem to any one of us. Humility, the sense that our opinions are very partial, begets slowly a truer judgment of the relative value of things. We learn to appraise the contents of the world, and gradually to give them their right place in the scale of spiritual value. And we may learn, above all, better to know our own place and value, somewhere between the highest and the lowest point. 2. And thus, through lowliness, we may reach patience and leisure of mind; for we must not be hasty or impatient if we would live with God. Our eagerness to come to conclusions and to set the world to rights may imply a forgetfulness that the world is in God’ s charge, not ours. Our anxiety to get to a terminus seems to ignore that we have all eternity before us. Every great subject requires to be re-examined, every great book to be re-studied and revised. The forms of our religion must undergo incessant change; its essence abides, for the spirit of Jesus is the essence of Christianity. This is rooted not in any particular sort of intellectual acquirement, but simply in love. Love alone abideth. III. Love is the last solution of the enigma of life. As a principle in our own minds, love, says St. Paul, is greater than either faith or hope. The moment the spring of love dries in the heart, that moment we cease to believe and to hope. If we are true to love in the little world we govern, it cannot well be doubtful that He is true to love in the vast world He governs. The cause of any serious infidelity that exists lies here; men doubt whether God is as loving as themselves. But whence came your own love? You did not create it, and will you deny the Giver in the very strength of His gift? We cannot explain the problem of existence, but we can feel that that is already explained in the mind of God. In proportion as we live in God’ s love, shall we find the faith, and the hope, and the courage to face the facts of life, so long as those qualities are needed. (Prof. E. Johnson.)Christian mysteries Why God has mingled with the revelation of His will to man so much that is confessedly obscure. Note-- I. That the obscurity is nothing more than is to be expected from analogy. It is remarkable that mysteries sensibly multiply as knowledge increases. In every direction we soon reach the limits of human knowledge. How little does the educated man know of the mysteries connected with our bodily frame; but let the physiologist speak, and he will tell you that every separate member and vessel and nerve of the human frame is full of mystery. The peasant that turns up the ground, and casts in the seed, perceives no mystery in its growth; but the philosopher, who understands the wonderful process of vegetation, is conscious of difficulties which he cannot solve in its several stages towards maturity. Since, then, there is so much that is mysterious in the natural world, revelation is the production of the same Being, and bears the same characteristic feature of its great Original. II. The mysterious part of Christianity arises from the very nature of the Christian revelation. The truths which it announces transcend the comprehension of the human mind. “ Who can by searching find out God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection?”1. The doctrine of three persons in one God is an instance of this. The mystery does not consist in any ambiguity of language, but in the nature of the subject; not in the teacher, but in the small ability of the scholar. 2. The facts of revelation are accompanied with a similar difficulty. They do not come under human observation. Redemption through Christ is a series of operations which stands alone, belongs to a class of its own, and is not to be judged of by the measuring line of human policy. As well might a man, ignorant of the rules of art, pass his judgment on its most finished production. As well might the babe of yesterday exercise his faculties on the higher problems of nature, as men attempt to estimate the wisdom, love, and mercy that shine in the gospel of Jesus Christ. “ His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts,” etc. 3. The regeneration of the soul transcends the common observation. It is a fact taught; us by revelation, and experienced by the subject of it; but is only to be studied and known by others through the medium of its results. 4. The resurrection from the dead is not in accordance with our experience. We have no means of ascertaining the account of this truth. There is clearly no impossibility in it. The same power that formed our bodies may obviously reconstruct them. It is a field of Divine operation into which we cannot enter, and the mode in which the work will be accomplished is among the secrets of the Deity. III. The mystery that accompanies revelation tends to increase the efficacy of the gospel.1. It tends to humble us before God, which is the great end of the gospel. God is worthy of universal adoration, and the elements of this exercise of the mind are awe and reverential feeling. But this state of mind can never be produced by anything that we fully understand. Familiarity breeds contempt. The more distinctly we realise the limits of our knowledge the deeper will be our impression of the grandeur of the Divine mind. The wisdom of God, in His restorative system of mercy, abases man in the very faculty which caused our fall. He humbles us at the very root of the tree of knowledge, teaching us to submit our understandings to the guidance of His Word. 2. It tends to excite our diligence in examining Divine truth. The obscurity that conceals it is a reason for continuing our researches. God has made His revelation of a kind to try our best faculties. Were all that is to be known easy of apprehension it would be a departure from the usual mode of Divine procedure. In nature the most valuable is not found upon the surface. Gold is dug from the bowels of the earth, and pearls are gathered from the depths of the ocean. 3. It is necessary to make us more desirous of heaven, where we shall enjoy perfect knowledge. The attainment of the loftiest intellect on earth is but the alphabet of knowledge, compared with what we shall know hereafter. 4. It lies at the foundation of the Christian’ s hope. It must be mysterious that God should so love a ruined world. (S. Summers.)Now and then Paul had just been speaking of the “ child” and the “ man,” and no doubt that but dimly represents the difference between the “ Now” in this world and the “ Then” in the world to come. I. Now. 1. Our present organs of vision implied in “ we see.” These are our mental and spiritual powers of apprehension and knowledge. Through these we learn all we know of God. But these organs are weak and defective by reason-- (1) Of sin.(2) Want of proper activity and culture. 2. Our present medium of seeing--“ through a glass darkly.” Spiritual and Divine things are seen only by reflection, and that which reflects is incapable of giving a full representation, because of-- (1) Its own defectiveness.(2) Our defective vision.(3) The magnitude of that which is to be revealed. The “ glass” through which we see consists of three things-- (a) Nature. (b) Revelation. (c) Providence. These three represent God in His works, His words, and His ways. But that there is mystery and darkness about them who is vain enough to deny? That God is seen in these we all admit; but when, with our weak vision, we peer into these reflectors, what more can we say than that “ we see through a glass darkly.” II. Then. 1. Our future organs of vision will be very much the same as “ now” ; but how greatly developed and improved no mortal may know. The comprehensive knowledge, the strength and sweep of vision enjoyed by the redeemed may defy the powers of the most daring imagination to conceive. 2. Our future medium of seeing--“ face to face.” No glass any more, but blessed contact--actual presence. (1) The enormity of sin.(2) The love of God in the gift of His Son.(3) The righteousness of God’ s moral government. (T. Kelly.)Now and then There is all the difference between viewing an object through an obscure medium and closely inspecting it with the naked eye. “ Now we see through a glass darkly” in a riddle! So weak are our perceptions that plain truths often puzzle us. It is a matter of congratulation that we do see, though we have much cause for diffidence, because we do but “ see through a glass darkly.” Thank God we do know; but let it check our conceit, we know only in part. Note-- I. Some things that we do see now, which we are to see more fully and distinctly hereafter.1. Ourselves. To see ourselves is one of the first steps in true religion. The mass of men have never seen themselves. They have only seen the flattering image of themselves. (1) We have been taught to see our ruin in the fall and our actual sinfulness. But in heaven we shall see, as we have not yet seen, how desperate a mischief was the fall, and the blackness of sin as we have never seen it here. (2) We know to-day that we are saved; but that robe of righteousness which covers us now, as it shall cover us then, will be better seen by us. (3) Here we know that we are adopted; but there we shall know better what it is to be the sons of God, for here it doth not yet appear what we shall be, there shall we not only see the estates that belong to us, but actually enjoy them. 2. The Church. (1) We know there is a Church of God, but there we shall know something more of the numbers of the chosen than we do now, it may be to our intense surprise. There we shall find some amongst the company of God’ s elect whom we in our bitterness of spirit had condemned, and there we shall miss some who, in our charity, we have conceived to be perfectly secure. (2) We shall understand then what the history of the Church has been in all the past, and why it has been so strange a history of conflict and conquest. 3. The providence of God. (1) We believe all things work together for good to them that love God; but still it is rather a matter of faith than a matter of sight with us. Then some of us will say, “ I have fretted and troubled myself over what was, after all, the richest mercy the Lord ever sent.” (2) We shall there, perhaps, discover that wars, pestilences, and earthquakes are, after all, necessary cogs in the great wheel of the Divine machinery; and He who sits upon the throne at this moment will then make it manifest to us that His government was right. 4. The doctrines of the gospel and the mysteries of the faith. How much more of authentic truth shall we discern when the mists and shadows have dissolved; and how much more shall we understand when raised to that higher sphere and endowed with brighter faculties none of us can tell. 5. Jesus. We have seen enough of Him to know that “ He is altogether lovely” ; we can say of Him, He “ is all my salvation and all my desire.” Yet when we once get to the court of the Great King we shall declare that the half has not been told us. The streets of gold will have small attraction to us, and the harps of angels will but slightly enchant us, compared with the King in the midst of the throne. We shall see Jesus. 6. The pure in heart shall see God. God is seen now in His works and in His Word. Little indeed could these eyes bear of the beatific vision, yet we have reason to expect that, as far as creatures can bear the sight of the infinite Creator, we shall be permitted to see God. II. How this very remarkable change shall be, effected.1. No doubt many of these things will be more clearly revealed. Here we are in the dim twilight; there we shall be in the blaze of noon. God has declared something of Himself by His prophets and apostles. He has, through His Son, spoken more plainly. These are the first steps to knowledge. But there the only-wise God shall unveil to us the mysteries, and exhibit to us the glories of His everlasting kingdom. The revelation we now have suits us as me, clad in our poor mortal bodies; the revelation then will suit us as immortal spirits. 2. Here we are at a distance from many of the things we long to know something of, but there we shall be nearer to them. 3. We shall be better qualified to see them than we are now. It would be an inconvenience for us to know here as much as we shall know in heaven. But up there we shall have our minds and our systems strengthened to receive more, without the damage that would come to us here from overleaping the boundaries of order, Divinely appointed. 4. Besides, the atmosphere of heaven is so much clearer than this. Here there is the smoke of daily care, the constant dust of toil, the mist of trouble perpetually rising. III. The practical lessons.1. Gratitude. Let us be very thankful for all we do see. Those who do not see now even “ through a glass darkly,” shall never see face to face. 2. Hopefulness. You shall see better by and by. 3. Forbearance. Our disputes are often childish. Two persons in the dark have differed about a colour. If we brought candles in they would not show what it was; but if we look at it to-morrow morning we shall be able to tell. How many difficulties in the Word of God are like this! Not yet can they be justly discriminated; till the day dawn the apocalyptic symbols will not be all transparent to our own understanding. Besides, we have no time to waste while there is so much work to do. 4. Aspiration. It is natural for us to want to know, but we shall not know as we are known till we are present with the Lord. We are at school now; we shall go soon to the great university of heaven, and take our degree there. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Now and then I. Now we see all things in the “ mirror” of our own experience. It is impossible for either child or man to travel beyond the stage of knowledge, or experience, to which he has reached in his ideas and judgment of things. The uncivilised barbarian of the wilds cannot be made to realise, by description, the wonders of a great modern city. Thus through an imperfect mirror of knowledge and feeling we now see--1. God.2. The Saviour.3. Heaven. II. Then we see all things by actual presence and contact. “ Face to face.”1. The glory of God.2. The love of the Saviour.3. The wonders of heaven. So shall “ we know even as we are known.” The child becomes a man. Imperfection of knowledge and experience give way to the perfection of both. Then, like the queen of Sheba, we shall find that “ not the half has been told us.” (Clerical World.)The now and then of life The present life, in and by itself, is imperfect. Its completeness consists alone in viewing it as a part of a more complete whole. The present life is but a side, necessitating, to its completeness, another side. Viewed as a part of an entire whole, its discrepancies are corrected, its mysteries partially solved, and its significance and importance immeasurably enhanced. Note-- I. The extremes of life, as viewed relative to time:--“ now” and “ then.” These extremes are parts of the same piece, only different in place, and perhaps also in circumstances and relations. The “ now” and “ then” of life--1. Are dependent upon each other. The “ then” of life is dependent upon the “ now” of it as to its fact and character. There must be some antecedent “ now” before there can be an anticipative “ then.” The “ now” would be worth but little without the “ then,” any more than to-day could be highly prized without a hope of tomorrow. The “ then” inspires us in our present discouragements, or depresses us in its anticipation. The “ then” of life influences our minds as we view it applicable to our state and character. The guilty receives it with fear, the innocent with joy. 2. Are extremes only possible in conscious reality to superior beings. “ Now” belongs to all existences alike; but only a rational being can conceive in thought of the future, and he, as a moral being, can anticipate it through his hope or fear. 3. Have in them all provided and possible for us. All the past crowds the present, and will follow us, in some form or other, to the future. All that is needed to fill the present hour and fit us for the future is given us in the “ now,” and all the blessings and privileges of the.heaven of the future will be included in the “ then.” Whatever you need is within the compass of the “ now” : whatever you hope and wish is comprehended in the “ then.” 4. Present themselves very differently to our conviction and faith. The present is a matter of direct consciousness, the future is a matter of inference. Our experience is all in the “ now.” We look at the “ then” through promises and hope. The religion of the present would not only be absurd without the future, but groundless and impossible. 5. Are comprehensive only of one order. The moral order of truth and rectitude which obtains “ now” will be the same “ then.” The authority which demands certain things “ now” will be in force and unchanged “ then” ; nor will the essential powers of man be different “ then” to what they are “ now.” 6. May be extremely different, and in no case will they be identical. “ Now” we maybe happy and successful, but there may a “ then” when these will not be our portion any more. Let the “ now” be true and right, and the “ then” will have its hope and brightness. II. The superiority of the “ then” over the “ now.” As regards--1. The mode of perception. In this state we behold spiritual objects through a glass. All the means and things in our earthly state are but glasses to show something unseen and spiritual above sense and our present imperfect perceptions. What is the universe but one glorious glass to show us the more glorious Maker? And what is the Bible but a glass of the Divine and spiritual in man and the universe? Christianity, in all its means and ordinances, is a glass to us of the real and spiritual above and beyond themselves. But with all the assistance of our glass media our perception is feeble of things invisible and eternal. And why? Is it in our glasses or our way of using them, or in a deficiency in our spiritual perception? Partly in all these. But in our future state it will be face to face. There will be no veil over the face of things, and many things we use are things for rude childish condition: the condition of manhood will dispense with them as unfit and useless. In the “ then” condition of our being, the distance will be reduced into nearness, the attitude will be advantageous, the expression will be clear and in sight, and the powers of the soul will be strengthened and matured. 2. Clearness. In this state of things we see nothing perfectly clear. But in our future state not only win our perceptions be more acute and perfect, we shall not be subject to delusions and illusions, which so much confuse and mar our perceptions in this world. 3. The degree of knowledge. We in part know something about most things, but in the light of another day we shall probably learn that our profoundest knowledge is but a small part. The present condition of things does not allow us to know except in part. The imperfections of our senses, the weakness and afflictions of our minds and bodies, the cares and anxieties of life, the want of means, the shortness of life, and other obstructions, are things which prevent our knowledge being anything but very partial. But such imperfection is not to be always our lot. “ Then we shall know as now we are known.” We shall know holy intelligences as they shall know us. As they and we are but part of the same family, and they the most perfect, their knowledge of us appears to be a natural conclusion. As they know us in our lower home, so shall we know them in their higher one. As they know us in our trials, so shall we know them in their joys. Though our knowledge of God will be infinitely less perfect of Him than His is of us, yet He will be known to us as real, as a fact, as we are to Him. III. The advancement of life as viewed between the present and the future, Advancement, in some form or other, is seen everywhere. Life is a school for it, and everywhere there are suitable means and agents. This law runs through Christian life, and never is suspended, either in time or eternity.1. It is a personal advancement. The few cannot procure it for the many, or the many for the few. 2. It is the advancement of the good and true in life--from the childhood of weakness to the manhood of strength. 3. It is a thing of consciousness to its subjects. The advancement which is outside our conscious knowledge must be outside our will, faith, and activity, for the thing that is written there we have in common with them. Such an advancement is the one of a plant or a brute, and not of a rational man. 4. It is an advancement which is comprehensive of all requisite life. It is complete both in quality and degree. 5. It is an advancement above the power of common and natural means to produce. (T. Hughes.)Present knowledge and future I. The imperfection of our present knowledge of Divine things. It is said to be twofold, an imperfection of kind and an imperfection of degree.1. The first is illustrated by two comparisons. (1) We see by means of a mirror; that is to say, it is a reflection of truth we have at present, not the very truth itself. The copy is both defective and misleading. How often is the face of the mirror occupied with other images! How often is the vision distorted by passion or guilty remembrance! (2) We see darkly, in a riddle, enigma, or dark saying. Our knowledge comes to us through words, the source of so much misunderstanding and confusion. We apply a human language to measure Divine things. What is infinity, eternity? Each a riddle. 2. But our present knowledge is also imperfect in degree. “ I know in part.” Our great difficulty in religion is to know how to combine. We have several portions of Divine truth communicated to us, but in many cases without the connecting link--God’ s justice and mercy: His hatred of sin, and permission of the existence of evil; man’ s free will and God’ s free grace. But we know that God sees them in one. And “ what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” II. The future perfection of our knowledge.1. “ But then face to face.” Our knowledge of truth will be direct; not by reflection, but by intuition. And it will be personal. Face to face implies a person: “ The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2. “ Even as I was known.” Therefore our knowledge will be thorough; through and through. God is a heart-searching God. And it will be comprehensive. God’ s insight is large as well as minute. Notwithstanding a fault, He sees a servant; notwithstanding a good quality, He sees an enemy. Seeing minutest qualities, He judges of the character as a whole. We also shall see God’ s truth in its reconciling harmony and perfect unity. The imperfection of our present knowledge of Divine things must make no one idle in the pursuit of it. In this also, “ Whosoever hath, to him shall be given.” Finally, though many of our theologies may be contradicted, nothing that we have known of the living Saviour Himself will be contradicted, nothing that we have learned of Him by experience, or seen of Him in prayer. (Dean Vaughan.)The knowledge of God What Paul prophesies for man, Christ already possesses. Paul says, “ Some day I shall know God as God knows me.” Jesus says, “ As God knows me, even so I do now know God.” This is man’ s highest hope. It has been realised already in the man Christ Jesus. Thus we know that our hope is not a vain hope.1. “ God knows me,” says St. Paul. That was his fundamental conviction. But that conviction involved another. If the Father knew the child, it must be in the child’ s power to know the Father. Paul was no agnostic. Known perfectly, he knew but in part; but the time would come when he should know as he was known. And this certainty of a future knowledge was itself a present knowledge. 2. This future knowledge means perfect obedience in the future; perfect harmony between the child’ s action and the Father’ s will. When Jesus said, “ The Father knoweth Me,” He meant, “ God has a will for every act of Mine” And when He said, “ I know the Father,” He meant, “ In every act of Mine, I do the Father’ s will.” So with us. With perfect freedom answering to every will of God. There alone is peace and power. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)Imperfect knowledge Perhaps you are inclined to ask, Why are there mysteries at all in the revelations vouchsafed by God to man? Why should not the truths which it is of importance for us to know, be declared in language level to our capacities, and involving in them nothing to stagger our belief, or perplex our reason? I would meet this question with another, Why are there mysteries in the works of God? Why is this material universe filled with “ wonders which we cannot explain? and why are the design and objects for which an immeasurable portion of it was created, altogether concealed from us? There are persons of such sluggish and unthinking habits that thy live constantly in the midst of marvels without ever bestowing a thought upon them; and yet these very men who take all for granted, and never even appear to be aware of these everyday miracles, are apt, all at once, to grow scrupulous and over-cautious, and to demand proofs such as cannot be supplied, when they are called to give their assent to the mysteries of inspiration. Others there are who make the human mind their study; and surely there cannot be a subject more open to constant observation and intimate search than this. And yet, to teach us, as it would almost seem, how very limited our knowledge is, and how much there is to be believed which cannot be understood, these very inquiries into our own mental actions and endowments, appear to be, of all others, the least attended with any conclusive or satisfactory results. Others, again, there are who, building upon the unchangeable foundation of abstract truths, have investigated the laws which govern the heavenly bodies, and traced the handiwork of God in the glories of the firmament. But this very pursuit, which of all others most magnifies the capacities of the human mind, and seems to elevate our race to rank but a little lower than the angels, what does it open to us but fresh mysteries, and fresh demands upon our faith and humility? That there are mysteries both in nature and revelation, affords therefore some presumption that, since in this respect at least the systems are not opposed to each other, both may have the same author. But this presumption is strengthened when we trace the analogy further, and consider the rules which seem to hold alike in the mysteries of nature and in those of revelation. In the first place, they are matters which we are not qualified to understand; and in the second, they would not profit us at all, in our present state of existence, even if we could understand them. The mode of our present existence and the arrangements needful for its support, are familiar, and to a certain extent intelligible to us; but what conception could by any means be conveyed to us of existences and qualities unlike our own? The utmost stretch of human language could only express to us what they were not; and so far therefore from having any information communicated to us, we certainly might be more perplexed, but not wiser, than we were before. If this be true respecting the inhabitant of some other planet, must it not be equally true respecting the nature of the unseen world of spirits, and of the supreme and eternal God who reigns there? And, again, if we could understand them, what advantage would it be to us? Should we be better able to control our passions, by being informed about those who had no such passions to control? Should we be directed to a better use of our own faculties, by hearing of a race who had no pursuits or qualities in common with ourselves? God permits, and science enables us to learn, just so much with regard to the heavenly bodies, their orbits, and variations, as may in any way conduce to the enlargement of our understanding, or our general well-being. To allow more than this, to pamper an unseemly and useless curiosity, would not be in agreement with the unfathomable wisdom of Him who does nothing in vain. The application of the same limit to the revelations contained in His Word is sufficiently obvious. But there is a still further analogy in the practical results which follow from the existence of these mysteries, and which they were doubtless intended to effect. What can so forcibly inculcate humility as the experimental proof of our own ignorance and infirmity? And if such be the salutary lesson which nature’ s mysteries impress upon a thinking and a well-ordered mind, do not the mysteries of revelation enforce the same upon the student of God’ s will and Word? But further than this, they also indirectly serve to promote the acquirement of most important truths. The philosopher, in his attempts to investigate that which is inexplicable by human powers, has often been led incidentally to the discovery of much real knowledge; and he, whose curiosity may have led him to open the Bible with the view of displaying his own sagacity in unravelling its marvels, may, in the end, have not only had his vanity chastened and, corrected, but his soul enriched with some treasure of Divine wisdom, revealing juster views of himself, and better hopes and desires than he had entertained before. Surely, then, the analogy between the mysteries of the material universe and the revealed Word of God; the rules which appear to hold respecting both; and the practical results to which both are calculated to lead, would teach us to ascribe them to one gracious and incomprehensible Author, and to acquiesce in them, without one shadow of misgiving or inquisitive discontent. But besides this, there is another reason why mysteries must form a necessary part of a revelation proceeding from heaven, and at, other practical consequence of their existence to be deduced from the text. If the Word of God contained only just what we could understand, might we not with some show of reason doubt whether it could be God’ s Word at all? Might we not say, “ The Supreme Being would surely never have interfered to instruct His people, where their own natural powers might have proved a sufficient guide. That which man can understand so clearly in all its bearings, it is hardly too much to say that man might have discovered; and the absence of everything which calls for submissive faith is no weak argument against its Divine original” ? Mysteries then may, in some sort, be called the very credentials of a revelation. But again; I said that there is a practical consequence of the existence of mysteries in the gospel of our salvation, to be deduced from the expressions of St. Paul in the text. We are anxious to understand all mysteries and all knowledge. He tells us where this yearning shall be satisfied to the uttermost. It shall be in that kingdom of glory where we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, but face to face; where we shall not know in part, but know even as we are known. He that would reach to such intellectual sublimities must have had his soul purified to a meetness for the society of angels, and for approaching the more immediate presence of the Eternal. And further yet, the illustration taken by the apostle may aptly represent the posture of mind which befits the aspirant after heavenly wisdom. “ When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.” What are the characteristics of a good and intelligent child? His curiosity; his simplicity; his ready acquiescence in such explanations as he may receive upon the subjects of his inquiries: his cheerful confidence in his instructors, and his willing obedience to their injunctions. (T. Ainger, M.A.)The imperfection of our present knowledge I. The properties of our present knowledge which the apostle here mentions.1. This may refer to the extent or objects of our knowledge. (1) It is partial. Compare the views of a worm or any minuter insect with those of a man who has the largest and most comprehensive sight of the works of nature, and you have a faint image of the unknown difference there is between our present and future sphere of knowledge. (2) We know but in part even those few things that do fall within the compass of our present knowledge. There is not the least particle of matter we see, or the least dust of earth we tread on, but what puzzles the most penetrating and philosophic minds. We see only the outside of things, their external properties, their dimensions, form, figure, and colour; but as to their essence or internal substance, the cohesion of their constituent parts, and the laws of that cohesion, we can give no account at all of them. And if we know so little of material, how much less do we know of spiritual substances, which we have much fewer helps and opportunities of being acquainted with! And if we examine our knowledge of abstracted truths, or points of speculation and reason, how very defective does it appear! 2. Our knowledge is not only partial, but very indistinct. We see through a glass. This glass is twofold--reason and faith; by which we realise and represent to the mind future, distant, and invisible things. And happy is it for us that we have these excellent glasses to assist the eye of the mind, whose sight without the help of both would be very short and very defective. But the unhappiness of it is that these glasses, though very excellent in themselves, are often obscured and spoiled by the mists of errors, passions, and prejudices which hang upon them, and make them unable to penetrate through the darkness which lies between them and the distant objects they are intended to descry, which render our sight of those objects very obscure and indistinct. Not to say that imagination, as a false medium, often comes between, which enormously magnifies some objects and diminishes others as much. 3. Our present knowledge is not only very confined and indistinct, but very uncertain also. Our best knowledge is often but mere conjecture, and that conjecture may depend only on mere fancy, arising from a particular state or motion of the animal spirits, and resting more on mechanical than rational supports. For we not only see through a glass, but darkly. Future things are as yet concealed from us, wrapped up in allegory, riddle, or dark enigma, which gives us only a few indirect hints or a mystical representation of the thing intended, by which we are left to guess it out. And hence it is that multitudes form no notion at all concerning the objects of abstract science, whilst some are very dubious in the right, and others very confident in the wrong. And not only matters of abstruse speculation, but the plainest things in religion are by many but uncertainly understood. Not that the things themselves are uncertain, but it is uncertain whether the persons that boast the greater knowledge of them do form a conception of them that is certainly right, especially considering the medium they look through--that is, the lusts, passions, and prejudices with which they are beset. 4. The last view which the apostle gives us of the deficiency of human knowledge in the present state is by comparing it with that of children or infants. We are as yet in our non-age, and but children in understanding. Children, you know, through the immaturity of their faculties, the liveliness of their fancy, the strength of their passions, and inexperience of their age, are very liable to be mistaken; to take up with the first notions that are instilled without examination, to retain the first impressions that are made, whether right or wrong, to be fond of the little knowledge they have, to be confident in it, and to despise others for the want of it; whilst persons of greater sense, experience, and understanding, see that all their confidence is owing to their ignorance, and look upon them with pity. But not with half so much pity as we shall look upon ourselves hereafter when, emerged out of this obscurity in which we dwell, we look back from that region of light upon this land of darkness, and consider all our former ignorance, errors, false judgment, confidence, and prejudices, when we were but children in knowledge; when we saw through a glass darkly, and knew but in part, and spake and reasoned and thought as mere infants in understanding. II. What kind of knowledge the apostle is here speaking of.1. How partial, indistinct, uncertain, and low is our knowledge of the ever-blessed God! We diminish His Divine dignities in all our thoughts; we depreciate His excellencies in our most elevated conceptions: when we put our mind to the utmost stretch to form the sublimest ideas of His eternal glories, how soon do we find it overwhelmed with the weight of so astonishing a subject! For ah! how can immensity be confined in a hand’ s breadth? Here all finite faculties are entirely swallowed up, like a drop in the ocean, and we are lost in astonishment at the poverty of our powers. 2. It is but very little we know of ourselves. We know not the wonders either of our external or internal frame; the faculties of our nature; our capacities for service and happiness; the motives and springs of our conduct; the passions that govern us; the conduct and improvement of our superior powers; the influences to which they are liable; the purposes to which they are to be directed, and the manner in which they are to be employed in order to our happiness and usefulness, for which ends we received them. And which is worse, we do not so much as know either our ignorance or knowledge; we shut our eyes upon the former and wonderfully admire the latter, though it be, perhaps, but little better. 3. Our knowledge of Divine and religious things in general is exceedingly defective. It is sad to see what amazing ignorance there is amougst a multitude even of Christians about the great things of religion; and that not only in the deep and disputable mysteries of it, but in some of its most plain and important principles; nay, about the essential nature and most substantial truths of it, and even the plainest parts of practical religion; and this not only amongst the lowest order of men who have had no advantages of education, but among persons of a more elevated rank, who have had sufficient opportunities of being better instructed; but having no heart to improve the prize put into their hands, are apt to despise it as a very unnecessary part of learning, and neither value others the more for having it, nor themselves the less for wanting it. 4. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! If we turn but our eyes to the government of this lower world, we are soon lost in the mazes of infinite wisdom, and can never in the least conceive how good can arise from so much visible evil, order out of so much confusion, and beauty out of so much deformity. And yet that ,all things under the government of God are well and wisely managed we cannot doubt. But if we turn our thoughts to other worlds and other species of created beings (of which, without doubt, there are innumerable), all under the wise care and government of the same Almighty and Universal Monarch who is the daily object of our adoration, how do we blush and mourn under our present ignorance, and look upon ourselves and all our knowledge comparatively as nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity! III. Whence it is that all our best attainments in knowledge are at present so very poor and defective.1. Our mental powers themselves are at present but very feeble and defective. 2. The powers of the human mind at present are not only weak, but miserably confined and cramped in their operations by the union of the soul with a crazy and corruptible body. 3. Our sphere of knowledge is here very much contracted. Alas! what knowledge of the world or men can be expected from one who hath lived all his life in a dungeon? 4. Under all these disadvantages, the time that is here allowed us for attaining knowledge is very short. 5. How often are we diverted from this pursuit! How many avocations do we meet with from the world and the affairs of it, which necessarily claim a good part of our attention and care, and rob us of that time which might have been more usefully employed in augmenting the furniture of the mind! 6. How often are we perplexed, entangled, and bewildered by our own prejudices and those of others, whereby we are often turned aside from the right path of wisdom, and put upon a wrong scent. So that instead of making a progress in the right way of knowledge, we have enough to do to recover our wanderings from it. And it is sometimes the main business of the latter part of life to retract the errors of the former. “ To what end, now,” perhaps you will be apt to say, “ have you given us this very diminutive view of human knowledge?” I answer--1. To excite our most ardent desires after that world of light and liberty where, disencumbered from our present embarrassments, we shall enjoy the pleasures of pure and perfect science. 2. To show how very little reason the most understanding man on earth has to be vain of his knowledge. 3. That holy, humble, upright souls, who have had but few means and opportunities of attaining knowledge, may not be too much discouraged under a consciousness of their present ignorance. (J. Mason, A.M.)The perfection of our future knowledge I. The properties of our future knowledge.1. It will be distinct and clear; no longer confused and obscure as it now is while we look through a glass. 2. It will be certain and satisfying; no longer conjectural and enigmatical as it now is while we look through a glass darkly. 3. It will be perfect and complete in its kind; and no longer defective as it now is whilst we know but in part, for we shall then know even as we are known. II. Some of the various objects of it.1. The most glorious and felicitating object of our thus improved and enlightened understanding will be the ever-blessed God Himself. It is true the great and blessed God, as a pure and perfect Spirit, can never be seen with bodily eyes. But we must not think that the soul is capable of no distinct and clear perceptions but what it receives by means of bodily organs. It has even now a power of realising and ascertaining, of contemplating and enjoying things that are not seen. And when our mental powers shall be unconfined, enlarged, and improved, as we are sure they will be in heaven (and we know not but there may be new faculties superadded, suitable to the new objects of contemplation), we shall then as distinctly and clearly discern and contemplate spiritual and invisible objects, as we now do material ones by an eye of sense. 2. Then shall we begin to know ourselves. For whatever it may be thought, man is as yet one of the greatest mysteries to himself; that is a subject about which he knows as little as almost anything which falls within the compass of his understanding. Then he will begin to think as an immortal creature ought to do, which he very rarely does now, whilst his mind is sensualised, his understanding cramped, his sentiments debased, and his heart captivated by low and earthly things. Then will he look up to his original with perpetual adoration and joy, and live up to the dignity of an intelligent and immortal being, made for the honour of his great Creator, in whose praise and service all his powers will be for ever delightfully employed. 3. Our sense of religious and Divine things will then be strong, comprehensive, and clear. Then only shall we begin to be infallible, and perhaps be ashamed of our former ignorance when we thought ourselves most so. Then shall we discern the wrong paths in which we trod, as plainly as a benighted traveller at the rising of the morning sun, and be able, it may be, to trace our errors up to their original, the first wrong impression we received which insensibly turned us aside from the path of truth, which we were never able afterwards to recover, whilst at the same time we shall adore the guard and guidance of Divine grace which preserved our feeble and fickle minds from imbibing errors of a more dangerous and pernicious tendency. 4. Glorious and surprising then will be the new discoveries we shall make in the works of God. The hidden mysteries of nature which now lie too deep for our ken, and baffle all our most exquisite and laborious research, will then lie open to our view, and we shall have an intuitive knowledge of what it now costs us the study of an age to attain an imperfect notice of. 5. What a sweet and sublime entertainment will the enlarged mind enjoy in contemplating the wise and wondrous ways of Providence! III. What just and solid reasons we have to believe that our knowledge hereafter wilt, be so complete and satisfying.1. Because we are sure that in heaven there will be nothing wanting to perfect the happiness of a glorified spirit. 2. Its powers, capacities, and desires will be then inconceivably enlarged and opened, and consequently the objects and extent of its knowledge must be proportionably increased. Conclusion:1. Let us remember that all the natural powers and faculties of the mind will then be in their full strength and maturity. 2. Our sphere of knowledge will then be vastly enlarged. 3. The enlarged powers of our mind will then be free from all their present encumbrances. 4. We shall have no wrong prejudices and prepossessions to overcome or guard against, by which our free progress in true knowledge is now so much obstructed. 5. We shall then meet with no more avocations to divert us from the pursuit of knowledge. 6. This speedy progress in knowledge we shall make, not only a few years, but to all eternity. (J. Mason, M.A.)The joy of revelation Now we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know fully, even as also I am known fully. What joy, what exultation, what ardour, what longing there is in these words! They carry us far on and far away--far on beyond this present time of this passing world, far away from the scenes of this present life. “ Then” --when time and change and varying seasons are past--then, when the alternations of cloud and sunshine are over--when doubt, and difficulty, and perplexity have been left behind--then I shall know fully. Then, in a sense more complete than the words have ever yet borne, I shall be able to say, “ The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” His vision has reached the innermost shrine. Like another St. John, a “ door has been opened to him in heaven.” A voice has said to him, “ Come up hither and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.” But for what was the apostle’ s heart yearning? He was yearning for the full knowledge of God (ἐπιγνῶσις). Yes, but what made him yearn for that knowledge? Because he had known the joy of knowledge. “ Now I know in part, but then shall I know fully.” But is, then, knowledge a joy? All things round us witness to the fact that knowledge is believed to be a source of happiness. And does not every advance in knowledge make us eager for a further advance still, as mountain climbers find fresh peaks still luring them on to the delight of further efforts? Are we not ready to cry out ,gain and again with the apostle, “ We know only in part” ? And if this be so with all forms of mere earthly knowledge, must it not be far more so with heavenly knowledge? These strange powers which we possess of thought, of reflection, of consideration, of meditation, of insight, of memory, of intuition, of investigation, were not given us that they might be spent only on what one of our poets calls so well “ these earth-born idols of this lower air.” Man was not made only that he might know the records of history, the niceties of language, the wonders of physical science, the conclusions of mathematics. We were created with all our powers of mind that we might know God. Not in vain has theology been called “ Scientiarum Scientia.” The science of all sciences is the knowledge of God. Aye, and it was the joy of this knowledge which was filling the apostle’ s heart when he wrote these words, “ Then shall I know fully, even as also I am known fully.” Already he knows God in the tenderness of His Fatherhood, in the fulness of His pardoning love, in the atonement wrought out by the Son of God, in the might of the indwelling Spirit, in the richness of the gifts poured out on, poured into the Church. That knowledge has grown upon him more and more since the day when the pleading voice of his Lord broke in upon him with the question, “ Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Every past revelation has brought to him an increase of faith, of hope, of love, of peace, of happiness, and joy, and has taught him to realise more fully what will be the exceeding bliss of the complete revelation of God to those who are brought to see Him face to face. So rejoicing, so hoping, so expecting, so yearning, lie cries out, “ Then shall I know fully, even as also I am fully known.” All bars all hindrances, all veils will be withdrawn. And now let us see how the joy of this knowledge came so to grow in the mind of St. Paul. First, clearly, because he set himself with intense earnestness to receive in all its vividness and distinctness the revelation that came from God. He felt deeply the tenderness of God in making known the truth. He felt as strongly the responsibility of man for receiving into his mind the fulness of truth in all its purity, in preserving it from all error that might dim or disturb it. No doubt ever crossed his mind that God could be known. Still less did he question the power of God to reveal Himself. How should not the best of all Fathers teach His children? Then quick upon the thought of this love of God came the feeling that if God is so loving as to tell to His children the secrets of their own nature--their sin, their fall, the way of their recovery, and of their union with Himself, nay, if God goes further still and tells them even the secrets of the mystery of His own being, then the children in very gratitude must be ready to learn in its fulness the lessons that the Heavenly Father has given them. So see how jealously St. Paul ever guards the truth. Not an angel from heaven is to persuade us to receive any other gospel than that which we have received. Yes, indeed, the knowledge of God grew upon his soul because he set himself to use in their fulness and exactness all the Divine utterances of truth. He was the unswerving disciple of a Master that spoke with authority, and he taught men to observe all things which that Master had commanded. Is not this the secret of the growth of knowledge of God--the getting clearly before the soul the things that He has taught? To us, as to him, it will bring a higher joy than any other kind of knowledge can bring. In us, as in him, it will waken up a thirst for a fuller, a more complete knowledge. To us, as to him, the knowledge which we have already as a gift from God, will be a pledge that it is the will of God to carry to their highest perfection the revelations which even here have been so full of joy. “ Now I know in part, but then shall I know fully, even as also I am fully known.” “ Even as also I am fully known.” As we hear these words a new thought comes breathing out through them. It was not only because he had been so careful to receive the revelation that comes from God that the knowledge of God had grown in the soul of the apostle. No, he had known God personally, something as one friend knows another; nay, in a manner more intimate. There had been between him and God the close communion of the creature with the Creator, of the redeemed with the Redeemer, of the spirit of man with the indwelling and sanctifying Spirit. There is no knowledge which so grows, which so blesses, as the knowledge which the soul gains by living in close communion with God. Oh! live, move, act, speak, think as in His sacred, loving, penetrating presence. “ Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” Live with souls kept consciously ever open to His influences. In the power of the Holy Ghost press into an ever closer union with the living Christ till He lives more wholly in you and you more wholly in Him. Then, then indeed, the joy of knowing God will grow more and more upon you. The sacred doctrine of the Trinity, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost will be no mere abstract truth to you. It will be a revelation of a love personal to yourself in the light of which you will live. (R. W. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity.Faith, hope, and charity I. Faith, the fundamental principle of Christianity. It is not mere belief, but trust. It is faith that gives to Christianity its whole name, character, and nature. And faith gives a man a new relationship to God. It makes him son of God and joint-heir with Christ. Therefore, the man who has faith in Christ will be a good living man, showing his faith by his works. II. Hope, the consequence of faith. If a man believes in the Son of God, he shall not perish, but have everlasting life. If we firmly believe this promise it will give us hope of its fulfilment. Hope is the anchor that sustains the Christian in all the storms of time, the chain that connects him with the future amid all its difficulties. What would life be without it, even in a worldly sense? The anticipation of something better bears us up amid many of the world’ s trials. But even the best of our worldly hopes is of a transitory and uncertain character, but the heavenly hope is sure and steadfast. Hope is not only a privilege and a blessing; it is part of a Christian’ s duty. A man who sits down and desponds loses the very anchor of his ship. III. Charity. First, faith the root and trunk, then hope the branches, then charity the fruit, the highest development of the Christian character, the practical part of Christianity. Faith is the inward union of the soul with Christ; hope is the support which gives us strength to battle with the present; charity the outward manifestation of what we feel within. Only realise that the gospel is love, and then you realise its beauty and realise its glory. (J. J. S. Bird, B.A.)Faith, hope, and charity I. The nature or each or these graces.1. Faith. Now faith means belief; and evangelical and saving faith is believing the gospel. The gospel contains an account of man’ s ruin by sin, and of his redemption by Christ, and these things, when believed, produce an important effect upon our state and character. 2. Hope is the desire, combined with the expectation, of some future good; and Christian hope is the desire and the expectation of all the good which is promised to believers in the Word of God. (1) Its objects include all the blessings belonging to the kingdom of grace and of glory. As Christians we have much in possession, but more in prospect. (2) Its foundation is the gospel of Christ. The reason which we have for the hope that is in us is derived from the exceeding great and precious promises which God has given to us in His Word, the fulfilment of which is secured to us by the blood of Christ, by the oath of God, and by the faithfulness of the Divine character. We hope therefore because we believe. (3) Its influence. It encourages our prayers; for the hope of receiving inspires confidence in asking. It promotes our holiness; “ for every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pare.” And it is a source of peace and consolation and joy. 3. Charity or love. (1) Love to God includes in it gratitude to Him for His goodness; approbation of His character; cheerful obedience to His commands; desire for the enjoyment of His favour, and for increasing conformity to His image. (2) Love to our fellow-creatures in general is “ goodwill to men.” (3) Love to the brethren is love to Christians as such. It includes approbation of their characters as well as benevolence to their persons. II. The union which subsists among the three. They are united.1. In their source. Diversified as they are in their nature and operations, they have each their source in God. The heart of man, which is naturally “ deceitful above all things,” etc., cannot be the fountain of streams, so pure and hallowed as these three. Faith, we are told, is “ the fruit of the Spirit” and “ the gift of God.” Hope has the same Divine origin, for it is “ the God of hope, who fills you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” And love is equally of God, for “ God is love,” and it is His love which is shed abroad in our hearts. And as “ these three” are thus united in God, their source and giver, it is from God alone that you are to seek them, by earnest and by persevering prayer. 2. In their residence--the heart. The body, the soul, and the spirit are not more necessary to compose a living and a perfect man than are faith and hope and love to constitute a living and a perfect Christian; for were any one of these three wanting, there would be a fatal deficiency in the character. He therefore, by whom that character is formed, begins it by the gift of faith, but completes and perfects it by the addition of hope and love. There is not one of them with which a Christian can part. You cannot, e.g., part with faith; for we are saved by faith, and without faith it would be impossible to please God. You cannot part with hope; for without hope we should be of all men the most miserable. And you cannot part with love; for that would be to lose the very image of God; for “ he that loveth not knoweth not God.” As therefore in an arch you cannot part either with the foundation-stones or with the key-stone in the centre, without ruin to the whole fabric, so you cannot part with any one of these three graces without becoming absolutely “ nothing.” 3. In their influence. (1) To purify the heart, for our hearts are “ purified by faith” ; “ every man that hath this hope in Him, purifieth himself, even as He is pure” ; no man can love God without becoming “ a partaker of His holiness.” (2) In prosperity, in supplying the Christian with sweeter pleasures than earthly things can yield, and in keeping him unspotted from the world. His faith beholds an inheritance, “ incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away” ; his hope seeks fruition in “ joy unspeakable and full of glory” ; and his love leads him to choose God as his invaluable portion, and to declare, “ whom have I in heaven but Thee?” etc. (3) In adversity, in bringing strength and consolation to the soul. III. The superiority of charity to both faith and hope, “ The greatest of these is charity.” The epithet of “ great” belongs, to each, and they are far superior to natural talents and even to miraculous endowments. Love is the greatest of the three, because--1. It is the only grace which is exercised by God Himself. 2. It is the grace for the sake of which faith and hope are produced and exercised. Love is the sacred temple which faith and hope are employed in building, and needful as their presence and exertions are now, whilst the temple is rising, yet when the topstone is brought forth, and when the cloud of glory has filled the holy place, their assistance will no longer be required, and they may rest from their labours. 3. It is capable of putting forth greater energies, and of performing greater achievements. 4. It is eminently and almost entirely a social grace. Faith and hope are in a great measure personal graces. 5. It alone is eternal in its duration. Faith, like the venerable lawgiver, ascends Mount Pisgah, views the promised land, and dies. Hope, bright and cheering as the morning star, grows dim, and fades, amidst the splendours of the rising and meridian sun. But Charity, immortal in her existence as the soul she inspires, and as the God from whom she came, ascends, like Elijah, in a charier, of fire, and is translated to the realms of life and joy. (T. Alexander.)Faith, hope, and charity Let us then inquire--I. What faith, hope, and charity are.1. Faith has respect to things either unseen or future. 2. Hope is desire and expectation of good. 3. Charity is love to God and love to man. There may be in our text a special reference to love to man, including the love of complacency towards the good, and a love of compassion towards even the vilest of the vile. II. The excellence of faith and hope.1. Faith is excellent contemplated-- (1) Intellectually. The power of realising existing objects and past and future events is a power of incalculable value, without which man would not be man. Most of our knowledge is obtained through the medium of books and oral instruction, which we have read and heard and have believed. Even common conversation owes much of its interest to the faith which we have in one another. In commerce the importance of a promise to pay and of believing that promise is most apparent. Trial by jury, on which the question of life or death often depends, would be useless were faith in civil society impossible. (2) Morally. (a) A man “ whose word is as good as his bond” is universally and deservedly esteemed. He is a man who can be believed. (b) But the moral excellence of faith is most of all apparent in its reference to God. Faithfulness as clearly belongs to God as either justice or mercy; and when we trust in Him without fear, we “ give to Him the glory due to His name.” (c) Faith exerts a beneficial interest on the entire character of man as exposed to temptation. For his conflict the moral soldier is furnished with “ the shield of faith” . “ This is the victory that over-cometh the world,” etc. (d) It is essential to our salvation. It is to a Christian what grasping the hand of a friend would be to a drowning man. 2. Hope is excellent, because-- (1) It is the next best thing to actual possession (Romans 8:24). It is the earnest of heaven. (2) It neutralises if not annihilates the misery which great affliction might otherwise create; “ these light afflictions, which are but for a moment,” etc. III. The surpassing excellence of charity.1. It is more disinterested than either faith or hope.2. It is the perfection of man.3. It is eternal.4. Although charity is before faith and hope in point of excellence, faith is first in order of time. (J. Burder, M.A.)Faith, hope, charity 1. It is proof of the importance of this Divine trio that they are universally necessary. Excellent and wonderful are the gifts of healing, etc.; precious and indispensable are those more ordinary gifts through which the edification of Christ’ s body is provided for; but they are not gifts of which it can be said that a man must possess them in order to be saved. 2. The practical value of these three gifts is enhanced by the fact that they are universally attainable. Miraculous gifts might, even in the age of miracles, be sought without success; and they were withdrawn long ago. But of the gifts of faith, hope, and love, we can say that “ every one that seeketh findeth,” and it is a man’ s own fault if he has them not. 3. There is a remarkable pairing and grouping of these graces in the Scripture (1 the 1:14: Ephesians 6:23; Galatians 5:6). Observe also the coupling of faith and hope (1 Peter 1:21; Colossians 1:23). We also find them grouped all together (Colossians 1:3-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:3). 4. The admirable nature of these graces is proclaimed by the functions assigned to them as part of the Christian’ s heavenly armour (Ephesians 6:16). Consider them-- I. In a general way.1. Love has the first place in point of time. There was a time when there was, and could be, no faith and no hope; but the gospel tells us of an everlasting love. What is declared of the Word is true of love (John 1:1). 2. While love can, and does, dwell wherever faith and hope find a home, it makes its chief abode in a quarter to which they have no access. But love takes a higher flight. God neither believes nor hopes; but God loves. 3. All three are springs of human action. But love is more; it is a spring of action on the part of God. Faith and hope beget great deeds; but they are only the deeds of men after all. Love awakens to action the powers of omnipotence, and God arises at its summons. II. As graces which are found in every real Christian’ s heart. When thus considered, love is the greatest of them all.1. It excels in respect of its success and range. The Christian’ s love is the companion of his faith and hope in all their exercises, and goes forth upon the object on which they lay hold: but it is also the companion and follower of God’ s love, and makes for the objects of Divine regard. 2. It carries off the palm among the graces, because it imparts a likeness to God. God is love. “ In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” 3. The disinterestedness of love gives it pre-eminence. Love’ s office is to give. Faith and hope are exercised in the reception and anticipation of benefits. Love “ seeketh not her own.” 4. The greatness of love may be estimated by its relation to holiness. Faith, indeed, is a holy principle, and holiness is the result of its influence and operation. So hope also is a holy principle, purging away the defilement of sin. Every man that hath it in him, purifieth himself, as Christ is pure. But love is holiness itself--the end for which these means and instruments are employed. 5. Love is greatest in respect of the ultimate importance of the part it has to act. (1) There are various respects in which faith and hope are greater than love. Take the case of a man convinced of his guilt, and longing for pardon and acceptance with God. Love can do nothing there. When the jailer cried, “ What must I do to be saved?” it was faith that was summoned to the rescue. Take the ordinary case of God’ s people on earth, exposed to danger from the world. Love would be borne down and put to death, did not faith cover love with the buckler of its protection. Or take the case of one who is visited with protracted trials and afflictions. Is it love that will keep him from despair? No. That is the office of hope. (2) But then the offices of faith and hope now glanced at do not last for ever. The time is coming when there will be no such work as we have spoken of for faith and hope to do. We do not say that faith and hope will then disappear. For the redeemed will always trust in God, and look to Jesus; and in viewing the eternity that stretches out before them, they shall be animated by a hope on which there will never be a cloud. But faith and hope will not continue in the front of the scene. They will then confess themselves to be but the handmaids of love, and will make way for love by withdrawing into the shade: Having nursed and defended love in her infancy, and watched over her ripening years, and having, at last, conducted her to the steps of her destined throne, their work is comparatively finished. Then will be the glorious reign of love. (A. Gray.)Faith, hope, love I. The specific nature of each.1. Faith. As to its origin, it is the gift of God; as to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit; as to its object, it fastens on Christ; as to its exercise, it is the disciple’ s own act the Scriptures make much of faith--“ Precious faith” ; “ Thy faith hath saved thee” ; “ Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Faith is the first stone of the building, but it is not the, foundation. Our help is laid on One that is mighty. But beware how you come to Christ. Any work of yours, by way of recommending you, will be a non-conductor through which the light of life from the Saviour cannot run (Galatians 5:2). 2. Hope is adapted to a transitory, imperfect state. Its office is to diminish the sorrows of the present by drawing on the stores of future joy. It is the tenant, not of a heart that was never broken, but of a heart that has been broken and healed again. A pure, bright star fixed in heaven, it reaches with its rays the uplifted eye of the weary pilgrim. But stars shine not in the day; the darkness brings them out. So grief summons hope to the aid of the sufferer. When the ransomed rise from the sleep of the grave, this gentle star, which had often soothed them in the night of their pilgrimage, will nowhere be found in all the upper firmament; for in presence of the Sun of Righteousness hope, no longer needed, no more appears. 3. Love. Some fragments of this heavenly thing survive the fall and flourish in our nature. It is beautiful even in ruins. We shall learn more about its nature when we are called to consider its magnitude. II. The mutual relations of all. Hitherto we have spoken of them as three rings lying beside each other; now we speak of them as three links within each other, so as to constitute a chain.1. The relation between faith and hope. Faith leans on Christ, and hope hangs by faith. There is, indeed, a species of hope which has no connection with faith. If in a place of danger you saw a chain whose uppermost link was surely fixed in the living rock, and whose lowest link--a goodly, iron ring--was vibrating invitingly near, you might be induced to venture your body’ s weight upon its seeming strength. If that lowest link were not within the one above it, but only attached externally by some brittle twig, you would exchange the slippery place of danger for the plunge into inevitable death. It is like the fall of sinner who has risked his soul for the great day on a hope not linked to faith. 2. The relation between hope and love. Hope leans on faith, and love on hope. Love will languish unless blessed hope be underneath. Love’ s manifold efforts, stretching out in every direction and leaving no space unoccupied, are like the branches of a fruit tree. A single stem supports and supplies them all, while itself in turn is supported and supplied by the root. So hope, itself sustained by faith, sustains love in its turn. Hope in the heart of the Man of Sorrows bore Him through His labours of love (Hebrews 12:2). Hope is the mainspring of labouring love--hope in the Lord, first for yourself, and then for your neighbour. III. The superior magnitude of the last.1. In its work on earth. It is the only one of the three that reaches other men and directly acts upon them for their good. (1) “ Thy faith hath saved thee,” but what can it do for thy brother? It operates by sustaining and stimulating other graces--“ Faith worketh by love.” (2) Hope in like manner begins and ends in the heart of a disciple. The less that your hope, as such, protrudes itself on the notice of mankind, the better for its own health; but the more it swells within your breast, the more of love will it send forth to bless the world. (3) On the contrary, it is the nature of love to come out. Unless it act on others it cannot be. Love teaches the ignorant, clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, and is the fulfilling of that law which came latest from the Lord’ s own lips: “ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel unto every creature.” 2. In its performance in heaven. (W.Arnot, D.D.)Faith, hope, love 1. What a happy grouping, so familiar now that nothing seems more commonplace; but what an inspiration it was when it first flamed out of the soul of the great apostle! 2. We cannot forget that he had the advantage of Greek culture, so it is natural to suppose that he was led to the conception by the three graces. But what a contrast between the Greek and the Christian graces! The one represented chiefly the charms of outward beauty, winsomeness, gleefulness; the other were not mere embellishments of life, but its central forces, the deep springs of all that was true and beautiful and noble in character. Was not that a most significant change? The word “ grace” retains its Greek as well as its Christian meaning in our language. We often use it in the old sense, e.g., “ grace in every movement of the body,” or “ done with a very good grace” ; but just think in what a different region of thought and life we are when we speak of grace in its profound Christian sense. There are those who have real grace in the heart, whose manners do but scant justice to that which is within them; and there are those who have succeeded in cultivating outward graces of manner, but are utterly devoid of grace within. Give us both the outward and the inward, if it be possible; but if it must be only one, let it be that which is real and deep and true. 3. But we must look at the triad of Christian graces. The apostle says that they abide while other good things pass away. 4. The contrast in regard to abiding is not between the graces among themselves, but between gifts and graces (1 Corinthians 13:8). This contrast between knowledge, as transitory, is especially interesting now that there is a disposition to speak of faith, etc., as the shadowy things which are rapidly vanishing away, while knowledge is the substantial thing which is sure to hold its ground. Is not faith giving way to agnosticism? Is not hope fading before pessimism? And is not the old idea that love is creation’ s final law giving way to the new philosophy which resolves everything into matter and force? 5. Is there any way of testing which is right? If only we could project ourselves forward, say, for 2,000 years, how very satisfactorily we could settle the matter! Would a learned man of the nineteenth century pass for a learned man of the thirty-ninth? Or would he be only as a child? But will not faith, etc., be as powerful and healthful factors in life as they are now? But we must not prophesy. But what if we look 2,000 years back? Where would the wise man of the apostle’ s time be alongside of our mighty men of science to-day? Imagine a conversation between Pliny, the elder, and Professor Huxley on biology. The great naturalist of the first century would have to go to school for twenty years before he was ready to begin. Would the apostle Paul have to go to school for twenty years before he could begin to talk with an advanced Christian of the nineteenth century on faith and hope and love? The learning of the time was not at all to be despised. Nor did the apostle at all despise it; only he recognises the fact that it is partial--that in course of time it will be obsolete. We may be sure that this would by no means please the gnostics of the day, as they called themselves. These learned men believed they had reached the ultimate truth. The apostle did not undertake to pronounce on the truth or falsehood of what they taught; only he plainly indicated that it would by and by be out of date, whereas the heavenly faith and hope and love which it was his high calling to set before men would last. Where are the gnostics now? I don’ t suppose there is one left in all the world. But faith, etc., inspire as many men now as they did then, and thousands of thousands more! 6. And many other knowledges have passed away besides that of St. Paul’ s day in the course of these nineteen centuries. A very striking illustration of this is to be found in the “ Paradiso” of Dante. The science of his time is so completely out of date that, without a special study of it, it is impossible to understand what he means at all when he is trying to expound it; and after you do find what he means it is not of the slightest use or permanent value. Ah, but when he soars on the wings of faith and hope and love, we soar with him yet. And they were the same as the apostle’ s, only they were not entangled with the errors of the times. A most signal token this of an inspiration far transcending that of Dante. And here we can go back far more than eighteen centuries. Look at Genesis. There is the very oldest book in all the world. Is it obsolete? Compare it with the work of Dante in this respect, and what a contrast! People talk of the conflict between science and faith. There is no such conflict. It is only the conflict between old science and new. All our troubles with scientific opinions have come from our leaving the lofty regions of faith, etc., and descending into the troubled area of shifting scientific knowledge the holy men of old who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, kept quite clear of all these questions. You don’ t find them pronouncing opinions on scientific subjects. They kept themselves to their own faith and hope and love. 7. The knowledge that many of us are ambitious, and rightly ambitious, to acquire will no doubt be of great service for many years to come; but faith, hope, and love are just as needful and serviceable for these years; and then their value by no means ends with these years, but lasts on and on for ever. They are the coin current in eternity. Without them we shall be paupers for eternity, however wise and learned and well-equipped for time. (J. Monro Gibson, D.D.)Faith, hope, charity These three graces form the essential elements of the Christian character. They are principles implanted in the heart of every true Christian by the Holy Spirit, and always exemplified in his outward walk and conversation. I. The nature and effects of faith, hope, and charity.1. Faith, in its general signification, is credit given to testimony. It is a principle upon which we are continually acting in the ordinary concerns of life. Now the faith spoken of in the text is precisely the same principle, only having a different object and resting upon higher testimony. We cannot penetrate the recesses of the Divine counsels. Faith is a cordial assent to the truth of all the declarations of God’ s Word. “ Entering into the daily habits and experience of the Christian, this principle is the spring of his most holy tempers, exertions, attainments, and consolations. He lives--he walks--he stands--he perseveres--he fights--he conquers and triumphs, by faith.” 2. Hope is a lively expectation of obtaining those things which we desire; and when we are led by faith to a knowledge of our real condition, we shall obviously desire nothing so much as deliverance from that condition. The principal object of hope will, therefore, be the attainment of eternal salvation through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Hope differs from presumption. When thus grounded upon the everlasting covenant which has been confirmed by the oath of Jehovah, it does afford strong consolation to the true Christian. 3. Charity, like faith and hope, is a stranger to the natural heart. And oh! what a splendid character does it present to us! “ How glorious is it as an emanation of Divine goodness when compared with the usual habits of men; when viewed in contrast with the habitually selfish doings of many men, who even profess and call themselves Christians!” It is, at the same time, a character so elevated, that it needs a certain measure of Christian grace to perceive and to love its excellencies. II. In what the superiority of charity consists.1. It is more excellent in its nature. Perfect excellency can be found only in God Himself. It is by this grace, then, that the restoration of the Divine image takes place in our hearts. 2. It is more advanced in order. That is, it ranks higher in the scale of attainment. We must possess faith and hope before we can be actuated by the principle of love. They are the means; this is the end. It is the prize itself of which faith and hope must gradually put us in possession. A magnificent edifice cannot be erected without scaffolding; yet the building is greater than the scaffolding, being the sole end for which that is necessary: and when it is finished the scaffolding is removed as an useless encumbrance. 3. It is more expansive in its exercise. There is a degree of selfishness in faith and hope. They benefit him only who possesses them. But love, like the sun in the firmament, diffuses its blessings far and wide, and sheds a kindly influence all around.1. Let us, in conclusion, first, use these graces as a test of our state.2. Let us seek to abound more in them. (R. Davies, M.A.)Hope 1. Why should hope be placed on a level with faith and charity? We can understand why faith should be so singled out; it is the foundation of religion, the bond between the creature and God. Still more can we understand it of charity, for charity is the likeness of God. But hope is thought of at first sight as a self-regarding quality, and something delusive and treacherous. 2. But it is not really strange that St. Paul should raise hope to a Christian temper of the first order. St. Paul was a student of Scripture, and what is on the very surface of the Bible is the way in which, from first to last, it is one unbroken, persistent call to hope. Hope, never destroyed however overthrown; hope, never obscured amidst the storm and dust of ruin, is the paramount characteristic of the Old Testament, all leads back to hope; if ever it dies, it revives again larger and more confident than before. I. Hope elevates and strengthens and inspires. This is why it is one of the greatest elements of the religious temper. There may be a faith almost without hope, a faith which believes though it can see nothing in God’ s truth and goodness; “ Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” But hope is the energy of vigorous faith, the strong self-awakening from discouragement and despair. What gives its moral value to hope, is that, in its higher form, it is a real act and striving of the will and moral nature. Like the highest forms of courage, it is a refusal to be borne down and cowed by evil, a refusal to dwell on the dark side of things. It is thus that hope plays so great a part in the spiritual life, that it fights with such power on the side of God; for it not only receives, welcomes, trusts in God’ s promises, but it throws into them life and reality. II. Hope is a great instrument of spiritual and moral discipline. We are saved by hope. Long waiting is God’ s appointed order for the generations of men. All kinds of fortunes befall the Church, befall us all who are going through our trial time, and we often are tempted to be tired, and oppressed, and out of heart. There must often be much to distress and alarm us, evils which seem without remedy, defeats which seem final. To hope seems to us then like deluding ourselves. And yet how often has it happened in the upshot of things that, if in the very darkest times of history any one had been bold enough to hope, he would have been amply justified! We need not blind ourselves to facts; we have our part to do, and we must deal with it as we may, and as we ought. But the God of hope calls to us out of the darkness, and we are unfaithful to Him if in our wilfulness we shut our ears to His voice and dwell despondingly on the future which is in His hands. III. But all that here invites and demands hope is but little to that which is to be when all here shall have been past and over.1. We may dare to look forward to be sinless. Think of what you know of your own conscience, of your own temptations, of your own fall, of your own struggles for forgiveness and restoration, and then think what it will be to have left all that behind. 2. Then, whatever the function and employment of that perfect state may be, whatever work God may have for us to do, we shall have the will and the power to do it as the angels do. The divided service, the broken purpose, the double mind, the treacheries of the will, the blindness of sell-deceit, the laggard indolence, all that now mars and cripples our sincerest obedience, will then have been purged away, and in all the fulness of truth we shall know how to serve Him with our whole heart. 3. There, in infinite measure, will be all that calls for human affection, and there human affections will he raised to new powers and strength, transfigured, purified, glorified; and there, in ways we cannot dream of now, we shall be brought near to Christ, and be like unto Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (Dean Church.)Hope 1. The root of the word in Anglo-Saxon means, to open the eyes wide and watch for what is to come, as we have seen children do when they expect to see some wonder or receive some gift. Indeed, there is another word closely akin--the word expect, watching for what is to come, the obverse of inspect, looking at what has come. 2. These meanings are the delicate dividing line between Faith and Hope. While Hope expects, Faith inspects; while Hope is like Mary, looking up-ward, Faith is like Martha, looking at-ward; while the light in the eyes of Hope is high, the light in the eyes of Faith is strong; while Hope trembles in expectation, Faith is quiet in possession. Hope leaps out toward what will be, Faith holds on to what is; Hope idealises, Faith realises; Faith sees, Hope foresees. 3. And so it comes that in religion faith is conservative, while hope is progressive. Passing on the Rhine through the fog and mist of Holland as through a stagnant sea, you stretch upward league after league; and as you go the country gradually changes, the air grows clearer, the prospect finer. But the higher you go, the harder is your going. So at last you come into Switzerland, where all about you is a vaster vision, and within you an intenser inspiration than can ever be felt on the foggy flats below. It is the difference between faith alone and faith and hope together. 4. Consider hope, however, as a positive matter. Why, you say, hope is the most intangible thing a man can entertain. “ Hope,” says Owen Feltham, “ is the bladder a man will take wherewith to learn to swim; then he goes beyond return, and is lost.” But what says Paul? He makes our life a battle, and every man a soldier, and it is not enough that the heart be protected by the shield of faith, the head must be guarded also by the helmet of hope: the one is as indispensable as the other. And a brief glance at the life about us will soon convince you that the man is right, that as Dr. Johnson said, our powers owe very much of their energy to our hope; and whatever enlarges hope exalts courage; and, where there is no hope, there is no endeavour. Here is Cyrus Field conceiving the idea of binding the Atlantic with a cord. In carrying out his idea, the man has two servants to help him--the faith that it can be done, and the hope that he shall do it. With these aids he goes to work. Faith steadies him; hope inspires him. Faith works; hope flies. Faith deliberates; hope anticipates. Faith lets the cable go, and it breaks, and is lost. “ Nay, not lost,” cries hope, and fishes it up again. Here is Garibaldi conceiving the idea of a new Italy. He has faith and hope. Austria, Naples, and Rome are against him. But no man knows, or can know, what faith and hope together can do in a man of the pattern of Garibaldi. What they have done for Italy will go ringing down the ages. Very curiously, if you will again, you can see the power of faith without hope illustrated in China. When our ancestors were savages they had advanced about where they are now. But who shall say that China, with the noble qualities no doubt she has, might not have had a peerless place in the world, had she held herself hopeful and expectant, continually, toward every new idea and discovery? 5. And this fact of hope and its influence has some important applications. (1) To religion. It is entirely essential “ to remember that, when this man tells his friends to take for a helmet the hope of salvation, he meant the hope he himself was rushing through the world to proclaim. In the England of John Wesley numbers of men were his peers in faith. But Wesley had more hopefulness in his little finger than any other man of them had in his whole body. And so wherever Wesley went men caught the contagion of his great hope, and then ran tirelessly as long as they lived, kindling over all the world. (2) To life generally. Young men and women, with this life mainly before you, get this hope. Make sure that there is not a day but brings you nearer to some Divine surprise of blessing, some great unfolding of God’ s wry glory. Men and women in middle life, with the bloom gone from some things that seemed very beautiful as they lay glistening in the dew of the morning, whatever you do, never let a painful inspection rob you of a great expectation. If, as you live, you try to live faithfully, then, as the Lord liveth, try to live hopefully, or you will miss the better half of your living. (R. Collyer, D.D.)Love 1. In the text the word is translated charity. In Wickliffe’ s time, however, love and charity were as nearly related as charity and benevolence are now. This can be understood if we will remember that charity and dear, in the sense of precious, belong to the one root. They spring from what was common enough when they were born--dearth or scarcity. Food was then precious, much esteemed, much loved. Then good bread was dear, not as it is now to us in money value merely, but in this primitive value of something to love, a small piece being given to the children sometimes on a Sunday, as a very precious thing. 2. What, then, is this love? It is a word traceable to many different roots. That could not be otherwise. Love would naturally be one of the very first things the most abject savages must find a name for, after getting a word to express each of the bare needs of life. The first time the man of the forest tried to win a maiden in some higher way than by carrying her off by force, he would need the word. The first time the mother had to tell of the mysterious glow in her heart toward her babe in its helplessness, she would need the word. And so love, in one root, is longing; in another, goodness; in another, preference; but, to me, the right rests at last in the Teutonic word leben--life. “ This is life,” these children of nature said, when they first began to be conscious of this glowing wonder in their hearts. “ You are my life,” the man said when he went to win the maiden; and the mother, when she caught her nursling to her heart. Love is to live; and not to love is not to live. And it was exactly the definition of John, when he wanted to tell of the nearest and dearest of all the relations the soul can hold to God. 3. And so, while faith is inreaching, and hope outlooking, love is inbeing. By faith I stand; by hope I soar, by love I am. Faith assures me, hope inspires me; love is me, at my best. 4. And it is only as we keep, close to this idea and fact that we can prevent love being confounded with other and baser things, that, getting mixed up with it in our own language, act like the baser metals mixed up in the coinage of a country, giving the real gold and silver a lower relative value, and debasing the whole fair standard of commonwealth. Love, for example, is not lust. Because love, for whatever may in itself be good, adds just so much as there is in what I love to life; while lust for that very thing exhausts life. When the young man, living in a room, eating in a restaurant, and troubled about more things than ever Martha was, feels at last how contracted and poor such a life is at the best, and says in his heart, “ This is not living: I must get me a wife,” whatever may be his idea of the wife he wants, the word he uses to describe his condition reaches away into the truth. It is not living: it is just half living, and probably not that. His heart is crying out for the rest of his life. But there is that calling itself love which is lust--something that seeks not a life, but an appanage to life, and reaps for its sowing a harvest of gray ashes. Love informs life; lust exhausts it. Love is the shining sun, lust is the wandering star. 5. But, beside such special applications, there is no direction in which we can turn but this spirit meets us with its sweet, solemn face. Consider the lesson we have learned in our war. When we plunged into that red sea, the gentlemen of England were looking on. The few said we should hold our own; the multitude said we had gone under. What made this difference? The few loved us, so that Faith stood square, and Hope plumed her wings, and they became the glad ministers of their leader and guide. The many did not love us. They had no faith in us and no hope for us, because they had no love. When a man really loves, it piles great stores of love into his heart; so that he may even come to some dreadful pass where faith and hope fail him, and yet love shall carry him through. When the father wants to put his son on the way to success, if he is a wise man, he most anxiously tries to find out where the lad’ s love lies; for there, he knows, he will have faith and hope, because the love will be a perpetual inspiration; while, to put him to what he can never love, will only exhaust and disgust him, until at last it is given up in despair. (R. Collyer, D.D.)The three Divine sisters When those three goddesses, say the poets, strove for the golden ball, Paris adjudged it to the queen of Love. Here are three celestial graces striving for the chiefdom; and our apostle gives it to love. Not that other daughters are black, but that Charity excels in beauty (Proverbs 31:29). All stars are bright, though “ one star may differ from another in glory.” These are three strings often touched: faith, whereby we believe all God’ s promises to be true, and ours; hope, whereby we wait for them with patience; charity, whereby we testify what we believe and hope. He that hath fallen cannot distrust; he that hath hope cannot be put from anchor; he that hath charity will not lead a licentious life, for “ love keeps the commandments.” Let us treat them--1. Comparatively. 1. Faith is that grace which makes Christ ours, and all His benefits. God gives it (1 Corinthians 12:9); by the Word preached (Romans 10:17); for Christ’ s sake (Philippians 1:29). This virtue is no sooner given of God, but it gives God (Romans 8:32). “ Without this it is impossible to please God “ (Hebrews 11:6). Let us not otherwise dare to come into His presence. 2. Hope is the sweetest friend that ever kept a distressed soul company; it beguiles the tediousness of the way, all the miseries of our pilgrimage. (1) It holds the head whilst it aches, and gives invisible drink to the thirsty conscience. It is a liberty to them that are in prison, and the sweetest physic to the sick. St. Paul calls it an anchor (Hebrews 6:19). Let the winds blow, and the storms beat, and the waves swell, yet the anchor stays the ship. It breaks through all difficulties, and makes way for the soul to follow it. It teacheth Abraham to expect fruit from a withered stock; and Joseph in a dungeon to look for the sun and stars’ obeisance. Though misery be present, comfort absent, though thou canst spy no deliverance, yet such is the nature of hope, that it speaks of future things as if they were present (Romans 8:24). (2) These are the comforts of hope. Now, that you may not be deceived, there is a thing like hope, which is not it. There is a bold and presumptuous hope, an ignorant security and ungrounded persuasion, the very illusion of the devil, that how wickedly soever a man shall live himself, yet still he hopes to be saved by the mercy of God. Against this hope we shut up the bosom of consolation. 3. Charity is an excellent virtue, and therefore rare. The proper and immediate object of our love is God. This is the great commandment, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” etc. The subordinate object is man, and his love is the effect of the former cause, and an actual demonstration of the other inward affection. Love is the abridgment of the law, the new precept of the gospel. Luther calls it the shortest and the longest divinity: short, for the form of words; long, yea, everlasting, for the use and practice; for “ charity shall never cease.” II. Comparatively.1. The distinction between faith and hope is nice. I will reduce the differences into three respects. (1) Of order: Paul gives faith the precedency (Hebrews 11:1-40.). Hope may in some sort be said to be the daughter of faith. For it is as impossible for a man to hope for that which he believes not, as for a painter to draw a picture in the air. Indeed, more is believed than is hoped for; but nothing is hoped for which is not believed. (2) Of office: faith is the Christian’ s logic; hope his rhetoric. Faith perceives what is to be done, hope gives alacrity to the doing it. The difference between faith and hope is that between wisdom and valour. Valour without wisdom is rashness, wisdom without valour is cowardice. Faith without hope is knowledge without valour to resist Satan; hope without faith is rash presumption and an indiscreet daring. (3) Of object: faith’ s object is the absolute word and infallible promise of God: hope’ s object is the thing promised. Faith looks to the word of the thing, hope to the thing of the word. So that faith hath for its object the truth of God; hope, the goodness of God. Faith is of things both good and bad, hope of good things only. A man believes there is a hell as truly as he believes there is a heaven; but he fears the one, and hopes only for the other. In some sense hope excels faith. For there is a faith in the devils. Hope, a confident expectation of the mercy of God; this they can never have. This is the life of Christians, and the want makes devils (1 Corinthians 15:19). 2. Charity differs from them both. These three Divine graces are a created trinity; and as there the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from them both; so a true faith begets a constant hope, and from them proceeds charity. “ Thus is God’ s temple built in our hearts,” saith Augustine: the foundation whereof is faith; hope the erection of the walls; charity the perfection of the roof. In the godly all these three are united. We believe in God’ s mercy, we hope for His mercy, and we love Him for His mercy. Faith says, there are good things prepared: hope says, they are prepared for me: charity says, I endeavour to walk worthy of them. III. Superlatively. “ The greatest of these is charity.”1. Objections. (1) The principal promises are made to believers. So no less a promise is made to lovers (Romans 8:28). “ God,” saith the Psalmist, “ is near to those that call upon Him,” but He is within those that love Him (1 John 4:17). (2) If charity be greater than faith, then is not man justified by faith only. Inconsequentillation! St. Paul commends not love for the virtue of justification. A prince doth excel a peasant: shall any man therefore infer that he can plough better, or have more skill in tillage? A philosopher doth excel a mechanic, though he cannot grind so well as a miller, or limn so cunningly as a painter. Faith is able to justify of itself, not to work of itself (Galatians 5:6). The hand alone can receive an alms, but cannot cut a piece of wood without an axe or some instrument. Faith is in the Christian’ s hand: add love to it, and it worketh by love. So that the one is our justification before God, and the other our testification before men. 2. Wherein consisteth this high transcendency of charity? (1) For latitude, love is the greatest. Faith and hope are restrained within the limits of our particular persons. “ The just man lives by his own faith,” and hopes good to himself; but love is like the vine (Psalms 80:8), or the sun in the sky, that throws his comfortable beams upon all, and forbears not to warm even that earth that beareth weeds. (2) For perpetuity. Faith lays hold on God’ s gracious promise for everlasting salvation; hope expects this with patience; but when God shall fulfil His word, and us with joy, then faith shall be at an end, hope at an end, but love shall remain between God and us an everlasting bond. (3) For the honour and likeness it hath unto God. Faith and hope make not a man like God, but charity doth. (4) In respect of its titles, charity excelleth. It is the new commandment: faith was never called so. It is the bond of perfection: faith is not so termed. It is the fulfilling of the law: where hath failed such a title? (5) Charity is more noble, for it is a better thing to give than to receive. Faith and hope are all of the taking hand. (6) For manifestation. Faith and hope are things unseen, and may be dissembled, but charity cannot be without visible fruits; therefore the only trial of faith and hope is by charity. Conclusion: Why speaks Paul of no more than three? St. Peter mentions eight (2 Peter 1:6), and St. Paul in another place nine (Galatians 5:22). Why are all these left out here? Because they are comprehended under these three: as to the trade of a stationer, some are required to print, some to correct, some to fold, others to bind, and others to garnish; yet all belongs to one trade There be many rays, and but one sun. 2. As these three fair sisters came down from heaven, so the devil sends up three foul fiends from hell: against faith, infidelity; against hope, desperation; against charity, malice. He that entertains the elder sister “ is already condemned” (John 3:18). He that embraceth the second, bars up against himself the possibility of all comfort, because he offends the mercy of God, and tramples under foot that blood which is held out to his unaccepting hand. He that welcomes malice, welcomes the devil himself. (T. Adams.)The three sisters If I were to sketch a picture of these three sisters, I should not make--as is often done--three graceful figures, beautiful in countenance and expressive in form and attitude, twining their arms together. That may be very artistic and imaginative; it is not very practical. I should rather paint them as in one room together. Faith, bending over a book--the Book of God--her face all glowing with hallowed emotion, yet full of the deep calm of Divine, inward peace, as she reads the “ exceeding great and precious promises.” Hope, sitting in the window-seat, and gazing, with earnest, dreaming eyes, and face serenely bright, upon the setting sun; watching intently, as the amber clouds open their gates, and, in fancy, admit her into the city of everlasting light. Love, turning her tender looks now on the one sister, and now on the other, and smiling a smile caught from Christ, as she thinks of the widow and the fatherless, cheered and comforted by the garments at which her hands are working. (R. Tuck, B. A.)The three graces I. Their excellence..1. Faith. It unites to Christ. It secures our justification. It is the great power in our present life: “ The just shall live by faith.” 2. Hope. It brightens the present by brightening the future. 3. Love. What a wilderness the world would be without love! II. Their continuance. It is better to have lost the extraordinary gifts than these graces. III. Their relative value. Love the greatest.1. It has longer continuance.2. It is more useful to others.3. It makes men like God in character. (Clerical World.)The triple graces Things and beings appear, in many cases, by some law of universal power and faithfulness, in groups and clusters--stars, e.g., and flowers, animals, etc. The same law gives existence to villages and towns. It is a rare thing when people like to live far away from others. The same element runs through all in religion. People of the same views, motives, and feelings collect together for sympathy and assistance. The same law governs politics, science, commerce. You will find virtues and graces in groups. Consider-- I. These triple graces in themselves, and some things wherein they differ. They are in the mind; apart from the mind they can have no existence. In themselves they are abstractions, which can have no existence but as parts or actions of some other fit subjects.1. Faith is the confiding attitude of the mind, relying on stone object or resource believed by itself, by evidence or experience sufficient to sustain or meet its wants and wishes. It is the power of uniting weakness with strength, need with plenty, misery with happiness, man’ s sinfulness and despair with Divine grace and merciful provision. 2. Hope is the soul turning its face to the good and happiness of the future. It is the vanguard of the soul, on its travel forward in the wilderness of life. 3. Charity is the attitude of the soul embracing the lovely and the pure. It is the cultivated state of the soil of the soul, like a well-weeded, pulverised garden, bearing rich and fragrant flowers. The soul in this state morally is both strong and happy; but to make it safe and broad it needs the light and evidence of faith, and the prophetic eye and encouragement of hope. 4. Though these graces belong to one system, they differ-- (1) In the way they view their objects. Faith seeks its object through the light of evidence, hope through the good and the happy, and charity through the beautiful and lovely. (2) In the conscious sentiments they produce in the soul. Faith makes the soul strong and confident, hope sanguine and anxious, and charity satisfied and happy. (3) In the soil they grow in, and the elements which feed and mature them. Faith grows in the soil of intelligence, and is fed by reason, evidence, and experience; hope grows in sympathy with the future, and a desire to know and possess its goodness, and is fed by its own intuitive faith and possession of the good and the happy; charity grows in tenderness, beneficence, and the social feeling of the soul for communion with the beautiful and lovely, and is fed by manifestation of love, faith, and hope. (4) In their action, and the way they express themselves. Faith acts boldly, and expresses itself fearlessly; hope acts more timidly, and expresses itself with patience and submission; charity acts calmly, expressing itself with chastened sweetness and joyful exaltation. (5) In the service they render to the soul. Faith educates its intelligence, and would perserve it from dull blindness and superstitious ignorance; hope sustains and encourages it in the dark day and weary night of its earthly abode; and charity educates it, in all its sentiments, into refinement and beauty, so as to make it a happy companion to itself and others. II. In their union and necessity.1. They are united, (1) In their source. Every good gift finally must be traced to one common fountain of Divine goodness. (2) In common sympathy and attachment. They are made for one another; they could not live apart. (3) In their work and end. What one cannot do the other does; and what they cannot do separately they complete unitedly. (4) In the means of their strength and advancement--the Spirit of God, through the provision of the economy of grace. 2. Their necessity in the system of Christian life. They are needful-- (1) As means by which the soul of man can apprehend the different sides in the economy of truth and Divine provision. (2) To develop and perfect the soul in its various sides and powers. (3) From the demands made upon man. (a) For daily duty. (b) For warfare and defence. III. The pre-eminence of charity. It is the greatest--1. In the quality of its nature. It has a refinement and purity which is not to be found in the same manner and degree in the others. “ God is love.” Love is the Divine nature in man. 2. In the sway of its power. Faith is power, and has done mighty works; so is hope, and has long and far walked over arid and thorny lands to its Canaan of good; but when faith falters and hope faints, love supports and comforts still. 3. As a source of comfort and happiness to the soul. The company of love is always sweet. 4. As it approaches the nearest to God. God is in the hand of faith, He is in the eye of hope, but He is in the heart of love. 5. In useful results. 6. As the greatest advancing power. No one can advance in anything much unless he loves it. 7. In attraction and motive. Love drives no one away; it draws to itself even those who are void of any impelling motive in themselves. IV. The abiding character of these graces. There is a prevalent belief that faith and hope are only transient. But what is the evidence of such a belief? It is said that faith and hope will be done away with, because all will be seen in heaven. But surely I need it as a power of confiding trust, when I see the object as well as when I do not see it. Is hope also not requisite relative to the continued safety and duration of the good we possess, as much as the possession of the unseen? But we cannot accept of the assertion that all will be seen and possessed at once in heaven. Can all the future be packed into one moment? Can all its objects and visions be contracted into one small point? It is again said, but all will be safe. But do I not want faith to comfort me as well as to defend me, to unite me with God, as well as to put me under His shield? Do I not also want hope in the enjoyment of the good, as well as in the search after it? Nothing good we have will be taken from us, but perfected. In order to sustain this view, note--1. These powers are essentially united together, so as to make one system of power in the mind. 2. They are alike powers of the soul. Christianity has not created them; it has only directed them to higher objects, purified their quality, and given them new direction and impetus. If one of them were to be done away with, the soul would be incomplete, and would be unfit to do its work and enjoy its blessings. If the triangle were deprived of one of its sides, it would no longer be a triangle; so if one of these triangular sides of the soul were done away with, it would no longer be the rational and responsible identical soul which man has in this world; he would not only be a different being, but a smaller and a less perfect one than now he is. 3. Faith and hope are essential to dependent and limited beings. We cannot think it possible for finite beings to exist without them, for the source of their being, and the comprehension of their good, are all outside themselves. 4. The continuance of faith and hope is needful for the perpetuation of love. Could you love a person or an object in whom or in which you have no faith? And is not your hope for the good and the beautiful a part of your love towards them? 5. It is difficult to think that happiness is possible in the absence of faith and hope. 6. They are among the noblest of the gifts of God, and such things are not given to be recalled or destroyed. (T. Hughes.)The three graces Whatever may be the path of our future experience we shall need as much as ever, perhaps more, the “ abiding” sense of the presence and help of this holy and beautiful sisterhood of Christian virtues. I. Faith. Faith has wings; but unlike the wings that Solomon gives to riches, faith is busy in gathering instead of scattering her treasures. Faith has wings because she is “ a stranger and sojourner” on the earth. But although without a home here she has a home, and mounting up with the wings of eagles, she lives in a congenial clime, “ seeing him who is invisible.” Matthew Henry says, “ We cannot expect too little from man, nor too much from God.” But in God we can have faith. His wisdom is without the admixture of error; His heart infinitely kind; His power without restraint. II. Hope. Faith has wings, and like the wings of the cherubim in Ezekiel’ s vision, they are “ full of eyes” ; and these eyes are full of sparkling hope. By a strange paradox, the castles built by sense are vapoury visions, while the buildings of faith are substantial and enduring. Hope builds on faith, and faith builds on God, “ that our faith and hope may be in God.” Faith is the child in the house, who knows his filial relationship though the parent is absent. Hope is the child at the window, expecting the parent’ s return. A prisoner, detained in his cell for some supposable reason, after he had received his pardon, would be saved both by faith and hope; faith, in the word that announced his pardon would assure him of salvation; the prospect of release from his prison cell would be his bright hope; at the hour of his departure he would “ receive the end of his faith” --full deliverance. III. Charity.1. Love is “ greatest” by reason of its dignity. Both faith and hope are receptive in their character; but love is communicative, therefore is it “ greatest,” for “ it is more blessed to give than to receive” ! 2. Love is “ greatest” by reason of age--it is the eldest. Love can say--before faith and hope were “ I am.” It was the flower of Eden, but its first growth was not there, for it was transplanted from the garden of heaven, and blossomed in the bosom of God “ from everlasting.” 3. Love is “ greatest” by reason of its strength. “ Love is strong as death.” How firm a hold does death take of its captives! This aspect of love has several relations. (1) There is God’ s love to us. When we see this we are taken captive by love at its will. It is a power magnetic. We love because first loved. (2) There is our love to God. How weak, alas! the measure of it; but how potent its quality! No motive for service can be compared with it; nor anything in service sustain like it. (3) Hence our power with men. As God “ commendeth His love to us” by His love, and we by love commend our service to God, so must we commend ourselves to men. Love makes us kingly, and hearts are ever ready to do homage to all who rule with love’ s sceptre. (Anon)The Christian’ s abiding graces I. The nature and use of these three graces.1. Faith means a belief, on the testimony of God, of things which we do not perceive by our senses, and which we could not find out in any other way. It is directly opposed to sight, and signifies our looking to things invisible. It is the looking-out of the immortal spirit from its corporeal prisonhouse, to catch a glimpse of some nobler and happier form of existence. It is the commencement of spiritual life in the soul. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 14:1-24 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts.Following after love You could see Gerald had been running fast a long way, for as he came up the garden path to his mother his face was very red and his hair quite damp with the perspiration on his forehead. “ What have you been doing, my little boy?” his mother asked him. “ Oh, mother,” he said, almost ready to cry, “ I have been running after the rainbow, trying to catch it, but when I got to the top of the hill it was just as far away as before,” and the little boy threw himself down with a sob at his mother’ s feet. “ Poor little fellow,” she said, tenderly, patting his head, “ mother is sorry for you.” She really was sorry, so she said, “ Gerald, dear, if you can wait to-day and to-morrow, on the next morning when you wake up you will see a rainbow that you can catch.” “ Really, mother; shall I really see one and catch it?” and the boy looked up with a happy and eager face. “ Yes, dear; and what is more, you can go on catching and keeping it day by day all through your life.” With this Gerald was obliged to be content for the present, although he was very impatient until the happy morning arrived. He woke early, and eagerly gazed round the room, and over the mantelpiece saw a lovely rainbow. It was a beautiful, large kind of text in a great number of bright and lovely colours. He jumped out of bed and stood close under it with his hands folded. On the sky-blue colour was printed in letters of lovely dark blue, Patience. On the red, in letters of white, was Love. On the black, in silver letters, was Peace. On the cream was Kindliness, in letters of gold. Gentleness was printed in prettiest pink, the word on cardinal, and Charity was blended in all the colours on white. While Gerald was standing admiring with delight, his mother came quietly in. “ Well, dear,” she said, smiling, “ how do you like your rainbow?” “ Oh, I like it so much, mother; and is it my very own? but what do you mean by catching it, mother? … Well, suppose you begin to-day, and let the first thing you try to catch and keep be Love.” “ Oh, I see now,” said the little boy, and the thought sank into his heart, so that he really tried to be as loving as he could to his little playfellows and to everybody. And every morning he looked up to his rainbow to see what he would try and catch that day, and then he knelt to ask God to help him. So little Gerald grew up to be a splendid man, and the rainbow still shines over his mantelpiece as one of his greatest treasures. (Great Thoughts.)The prompting of love When Payson was dying he exclaimed, “ I long to hand a full Cup of happiness to every human being.” This was the language of a heart thoroughly purged of all selfish affection, and filled with the spirit of that love which led our adorable Jesus to give His life for human redemption. If every Christian would go out daily among men filled with such longing for human happiness, what marvellous changes would soon be wrought in human society! The selfish element would be eliminated from the dealings of the Christian business man. Not justice merely, but benevolence, would enter into his every act of trade. The same spirit would rule his home and Church life. He would become an incarnation of goodwill toward all, and would so preach the gospel by his deeds that men would see his good works and glorify his heavenly Father. The spirit of Payson is worthy of every man’ s imitation. Happy he who can truthfully say, “ I long to hand a cup of happiness to every human being.” Love lessening misery The remark of the Rev. John Newton below deserves to be written on the tablet of every heart. “ I see in this world,” he observes, “ two heaps--one of human happiness and one of misery; now, if I can take but the smallest bit from the second heap and add to the first, I carry a point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I feel that I have doom something. I should be glad, indeed, to do great things, but I will not neglect such little ones as this.” Choosing love Had I my choice of all things that might tend to my present felicity, I would pitch upon this; to have my heart possessed with the greatest kindness and affection toward all men in the world. I am sure this would make me partake in all the happiness of others. Certainly, next to the love and enjoyment of God, that ardent charity and affection wherewith blessed souls do embrace one another is justly to be reckoned as the greatest felicity of regions above; and, did it universally prevail in the world, it would anticipate that blessedness, and make us taste of the joys of heaven upon earth. (Scougal.)Universal benevolence I. The several considerations and motives which should determine us to universal love.1. Goodwill and friendship to mankind are natural to us, which we are led to by the original propensions and inclinations of our hearts. We are plainly made for the exercise of goodness and charity, and in the very constitution of our beings it is marked out to us as the course of life which we are to follow. 2. The circumstances in which we are placed render it necessary for us to exercise benevolence towards mankind. Men are a sort of creatures who have a natural and necessary dependence upon one another, and it is impossible for them to subsist--at least, to enjoy any comfort in life--without mutual succour and an exchange of all good offices. 3. Another motive to engage us to the love of mankind may be brought from the consideration of its excellency. 4. The exercise of humanity and kindness towards mankind is essential to religion, without which it is only an empty name, and all pretences to it are most vain and impertinent. 5. The last argument to engage us to the exercise of charity may be brought from the advantages which will from thence accrue to ourselves. It may be justly expected that it will have a happy influence even on our external fortune or estate in the world; for charity is the most engaging quality that we can be possessed of, which will not fail to procure us the esteem of others, and make them, in any cases of difficulty and danger in which we may be, to contribute to our assistance. But a much more considerable instance of happiness than any relating to our external interest, which proceeds from the exercise of charity, is that inward joy and pleasure which it always affords us. And besides all this, if we consider the other world, it is certain that the practice of charity will procure us the greatest advantages that can be in it. II. Some rules for raising and improving a temper of sincere and universal benevolence in us.1. In order to this, let us represent mankind in the most favourable light that we justly can to ourselves. We must have some esteem of those for whose advantage we exert ourselves with any high degree of zeal; and when we sincerely esteem any persons we shall be always ready to promote their interest as we have opportunity. 2. Another method of raising and improving a benevolent temper in us is to accustom ourselves to frequent thoughts and meditations on the goodness of God. 3. Further, let us guard not only against all contempt of others and unfair suspicions of evil in them, but against an indulgence of all immoderately selfish passions, and of all angry, peevish, discontented dispositions, and endeavour, as much as we can, to preserve ourselves in a serene state of mind. 4. It will likewise be of great use for forming and increasing a temper of benevolence in us to have an habitual recollection and a lively conviction of its great excellence and importance. (J. Orr, D. D.)Spiritual gifts By gifts we understand those natural or acquired endowments which may be used for the interest and edification of others: by graces those internal emotions which result from a Divine influence upon the heart. Gifts are valuable, but graces are essential. View Christian character as an edifice; gifts constitute its ornamental and useful parts, but graces are the foundation, without which it would soon crumble to the dust. They are not always found in close or corresponding connection. Graces may exist where there are scarcely any gifts, and vice versa. Note-- I. A few of those gifts winch form appropriate objects of the Christian’ s desire and pursuit.1. An ability for the edifying and acceptable discharge of ministerial duty. 2. A facility of acceptably engaging in social and public prayer. 3. A readiness for joining, or, if necessary, of leading the exercise of social and public praise. 4. An aptness in turning to some profitable account the ordinary and social intercourse of life. 5. A readiness in administering to others appropriate admonition, advice, or encouragement. II. The nature and appropriate exercise of the desire recommended in the text.1. It should be operative and practical in its character. We are not to sit down and be satisfied in wishing these gifts were possessed, but to make an effort to attain them. 2. This desire should be regulated, not by personal inclination, but by an anxiety for usefulness. III. Suggestions to excite and direct in pursuing the attainment of these gifts. “ We should--1. Cherish a deeper sense of the privilege and honour of being in any way serviceable to the Church of Christ. 2. Diligently and conscientiously use the gifts we already possess. They, like our bodily or mental faculties, are ever improved by appropriate exercise. 3. More assiduously cultivate the graces of religion in the soul. These, by inflaming the heart more with a Saviour’ s love, would constrain us to attempt honouring and serving Him in every possible way. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)Spiritual gifts and public worship I. The comparative value of the two chief spiritual gifts.1. Prophesying is speaking for God, whether the utterance regards present or future matters. The function of the prophet is indicated in verse 3. and in verses 24-25 the results of prophesying are described in terms precisely such as we should use to describe the results of efficacious preaching. 2. The gift of tongues, from Acts 2:1-47., would seem to have been the gift of speaking in foreign languages, and was communicated, not as a permanent acquisition, but only “ as the Spirit gave utterance.” It served the same purpose as other miracles; it called attention to the entrance of new powers into human nature; it was “ for them that believe not, not for them that believe.” It produced conviction that among the followers of Christ new powers were at work. The evidence of this took a shape which seemed to intimate that the religion of Christ was suitable for every race of mankind. 3. Comparing these two gifts, Paul gives the preference to the former, and this mainly on the score of its greater utility. Apart from interpretation speaking with tongues was like the blare of a trumpet, mere unintelligible sound. Prophesying, however, all could understand, and profit by it. 4. From this preference for the less showy but more useful gift, we may gather that to make public worship the occasion of self-display or sensational exhibitions is to degrade it. Preachers must resist the temptation to make a sensation, to produce fine sermons; and worshippers must resist the temptation to merely exhibit a good voice or find greater pleasure in what is sensational in worship than in what is simple and intelligible. 5. Worship in which the understanding bears no part receives no countenance from Paul (verse 15). Where the prayers of the Church are in Latin the worshipper may indeed pray with the spirit and be edified, but his worship would be better did he pray with the understanding also. Music unaccompanied by words induces a devoutness which is apt to be either hazy or sentimental, or both, unless by the help of words the understanding goes hand in hand with feeling. 6. No countenance can be found in this chapter to the idea that worship should exclude preaching. Some temperaments incline towards worship, but resent being preached to or instructed. St. Paul, however, puts prophesying in the forefront. But St. Paul puts-- II. the manner in which the public services should be conducted.1. The services at Corinth were characterised by great freedom (verse 26). Each member of the congregation had something to contribute for the edification of the Church. One with a natural aptitude for poetry threw his devotional feeling into a metrical form, and furnished the Church with her earliest hymns. Another set forth some important aspect of Christian truth. Another, fresh from contact with the world, entered the meeting with the glow of conflict on his face, and had eager words of exhortation to utter. And so passed the hours of meeting, without any fixed order, appointed ministry, or uniformity of service. And certainly the freshness and variety of such services is greatly to be desired. We lose much by a silent membership. 2. And yet, as Paul observes, there was much to be desired in those Corinthian services. To appeal to this or any part of this letter in proof that there should be no distinction between clergy and laity would be a very bad policy. True there were no rulers of any kind, but then the want of them had given rise to disorder. The ideal condition, however, would be one in which authority should be lodged in certain office-bearers, while the faculty and gift of each member in some way contributed to the good of the whole Church. 3. While Paul abstains from appointing Church officers, he is careful to lay down two principles which should regulate their procedure. (1) “ Let everything be done decently and in order.” This advice was greatly needed in a Church in which the public services were sometimes filmed into tumults. (2) “ Let all things be done unto edifying.” Keep the great end of your meetings in view, and you need no formal rubrics. 4. It might be difficult to say whether the somewhat selfish ambition of those Corinthians to secure the surprising gifts of the Spirit or our own torpid indifference and lack of expectation is less to be commended. Certainly every one who attaches himself to Christ ought to indulge in great expectations. From Him we may expect at least His own Spirit. And in this “ least” there is promise of all. But lack of expectation is fatal to the Christian. (M. Dods, D. D.)The girls of prophecy and tongues Just as the hunter follows the chase with the determination to gain what he pursues, so are we to follow after charity; but we are only to “ desire” spiritual gifts. The Corinthians were to be filled with the spirit of love at any cost, and when they loved they were to desire all other gifts, but especially the gift of prophecy. Now it was just the reverse of this with them. The gift they valued the most was the gift of tongues; it was this they “ followed after,” and so, when the Church met for public worship, a babel existed (verses 23-26). I. The gift of prophecy was not simply the power to predict future events. The Old Testament prophets predicted, but they had also to expostulate and comfort. Here are three marks of a prophet.1. He speaketh unto man (verse 3)--face-to-face conversation.2. He speaketh to edification, exhortation, and comfort.3. He speaketh so that souls are converted (verse 24). II. The gift of tongues was the power imparted to speak foreign languages, which is plainly the teaching of Act 2:1-47. One of the great reasons for the bestowal of the gift was that the disciples might preach Christ to all without undergoing the usual tedious instruction in the language of the hearer. III. The gift of prophecy is greater than the gift of tongues.1. It is better to be definite than learned (verses 7-12). Speak with as many tongues as you can, but take care that whatever is spoken is understood. 2. It is better to appeal to the understanding than to the emotions (verse 16). I do not undervalue the emotional in religions worship, but it is better for a man to understand what he feels than to feel what he does not understand. If an unlearned man go into a Roman Catholic chapel, e.g., everything appeals to the emotions--the paintings, the music, the incense; you have a sense of the beautiful, but you don’ t know why. Better be in the poorest meetinghouse listening to the rudest preacher, for then you may learn what you can understand and apply what your own soul can interpret. 3. It is better to be useful than brilliant (verse 19). 4. It is better to honour God by winning souls than to excite ridicule and contempt (verses 23, 24). Conclusion: 1. Preaching should be plain, but not vulgar.2. Worship should be intelligent, not mystical.3. It should be orderly, not confused. (A. F. Barfield.)Prophecy and tongues Verse 1 contains a resume of chaps. 12-13. Charity holds the first place, and then spiritual gifts follow, and prophecy is preferable to others.1. Note the difference between a grace and a gift. It is not that the former is from God and the latter from nature, for both are from God; but grace is that which has in it some moral quality. A man may be fluent, learned, skillful, etc., and yet be a bad man. Now this distinction explains at once why graces are preferable. Graces are what the man is, gifts what he has. He is loving, he has eloquence, etc. You only have to cut out his tongue, or to impair his memory, and the gift is gone But you must destroy his very being before he ceases to be a loving man. Yet while the Corinthians are to “ follow after charity” they are not to undervalue gifts. 2. Many religious persons go into the contrary extreme; they call gifts dangerous and worldly. No, says the apostle, “ desire” them; not as the highest goods, but still desirable. Only remember you are not worthy or good because of them. And remember other people are not bound to honour you for them. Admire a Napoleon’ s genius, but do not let your admiration of that induce you to give honour to the man. Let there be no mere “ hero-worship.” 3. The apostle states the principle on which one gift is preferable to another. “ Rather that ye may prophesy.” He prefers those which are useful to those that are showy (see verse 12). I. What was prophecy? A prophet was commissioned to declare the will of God either as to the future or as to the present.1. In verse 3 is the essence of the prophet’ s office, but there is not one word spoken of prediction. In order fully to expound a spiritual principle, or a principle of Divine politics, it was necessary to foretell the result or transgression against it; as when the Captivity, or the fate of Babylon and Nineveh was predicted: but this was not the essence of the prophet’ s duty: that was to reveal truth. 2. In verse 24 the exercise of this gift is spoken of as one specially instrumental in conversion, with which prediction has nothing to do, for before a prediction could be fulfilled the unbeliever “ falls down, acknowledges God,” etc. Moreover, the prophecy was something which touched his conscience. II. What is meant by the gift of tongues. From Acts2. it is generally taken for granted that it was a miraculous gift of speaking foreign languages, and that the object of such a gift was the conversion of the heathen world; but I believe that the gift was a far higher one than that of the linguist. 1. St. Paul prefers prophecy to the gift of “ tongues” as more useful, since prophecy edified others, and tongues did not. Now could he have said this had the gift been the power of speaking foreign languages? 2. The “ tongues” were inarticulate or incoherent (verse 2). The man spoke “ not unto men, but unto God,” did not try to make himself logically clear to men, but poured out his soul to God. 3. This gift was something internal, a kind of inspired soliloquy (verse 4). There was an unconscious need of expressing audibly the feelings arising within, but; when so uttered they merely ended in “ edifying” the person who uttered them; like the broken murmur of a poet full of deep thought in solitude. 4. The apostle compares the gift with the unworried sounds of musical instruments (verses 7, 8), which have a meaning, but one which is felt rather than measured by the intellect. The mathematician would ask, “ What does that prove?” the historian, “ What information or fact does it communicate?” Have you ever heard the low moanings of hopelessness? or those, to us, unmelodious airs which to the Swiss mountaineer tell of home in a language clearer than the tongue? or have you ever listened to the unmeaning shouts of boyhood? Well, in all these you have dim illustrations of the way in which new, deep, irrepressible feelings found for themselves utterance in sounds which were called “ tongues.” 5. These utterances, weakly allowed full vent, were like the ravings of insanity (verse 23). So, indeed, men on the day of Pentecost said, “ These men are full of new wine.” The apostle reminds the Corinthians that they were bound to control this power, lest it should degenerate into imbecility or fanaticism. 6. The gift is compared to a barbarian tongue (verse 11), therefore not a barbarian tongue itself. 7. It could be interpreted (verse 13). And without this interpretation the “ tongues” were obviously useless (verse 14). And this power of interpretation is reckoned a spiritual gift as much as tongues, a gift granted in answer to prayer. Now this we shall best understand by analogies. It is a great principle that sympathy is the only condition for interpretation of feeling. The apostle compares the gift of tongues to music. Now music needs an interpreter, and the interpretation must be given, not in words, but in corresponding feelings. There must be “ music in the soul.” To him who has not this the language of music is simply unintelligible. Again, a child is often the subject of feelings which he does not understand. Observe how he is affected by the reading of a tale or a moving hymn. He will not say, How touching, how well imagined! but he will hide his face, or he hums, or laughs, or becomes peevish, because he does not know what is the matter with him. He has no words like a man to express his new feelings. But the grown man can interpret them, and, sympathising with the child, he says, “ The child cannot contain his feelings.” Or, take the instance of a physician finding words for physical feelings, because he understands them better than the patient who is unable to express them. In the same way the early Christians, being the subjects of new, deep, and spiritual feeling, declared their joy in inarticulate utterances. But the explaining what they felt was the office of the interpreter, e.g., a stranger might have been at a loss to know what was really meant. “ Are you happy or miserable, O Christian, by those wild utterances? Is it madness, or new wine, or inspiration?” And none but a person in the same mood of mind, or one who had passed through it, could say to the stranger, “ This is the overflow of gratefulness; he is blessing in the Spirit; it is a hymn of joy that his heart is singing to itself” ; or, “ It is a burst of prayer” (verses 15-17). (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Grace and gifts I. The grace of charity is superior to all endowments. Whatever other endowments you may possess or desire, do not neglect the cultivation of charity. II. Some “ endowments are superior to others (verse 5). The didactic faculty is greater than the linguistic. Sense is better than sound, ideas are better than words. It often happens that the man who has the most aptitude in acquiring languages has the least capacity either for attaining or communicating great ideas. But the language of which the apostle here speaks seems to have been the inarticulate voice of new and strong emotions. Tender emotions often choke us. If expressed at all they can only be in the quivering lip, and the gleaming eye, and the convulsive chest. Such have been manifested in all great revivals of religion. I have heard such untranslatable sounds under the mighty sermons of Welsh preachers. These “ tongues” are valuable. Because--1. They are symptomatic of a new spiritual life. You can talk about history, science, theology, but not about the deepest and divinest things of the heart. They only come out in “ groanings that cannot be uttered.” 2. In them the soul expresses its devotions (verses 2, 4, 14). It is delightful to think of the human soul generally so immersed in the selfish and the sensuous, bathing itself in the rising tides of spiritual emotions. 3. By them the religious sympathy of the unbelieving is often excited (verse 22). Sound expressive of human emotion often strikes potently on the heart of the listener. Take the most thoughtless man into some vast congregation in Wales, when all the people are singing their plaintive hymns in strains of weird music, and he will not be long, even if he understands not the language, before he feels the influence. Unsyllabled speech is often the mightiest. There are melodies that carry into the soul that which no word can express. III. The highest endowment is the ability for spiritual teaching (verses 12, 18). Teaching is not the mere impartation of the acts of the gospel but the indoctrinating of the soul with its primary elements and spirit. Note--1. That the gospel gives to its genuine disciples intelligent convictions that should be communicated to others. He who has accepted the gospel in reality becomes instinct with mighty and irrepressible ideas; ideas which he “ cannot but speak,” for “ necessity is laid” upon him. They are given to him to communicate, not to monopolise, and on their communication the spiritual life, growth, and perfection of mankind depend. 2. That these intelligent convictions can only be conveyed to others by intelligible language (verses 6-7 etc.). Mere “ sound” is not worth much. “ Things without life,” such as the “ pipe” and the “ harp,” produce sound. Nay, more, unless the sound gives out clear and distinct ideas, it is not only useless, but injurious (verse 8). If in battle the trumpet does not sound clearly the advance or retreat when intended, it is worse than useless. So whatever might be the unintelligible utterances, whether an unvernacular language or the unsyllabled expressions of emotions. Paul indicates their inadequacy without interpretation to convey to the hearer intelligent convictions of gospel truth (verse 9). 3. That the use of a language which the listener cannot understand should not be indulged in. (1) Not in public devotion (verses 14-16). Unintelligible utterances in public devotion fail to excite in the assembly a spirit of united worship. So far as the individual himself is concerned, it does not matter with what tongue he speaks, or whether he speaks at all. (2) Not in public ministration. Alas! it is to be feared the language of many a sermon is an “ unknown tongue.” Such language gratifies the vanity of the speaker, but wastes the time and tries the patience of the hearer (verses 18, 19). The apostle goes on to indicate that such unintelligible utterances in the Church are-- (a) Childish (verse 20). (b) Useless (verse 21). (c) Confounding (verse 23). (d) To be of any service must be interpreted (verse 28). (D. Thomas, D. D.)For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue.-- Speaking in a tongue is a sort of spiritual soliloquy, and may be compared with the unutterable groanings (Romans 8:26-27), whereby the Holy Spirit intercedes in the believer’ s heart. (Prof. Godet.)The gift of tongues may be considered as--1. A demonstration of Divine power.2. An evidence of Divine truth.3. A gift of Divine grace. (J. Lyth, D. D.)He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.-- True preaching I. Its design. Edification, etc. II. Its requisites. It must be intelligible, Scriptural, etc. III. The source of its power. It is a gift of the Spirit who qualifies the instrument, and applies the truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Edification, exhortation and comfort are co-ordinate. I. Edification denotes a new development and a confirmation of the faith by some new view fitted to strengthen the soul. II. Exhortation denotes an encouragement addressed to the will, an energetic impulse capable of effecting an awakening or advancement in Christian fidelity, relating to love as the former relates to faith. III. Comfort points rather to hope, παραμυθείν, to soothe the ear with a sweet myth, putting pain to sleep, or reviving hope. (Prof. Godet.)Unedifying preaching In the town of Goslar, in the Hartz mountains, there is a fountain in the principal square. It is evidently very ancient, and it is very beautiful. There is, however, one defect in it. Both the jets and the basin into which the water falls are above the reach of any one. The way the people have to get the water from the fountain is for each one to bring a long spout or pipe with him. This he puts up to a jet and the water runs through it into his pitcher. It seems never to have occurred to the townspeople that it would be a good thing to attach a pipe permanently to the fountain for general use. Some preachers talk in so lofty a style that their hearers need to bring a dictionary with them if they are to get any of the water of life from the sermon. They do not seek to find “ acceptable” words, hence their preaching fails to edify. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself.-- Private and public edification Observe--1. What may edify one does not always edify another. 2. Public worship contemplates general edification. 3. What, therefore, only ministers to private edification must give way for the benefit of all. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with tongues, what shall it profit you?-- A lesson for preachers I. The object of preaching. Not display, but profit. II. The mode of preaching.1. It supposes the plain exposition of Divine truth--the communication of Divine knowledge. 2. Aims at edification (verse 3)--at instruction in righteousness. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The gifts of the Spirit must be wisely employed Observe-- I. How they may be abused.1. By display (verse 6).2. By using them to no purpose (verses 7-9).3. By employing them under improper circumstances (verses 10, 11). II. How they may be improved--by using them for the edification of others (verse 12)--which must be done intelligently (verses 13, 14), wisely (verses 15-17), in the spirit of love (verses 18, 19). (J. Lyth, D. D.)And even things without life giving sound … except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known.-- Three modes of preaching I. Preaching to the air--sound without, sense. II. Preaching to the head--sense without life. III. Preaching to the heart--sense and life: the thoughts of the Spirit in easy words. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Ineffective preaching I. Its forms. When the preacher--1. Surpasses the understanding of his audience.2. Is indefinite in his statement of truth.3. Is pointless and unimpressive. II. Its folly.1. It is a waste of energy.2. Profits nobody.3. Occasions a fearful responsibility. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 14:8-9 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle.Uncertain sounds There are many sounds in nature which are uncertain and yet pleasing. The murmur of the winds among the leaves of the forests; the soft, regular lapse of the waves on the sandy shore; the roar of Niagara, confused with the cry of blended and intertangled voices, as though every particle of water in falling uttered its own wail of grief or shout of exultation or scream of fear; the hum of insects on a summer’ s day; all such sounds are uncertain. Yet all awaken in us some feeling, convey some sentiment. The murmuring voices of nature seem to express longing and aspiration; they sound almost like prayer and praise. These voices of nature, therefore, though uncertain, are often full of expression. But of man’ s voice we require more. We ask that it shall be distinct and clear; that it shall convey meaning; that it shall not darken counsel with vague utterance. To speak plainly, distinctly, with precision, is one of the first accomplishments to be studied, and one of the last to be fully attained. Education begins and ends in telling us how to express ourselves; for the word, in ancient languages, means not only utterance, but also the reason which lies behind utterance. My friend gives himself to me in his speech. If his speech is obscure, perplexed, uncertain, vague, then he is not in it. But a fulness of thought and life makes language very clear. That is why we like simple, direct, straightforward talk. It is sincere, it is moral. “ Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay,” says Jesus; “ for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil.” Uncertain sounds, inexact expressions, extravagant utterances, come of evil. They mean that the speaker cares more for effect than for truth. Perhaps the most uncertain sounds of all are the words of a politician. Politics, the government of a state, the laws which affect a nation, ought to be the most elevating of pursuits. But it is like religion or art or poetry. They ennoble those who give themselves to them with sincerity and love; but make a trade of them, and they degrade to the utmost. Make a trade of religion, and you become a hypocrite. Make a trade of art, and you become a charlatan. One of the remarkable exploits of Abraham Lincoln was that he expressed himself so as to be understood. His healthy Saxon English dispelled the miasma of falsehood which hung over Washington. “ And one of Plutarch’ s men talked with you, face to face.” A clear, distinct meaning is so important in a speaker that it is of itself almost enough. An audience will listen very willingly to a man who makes himself perfectly plain, even if he does nothing else. He need not be rhetorical, he need use no figures of speech, no captivating oratorical arts; he need not be original or profound. Let him only be clear--that of itself is satisfactory. In religion, especially, we want no uncertain sounds. What all men need, what all men long for, is certainty. We need to know; not merely to speculate, not merely to think, to hope, to wish, to fancy; we need to know. Now the difference between Christianity and speculation is simply this--that speculation, by its very nature, gives an uncertain sound; but Christianity gives certainty. Speculation gives us thoughts about God, Christianity gives us the knowledge of God. I once read a lecture by an able writer, in which Christ and Socrates were compared, rather to the disadvantage of the former. Socrates was considered to be, on the whole, rather the stronger and more manly person of the two. But, if so, why did he not do more? Socrates produced a school in philosophy; Christ makes a religion for mankind. One gave thought, the other life. The life of Socrates is known to a few scholars, the life of Jesus is known to millions. The words of Jesus bring strength, comfort, purity, peace; not to students only, but to the ignorant, the lowly, the fallen, the desolate. Why this immense difference in the work of the two teachers? Because the words of the one give an uncertain sound, those of the other a certain sound. One teaches us how to speculate, to conjecture, and to think about the realities of eternity; the other lets us look into the realities themselves, face to face. Striking opinions, noble speculations, came by Socrates, but truth itself came by Jesus Christ. The power--the undying power--of Christianity is that it is everywhere a new revelation of the eternal truth and love of God; that it continually makes souls alive; that it continually renews itself in renewed souls. Therefore it can never grow old, any more than birth, marriage, death, love, can grow old. These have been in the world since the beginning, but they always come as new as at first. And Christianity, appealing ever to new hearts, reforming manners, curing sinners, saving the lost, kindling the soul with faith, hope, and love, is the one certain sound in the world, never vague, never confused. Theology is uncertain; speculation is uncertain; creeds are uncertain; but Christianity is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (Jas Freeman Clarke.)The ministerial trumpet giving an uncertain sound I. The “ battle.” In every battle you must suppose two parties. Ever since the fall there always have been two parties. In the first family Cain was on the one side and Abel on the other. And so it was after the flood--it was so in the patriarchial ages, the Mosaical dispensation, and when Christ appeared on the earth, and up to this very moment. Sometimes efforts are made to multiply these divisions--the righteous on the one hand, and the wicked on the other, with different gradations. But the lip of truth says, “ He that is not with Me is against Me.” “ Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” There are but two parties--the people of God and the people against God and with the devil. The two armies are in combat. What constitutes the sorest point is this--they have separate interests, feelings, hopes, ambitions. The grand interest of the people of God is the glory of their Redeemer in the salvation of their souls; the other party are for their own glory. One man belongs to the party because he loves pleasure, another man because he loves power and influence, another because he loves money, another because he is the slave of some lust. But, however these regiments have a little distinction in their facings, they have but one heart, one spirit, one interest!2. Some people say, “ There is no need of a battle. Cannot the irreligious and the people of God go on comfortably and happy, and let each other alone?” No; the people of God must beseech all those who are not His people “ to be reconciled to God.” The great commander on one side is Christ, and on the other the devil; but let the hordes of Satan do their best, Christ must conquer. II. The meaning of the sentence, “ if the trumpet give an uncertain sound.” There can be no doubt that the “ trumpet” means the gospel ministry. The gospel minister is to warn men lest they peril and eventually ruin their souls, and to press them to secure the eternal happiness which is offered them, drawing the telling conclusion, “ What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” But the blessed trumpet is not only a trumpet of warning, but is a trumpet of welcome to Calvary’ s cross, to the fountain for sin and all uncleanness. The trumpet gives an “ uncertain sound,” therefore, if it does not state--1. Man’ s entire inability.2. Completely and fully the work of Christ.3. The holiness of the gospel.4. If firings of confessedly minor importance, Church government, discipline, etc., have an undue importance. (H. Allon, D. D.)The worthlessness of mere sounds, apart from their meaning The apostle speaks of the lute, the harp, the trumpet. Concerning this last instrument it was most of all important that the meaning of its tones should be understood. For now, just as the trumpet had its special function in pealing forth distinct, definite sounds, so all things in the economy of nature, of human life, and of Christian life, have their precise and exact function, on the right discharge of which vast results--results often comparable to those of a gigantic war--are depending. I. The principle here indicated. It is not far to seek--1. In what we may term our a priori argument, concerning a Divinely ordered universe. Since all events are related to each other in the mighty chain of cause and effect, we should expect that the failure of any link would involve disastrous results. There are many voices in nature--every law is a voice--and none of them is without signification. Uncertainty in the sound of any of them would be scarcely less evil than silence. So, too, with every atom and every event, as well as every law. 2. In the history of human affairs. On every hand, in our march along the great highways of time, or our research in its quieter by-ways, we confront instances of the momentousness of a right fulfilment by the man, or the institution, or the nation, of the precise mission devolving on such man, or institution, or nation. An uncertain sound at some given epoch, and the course of all succeeding history, would have been changed. II. Some practical applications of this principle. It is true in regard--1. To the discharge of Christian activities. There are multiform methods of philanthropic activity; never so many as to-day. Each one of us has his special adaptation for the use of such methods, just as each method has its peculiar adaptation to some need. If those who are qualified to teach, do not instruct; to console, do not comfort; to contrive, do not organise, who shall? Some tone on the trumpet of truth depends on you. If you refrain, or hesitate, or yield uncertain sounds, who shall prepare for the day of battle? 2. To Christian giving. The gold, the silver, the copper has to be given, each metal, as it were, making its own music. Withhold just what, by claim and capacity, you ought to have given, and there is an uncertain sound, and that uncertain sound means beggary here, discouragement yonder, and hopeless inanition elsewhere. Nay, the very spirit of the giving may make all the difference, for is not the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal--which is gift without love--an uncertain sound? 3. To prayers. Who can tell the mischief of uncertain sounds here in a region where Moses and Elijah were so mighty? 4. Of every life. Each life is trumpet-tongued with the message of truth or error, good or ill. Silence is impossible. Uncertainty is failure, for it misleads and bewilders. Minister, parent, teacher, if your life gives an uncertain sound who shall prepare your people, your family, your class for battle?--the battle for which music prepares, and which will be succeeded by yet nobler and sweeter music. As Bishop Webb says, “ You are yourself; none of you are like your fellows. And you are what you are by God’ s arrangement, because you have a certain part to play in God’ s providence, in the history of the world, and the development of the body of Christ. God the Holy Ghost is brooding over you as the great musician. He can bring out the music that is wanted. He can enable you to furnish some strain that would be lacking in the ears of God if you did not bring it, if you did not strike your string, nor touch your key.” (U. R. Thomas.)The responsibility of the pulpit I. Its power.1. To warn.2. Arouse.3. Direct.4. Encourage. II. Its inefficiency. No certain sound through want of--1. Plainness.2. Clearness.3. Point.4. Spiritual power. III. Diastrous result.1. None prepares.2. Destruction comes.3. The unfaithful watchman must bear the responsibility. (J. Lyth, D. D.)So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to he understood, how shall it be known what is spokes?-- Plain preaching I. What it implies.1. Not vulgarity.2. But a plain statement of the truth in easy words. II. Its necessity.1. Many are very ignorant.2. Some will not take the trouble to understand what costs them effort.3. All are more accessible to plain truth.4. God will have all the glory. III. Its importance.1. Souls imperilled.2. The preacher incurs a tremendous responsibility. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Need of plain preaching A lady went one day to hear Dr. preach, and, as usual, carried a pocket Bible with her that she might turn to any of the passages the preacher might happen to refer to. But she found that she had no use for the Bible then, and on coming away said to a friend, “ I should have left my Bible at home to-day, and have brought my dictionary; the doctor does not deal in Scripture, but in such learned words and phrases as require the help of an interpreter to render them intelligible.” (J. C. Gray.)Simplicity in preaching Whenever Archbishop Whately came to preach at the chapel of the castle it was observed that a rough private soldier was always in his place, mouth open, as if in sympathy with his ears. Some of the gentlemen playfully took him to task for it, supposing it was due to the usual vulgar admiration of a celebrity. But the man had a better reason, and was aide to give it. He said, “ That isn’ t it at all. The archbishop is easy to understand; there are no fine words in him. A fellow like me, now, can follow along and take every bit of it in.” (Sir Arthur Helps.) 1 Corinthians 14:10-11 There are … voices … and none of them is without signification. Voices 1. It does not follow that because the voice has no meaning for you that therefore it has no meaning for others. I heard some splendid music the other clay, and a friend exclaimed, “ What tenderness, what pathos is in it.” John Stuart Mill said that the first meaning of Wordsworth’ s poetry was a new birth to him; he felt himself a better man. Maurice often talked in an unknown tongue once; people understand him now. You may read a chapter of Christian experience and it may be in an unknown tongue to you. 2. But the difficulty will be to reduce what you have seen and heard into intelligible speech that will edify others. A young person is asked to sing, and she dashes at once into a French or German song. What affectation it is when there are troops of English songs with the sweet pathos of English traditions in them. There are artists a great deal more silly. Their chief pride is that they don’ t edify. Many words might be spoken in praise of the noble address from the chair of the British Association; but I give the highest praise when I say you can understand it. The best part of your creed is what you can put into a little child’ s mouth. If you want to know what the essence of the gospel is, take a little boy of eight between your knees and tell him the gospel, and what you can make him understand is its pith and essence. 3. There are many voices in the world, and our business is to try to discover their significance. There are voices which are transitory, which speak to one generation and then cease. They startle one, and then are heard no more, like the rousing proclamation of some half-forgotten truth or a wail of consternation at the spiritual condition of England. But some voices speak on for age and age, and uninterruptedly. I. The voice of the material creation. For its scientific or philosophical signification. You must listen to the scientific report of the year. What is its spiritual signification? What is there to be converted into fuel that can feed our faith and enlarge our hope? The material world is the revelation of the Divine intellect and heart. What do we find in this material creation that sends a message to our spiritual nature which may be converted into fuel for our faith? I think it is this: You can always calculate upon God. God has always known His own mind. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Think of the value of that in your religious life. The first instinct of your religious life is to have unchanging things. We have said hard things about Nature. We have called her blind and pitiless. There can be not the slightest divergence from her path. Every heart in this creation may break, but the earth will still go on. But there is another side to that. You can calculate always upon God, He will never disappoint you. All of our life would break out into panic if there were any disorganisation of the laws of nature of which we complain sometimes. The farmer knows that the seasons will come round, and the mariner goes out to sea without fear. If you care to meet God this morning, there can be no doubt as to where to meet Him. There is a certainty with regard to God and our souls which we cannot have with regard to anything else. Take any promise in His Word. “ Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He has never moved away from that. If you put your life and the lives of your children in God’ s path every morning, you may be perfectly sure that He will pass that way. The Church oftentime feels that the paralysis is creeping over her and that she can do nothing. You are not content with things as they are. You want a re-vi-val, a re-consecration, a re-awakening, a fresh joy in the gospel of Christ, and a fresh equipment for service. We can have it without any uncertainty; we have as a Church only to place ourselves in God’ s way. We have only to get out of the things He hates, to redouble our energies in the Sunday school, and among the erring. I have seen, when the heavens said there was a great shower coming, the housewife put out every vessel to catch the rain. You must range every faculty you possess at God’ s disposal. Be ready! God will not disappoint you. If the channels are doubled the rain is sure to come. II. The voices in your own souls. These are of two kinds. There are the imperative voices. Then there are the pathetic voices. George Eliot said, “ See if the sigh does not discover Him who touched the heart into a sigh.” What a chapter it would be if every one in this congregation were this morning to write out one of his sorest needs. We need a living God, we need the grasp of His hand, we need heaven! We want to be forgiven; we want home. We have loved and lost. And oh, the unspeakable blessedness of the voice of our need in prayer. I have cried, “ Father, I am sad, I am lonely.” And a voice has come into my soul, saying, “ Fear not; I am with thee.” You may pile the scepticism of the world then, but it takes nothing of this from me. And this is the significance of our need. I have read a very wonderful book, written by a man who sums up the arguments in this way: there is as much to be said for the existence of God as there is to be said against it, and vice versa. If this were so it is enough for me. If the arguments for or against the existence of God were so equally balanced, my necessities and needs would weigh the balance down. (Morlais Jones.)A preacher should study plain language I. Language is designed as the vehicle of thought.1. Many languages.2. All significant. II. Language ceases to be the medium of thought when not understood. There is--1. No instruction.2. No sympathy of mind.3. No edification. III. Plainness should therefore be studied--1. As the most excellent of gifts.2. For the benefit of the Church. With much prayer. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The diversity of human language Consider--1. Language as the vehicle of thought.2. Its extraordinary variety.3. The cause.4. Its effect upon the condition of mankind--social and moral.5. Its gradual alleviation.6. Its final removal. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Sweetness of voice There is no power of love so hard to get and keep, writes Elihu Burritt, as a kind voice. A kind hand is dead and dumb. It may be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one thing which love so much needs as a sweet voice, to tell what it means and feels; and it is hard to get and keep in the right tone. One must start in youth, and be on the watch night and day, at work and at play, to get and keep a voice which shall speak at all times the thoughts of a kind heart. It is often in youth that one gets a voice or tone which is sharp, and it sticks to him through life, and it stirs up ill-will, and falls like a drop of gall upon the sweet joys of home. Watch the voice day by day as a pearl of great price, for it will be worth more to you in the days to come than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is to the heart what light is to the eye. It is a light which sings as well as shines. 1 Corinthians 14:12-14 As ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the Church.Edification consists both in building up from first principles to their practical application, and of fitting each member of the society into the proper places which the growth and rise of the old building require. It is “ development,” not only in the sense of unfolding new truth, but of unfolding all the resources contained in the existing institution or body. Hence the stress laid on the excellence of “ prophesying” as the special gift by which men were led to know themselves (1 Corinthians 14:24-25), and by which (as through the prophets of the older dispensations) higher and more spiritual views of life were gradually revealed. Hence the repeated injunctions that all the gifts should have their proper honour (1 Corinthians 12:20-30); that those gifts should be most honoured by which not a few, but all, should benefit (1 Corinthians 14:1-23); that all who had the gift of prophecy should have the opportunity of exercising that gift (1 Corinthians 14:29-31); that all might have an equal chance of instruction and comfort for their own special cases (1 Corinthians 14:40). (Dean Stanley.)Doing one’ s best at the best thing I. In doing our best we must have the best thing to work at. Industry, concentration, perseverance, etc., should not be wasted on inferior aims. Steel may be sharpened into tools for making tables and chairs, and into weapons of war.1. Rivalry is condemned by the very illustration. When rivalry comes in at the door, Christianity flies out at the window. There can be no rivalry between the man who shapes the stones and him who makes them into a wall; no rivalry between him who works in stone and him who works in wood. 2. But absence of rivalry is not enough. Co-operation must be added. A house can only be built by several men each working according to his own particular handicraft. He who comprehends that his powers were given him in order to make his contribution to a far larger whole, is the man who will find all things marvellously working together with him. Lubricating influences pour in from everywhere. Friction diminishes. 3. The method of successful co-operation pointed out. It is not a Tower of Babel which we work at; but the Chinch of Christ, an institution which is for the highest good of everybody in the world. What can be more dreadful than that a Christian should use his place in the Christian company for self-aggrandisement? Some of the Christians in Corinth were acting as if a man employed to put up the walls of a building in which he and all the other workmen should afterwards dwell and be fed and clothed at the employer’ s expense were to take the stones away and try to put up a little private and unsocial house of his own. If we try to use Christ for worldly ends we are bound to fail; if we try rather to use the world for Christ we are bound to succeed. Let the perishing praise the perishing; we work, however obscurely, at a building that will endure when all Babel fabrics are in ruins. II. Having the best thing to work at, we must do our best. That Jesus who condemns rivalry, equally condemns indifference to excellence. That is a poor sort of contentment which has not some noble and elevating element mixed up with it. We are bound to be as good as we can be. We must not creep and loiter in the way of holy service. God’ s building goes on so slowly, and seems as yet so little more than a neighbourhood of fragments, just because the building is crowded up from age to age with loiterers and ornamental people. Their names are down in the list of workmen, but they do little or nothing. Indeed who is there that does anything like what he ought to do? (D. Young, B. A.) 1 Corinthians 14:15I will pray with the spirit and … with the understanding also. Prayer I. The work and business of prayer.1. Its object.2. Its several parts. It may be considered as either-- (1) Mental or vocal.(2) Private or public.(3) Ordinary or extraordinary. II. The manner in which the apostle was desirous of performing this duty.1. With the spirit.2. With the understanding. Application:1. It is good for the saints to draw near to God.2. The believer has the utmost encouragement for this work. (J. Gill, D. D.)Prayer with the understanding There are two classes of men, the men of fire and the men of calculation. The former seem to shake the world’ s dust off their fist, and to move towards heaven. All the little cares and troubles of this world are forgotten in the brilliancy of the ascent. The latter class are always considering what will be the best thing to do or say so as to make both ends meet in the present system of things. Paul combines both. He brings down the wings of prayer to the level of the common understanding. He refuses to allow that mighty bird of Paradise to soar beyond the limit of common sense. His combination of fire and prudence is the most wonderful thing in literature. There are three senses in which prayer is limited by the understanding. I. No prayer should ever be uttered as an experimental test of truth. We have no right to make God a magician. The mills of God grind silently as well as slowly. Even when experimental prayers are offered by good people they are wrong. What if Elijah’ s sacrifice had not been consumed by fire? Would that have proved that there was no God? I decline all tests, and am content to await the slow grinding of the mills of God. They will grind out the pure corn, which will prove in the end to be the old corn of the land. II. No prayer should ask for a violation of moral law, for that which would hurt another. I do not say of physical law, for we do not know what physical law is. I have often thought how it would be if there existed an island of blind men, say if the island of Bute were inhabited by men, women, and children who had never seen. What would be the relation of these people to the mainland? I suspect there would be three classes there--believers, agnostics, and unbelievers. The believer would say, “ I heard a bird come in last night, and it must have come from somewhere.” The agnostic would say, “ But perhaps it belonged to our own shores, and had left us for a while.” But whether these blind men believed, or whether they believed not, the shore would stand firm, having this to its seal, the Lord knoweth the hills of Argyll hire. We need not fear physical law; it is moral law we have to do with. When you ask any joy that cannot be shared by another, draw back from the door of prayer. Thou white-winged bird of prayer, I will not let thee fly whithersoever thou wilt. Thou shalt not fly over my brother’ s ground, not though thy soaring be up to the clouds of God. III. No prayer should ever be uttered without the use of means. My experience is that God never comes except through a chariot, that is, except through means. The prayer for strength is answered by a kind word from a human friend, or it may be by a dumb agency, by a light from the Pentland Hills or by a wind changing suddenly to mildness. We say we are uplifted by the weather. No, it is God’ s Spirit that has entered in, and brought the Balm of Gilead and the Bright and Morning Star. God works through sacraments, and through the vicarious sacraments of human souls. Still He works in our Galilees, and our prayers are answered not directly, but through the ministry of the angels. Do you ask me to give you a prayer that will stand all tests in these days of science, one that will never be superannuated though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the seas? The Gethsemane prayer of our Lord is such a prayer. Let us make it our own, and the prayer of our spirit shall be the prayer of our understanding also. (G. Matheson, D. D.)How are we to pray aright? We have chosen the language of the text as fitted to lead our attention to two distinct objects, both of the greatest importance in reference to prayer, viz., that Divine influence by which it is directed and rendered effectual to its end, and that correspondent exercise of our own faculties necessary to our availing ourselves fully of the assistance thus afforded--“ praying with the Spirit, and praying with the understanding also.” To perceive the full force of the text, it is essential to glance at its original reference. The apostle is here speaking of those miraculous gifts which were, at that period, bestowed so extensively upon the Church. Those gifts were various, and were all indications of the immediate operation of the hand of God. Some were qualified to impress one order of minds, some another. Some were for signs to the infidel world around; some for confirmation and improvement to the believers themselves. Amongst this last class one of the most striking and peculiar was the gift of tongues, the wonderful power of speaking, in a moment, languages before unknown. Connected with the gift of tongues was certainly, in many cases, that of immediate inspiration--the knowledge of things either future or otherwise beyond the thought and cognisance of the individual; and it would seem that, when speaking in a foreign tongue thus miraculously imparted, the thoughts of the Christian preacher were much less under his personal and private control than when addressing those around him in his own language. He had surrendered himself, so to speak, to the immediate and exclusive guidance of the inspiring Spirit. A gift of such a nature would be especially liable to abuse. Not only from ostentation, and as it was an evidence of superiority or an accredited testimonial of office, but from other causes also, connected with the imperfection of human nature, there would be much danger of its undue and unprofitable display. In opposition to this great abuse, the apostle, writing to the Corinthians, amongst whom, from various causes, it seems to have been previously prevalent, declares that though he was endowed beyond all others with this miraculous gift, he would “ rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand in an unknown tongue.” The one of these things he calls speaking with the Spirit, the other with the understanding. I need scarcely remark that the age of inspiration is past, and the wonderful gift we have been considering is bestowed no more upon the Chinch. I. We come, then, to describe the meaning and necessity of “ praying, with the spirit” --that is, as we have endeavoured to express it, of cherishing an entire dependence on the grace and sacred operations of this Divine agent in all our addresses at the throne of mercy. The necessity of this dependence is a topic on which we must not enlarge; it is universally known and admitted by all men of piety. All the order and propriety of language and all the appropriateness of the most accurate and solemn petitions will, as they at once perceive, avail nothing without this influence. What is it, then, to pray with the Spirit? We answer, while it is certainly to model our devotions in all things in such a manner as to indicate our humble dependence on a Divine agency, it is especially to have that state of heart and those feelings of piety and ardour and spirituality which such agency must ever be qualified to produce. The great characteristic of the exercise will probably be fervour and, earnestness in asking for those things which may most conduce to the increase of our Christian purity and to our performance of all the will of God. We cannot suppose that a man under the immediate band of the living Spirit of God can be cold and languid in his devotions. He that prays with the Spirit will be filled with a holy fire that cannot but inflame and kindle the highest powers of the soul. Prayer thus offered will often partake of that character so strikingly illustrated in the history of Jacob when be wrestled with the angel until the dawning of the day. When we express before the throne our sorrow for sin or our longing desire for pardon we shall surely, if praying with the Spirit, be humbled in a very signal manner, as into the dust. Our strongest abhorrence will be excited against ourselves for our deep and aggravated guilt. Sin will appear to us exceeding sinful. It will not be with a light or hypocritical feeling that we now confess ourselves to be the chief of sinners. To pray with the Spirit will often be attended with a sacred and elevated pleasure, such as we cannot but ascribe to the experience of the Divine favour and the direct influence of the Saviour’ s love. The exercise, which we have at other times felt to be a burden, and rejoiced as speedily as possible to lay aside, will now afford us a rich and peculiar delight. It is thus that we realise the apostle’ s description, “ praying in the Holy Ghost,” and in such instances there is little difficulty in tracing out the evidences of His operation. That operation, however, may be often present when it is not thus discernible. But the language of our text leads us to inquire again, How must we avail ourselves of this assistance, and what is it for us to be able to say, “ I will pray with the Spirit” ? That such influence is sometimes mercifully imparted probably none will deny; but then the question may present itself, How must it be obtained? I can imagine that some may say. “ I would to God that I could but “ pray in this manner.” The Spirit of God is infinitely free and sovereign in His communications, and independent on all the efforts, not less than the merits, of man. The language of the text speaks of this grace as one we may certainly possess and exercise: and there is nothing precarious in that character wherein that language would lead us to contemplate its communications. “ I will pray with the Spirit.”1. One of the most necessary preparations for enjoying the grace and assistance of the Spirit in prayer is to feel its necessity; to cherish a deep and abiding sense of our own helplessness. Let this need be but devoutly acknowledged and the sense of it habitually felt, and there is no reason to fear that the grace we require will be denied us. 2. Another is, to desire it with sincerity and earnestness proportionate to our conviction of its importance; to address ourselves to the great work of prayer with an anxious wish that we may not worship in vain; to be concerned and solicitous that the duty may be rightly fulfilled and the blessings we implore actually obtained. We too often approach God in this exercise, but without an object. We come to pray, but not to seek sincerely an answer to our prayers. 3. Akin to this is another--the direct solicitation of this blessing, and that in the very commencement of our prayers, a practice which might seem prompted almost by decency itself, in public devotion, but which there is reason to fear is but too little observed in private. 4. In addition to these, we should endeavour to preserve a constant and humble expectation of the grace we need. It is due to the promises and to the faithfulness of God. It will do honour to His love and tenderness. It is an act resulting from the best and highest principles of piety. 5. We must also strive to retain, by every effort in our power, the effect of any Divine operation we have already experienced, and seek in the continuance and progress of our devotions, to fan and cherish the feeblest flame of love, or joy, or hope which may have begun to tremble within the breast, that it may burn with greater strength and brightness. II. To consider what is meant by the apostle in the remaining portion of this passage; and to show the necessity and nature of that exercise of our faculties in prayer which may be properly denominated “ praying with the understanding.” Surely we are bound to render to our Maker the service of every faculty with which He has invested us. We are wholly His, and should seek to glorify Him in the consecration of all our being to His praise. It is not enough that the warmest of our affections are called forth if the highest of our capacities be not also filled with the desire and effort to advance His honour. We grant that the most short and momentary glancing of the soul upward to the throne, amidst the scenes of business or the dangers of temptation, is truly and often most successfully to pray; but we must not on this account permit ourselves to confine the acts of devotion to such sudden and casual addresses. There is danger of indulging, moreover, in too great a latitude of expression and feeling when we fail to attend to this most momentous subject. There is another evil resulting from this neglect. It is frequently imagined that when we have been unconscious in our prayers of an immediate agency of the Spirit upon our hearts, even though we have gone with the utmost seriousness and sincerity to the performance of this duty, we have failed in our design, and that it was not genuine prayer, whereas it may be that in these cases we have still cherished the most deep and sacred concern to approve ourselves to God. The influences of the understanding rightly exercised in reference to this great duty will be especially exhibited in four distinct respects. It will tend to give to our prayers the character of solemnity, appropriateness, comprehensiveness, and order.1. It cannot fail to imbue them with solemnity. We should reflect on the grandeur of the Divine attributes and the unsearchable glories of the Divine essence, on the meanness and misery of man, on the wondrous scheme of reconciliation, till the sense of our own littleness will occupy every feeling of the soul, and we shall fail down with lowliest reverence before the majesty of our Creator. 2. With equal certainty it will next issue in the appropriateness of our petitions to our circumstances, to the present demand either of our external situation or our religious character. We shall be led to ask ourselves, What do I truly need? What are the difficulties I have now chiefly to apprehend? or the duties I am called especially to perform? Against what temptations am I warned to beware? or whence may they be expected principally to arise? And then our prayers will assume the aspect of our condition. We shall not waste our devotions on the general and customary topics that would equally accord with all varieties of experience, or rather have no special adaptation to any. Each day will furnish some of these varieties, and we shall be every day increasing in a facility and freedom which will add continually new interest and profit to the engagements of devotion. 3. Its next effect will be to give to these engagements a comprehensiveness as to the subjects we shall see it necessary to embrace which the most fervent piety would fail to present, without the correspondent efforts of reflection and serious thought. We shall not merely pray for ourselves, but for all with whom we are in any way connected. 4. Finally, this exercise of the understanding in respect to prayer will ensure to our devotions the important principle of order. Instead of a hurried incongruous effusion of petitions or praises, lamentations or expressions of humility and penitence, we shall, even in sacred retirement, and much more in the family, the social meeting, or the great congregation, perceive the necessity of method and of the just and decorous arrangement of the several parts of this great and solemn duty. (R. S. McAll.)Public prayer should be in a known tongues 1. Public prayer must be understood here (1 Corinthians 14:16). 2. Praying in the Spirit must mean using the gift of prayer which the Spirit bestows. To pray in the Holy Ghost implies the having our infirmities helped by the Spirit of God; our graces quickened, our affections and desires raised into strength and fervency. 3. Understanding must not be referred to the understanding of the apostle, but to the understanding of others (1 Corinthians 14:19). Upon the words thus opened I build this thesis, That public prayer is not to be made in an unknown tongue, but in such a language as is understood by the common people. I. The judgment of Rome in the matter.1. In their general practice. Their Mass-book is in Latin; their Divine service is performed in a dead language. 2. The council of Trent determines (Canon 9), “ Whosoever shall say that the Mass ought to be celebrated only in a vulgar language, let him be accursed.” II. Public prayer ought not to be made in a language unknown to the people.1. When prayer is made in an unknown tongue, the name of God is taken in vain (Matthew 15:8-9). 2. Prayer in an unknown tongue is ignorant worship (John 4:22; Mark 10:38). And what is ignorant worship, if this be not--to make unknown prayers to an unknown God? 3. How can such prayers as are made in an unknown tongue be made in faith? And yet faith is a necessary ingredient in prayer (James 1:7). 4. The design of prayer is not to work any change in God, with whom there is not the least “ variableness, neither shadow of turning” ; but a change in us; that by prayer we may be the better disposed for the reception of what we ask. But how can prayer which is not understood be here available? 5. Though to speak in an unknown tongue was in the first age a miraculous gift, and served much for the confirmation of the Christian faith; yet unless there were an interpreter, the use of an unknown tongue was not permitted in the public worship of God (1 Corinthians 14:28). 6. The use of an unknown tongue in the Lord’ s service is expressly denied to be unto edification (1 Corinthians 14:26). 7. The apostle, having delivered this doctrine, That prayer and praise should be in a known tongue, adds that he taught the same “ in all the Churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:33; see also 1 Corinthians 14:37). III. Antiquity is utterly against Rome in this matter. And because the council of Trent hath anathematised all that are against Latin prayers, I will suppose another council, and Paul himself to be the president of it. The question to be debated is, “ Whether prayer is to be made in a known or in an unknown tongue.” Let the fathers speak in order. Justin Martyr tells us: “ On the day commonly called Sunday, assemblies are made of citizens and countrymen, and the writings of the apostles and prophets are read. The reader giving over, the minister makes an exhortation to the people, persuading to the imitation and practice of those good things that are propounded. After this we rise all, and pour out prayers: and bread and wine are brought forth. And the minister, to the uttermost of his ability, does send forth prayers and praises unto God; and the people give their consent, saying, “ Amen.” Behold the Scriptures read even to citizens, nay, to country-people, and prayers made which they did understand, and say Amen to. Origen may speak next: “ The Christians in their prayers use not the very words (he means the words of the original)” of the Scriptures: but they that are Greeks do use the Greek tongue; and those that are Romans, the Roman tongue. And so every one according to his dialect does pray unto God, and praise Him according to his ability: and He that is the Lord of every language does bear the prayers which are put up to Him in every language.” Cyprian speaks thus: “ To pray otherwise than Christ has taught is not only ignorance but a great fault; for He has expressly said, ‘ Ye reject the command of God, that ye may establish your own tradition.’” Now where has Christ taught the use of an unknown tongue in prayer? Ambrose may be heard in the next place: “ If ye come together to edify the Church, those things ought to be spoken that the hearers may understand: for what does he profit the people who speaks in an unknown tongue to them?” And afterwards the same father adds: “ There were some, of the Hebrews especially, that used the Syriac and the Hebrew tongue in their services; but these aimed at their own glory and commendation, not at the people’ s benefit.” Let us hear Augustine: “ We ought to understand what we pray for, that we may, not like birds, but like men, sing unto God. For blackbirds and parrots and crows and pies, and such kind of fowls, are taught to sound forth what they understand not; but to sing with understanding is granted, not to a bird, but to a man, through the good pleasure of God.” Jerome speaks after this manner “ In the Churches of the city of Rome, the voice of the people was like heavenly thunder, when they answered aloud ‘ Amen’ at the end of the prayers which they put up unto God. The people understood, and gave their consent unto, the prayers which were used in those days; but the present Church of Rome, alas! how much is it altered from what it once was!” Great Basil exclaims, “ Let thy tongue sing, and let thy mind search the meaning of what is spoken; that thou mayest sing with the spirit, and sing with the understanding also.” Chrysostom says; “ Take notice how the apostle does always seek the Church’ s edification. By ‘ the unlearned man,’ Paul means the layman, and shows how this unlearned person does sustain a very great loss when prayers are made in such a language as [that] he, through want of understanding, is not able to say Amen to them.” I shall add unto these passages of the fathers a Constitution of the emperor Justinian (123): “ We command that all bishops and presbyters do celebrate the holy oblation, and prayers used in holy baptism, not speaking low, but with a clear voice which may be heard by the people, that thereby the minds of the people may be stirred up with greater devotion in uttering the praises of the Lord God.” And for this is cited verse16. But now let us hear the Romish doctors themselves. Cardinal Cajetan has these words: “ From this doctrine of the Apostle Paul it follows, that it is better for the edification of the Church, that the public prayers which the people hear should be made in that language which both the priests and people understand, than that they should be made in Latin.” Nicolaus de Lyra says: “ If the people understand the prayer or thanksgiving which is performed by the priest, their minds will be brought the better and nearer unto God, and with greater devoutness they will answer ‘ Amen.’” “ The angelical doctor,” Thomas Aquinas, says: “ He gains most who prays and understands the words which he speaks; for he is edified both as to his understanding and also as to his affections.” Again: “ It is best that the tongue which blesses should interpret; for good words should be spoken to the edification of faith.” But now at last let us be determined by the Apostle Paul (verses 18, 19). IV. Answer the popish arguments to defend their cause.1. Bellarmine says that “ prayer in an unknown tongue is not condemned, but prayer in a known tongue only preferred. Answer-- (1) Suppose this: why does the Church of Rome pray after the worse, and not after the better, manner of the two? (2) But it is condemned by the apostle as not being for edification. 2. The same writer says that “ of old the use of prayer was, that the people might be instructed and edified: but now the end of prayer is the yielding to God that worship which is due to Him.” Answer-- (1) The apostles were as careful that God might have His worship as the Papists; nay, a great deal more careful. (2) Disjoin not God’ s worship and the people’ s edification: and the more the mind understands and the heart of the worshipper is affected, God is the more honoured and the better pleased. 3. Again, “ Prayer is not made to the people, but unto God; and He understands all tongues alike. If a courtier should petition for a countryman in Latin to a king, the countryman might be benefited by the Latin petition of the courtier, though he should not understand a word of it. Answer (1) It might have been said, that God understands all tongues alike in the apostles’ days as well as now. (2) The use of prayer is not to inform God; for He knows what things we have need of before we ask (Matthew 6:8); but to make ourselves more sensible of our needs, and consequently more meet to be supplied. But how can this be, if prayer be locked up in an unknown dialect? (3) The God of heaven is not like the kings on earth, who will hear petitions made by favourites for persons that make no address themselves; but He requires that every particular person should ask if he will receive, and understand what he prays for. Again, if a king should forbid petitions in a strange language, a Latin petition would not be acceptable. But God has forbid the use of an unknown tongue. Therefore we may conclude that the Popish Latin prayers are to very little purpose. V. The tendency of this papal doctrine.1. It gratifies the lazy disposition of men, who naturally like a liberty to rest in opere operato, “ in the work done.” 2. It is a notable device to keep the people ignorant, and to make them more dependent upon the priesthood. 3. Many prayers may well be made in Latin merely through shame. Application:1. Bless the Lord that the day-spring from on high hath visited this land of your nativity, and that Popish darkness is so much dispelled. 2. It highly concerns you to fear, and to pray against, the return of Popish blindness. 3. Let the blind zeal of the Papists make you more frequent in your accesses to the throne of grace. 4. Take heed of distraction in prayer, and not minding what you ask, or what you are doing, when at the mercy-seat. 5. Content not yourselves with bare understanding the words of prayer; but know the Lord (whom) you pray to. 6. Let understanding and faith in this duty of prayer be joined together. (N. Vincent, A. M.)I will sing with the spirit, and … with the understanding also.-- Singing with the understanding We are commanded to sing with the understanding; and yet if we did, four hundred and ninety-five out of five hundred pieces of music that are published for singing would have to go to the dirt. I will defy anybody to sing with the understanding the music that is trashily printed and trashily performed, whether it be inarticulate on stringed instruments or whether it be vocalised to words. Music has a relation not simply to sensuous pleasure, which is the lowest kind of pleasure, but to imaginative pleasure, and to pleasure of the understanding as well, which it rises up round about as the atmosphere rises round about the pine-trees and the oak-trees on the mountain side, washing them clean, and making them stand out in majesty and beauty. Music cleanses the understanding, inspires it, and lilts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. (H. W. Beecher.)How to sing well A girl once asked her teacher how she might become as good at music as her rival. “ Cultivate your heart,” was the teacher’ s excellent reply. The Bible says: “ Sing with the spirit, and with the understanding also.” A hearty love of sacred song adds much to our own and other’ s joys. The sick and dying are often soothed with singing when they could not bear speaking or reading. Our music may gain the blessing of those ready to perish. 1 Corinthians 14:16-19 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall … the unlearned say Amen.Public prayer should be I. Earnest--with the spirit. II. Intelligent--So that all can understand. III. United--all should say Amen. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Responses in prayer 1. Are not only permissible but proper.2. Should be said, not shouted.3. Should be simple, appropriate, intelligent, and heartfelt. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Public devotion In this we must keep in view--1. The glory of God.2. The edification of others.3. Our own responsibility. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Directions for profitably joining in public prayer I. Public prayer must be diligently attended to. II. It must be seriously and heartily concurred in.1. Saying amen, or joining in public prayer, includes our assent to the truths declared and acknowledged; and this with all suitable affections of mind. The Hebrew word “ amen” signifies truth; and so expresseth an acknowledgment that what he had said was true. Thus Christ styleth Himself “ the Amen, the faithful and true witness,” and the promises of God are said to be “ yea and amen” ; all true, and certainly to be accomplished. Now this is applicable to the several parts of prayer which are not properly petitions; and you will best understand my meaning by a few illustrations. Suppose a minister to be adoring the perfections of God, acknowledging that He is the greatest and the best of beings, that He is perfectly good, long-suffering, merciful, and gracious, to this you are to say amen, that is, your hearts are to acknowledge with the highest veneration that it is true. Doth the minister acknowledge and celebrate the wonderful works of God, His creation and government of the world, and that glory is due to Him for these? You are to join in such acknowledgments; to confess and adore Him as the Creator, Governor, and Father of the universe. Again, is a minister expressing a thankful sense of God’ s favour and mercy to those whose devotion he leads? Is he praising God for our creation, preservation; for health, and peace, and comfort; for our temporal or spiritual blessings? You are to add amen to this. 2. Saying amen, or joining in prayer, includes our hearty consent to the several desires and requests which are expressed before God. Amen signifies, So be it! let it be so! this is what I earnestly desire. Doth the minister pray that God would be merciful to us and forgive us? You are to say amen; that is, “ God be merciful to me, a sinner.” 3. Through the whole of every public and social prayer we are to consider it as our own prayer. Reflections:1. This condemns the practice of the Church of Rome in appointing that their public prayers should be in Latin, a language unknown to almost every one that attends upon them. It is impossible that the unlearned should join in such prayers and say amen to them with any devout concurrence. 2. How few are there in our assemblies that properly join in prayer? As Protestants, we have prayers in our native language. What careless airs, what lazy postures are seen in many! How few are there who show the proper marks of seriousness and reverence! and may we not fear that some of those few do not heartily join? Are they not like the statues, or images on monuments, in our ancient churches--in a praying posture indeed, with eyes and hands lifted up to heaven, but with hearts hard as stone, cold as marble? 3. How much do we need the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that our devotion may be pleasing to God and comfortable and edifying to ourselves! (J. Orton.)I thank God I speak with tongues more than ye all: Yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding … than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.-- Five words better than ten thousand 1. When more intelligible.2. When wisely spoken.3. When calculated to benefit others.4. When uttered in the spirit of love. (J. Orton.)Gifts and learning I. Are matters of thankfulness to God. II. Should be wisely used--not for display, but edification. III. Should be subservient to love. (J. Orton.)Intelligent piety I. Seeks--not to astonish, but teach. II. Accomplishes its object--not by learned disquisitions, but by making truth easy by means of a few and plain words. III. Finds greater satisfaction--in the profit of others, than in self display. (J. Orton.) 1 Corinthians 14:20 Brethren, be not children in understanding.The wisdom of childhood I. We should possess childlike simplicity of character. To preserve the freshness of childhood in the moral world is the object of the gospel. II. With this we are to unite manliness of understanding. Our childlikeness is to be confined to the moral nature; beyond that, in the reign of the intellect, will and activities, we are commanded as Christians to be men. (Christian Age.)The manliness of the gospel 1. “ Did it ever strike you that St. Paul was mad?” was a question asked once, not by a scoffer, but by a man of powerful intellect, who felt that the question between Christianity and unbelief turned upon the case of Paul. For if the charge of Festus could be substantiated, one of the most powerful chapters of Christian evidence would be cancelled. 2. But we commend to the honest inquirer the study of this one chapter. St. Paul is correcting an exaggerated idea of the value of a particular gift. In all times human nature has been inclined to put display above profiting; and it required a sound and well-balanced judgment to keep gift in its place. And who can doubt that the true estimate was that taken here by St. Paul? (see 1 Corinthians 12:31; 1 Corinthians 14:1). It required a very sound and a very sober judgment to subordinate the gift of tongues to the far less brilliant gift of “ prophesying” in which only edification was aimed at. The maxims interspersed among the exhortations of this chapter are eminently illustrative of the plain and practical character of the man whom it is necessary for infidelity to represent as an enthusiast, or to hint into a madman (1 Corinthians 14:14-15; 1 Corinthians 14:19; 1 Corinthians 14:26; 1 Corinthians 14:32-33; 1 Corinthians 14:40). 3. The subject thus introduced is larger and wider than the mere question of the sanity of St. Paul. The charge, “ In understanding be men,” warns us very seriously of a danger, peculiarly pressing in these times, that, namely, of divorcing religion from manliness. If this is the gospel voice, then one offence, at least, is rolled out of the way. St. Paul says that there may be a childishness in the use of Divine gifts. He boldly declares even spiritual influences to be subordinate to considerations of propriety, of expediency, of common sense. No man is to say, I am no longer a free agent; the hand of God is upon me. This is to bring God’ s own gift into dishonour. It is just because it fits into His other gifts, because, while it elevates, it also sobers, that I see it to be an evidence of His interposition. 4. Now if miracle itself is not to be so treated as to make it childish, what shall we say of the excuses made in our day for the utter repudiation of every such criterion in reference to matters which can certainly plead no inspired authority? There are two higher classes of subjects upon the treatment of which St. Paul throws a guiding and comforting light in the weighty maxim before us. I. Revelation of course must be above reason. What intellect could discover, God would not reveal. If therefore on any topic revelation exists, that is proof sufficient that on that topic reason was silent.1. When once the Divine origin of a revelation is attested by evidences of its being worthy of its Divine author, then it speaks, on each point which it touches, with authority. 2. But the office of the understanding in the first weighing of evidences, does not end here. The trying and testing of professed books of Scripture by the early Church was felt to be a heavy responsibility of the reason. Nor was the one settlement absolutely final. Particular clauses are found, on more modern and searching scrutinies, to be no part of the original text. And it is true reverence, as well as true wisdom, to exercise, upon all such matters, a large-minded and a manly judgment. God will guard His word written, and the God of truth is never honoured by a disingenuous treatment of the truth itself. 3. But there remains the weightiest matter of all, which is the interpretation of doctrine by the comparison of Scripture with Scripture. And here the mind must be employed if edification is to come to the student. Yet there are men who seem almost to think the contradiction of reason a sign of truth, and the mortification of the intellect a Christian duty. II. Practical duty. Sin makes great havoc of human happiness; but next to it stands folly.1. Could you but know, e.g., the utter foolishness of many parents and teachers on the great subject of education you would not wonder at the results, whether in the wilfulness of the youth or the misery of the manhood. Or again, would we but look back upon our own life’ s history, and mark the giddy thoughtlessness or the perverse infatuation which has characterised it, we could not but become conscious of the force of St. Paul’ s caution. 2. But how large is the action of this unintelligent childishness inside the Church, in the counsels and examples of Christian men! The whole theory of monasticism, the whole system of “ direction,” whether Romanist or Anglican, all that subjects my conscience to another man’ s rule, all that encourages a grovelling spirit in the worship and service of God in place of that honest, free, courageous bearing which finds the love of God life, and His service perfect freedom, is a contravention of Paul’ s rule. 3. How childish are half the biographies, diaries, devotions, of Christian saints! How little calculated to draw after them into God’ s service the strong inquiring intellect, the warm wholesome heart, the young enterprising life! Conclusion: Each one of us is in some real measure responsible for the look and tone of Christianity to our age. It is ours to make it great or to make it little, noble or contemptible. (Dean Vaughan.)Men in understanding In verse 19 the word “ understanding” stands for the intellectual faculty itself; here it refers to its state of development, to the mature condition of mind, heart, and general character. The word “ children,” which occurs twice in the text, first stands for boys, then for babes. The word “ malice” may also be taken more generally as designating all evil dispositions and affections. Lastly, the word “ men” signifies “ perfect,” and refers to maturity of age, fulness of mental development, fitness for the manly discharge of the duties of life. Thus looked at the text would seem to say, “ Don’ t feel and act like a set of ignorant, conceited boys--with respect to all that is bad, indeed, be the veriest babes; but as to all that is good, be like those who, having gone through a long course of discipline, are at once ripe in years, and perfectly equipped as to knowledge and accomplishments, thorough “ men.” I. In the text then we have the infant, the boy, and the man, and something belonging to each used for moral and religious ends. A human being comes into the world as a combination of capabilities--so much raw material. By taking “ malice” and “ understanding” as representative terms we have the two great departments of human nature--the intellectual and the emotional.1. A little infant, then, has wrapped up within it the capacities of the intellect and the forces of the passions. Without referring to the undeveloped state of an infant’ s understanding, the apostle fixes attention on the undeveloped condition of the passions--the one idea that he wanted, and which, therefore, he exclusively refers to. Looking at a little sweet babe the apostle seems to says, “ Whatever capacity there may be here for what is bad, it is not manifested yet. How free from all that deforms society and degrades men! True, all the men in the world were once babes; would to God that, in one sense, they were babes again! But Christians, by the expulsion of corruption through the influences of the regenerating Spirit, ought “ in malice to be children.” 2. Next we have the picture of a number of youths, who have advanced beyond childhood, but who have not yet acquired the knowledge, dispositions, and habits belonging to riper years. They are necessarily inexperienced; they think a great deal of any small acquirement or advantage by which they are distinguished; there are often among them envyings and animosities; they like pleasure and excitement; they can hardly understand what is meant by self-sacrifice, and know little of the greatness and beautifulness of duty as duty. However promising they may be they cannot but be defective in those things which belong to disciplined virtue and manly worth. In infants the reason and the feelings are alike undeveloped; in youth both have unfolded to a certain extent, and the apostle directs attention to the want of proportion between the development of the understanding and that of the passions. The understanding needs to be opened and cultivated--the passions grow of themselves. If the intellect be let alone, it will not expand; if the feelings be let alone, they will expand the more. The one requires to be encouraged and stimulated; the others to be repressed and restrained. The consequence is, that in early life the inferior parts are strong and active, as by the force of an internal impulse. Hence we have the phenomena that so often distinguish immaturity of character, folly, vanity, selfishness, ignorance, the want of all those things which make up that moral “ understanding” in which the apostle wished the Corinthians to be men, but which is seldom found to be the characteristic of boys. 3. The image of full-grown men, mature in character as.well as in years. The apostle supposes a number of human beings to have passed through a thorough course of culture and discipline, and to have acquired an intellectual equipment, and attained a moral fitness for what they are to be and to do in life. II. The appropriateness of this mode of illustration to the condition of the Corinthian Church.1. The Corinthians were ambitious of personal distinction; they each wished to have the highest gifts conferred upon them; and those who were entrusted with any, especially with the power of unknown, or eloquent speech, were utterly regardless of order and propriety in their use and exhibition. The Christian Church became a theatre of display; and the Christian life, instead of being something serious and earnest, put on the appearance of a boisterous holiday, and was as little dignified as a plaything or a song. But, worse than this, with the immaturity, vanity, and folly of boys, there mingled at Corinth the passions of men. They could not all be first; some must listen if others speak; where some lead, others must follow. But this is difficult where all are ambitious; and hence the society was torn by dissensions, developed bad feelings, was combined with a narrow and childish intellect and heart. 2. It is to this state of things that the admonition in the text refers. The apostle endeavours to instruct them by laying down important general principles, and to reprove them by severe and appropriate censure; aiming thus at once to open their understandings, and to subdue their passions. “ Be not mere boys, without deep and comprehensive views of duty. In malice, indeed, I wish you were even like babes, but in wisdom and knowledge, in mastery of yourselves, and in calm devotedness to the great business of the Christian life, I wish you to be men.” III. The advantages which attend the possession of a character like this.1. It is favourable to stability both of opinion and conduct. One who is really a spiritual man, may be depended on. His intelligence is large; his views are matured; his principles are established; his habits are fixed; he is not likely to become marked by the levity and inconstancy which are often seen in the ignorant and immature, the young and the superficial (see Ephesians 4:8-15). 2. It capacitates for entering into the profounder truths and for enjoying the higher forms of instruction. In some parts of the Church there is the constant reiteration of just the three or four truths which make up what we call the gospel. The people are thus always kept at the alphabet, or in the spelling-book, or in the shortest and easiest reading lessons, and are never introduced to the high arguments which lie beyond. Now without the culture of their own minds, the full development of their spiritual faculties, a congregation will listen to the higher forms of Christian teaching, not only without benefit, but with weariness and wonder. That it is not right for people to continue in this stale, you learn from Hebrews 5:1-14; Hebrews 6:1-20, and 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, i.e., let me have hearers who “ in understanding are men,” and instead of their being fatigued by the demand upon them, or offended by the form in which I convey my thoughts, they shall feel refreshed and strengthened by the exercise, and find themselves wiser, better, and happier men. 3. It will correct religious taste, and elevate and improve the general character. The Corinthians preferred the showy to the substantial. Their character was flashy, superficial. The apostle wished them to be “ men in understanding,” that all this might be thoroughly corrected. And so it will be still if we, too, rise into the character that has been set before us. Christian men, who in some degree answer to this, are superior to dependence on flash and rhetoric, or any of the many and mean arts by which Christian teaching is often disfigured. Having got rid of the craving for distinction, learnt the more excellent way of being great, the extinction of selfishness, and the service of love, they will be free from those evil tempers in which small and contracted souls indulge. They will delight in the cultivation of all that is noble and dignified in the Christian character, and be distinguished and known alike for the strength and the beauties of holiness. 4. Those who are “ men in understanding” will best know how to receive the kingdom of heaven like little children. But does not the New Testament demand the understanding of a child in order to the simple reception of the faith? No; it is not the childish, undeveloped understanding that is required, but the feeling in the child that is the effect of this--a readiness to rely on authority, and to receive the testimony of those whom it looks up to, without questioning. But this spirit is not, in a man, the consequence of ignorance, but the fruit of knowledge. Those who know nothing, and those who know a little, are often the most conceited. It requires the cultivated understanding of the man to know when he has arrived at an ultimate fact--where it is necessary to pause or stop in curious inquiries, and when it is proper to welcome the positive utterances of authority, and to rely upon them like a little child. The most mature Christian will live in the exercise of the most simple faith. He who knows most of God will know most of himself; he will, therefore, believe when others doubt, and will distrust when others presume. (T. Binney.)Christian manliness 1. The scholar alludes here to the teaching of his Master, and defines it (Matthew 18:3; Matthew 11:25). It was notably the manner of the Great Teacher to fling out thoughts in a round unguarded axiom which He trusted the good sense of His sympathetic disciples to define and limit. His very doing so is of itself conclusive proof that He meant His pupils to be no children, but men, in understanding. He might have addressed us as Moses addressed the Israelites, and given us details instead of principles, and an example in the room of an axiom. It pleased Him, on the contrary, to inaugurate an adult dispensation. 2. The Church, however, has not entered into this purpose of its Founder. Others besides the Galatians desire to turn back again to be in bondage to “ beggarly elements.” But if men will be childish in their religion, they shall not shelter themselves under Christ’ s injunctions if St. Paul can hinder it. To be children in malice towards one another, and in humility towards God, is that state to which alone the Father reveals His grace. But to be children in understanding; to be credulous without reflection, obedient without intelligence;--this could not appear to the noblest intellect of his age worthy of that gospel which reveals the wisdom of God, and educates man into perfect manhood, into the stature of the fulness of Jesus Christ. 3. The right use of the understanding in regard to Christianity is, of course, determined by the special nature of the Christian faith. Christianity rests upon facts which are wholly supernatural. It reveals mysteries of which reason can say nothing, either to confirm or to dispute. At the same time, a Divine system which is to recover man must be fitted to men. It cannot override one part of man, his reason, in reaching another, his spirit. Consider the manly use of the understanding-- I. In reference to Divine truth. The revelation of God in His Son’ s gospel asks of our understanding--1. To estimate its credentials with a candid mind and a pure heart. (1) Suppose that I have been educated within the bosom of Christ’ s Church, and have thus, by the happy experience of a religious life, put the faith of Jesus to frequent proof. In that ease I only use my understanding, as a man should, if I decline to reopen without cause the question of Christian evidences. A man may know whom he has trusted, and be no fool. (2) Others, however, have had an educational belief in Christianity, which personal experience never verified. Before the understanding of such men the gospel pleads. It asks no more than a full hearing and an honest verdict. Their duty is to be, in malice, indeed, children, but in understanding, men; asking fair proof, and taking no less; grappling with a robust, not finical, intellect the question of questions. There is a reason which can be given for the faith that is in us. 2. The intelligent interpretation of its records. A child’ s open heart may drink in so much of God’ s light from a text or two as will quicken it into holy life; but God means grown Christians to be at pains, by manly research and the use of reason, to ascertain the sense of His book. It is childish to dip into its pages with a pin, as if it were a book of fate; it is hardly less childish to cite texts at random, out of their connection, without asking when they were written, or with what design. 3. To grasp its truths as a whole. There is no intellectual manliness in shunning all dogmatic statements of theological truth, as if, in the haze of revelation, nothing could confidently be made out. It is true that few propositions in theology have escaped contradiction, and that at particular periods a rage for defining and systematising has been carried too far. But when all this has been conceded, the fact remains that the Church, from the second century to the nineteenth, has exercised its understanding on the materials of revelation with such substantial harmony that all its main doctrines have survived and commanded the assent of the most opposite schools. But were theology a chaos of conflicting opinions, still it would be manly to grapple with the teaching of Scripture, and endeavour to digest it into a system. Shall the facts of nature be classified and not the results of revelation? 4. An attitude towards all truth of fearless and open-minded candour, so long as it is unproved; so soon as it is proved true, one of rejoicing welcome. The crude and hasty theories of the day, whose value is chiefly to stimulate and guide further research, will make no man uneasy who has studied the history of past discovery. The shadows which coming truths cast before them are often mis-shapen, after the manner of shadows, and they startle the timorous; but the truth itself is always reassuring, a cheerful thing to healthy souls. No man ought to be so eager in the search for truth as the friend of Christ, nor can any man afford to meet it with a manlier greeting. II. In reference to human practice.1. It was in connection with a practical question--the profitable conduct of congregational worship--that St. Paul gave this injunction. When people are possessed by a very high ideal of duty, or ruled by their faith in what is Divine, they come easily in danger of despising common sense. Once let men imagine that God can possibly be pleased with a thing which offends reason, and there is nothing too irrational for them to do in His service. Or, let them only suppose that He cares for external form, apart from the inner spirit of an act, and the door is opened at once to childish trifling in worship and a painful casuistry in morals. 2. Two principles rationally applied will solve many knots of casuistry. (1) That we are no longer children, who please our Father by an unintelligent observance of mere external rules, but men, whose service, to be worth anything, must proceed from intelligent sympathy with His mind. To do, or abstain from doing, this, that, or the other petty act, because you are told you ought to, without knowing why, is to be a child. Be men. (2) The subordination of the morally small to the morally great. All right things are not equally important. Seek therefore to make sure of “ the weightier matters of the law.” For if our eye is set on the doing of these, the “ mint, anise, and cummin,” which are apt to give us so much trouble, will not be left undone. Conclusion: The understanding holds the function in Christian life of a regulator, nowise that of a moving power. A Christian who is only one intellectually is simply no Christian at all; for, till the heart is converted and become that of a little child, the man cannot see, cannot, by force of intellect, discern, the kingdom of heaven. Let us seek to retain the heart of childhood, but let us guide it by the understanding of a man. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)Christianity and manhood I. The distinction between childishness and childlikeness. “ Be not children in mind: howbeit in malice be ye babes.”1. These two ideas are frequently confounded, especially by young Christians. At first awaking to the Divine life wonder largely takes the place of understanding, and feeling that of thought. Being simple in motives is easily mistaken for being simple in ideas and rudimentary in knowledge. In the newly converted the two simplicities are engagingly combined, and they may thus appear to be essentially connected. But this is not the case. The experience which does not strengthen and enrich itself by sanctified thinking and meditation will soon become unreal, unwholesome, and unsafe. 2. The childhood which is the ideal of Christian character is a moral and not an intellectual childhood. We are to “ put away childish things” according to the general law of a healthy intellectual growth. “ Leaving the first principles” we are to “ go on unto perfection.” II. The summons to perfect our nature. This applies to every faculty we possess, in its relative and normally harmonious development.1. “ Muscular Christianity” has still its gospel to preach. The body has claims which are too much ignored. Flabbiness and effeminacy are not proofs of holiness. The qualities and accomplishments, too, by which men are enabled to fulfil their role as business men, members of society, citizens, etc., are well within the “ calling” of the Christian, and demand his attention. They may be a “ sign” to many who would fail to appreciate more esoteric doctrines or practices. 2. And so of knowledge, this most characteristic and ennobling faculty of man. Science, art, philosophy, and literature have all their place in providing us with a true understanding of life, and perfecting the mind for higher things. The true goal of all these studies is “ Divine knowledge” or “ wisdom,” but they lead only to the threshold. Christ calls us to a higher school, and even identifies the knowledge of God and Himself with “ eternal life.” Conclusion: The following considerations may help to prove that Christianity, so far from stunting or stereotyping the thought of man, has a real need for its exercise, and makes the greatest demands upon it.1. Christianity introduces its subjects to a great, suggestive, and stimulating experience. 2. It reveals the profoundest principles of life, and trains us in their application. 3. It demands the wisest and most skillful service. 4. It declares it as its purpose to perfect man’ s nature and character. 5. It proclaims every faculty sacred, and of the nature of a Divine stewardship. (St. John A. Frere.)The right use of the understanding in matters of religion It may be of use to premise an observation or two, the truth of which must be presupposed in all directions given to men about the exercise of their understandings in religion. 1. Religion is in itself an intelligible and rational thing, of which a clear and consistent account may be conveyed to the mind, and which may be shown to have a foundation in reason and argument, and not in the ignorance and folly of mankind. 2. Religion is a thing not only barely intelligible and rational, but apparently and obviously so, which may be easily understood and comprehended by mankind. Thus it must be, if religion be indeed the subject of the inquiry and discussion of all men; because it is certain that the faculties of the greatest part of men will never allow them to penetrate into things that are any way abstruse or difficult. Besides, we must conclude from the goodness of God that He would never make anything upon which the happiness of man depends, as it plainly does upon religion, either impossible or hard to be known or comprehended by them. I. I shall now proceed to consider what this exercise of the understanding which is required from us with respect to religion implies.1. It implies fairness and candour and care and diligence in our religious inquiries and disquisitions; that we keep our intellectual eye pure and unprejudiced, and withal lively and vigorous, in which state alone it is capable of discerning and tracing out the truths of religion. 2. Another thing implied in the exercise of our understandings with respect to religion is our acquiescing in the principles of it upon sufficient evidence being laid before us of their truth. As credulity, or an implicit belief, is altogether unbecoming, so likewise is a sceptical humour, which puts us upon evading evidence, which makes us doubt where there is no occasion to hesitate, where there is light enough to guide us, and to determine our judgment, according to the established rules of reasoning, and of giving our assent. 3. There is one thing more implied in the due exercise and cultivation of our understandings with respect to religion, which is our improving and increasing our knowledge of it in proportion to our abilities. If men would but faithfully endeavour to become acquainted with the entire system of religion, many of them, at least, would in a little time find that they were able to penetrate much farther into it than, before their making the experiment, they were apt to think they could do. The case of our mental and bodily powers is in general the same: both are greatly strengthened by use, whereas without it they run to rust, and contract a weakness and ineptitude for effecting things of which, through practice and custom, they would have been very capable. II. I shall show for what reasons we should thus exercise and employ our understandings about religion.1. Both our dignity and happiness depend upon our doing so. (1) What a shining figure does that man make who, by means of a well-tutored and refined understanding and a large stock of true knowledge, can speak pertinently upon any important subject that occurs in conversation and instruct others in the useful or entertaining sciences or arts of life! (2) And as our dignity depends so much upon our exercising our understandings in the subjects of religion, So likewise does our happiness. For as we are formed with a love of truth and a desire of knowledge, so every discovery of truth is attended with a most sensible delight. And the more important and certain the truth which is discovered is, the greater is the pleasure which results from the knowledge of it. Now, as the great truths of religion must to every ingenious man appear to be above all others momentous, and likewise very clear and certain, the mind which inquires into them and gradually traces them out must be entertained with a most pure and continually increasing pleasure. 2. We should exercise our intelligent powers about religion, because without this there can be no merit or virtue in our religion, nor can it ever be pleasing and acceptable to God. Religion, according to the most obvious notion of it, is a reasonable, voluntary, and liberal service, flowing from principles of light and knowledge, the calm approbation of our minds, and the generous affections of our hearts. Instructions and inferences:1. We may see the ingenuous spirit of our religion which, disdaining to take advantage of the ignorance, credulity, and inattention of mankind, lays itself open to the examination of all men, and even invites and requires them carefully to try and prove it. 2. We may see that the ignorance of the true nature and grounds of religion, or, which is very nearly related to it, the implicit belief of religion which so commonly prevails among professed Christians, even in places of the greatest liberty, is very faulty and inexcusable. 3. We may infer the iniquity of all those methods which are used to deter or discourage men in inquiring freely into religion and increasing as far as they are able their knowledge of it. 4. We may see how much it concerns every man to raise and cultivate in himself a serious, honest, and diligent, temper of searching into religion, and to propagate the same among others as far as it is in his power to do it; because in this temper the very essence of the duty of exercising our understandings about religion consists, and because it is the seedplot of truth and virtue in men, the root from whence the most generous improvements both in the knowledge and practice of our duty shoot and grow. 5. Let the knowledge which we attain to in consequence of the exercise of our understandings about religion be always substituted by us as the foundation of a good conduct and virtuous conversation in the world, Religion is, above all other sciences and institutions, practical. (J. Orr, D. D.)The mind the standard of the man Dr. Watts once overheard a stranger say, “ What! is that the great Dr. Watts?” The Doctor, who was of low stature, turning to the gentleman, promptly said-- “ Were I so tall to reach the poles, Or mete the ocean with my span, I must be measured by my soul-- The mind’ s the standard of the man.” The true test The true test of any Church or ministry is not so much the knowledge which it gives or the order which it secures, as its productiveness of new men in Christ Jesus; and it is an awful test. When I see where there is the least disturbance among you, where there is the slightest disagreement in a Sunday school matter, that the old worthy members of my Church act like anybody else, and squabble, and full of answerings, call back and carry away hard feelings, I say to myself, “ I have not made any men yet,” my preaching has been as poor as any other minister’ s. One fails for one reason and another for another. When I judge from what you are, I feel that I am about as poor a minister as I know of, (H. W. Beecher.) 1 Corinthians 14:21-23 In the law it is written, With men of other tongues … will I speak;… and yet … will they not hear Me.The use of tongues Examine-- I. The quotation.1. Its original force (Isaiah 28:11-12). 2. The apostle’ s use of it indicates generally that the use of tongues was a disadvantage and not a blessing to the hearer. II. The inference.1. Tongues a sign--not for the believer who did not require it, but for the unbeliever, as a proof of Divine power. 2. Prophesying, on the contrary, could not benefit the unbeliever, who resisted the truth, but the believer by promoting his edification. (J. Lyth, D. D.)God’ s dealings with a rebellious people Observe-- I. How God speaks to them.1. By strange instrumentalities.2. With a strange tongue. II. How they persist in their impenitence.1. They harden their hearts.2. Refuse to listen.3. Aggravate their guilt and punishment. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe … but prophesying serveth … For them which believe. Different modes of dealing with men Here are-- I. Different conditions of human mind.1. Unbelief.2. Faith. II. Different requirements.1. In the one case conviction.2. In the other edification. III. Different modes of dealing.1. In the former there must be a sign of Divine power.2. In the latter the proclamation of Divine truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)If therefore … all speak with tongues … will they not say that ye are mad?--Confusion in the Church I. How it may arise,1. Instance the case supposed.2. Some errors of modern times. II. Why it should be avoided.1. It produces a false impression.2. Brings reproach.3. Prevents good. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all.Prophesying in the primitive Church I. Its nature.1. Not the prediction of future events (1 Corinthians 14:3), nor ordinarily the discussion of Scripture, since the New Testament was not yet written. 2. But the preaching of New Testament truth already learnt from the apostles and others, under the direct impulse of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:30), which was liberally bestowed upon the members of the Church (1 Corinthians 14:24). II. Its effects.1. The edification of the Church. 2. The conviction of the ignorant and unbelieving--producing awakening of conscience, confession of sin, and the acknowledgment of God’ s presence. III. Its relation to modern preaching.1. The direct communications of the Holy Spirit are superseded by the completed canon of Scripture, which must be carefully studied by persons properly qualified, and appointed. 2. Yet it were well if there were less of human art and method and much more of the Spirit’ s unction and power. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The awakening of the sinner I. How he enters the Christian assembly.1. Unbelieving.2. Ignorant. II. What he hears.1. The voice of the preacher.2. The proclamation of truth.3. The awakenings of conscience. III. What he Does.1. Confesses his sin.2. Worships God.3. Bears testimony to His presence and power. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Conviction of sin I. Preaching the gospel is an ordinance of God, and was constantly used in the primitive Church (Matthew 28:19). Believing in Christ is necessary to salvation; and preaching the gospel is generally necessary to believing (Romans 10:14; 1 Corinthians 1:21). II. Curiosity frequently led persons to the Christian assemblies. The religion of Christ made a great stir in the world. Some were greatly prejudiced against it. But when they saw miracles performed before their eyes; when they saw some of their neighbours forsake the altars of their idols, and become moral and lovely in their conduct, they were forced to stop and consider how these things could be, and some of them would, of course, go and hear for themselves. Our text supposes such a thing. God often overruled this kind of curiosity for good. Zaccheus wanted to gratify his curiosity; but Christ, in mercy, called and converted him. And it is happy for many that they did not suffer their own prejudices, or the fear of man, to prevent their judging for themselves. III. Primitive preaching had a tendency to convince men of their guilt and danger.1. The unbeliever, coming into the assembly, is convinced; whoever preached, his doctrine had this tendency, to convince the man of sin. This is done by the power of the Spirit, going along with the Word (John 16:8). 2. “ He is judged of all” ; tried, and condemned. The consideration of his own sin is brought home to his conscience, as when Nathan said to David, “ Thou art the man!” He receives the sentence of death in himself. It is the office of an enlightened conscience to anticipate the judgment of the great day. Most men have such a notion of the mercy of God as to forget His justice and holiness; but when a person is convinced of sin he sees that God is holy and just; and he cannot but dread these terrible attributes, till he learns from the gospel how God is at once “ a just God and a Saviour” (Isaiah 45:21; Romans 3:36). IV. Preaching the word tends to disclose the secret workings of the heart, which were unobserved before. Most men are so busied in worldly affairs, or stupefied with worldly pleasures, that they are great strangers to themselves. But the faithful preaching of God’ s Word has a tendency to rouse men from their supineness. The Word of God is a mirror that shows men their hearts. Persons who have not been used to hear the gospel are frequently surprised, when they sit under a powerful ministry, to hear their own case and character so exactly described. This is the proper effect of the Word of God, which carries with it a mighty and convincing argument of its truth, as being the Word of Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins (Jeremiah 17:10). V. When a man is converted to God he always begins to pray. This was the symptom of Paul’ s own conversion: “ Behold, he prayeth!” It is sad to think that so many people never pray. A short form of words, always the same, and always unfelt. Behold here, a man so overpowered with a sense of the majesty and justice of God; so deeply affected with his danger as a sinner, and so eagerly desirous of pardoning mercy, that be forgets he is surrounded by mortals, and falls down before his God with the publican’ s petition (Luke 18:13). So have I seen a condemned criminal at a human bar, when the sentence of death has been pronounced, fall down on his knees, and, regardless of the gazing throng, implore the favour of the judge. So have I seen dying persons, expecting soon to appear before God, cry aloud for mercy, without considering who surrounded their beds. The place, or the posture of prayer, is of little consequence. It might disturb the public worship, yet when a person is greatly affected, it will be difficult to conceal his emotions. He will lift up his heart, if not his voice to God. VI. Converted persons drop all there prejudices against the people of God, and speak honourably of them. “ He will report that God is in you of a truth.” Profane people treat them with contempt and scorn. But no sooner does a man come to himself, and see things as they are, than he forms a very different opinion of godly persons. He sees that they are the excellent of the earth, the children of God, and heirs of eternal glory. (G. Burder.)Conversion prepared for I. Conversion effected by means.1. The door of the sanctuary should be an open one (1 Corinthians 14:23). Restrictions should be swept away. Non-church-goers are often such through the action of church-goers. 2. Means should constantly be employed in the sanctuary. The gospel should be preached. The presence of “ unbelievers “ and unlearned should be borne in mind. II. Probable means of conversion.1. Order and propriety in the sanctuary. The building is not unimportant, for there are some churches in which it is difficult to be converted. The services should be decorous, or the stranger may think we are mad. But dulness and coldness are not decorous. 2. Worship. Song and prayer have won not a few--but both may hinder. 3. Preaching should be-- (1) Intelligible--not over the heads of the people.(2) Sensible--not under their heads.(3) Direct (1 Corinthians 14:24), so that the hearer may feel that it is meant for him.(4) Searching--manifesting the secrets of the heart.(5) Scriptural. III. Tests of the suitability of the means.1. What do the unbelieving and ignorant think of them? Some will scoff; but what will the common-sense and sincere think? What ought they to think? 2. What results will follow? Are they those of 1 Corinthians 14:25? If not something is amiss. Is it the want of the Holy Spirit? (E. Hurndall, M. A.)Faithful preaching I. Will be a power on unbelievers, for--1. It is the exertion of spiritual power.2. It will arouse and liberate the conscience.3. It must include the aspects of truth directly suited to reach the unbeliever. II. Will exert a particular kind of power on unbelievers.1. Impression, “ He is convinced of all.”2. Knowledge of self, “ Secrets of heart made manifest.”3. Sense of God (1 Corinthians 14:25). (R. Tuck, B. A.)And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest. The secrets of the heart I. The heart is the depository of many secrets. The assumption of knowledge is one of our most besetting and perilous weaknesses; how little we really know of the world around us! We know far less of that within. Note some of the secrets of the heart of an unbelieving man. 1. There is hidden within him an immense amount of ignorance and conceit of which he knows nothing. He has no true knowledge of himself as a sinner. Had he such knowledge he would apply at once for salvation, and not pharisaically congratulate himself that he is not as other men. 2. A deep and inexhaustible depravity which alienates him from God. Of this he knows nothing, or the knowledge would be such a misery as would give him no rest until a remedy was discovered. 3. Many unremembered and unthought-of sins. Sin unknowingly committed as well as those willingly forgotten lie buried deep in the memory till the hour of revival. 4. Numerous latent fears. The child that is happy in the broad daylight knows nothing of those fears which the dark and lonely night will awaken. Even in this world the unbeliever’ s fears may emerge from the caverns in which they lie concealed; but in the hereafter who can prognosticate the fears which will be awakened by the consciousness of unforgiven guilt? 5. A sense of God, right, truth, and immortality. No one is so utterly degraded as to have no traces of those radical principles. Not that we are born with any positive ideas of them, but we are born with certain capacities which infallibly secure to us impressions of the invisible, infinite, and eternal. And there will come a time when these will be the grand all-absorbing truths. II. The manifestation of those secrets. Ignorant as we are of the depths of our own nature there is a limited but sufficient knowledge that we may obtain of ourselves. By the light of God’ s Word and the teaching of His Spirit we may learn so much as to see the necessity and suitableness of God’ s provision for our salvation. And oftentimes it pleases God--as in the case before us--to lead the unbeliever to the assembly of His people, and by the truth published and the Spirit given there, to shed light into the heart. As psalm and prayer uprise, as the Scriptures are read and explained, new and surprising revelations are vouchsafed. The slumbering conscience is aroused, memory is quickened, the consciousness of God, judgment, and eternity becomes vivid, and the once unbeliever is overpowered, and confesses to the Divine revelation made to his heart. Conclusion: If you have not seen any of these things, consider--1. Your fearful and benighted ignorance.2. The danger of this revelation when it will be of no avail.3. The necessity of the prayer, “ Lord, that I may receive my sight.” (W. T. Bull, B. A.)The nature of spiritual gifts, and some directions for their use 1. A. “ spiritual gift” is the faculty in each in which the Holy Spirit reveals Himself. Every man has some such, in which his chief force lies. 2. There are certain creative epochs when intense feelings elevate all the powers preternaturally. Such, e.g., was the close of the last century, when the revolutionary spirit created a preternatural abundance of military talent. Such, too, was the first age of Christianity. The Holy Spirit was poured out largely, and whatever it touched it vivified. The Holy Ghost may mingle with man in three ways--with his body, and then you have a miracle; with his spirit, and then you have that exalted feeling which finds vent in “ tongues” ; or with his intellect, and then you have prophecy. I. In the case of prophecy, cultivated minds were themselves able by the understanding to convey to the understanding what the Spirit meant.1. But the essential in all this was the Divine element of life. Just as when rain falls on dry ground, the resultant greenness and vigour are simply the outward manifestation of invisible life--so the new life penetrated the whole man, and gave force to every faculty. 2. Consider what this gift must have done in developing the Church! Men came into Christian assemblies for once, and were astonished by the flood of luminous and irresistible truth which passed from the prophetic lips: it became an instrument of conversion. 3. In versee 29 we learn that private inspiration was always to be judged by the general inspiration--i.e., it was not to be taken for granted because spoken. Inspiration is one thing, infallibility is another. God the Holy Ghost, as a sanctifying Spirit, dwells in human beings with partial sin. Did He not do so, He could not dwell with man at all. Therefore, St. Paul says that the spirits of the prophets are to be subject to the prophets. Neglect of this has been a fruitful cause of fanaticism. The afflatus was not irresistible; a man was not to be borne away by his gift, but to be master of it, and responsible for it. II. Respecting tongues, note the following directions.1. Repression of feeling in public. This state of ecstacy was so pleasurable, and the admiration awarded to it so easy to be procured, that numbers, instead of steady well-doing, spent life in “ showing off.” The American camp meetings, etc., show how uncontrolled religious feeling may overpower reason--mere animal feeling mingling with the movements of Divine life. There is great danger in this, and just in proportion as feelings are strong do they require discipline. When religious life degenerates into mere indulgence of feeling, life wastes away, and the man or woman becomes weak, instead of strong. What a lesson! These Divine high feelings in Corinth--to what had they degenerated! A stranger coming in would pronounce the speakers mad! 2. “ Forbid not to speak with tongues.” A common man would have said, “ All this is wild fanaticism; away with it!” St. Paul said, “ It is not all fanaticism: part is true, part is error.” The true is God’ s Spirit. Learn, then, to sympathise with deep feeling. There are cold, intellectual men, who frown on every manifestation of feeling; whereas only the Spirit can interpret the Spirit. 3. To prefer gifts which are useful to others, rather than those which draw admiration to ourselves. And yet there are few who would not rather be the gifted singer, at whose strains breathless multitudes melt into tears, than some nurse of a hospital, soothing pain, or a Dorcas making garments for the poor. It is better to be useful than brilliant. 4. The real union of the human race lies in oneness of heart. This gift was not a gift of foreign languages; a Greek might be speaking in the Spirit, and another Greek might not understand him; but a Roman or a Mesopotamian might, and this by a gift of sympathy. The world is craving for unity; it may be centuries before it comes; still it is something to be on the right track. Christianity casts aside all human plans and speculations as utterly insufficient. It does not look to political economy, to ecclesiastical drill, nor to the absorption of all languages into one; but it looks to the eternal Spirit of God, which proceeds from the eternal Son. One heart, and then many languages will be no barrier. One spirit, and man will understand man. Conclusion: There are gifts which draw admiration to a man’ s self, others which solace and soothe him personally, and a third class which benefit others. The world and the Bible are at issue on the comparative worth of these. A gifted singer soon makes a fortune, and men give their guineas ungrudgingly for a morning’ s enjoyment. An humble teacher in a school, or a missionary, can often but only just live. Only remember that, in the sight of the Everlasting Eye, the one is creating sounds which perish with the hour that gave them birth, the other is building for the eternal world an immortal human spirit. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 How is it then, bretheren?when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm,… a doctrine. Christian worship I. What it includes.1. Singing.2. Teaching.3. Prayer. II. What its objects. 1. Mutual edification.2. Instruction.3. Comfort. III. What it requires.1. Order.2. Attention.3. Peace.4. Propriety. IV. What its spirit.1. Humility.2. Submission to God’ s Word.3. Desire.4. Reverence. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Five chords to the harp This morning, in our coming together, we have this variety of living experiences and powers. We come into the Church out of a confused world--confusions of state, of science, of society, of the man himself. It seems as if we were in an orchestra in which every instrument is out of tune and every performer maintaining his performance to be the perfection of harmony. And what a confused Church it seems! What rival theories and speculations. Every point is disputed; all preach charity, but then it should be practised by the other side; every one hath an infallible standard, but then no one will submit to it. Every one hath a psalm, doctrine, tongue, etc., but little turns out to edifying. Yet this is not the intention of the apostle in the text. First, it is a voice to life, the description of the Church of the living God, and of the varied means of grace by which the spirit grows. It is the assurance that variety is no hindrance to edification, but rather the way to it, even as the various materials of a building do not interfere with the unity of the building, but help it forward. Then, second, it is an invocation to the sanctification of speech, with which compare Exodus 4:11. As speech distinguishes man from all the other inhabitants of the earth, so sacred speech especially distinguishes the Christian man from other men. Speech is the glorious endowment which constitutes the poet, the singer, the orator. Speech so Divine in its origin and use is to flow back to God; it is to be converted. The song is to be converted to the psalm. How dreadful is unconverted speech and its effects! When the physician visits the sick patient, one of the first things he asks him to do is to put out his tongue. He tests the state of the body by the tongue. And I am almost disposed to say to the professing Christian, “ Put out your tongue.” One of the first effects of holiness in the life is the purification of speech. “ If a man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.” But we have in the text the constituent elements of a Divine service. Here are the five chords of a human harp, by whose charm life grows into fulness and proportion. Every one hath something; let no one be depressed on his own account, let no one be scornful on account of his neighbour. I. Strike the first chord--“ Every one of you hath a psalm,” the musical adoration. Every one of you hath a psalm that is the gladness of life--life realised as good, when the soul says, “ O come, let us sing unto the Lord,” etc. Even as a bird in a dark grove is heard in its sweet strain, so let your voice rise, the swell of your praise, the sob of your confession, of your grief. Say it first for yourself, “ Bless the Lord, O my soul! “ then say it aloud to all the congregation. II. Then strike the second chord--everyone of you hath a doctrine. As there is a psalm of life, there is a doctrine of life. Man is a being of feet as well as wings. There is the practical aspect of Christian truth. Surely every one of you knows something; you have lines, you have laws and statutes, even as the noblest musician has his notes and bars and scale of melody! And the doctrine is the guide, the law of life. What is arithmetic without numbers? What is language without letters? So religion is intangible without creed. III. And then strike the third chord--every one of you hath a tongue, i.e., language that is especially his own. The accent is the soul. How different are real words, real prayers, and yet the accent is true. Some tongues are as if tipped with shafts of fire, and some distil as the dew. Some words swell with passion, and some flow like music. How varied are the accents of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Paul, and John! IV. Then there is the fourth chord--every one of you hath a revelation. Every Christian has had his own satisfying vision; this is the story of his soul, as when Paul said, “ It pleased God to reveal His Son in me” ; but let us not make our revelation the absolute standard to another. V. Then there is the fifth chord--every one of you hath an interpretation, and that is the consolation of hope; and as the revelation is to a man, so will his interpretation be; what I have seen and felt in the Bible is that which I shall draw forth from it. Every one hath his own interpretation, his own mode of reading his Bible, if he read it with his own eyes; and of what avail is it to me to read my Bible with the eyes of another man? Conclusion: And life does all this. Life is the spirit in which all is performed; no life then, no psalm, no doctrine, etc. On the other hand, a living psalm, a living doctrine, etc., that all may be done to edifying. (Paxton Hood.)Let all things be done unto edifying.-- Edification the aim of Christian speech When Handel’ s oratorio of the “ Messiah” had won the admiration of many of the great, Lord Kinnoul took occasion to pay him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. “ My lord,” said Handel, “ I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wish to make them better.” It is to be feared that many speechmakers at public meetings could not say as much; and yet how dare any of us waste the time of our fellow-immortals in mere amusing talk! If we have nothing to speak to edification, hew much better to hold our tongue! (C. H. Spurgeon.)Concerning edifying I. The edification of others is a duty to which all Christians are obliged. And this will appear--1. From its being so much insisted on in Scripture (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Romans 14:19; Romans 15:2). And what he so much recommends Paul eminently exemplifies. 2. From the relation that all Christians have to Christ as to their common Lord and Head. Whenever they pray that His kingdom may come, they hereby declare that they desire to see the enlargement of Christ’ s kingdom. And how is this consistent with being indifferent and unconcerned about the edification of others? Building is not more properly the business and employment of the professed builder than it is that of the Christian in all things to profit and edify his neighbour. 3. From the relation men have to one another, as being jointly members of the mystical body of Christ. We are not only members of Christ’ s body, but members also one of another. And it is the great law of the gospel that, as such, we have love one towards another. Now unless that charity can be esteemed perfect which extends to men’ s bodies and not to their souls, we must look on ourselves as obliged as to a very considerable branch of Christian charity to study to edify one another. And therefore Paul makes it a mark of charity that it “ edifieth.” II. That especial manner wherein the ministers of Christ in particular are obliged to forward this good work. The edifying the Church is the particular business for which they are set apart, and therefore every part of their conduct should have a particular tendency to this very thing.1. In their public instructions. Instructing the ignorant is but one part of the preacher’ s business. To remind those that are careless and to induce those who are not so ignorant as some others to consideration is as much his business as the other, and is every whit as necessary. And if men are edified either way, then is preaching a proper means of edification. 2. When they are officiating in holy things. They whose duty it is to join with us in prayer will be differently affected according as they observe the several parts of Divine service to be performed negligently and perfunctorily, or with fitting care and decency. In the latter case they who bring proper sentiments to the house of God will feel their good dispositions cherished and encouraged, and will be apt to relish devotion more, and to find greater delight and satisfaction in such religious exercises. And as for those who are thoughtless, the decent and devotional deportment of those who officiate will be a powerful, though secret, check to their want of attention and levity, and will be the most likely way to awaken them from their heedlessness and indolence. 3. In the exemplariness of their lives. Concerning Christ, Lactantius has observed that “ He did not only point out to us the true way, but went Himself before us in it, and this He did that no one on account of the difficulty should be afraid of venturing into the ways of virtue.” It is a secret objection men are apt to make within themselves against the doctrine of the gospel that it is a rule of too great perfection to be practised, and this objection cannot be more effectually removed than when the preachers of it are themselves examples of what they teach. III. By way of motive to this work, note the following arguments.1. The excellence of this work. It is doing our best towards restoring man to the image of his Maker; it is putting him into a state of liberty, and delivering him from the servitude of sin, and fitting him for God’ s favour and rewards. And what a great honour is it to mortal man! 2. The great charity of this work, inasmuch as it consists in converting sinners from the error of their ways, it is saving of souls from death. 3. The great necessity that we in particular of the clergy are under of having this good work very much at heart (1 Corinthians 9:16). 4. The exceeding great reward that attends it (Daniel 12:3). 5. The unspeakable comfort and God-like joy which must be felt even in this life by those who have been successful. It is the only thing we know of that even in heaven itself can make new joy. IV. The wise provision made by our Church for the edification of its members.1. The service in the vulgar tongue is certainly much better fitted to inspire those who are present with sentiments of piety and devotion than when it is in a language which they that hear it do not understand. 2. Our liturgy is in all its parts edifying. 3. It is certainly more for edification that the business of public instruction should be in the hands of persons who by their education have been qualified for this thing, and who have been approved and sent forth by the governors of the Church, than that so important a business should be left to every one’ s caprice who should take it into his head that he is qualified for this office. 4. That judicious choice which our Church has made in retaining some ceremonies avid abolishing others is another thing in which our constitution is well fitted to edifying. (Dean Claggett.)Fellowship in order to edification This is the only meeting where this is the primary object. It is therefore important as the gauge of Church life--at once a barometer, chronometer, thermometer. How far fellowship exists and how close it is cannot be judged by audiences on the Lord’ s day. Often the minister is the personal magnet, and the Church falls into disintegration when he is withdrawn, as a sheaf of wheat when the bond is removed. But it is never so when the prayer-meeting is central. Note the requisites of a good prayer-meeting. I. Attendance--“ all with one accord in one place” (Acts 1:13-14). Blessed unanimity!--itself a promise and prophecy of Pentecost. To promote this the meeting should be made attractive. The place, the time, the environment ought to be all favourable-light, heat, ventilation, home comfort. A fervent meeting cannot be expected with freezing feet. The household of believers should have a home atmosphere in a home gathering. II. Agreement (Matthew 18:19-20). A divided Church never has a true prayer service. Unity reacts on the meeting, drawing together by a common motive. II. The sense of the presence of the master (Matthew 18:20; 1 Corinthians 5:4). Every attendant helps to make the atmosphere of the meeting, and hence ought to go from the closet impelled by the expectation of seeing the Lord. IV. Spontaneity. Participation should be voluntary. Anything constrained hurts the meeting. We need the flow of a fountain, not the spurt of a force-pump. Spontaneity indexes spirituality. The measure of the presence of the Spirit is shown by voluntariness of participation. If a believer takes part against his will, constrained by courtesy to the leader, his help is of doubtful value. Selection is too apt to he guided by intellectual standards. It is not always the most intelligent that most edify. V. Informality (Acts 16:13). The prayer-meeting in primitive days was held in such places as suggested free, familiar interchange. The nearer the approach to a family gathering the better. Formality kills; all undue ceremony and dignity are hurtful. VI. Liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). This must be cultivated in ourselves and encouraged in others. Hypercriticism is its implacable foe. An aristocrat persistently advised me to do all the praying and talking, and keep others from taking part, except two whom he mentioned. All others “ grated upon his ear.” Alas! how are raw recruits to be developed to veterans without practice? The ideal meeting is where every one, even women, exercise the gift of the Spirit freely as led of God (Acts 1:14). VII. Simplicity. Rhetoric is generally addressed to the audience, not God. Even of the broken prayer the Lord “ takes the meaning.” VIII. A spiritual, scriptural tone. If young people and new converts could be gathered weekly for training by the pastor or some competent person in knowledge of the Word and practice in public prayer, the prayer-meeting would show results. Conclusion: A few hints may be added as to the various exercises.1. Praise. Song is very important, yet often perverted. The prayer-meeting is not a concert or a singing-school. The time is short--all exercises should be brief; the instrument should not be abused for playing symphonies and interludes. Awkwardness and delay in finding, reading, and starting the hymns are hurtful to impression. 2. Prayer must be audible, brief, direct. 3. The Word of God should be exalted always. Nothing so inspires faith, hope, and love, as the truth of God. Let the leader give at the outset one great thought from the Word, and set an example of point, pith, power, practical suggestion, and, above all, a Scriptural, spiritual frame of mind. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.)The importance of order in the Church I. Its foundation.1. The essential equality of the members before God; they are brethren. II. Its objects.1. Edification.2. Instruction.3. Comfort. III. Its means.1. Mutual service.2. Submission.3. Self-control. IV. Its motives.1. God is the author of peace.2. Order is a distinguishing feature of the churches of the saints. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Disorder in the Church I. How occasioned. By self-seeking, forwardness, etc. II. Why condemned. Because inconsistent with--1. Brotherhood.2. Common edification. III. How prevented.1. By keeping the main object in view.2. By doing all things unto edifying. (J. Lyth, D. D.)The excellency and usefulness of the common prayer Before we prove that that form in particular which our Church hath prescribed is agreeable to this apostolic rule, it is necessary to prove first that the prescribing a form in general is so; for unless the prescribing a form in general be according to this rule, no form in particular that is prescribed can possibly agree with it. If every minister of a parish should be left to his own liberty to do what he pleased in his own congregation, although some, perhaps, might be so wise and prudent as to observe this rule as well as they could, yet, considering the corruption of human nature, we have much cause to fear that others would not. And besides that the prescribing a form in general is more for our edifying than to leave every one to do what seems good in his own eyes, we have the concurrent testimony, experience, and practice of the universal Church; for we never read or heard of any Church in the world from the apostles’ days to ours but what took this course. Nay, to oppose a form is not only to make a man’ s self wiser than all Christians, but wiser than Christ Himself, for it is impossible to prescribe any form of prayer in more plain terms than He hath done it (Luke 11:2). The same may be proved also from the nature of the thing itself by such arguments which do not only demonstrate that it is so, but likewise show how it comes to be so. For, first, in order to our being edified, so as to be made better and holier whensoever we meet together upon a religious account, it is necessary that the same good and holy things be always inculcated and pressed upon us after one and the same manner, for we cannot but all find by our own experience how difficult it is to fasten anything that is truly good either upon ourselves or others, and that it is rarely, if ever, effected without frequent repetitions of it. Moreover, that which conduceth to the quickening our souls, and to the raising up of our affections in our public devotions, must needs be acknowledged to conduce much to our edification. But it is plain that as to such purposes a set form of prayer is an extraordinary help to us; for if I hear another pray, and know not beforehand what he will say, I must first listen to what he will say next, then I am to consider whether what he saith be agreeable to sound doctrine, and whether it be proper and lawful for me to join with him in the petitions he puts up to Almighty God, and if I think it is so, then I am to do it. But before I can well do that he is got to another thing, by which means it is very difficult, if not morally impossible, to join with him in everything so regularly as I ought to do. But by a set form of prayer all this trouble is prevented. I have nothing else to do while the words are sounding in mine ears but to move my heart and affections suitably to them, to raise up my desires of those good things which are prayed for, to fix my mind wholly upon God whilst I am praising of Him, and so to employ, quicken, and lift up my whole soul in performing my devotions to Him. To this may be also added that, if we hear another praying a prayer of his own private composition or voluntary effusion, our minds are wholly bound up and confined to his words and expressions, and to his requests and petitions, be they what they will, so that at the best we can but pray his player, whereas when we pray by a form prescribed by the Church we pray the prayers of the whole Church we live in, which are common to the minister and people, to ourselves, and to all the members of the same Church, which cannot surely but be more effectual for the edifying, not only of ourselves in particular, but of the Church in general, than any private prayer can be. Lastly, in order to our being edified by our public devotions, as it is necessary that we know beforehand what we are to pray for, so it is necessary that we afterwards know what we have prayed for when we have done. Now, as this is a thing of greater consequence, so a set form of prayer is a greater help to us in it than it is commonly thought to be; for if we hear another utter a prayer extempore which he never said, nor we heard, before, nor ever shall do it again, it is much if he himself can remember the tenth part of what he said, how much less can we that heard him do it? And if we cannot possibly remember what we prayed for, how is it possible for us to expect it at the hands of God or to depend upon Him for it? But now it is quite otherwise when we use a set form of prayer, for by this means, when we have prayed, we can recollect ourselves, look over our prayers again, either in a book or in our minds, where they are imprinted; we can consider distinctly what we have asked at the hands of God, and so act our faith and confidence on Him for the granting every petition we have put up unto Him, according to the promises which He hath made us to that purpose. These things being duly weighed, I shall now proceed to show that that form in particular which our Church hath appointed to be used upon such occasions is agreeable to the apostolic rule in the text. First, as to the language, you all know that the whole service is preformed in English, the vulgar and common language of the nation, which every one understands, and so may be edified by it. Ours is truly common prayer, for it is written and read in that language which is common to all the congregations in the kingdom, and to every person in each congregation. So that all the people of the land, whatsoever rank or condition they are of, may join together in the use of everything that is in it, and so be jointly edified by it. But that which is chiefly to be considered in the language of the common prayer is that it is not only common, but proper too. Though the words there used be all but common words, yet they are so used that they properly express the things that are designed by them. This, I confess, may seem to be no great matter at first sight, yet it is that without which we might be subverted by that which was intended for our edification; for impropriety of speech in matters of religion hath given occasion to all or most of the schisms, errors, and heresies that ever infested this or any other Church, as might easily be demonstrated. Hence the apostle gave Timothy a form of sound words, and charged him to hold it fast (2 Timothy 1:13), as knowing that except the words whereby he usually expressed Divine truths were sound and proper, it would be impossible for his notions and opinions of the things themselves to be so. And as the words in the common prayer are all as edifying as words can be, so, in the second place, is the matter expressed by those words, for there is nothing in it but what is necessary for our edification, and all things that are or can be for our edification are plainly in it. First, I say there is nothing in our liturgy but what is necessary for our edification. There are none of those vain disputations and impertinent controversies which have been raised in the Church, to its great disturbance, rather than its edification. And as there is nothing in it but what is edifying, so all things that are or can be edifying are in it, for nothing can be necessary to edify and make us perfect Christians but what is necessary either to be believed or done or else obtained by us. But there is nothing necessary to be known or believed but we are taught it; nothing necessary to be done but we are enjoined it; nothing necessary to be obtained but we pray for it in our public form of Divine service. There is no vice or lust but we desire it may be subdued under us; no grace or virtue but we pray it may be planted and grow in us. Insomuch that we do but constantly and sincerely pray over all those prayers, and steadfastly believe and trust in God for His answering of them, we cannot but be as real and true saints, as happy and blessed creatures, as it is possible for us to be in this world, Neither do we here pray for ourselves only, but, according to the apostle’ s advice, we make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks for all men; yea, for our very enemies, as our Saviour hath commanded us (Matthew 5:44). And what can be desired more than all this to make the matter of the common prayer edifying either to ourselves or others? I cannot pass from this head before I have observed one thing more unto you concerning the prayers in general, and that is that they are not carried on in one continued discourse, but divided into many short players or collects, such as that is which our Lord Himself composed; and that might be one reason wherefore our Church so ordered it, that so she might follow our Lord’ s example in it, who best knew what kind of prayers were fittest for us to use. There is a kind of necessity to break off sometimes to give ourselves a breathing time, that our thoughts being loosened for a while, they may with more ease and less danger of distraction be tied up again, as it is necessary they should be all the while that we are actually praying to the Supreme Being of the world. Besides that, in order to the performing our devotions aright to the Most High God, it is necessary that our souls be possessed all along with due apprehensions of His greatness and glory. To which purpose our short prayers contribute very much, for every one of them beginning with some of the properties or perfections of God, and so suggesting to our minds right apprehensions of Him at first, it is easy to preserve them in our minds during the space of a short prayer, which in a long one would be apt to scatter and vanish away. But that which I look upon as one of the principal reasons why our public devotions are and should be divided into short collects is this: our blessed Saviour, we know, hath often told us that whatsoever we ask in His name we shall receive. And so we see it is in the common prayer, for whatsoever it is we ask of God, we presently add, “ through Jesus Christ our Lord,” or something to that purpose. The next thing to be considered in the common prayer is the method, which is admirable, and as edifying, if possible, as the matter itself. Confession, psalms, scripture, creeds. The last thing to be considered in it is the manner of its performance, by which I mean only the several postures of the body, as standing and kneeling, which are used in it, for they also are done to edifying, While we say or sing the hymns and psalms to the praise and glory of God we stand up, not only to signify, but to excite the elevation of our minds at that time. So when we pray unto Him, we fall down as low as we can towards the earth, not daring to present our supplications to the absolute Monarch of the whole world any other way than upon our knees. First, come not to our public prayers only out of custom or for fashion’ s sake, as the manner of some is, but out of a sincere obedience to God’ s commands, and with a sure trust and confidence in His promises for His blessing upon what you do. Secondly, frequent our public prayers as often as conveniently you can. The oftener you are at them, the better you will like them and the more edified you will be by them. Thirdly, if possible, come always at the beginning of Divine service, otherwise you will certainly miss something that would have been edifying to you, and perhaps of that which at that time might have done you more good than all the rest. Fourthly, all the while that you are in God’ s house carry yourselves as in His special presence and suitably to the work you are about, standing while you praise God and kneeling while you pray unto Him, as our Church hath directed you. Lastly, take special care all along to keep your minds intent upon the matter in hand. By this means you will perform reasonable service unto God, and by consequence that which will be very acceptable unto Him and as profitable and edifying to yourselves. (Bp. Beveridge.)If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most three, and that by course; and let one interpret. The Christian Church in assembly Paul considered that-- I. It might be addressed by several speakers (verses 27, 29). If this be so--1. Should Christian teaching be regarded us a profession? It is so now. Men are brought up to it, and live by it as doctors, lawyers, etc. Surely the preaching of the gospel should no more be regarded as a profession than the talk of loving parents to their children. 2. Is the Church justified in confining its ministry to one man? In most congregations there are some who, besides the stated minister, are qualified to instruct, comfort, etc. And is it not incumbent on every Christian to preach, i.e., call sinners to repentance? II. It might allow its godly men to speak on the inspiration of the moment (verse 30). May it not be that under every discourse some one or more should be so Divinely excited with a rush of holy thought as to crave for utterance not for his own sake, but for that of others? Why, then, should he not have the opportunity? What an interest such an event would add to a religious service! III. It should submit the utterances of its teachers to a devout critical judgment. “ Let others discern (or discriminate)” (R.V.). The people were not to accept as a matter of course all that was spoken; they were to act as the Bereans. IV. It should in all its services maintain order (verses 32, 33). A true teacher, however full of inspiration, will so master his impulses as to prevent confusion. Notwithstanding all the liberty of teaching, all the enthusiam of the new life, where Christianity reigns there will be no disorder. There is order in dead mechanism, and there is ,order, too, in the roar of the ocean and in the thunderstorm. All that is Divine is under law. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Decency and order in the Church Reflect on--I. What the Church is.1. The Church of the living God (1 Timothy 3:15).2. The Church of Christ (Matthew 16:18).3. The abiding place of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 3:16).4. The great instrument for the conversion of the world. II. The importance of everything connected with it being as free from fault as possible. Impropriety in the Church--1. Dishonours God.2. Grieves Christ.3. Tends to quench the Spirit.4. Reduces it to impotence. III. What a vast responsibility rests upon those who violate the apostolic command (verse 40). God is a God of peace, but in this way He is made to appear a God of confusion. (E. Hurndall, M. A.)The efficient conduct of public worship I. Hints as to this.1. It should be intelligible to all (verse 27).2. Those who cannot speak to edification should be silent.3. As a rule not more than two or three should speak on one occasion, and only one at a time (verse 27).4. The rest should listen and judge.5. Every one should be ready to give way to another. II. The importance of these hints.1. That all may learn.2. That all may be comforted (verse 31). (J. Lyth, D. D.)For ye may all prophesy.-- In the social gatherings of God’ s people 1. All may speak.2. All learn.3. All may find comfort. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Any person who understands Christianity may teach it We complain of the general Ignorance of Christians: they do not understand their own religion. Why? They do not think it a duty to understand any other parts than those which immediately concern themselves: the rest they leave to their teachers. I exhort you first to search the Scriptures on this ground: the Scriptures contain the whole of revealed religion. Our second word of advice is, read the Scriptures as they were written, for they were not written as they are now printed. The proper way of reading the Gospels is to take what all the four evangelists say on any one subject, and to put the whole together. The four evangelists stand before us exactly in the light of four witnesses in a court. Our third word of advice is, as you read, dare to think for yourselves. Read the Scriptures with a generous love of truth, and always believe yourselves as free to think and judge for yourselves as any other creatures in the world are. Who can enough deplore the misery of such Christians as choose to live and die in shackles rather than assert the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free! Our last word of advice is, reduce as much Christianity as you know to practice. Remember the saying of Jesus Christ (John 7:17). For example, you know it is the duty of the Christian to pray. Exercise yourselves in prayer, then. It is the duty of a Christian parent to teach his children. Instruct your children, then: and so of the rest. As you practise religion you will make an experiment of the ease and pleasure of religious practice, and consequently you will grow more and more into a persuasion that the knowledge of God is the chief good of man. On supposition that you understand religion yourselves, we proceed to show you how to teach it to others. We suppose first the welfare of your children to lie nearest your heart. In vain you provide the comforts of life, and a settlement in the world for them without training them up in the principles of religion. It is like loading a boat with valuable commodities and sending it down a stream into the ocean without any animal except a jackdaw aboard. These principles ought to be imparted in a manner suited to their own dignity, to yours, and to that of your children. There are two general ways of teaching children the truths of religion. Some make use of catechisms, which children are made to get by heart. This is an exercise of the memory, but not of the understanding, and therefore nothing is more common than to find children, who can repeat a whole catechism, without knowing anything more than how to repeat it. The other method is by hearing them read some little histories of Scripture, and by asking them questions to set them a-thinking and judging for themselves. This is an exercise of the understanding, and when the understanding is taught its own use, it is set a-going true, and if it gets no future damage it will go true through life. A third way of teaching religion is by conference. There the doubting man may open all his suspicions, and confirmed Christians will strengthen their belief. There the fearful may learn to be valiant for the truth. There the liberal may learn to devise liberal things. There the tongue of the stammerer may learn to speak plainly. There Paul may withstand Peter to the face, because he deserves to be blamed. There the gospel may be communicated severally to them of reputation. There, in one word, ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. Finally, you have all a right if you have ability and opportunity to teach publicly. The ability we mean is at an equal distance from arrogance and slavish fear: it is what the Apostle Paul calls openness, or great plainness of speech. This ability, made up of knowledge and utterance, hath a certain proportion adapted to particular places, and that, which is equal to all the purposes of instruction in a small and obscure congregation, may be very unequal to the edification of a large and better instructed assembly: but as there are various assemblies of Christians in various circumstances, the part of a discreet man is to weigh circumstances and abilities together, and so to give them all their portion of meat in due season. All methods of teaching must be enforced by example, and without example all instruction is vain, if not wicked and dangerous. Let us finish by confirming the right of such teachers as we have been describing, to exercise their abilities to the edification of the Church. I said a right. To what? To teach, not to domineer, and play the lord and master with insolence and without control. Can anything be so wretched as to engage to think always through life as our teachers think, or, if we judge otherwise, to act against our own conviction for quiet sake? We said a right. To what? To teach, not to make a to,tune. If any man considers teaching as a trade to acquire wealth he renders his virtue doubtful, and if he exercises this trade with this view in our poor churches, he does no more honour to his understanding than to his heart. I said a right. To what? To teach, and not merely to talk. To fill up an hour, to kill time, to sound much and say nothing, to use vain repetitions; how easy are these to some men! To teach is to inform and to impress. I said a right. To what? To teach, and not to tattle. Teaching the gospel gives a man no right to interfere in the secular affairs of his brethren. When we say whoever understands Christianity hath a right to teach it, we do not say he hath a right to be heard, for as one man hath a right to teach, so another hath a right to hear, or not to hear, as he thinks proper; and the first ought not to exercise his right over the last without his consent. Sum up these articles, and they amount to this: any person who understands Christianity may teach it; but his teaching gives him no right to assume the character of a ruler over the consciences or property of his brethren, no right to trifle with their precious time, to interfere in their worldly affairs, to oblige any to hear without their consent, or under any pretence whatever to introduce disorder and inequality into a family, where one is the Master, even Christ, and all the rest without excepting one, all the rest are brethren, and where the highest endowments can make them no more. (R. Robinson.)And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.-- Self-control in Divine worship 1. Is in all ordinary cases possible. 2. Does not interfere with the operations of God’ s Spirit. He is a God of order and peace. 3. Is a religious duty, for the sake of edification and for the honour of religion. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.A God, not of confusion, but of peace True religion teaches us to refer all questions to the highest tribunal, and to ask, not merely, What is agreeable and expedient? but what is the will of God? At Corinth many disorders had arisen, and there were many reasons why they should not be. But here is the highest. Christians are the servants of God, who is not the author of confusion, etc. This is apparent from-- I. His work as Creator. The more nature is studied the more clearly order is seen to be heaven’ s first law. Indeed scientists affirm the universal presence of law, and to those who believe in a Lawgiver the regularity with which the processes of nature are conducted is an evidence of the working of mind, and that in accordance with the highest reason. II. His method in revelation. The Scriptures unfold a plan gradually and regularly, according to a scheme of which the profound wisdom is apparent, although not fully, to a created mind. The truth was revealed first to a family, then to a nation, then to a race. “ The law was given by Moses,” etc. The Bible is a marvellously organic whole; in its diversity is discernible a unity which only a Divine mind could impart. III. The work of redemption. The whole motive of the economy of grace was to reduce the confusion which had invaded sinful humanity to order. To hush the moral discord was the purpose contemplated by the Incarnation and the Cross. IV. The institution of civil society. Social and political life are attributed in the New Testament to God the Giver of all good. Jesus bade His disciples render to Caesar, etc., and Paul enjoined the duty of loyalty inasmuch as “ the powers that be are ordained of God.” V. The constitution and government of Christian Churches. Is it credible that the God in all whose ways order is so apparent should reverse His procedure in that realm which is the highest of all? Christ appointed apostles; apostles constituted churches, ordained their officers, and gave instructions for worship, business, and charity. Confusion here, therefore, is to be traced to human folly. In proportion as the Spirit of Christ lives and works in any society will subordination, co-operation, and unity prevail. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)God the author, not of confusion, but of Peace I. God is the author of peace. Witness His operations--1. In nature.2. The human heart.3. Society. II. Consequently confusion cannot be the work of His Spirit.1. It may accidentally be associated with it.2. But arises from human defect, the want of-- (1) Self-control (1 Corinthians 14:32).(2) Intelligent piety (1 Corinthians 14:20).(3) Profounder acquaintance with the God of peace. III. It follows that confusion should have no place in the Church.1. Passion should give way to peace.2. Confusion to edification. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 Let your women keep silence in the churches.Woman I. Her sphere.1. Not in public, but at home.2. Not (except in extraordinary eases, 1 Corinthians 11:5) to teach, but to learn.3. Not to command, but obey. II. Her obligation to keep within it.1. Arises out of her natural position.2. Is confirmed by the command of God.3. Should be dictated by modesty. (J. Lyth, D. D.)Women in the Church I. Women have a place in the church. Christianity found woman degraded: it exalts her. In Christ there is neither male nor female. II. Women have many ministries connected with the Church. If excluded from some positions how many are still open to women! In not a few of these she is unrivalled by man, who cannot do what she does. The Church owes a vast debt to its holy women. III. Women are debarred by the apostle from speaking in Church assemblies. On the ground of propriety. Does not accord with woman’ s true position (Genesis 3:16; 1 Corinthians 11:1-34.). It had been foretold that “ your sons and daughters shall prophesy,” and we read that Philip’ s daughters prophesied; but in neither case is anything said about prophesying in public and mixed assemblies, which is what Paul forbids, inasmuch as it would conflict with modesty and woman’ s rightful position, and would lead to many evils IV. Woman’ s instructioin encouraged. To supplement instruction of the sanctuary, women may ask questions at home of their husbands or relatives (R.V.). We have here incidentally indicated--1. A special and most important sphere of woman--the home. A beautiful temple for her ministry. Oratorical females are frequently poor housewives. 2. A suggestion that husbands should be well furnished with religious knowledge. The head of the household should not be an empty head. 3. Evidence that women in the religious sphere are not to be mere automata. They are not to be dupes of priests. They are to ask questions, and not to be kept in ignorance. Intelligent service is expected from them. (E. Hurndall, M. A.)Do the Scriptures forbid women to preach? I. There are three views of this matter.1. That this utterance is official and conclusive. Women are not to speak, however gifted they are. 2. That the authority of the apostle cannot settle the question. Paul forbad women to speak, but he had no business to. 3. That while the Scriptures are of binding authority in matters of faith and morals, this and other injunctions are local, national, and therefore transient. This latter is the position now to be proved. I. It was not the design of Christianity to determine manners, customs, forms of government and ecclesiastical institutions. Its aim was to build a new man in Christ Jesus, and to this inspired manhood was left the utmost liberty in respect to externals. This view is corroborated by the whole testimony of history. The modern Church is totally different from the assemblies of the first Christians. The civil state has been revolutionised since the time of Christ. The family has changed, and no one organisation resembles the organisations of two thousand years ago. The presumption is that when Christ was leaving everything else to the wisdom and experience of after times it did not step in with this single exception and fix the position of women. Such a course would have been contrary to its genius in every other direction. II. Such a universal, limitation could not have taken place without violence to Jewish ideas. Woman was far more nearly equal to man among the Hebrews than among other Oriental nations. She was a public instructor. Note the cases of Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Huldah, Anna, and the prediction of Joel, “ Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” with Peter’ s comment in Acts 2:1-47. So when the Spirit of God rests upon them, and they have a message to give, if you undertake to set up the letter of Paul round about them, I will set up the message which says, “ On My handmaidens will I pour out My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” True, in the synagogue it was forbidden women to teach, but the service was not extemporary, but liturgical and expository; and women had not the technical education for it. But outside the synagogue it was eminently in accordance with the Hebrew sentiment that women should speak out--and speak in meeting too. III. Only to Greek Churches were there such limitations to woman’ s rights And privileges. The text and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 were addressed not to Jewish, but to Greek assemblies. Why this distinction? Look at the condition of Greek women. The highest thought of womanhood that the Greeks had was that a woman should remain at home, that she should serve her husband and his household, and that she should not be known beyond her own family. She was not permitted to go into the street unless veiled, otherwise her reputation for virtue was destroyed. For a woman to do what is done by women in modern civilised nations--to develop that which the poorest man toils to give his daughters--to learn music, poetry, art, and philosophy, was to stamp her as a courtesan. Such being the popular feeling and custom, what would have been the effect if a Greek had looked in on a Christian meeting and seen a woman rise uncovered and pour out her heart? He would have said, “ That is Christianity, is it? Why, then the Church is but a house of orgies. I understand your new religion. It teaches our wives that they must forsake their virtue, and go out into public exposure and do as courtesans do.” Therefore it was that Paul said, “ You shall not violate the customs of your country. You shall not bring into discredit the religion of Christ by doing that which can be interpreted but in one direction by every man who sees it. I forbid your women to teach in Greek communities.” IV. What, then, may be considered a fair interpretation of this?1. Is it right to say that this is the last word which the genius of Christianity had for women? Are you to take a command which had a peculiar interpretation in one province of the globe and in no other, and make it the criterion for judging of woman’ s position and instruction everywhere? Shall this be done where Christianity has raised and inspired woman, and shall a manacle, which belonged to the degradation of the Greek period, be put upon the limbs of enfranchised womanhood? You might as well say that the command of the physician to the leper is the prescription that you should take care of your children by. 2. Scripture commands are binding only where they apply: e.g., we are commanded to “ honour the king,” but what about countries where there is no king? And you cannot give a rigid interpretation to the text without running against the whole fruit of civilisation for the last 1,800 years. Are you going to put back the shadow on the dial? Christianity has made woman a prophetess, and no false interpretation of the text can ever close her mouth. 3. It is fair to apply to this subject the argument of Peter in Acts 11:17. If in the providence of God women are called to preach, if their discourse is accompanied with power from on high, and blessed to the salvation of souls, then the Spirit itself bears witness to the right of woman to speak, and who are we that we should resist God? 4. Paul’ s doctrine in Galatians 3:27-28, is the Christian doctrine for the future. “ In Christ there is neither male nor female.” Faith, hope, love, learning, eloquence, etc., have no sex. Whoever can bring the kingdom of God nearer to men has the right to do so. We have trumpets enough; let us have some flutes. Women can sing and speak in the secular sphere often to mightier effect than men; why not, then, in the Divine? (H. W. Beecher.) 1 Corinthians 14:36-38 What?came the Word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? Resistance to the Divine order in the Church I. Proceeds from the overweening opinion a man has of his own enlightenment, or of his superiority to others. II. Will never be offered by a truly spiritual man. He acknowledges the supreme authority of God’ s Word. III. If persisted in through wilful ignorance, incurs a tremendous responsibility. (J. Lyth, D. D.)How the gospel came to Britain This case is cited by Paul to check the arrogance of the Corinthians, and we may very properly apply it to ours. The Word of God came unto us, and did not go out from us. I. The affecting nature of the memento. That the Word of God should have come unto us at all, demands peculiar gratitude. Scarcely reckoned among the nations, our island seemed flung into the ocean of nature. That we should have been forgotten by the apostles would be no great wonder. We were out of their path. What was such a spot as this when churches were rising in Rome, etc.? It is probable, however, that Britain was visited before the apostle’ s death; for in one place he rejoices that the gospel was preached to every creature under heaven. And who can say that the prophetic John heard no notes from Albion in the song of all nations which was presented before the throne? Caesar armed his galleys, and came upon us. But he was only the “ breaker up” before a most glorious influence. With nearly the promptitude of Caesar, Christianity “ came, it saw, it conquered!” It was, no doubt, brought to us by a missionary given wholly to the work. No marble marks his name; but we cannot help exclaiming, “ How beautiful upon the mountains were his feet!” etc. II. This subject gives rise to some very interesting inquiries.1. Upon what impressions of our state did these missionaries act? Enough of our country was known to assure them that a monstrous superstition prevailed among us. Some would say, “ Why disturb this people? They worship God according to their long established custom; there is a mine of philosophy in their legends; they are harmless and simple, happy and content; they have the means of improvement, if they desire it; the system you would introduce is very well for us, but it is net suited to them; besides, they seek not your interference; they might as properly bring their religion to you, as you take yours to them.” But there were men (and all generations shall call them blessed) who took a very different view of the state of our aborigines. However interesting a people we might be, they knew that we were idolaters: that, however the emblems of our worship might be interpreted, the majority looked to the emblems alone, and that the fire, trees, etc., were actually worshipped; that children and captives were crowded into wicker figures and burned; that the priests were vile impostors and jugglers; that the system was a sort of parricide on reason, and nature, and God; that it was the prolific source of all evil, the conjunction of all vices. Therefore they fearlessly launched on the deep to visit us, and we know that their entrance was not in vain. 2. Under what obligations were these missionaries laid? No spirit bade them go forth, nothing doubting. But a weight of responsibility pressed upon them; they had received the gospel; a commission had been given them to preach it to all. They were always ready to obey the Saviour. Some might think their labours should be confined at home; frivolity would simper; friendship would dissuade; prudence would calculate; the whole mind would shrink at the idea of danger. But a feeling of duty was paramount; and what they did, they did heartily, as unto the Lord. But, if they did what it was only their duty to do, how gross is our neglect! 3. By what feelings were these missionaries inspired? Avarice and ambition fed not their flame. It was charity in its pure sublime--a charity which never failed. Their business was not with civilisation and science; but the soul was their grand concern, because they knew its source, its danger, and its destiny. 4. With what means were these missionaries furnished? It is not very probable that they were furnished with miraculous powers. They had no red-cross banners, no pealing litany, etc.; but by them the Word of God came to us. 5. To what sufferings were these missionaries exposed? They must have had a variety of perils to encounter. From the necks of endeared friends they were torn asunder. How did the druid scowl at them and the multitude clamour for them as a sacrifice! Probably some came to a violent death. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)The reason for missions The text reminds us-- I. Of our obligations.1. Missionaries came first to us.2. Consider their impressions, obligations, motives, means, sufferings. II. Of our duty.1. To send the gospel to others, who have equal need, equal claims.2. We have the ability to do it.3. Are under equal obligation.4. Possess the same motives. (J. Lyth, D. D.)If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.-- St. Paul’ s authority History repeats itself. Modern heresies are only ancient errors. It is the fashion now, as it was at Corinth, to repudiate the apostle’ s authority and to claim the right to criticise his teaching. The cry then was, Not Paul, but Peter or Apollos; now it is not Paul, but Christ. Consider St. Paul’ s authority-- I. In itself.1. Its nature. Nothing can be plainer than that the words, “ The things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord,” are a claim to Divine authority. His critics must therefore choose one of three theories. (1) Imposture. But chap. 13. is sufficient to refute that. (2) Madness. But this Epistle could not have been written by any other than a sane man--a man whose mind was as clear as his purpose was honest. (3) Truth. No honest or intelligent man could have preferred the claim of our text had it not been true. If true, then St. Paul’ s words carry the same weight as the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. 2. Its basis. He wrote the commandments of the Lord--i.e., those which came from the Lord by direct inspiration, for they are not quotations from previous revelations. (1) John 14:25-26; John 15:12-13 are a declaration at once of the incompleteness of Christ’ s personal teaching and a promise of fuller instruction under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The apostles were to know more than Christ had taught them after He had gone. To compare, therefore, the apostle’ s teaching with that of our Lord’ s to the disparagement of the former is simply to repudiate the authority of Christ. Jesus only began to teach personally (Acts 1:1). His perfected teaching was through the apostles after Pentacost. (2) Was Paul among the number? This Epistle is a triumphant answer to that question (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1-3 with Galatians 1:1; Galatians 1:11-16). Again, this is blasphemy, insanity, or truth. If the last, then St. Paul’ s teaching by the terms of his Master’ s declaration was on a level with his own. 3. Its independence (verse 38). The apostle felt that any denial of his claim was based upon wilful and invincible ignorance, and with that he would have no further controversy. And this scathing satire loses none of its severity in its modern application. We have no fear that St. Paul’ s authority, with all the precious teaching which rests upon it, will be shaken. What has been finely said of Christianity as a whole may be said of it: “ This anvil has been well beaten, but it has worn out many hammers.” II. As a test.1. Of fitness to teach. “ If any man think himself a prophet,” etc. There was no arrogance in this. St. Paul knew that he had been put in trust with the gospel, and that he had faithfully transmitted the sacred deposit. To repudiate his authority, therefore, was to claim the liberty to tamper with Divine revelation and to imperil the souls of men. Many who thought themselves prophets did this with the disastrous results recorded in this Epistle. No man is fit to play the role of prophet who is not prepared to declare all the counsel of God. But this he cannot do if he shuns to declare any of the commandments of the Lord as delivered by Paul. 2. Of spirituality. “ If any man think himself to be spiritual” (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2). No small amount of the carnal-mindedness of the Corinthians is due to their repudiation of Paul’ s teaching. Puffed up with vanity and conceit they rejected “ the commandments of the Lord” and became a law unto themselves. Hence their divisions, contentions, laxity, error. The same test may be applied with unerring accuracy in this and every age. The spiritually minded, with rare exceptions, have been those who have “ acknowledged that the things which Paul wrote are the commandments of the Lord.” (J. W. Burn.)But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant. Abandonment to ignorance Paul humbled himself, but magnified his office. Personally he was less than the least of all saints; officially he was not behind the chiefest apostles. But there were those in Corinth who acknowledged neither his authority nor that of any but themselves, and so the apostle knew that his judgment would not go unchallenged. I. Opinionatedness and ignorance often go together. A little experience convinces us that those who cling the most tenaciously to their own opinions and habits are not men of the soundest judgment. To resist evidence and authority is no sign of intellectual power. Some are obstinate because blind to all but what is acceptable to their own prejudices. II. There are those whom no evidence can convince and no authority overawe. If all men were candid and followed the light of reason, human life and society would be different. “ Men love darkness rather than light,” etc. Young and sanguine ministers often begin with the persuasion that they have only to place the truth fairly before men in order to their conviction and conversion; but experience soon shows that there is a moral obduracy which is proof against all efforts. III. It may be wise to abandon to their loved ignorance those who will not be enlightened. A benevolent mind will be slow to adopt this course, and never without the hope and prayer that God will use some other methods. But even He seems to act upon this principle, at all events, for a season and purpose. “ Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone.” IV. There is better employment for Christian labourers than the endeavours to enlighten the invincibly ignorant. There are the young, the candid, the earnest and prayerful, all anxious for light. Here, then, is abundant scope for effort. Why spend time in tilling the rock when there is virgin soil? V. There is a probation and a judgment of God to which such characters must needs be left. The Christian labourer must remember that he is not the governor of the world. This reflection will not harden his heart against the unbelieving; he will leave such in the hands of the All-Wise and the All-Merciful. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.) 1 Corinthians 14:40 Let all things be done decently and in order.Propriety 1. Be done in its proper time.2. Be kept to its proper use.3. Be put in its proper place. Decently and in order “ Decently” --i.e., so as not to interrupt the gravity and dignity of assemblies. “ In order” --i.e., not by hazard or impulse, but by design and arrangement. The idea is not so much of any beauty or succession of parts in the worship, as of that calm and simple majesty which in the ancient world, whether Pagan or Jewish, seems to have characterised all solemn assemblies, whether civil or ecclesiastical, as distinct from the frantic or enthusiastic ceremonies which accompanied illicit or extravagant communities. The Roman senate, the Athenian areopagus, were examples of the former, as the wild Bacchanalian or Phrygian orgies were of the latter. Hence the apostle has condemned the discontinuance of the veil (1 Corinthians 9:1-16), the speaking of women (1 Corinthians 14:34), the indiscriminate banquetting (1 Corinthians 11:16-34), the interruption of the prophets by each other (1 Corinthians 14:30-32). “ The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,” is a principle of universal application, and condemns every impulse of religious zeal or feeling which is not strictly under the control of those who display it. A world of fanaticism is exploded by this simple axiom; and to those who have witnessed the religious frenzy which attaches itself to the various forms of Eastern worship, this advice of the apostle, himself of Eastern origin, will appear the more remarkable. The wild gambols yearly celebrated at Easter by the adherents of the Greek Church round the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem show what Eastern Christianity may become; they are the living proofs of the need of the wisdom of the apostolic precept. (Dean Stanley.)Decency and order in Divine worship These terms may seem to be of no very great importance; but little words may be of great account when they are applied to the highest things; and if the want of order and decency is capable of defiling our whole religion, it behoves us carefully to avoid it. Remember that-- I. God is the object of worship.1. That we may think reverently of the worship of God, let us first think of God Himself, who and what He is. If we look beyond the heaven the eye of faith beholds Him seated in light inaccessible, and surrounded with myriads of angels excelling in strength and wisdom. If we attend to the effects of His power here below, we must acknowledge Him the contriver and artificer of all those wonderful works which delight the eye and minister to the life and comfort of His creatures. 2. This great Being is surely worthy of our attention. It is an honour to us that we are invited to lift up our eyes toward the place of His dwelling, and permitted to speak to Him in prayer. II. We have no other way of affronting God than by neglecting His service and making light of His institutions. God Himself is not an object of our bodily senses; but His religion, His Churches, and His altars are present to us; and if we despise them, we do all that is in our power to show that God Himself is despised by us. The Bible teaches us, and reason must needs assent to it, that God will take to Himself every act of contempt against the Church and its administration. Tribute is due from subjects to their prince: if it is paid in base metal, the act is not only deficient, but treasonable, and would be punished accordingly. Worship is the tribute due from man to God; it is the honour due to His name: but if it is an unholy worship, it is worse than the silence and ignorance of a savage, and will be required of us as an act of treason and impiety, III. No blessing can be expected upon ourselves, but only so far as our service is acceptable. The subject who pays the tribute that is required of him is rewarded with protection under an execution of the laws: and certainly God is not so unmindful of His subjects as to leave them without the protection of His providence. In what respects are order and decency required in a congregation of Christians?1. A composed and serious mind. The want of gravity is a sign of great ignorance and ill-breeding in the company of men our superiors: how much more, then, is gravity required in the presence of our Maker! 2. Punctuality. They who come in at an unseasonable time do more harm to others than their presence is like to do good to themselves: they either drown the voice of the minister with their noise, or take off the attention of the people from their prayers. 3. Reverence and attention. We despise the Turks, yet in this they far exceed the Christians. They are called to prayers by the voice of a man crying from the tops of their steeples, at whoso voice they wash themselves, and having put off their shoes at the door of their mosque, are ready to enter with silence and gravity before their minister begins his prayer. You will never find one of them coughing, or yawning, or shifting his place, or speaking a word to his neighbour. They attend to nothing but the service, and when the service is over, they put on their shoes again in silence, and depart without entering into any impertinent conversation. 4. Union and earnestness. In the course of our liturgy the offices are divided between the minister and the people. If the minister were to fail in his part, it would be so remarkable that every person would observe it, and the service would be at a stand; but the people, being many, the inattention of particulars is not so easily perceived, and therefore it is too common for many to fail in making their proper responses. This is a bad custom, and should by all means be corrected. Conclusion: What I have said ought to dispose those who have heard me to join in those words of Jacob: “ How dreadful is this place!” etc. He who blessed the piety of Jacob, will bless us also if we are the heirs of it. But if we treat the house of God, like the profane Jews, who had turned it into a house of merchandise and a den of thieves, a far worse visitation will befall us. (W. Jones, M. A.)Order recommended 1. In the conduct of your affairs. 2. In the distribution of your time.3. In the management of your fortune.4. In the regulation of your amusements.5. In the arrangement of your society. (J. Lyth, D. D.)A useful and general rule I. How things ought to be done--(εὐσχημόνως) consistently--in order, without discord, confusion, tumult. II. Where. Everywhere--especially in the Church and in the worship of God. III. Why. For our own credit, for the glory of God, for the edification and prosperity of the Church. (J. Lyth, D. D)Minor morals Things cannot be done decently and in order-- I. Without thoughtfulness. There is the thoughtfulness--1. Of servants. 2. Of the feelings of others. A thousand times a day gentlewomen and polite men say and do things which wound by their thoughtlessness, because they don’ t consider the peculiarities of their neighbours. 3. Of our own reputation. Strange as it may seem, the best of people often do things which would be a matter of shame to persons in a lower state of life. II. Without carefulness.1. In property. The waste which is allowed in all classes of house, holds is astonishing. Few can realise how great it is or how sinful its results. God allows nothing to waste. 2. In habit. Some make a point of keeping others waiting; they know nothing of punctuality. 3. In dress. It will not do to be carried away with the infatuation of fashion, nor to neglect due regard to comely appearance. 4. As to cleanliness. Not merely personal, but universal; in the home, in the street, in every detail of life. 5. With regard to debt, and the strict and just keeping of accounts. 6. About the waste of time. There should be a proper division of the duties of life, and a right use of the valuable opportunities God has given us. III. Without self-control.1. Of evil feelings. Satan suggests evil thoughts, bitter sentiments. Even religious minds entertain religious and political animosities. 2. Of unseemly passions. Passions of lust must be checked; passions of anger and rage be kept in hand. 3. Of self-esteem. Proper self-esteem is valuable, but it may degenerate into pride, harshness, haughtiness, and a cruel, overbearing disposition. The various forms of egotism are numerous, and are neither lovely nor of good report. 4. Of actions. Many act from impulse, and so bring upon themselves untold misery which can never be rectified. Conclusion: These things are part of religion. We find them all brought before us in the example of Christ, and in the daily acts of His life. If we neglect to carry them out, we are not acting up to our religious profession, neither are we making the world better for our being in it. “ Whatsoever things are honest, just, lovely, of good report, think on these things.” (J. J. S. Bird.)On regularity in the conduct of life It may seem to you at first sight that the observing of order in the various occupations and concerns of life is not a matter of such consequence as to deserve to be much insisted on. It did not seem so to the great apostle, who thought it not below the dignity of his sacred ministry to recommend it to the Corinthians in the words of my text. Nor can it ever seem so in the eye of prudence and rational discernment. I say considered in a religious light; for although the observance of order hold not the highest rank among the injunctions of the Christian religion, though it claim not equal dignity with the commandment of Divine love, and the exercises of faith, hope, and repentance; yet it possesses its separate importance by contributing not a little towards punctuality and facility in the discharge of those higher and more essential duties, and therefore justly demands a share of a Christian’ s attention. As in every well-connected piece of mechanism the subordinate springs or wheels, though apparently insignificant, are each of them necessary to the carrying on of its operations; so in the variety of moral and religious precepts one reflects light upon another, one facilitates the observance of another, and all jointly contribute to that perfection of character to which every Christian is bound to aspire. Indeed, if you look abroad into the world you may discover, even at the first glance, that the life of the wicked and of the libertine is always a life of confusion.1. First, then, as to the duties of your state of life. Every man, in every department of society--the king, the statesman, the soldier, the artisan, the master, the servant--has certain particular duties to comply with, either public, domestic, or private, which successively require his attention. We in particular, who live in the midst of the agitations of the world, are called upon by Almighty God to exert ourselves in our respective stations, that we may promote His honour and glory, at the same time that we become useful to ourselves and our fellow-creatures. In proportion as the multiplicity and variety of your affairs increase, the observance of order becomes more indispensably necessary for you; and let your train of life be ever so simple and uniform, however little you may be engaged in the hurry and bustle of life, yet you cannot fail to lose something, and a great deal too, by the neglect of regularity. For the orderly conduct of your temporal affairs forms a very material part of your duty as Christians. All your employments are properly religious exercises. Who has allotted you these employments? Doubtless it was that God whom your religion honours and serves. In discharging them, therefore, you do Him homage. Oh! what a train of heroic virtues might you display in the very meanest of your employments, if you were always careful to do them well, with an upright intention, actuated by a wish to approve yourselves to Heaven! The sanctity we aspire to does not consist in doing extraordinary actions, says a great prelate, but in doing our ordinary actions extraordinary well. But will they, can they be done without regularity? Will not hurry, perplexity, and confusion take off much from their perfection? You well know that for want of your having traced out for yourselves an orderly plan of life, many of your duties have been very ill done; perhaps not done at all. By conducting your affairs with method and order you will be enabled to give to each duty a becoming share of attention. This regard to order will likewise insure you an interior peace of mind and constant cheerfulness of temper; for you will find that a peevish and fretful disposition is ever the characteristic of such as are negligent of it. The hurry and confusion in which they live, the difficulties they have to struggle with for their dispositions. But if order must be maintained in your affairs, it will be necessary that you attend to order in the distribution of your time. 2. That portion of time which Providence hath allotted for the measure of your life is intended partly for the concerns of this world, partly for those of the next; yet so that the interests of the earth be made ever subordinate to those of eternity. In the distribution of your time give to each of these concerns that space which properly belongs to it. Be ever impressed with a just sense of the value of time. Remember that by a fatal neglect and loss of it, you store up for yourselves many future pains and miseries. 3. Introduce order into the management of your fortune. Whatever be the extent of your possessions, whether great or small, let the administration of them proceed with method and economy. Provide what is necessary before you indulge yourselves in anything superfluous. Never, perhaps, was admonition more necessary than this is to the age in which we live; an age manifestly distinguished by a propensity to thoughtless extravagance. But prodigality does not only sink men to contempt and misery; it frequently impels them to open crimes. When they have begun with ostentation and vanity they often end in infamy and guilt. Be assured, then, that order, frugality, and economy are the necessary supports of Christian virtue, and will deliver you from the assaults of many very dangerous temptations. How humble and trifling soever these qualities may appear to some people, they are the guardians of innocence. 4. Observe order in your amusements; that is, allow them no more than their proper place; study to keep them within due bounds; mingle them so prudently with your serious duties that they may relieve the mind and be a preparation for acting with more vigour in the discharge of your obligations. 5. Preserve order likewise in the choice of your society. Select with prudence those with whom you choose to associate, and let virtue be the object which determines your choice. Endeavour in the first place to make yourselves happy at home. By this fondness for home it is past conception how much evil you may avoid. (J. Archer.). 1 Corinthians 15:1-12 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel.The apostolic gospel I. Christianity is based on historical facts, not on human reason or imagination; it is neither an ingenious hypothesis to account for any phenomena, nor a poetic myth to adumbrate any truth. It is based on facts. These facts are--1. Personal. They are connected with a person, and that person is not Socrates, Plato, nor Caesar, but Christ. 2. Few. He “ died,” He was “ buried,” and He “ rose.” These facts are compendious facts, they imply many more. 3. Well attested (1 Corinthians 15:4-8). No facts on record are better attested than these. II. Christianity is designed for the removal of evil.1. He “ died for our sins.” 2. It is to “ put away sin” from the hearts, literature, institutions, customs, and governments of mankind; natural evil is but the effect of moral. 3. Philosophically, there is no system on earth suited to destroy man’ s sinful disposition and to change his heart, but Christianity; and, historically, nothing else has ever done it. III. Christianity is to be preached with this design (1 Corinthians 15:2). Paul preached that they might be saved, but they could only be saved as they renounced and hated sin. Paul preached Christianity--1. Convincingly, “ which also ye received.” They believed his gospel; then he must have convinced them by arguments. Christianity is to be commended “ to every man’ s conscience.” 2. Scripturally. He showed those facts in the light of the Scriptures, “ according to the Scriptures.” 3. Humbly, “ born out of due time, … the least of the apostles,” etc. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The gospel which Paul preached, and in which the Corinthians found salvation I. The reception of the gospel by the Corinthians, and the use which they made of it (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).1. Paul brought glad tidings with him to Corinth, and proclaimed them everywhere--in the synagogue, in the workshop, in the market-place. 2. Nor did he preach without effect. Many might listen incredulously, and others resist, but many “ received” his glad tidings. 3. In that gospel these Corinthians were now “ standing.” Their ancient superstitions had passed away, and they “ stood” upon the rock--“ Jesus Christ,” and the hope of a resurrection. That reception of his apostolic message was not only the pledge of blessedness in the great hereafter, it indicated their present security. Now they were safe. The strong swimmer, battling with the waves of a stormy sea, may be living, and not without hope; but not until his feet touch the beach may he whisper to himself, “ Now I am safe!” So these Corinthians had been “ saved,” but their Christian work was not then over. The saved Christian is not to stand still and think of doing nothing more. “ Keep in memory” might rather be translated “ firmly maintain.” Without this they had “ believed in vain.” 4. Here, then, we are presented with the apostle’ s ideas of evangelical conversion. It was a process of preaching on his part followed by these steps on theirs--reception, belief, steadfast adherence. “ What Paul taught, that must ministers teach still. What the Corinthian Christians “ received,” etc., that must we receive, stand upon, and adhere to, or risk the salvation of our souls. II. The the truth with which he desired that their minds should be especially occupied (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). In these words we have plainly an epitome of the gospel. He himself had “ received” this gospel, and felt it to be the power of God unto his own personal salvation; and now he declared that he had “ delivered” it to them as equally available for theirs. Nay, he did so “ first of all,” i.e., as the chiefest and most important statement in the gospel message. What was the all-important truth?1. It was that “ Christ had died for our sins.” There was something in that death which possessed an atoning virtue, and this was “ according to the Scriptures “ (Isaiah 53:1-12). 2. In token of the reality of Christ’ s death Paul affirms that He was “ buried.” 3. In token also that His atoning work was completely effectual, “ He rose from the dead the third day.” (J. Cochrane, A.M.)Paul’ s gospel Paul’ s gospel in its substance. “ How that Christ died,” etc. “ Good news” must; be the record of a fact. And this is the great peculiarity and the great blessedness and sign of the universal adaptation of Christianity, that it is first and foremost, the story of things that happened on this green solid earth of ours. It is not airy speculations coming from the clouds, it is not a mere morality or republication of man’ s duty, with new emphasis, and with sweeter or more terrible sanctions. There is a theology underlying it, deducible from it, and which must be deduced from it. There is a system of morality in it, but the beginning of everything is the story of a life, the history of plain facts. And how else can God be revealed? You cannot reveal a person by anything but deeds. And further, for ever and ever it remains a fact that the highest form in which you and I can conceive of, or be taught of God, is the form of man. The beginning of the gospel is the story of the Christ. Christ is Chistianity; and its first form is neither morality, nor theology, nor philosophy, but simple history, Still further, there is another thought here, and that is that Paul’ s gospel, fastened, as its central fact, on the death and accompanying burial, and the consequent resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is the vital centre of the gospel. There! if you tear that out; of it, you have no life left in it; and its morality will never get itself executed, and the fair pattern will never be reproduced, and we shall have but one more of the tragical multitude of systems that have promised to us glorious crowns and left us in the dust. And there is one more point to be noticed, and that is Paul’ s gospel carried, as an integral part of itself, the explanation of the meaning of death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “ How that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” What is it that changes the historical fact into an historical proclamation of the good news of God? Is it the bare statement “ Jesus Christ died” ? Is that a gospel? Is it any more a gospel than the statement that Socrates died, or that anybody else died? The only statement about Christ’ s death that makes it a gospel is that He died for our sins. II. Paul’ s gospel in its power. He specifies two of its mighty influences upon men: “ Wherein ye stand … by which also ye are saved.” First, the reception of that gospel into our hearts enables us to “ stand.” In that gospel, received into our believing hearts, we get firm footing for our lives; a certitude. Men all around us are saying, “ Who will show us any truth? What are we to believe about God, about men, about the relations of the two? What are we to think of the destiny of humanity? What are we to think of the future?” The answer lies here. “ Christ died for our sins” ; Christ is risen again for our salvation. In that truth, grasped, fed upon, unfolded as the germs unfold themselves in the sweet May-days, will be found the answer to all perplexities, the certainties amidst all shifting opinion, the basis upon which a whole life’ s thinking may be reared, the ground of all true morality, the sum and substance of all real theology, the germ of prophetic anticipations of the fortunes of men and of individuals. Again, the word is employed in another aspect. That gospel of Christ, received into a man’ s heart, enables him to resist. “ Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.” Then there is another aspect here of the power of Paul’ s gospel in that familiar word--“ By which ye are saved.” “ By which also ye are being saved” would be a truer translation. It is a process lifelong, and that process, including deliverance from all forms of evil, whether sin or sorrow, and investiture with all possibilities of good, whether righteousness or happiness, begins with the reception of Christ into the heart, and steadily runs parallel, with the increased reception of His grace, until the grey dawn passes through all the shades of saffron yellow, and rosy pink, and pearly white, and comes at last to the colourless completeness and unsetting radiance of the midday sun. III. Paul’ s gospel, in its conditions. “ If ye keep in memory,” or more correctly, “ If ye hold fast what I preached unto you.” “ Unless ye have believed in vain.” First, there must be a solid faith, not a faith which is lightly and without due cause taken up. There is such a thing, you know, as the seed being sown upon stony places, with an inch of earth above a great lateral shelf of rock. And just because the rock, into which the seed can never penetrate, retains much of the heat of the midday sun, and warms the film of earth above it, it grows quickly. So in a man’ s heart, the Word may be sown, it may strike down its little rootlets, and very soon come to an impenetrable layer of rock. And just because it cannot get any deeper it begins to germinate at once, “ and anon with joy they receive it.” “ Such endure but for a while.” They believe rashly, without due consideration. Their faith is not the deliberate act of the whole man. It is a momentary emotion that produced it. There is no adequate perception of the facts which it grasps, or of the necessities from which it seeks to be delivered. “ Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.” But then do not forget that faith may be genuine though it be feeble; and that all which I have been saying about a shallow confidence has no bearing upon people simply because they find that their faith is not what it ought to be; or subject to many a sad break and gap. Again, remember the other condition here, viz., the continuous grasp of the truth which makes the essence of the gospel. “ Ye are being saved, if ye keep hold of what I preached to you.” The gospel works upon us as long as we think about it, and keep it in our hearts, and not one instant longer. The polestar will guide you as long as you look at it; but if your eyes are wandering away to the will-o’ -the-wisps upon the marsh, or to the comets that flash across your sky, you will lose your guide, and wander into the darkness. It is whilst you believe that the gospel is saving you. And, remember, that continuous grasp of God’ s truth cannot keep up without a continuous effort. I have seen conjurers that have said to a man, “ Take that coin in your hand. Close your hand upon it. Are you sure you have got it? Yes!” “ Certain it is there?” “ Certainly.” “ Open your hand!” Gone! Ay! And the world, the magician world, conjures his faith out of many a professing Christian man’ s clenched hand. And when he opens it--and perhaps he does not open it till he gets before the throne--an empty palm. Where is his faith? Tighten your grasp, “ lest at any time you should let them slip.” (A. Maclaren, D.D.)The certainty of the gospel I. Of its facts.1. Declared by competent witnesses.2. Preached to us. II. Of its experience.1. We have received.2. We stand in it. III. Of its hopes.1. It can save us fully and for ever.2. If we hold it fast by faith. (J. Lyth, D.D.)How ought the gospel to be preached I. Faithfully, according to the Word of God.1. Which is simple in its details.2. Absolutely true. II. Out of personal. Experience.1. This gives confidence.2. Conveys life. III. Humbly.1. With a consciousness of unfitness.2. In dependence upon Divine grace.3. With a full recognition of the labours of others. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The resurrection of Christ 1. Because this chapter forms part of the Funeral Service, and every syllable stands associated with some mournful moment in our lives, is one reason why the exposition is attended with some difficulty. It sounds more like stately music heard in the stillness of night than like an argument. 2. The subject, like almost all the others treated of in this Epistle, had been forced upon the apostle by the heresies which had crept into the Corinthian Church. Note the great difference made by the apostle between moral wrong-doing and intellectual error. When incest had been committed the apostle at once commanded expulsion, but here he only expostulates with and endeavours to set the heretics right. 3. In the present day this error arises out of materialism. Now the unbelief of those distant ages was something very different from this. But the Corinthians denied the resurrection of the body because they believed that matter was the cause of all evil; and they hailed the gospel chiefly because it gave them the hope of being liberated from the flesh with its corrupt desires. They regarded the resurrection therefore as a figurative expression. The apostle now controverts this error, and he does it by a twofold line of argument. I. By historical proofs of the resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:4-8).1. The Christian doctrine was not merely immortality, but resurrection; the historical fact of Christ’ s resurrection being the substantial pledge of ours. 2. There are two forms in which it is conceivable that Christianity may exist--essential and historical. Suppose, e.g., that without the aid of Christ, a man could arrive at the chief Christian doctrines--the Fatherhood of God; that it is a Divine Spirit which is the source of all goodness in man; that the righteousness acceptable in His sight is not ceremonial but moral goodness, etc., he would have arrived at the essence of Christianity. And history tells us that before the Redeemer’ s advent there were a few who, by the aid of the Spirit of God, had reached to a knowledge which is marvellous to us. By historical Christianity, however, we mean not those truths abstractedly, but considered as actually existing in the life of Christ. Reverence for persons precedes the belief in truths. A few remarkable exceptions have reached truth without knowing Him who is the Truth, but this is not the rule. Those truths which you hold deepest, you have gained not by the illumination of your intellect, but first by trusting in some great or good one, and then, through Him, by obtaining credible evidence of those truths. Take, e.g., the doctrine of the resurrection. The times when it seemed almost incredible to us were those in which we began to despair of human nature--when some great crime or meanness had set us wondering why such beings should be permitted to live hereafter. And the moments when we believed most strongly in it were the moments when we felt assured that human perfectibility was no dream, since we saw the evidence of a goodness most like God’ s which could not be limited by death. Carry on this principle, and then you have the very spirit of historical Christianity. For we do not believe that there shall be a life to come merely because there is something within us which craves for it, but because we have believed in the life and death and resurrection of the Man of Nazareth. Our Christianity is not merely the abstract truths which Christ taught, but Christ Himself. II. By the argument “ reductio ad absurdum” (1 Corinthians 15:13-20). “ If there be no resurrection--1. Then is Christ not risen. It is an absurdity to believe that that man perished. The Son of Man grounded His pretensions on this, that He should rise again from the dead. If, then, He did not, He was an impostor; and you are driven to this, that a holy life is not a whit more certain of attaining to God’ s truth than a false one. 2. The Christian faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Except in the belief of the resurrection the quitting of sin is impossible. “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” is an inevitable conclusion. And you are driven also to this, that, just as all other religions have failed in redeeming man from sin, the Christian religion has also failed. It has become the fashion to hold that in proportion as a belief in the resurrection enters into our motives, right-doing loses its value, that he alone can do any really good work who disbelieves in a life hereafter, because he alone does good for its own sake and not from the hope of reward. But-- (1) In removing the hope of the life to come you have taken away all that makes life worth possessing, or mankind worth living for. Why should we labour for beings scarcely higher than the “ half-reasoning elephant” ? (2) To do right Christianly is not doing so for the sake of happiness in the world to come, but for life. “ It is more life and fuller that we want.” 3. The apostles would be found false witnesses. There is something touching in the manner in which the apostle writes this. That he should be a false witness! He does not leave room for supposing the possibility of a mistake. It was either true or false. James, Cephas, the twelve, the five hundred, either had or had not seen the Lord Jesus; Thomas either had or had not put his finger into the print of the nails; either the resurrection was a fact, or else the apostles were intentional false witnesses before God. Now there is a certain instinct within us generally which enables us to detect when a man is speaking the truth. Truth has a certain ring by which it may be known. Now this chapter rings with truth; and before you can believe that there is no resurrection, you must believe that this glorious chapter was written by one who knew at his heart that he was speaking what was false. Another witness to this fact was the Apostle Peter. There are two things which rarely go together, courage and falsehood. There are circumstances in which a brave and honest man may be betrayed by the sudden force of temptation into a dereliction from the truth, and such a thing had occurred in the life of St. Peter. But after his bitter repentance he went forth and stood as upon a rock, protesting that he knew that the Lord was risen. There must he a cause given for this. Can we believe that the man who laid his hand on the axe, or he who asked that he might be crucified with his head downwards, as unworthy to die as his Redeemer died, that his life was a systematic and continued falsehood kept up to the very last; and that the brave, true man with his dying lips gave utterance to a lie? 4. Those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished, i.e., the noblest of the human race have lived--only to die for ever. You are required to believe, moreover, that they attained to this excellence by believing what was false, namely, the resurrection; so that we are driven to this strange paradox--that by believing that which is false we become pure and noble, and by believing that which is true we become base and selfish! Believe this who can! (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The resurrection of Christ I. Its place in the Christian creed.1. What did Paul mean by the resurrection of Christ? (1) He meant His rising from the grave with a body glorified or made fit for the heavenly life He had entered. Flesh and blood cannot enter upon that life, but must pass through a process which entirely alters its material. (2) But yet he always speaks as if there were some connection between the natural and the spiritual body, and regards the body of Christ as that into the likeness of which the bodies of His people are to be transformed. Now we can only suppose that the body which was laid in the sepulchre was transformed into a spiritual body by a process which differed from that which is to operate in ourselves only by its rapidity. We do not understand the process, but all along the line which marks off this world from the spiritual world mystery broods. There are in nature many forces of which we know nothing, and it may one day appear to us most natural that the spirit should clothe itself with a spiritual body. As the life that is in the body now assimilates material and forms the body to its particular mould, so may the spirit hereafter. Paul refuses to recognise any insuperable difficulty here. 2. What was the position occupied by the Corinthians? (1) In that day the resurrection was denied by materialists, such as the Sadducees, who believed that mental and spiritual life are only manifestations of physical life and dependent upon it. But many who opposed materialism held that the resurrection of the body if not impossible was at all events undesirable. To be free from all connection with matter was an essential element in their idea of salvation. (2) In our own day the resurrection of Christ is denied from both points of view. It is said that Christ lay in His grave, and the elements of His body have passed into the bosom of nature, as ours will before long; but His spirit lives, perhaps in us. On the other hand, it is said that although the body of Christ remained in the tomb, His spirit survived death, and lives a disembodied but conscious and powerful life. But what the apostles saw was a veritable body that could stand handling and whose lips and throat could utter sound. Besides, if we accept either view we are at once confronted with the difficulty that Christ’ s glorification is not yet complete. If Christ now sits at God’ s right hand in perfect human nature, it is not as a disembodied spirit, but as a complete person in a glorified body. And it must also be remembered that the primitive faith and restored confidence in Christ to which the very existence of the Church is due, were created by the sight of the empty tomb and the glorified body. 3. Consider the place which our Lord’ s risen body had in Paul’ s conversion. The idea of a crucified Messiah had been abhorrent to him, but from the moment when he saw the risen Lord he understood, with the rest of the disciples, that death was the Messiah’ s appointed path to supreme spiritual headship. So from the first Paul put the resurrection of Christ forward as an essential and fundamental part of the gospel he had received. “ If,” says Dr. Fairbairn, “ it be true that no living Christ ever issued from the tomb of Joseph, then that tomb becomes the grave, not of a man, but of a religion, with all the hopes built on it and all the splendid enthusiasms it has inspired.” It is not difficult to perceive what it was in the resurrection of Christ which gave it this importance. (1) It was the convincing proof that Christ’ s words were true, and that He was what He had claimed to be. “ Destroy this temple,” He said, “ and in three days I will raise it again.” As Jonah had been lost for three days and nights, but had thereby only been forwarded in his mission, so with our Lord. In order that His claim to be the Messiah may be understood, it was necessary that He should die; but in order that it might be believed it was needful that He should rise. The apostles evidently accepted the resurrection as God’ s great attestation to the person and work of Christ. It changed their own thoughts about Him, and they expected it would change the thoughts of other men. They could now confidently say, “ He died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification.” (2) There is disclosed by it a real and close connection between this world and the next. There is no need now of argument to prove a life beyond; here is one who is in it. It is “ by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that we are begotten again unto a lively hope.” (3) In it we see at once the norm or type of our life here and of our destiny hereafter. Holiness and immortality are two inseparable aspects of the Divine life we receive from Christ. His Spirit is the source of both (Romans 8:1-39.). The hope that uplifts and purities every part of the Christian’ s character becomes a living hope, full of immortality, in all who are now actually drawing their life from Christ. Therefore does Paul so continually hold up to us the risen life of Christ as that to which we are to be conformed. II. Its proof. As a preliminary to the positive evidence here adduced, it may be remarked that we have no record of any contemporary denial of the fact, save only the story put in the mouths of the soldiers by the chief priests. The authorities resolved there should be no tampering with the grave, and accordingly had set their official seal upon it and placed a guard to watch. Their action after the resurrection proves that the tomb was empty, while their previous action proves that it was emptied by the actual rising of Jesus. So when Peter affirmed it before the Sanhedrin no one was hardy enough to contradict him; or why did they not prosecute the disciples for breaking the official seal? What hindered them from bringing proof that there had been no resurrection? If the body was still in the grave nothing was easier than to produce it; if the grave was empty, as they affirmed, because the disciples had stolen the body, no more welcome handle against them could have been furnished to the authorities. But they could not in open court pretend any such thing. It is admitted on all hands that the disciples had a bona fide belief that Jesus had risen; how was that belief produced? To this there are three answers.1. That the disciples saw our Lord alive after the crucifixion, but He had never been dead. This answer is plainly inadequate. (1) As not in harmony with the facts. His death was certified by the surest authority. Though the soldiers see that Jesus is dead, they make sure by a spear-thrust, and Pilate would not give up the body until he had received the necessary certificate that the sentence of death had been executed. (2) As an explanation. The Person the disciples saw was not a crushed, defeated man, who had death still to look forward to, but one who had passed through and conquered death, and was now alive for evermore. 2. That the disciples only thought they saw Christ, e.g.--(1) Some clever and scheming person may have personated Jesus. Such personations have been made, but never with such results. Imposture, in fact, does not fit the case before us at all; and the more we consider the combination of qualities required in any one who should personate the risen Lord, the more we shall be persuaded that the right explanation of the belief in the resurrection is not to be sought in this direction. (2) The disciples simply believed that such a soul could not become extinct. Quite so, they of course believed that His spirit was in paradise, and for that very reason fully expected to find His body in the tomb: which they did not. (3) Renan’ s account of the growth of this belief is that “ the world, accustomed to attribute to its great men superhuman virtues, cannot admit that they have submitted to the death common to all. When Mahomet expired Omar rushed from the tent, sword in hand, and declared that he would hew down any one who should dare to say that the prophet was no more. Heroes do not die. So Jesus had lived so entirely in those who surrounded Him that they could but affirm that after His death He was still living.” M. Renan forgets, however, that Omar was followed by Abu Bekr, who said, “ Whoso hath worshipped Mahomet, let him know that Mahomet is dead, but whoso hath worshipped God that the Lord liveth and doth not die.” Then, again, none of the apostles said that their Master was not dead. Besides, all these hypotheses omit altogether to explain how the disciples disposed of the tomb of our Lord, in which, according to this hypothesis, His body was still quietly reposing. Is there, then, no possibility of the disciples having been deceived? Had the belief in the resurrection depended on the report of one or a few who were anxiously looking for the resurrection of Jesus, then these might have persuaded themselves they saw Him. But what we have here to explain is how several persons, at different times, in various moods, came to believe they had seen the risen Lord. He was recognised not by persons who expected to see Him alive, but by women who went to anoint Him dead; not by credulous, excitable persons, but by men who would not believe till they had gone to and into the sepulchre. The resurrection formed no part of the Jewish creed regarding the Messiah; and the idea that the disciples were expecting it is contradicted by the narrative. There was not one person to whom our Lord appeared who was not taken wholly by surprise. 3. There remains, therefore, only the explanation that the disciples did see Christ alive after He had been dead and buried. The men who said they had seen Him were men of probity, whose lives and conduct are only to be explained by their having been brought in contact with the spiritual world in this surprising and solemnising manner. The testimony of Paul is conclusive. It is simply inconceivable that he should have abandoned all his prospects and entered on a wholly different life without carefully investigating the chief fact which influenced him in making this change. No saner or more commanding intellect ever headed a complex and difficult movement. There is no one of that generation whose testimony to the resurrection is more worth having, and we have it in the most emphatic form of a life based upon it. In fine, no one who takes a serious interest in all this evidence can deny that it would be quite sufficient to authenticate any ordinary historical event. The majority of the historical events are accepted on much slenderer evidence, and the evidence for this can be refused only on the ground that no evidence, however strong, could prove such a miracle. But those who reject it are compelled to accept a miracle equally astounding, viz., that those who had the best means of ascertaining the truth and every possible inducement to ascertain it, should all have been deceived, and that this deception should have been the most fruitful source of good, not only to them, but to the whole world. (M. Dods, D.D.)Difficulties in the way of disbelief in the resurrection of Christ I. Exegetical. There is the clear testimony of St. Paul, and the great distinction made by the New Testament between the description of visions and the narratives of our Lord’ s appearance. II. Psychological. All likelihood is wanting for the supposition that so many and such very differently constituted persons should, even by hundreds at a time, have been simultaneously predisposed to see visions. There is the sudden and thorough change in the disciples’ frame of mind, especially, too, the conversion of St. Paul; and finally the cessation of Christ’ s appearance. III. Dogmatical. Whence should the idea of an isolated individual resurrection, hitherto foreign to their belief, arise in the minds of the disciples? IV. Chronological. Unanimous historical evidence points to “ the third day,” and this leaves no space for the gradual development of visions, or for the translocation of the first appearances in Galilee. V. Topographical. There, in a well-known spot, stands the empty tomb, with its loud question, Where is the body? which neither Jew nor Roman attempts to answer, though investigation would have been easy. VI. Historical. There is the immove-able belief of the disciples; their preaching, so full of victorious joy and martyr courage, there is the Christian Church founded on the rock of belief in Christ’ s death and resurrection. VII. Moral There is the regeneration which followed the teaching of the apostles. (Prof. Christlieb.)No-resurrection impossible 1. The first impossible consequence may be called the argument from mind, and is thus expressed: “ If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not raised.” What Paul really means to say is this: If there be no immortality of the soul, Christ is dead--the highest of minds has become extinct. It may seem as if this were a mode of reasoning which never would be used in modern times. A writer of our day would certainly put it differently; he would say, Are all the aspirations of the human soul to count for nothing--all the yearnings after moral purity, all the search for truth, all the thirst for beauty? To him the aspirations of the human soul were all fulfilled already in the image of a perfect mind. The life of the Son of Man was, for him, the synonym for all that humanity ever did, or even can do, in the path of greatness; it was aspiration crystallised into fact. Accordingly, when he says, if there be no immortality, Christ is dead, there is a deep significance in his words. It is quite equivalent to saying, what becomes of the dignity of man? The notion that Christ could be dead was to Paul a contradiction in terms. Sometimes a man gets his whole conviction of immortality from his inability to realise the death of a single soul. There are presences in this world so vivid and so strong that their removal by death dissipates the idea of death; they are our types of immortality. But what was Christ to Paul? To say He was a strong and vivid presence is to say nothing; He was a presence that literally filled all things. That such a being should cease to be was, for him, a contingency unthinkable, that God should suffer His Holy One to see corruption was a paradox unparalleled. 2. The second of those impossible conclusions which St. Paul derives from the denial of immortality is expressed in the words: “ Your faith is vain.” Put into modern form, his meaning is this: “ If Christ be not raised” --if the highest imaginable powers of the human mind have been extinguished in death, then we have an anomaly in the universe--a faculty without an object. We must remember that, in the view of Paul, faith is not a mere act of credulity; it is a faculty, a power of the soul. This is shown by his tendency to oppose faith to sight, clearly implying that the former is an inner vision, as the latter is an outer vision. Wheresoever he turns he can find no other trace of a faculty without an object. Every sense has its environment, every power its appropriate field of exercise. Is the sense of the supernatural to have no object? The sense of the supernatural is what Paul calls faith--that faculty which looks “ to the things that are unseen.” These unseen things are to him at once the symbols and the proofs of immortality; they are not “ temporal” but “ eternal.” If the existence of these be a delusion, then we have an eye without light, an ear without music, a hand without material to work upon, a sense of beauty without the symmetry to fill it; our faculty of faith is useless, objectless, vain. From this point of view it becomes easy to understand St. Paul’ s collateral statement, that “ our preaching is vain.” It is cruel to stimulate a sense of want which no scene of existence can ever gratify; to awake a power into being which no sphere of life will ever require is a process of education which can only lead to pain. The fact that no faculty can be vain is itself the proof that “ Christ is risen.” 3. This brings us to the third argument. It is different in its nature both from those that precede and from those that follow it. They are founded upon facts which appeal to the universal nature of man; this, in the first instance at least, rests on an historical experience of the apostle’ s own life and on an emotion induced by it. He says, If there be no resurrection, and if therefore the highest specimen of the human mind be dead, then I am found a false witness for Christ, to whose rising I testify. What Paul really means to say is: If there be no resurrection, I am myself an anomaly; “ We are found false witnesses for God,” i.e., for goodness--false witnesses for the immortality of self-sacrifice. Such is the paradox or impossible consequence, which Paul here designs to convey. One cannot but remark what a singular light St. Paul here unwittingly throws on his own character as a witness. He suggests even more than he means. He only wants to prove that he is not a false witness in relation to others; he powerfully impresses us with the additional conviction that he is not a false witness in relation to himself. For, as we follow him in the foregoing train of thought, we see that this man even in his Christianity is no fanatic. 4. St. Paul states his fourth argument thus: “ If there be no resurrection, and if therefore Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins.” It is an argument which is often misunderstood. Paul is speaking, not of a miserable consequence, but of an impossible consequence. What he means is really this: if there be no Christian immortality, there cannot be at this moment in the world a Christian life; ye are in this case yet in your sins: there is no power keeping you from evil. But your own experience tells you that this is not true; you are not in your sins. There is a life within you which is not part of your natural life, nor a product of that life--a spirit lusting against your flesh, a law of your mind warring with the law of your members. What is it? Whence came it? How do you explain it? If there be nothing but earth and the conditions of earth, in what manner shall we account for a sentiment which transcends those conditions? If there be no resurrection, you ought to be yet in your sins; how comes it to pass that you are not in your sins? To Kant the existence, of a moral law within the soul was the very demonstration of a life transcending the present order of being. St. Paul, instead of seeking the evidence of a risen Christ in the documents of antiquity, seeks it in the Church of his own day; nay, in himself as a member of that Church. He asks what it is that has given rise to this stream of Christian feeling, which is ever widening into an ocean of universal love. He cannot find a source for that stream in the soil of the natural life; for it flows in a channel the reverse of what we call natural. He is forced, therefore, to seek it in a life beyond nature; and the only such life he can find is that said to have been lived by the Son of Man. The evidence that Christ is risen is the consciousness that we are not in our sins. 5. We pass to St. Paul’ s final argument. He says: If there be no possible resurrection even of the highest life, if even Christ be not risen, then they that have fallen asleep are perished. This, then, is the argument from affection, since it is evident that here St. Paul directs his main appeal to the feelings of the heart. It would be unfair to say, however, that on this account it is less logical than his other arguments. The feelings of the heart are just as much facts of nature as the sensations of the body, and the intuitions of the intellect. St. Paul, therefore, has a perfect right to appeal to the human heart, whose instincts would be violated by the denial of immortality. (G. Matheson, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you. Hindrances and helps to memory in spiritual things In these words we have a discovery--1. Of men’ s utmost happiness--salvation.2. Of the only means for the attaining of it--the gospel.3. Of the special grace necessary in respect of this gospel--believing.4. Of the particular faculty that is requisite for this end--the memory.5. The relation, or influence, which this last hath upon all the rest. And this expressed--(1) By way of condition, “ Ye are saved, if ye keep in memory.”(2) By way of exception, “ Unless ye have believed in vain.” Note-- I. What the memory is. It is that faculty of the soul wherein are reserved the things we know. Its office, however, is--1. To receive such things as are presented to it. Wherin it is fitly enough compared to soft wax, which is prepared to receive any impression made upon it. 2. To retain and preserve what is laid up therein. There is a little kingdom in the soul of man. The king, or rather viceroy, is the will, the privy council is the understanding, the judge is the conscience, and the great treasurer is the memory. 3. To recall or recover what was out of mind. II. The excellence of this faculty. The soul of man is a subject of wonder, and nothing more wonderful in it than the memory. It hath power to make things that are in themselves absent and past to be present. We may see the worth of this faculty by those that are deprived of the use of it, that can remember nobody, nor the last question that they did ask. All a man’ s past life would be lost if his memory were lost; so are the comforts of the soul lost so far as they are forgotten. III. The corruption or depravation of this faculty. This stands--1. In remembering those things which we should forget. As-- (1) Things unprofitable; like as if one should crowd waste-paper, rags, and broken pitchers into a cabinet, which should be stored with things of value. (2) Things hurtful. To wit, injuries; these usually stick in the memory when better things slip out. (3) Things sinful. We can remember a filthy story seven years when we do forget a saving sermon in seven hours. The depraved memory is herein fitly compared to a sieve that lets the good corn fall through and reserves only the chaff. Themistocles said to Simonides, when he offered to teach him the art of memory, “ Rather,” says he, “ teach me the art of forgetfulness, for the things which I would not I remember, and cannot forget the things I would.” 2. In forgetting those things which we should remember. (1) Our Creator, and what He hath done especially for us (Ecclesiastes 12:1; Jeremiah 2:32). This is most inexcusable (Acts 17:27-28). And then the great things which He hath done, to wit, in the works of creation and providence, especially for His Church, these we easily forget, but should remember (Psalms 77:11); and particularly what He hath done for us (Deuteronomy 8:2). (2) Our Redeemer and what He hath suffered for us. Else He had never instituted the Lord’ s Supper on purpose to keep up the remembrance thereof. (3) The truths of religion, especially the most weighty (2 Peter 1:12-15). (4) The duties of religion (Exodus 20:8; Hebrews 13:2-3; Hebrews 13:16). All which, as they show our duty, so do they imply our defectiveness herein. (5) Our sins (Ezekiel 36:31; Deuteronomy 9:7). (6) Our vows and obligations to God. (7) The Church of God (Psalms 137:5-6). (8) Our latter end (Isaiah 47:7; Lamentations 1:9). IV. The sanctification of the memory. Which is the restoring of this faculty to its former integrity and to its proper objects. This is done--1. By purging the faculty. And so conversion is said to begin here (Psalms 22:27; Revelation 2:5). 2. By strengthening it. For as sin weakens, so grace strengthens, the faculty (John 14:26). 3. By reconciling it to good things, and setting it against evil (Psalms 119:16). 4. By filling it with good things (Matthew 12:35). 5. By fitting things laid up in memory for use and practice (Numbers 15:39-40; Psalms 103:17-18). V. The ordinary impediments of a good memory, or the causes of a bad one.1. A weak or dark understanding. 2. A carnal, careless heart. Such a heart can retain abundance of a play or a song, but of a chapter or sermon next to nothing, for everything keeps what is connatural to itself. Nay, a good man’ s memory in a remiss, negligent frame, quite differs from what it was in a religious frame. 3. A darling sin. Any bosom sin, as it fills and employs every faculty, so it debauches, monopolises, and disorders them all. Grace, though it rule every faculty, yet ruffles none; it composes the mind, and employs the memory in a rational manner. 4. Excess of worldly cares. The memory is but finite, though capacious, and a superabundance of worldly thoughts within must needs shoulder out better things that should be there. 5. Surfeiting and drunkenness. These disorder the brain and disable it from its functions (Proverbs 31:4-5). 6. Violent passions. 7. A multitude of indigested notions. If a man have a stock of methodical and digested knowledge, it is admirable how much the memory will contain; but many read or hear too much for their capacities, they have not stowage for it (2 Timothy 3:7). He who rides post can never draw maps of the country. VI. The proper helps to it.1. Natural. (1) A sober diet. For if excesses in meat and drink do disturb the brain, temperate diet, together with a good air, is a certain help to the memory (Luke 21:34). (2) A quiet mind. For if all passions that are violent weaken, then a sedate and quiet mind greatly strengthens, the memory. 2. Artificial or outward. (1) The repetition of those things which we would remember (Deuteronomy 11:18-19). (2) Writing what we would remember (Deuteronomy 11:20). (3) Custom, or using your memories. We say, “ Use legs, and have legs” ; and so, Use the memory, and thou wilt have a memory. 3. Spiritual. (1) Repentance for forgetfulness. (2) Bewail your forgetfulness. (3) Prayer. For “ every good gift and every perfect gift,” whereof this is one, “ is from above.” (4) Diligent attention. If the mind wander in hearing the memory will be weak in remembering. (5) Due estimation. The more we love and admire anything the better we remember it (Psalms 119:16). (6) Serious meditation. When people read or hear, and presently plunge themselves in foreign business, then generally all is lost (James 1:24-25; Psalms 119:11). VII. And so I come to application.1. Magnify God for your memories. 2. Let ministers consult people’ s memories, and to that end observe some proper method in their books and sermons. 3. Labour to improve your memories. 4. Store your memories in the time of youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1). A new ship is free from leaks, but time and travel will batter it. (R. Steele, A.M.)Memory Aristotle calls it the scribe of the soul; and Bernard the stomach of the soul, because it hath a retentive faculty, and turns heavenly food into blood and spirits. (T. Watson.)Memory, Christian It was the remark of John Newton, when his memory had almost completely gone, that he could never forget two things.1. That he was a great sinner.2. That Jesus Christ was a great and mighty Saviour. Memory, cultivation of If you have learned to look under your feet every day while young, and to cull the treasures of truth which belong to geology, natural history, and chemistry; if every fly has furnished you a study; if the incrustation of the frost is a matter, of interest; if the trees that come in spring, and the birds that populate them, the flowers of the meadow, the grass of the field, the fishes that disport themselves in the water--if all these are to you so many souvenirs of the working hand of your God, you will find, when you come into old age, that you have great stores of enjoyment therein. Let me therefore recommend you to commit much to memory. When a man is blind his memory is not blind. I have seen many a man who in youth had committed much to memory from the Scriptures and hymns and poems, who was able, in old age, to recall and recite what he had learned, and to fall back upon those treasures, his own head having thus become to him a library. Oh, how much a man may store up against old age! What a price is put into the hands of the young wherewith to get wisdom! What provisions for old age do they squander and throw away! It is not merely that you may be keen and strong now; it is not for the poor ambition of being esteemed learned that I urge you now to lay such treasures up; but because it is just and right and noble that you should be intelligent, and because your whole life is interested in it, and your old age pre-eminently so. (H. W. Beecher.)Unless ye have believed ill vain.--Believing in vain 1. A terrible peradventure to have believed in vain. To have spent a week, to have risked money, to have loved or chosen a profession in vain, is dreadful, and has driven many to despair, crime, and suicide. What shall we say, then, of having believed in vain; of having staked eternity on a delusion and a lie? 2. There are four phrases in the Greek thus rendered in A.V. (1) “ In vain do they worship Me,” --i.e., idly, foolishly, falsely--“ because their heart is far from Me.” (2) “ Then Christ is dead in vain,” i.e., gratuitously, wantonly, without return. (3) “ That ye receive not the grace of God in vain” --unto emptiness. (4) “ Have ye suffered so many things in vain” --are all your endurances for Christ to be forfeited or stultified by departure from the truth?” “ Lest I should have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” 3. The word may have had in it, originally, the idea of seeming, as opposed to reality. But in its use it carries the sense of a thing done by chance, at haphazard, not deliberately. Here are two possibilities in one. I. A defect in the thing believed.1. To believe in vain may be to believe a lie. There are those who say that sincerity is everything. If a man be but sincere he must be in the right. His opinion may be false, his hope a dream, his faith a fable, yet if he is sincere he cannot have believed in vain. St. Paul was of another mind. Truth as well as sincerity went with his religion. With him the text meant primarily, “ Unless the object of your faith be a nullity.” I transmitted to you, he says, a definite body of doctrine based on a series of fact--is it true? Some parts no one doubts--the death and burial. The miraculous part is the resurrection, which can only be proved by evidence--the evidence of eye-witnesses. Those who knew Christ saw Him alive after certain proof of His death. 2. Those who reject this evidence tell us to be of good cheer, for there is nothing lost. The resurrection is spiritual, and Christ risen means Christ immortal, successful, progressive, influencing the world by His pure ethics or bright example. But Paul is not satisfied with these airy nothings, and says that if the resurrection of Christ be not true those who believe in Him have believed in vain. Their faith is a random faith--they have not waited to see that its foundation is strong (verses 12-15). II. A defect in the believer. The faith may be true and yet the belief of it unsound.1. You may have taken for granted the faith of your family or your country, like the Samaritans, who “ believed because of the saying of” another. If you had been born amongst Hindoos for the same reason you would have been such still. There is nothing of conviction, will, soul in your belief. It is no tribute to the truth. There needs in you just that step which was expressed in the Samaritans who said, “ Now we believe … for we have heard Him ourselves.” 2. You may have believed in vain because you have walked carelessly and never sought to, reproduce the mind of Christ in your lives. “ Why call ye Me Lord, and do not the things which I say?” How foolish that invention of our times which would apply the microscope to the feeling and the telescope to the life! which would hang all the hope on the warmth with which we can say, “ Jesus is all,” and divert every anxiety from consistency of conduct! There is a random believing which has made haste after safety, and has forgotten to fight. Take seriously your besetting sin, and count nothing done till in the name of the risen Jesus you are victorious over that. (Dean Vaughan.) 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins. First of all First of all in his profoundest arguments; first of all in his richest encouragements; first of all in his severest, denunciations; first of all in his fervid exhortations; first of all in his impassioned expostulations; first of all in his enraptured, sometimes his entranced and enraptured and absorbed anticipations of the life and the immortality that was to come. If he wanted to induce a habit of self-denying liberality, mark him--thus he did it:--“ You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be made rich.” If he wanted to get men to forbear with one another, thus he did it:--“ Be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’ s sake, hath forgiven you.” When he wanted to get men to lead righteous, sober, and godly lives, thus he did it:--“ You are not your own, you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies and in your spirits, which are His.” If he wanted, whenever he had a congregation like this, to get the impenitent and the unbelieving out of the hands and out of the snare of the devil, thus be did it:--“ There is no other sacrifice for sin (don’ t trifle with that one), but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversary.” In a word, he determined not to know anything among men, but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Your teaching cannot get on without the alphabet; and Paul could not have got on without his alphabet. And thus it was evangelically, that wherever he went he gloried in nothing save the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. (W. Brock, D.D.)Originality in preaching Notice that the preacher does not make the gospel. If he makes it, it is not worth your having. Originality in preaching, if it be originality in the statement of doctrine, is falsehood. We are not makers and inventors; we are repeaters, we tell the message we have received. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The Apostle’ s creed 1. In these verses we have the earliest specimen of a Christian creed; the compendious form which Paul habitually used in order that, whatever else they forgot, they might not forget this, and to supply a test of the claims of those who assumed to speak in the name of Christ. Note how in 1 Corinthians 11:23, St. Paul introduces the form of words to be used at the Supper in precisely the same way he introduces the creed before us. The phrase seems to have been that by which St. Paul habitually introduced settled and formal statements of Divine truth. 2. But if this creed were already familiar, why repeat it here? Simply because the Corinthians needed to hear it again and again. There were those who held that matter was the root of all evil, that only as the spirit was redeemed from its thraldom to the body could men hope to rise into a happy spiritual life. And when Paul taught that the death and resurrection of Christ were virtually the death and resurrection of all who believed on Him, they concluded that “ the resurrection was past already.” Nay, as they reflected on the dignity of Him who had achieved this great spiritual redemption for them, they began to doubt whether the pure Son of God had ever been brought into immediate contact with aught so vile and corrupt as matter; whether all that pertains to His physical life was not a series of illusions. It was in this mood that St. Paul met them. I. The apostle’ s creed includes the three following facts.1. That Christ really died--that His death was a genuine historical event, the date, manner, and place of which were all perfectly well known. 2. That Christ was buried--a real human body being laid in an actual grave, a grave familiar to those who dwelt in Jerusalem. 3. That Christ has been raised, as could be proved by hundreds of witnesses still alive. These three facts are the cardinal facts of Christian history. To believe in these is, so far forth, to hold the catholic Christian faith. II. From these three facts the apostle draws two doctrinal sequences.1. Christ died; but to believe that will do no more for us than to believe that Lazarus died, unless we also believe that “ Christ died for our sins.” (1) The death of Christ was not a mere natural event. For in Him was no sin, and death is the natural consequence and proper wage of sin: in Him was “ the power of an endless life” over which death had no claim or sway. His death, therefore, unlike ours, was a willing sacrifice. He died for the sins of those who were dead in sin, that, coming into their death, He might give them His life. (2) But St. Paul does not embarrass his affirmation with any theory of the mode in which the death of Christ takes away sin. He is content to leave men to theorise as they will, if only they receive the cardinal fact. 2. The death and resurrection of Jesus are parts of an ordered scheme of a Divine economy. “ Christ died, has been raised again according to the Scriptures,” the law, the will of God. Now that the Hebrew Scriptures did foretell this (Isaiah 53:8-9; Psalms 16:10) is obvious. (1) Mark the value of this fact. It demonstrates that the sacrifice for our sins has found acceptance in heaven. The plan of the work wrought by Christ was designed by God. All the lines of His life were drawn by the hand of God before Christ took our flesh to atone our sin. And therefore to accept the redemption of Christ is to accept the redemption of God. We believe in Christ; we also believe in God. (2) But here again St. Paul quietly passes by all the subtleties of speculative minds. He simply declares the simple fact that the redeeming work of Christ was in accordance with the will of God. He neither affirms anything nor requires us to believe anything as to the mode in which God accepts the righteousness of Christ on behalf of guilty men. All he demands is, that we should find here an expression of the good-will of God; and he demands this because to believe that Jesus died for our sins will be no “ gospel” to us, unless we also believe that “ God sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins.” Conclusion: 1. The creed is brief enough, and simple enough when compared with the creeds of the Church, and yet, in the judgment of an inspired apostle, it contains all that is essential to the Christian faith. Nay, St. Paul goes even farther than this. There were those at Corinth who, as yet, could not adopt even this succinct and simple creed in its integrity. But instead of expelling them from the Church, or dooming them to everlasting perdition, he sets himself to teach them more perfectly the way of life. 2. The lessons of St. Paul’ s wise, gracious conduct are-- (1) The more accurate and full a man’ s knowledge of Christian doctrine, the greater will be his help, of an intellectual sort, to Christian obedience. And therefore we should spare no pains to get and to give him rounded and complete views of the truth as it is in Jesus. But we must not be impatient with him if he is slow to learn. (2) If we hold St. Paul’ s creed in St. Paul’ s spirit, we shall be very willing to hold as much more as we can. He delivered his creed “ first of all.” He delivered it first, because the fact that Christ died for our sins was of all facts the most momentous to sinful men--the very first thing they needed to learn. But if he taught this first, he also taught a good deal more than this. Having taught the simple lesson of the Cross, he was for ever urging men to go on to perfection. (S. Cox, D.D.)The glorious gospel I. Its great facts.1. The death.2. The burial.3. The resurrection of Christ. II. Their paramount importance.1. Sin expiated.2. Death conquered.3. Heaven opened. III. Their absolute certainty.1. Predicted.2. Attested.3. Delivered to us on the authority of the Scriptures. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The foundation facts of the gospel I. The facts of paul’ s gospel. “ First of all … I delivered” these things. And the “ first” not only points to the order of time, but to the order of importance.1. The system unfolded in the New Testament is a simple record of historical fact. It becomes a philosophy and a religions system; but it is first of all a story of something that took place in the world. If that be so, let preachers never forget that their business is to insist upon the truth of these fundamental facts. They must evolve all the deep meanings which are wrapped up in the facts; but they will not be faithful to their Lord unless there be the unfaltering proclamation--“ first of all,” etc. 2. This character of the gospel makes short work of a great deal that calls itself “ liberal Christianity.” We are told that it is quite possible to be a very good Christian, and reject the supernatural. It may be so, but I cannot understand how, if the fundamental character of Christian teaching be the proclamation of certain facts, a man who does not believe those facts has the right to call himself a Christian. 3. There is an explanation which turns the facts into a gospel. (1) Mark how “ that Christ died,” not Jesus. Christ is the name of an office, into which is condensed a whole system of truth, declaring that it is He who is the Apex, the Seal, and the ultimate Word of all Divine revelation. (2) “ He died for our sins.” Now, if the apostle had only said “ He died for us,” that might conceivably have meant that, in a multitude of different ways of example, etc., His death was of use to mankind. But when he says “ He died for our sins,” that expression has no meaning, unless it means that He died as the expiation for men’ s sins. (3) “ He died and rose … according to the Scriptures,” fulfilling the Divine purposes revealed from of old. These three things turn the narrative into a gospel, and without all three, the death of Christ is nothing to us, any more than the death of thousands of saintly men has been. Do you think that these twelve fishermen would ever have shaken the world if they bad gone out with the story of the Cross unless they had carried along with it the commentary? And do you suppose that the type of Christianity which slurs over the explanation, and so does not know what to do with the facts, will ever do much in the world, or will ever touch men? Let us liberalise our Christianity by all means, but do not let us evaporate it. II. What establishes the facts.1. This Epistle is one of the four letters of Paul which nobody disputes, and was written before the Gospels, probably within twenty-five years of the Crucifixion. (1) And what do we find alleged by it as the state of things at its date? That the belief in the Resurrection of Christ was universally taught in and accepted by all the Christian communities. And if that be so, there is not, between the moment when Paul penned these words and the day of Pentecost, a single chink in the history where you can insert such a tremendous innovation as the full-fledged belief in a resurrection coming in as something new. (2) Unless the belief that Christ had risen originated at the time of His death, there would never have been a Church at all. Take the nave out of the wheel and what becomes of the spokes? A dead Christ could never have been the basis of a living Church. 2. The contemporaneousness of the evidence is sufficiently established. What about its good faith? Anybody that knows an honest man when he sees him, anybody that has the least ear for the tone of sincerity and the accent of conviction, must say they may have been fanatics, but one thing is clear, they were not false witnesses for God. 3. What, then, about their competency? Their simplicity; their ignorance; their slowness to believe; their surprise when the fact first dawned upon them, all tend to make us certain that there was no hysterical turning of a wish into a fact, on the part of these men. Fancy five hundred people all at once smitten with the same mistake, imagining that they saw what they did not see! 4. “ He was buried.” Why does Paul introduce that amongst his facts? Because, if the grave was there, why did not the rulers put an end to the heresy by saying, “ Let us go and see if the body is there” ? If His body was not in the grave, what had become of it? If His friends stole it away, then they were deceivers of the worst type. If His enemies took it away, for which they had no motive, why did they not produce it and say, “ There is an answer to your nonsense” ? III. What the facts establish.1. Christ has risen from the dead; and that opens a door wide enough to admit all the rest of the gospel miracles. 2. The resurrection casts back a light upon the Cross, and we understand that His death is the life of the world, and that “ by His stripes we are healed.” 3. But, further, remember how He claimed to be the Son of God; how He demanded absolute obedience, trust, and love--and consider the resurrection as bearing on the reception or rejection of these tremendous claims. We are brought sharp up to this alternative--Christ rose from the dead, and was declared by the resurrection to be the Son of God with power; or Christ has not risen from the dead--and what then? Then He was either deceiver or deceived, and in either case has no right to my reverence and love. 4. The resurrection of Christ teaches us that life has nothing to do with organisation but exists apart from the body; that a man may pass from death and be unaltered in the substance of his being: and that the earthly house of our tabernacle may be fashioned like unto the glorious house in which He dwells now at the right hand of God. There is no other absolute proof of immortality but the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Primary Christian truths I. The primary truths which St Paul delivered to the Corinthians.1. Here is a solitary Jew visiting a great heathen city for the first time, to preach an entirely new religion. His bodily presence is weak, and his speech, compared to that of Greek rhetoricians, contemptible. He stands almost alone in a city, famous all over the world for luxury, immorality, and idolatry. A more remarkable conjuncture it is hard to conceive. And what did he say about the Founder of the new faith which he wanted them to receive in place of their ancient religion? (1) That He died, and died as a malefactor on the Cross. Why did St. Paul lay so much stress upon this? Because “ He died for our sins.” (2) That He rose from the dead. By this amazing miracle He proved, as He had frequently said He would, that He was the Saviour foretold in prophecy; that the satisfaction for sin He had made by His death was accepted by God the Father; that the work of our redemption was completed, and that death, as well as sin, was a conquered enemy. 2. Learn-- (1) What were the leading principles of that religion which, eighteen centuries ago, came forth from Palestine, and turned the world upside down. Christianity starved idolatry, and emptied the heathen temples, stopped gladiatorial combats, elevated the position of women, raised the whole tone of morality, and improved the condition of children and the poor. These are facts which we may safely challenge all the enemies of revealed religion to gainsay. What did it all? Not the mere publication of a higher code of duty, but the simple story of the Cross and the sepulchre. (2) What the foundation of our own personal religion must be, if we really want inward spiritual comfort. That the early Christians possessed such comfort is plain. These men had a firm grasp of the two great facts which St. Paul proclaimed “ first and foremost” to the Corinthians. II. The reasons why he was led to assign to these truths such a prominent position. There are three great facts which stare us in the face everywhere.1. Sin. When the sense of this is really awakened, what can cure it? Nothing has ever been found to do good to a sin-stricken soul but the sight of a Divine Mediator. 2. Sorrow. What shall best help man to meet and bear this? The cold lessons of Stoicism have no power in them. Just here, the Pauline doctrine of a risen Christ comes in with a marvellous power, and exactly meets our necessities. 3. Death. At no point do human religions and philosophies break down so completely as in the article of death. At the point where all man-made systems are weakest, there the gospel is strongest. Conclusion:1. Do not be ashamed of holding decided views about the first things--the foundation truths of religion. 2. The only way to do good is to walk in St. Paul’ s steps, and to tell men first, foremost, continually, that Jesus Christ died for their sins, and rose again for their justification. (Bp. Ryle.)On the atonement I. The expediency of Christ’ s interposition for our salvation may be inferred from the guilt and degradation of mankind. Once, indeed, there was, as it has been called, a golden age; but the same persons who have described it, also delineate the degeneracy of our race. Good men, according to one ancient writer, were scarce as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile. Another tells us, that peace had left the earth, truth taken her departure, and fidelity fled far away. In consulting the records of ages that are past, amiable qualities, no doubt, occasionally appear which attract our esteem, and splendid virtues are displayed which excite admiration; still, however, misconduct and crime are the prominent features. Yes, crimes follow in close succession, while virtues are rare like those beautiful flowers which spring up here and there among the weeds of the wilderness. They who contemplate the wandering idolaters in the wilds of Tartary, not to mention the ancient votaries of superstition in Greece and Rome; they who behold the Indian on the banks of the Ganges, or the Samoeide situated on the frozen ocean, must discern, in a striking point of view, the degraded state of humanity, and the expediency of that plan of salvation which the gospel unfolds. The degraded state of humanity, on account of the numberless violations of duty, is productive of many apprehensions and alarms. In the presence of a Being of infinite perfection man has trembled to appear, being timorous and dismayed, like the progenitor of our race, when he “ hid himself from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.” If he would still hope for happiness, after his manifold provocations, he suspects that he cannot demand it from the inflexible justice of the Almighty, but that he must intreat it from the tender mercy of his God. And how astonishing the display of the Divine mercy to the children of men! II. The expediency of His interposition may be deduced from the inefficacy of every other known mode of atonement for transgression. Much efficacy has been ascribed to repentance; but it is doubtful how far mere repentance is a reparation for wrong. Is not guilt often attended with punishment which repentance alone cannot remove? Has not the murderer been tortured with remorse, after sincerely deploring his crime, and firmly resolving to shed no more innocent blood? True penitence implies a complete change of life: but who ceases entirely to do evil? Erring man sins, repents, and sins again. Even his best resolutions are at times fallacious, and as the stream of brooks they pass away. Hence he is full of anxious disquietude, apprehensive that, while the corruptions of his nature continue, the Divine displeasure will also remain. Distrusting the efficacy of repentance for appeasing His anger, he naturally fears, as a great philosopher has justly remarked, lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of man, be prevailed on to spare the crime by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, some other sacrifice, some other atonement, he imagines, must be made for him beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the Divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold offences. But legal oblations were deficient in efficacy. It was not possible, according to the declaration of an apostle, that these should take away sin. A superior sacrifice was requisite, and a better atonement than these. On the Saviour’ s merits the believer reflects with hope and trust, gratitude and transport, in his last moments. III. The atonement was expedient to vindicate the honour of the Divine government. Mercy to the guilty without suitable expiation might produce ruinous effects. Were breach of order not punished, all would become anarchy and confusion. When the genius of justice seems to slumber for ages, she is scorned like the threatenings of Noah. Never will that Omnipotent Being, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity but with abhorrence, allow guilty mortals to trample on the majesty of His laws, and with impunity to set examples of crimes the most atrocious. That obnoxiousness to punishment which results from the violation of the Divine laws was transferred to Christ when He offered Himself as a substitute for sinners. And this substitution, completely voluntary on His part, and consequently highly meritorious, exalted in every point of view, instead of debasing the doctrine of “ the natural placability of the Divine Being.” IV. Our Saviour’ s interposition was expedient as being a subject of prophecy, and the Divine veracity interested of consequence in its accomplishment. Many hundred years before His appearance on earth, the interposition of our Redeemer was predicted with the utmost perspicuity. The whole scene of His sufferings passed before the prophets, and they describe them as circumstantially as if they had been spectators of the crucifixion on Mount Calvary. Without controversy, it was a great and mysterious sacrifice. But mystery is merely a relative term. To infinite intelligence all is plain in the whole economy of grace, the arrangement of providence, and the system of nature. Let us, who are children of the dust, receive with reverence every doctrine which is revealed from heaven, rather availing ourselves of the light of the sun, so to speak, than attempting to gaze on his glory. (T. Laurie, D.D.)Jesus Christ died for the sins of men I. It was violent and ignominious--a death by crucifixion. Christians living at this remote age of the Church, are, in some sense, disqualified to conceive of that extremity of pain and shame which attended an execution by the cross. We have been accustomed to associate with the cross whatever is stupendous in history, whatever is dear, and sacred, and sublime in truth. But it was far otherwise in that age, and with those nations among whom the apostles went forth to proclaim their crucified Lord. They knew the cross in no other character than as the instrument of the most horrible and most infamous of punishments. We cannot, therefore, but admire, that in the face of this strong and universal detestation, the apostles should so explicitly affirm and so earnestly iterate the fact of their Master’ s crucifixion. Far from drawing an oblivious veil over the Cross, far from attempting, by partial or enigmatical statements, to conceal the offensive fact, they assert it, they appeal to it, they rejoice and glory in it!1. The sincerity of the apostles, and their conviction that Jesus is the Saviour of the world. Had they been insincere, or had they been of doubtful mind, as to the Christ of God, the mode of their Master’ s death they might well have kept back. 2. We ourselves may take a lesson not to stumble at the scandal of the Cross. Happy they who, feeling it to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, are raised above the contempt of unbelieving men, and can glory in the Cross of Christ! II. The death of Christ was positive and real--not fictitious, not visionary: “ Christ died for our sins.” The importance of this part of apostolic instruction we should have much more distinctly perceived had we lived nearer the times of the apostles. Very early in the Christian Church, yea, even in the days of the apostles themselves, there arose a sect of people who denied the reality of the sufferings and death of the Holy Jesus, maintaining that the Jews spent their fury on a phantom sent from heaven to delude them, and that the real Christ was far removed above the reach of their malignant and cruel hands. Some of these persons had witnessed the miracles which the apostles wrought, and probably some of them those of the Saviour Himself; and we may readily conceive how the witnesses of such wonders should find it difficult to credit, that He who wrought them could ever fall a victim to wicked and impotent men! Be this as it may, the apostles, those wise master builders, were careful to guard against the fatal mistake we have mentioned. With what particularity of circumstance did the sacred historians narrate the manner of Messiah’ s death! III. These sufferings, and this death, were a vicarious, sacrificial offering to God, for the sins of the world.1. This account of the Saviour’ s death is required by the express and constant language of the inspired writers. See Isaiah 53:6; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2; Revelation 5:9. 2. This view of the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus is no less forced upon us by the narrative of the event. I will not ask where was the goodness, the compassion of the Divine nature? but I will ask where was its justice, its equity, its righteousness if the immaculate Jesus could bear all this weight of woe, and yet not sacrificially, not as a substitute, not as the Lamb of God, dying for the sins of the world? 3. It is when the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus are regarded in this light that they become, what the sacred Scriptures represent them, the highest display of the love of God to man. Conclusion:1. This vital, all-momentous Christian doctrine may serve to guide us in our behaviour towards those who deny the Lord that bought them. As men, and as men for whom Christ died, they are entitled to our respect, our pity, and our prayers; but never let us be found lending ourselves to countenance their fatal errors. 2. The exhibition of this great truth may serve to make known the aggravated guilt, the awful danger of an impenitent life. 3. This blessed doctrine ought especially to bring encouragement to every one who sincerely mourns on account of sin. 4. Finally, standing on this bright and eternal truth, I have a right to require that you unite with me in ascriptions of praise to the adorable Fountain of all this love to man. (J. Bromley.)Christ’ s death: the primary teaching of Christianity The phrase “ first of all” means not only first in point of time, but first in point of importance. If we ask why? the answer is that Christ’ s death is-- I. An unanswerable proof of the humanity of our Lord. It declares Him “ Son of Man,” and therefore not a phantom too high for fellowship and following. A conviction of this ought to be grasped by us, “ first of all,” because it is essential to our regarding Him--1. As Redeemer.2. As Friend. 3. As Example. II. The strongest utterance of Divine love. In following the life of Jesus we gaze on God’ s love in unwearied toil, in patient endurance, in keenest sympathy, in bitter tears. But gazing on Christ’ s death we see Divine love in agony, humiliation, shame. Man’ s highest love to God was when Abram offered his only son Isaac; God’ s deepest love to man is seen in giving His only begotten Son in sacrifice on Calvary. III. The mightiest force in the salvation of the world.1. He Himself relied on it: “ I, if I be lifted up, wilt draw all men.”2. The influence of His death on many at the crucifixion illustrates it.3. The history of Christianity testifies to it. (U. R. Thomas.)Christ’ s death a cardinal fact and doctrine Why did the Apostle Paul make it the very beginning of his preaching? Because-- I. It was most struck at by enemies. Though not a blind zealot who courted opposition, and though he knew how to become all things to all men, he was no trimmer; and when any known doctrine of his Master was impugned, that was the doctrine to which he devoted himself in affectionate defence. II. It is the distinguishing doctrine of Christianity. In Christianity there are many things common to it with Judaism, Mohammedanism, and even pure Theism; but here is a discriminative mark. III. It brings men down to the earth, in a sense of sin, weakness, shame, and danger. The gospel is a remedy. It seeks, not to improve what is sound, but to cure what is dying. It is a remedy which none accept but such as despair of other help. All who ever received the doctrine, received it on their knees. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted. IV. It is of all doctrines that which lies nearest the heart of Christian affection. It was uppermost in the heart of Paul; it throbbed in its inmost pulses. It reminds him of what he was, it makes him what he is. V. It is the precise object of saving faith. To be saved is the one thing needful. But to be saved one thing is necessary--faith. But in what? In this crucified but risen Redeemer. The man who believes in Him, with a spiritual apprehension of what he believes, is a saved man. VI. It is the key to all other doctrines. The symbol of Christianity is not the all-seeing eye, the creative hand, the sepulchre, the sceptre--but the Cross. With this you can explain all; but denying this, you go on till to be consistent you must deny all. VI. It is the great instrument of conversion. This is the very event the recital of which, even before the end of the generation then born, filled the Roman Empire with converts. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Conclusion:1. These things enable us to come to a judgment with regard to Churches and religious communities. The criterion is the relative place which they give to the doctrine of Christ’ s death. 2. In like manner, we may judge of books, preaching, and systems of theology. Try them by this question, What think ye of Christ? 3. We may here judge of our own personal religion. (J. W. Alexander, D.D.)The death of our Lord I. Its nature. We must affirm and believe that it was a true and proper death, such as that to which all mortals are by the law of our nature subjected. Such is expressed by all the terms appropriated to it, and by the ordinary signs of death. II. Its peculiar adjuncts ann respects of our lord’ s death, which commend it to our regard, and amplify its worth.1. Its being a result of God’ s eternal counsel and decree by which our Saviour was “ a Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.” 2. Its being a matter of free consent and compact between God and His Son. It was pre-ordained by God; and our Saviour’ s reply was: “ Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God.” 3. Its great excellency and efficacy, appearing from manifold types foreshadowed, and in divers prophecies foretold. 4. Its being compassed by God’ s especial providence directing and disposing it, though not without the active concurrence of men; so that although as a work of Divine Providence it was most admirable, yet as an act of human pravity it was the most heinous ever committed. 5. Its great commendation in the quality of our blessed Saviour’ s person: how valuable must be the death of one so incomparably transcendent in glory! III. The causes and principles whence it proceeded; which moved God to determine it, and our Lord to undertake it. There is in Scripture a threefold love of God towards men intimated.1. A general love to mankind antecedent to the sending of our Lord and His performances, being the ground of God’ s designing them. 2. A love, consequent on these, and procured by them. 3. A peculiar love of friendship and complacence, which God bears to all who repent of their sins and embrace the gospel. The like principles are said to move our Lord to undergo death for us. To these may be added our sins, as the meritorious causes of our Saviour’ s death: “ He was bruised for our iniquities.” He died for us, not only as men, but as sinful and wretched men. IV. The ends which it aims at.1. The illustration of God’ s glory, by displaying His most glorious perfections. 2. The dignifying and exaltation of our Lord Himself, which is what He Himself foresaw and foretold. 3. The salvation of mankind; which He procured by appeasing that wrath which God bears towards iniquity, and reconciling Him to men, who by sin were alienated from Him. 4. Other subordinate designs and effects are the reparation of God’ s honour; the ratification of the new covenant; the reconciliation of all in heaven and earth; the defeat of death, and of the powers of darkness; the engaging us to the practice of all righteousness and obedience; for attestation to, and confirmation of Divine truth. V. The practical influences which a consideration of this point should have on us.1. It should beget in us the highest degree of love and gratitude towards God and our Saviour. 2. It should raise in us great faith and hope in God, excluding all distrust or despair. 3. It should comfort and satisfy us in regard to our sins supposing that we heartily repent of them. 4. It discovers to us their heinousness, and thereby should move our detestation of them. 5. It should work in us a kindly contrition and remorse for them. 6. And engage us carefully to avoid them, as “ crucifying Him afresh.” 7. It should engage us to patience and resignation to the will of God. 8. It obliges us to the deepest mortification, in conformity with Christ’ s death, “ being with Him crucified” to the lusts of the flesh. 9. It is also a strong engagement to the fullest measure of charity towards our brethren. 10. We are hence obliged to yield ourselves wholly up to the service of our Saviour, to the promoting of His interest and glory; since “ we are not our own; being bought with a price,” etc. (I. Barrow, D.D.)The mystery of death I. Why did Christ die?1. Christ has bequeathed to us the invaluable legacy of a true ideal. We desire to know how to conduct ourselves, and our desire is satisfied by the ideal left by Christ. (1) There was in Him a sincerity and simple-mindedness which were yoked with restrained and yet unmeasured power. It is needless to say that whenever this is realised in life its effect is overwhelming. (2) There was in Him a noble-mindedness, a loftiness of tone which struck and moved. He touched the commonest things; whatever He touched He raised; He carried contentedly the atmosphere of eternity into the work and trials of time. (3) And what rendered, what renders, such an one so entirely approachable? His extraordinary devotion to the human race. 2. Now to complete the picture was needed the tragedy of death. Given absolute human perfection in a world death-stricken, then not merely, as Plato said, must the good man suffer at the hands of sinners, but the ideal must be perfected by submission to the common doom of death. (1) Why did He die? The deepest mystery of revelation is the mystery of atonement. Something within us tells us of the chasm between our personal acts and the fulfilment of a righteous law. That fulfilment is in the atoning sacrifice. (2) Wily did He die? Certainly to complete that sympathetic tie that binds Him to us all. II. What is the significance of death?1. Well, clearly death is a fact; a fact of intimate and universal interest. In a world of infinite possibilities, and therefore of immeasurable uncertainties, one fact is certain, we shall die. Death is the consummation of the tragedy of change. All is changing--we ourselves among the many that people this mysterious life. Now, death is the crown of change. All other changes are as nothing compared with this. There is a tragic strain in every life when, taking account of so much that has been full of love, and joy, and happiness, we say, “ It can never be again.” That tragic strain is heard in its deepest chords, in its fullest, most heart-rending music, in the mystery of death. 3. Death in one sense is an unparalleled catastrophe. The ancients when they thought of it at all, they gazed shuddering at a world of gloom. The philosophic thinkers, the tragic poets of the ancient world, tell the same story by their unvarying strain of sadness; do what they would, it was an unparalleled catastrophe. We Christians feel, in a sense, the same. Did you ever take from your shelves a long-closed volume, and shake out from its pages unawares a letter, written by a dear dead hand? Why for a moment are you all unmanned? “ Littera scripta manet,” yes, “ remains” but only to mock you. “ Where is he?” “ How does he feel to me?” “ Shall we meet again?” Whatever answer comes, this is certain; what once was is not. Think one moment more. On your table you have the portrait of your wife, your child, your friend. Are they near you? You scarcely care to look at it. Why? Because that sweet presence is about the house. Absence comes, you love the portrait better, for absence is the first, faint, saddening image of the great “ farewell” Let the grave divide. You cannot bear to part with that portrait now. It is all that you have left you of what was once so dear, so fair. III. If our Christianity be a grand reality, we must view even this saddening spectacle in the light” and atmosphere of the new creation.1. We are “ in Christ,” and Christ has died. Remembering this, I ask in an altogether happier temper, “ What is the significance of death?” (1) Certainly death even “ in Christ” is a punishment for sin. But as surely also, “ in Christ,” it takes a touch from the Passion, a power from the Precious Brood. “ Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (2) Death “ in Christ” is an escape from a world of trouble. We weep, and who can blame us? But for the dear one gone, we know it is blessed, “ taken away from the evil to come.” (3) Death in Christ is an accident in immortality. The great unity of life lasts on. And further, one of the bitterest pangs of life is the pang of the parting of friends. Now, death “ in Christ” is the entrance to a land where partings are no more. 2. There always is, there always must be, something awful in the thought that I must die. For death has had a fatal affinity to the Prince of Darkness. True: but the Passion of Christ conquers by transforming all. “ In Christ” it is still certainly awful, but it is blessed to die. If Christianity has made death more serious by revealing hidden facts of another life, has it not also--for this, too, we must remember--much to offer of compensating strength? To live in faith is to prepare to die. Christ by His death has given us a ground of confidence in His unflagging tenderness, and it is devotion to a person, it is faith in Jesus Christ which, as it conquers the world, so it subdues the grave. (Canon Knox-Little.)And that He was buried, and that He rose again. The mystery of the grave The memory of the burial of Jesus is stamped upon the heart of Christendom. There are many reasons why it should be so.1. Since our dear Lord is the Eternal Word, every act of that most sacred life and death has its special significance. 2. It is one of that store of mortal experiences laid up, not by omniscient power, but by personal trial, in the heart of God. 3. It stands in direct relation to that strange borderland, at the memory of whose twilight indistinctness voices are hushed, and dreams of ambition die. The question is, Why was He buried? I. Death is an act of solemn separation, but henceforth the grave to the Christian is a witness to--1. Its meaning. Well, the souls of the dead are robed in mystery; but this at least is clear, there is some special force in the separation for the ennobling of the body; some peculiar power for developing the energy of the soul. 2. Its limits. It cannot last. The strange dark sleep of death is the prelude to a resurrection morning. II. The burial night of the redeemer gives a tender touch of sentiment to the grave. Nor is this wrong. False sentiment is never so detestable as in religion. But Christianity, because it is a religion of Divine everlasting realities, rouses the deepest feeling and expresses them in sentiments of beauty, as the deep and massive energy of the ocean flings up the sun-bespangled spray. There is a sweet touch of the real truth of things expressed in a pure poetic sentiment, in the Christian certainty that death is sleep. Now the calm majestic rest of the Redeemer is the evident witness that there is this mystery in the grave. It is the sleeping-place of the weary. “ They rest from their labours.” Their graves are symbols of faithful service. Ah! as you love them you would not call them back again. (Canon Knox-Little.) 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 And that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. The infallible proofs of our Lord’ s resurrection I. The witnesses were--1. Numerous.2. Competent in respect of their acquaintance with Christ, their intelligence, their opportunities of seeing Him.3. Honest. II. Their evidence.1. Was immediately given.2. Where the facts occurred.3. Harmonious.4. Constantly repeated.5. Openly given while hundreds of them were alive.6. Steadily maintained even unto death. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The evidence for the resurrection As the resurrection of Christ is an historical fact, it is to be proved by historical evidence. The apostle therefore appeals to the testimony of competent witnesses. Confidence in such testimony is not founded on experience, but on the constitution of our nature. We are so constituted that we cannot refuse assent to the testimony of good men to a fact fairly within their knowledge. To render such testimony irresistible it is necessary--1. That the fact to be proved should be of a nature to admit of being certainly known. 2. That adequate opportunity be afforded to the witnesses to ascertain its nature, and to be satisfied of its verity. 3. That the witnesses be of sound mind and discretion. 4. That they be men of integrity. If these conditions be fulfilled, human testimony establishes the truth of a fact beyond reasonable doubt. If, however, in addition to these grounds of confidence, the witnesses give their testimony at the expense of great personal sacrifice, or confirm it with their blood; if, moreover, the occurrence of the fact in question had been predicted centuries before it came to pass; if it had produced effects not otherwise to be accounted for, effects extending to all ages and nations; if the system of doctrine with which that fact is connected so as to be implied in it, commends itself as true to the reason and conscience of men; and if God confirms not only the testimony of the original witnesses to the fact, but also the truth of the doctrines of which that fact is the necessary basis, by the demonstration of His Spirit, then it is insanity and wickedness to doubt it. All these considerations concur in proof of the resurrection of Christ, and render it the best authenticated event in the history of the world. (C. Hodge, D.D.)The appearances of Christ after His resurrection I. To whom permitted.1. To individuals.2. To the twelve.3. To a large body of disciples.4. To the faith of every true believer. II. With what design.1. To confirm the truth.2. Establish the faith of the disciples.3. Subdue opposition as in the case of Paul.4. Comfort and assure His people. (J. Lyth, D.D.)After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain,… but some are fallen asleep.--More than five hundred witnesses I. The fact.1. Not elsewhere recorded.2. Must have been well known.3. Was widely published when it could easily have been disproved.4. Was never disputed. II. Its importance.1. The witnesses of the resurrection were sufficiently numerous and diverse in point of intelligence, etc., to supply the severest test of its reality.2. To afford ample means of investigation.3. To satisfy the most persistent unbelief. III. Its lessons.1. Christ is the living Redeemer.2. Reveals Himself to many or few.3. Manifests Himself to His own as He does not unto the world.4. Shall finally be revealed when every eye shall see Him. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Appearances of the risen Redeemer We have here-- I. A mighty proof of the resurrection of Christ. Two or three witnesses, intellectually and morally competent, would be regarded in a court of justice as sufficient to establish any fact, but here are “ five hundred.” To suppose that they were all deceived would be to suppose one of the most stupendous miracles ever wrought. Mark, Paul states this fact when the “ greater part” were still alive. Would any man, under such circumstances, dare to have made the assertion had it not been an indisputable fact? II. An interesting view of the departure of good men from the world. “ Some are fallen asleep.” Sleep does not include extinction; must exclude suffering. Sleep is--1. A welcome rest. Sleep is refreshing. The work of a Christian here is hard work, the work of cultivation, building, battling, voyaging. Sleep reinvigorates the system, gives new tone to the frame, new vigour to the limb. The holy dead renew their strength in eternity. 2. An anticipation of waking. Men yield themselves to repose with the hope of morning; a morning in which they will go forth to the joys and duties of life with a new zest and energy. Who dreads sleep? No good man need dread death. III. A suggestive event in the experience of the apostle (verse 8). When did Paul see Christ? When Christ was in heaven (Acts 9:5). Then, though in heaven--1. He is cognisant of the movements of individual men. He knew all about Saul of Tarsus. 2. He can reveal Himself to men on earth. 3. His love for sinners is unabated. He spoke to Saul the persecutor, the “ chief of sinners.” (D. Thomas, D.D.)The character and death of the saints I. The character of those of whom it may be said when they die,” they are fallen asleep.” “ Brethren,” and not on account of a natural relationship, but of a spiritual union. They were brethren, because they had been united to “ the Elder Brother,” “ the First-born among many brethren” ; and their union to Him was the foundation of their union to each other. As brethren, there was a sameness in their principles--in their hopes--in their consolations--in their rejoicing when they beheld a risen Saviour. II. The state of such persons after death. Sleep denotes--1. Their rest. The time of sleep is the time of rest so sweet to the labouring man. The believer’ s life here is compared to a day; his departure home to a night. Hence the exhortation, “ Work while it is called day, for the night cometh when no man can work.” Every description of Christian character conveys the idea of labour. He has to run, to fight, to wrestle, etc.; and death is as the commencing of repose when the labour of the day is done. 2. Their safety. We could not go to rest at night if we knew that a robber would invade our dwelling-place, or a fire consume it, or a wind prostrate it, or a murderer attempt our lives. It is when we have barred our houses against intruders, and committed ourselves to the protection of our Creator, that we close our eyes in hope that we shall both lay ourselves down and sleep in peace and safety. The figure illustrates the perfect safety of those who have entered into peace. It is then that the believer enters into regions which will never be ruffled, and into glories which will never be obscured, and upon joys which will never be interrupted. For no enemy can harass there, no care oppress, no affliction try. And it is a precious remembrance, that the body is safe too. The body of the saint in the tomb is a precious deposit. Christ will rescue it from the darkness and the disgrace of the tomb, and will invest it with honour and immortality. 3. Their resurrection. When we sleep at night, it is with a hope of waking again in the morning. Conclusion: Let this subject--1. Comfort us concerning our departed friends.2. Comfort us under our present trials.3. Excite inquiries whether, if we die at this moment, it would be a sleep in Christ Jesus. (W. Hodson.)What the sight of the risen Christ makes life and death Consider-- I. What life may become to those who see the risen Christ. The word “ remain’’ not only tells us that the survivors were living, but the kind of life they lived. It is the same expression as “ If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” Now, “ that saying went abroad amongst the brethren,” and it may have been floating in Paul’ s memory, and have determined his selection of this expression. So, then, the sight of a risen Christ--1. Will make life calm and tranquil. Fancy one of these after that vision going home. How small and unworthy to disturb the heart in which the memory of that vision was burning would seem the things that otherwise would have been important and distracting! Our faith in the risen Christ ought to do the same thing for us. If we build our nests amidst the tossing branches of the world’ s trees, they will sway with every wind, and perhaps be blown away from their hold altogether. But we may build our nests in the clefts of the rock, like the doves, and be quiet, as they are. They who see Christ need not be troubled. The ship that is empty is tossed upon the ocean, that which is well laden is steady. The heart that has Christ for a passenger need not fear being rocked by any storm. Make Him your scale of importance, and nothing will be too small to demand and be worthy of the best efforts of your work, but nothing will be too great to sweep you away from the serenity of your faith. 2. Will lead to patient persistence in duty. The risen Christ is-- (1) The Pattern for the men who will not be turned aside from the path of duty by any obstacles, dangers, or threats. (2) The example of glory following upon faithfulness. (3) The helper of them that put their trust in Him. By patient continuance in well-doing let us commit the keeping of our souls to Him and abide in the calling wherewith we are called. 3. Leads to a life of calm expectancy. That vision sent these five hundred men home to make all the rest of their lives one patient expectation of the return of the Lord. These primitive Christians expected that Jesus Christ would come speedily. That expectation was disappointed in so far as the date was concerned, but after nineteen centuries it still remains true that all vigorous and vital Christian life must have in it the onward look. He has come, He will come; He has gone, He will come back. And for us life ought to be a confident expectance that when Be shall be manifested we also shall be manifested with Him in glory. II. What death becomes to those who have seen Christ risen from the dead. The Christian reason for calling death a sleep embraces a great deal more than the heathen reason for doing so, inasmuch as to most others who have used the word, death has been a sleep that knew no waking, whereas the Christian reason for employing the symbol is that it makes our waking sure. The New Testament scarcely ever employs the words dying and death for the act or for the state it keeps those grim words for the reality, the separation of the soul from God. But the reason why Christianity uses metaphors for death, is the opposite of the reason why the world uses them. The world is so afraid of dying that it durst not name the grim, ugly thing. The Christian faith is so little afraid of death, that it, does not think such a trivial matter worth calling by the name, but only names it “ falling asleep.” Even when the circumstances of that dropping off to slumber are painful and violent, the Bible still employs the term. Is it not striking that the first martyr dying a bloody death should have been said to fall asleep? If that be true of such a death, no physical pains of any kind make the sweet word inappropriate for any. We have here not only the designation of the act of dying, but that of the condition of the dead. They are fallen asleep, and they continue asleep. There lies in the figure the idea of-- 1. Repose. “ They rest from their labours.” In that sleep there are folded round the sleepers the arms of the Christ on whose bosom they rest, as an infant does on its first and happiest home, its mother’ s breast. 2. Continuous and conscious existence. It has been argued from this metaphor that the space between death and the resurrection is a period of unconsciousness, but the analogies seem to me to be in the opposite direction. A sleeping man does not cease to know himself to be, or to be himself. That consciousness of personal identity survives dreams sufficiently show us. And therefore they that sleep know themselves to be, and know where they rest. 3. Waking. Sleep is a parenthesis. If the night comes, the morning comes. They shall be satisfied when they awake with His likeness. Conclusion: Now, then, the risen Christ is the only ground of such hope, and faith in Him is the only state of mind which is entitled to cherish it. Nothing proves immortality except that open grave. Every other foundation is too weak to bear the weight of such a superstructure. The old Greek architects were often careless of the solidity of the soil on which they built their temple, and so many of them have fallen in ruins. The temple of immortality can be built only upon the rock of that proclamation, Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Fallen asleep Yes, the companions of Jesus died one by one. Consider the great value of such men and of all good men to the Church, and the loss caused by their removal. Yet no word of lamentation is used. It is not said that they have perished, or passed into the land of shades, but that “ they are fallen asleep.” The spirit is with Jesus in glory: the body rests till His appearing. “ Fallen asleep” suggests a very different idea from that which distressed the minds of the heathen when they thought of death. I. The figure here used.1. An act of the most natural kind: “ fallen asleep.” (1) It is the fit ending of a weary day.(2) It is not painful, but the end of pain.(3) It is so desirable that, if denied, we should pray for it.(4) It is most sweet when the place of our sleep is Jesus. 2. A state of which rest is the main ingredient. 3. A position of safety from a thousand dangers, such as beset the pilgrim, the worker, the warrior. 4. A condition by no means destructive. (1) Neither destroys existence, nor even injures it.(2) Should not be viewed as an evil. 5. A posture full of hope. (1) We shall awake from this sleep. (2) We shall awake without difficulty.(3) We shall arise greatly refreshed. II. The thoughts aroused by that figure.1. How did we treat those that are now asleep? (1) Did we value their living presence, work, and testimony?(2) Ought we not to be more kind to those who are yet alive? 2. How can we make up for the loss caused by their sleep? (1) Should we not fill their vacant places?(2) Should we not profit by their examples? 3. How fit that we should also be prepared to, fall asleep! (1) Is our house in order?(2) Is our heart in order?(3) Is our Christian work in order? 4. How much better that the faithful should fall asleep than that the wicked should die in their sins! 5. How patiently should we bear up under the labours and sufferings of the day, since there remaineth a rest for the people of God! III. The hopes confirmed by that figure.1. The sleepers are yet ours, even as those in the house who are asleep are numbered with the rest of the inhabitants. (1) They have the same life in them which dwells in us.(2) They are part of the same family. “ We are seven.”(3) They make up one church. “ One church above, beneath.” 2. The sleepers will yet awake. (1) Their Father’ s voice will arouse thrum.(2) They shall be awake indeed: full of health and energy.(3) They shall have new clothes to dress in.(4) They shall not again fall asleep. 3. The sleepers and ourselves will enjoy sweet fellowship. (1) Sleep does not destroy the love of brothers and sisters now.(2) We shall arise as one unbroken family, saved in the Lord. Conclusion:1. Let us not hopelessly sorrow over those asleep. 2. Let us not ourselves sleep till bed-time comes. 3. Let us not fear to sleep in such good company. Death as sleep God’ s finger touched him, and he slept. (Tennyson.)Sleep the time of growth Physiologists hold that it is during sleep chiefly that we grow; what may we not hope of such a sleep in such a bosom? (S. T. Coleridge.)After that He was seen of James.--Seen of James Words soon read and soon forgotten, but conveying to the thoughtful reader a world of instruction. “ All Scripture … is profitable,” etc. These incidental allusions are meant to challenge inquiry. I. Who was James? “ The Lord’ s brother” (Galatians 1:19). Whether the son of Mary, or the son of Joseph by a former wife, or our Lord’ s first cousin, it is impossible to say with certainty. All we can say is that the relationship was very close. The incident is illustrative of Christ’ s mindfulness of His brethren according to the flesh. The touching incident on the Cross is paralleled here. In His humiliation He did not forget His mother. In His glory He did not forget His brethren. Nor does He now (Hebrews 4:13-15). II. When did Christ appear to James? Placed where this brief account of the incident is, we should infer that it occurred during the forty days, and Acts 1:14 confirms this. The appearance was therefore--1. Early.2. Tangible. III. Why did Christ appear to James? To convict and remove his unbelief. Christ appeared to three types of unbelievers.1. To Thomas the pious sceptic.2. To Paul the inveterate disbeliever.3. To James the scoffing unbeliever (John 7:3-5)--the hardest of all, as experience shows, to convince. In each case, however, unbelief gave way to faith. Faith is the faculty which grasps the meaning of the vision of Christ; but the appearance of Christ is necessary to quicken the faith which apprehends it. Christ now appears to unbelievers in His Word, providence, etc. Lord, open their eyes! IV. What effect did the appearance of Christ have on James? This we can estimate by what James afterwards became.1. President of the Church at Jerusalem. 2. The chairman of the Apostolic Synod.3. The writer of the most practical Epistle of the New Testament. The vision of Christ is the inspiration of all Christian usefulness. The original disciples (John 1:1-51) and Paul saw Christ for themselves, hence were able to describe Him to others and to lead others to Him. V. What is the evidential value of this appearance? James was called the Just, by Jews as well as Christians. No man was less likely to deceive or be deceived. (J. W. Burn.) 1 Corinthians 15:8-11 And last of all He was seen of me also. Me also Who?1. The self-righteous Pharisee (Philippians 3:1-21).2. The bloodthirsty persecutor (Acts 7:58; Acts 8:1; Acts 9:1; Acts 22:4; Acts 26:10-11).3. The inveterate unbeliever (Acts 26:14; 1 Timothy 1:13). Conclusion:1. Who then can despair of any one?2. Who then need despair? (1 Timothy 1:14-16). (J. Lyth, D.D.)Christ’ s last appearance I. Granted to paul.1. It was real.2. Necessary as a seal of apostleship. 3. Supplies additional and valuable evidence of the resurrection. II. Granted under special circumstances.1. As to one born out of due time, after the other apostles.2. Under unexpected circumstances.3. Before his religious character was fully developed. III. Granted for our instruction.1. As an example of special grace.2. Requiring special gratitude and humility. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The Epiphany to Saul of Tarsus This was the occasion of his conversion. The apostle has left on record a statement of the magnitude of the revolution (Philippians 3:1-21). How shall we account for it? The answers may all be reduced to three. That Paul’ s assertion that he had seen the risen Lord was-- I. A falsehood. This was the position taken by the Deists of the last century. But what motive could Paul have for asserting it? For even men of the feeblest intellects do not act without motives. But here is a man of powerful intellect persisting for thirty years in maintaining what he knew all the time to be an absolute lie. What was his motive then?1. Was it hope of advancement? But to confess the Nazarene was the surest way to be defeated in every worldly ambition. 2. Was it love of rank, or wealth, or power, or ease? But to be a follower of the Galilean was to make morally certain toil, poverty, persecution, and death (1 Corinthians 4:9-13; 2 Corinthians 11:23-27). Thus on this theory of imposture we see a man of marvellous mental breadth and moral height deliberately inventing a useless, monstrous lie, and persistently adhering to it for a quarter of a century, conscious that his only reward was pauperism, disgrace, torture, martyrdom, everlasting damnation. II. An hallucination. This is the position of the modern philosophical sceptic, driven from the theory of imposture by its unspeakable absurdity. “ Paul,” it is said, “ was a man of nervous, excitable organisation, and conscientious to the last degree. Coming into contact with the Christians, their arguments, their self-sacrifice, their patient behaviour under persecution, made a profound impression on his susceptible nature. Doubts began to arise, and being a Pharisee, he would have no difficulty with the doctrine of the resurrection. Then the thrilling question came, May not Jesus really have risen? The more he pondered it, the more it distressed him: the very conscientiousness which had made him a persecutor began to torture him with the thought that he might be fighting against God. Agonised by the possibility, in his inflamed imagination he fancied he saw in the heavens the form of the risen Jesus,” etc. But survey the character of Paul. Susceptible, imaginative, impetuous, he certainly was, yet the man never lived who had his faculties more completely under control or used them with more sagacity. Mark the characteristics of a fanatic.1. Looseness of reasoning and wildness of statement. But the man never lived who reasoned more accurately than Paul (Romans; Galatians, e.g.). 2. Utopian dreaming. But no man ever took broader, deeper, more sensible views of the problems of society, or discussed them with finer acumen than Paul: witness his exposition of the great law of edification (Romans 12:1-21; Romans 13:1-14; Romans 14:1-23; Romans 15:1-33), and his discussion of cases of conscience (chaps. 6-14). 3. Impatience, intolerance, obstinacy, recklessness. Paul was the antithesis of all this--witness his gentleness, patience, tolerance, magnanimity, humility, dignity, courtesy, deference to authority, repudiation of outward form, self-forgetfulness in his devotion to others. 4. Destructiveness. But the man never lived who was more absolutely a constructor of society than Paul. Next his Divine Master Himself, the apostle is the most controlling force of Christendom. If hallucination is capable of producing such characters as St. Paul, would God all men were flighty, all earth a Bedlam. III. A fact. This is the position of the Christian Church, and explains everything. It explains--1. His sudden, radical revolution of character; the risen Lord had appeared to him and beckoned him up to a diviner life. 2. His cosmopolitan ministration (Acts 26:16-18). 3. His claim to be an apostle (chap. 9:1). 4. His passionate sense of fellowship with the slain and risen Lord (Galatians 2:20). 5. His career of self-sacrifice (2 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Corinthians 4:10). 6. His being persecuted in turn by those who had been his fellow-persecutors. Deny that Epiphany, and you have in the career of Paul the most inexplicable of character-problems. Admit that Epiphany, and all is clear. (W. E. Boardman, D.D.)St. Paul Combining this opinion of himself with the story of his conversion (Acts 9:1-43.) we may learn-- I. Not to be astonished if we have to change our opinions as we grow older. When we are young we are very positive about this thing and that, and ready to quarrel with any who differs from us, as St. Paul was. But let ten, twenty years roll over us, and we may find our opinions utterly changed, and look back on ourselves with astonishment and shame as St. Paul did. II. Not to be ashamed of changing our minds: but if we find ourselves to be in the wrong, to confess it honestly, as St. Paul did. What a fearful wrench and humiliation to have to change his mind on all matters in heaven and earth! What must it not have cost him to throw up all his friends and to feel that henceforth they must look upon him as a madman, an infidel, an enemy! But he faced the struggle and conquered, and the consequence was that he had, in time, many Christian friends for each Jewish friend that he had lost. III. That God will not impute to us our early follies and mistakes, if only there be in us, as there was in St. Paul, the heart which longs to know what is true and right, and bravely acts up to what it knows. In all things, whether right or wrong, St. Paul was an honest, earnest seeker after truth and righteousness. He had not yet the grace of Christ, which is love to his fellow-men; and therefore his works were not pleasing to God. His empty forms and ceremonies could not please God. His persecuting the Church had plainly the nature of sin. But there was something which God had put in him, and that was, the honest and good heart. In that Christ sowed the word of God, and, behold, it sprang up and bore fruit over all Christian nations to this day. Keep, therefore, if you have it, the honest and good heart. If you have it not, pray for it earnestly. IV. That though God has forgiven a man, that is no reason that he should forgive himself.1. The common teaching now is, that if a man finds, or fancies, that God has forgiven him, he may forgive himself at once, and go boasting about the world as if he had never sinned at all. That is one extreme. 2. The opposite extreme is that of many old saints who could not forgive themselves at all, but passed their whole lives in misery, bewailing their sins till their dying day. That was a mistake. 3. Run into neither extreme. Look at your past lives as St. Paul looked at his. There is no sentimental melancholy in him. He is saved, and he knows it. He is hopeful, joyful; but whenever he speaks of his past life it is with noble shame and sorrow. So let us do. Let us thank God cheerfully for the present. Let us look on hopefully to the future; let us not look back too much at the past, or rake up old follies which have been pardoned and done away. But let us thank God whenever He thinks fit to show us the past, and bring our sin to our remembrance; and learn as St. Paul learnt, to be charitable to all who have not yet learnt the wisdom which God has taught to us. (C. Kingsley, M.A.)For I am the least of the apostles, … I persecuted the Church of God.--Paul an example I. Of special grace. A persecutor--1. Saved by extraordinary interposition.2. Called to be an apostle.3. Specially privileged. II. Of special gratitude.1. He attributes all to the grace of God.2. Labours more abundantly.3. Maintains a spirit of profound humility before God and his brethren. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The conversion of Paul viewed in reference to his office I. It was a triumph over the enemy. When God would convert the world, opening the door of faith to the Gentiles, who was the chosen instrument? Not one of Christ’ s first followers. He put forth His hand into the very midst of the persecutors of His Son, and seized upon the most strenuous among them. II. It was a suitable introduction to his office. It was an expressive emblem of the nature of God’ s general dealings with the race of man. What are we all but rebels against God and enemies of the truth? (Colossians 1:21). Who then could so appropriately fulfil the purpose of Him who came to call sinners to repentance as one who had persecuted the Church of God? (1 Timothy 1:16). III. His previous course of life rendered him, perhaps, after his conversion, more fit an instrument of God’ s purposes towards the Gentiles, as well as a more striking specimen of it. We know that St. Paul’ s successes were not his, but through “ the grace of God which was with him.” Still, God makes use of human means, and it is allowable to inquire what these were, and why St. Paul was employed to convert the heathen world rather than St. James or St. John. Doubtless his intellectual endowments and acquirements fitted him for his office. Yet there was something in his previous religious history which especially disciplined him to be “ all things to all men.” His awful rashness and blindness, his rage against the worshippers of Christ, then his strange conversion, then the three years during which he was left to meditate in private on all that had happened, and to anticipate the future--all this constituted a peculiar preparation for the office of preaching to a lost world dead in sin. It gave him an extended insight, on the one hand, into the ways and designs of Providence, and, on the other, into the workings of sin in the human heart, and the various modes of thinking in which the mind is actually trained. It taught him not to despair of the worst sinners, and to enter into the various temptations to which human nature is exposed. It wrought in him a profound humility, which disposed him to bear meekly the abundance of the revelations given him; and it imparted to him a practical wisdom how to apply them to the conversion of others, so as to be the comforter, help, and guide of his brethren.1. Now I do not allege that St. Paul’ s previous sins made him a more spiritual Christian afterwards, but rendered him more fitted, when converted, to reclaim others, just as a knowledge of languages fits a man for the office of missionary, without tending in any degree to make him a better man. If we take two men equally advanced in grace, one of the two would preach to a variety of men with the greater success who had the greater experience of temptation, the war of flesh and spirit, sin, and victory over sin. 2. But St. Paul’ s conversion is very far from holding out any encouragement to those who live in sin, or any self-satisfaction to those who have lived in it; as if their present or former disobedience could be a gain to them. Why was mercy shown to Saul? “ Because he did it ignorantly in unbelief.” And why was he “ enabled” to preach the gospel? “ Because Christ counted him faithful.” He differed from other enemies of Christ in this, that he kept a clear conscience, and habitually obeyed God according to his knowledge. Hear his own account of himself (Acts 26:1; Acts 23:19; Acts 26:5). Here is no ease, no self-indulgent habits, no wilful sin against the light. The Holy Spirit is quenched by open transgressions of conscience and by contempt of His authority. But, when men err in ignorance, they are not left by the God of all grace. God leads them on to the light, in spite of their errors in faith, if they continue strictly to obey what they believe to be His will. (J. H. Newman, D.D.)Self depreciation must not hinder duty There are people who appreciate themselves intellectually who are constantly depreciating themselves religiously. “ I am not worthy to be a Church member--a Christian disciple.” What pastor does not have to encounter that again and again ad nauseam? What preacher who does not at times, and sincerely, say within himself, “ I am only an abortion of a man, I am not worthy to be called a preacher.” But as Paul had to be an apostle, notwithstanding his self-depreciation, so you and I have to be that to which we are called, or deny the Christ of God as an all-sufficient Saviour. It would be an act of deliberate disobedience if I, feeling my utter unworthiness to be a preacher of the gospel, should yet refuse to do it when I am called, inasmuch as I believe, intellectually and heartily, that Jesus is God’ s Christ, and came to be man’ s Redeemer and Saviour. But is it not equally an act of deliberate disobedience on the part of some of you to refuse to confess Christ before men, simply because you feel that you are not worthy to do it? (Reuen Thomas, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace was not in vain.The grace of God I. The grace bestowed.1. Conversion.2. Privilege.3. Apostleship. II. Its efficiency. It worked--1. In him.2. With him.3. By him. III. Its expression.1. More abundant labours.2. Profound humility. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The grace of God 1. There are those who regard themselves as simply the effects of natural causes. 2. Others are wont to attribute their character to social and civil influences, the times and institutions in which they live. 3. There are men of great individuality and power of character who are apt to attribute to their own selves the whole skill and efficiency of their life. 4. The truly Christian man is wont to combine all these as composing a Divine providence; and led by the Spirit of God to see his life and character in its relations to God’ s superintending power and grace, profoundly sympathises with the text. See it illustrated in-- I. Our personal history. No devout man can calmly consider many of the circumstances of his history without profoundly feeling that he has been guided by a wisdom greater than his own; that he is the creature of a God of goodness, who has led him in a way that he knew not.1. The family is the grand starting place. (1) To many of you family influences seem to be the very best and brightest gifts of God. Your parents were faithful, and their whole life was an engineering for yours. Even where men go wrong, there are golden threads which were wound around their hearts by a mother’ s hand, and which, unwind as they may, never break, and often become a clue by which they find their way back again to God. (2) But there are many who had no such parental influences. And where a child’ s parents exert all their power upon him for evil, and he nevertheless grows up to honour and piety, I think he is a miracle. Such a man may truly say, “ By the grace of God I, of all men, am what I am.” 2. Many of us have been powerfully influenced by others than parents. (1) It may have been a brother, a sister, or an aunt who was more than father or mother to you. Or perhaps God raised up a labourer in your neighbourhood, a servant, some praying and holy nurse, some young associate, to do you a service which has stood connected with the safety of the whole of your after life. (2) On the other hand, does there not rise up before every one’ s memory some malign influence of associate, schoolmate, shopmate, whose shadow darkened the prospect of the soul? We often say, “ I wonder that I was not ruined by such a one.” And we should have been but for the grace of God. 3. Everybody can remember scenes in his early life which threatened his destruction, and many, when reflecting upon these things, are constrained to say, “ I never could understand why I was not crushed.” They would have been had not the way in which they were going been obstructed by the grace of God. If I had not been taken out of Boston at one time, I do not see what would have prevented me from going to destruction. I look back upon moments of wilfulness, which would have led me to serious disaster, had not events in the providence of God transpired to check me in my course and change my career. 4. Men can often look back and see that the whore complexion of their life depended upon a single choice. Nor do they know why, out of a hundred choices, they should have taken the only one that seems to them to be connected with prosperity and integrity. 5. Many can recall painful crises of their life when everything depended on a single throw. Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred were against you, and God gave you that hundredth, and by His grace you are what you are. Life is like the experience of an Alpine climber. He is met by dangers at every step; and when the ascent is accomplished, he can count twenty places where he might have been dashed in pieces for one where he was absolutely safe. II. Our inward nature and dispositions. I suppose there are but few who do not feel that there are laid up in them terrible powers, which, if set on fire of evil, would be desolation to their life. There are criminals of every description to-day whose early tendencies were as good as yours, and who had as favourable a chance as you had of making upright citizens. Now, why are they in their situation, and you in yours? There has been a grace of God which for mysterious reasons has led me in the way in which I have walked, and left them in the way in which they have walked. III. The development of the Divine life in the soul. When a man looks back upon the beginning of his Christian life, and considers what his then state was, he wonders more and more at the way in which God leads him in his religious experience. At each stage, as we have gone on from one grace to another, from one victory to another, we are obliged to say, “ By the grace of God I am what I am” Conclusion:1. This is, in other words, the doctrine of man’ s dependence upon God. It may be so stated as to be offensive, but when it is rightfully stated it is as sweet as the doctrine of love between a child and a parent. It is natural for the weak to lean; but I think none want to lean so much as the strong. The practice of constantly depending upon God is not opposed to activity, but promotes it. 2. Out of this retrospect, and out of this sense of our dependence upon God in the past for all that we have been and all that we have had, there ought to spring a future. That same hand that has taken care of you; that same power that has taken the obstacles out of your way, or marvellously put them in your way; that same Providence that has conducted you thus far through life, yet exists, and rules over the affairs of men. “ By Thy grace, O God, in the past, I have been what I have been; and by Thy grace I desire, in the future, to be what Thou wilt have me to be. Glorify Thyself, and I shall be satisfied.” ( H. W. Beecher.)The grace of God and Paul This account which Paul gives of himself implies--1. That a great change had been wrought in him.2. That he was thankfully conscious of it.3. That God was the Author of it. By the grace of God-- I. Paul was not what he had been. He had been the “ chief of sinners” ; he was now a humble Christian. “ He was before a blasphemer, persecutor, injurious, but he obtained mercy.” “ And such were some of us, but we are washed,” etc. The grace of God softens the heart, cleanseth the soul, sweetens the temper, etc. By its power the lion becomes a lamb, the vulture a dove, etc. II. Paul was what he did not deserve to be. In 1 Corinthians 15:9 he tells us he is “ not meet to be called an apostle,” etc. If the grace of God were more fully believed in and better understood, and the necessity for it more deeply felt by men, their works of merit Would not be set up in the place of the Saviour, as is too often the case. All whose hearts are changed, whose sins are forgiven, whose souls are redeemed, who are children of God, are great debtors to grace. III. Paul was what he never expected to be. He did not expect to, be converted to Christ on his way to Damascus; and so “ men who have come to scoff have remained to pray.” He is found of some who seek Him not. Many who are now ministers, teachers, missionaries, were called, perhaps unexpectedly, to the work. Conclusion: What God by His grace did for Paul, He can do for us. In Paul’ s conversion “ Jesus Christ shows forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which shall hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.” The grace of God prepared Paul for life or death--it can do this for us. (G. Type.)The grace of God, its nature and effects St. Paul does not say, “ By creative power,” nor “ By providence” ; but. “ By the grace of God I am,” etc., and adding, “ And the grace which,” etc. Consider-- I. What the grace of God is. The free favour of God shown in enlightening, sanctifying, and comforting influence of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 10:29; Hebrews 12:28; Hebrews 13:9; etc.). II. How this grace is bestowed.1. Through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:4).2. Freely--implied in the word “ grace” (Romans 11:5).3. In use of means--sacraments, Scriptures, prayer.4. So as not to be distinguishable from working of human mind.5. Continuously, from moment to moment. III. The effects of this grace.1. Transition from state of sin and death into state of life and holiness.2. Progressive sanctification.3. Desire to promote spiritual welfare of others.4. Confidence in God as loving Father.5. Cheerful submission to will of God.6. Joyful expectation of future glory. IV. Practical use of text.1. First clause suggests question, “ Can I say?” etc. (1) Every one of us may say, By the creative power of God I am, etc. a man endowed with reason and human affections, capable not only of sensual, but also of intellectual and social enjoyment. (2) And, By the providence of God I am etc. (3) But can every one say, By the grace of God I am what I am--a Christian? Do my daily habits of life, objects of pursuit, etc., afford evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit upon my soul? Whosoever is absorbed with cares, etc., of world, or is addicted to uncleanness, Sabbath-breaking, or intemperance, cannot say, By the grace of God, etc. 2. To those who can say with the apostle, By the grace, etc., the second clause suggests another question: Has the grace bestowed produced its due effects? Exhortation to self-examination as to particulars, and to diligence lest we fail of, or fall from, the grace of God. 3. Do we habitually ascribe every good thought, word, and deed to the grace of God? Danger lest Satan turn good works into sin by causing us to take the merit of them. (Bp. Perry.)The grace of God not received in vain I. The wonderful grace which the apostle had received, and which changed him from what he had been to what he now was. These words stand in close connection with 1 Corinthians 15:9. 1. He had been an exceedingly great and atrocious sinner. 2. He became an eminent apostle of Christ. 3. Hence it was, as he here asserts, the free grace of God that caused the wonderful change (Romans 1:5). II. The powerful effect which the grace paul had received had produced in him.1. It was not ineffectual and fruitless--“ not in vain” (Isaiah 55:11; Acts 20:24; 2 Corinthians 6:1). 2. It produced more abundant labours in the cause of God. “ I laboured more abundantly than they all.” He does not say this in a way of boasting, but merely to show the powerful effects of Divine grace, and to silence the objections of those who could not allow that he was an apostle at all, and who he elsewhere says, had compelled him to glory. The other apostles were all unspeakably indebted to the grace of Christ, but none so much as Saul the persecutor; and never in any man was that observation of our Lord more remarkably verified, “ To whom much is forgiven, the same loveth much” (2 Corinthians 11:23, etc.). And he was none the less laborious as a private Christian in mortifying sin and in following after holiness (1 Corinthians 9:26-27; Philippians 3:13). III. The care which the apostle takes to give all the glory of his extraordinary labours to God and His grace.1. He renounces the thought that he was to be considered as the performer of these labours. “ I laboured; yet not I.” 2. He ascribes them to the same grace of God by which he was made a Christian and an apostle. “ Not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Conclusion: Learn--1. That the wonderful grace shown to Saul the persecutor is well adapted to excite hope in the worst of sinners, and encourage them in supplicating Divine mercy. There is nothing “ too hard for the Lord.” 2. Wherever grace is bestowed, it effects a happy and a holy change. 3. That the doctrine of being saved by grace, instead of leading us to indulge in sin or sloth, forms the strongest argument why we should be holy and diligent. (Essex Congregational, Remembrancer.)Grace, all through Two or three years before the death of the Rev. John Newton, an aged brother in the ministry called on him to breakfast. Family prayer followed; and the portion of Scripture for the day was read to him. In it occurred the verse, “ By the grace of Goal I am what I am.” After the reading of this text, he uttered this affecting soliloquy: “ I am not what I ought to be--ah! how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon, shall I put off mortality, and, with mortality, all sin and imperfection. Yet though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say I am not what I once was--a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.’” Grace, daily, reception of We must ever keep in mind that we are only channels for grace, we are not even pools and reservoirs, we must have a continual supply of Divine gifts. We must have an abiding union with the Fountain of all good, or we should soon run dry, and only as fresh streams flow into us are we kept from becoming mere dry beds of sand and mire, but we know that He will never fail us. This spring is high up in heaven near the eternal throne, and it ripples down through the means of grace from the God of all grace, and we receive daily of His fulness grace for grace. Joyful truth for us, that because He lives we must live also. Till Jesus bows His head in death, we, the living members of His mystic body, can never droop nor fail. His might is our strength, His resources our never-failing supply. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Grace, dying and living “ How is it,” said a pious but anxiously worrying lady, “ that I never can feel willing to die? I know I ought; I trust Christ fully, I believe in Him, and yet I don’ t feel willing to die.” And it troubled her for years. She went to her pastor about it, and went to many friends and counsellors, but all to no purpose. No one could help her. At last an old coloured “ auntie” heard her lamentations, and broke out upon her with, “ Why, it isn’ t dying grace ye want, child; it’ s living grace ye want. Go ahead and do your work, and let the dying take its own time and its own grace.” The lady was comforted, and thenceforth was content to grow and go step by step. When she was dying she found abundant supply of dying grace. (Christian Age.)Grace in men’ s changes I. The spiritual experience of a believer is not his own work, but the operation of Divine grace.1. From the bias of our fallen nature and the fallen inclinations of the flesh, we are indisposed towards spiritual things. All Scripture and experience tend to negative the idea that man has in himself any predisposition for the things of God. If he had, man might have rendered the offices of the Spirit of grace unnecessary. But as Paul saith, so may every man, “ In me” --that is, in my flesh--“ dwelleth no good thing.” Yet was he, therefore, incapable of grace? No. “ Without Me ye can do nothing,” said the Lord; but lest we should be discouraged at the conviction of our utter weakness, the apostle tells us, “ I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” 2. Perhaps some of us have lost sight of this doctrine. We may have been labouring in our own strength to conform to the image of Christ, and yet our repeated failures in the attempt have not humbled us to the confession, “ This thing is too high for me.” If so, then let us believe it, and accept the Word of God, “ No man cometh unto the Father but by Me” ; and on the other hand, “ No man can come unto Me, except the Father, who hath sent Me, draw him.” There is the mutual co-operation between the Father and Son. The Son attracts the penitent soul to the Father, and the Father gives the pardoned soul to the Son. II. Divine grace begets in the genuine subject of it an actual and felt change of views and practices: “ By the grace of God I am what I am.”1. This proposition maybe proved, as well as illustrated, by some individual instances from Scripture. Cf. Nicodemus, the Philippian gaoler, the sorcerers (Acts 19:1), and Paul. Thus, in these instances, we behold the miracles of mercy and omnipotence of grace to change and transform the hardest heart, and that the reality of such change in the inner man was demonstrated by an unmistakable change of the whole outer man. “ If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is (not only) a new creature, but old things are passed away, and all things are become new.” 2. But here I must point out an error, namely, the habit of satisfying ourselves with the reduction of some lusts, while we indemnify the deceitful heart by the indulgence of others; and thus the whole labour is rendered in vain. A soul can be slain by one sin as fatally as by a thousand. One stone could slay a Goliath as surely as a thousand spears. “ The body of sin must be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Conclusion: The subject suggests an application to--1. The man of the world who sometimes excuses his frailties, saying, “ I did not make myself. Blame not me that ‘ I am what I am.’ How could I be otherwise?” Now it is freely granted that if God had proposed no remedy for the radical defect in our moral structure, we might say, “ Lord, I knew Thee that Thou art a hard Man, reaping where Thou hast not sown,” etc. But when, on the contrary, a scheme of salvation is offered, what a wickedness to say that God has done nothing for us, and therefore we are at liberty to retaliate and do nothing for God! 2. To that man who thinks “ he is rich, and increased in goods, and in need of nothing,” the terms of the text cannot apply. He has no right to say, “ By the grace of God I am what I am” ; but “ by the corruption of nature, by the deceitfulness of the flesh, by the subtilty of Satan, by the vanity and iniquity of my own heart, and by the temptations of the world, but not by the grace of God, ‘ I am what I am.’” 3. The man of God is justified in the profession, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” From first to last it was throughout the work of His grace that made you what you are. See that you “ receive not the grace of God in vain.” (J. B. Owen, M.A.)Divine grace I. The reasons why Divine grace is indispensably requisite to our spiritual welfare. The progress of real religion is not only promoted by the discoveries of the understanding, but by the state of the affections. The passions of love, hope, and fear are the springs of universal obedience; and these, when directed to proper objects, regulate and amend the conduct. But the carnal mind is enmity with God. This fallen and depraved state of human nature is one of the principal reasons why Divine grace is indispensably requisite to our spiritual welfare. Without the efficacious operations of the Holy Spirit our prayers will be languid and formal, our devotions careless and insipid, and our lives irregular and unholy. What would be the state of the mind in spiritual concerns, unaided by the powerful operations of Divine grace? Would not the world, with all its fascinating charms, intervene between us and purer communion with God? Are we not, with every warning around us of the vanity of life, too much attached to present objects? Where shall we find that holy zeal which is requisite to our perseverance in a Christian course without the continual aids of Divine grace? As genuine piety is implanted in the heart by the Spirit of God, so it requires the constant aids of the same Divine power to cherish the growth of pure and undefiled religion. II. The manner in which the grace of God operates on the mind. It usually begins by alarming the conscience and bringing us to a proper view of our danger. The value and worth of the immortal soul is then correctly understood, and the mind is alive to its chief and most important interests (Psalms 4:6). Divine grace not only operates on the mind by causing us to think seriously, when we were before careless and indifferent; but it enlightens the understanding and corrects the errors of a mistaken judgment. The efficacious aids of this Divine power are also manifest, not only in enlarging the faculties of reason, and adding a luminous distinction to the acuter determinations of the judgment, but also in directing our choice to proper objects and fixing the affections on heavenly pursuits. The grace of God operates on the mind by inclining it to the love of holiness; by cherishing every mild, peaceable, charitable, and contented disposition which flows from the real dictates of pure and undefiled religion. Divine grace does not operate on the mind by lessening our pleasures, but by regulating them. It teaches us to distinguish between those joys which are lasting, and those which only flatter to destroy. This principle, when really implanted in the heart, will uniformly influence and amend the life. Though it will not in this militant state constitute us perfect, yet it will habitually render us altered men in our character, conduct, and pursuits. III. The benefits which have uniformly arisen from the Divine assistance, and the duties incumbent on all who happily enjoy it. First, the mind is prepared by the influence of Divine grace for the performance of works acceptable and pleasing to God. Further, from the powerful operations of Divine grace, we shall derive not only the lively exercise of faith, genuine repentance, but the continued improvement in every Christian virtue. Our minds will be hereby elevated to the blissful enjoyment of communion with God. Let us now, then, consider the duties which are incumbent on all who happily enjoy this Divine aid. It is our duty to be diligent in the use of those means which are connected with the end. It is not in the busy crowd, or amidst the trifling and the gay, that we can have the sublimer joys of religion; but it is by a willing obedience to the commands of God, a course of habitual piety, and having our minds with our whole affections the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is our duty to avoid every pursuit which may divide us from God or lessen our love of practical holiness. Let us watch against the beginnings of vice, and more especially those temptations to which either our calling in life or our natural inclination peculiarly expose us. (J. Grose, A.M.)On the Divine influence in the conversion of sinners The conversion of Paul is not to be made the test of conversion in general. His case was peculiar. Deeply prejudiced against the name and religion of Christ, as well as by the mode of his education, as by the example of his connections and associates, more than ordinary means were necessary to reconcile him to the doctrines of the Cross. But we who have lived under the light of the gospel, and been encouraged from our infancy to revere its doctrines and laws, have no more warrant to look for any immediate and palpable manifestation of Divine power to convert us from sin to holiness, than to expect the gifts of prophecy or of tongues. I. We are bound gratefully to acknowledge the influence of Divine grace, both in directing our attention to “ the things which belong to our peace,” and in aiding our exertions of obedience to the will of God. Generally speaking, those who are “ transformed by the renewing of their minds,” perceive nothing which they can distinguish as a special impulse from above; but in the exercise of their rational faculties and in the use of appointed means are eventually brought to “ choose that good part which cannot be taken from them.” It can hardly be otherwise, at least, with such as are virtuously educated. Without any assignable human cause, preparatory to such an effect, a deep conviction of guilt and danger, accompanied with anxious desires and endeavours to obtain forgiveness and salvation, suddenly succeed a course of heedless inattention, neglect, and rebellion. II. Without personal exertions of obedience to the will of God, none can obtain the character and rewards of the faithful. Lessons:1. We are led to remark the necessity of Divine assistance in the conversion and sanctification of sinful men. 2. We are taught that no trust is to be reposed in any impressions, however serious, or in any resolutions, however sincere, at the moment, which do not issue in a life of uniform virtue and godliness. 3. We are furnished with a test by which to ascertain and determine our spiritual state. 4. We may infer the paramount obligations imposed upon us to exercise charity toward all who exemplify an undissembled attachment to the cause of Christ--though they presume not confidently to describe the manner nor even to assert the reality of their “ deliverance from darkness to light,” etc. (John Foster, D.D.)A good man’ s estimate of himself “ By the grace of God I am” --and he is going to say what he is, but he bethinks himself, as if he had reflected. “ No! I will leave other people to say what that is! By the grace of God I am--what I am: whatever that be. And all that I have to say is that God made me, and that I helped Him. For the grace of God which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. You Corinthians may judge what the product is. I tell you how it has come about.” I. As to the one power that makes men. “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” Now that word “ grace” has got to be worn threadbare, and to mean next to nothing in the minds of many. But Paul had a very definite idea of what he meant by it; and what he meant by it was a very large thing, as being the only thing which will transform character and produce fruit that a man need not be ashamed of. The grace of God, in Paul’ s use of the words, implies these two things which are connected as root and product--the active love of God in exercise towards us sinful creatures, and the gifts with which that love comes full charged to men. What is it that men need most for noble and pure living? These two things precisely: motive and power to carry out the dictates of conscience. Every man in the world knows enough of duty and of right to be a far nobler man than any man in the world is. And it is not for want of clear convictions of duty, it is not for want of recognised patterns of life, that men go wrong; but it is because there are these two things lacking, motives for nobler service, and power to do and be what they know they ought to be. And precisely here Paul’ s gospel comes in, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” That grace, considered in its two sides of love and of giving, supplies all that we want.. It supplies motives. There is nothing that will bend a man’ s will like the recognition of Divine love which it is blessedness to come in contact with, and to obey. You may try to sway him by motives of advantage and self-interest, and there is no adequate response. You cannot soften a heart by the hammers of the law. You cannot force a man to do right by brandishing before him the whip that punishes doing wrong. You cannot sway the will by anything but the heart; and when you can touch that deepest spring it moves the whole mass. The other aspect of this same great word is, in like manner, that which we need. What men want is, first of all, the will to be noble and good; and, second, the power to carry out the will. It is God that worketh in us both the willing and the doing. I venture to affirm that there is no power known, either to thinkers, or philanthropists, or doctrinaires, or strivers after excellence in the world, which will lift a life to such heights of beauty and self-sacrificing nobility as will the power that comes to us by communication of the grace that is in Jesus Christ. And now, if that be true, what follows? Surely this, that for all you have, in any measure, caught a glimpse of what you ought to be, and have been more or less vainly trying to realise your ideal, there is a better way than the way of self-centred and self-dependent effort. All noble life is a building up by slow degrees from the foundation. And can you and I complete the task with our own limited resources and our own feeble strengths? Will not “ all that pass by begin to mock” us and say, “ this man began to build and was not able to finish” ? I need not, I suppose, linger to remind you what important and large lessons these thoughts carry, not only for men who are trying to work at the task of mending and making their own characters, but on the larger scale, for all who seek to benefit and elevate their fellows. Nothing will truly re-form humanity, society, the nation, the city, except that which re-creates the individual; “ the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” entering into their midst. II. Notice the lesson we get here as to how we should think of our own attainments. Well, then, it is not necessary for a man to be ignorant, or to pretend that he is ignorant, of what he can do. We hear a great deal about the unconsciousness of genius. There is a partial truth in it; and possibly the highest examples of power and success, in any department of mental or intellectual effort, are unaware of their achievements and stature. But if a man can do a certain kind of service, there is no harm whatever in his recognising the fact that he can do it. But the less we think about ourselves, in any way, the better. The more entire our recognition of the influx of grace on which we depend for keeping our reservoir full, the less likelihood there will be of touchy self-assertion, the less likelihood of the misuse of the powers that we have. If we are to do much for God, if we are to keep what we have already attained, we must make a conscious effort to copy these two things, which marked the apostle’ s estimate of himself--a distinct recognition that we are only reservoirs and nothing more--“ What hast thou that thou hast not received? Why then dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” --and a humble waiving aside of the attempt to determine what it is that we are. III. Lastly, one word about the responsibility for our co-operation with the grace, in order to the accomplishment of its results. “ The grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain,” says Paul. “ Not I, but the grace of God which was with me, and so I laboured more abundantly than they all.” That is to say, God in His giving love, Christ with His ever out-flowing Spirit, play round our hearts and desire to enter. But the grace, the love, the gifts of the love may all be put away by our unfaithfulness, by our non-receptivity, by our misuse, and by our negligence. Paul yielded himself to the grace that was brought to work upon him. Paul said, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” This man, because he knew that he had submitted himself to the often painful searching, crucifying, self-restraining, and stimulating influences of the gospel and Spirit of Christ, could say, “ God’ s grace has made me what I am, and I helped Him to make me.” And can you say anything like that? Take your life. In how many of its deeds has there been present the consciousness of God and His love? Is it the grace of God, or nature and self and the world and the flesh that have made you what you are? Oh, let us cultivate the sense of our need of this Divine help, for it does not come where men do not know how weak they are, and how much they want it. The mountain tops are high. Yes, and they are dry; there is no water there. The rivers run in the green valleys deep down. “ God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Let us see that we open our hearts to the reception of these quickening and cleansing influences, for it is possible for us to cover ourselves over with such an impenetrable covering that that grace cannot pass through it. Let us see to it that we keep ourselves in close contact with the foundation of all this grace. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Grace, power of Grace infuseth a spirit of activity into a person; grace doth not lie dormant in the soul; it is not a sleepy habit, but it makes a Christian like a seraphim, swift-winged in his heavenly motions. Grace is like fire, it makes one burn in love to God. (T. Watson.)Wonders of grace I recollect the story of a traveller who at night shouted to the keeper of a toll-bridge to let the gate rise that he might pass through. There was a terrific storm raging, the night was deluged in darkness, and the man could scarcely be prevailed upon, in his tremor, to come out. When he did come out, he found the traveller on the bridge side of the gate, and said to him, “ In the name of God, where did you come from?” The traveller replied, “ I crossed the bridge.” The man kept him that night, and the next morning took him back and showed him the bridge which he had crossed. The planks had all been taken up, so that nothing remained except the string-pieces, which were stretched from one side to the other of the chasm. The story has it that his faithful steed took the centre one of these beams, a hundred feet, beneath which was rushing a swollen flood, and, dark as the night was, carried him safely across. The man at the time did not know but that he was crossing a regular bridge; and in the morning, when he saw how near be came to being dashed to pieces, he fainted. Are there not many, men that can look back and see that the providence of God has carried them across the bridge over the pit of destruction on a single beam? (H. W. Beecher.)The conversion of St. Paul I. Some aspects of the apostle’ s life and character in relation to which he would be likely to use such language. By the grace of God--1. He was a pardoned and recovered sinner. (1) It could not be other than a matter of grateful reflection to this apostle that he was no longer, as he once was, a persecutor, blasphemer, etc. “ Who or what opened my eyes? Did the wisdom of Gamaliel do it? Did my own strong powers of reasoning do it? Did the light of nature or of conscience do it? No, it was light from heaven--fresh, direct, undesired, unsought. It was convincing light, for I was made to perceive it was the Lord which spake to me out of the fire. It was melting and subduing light, for, in a moment, all my iron enmities of soul were broken. Tell me, ye that think lightly of the grace of God, what hand had Saul of Tarsus in all this?” (2) And to the same Divine influence would the apostle refer the change of mind and spirit and temper which followed upon his conversion. His original temperament was not one to fall in easily with the meekness and gentleness of the gospel character. He was proud, he was hasty, he was self-confident, he was impatient of contradiction or control. Not without much struggle and effort, we may be sure, was a spirit like this brought into subjection (Romans 7:1-25). The grace which makes strong in Christ Jesus comes to the rescue, and to the agonising and bewildered cry, “ Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” his own soul makes answer, “ I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” His grace is sufficient for me. 2. He changed his former views as a Pharisee, and embraced those which he now held as to what would constitute acceptance before God. His own account of himself is in Philippians 3:4-6. Yet how does he estimate these privileges on becoming a Christian? Why, as worthless, and something more (Philippians 3:7-9). 3. He became a chosen vessel unto Christ to preach and teach in His name. Certainly nothing could be more unlikely than the choice of such a man to such a work. The feeling wrought upon him powerfully to the end of his days. “ Necessity was laid upon me,” etc. II. Practical lessons.1. It is a law of all worlds that, in the way of anything good in His creatures, God alone maketh us to differ. I might go through the ranks of the Seraphim, and single out one who stood nearest to the throne, and were I to say to him, “ What raised thee thus high?” he would make answer, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” I might thread my way through the mansions of the just, but if I should be betrayed into the exclamation, “ What a recompense for good works is here!” in an instant ten thousand voices would testify aloud, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” Or I might go to one who, through fourscore years of temptation and trail, had ever walked with God; or to one whose unselfish Christianity had prompted him to spend and be spent in his Master’ s service; or to one laid low by suffering; yet if I should say, “ There must be a claim to moral worthiness here,” again the response would be, “ By the grace of God I am what I am.” 2. All true conversion must have its origin in a Divine influence. If I am very far gone from original righteousness, nothing but an influence from on high can bring me back; if “ dead in trespasses and sins,” nothing short of a regenerating process can give me life. 3. True conversion extends to the whole character. Look at the proof of this in Paul. See it-- (1) In the illumination of his mind. He had studied under Gamaliel, yet after his conversion he counts all foolishness. (2) In his ambitions, and aims, and preferences. Things which had been once a gain to him are now counted as loss. (3) In the change in his moral temperament, in the casting off of a bitter, furious hate for a spirit of religious gentleness. And in like manner should we look for the evidence of the spiritual change in improved moral character. Conversion implies not only something turned from, but something turned to--from the world to Christ, from sin to holiness, etc. 4. The grace which has made you what you are alone can make you what you desire to be-- (1) Established in holiness.(2) Prepared for death.(3) meet for your appearing before the great white throne. He who begins must finish. (D. Moore, M.A.)I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.-- Individuality in the Christian life (text, and Galatians 2:20):--“ I, yet not I” is characteristic of Paul. He knew himself. He did not ignore self. In his life, as a man and an apostle, he took the proportions of his own personality, and at the same time confessed that all the operative grace came from God. The “ I” within him was regenerated. I. Every man must recognise his own individuality. Some say that this is an intuition, and others say that it is a conviction which comes with experience. But to us the constituent elements in self are more important. Though there is a generic likeness among men, yet each person has his own individuality. One is calm, another explosive; one logical, another intuitional; one prosaic, another poetic. Hence we have a Shakespeare and Milton, a Bacon and a Butler. II. Regeneration does not destroy this individuality. If Christ be in you, you are “ a new creature.” Your features are the same, though sweetened or calmed, perhaps, by the peace of God; your intellect is the same, though quickened by the new life of faith and hope. If cheerful, you are still cheerful; and if born with tendencies to melancholy, you will still contend with the temptation to despondency. Peter was Peter to the last. The same vehemency that Paul the persecutor exhibited was shown in Paul the apostle. In the annual regeneration of the visible creation, in the plumage and song of the bird, and in the renewing verdure of field and garden, we see pictured the unity yet beautiful variety which prevails in the world which God has made. III. The spirit of God in his work in a man uses this individuality. It colours and qualifies the whole activity of a person.1. See how it appears in the writing of the Scriptures. They are Divinely inspired, and yet the human and Divine elements are mingled. David well says, “ His word was in my tongue.” Moses was wise in the wisdom of Egypt, and shows it in his writings. The lyrics of David differ from the proverbs of Solomon. The grandeur of Isaiah contrasts with the homely verse of the rude herdsman Amos. The pungency of James and the weird magnificence of Revelation again show the “ I and yet not I.” 2. So in character. Peter was fitted to minister to the circumcision and Paul to the Gentiles. Augustine, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, ,etc., reveal the same principle. In the Church to-day one is fitted for Sunday-school teaching and another for mission work. As in an orchestra each instrument has its place, and its absence cannot be filled by a different instrument, so there is a place and work for each in the Church. We must give full play to the inspiring and directing Spirit of God within us. 3. We must trace the actual results to the operation of the Spirit in us and through us. Give glory to Him who uses us. In a factory the machinery does variety of work, but derives all its motive power from the engine. Is there anything too hard for God? Conclusion:1. Respect your individuality, and at the same time give God the glory of what you are and do. Live your own life, and do not fancy that your experience is to be like your neighbour’ s. David was powerless wearing the armour of Saul. 2. Be sure that Christ is in you and in your work. He is an inner fountain, and He will evoke your life as a productive and perennial stream. 3. Let your humble and hearty utterance ever be, “ Not unto us, not unto us,” etc. (W. M. Taylor, D.D.)Individuality and self-negation I. The text is expressive of the highest type of character.1. The more “ self” and the less “ self” there is in any man the nobler he is. This sounds paradoxical, but man himself is a paradox. He “ lives, moves, and has his being” in Another, and yet is distinct from that Other. This distinctive personality God seeks to fill out of His own fulness with a rich and noble life. 2. Our ordinary language bears witness to this truth. “ Self-will,” “ self-seeking,” “ self-indulgence” we regard as the essence of vice, and “ self-sacrifice” as the climax of virtue; yet we commend “ self-reliance.” We admire “ self-possession,” but laugh at “ self-complacency” ; and, whilst disgusted by “ self-righteousness,” we honour “ self-respect.” We say of a man that he “ quite lost himself” --“ quite forgot himself.” We may be uttering either the highest praise or the severest censure. And although we commonly speak of “ self-consciousness” as a fault, yet we feel that a certain consciousness of self is inseparable from all true greatness. 3. In our estimates of men we pronounce that character defective which lacks either individuality or self-negation. (1) Here, e.g., is a man whose individuality is clearly enough marked; he thinks for himself, but he may pride himself on his position or his attainments instead of recognising his “ stewardship” and using his gifts for the benefit of his brethren. He can say “ I,” but he has yet to learn to say “ Not I.” Here, again, is a man who is always deferring to the opinions of others; but then he has no decided opinions of his own. He is often giving up his own will, but he has but little will to give up. He is modest, but sometimes he is too modest even to do his duty. In such a man there may be much to love, but he would he a nobler man if, whilst still able to say “ Not I,” he could also say “ I.” Humility is most divine when it is the lowliness of a great soul. And self-sacrifice is lofty in proportion to the greatness and worth of that “ self” which is sacrificed. 4. The text is well illustrated by the character of the apostle. We scarcely know which is the more striking--Paul’ s individuality or his self-negation. He says that he is “ the least of all the apostles,” and then that he is “ not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.” He is conscious of his own unworthiness, and also of the high honour which God has put upon him. His letters are full of dignified self-assertion and noble independence, and yet he speaks as if he had no separate life at all. “ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” 5. We see the positive and negative poles of the same attractive nobleness in Christ Himself. “ My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.” In one view Christ’ s ministry was a self-proclamation. “ I am the Light of the world,” etc. In another view it was a self-negation. “ I can of Mine own self do nothing.” II. Notice how the Divine education of man is designed and fitted to produce this type of character.1. The human creature is at first thrown entirely upon the care of others, and yet from the first also he has a body distinctively his own. The processes of “ isolation” and association go on together. His needs, desires, pleasures, pains, and, alas! sins, all lead him to say “ I” ; his dependence on his mother’ s love, etc., leads him to feel “ Not I.” 2. This education God carries on throughout our whole life. (1) He brings us into circumstances when we must think and act for ourselves, but He likewise so binds us together that we are often impelled to yield up our own will to the will of others. Love and duty call upon us to sacrifice self for the good of our brethren, and yet they sometimes call us to stand upon our rights. (2) God has also brought man into such relations with the material world as to give him a feeling at once of greatness and of nothingness. Look at the capacities of the body in health and its impotence in disease. You listen to the poet, philosopher, or man of science, and you see the height to which the mind may rise; you walk through the wards of the asylum, and see the depth to which it may fall! How insignificant, too--and yet how mighty--is man in presence of the powers of nature! And in front of those forces the very condition of our being able to stand up and say “ I” is that we learn to say “ Not I.” (3) God carries on this same process of education through the medium of His providence. His “ gentleness makes us great” --evoking our powers, whilst the awfulness of His mysterious visitations humbles us to the dust. (4) The gospel of Christ is fitted to develop this same composite character. Its word is, “ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” And every Christian is taught by the gospel to recognise his individual responsibility and privileges, and thus he may well feel and say “ I.” On the other hand the gospel also cultivates the spirit which leads a man to say “ Not I.” Its very first call addresses him as a sinner, and summons him to repentance. The faith which “ justifies” “ excludes boasting.” He is also perpetually reminded that he is “ not his own,” and that he is bound to present his whole nature as a “ living sacrifice” to God. And the gospel leads him into Christian fellowship, and summons him to the help of the brethren. 3. And this same process of education God carries on even unto the end. To die--it is to feel how insignificant I am--how the great world will move on all the same without me! and yet it is to feel the preciousness of my own being as I never felt it before. Alone I must pass through this valley of the shadow, and yet this lonely road is the great highway which all the generations of men have trod before me. 4. This same feeling--“ I, yet not I” --will abide with each of the redeemed in heaven. Heaven is not selfish enjoyment. The “ faithful servant” enters into “ the joy of his Lord.” Yet heaven is not “ absorption into the Divine essence.” There is no destruction of personality in “ the Father’ s house.” Each child has a “ place prepared” for him. (T. C. Finlayson, D.D.)The privilege of working No one ever had--1. A more vivid sense of the grandeur of the work which God was carrying on in the earth than the Apostle Paul. 2. More of esprit de corps. He knew well who was working with him, and understood perfectly the grandeur of the campaign on which he had entered. 3. So grand and magnificent a sense of the final outcome of God’ s moral government over this world as he. Learn-- (1) This subject may comfort those who are weary of work, or, rather, rebuke and convert them. (2) It is our duty to work as long as there is work, and we have strength to do it. (H. W. Beecher.) 1 Corinthians 15:11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.The truly important in preaching. 1. Not the preacher, but the truth preached.2. Not the hearing, but the belief of the truth. (J. Lyth, D.D.)An example of a faithful ministry and the conduct of a faithful people I. A faithful ministry.1. The gospel preached. Not scientific or philosophical discussions occupied St. Paul’ s ministry or that of his fellow apostles, but he proclaimed-- (1) Christ’ s atoning death. (2) Christ’ s certified resurrection. These must be ever the themes of a true minister. 2. The character possessed. (1) Humility breathes through the words, “ I am not worthy to be called an apostle.” What true minister of God feels his worthiness to handle those sacred truths? (2) Dependence on Divine grace. “ By the grace of God I am what I am,” etc. 3. The work accomplished. “ I laboured more abundantly than they all.” Follow the zealous work of St. Paul from Damascus to Rome. Labour for God must be earnest and abundant. II. A faithful people. “ So ye believed.” The death and resurrection of Christ preached in the spirit of humility, and the co-operation of the grace of God, “ the grace of God with me,” should ever produce this result--faith. (Clerical World.) 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection? If there be no resurrection 1. Our religion is not based upon opinions, but upon facts. Whatever your “ views” may be, is a small matter; what are the facts of the case? 2. When those outside the Church deny the gospel facts, we are not at all astonished; they are unbelievers, and they are acting out their own profession. But when men inside the Church deny the resurrection, then is our soul stirred within us. Paul’ s argument begins, If there be no resurrection-- I. Christ is not risen. Now--1. The apostles bore witness that Christ had risen. 2. “ But,” says one, “ Christ might rise, and yet not His people.” Not so, for Christ is one with His people. When Adam sinned, the whole human race fell in him, for they were one with him. In Adam all died. Now, Christ is the second Adam, and all believers are one with Him; and because He rose again, they must rise again; He lives and they shall live also. II. Apostolic preaching falls (1 Corinthians 15:14-15). For--1. The apostles were false witnesses. When a man bears false witness, he usually has a motive for doing so. What motive had these men? Surely they were the most extraordinary false witnesses who ever lived. What were their morals? 2. If we suppose that they were mistaken about this matter, we must suspect their witness about everything else; and the only logical result is to give up the New Testament altogether. III. Faith becomes delusion.1. It is the belief of a lie. Take this home to yourselves: if He did not literally rise, this faith of yours, that gives you comfort, which has renewed you in heart and life, which you believe is leading you home to heaven, must be abandoned; it is fixed on a falsehood. 2. The trial will be too great for faith to endure, since it has for the very keystone of the arch the resurrection of Christ from the dead. If He did not rise, your faith rests on what never happened; and certainly your faith will not bear that trial. When you are sure that “ the Lord is risen indeed,” then you feel that there is something beneath your foot that does not stir. IV. Ye are yet in your sins. For then--1. There is no atonement made. Christ died, and by His death obtained the full discharge of all our obligations. But His rising again was the token that He had discharged the whole of the dread liabilities. 2. There is no life for those who are in Christ. If He were still slumbering in the grave, where would have been the life that now makes us joyful, and now makes us aspire after heavenly things? V. All the pious dead have perished.1. One phrase must be explained by the previous one; if Christ is not risen, they are yet in their sins. They died, and they told us that they were blood-washed and forgiven; but if Christ rose not from the dead, there is no saint who ever died, who has had any real hope; he has died under a delusion, and he has perished. 2. If Christ be not raised, the godly dead are yet in their sins, and they can never rise; for, if Christ did not rise they cannot. VI. Our source of joy is gone (1 Corinthians 15:19).1. Believers have given up sensuous joys. If we consider the mirth of the worldling to be no better than the husks of swine, and there be no bread for us, in the fact that Christ rose from the dead, then we are hungry indeed. 2. We have now learned superior things--holiness, communion with God. Now if, after having tasted these superior joys, they all turn out to be nothing, then we are indeed of all men the most miserable. 3. We have had high hopes that have made our hearts leap for joy. We have been transported with the full conviction that our eyes “ shall see the King in His beauty,” etc., and if that be not sure, then are we of all men the most miserable. Conclusion: Everything hinges upon a fact, and if that is not a fact, it is all up with us.1. Our eternal hopes do not depend upon our moral condition; for these men in Corinth would not have been better or worse if Christ had not risen from the dead. The reason of your being safe is not the result of what you are, but of what He did. 2. The great hope you have does not hinge even upon your spiritual state. You must be born again; but still, your ultimate hope is not in what you are spiritually, but in what He is. 3. Your being forgiven and saved depends not upon your sincerity and your earnestness. You may be very sincere, and very earnest, and yet be wrong all the while. (C. H. Spurgeon.)If there be no resurrection, what then?-- The method which the apostle employs is that known as the argument from the absurdity of the contrary supposition. He points out five such absurdities. I. Christ himself is still dead (1 Corinthians 15:13). The suborned report of the Roman guard is true, the Sanhedrin after all is triumphant, ye are worshipping a corpse. II. The gospel is a delusion (1 Corinthians 15:14; 1 Corinthians 15:17).1. “ Vain is our preaching.” 2. “ Vain also is your faith.” Ye have been putting your trust in a myth. 3. “ Ye are still in your sins.” The proof that Jesus is the Saviour lies in His resurrection (Romans 1:4); but if Jesus has not been raised, then He is not the Son of God--you have no Saviour, your fate is still among the unforgiven. III. The apostles are liars (1 Corinthians 15:15). Observe how St. Paul puts his own personal veracity and that of his fellow apostles into direct issue. IV. The saintly are lost (1 Corinthians 15:18). If it is the fact that there can be no resurrection of the dead, then Christian morality is a failure. The Heavenly Father puts no difference between His children and the beasts that perish. V. The life in Christ is a misery (1 Corinthians 15:19.) To profess Christ means self-denial, persecution, martyrdom. Moreover, Christianity awakens within us loftiest aspirations which can never be satisfied in this world. But if there is no resurrection, then we Christians are of all men the most to be pitied. (G. D. Boardman, D.D.)Supposing Jesus be not raised from the dead, what then? I. As to the apostles. We are “ false witnesses” --liars, the whole twelve of us. Peter heard Him say, “ Lovest thou Me?” I heard Him ask, “ Why persecutest thou Me?” We have risked our lives for the pleasure of telling a lie which has landed us in poverty and disgrace. What do you take us for? Men now try hard to find some standing-place between the assertion that Jesus was the Christ of God, and positive denial of His claims. They talk of His “ moral influence” ; what! the moral influence of an impostor? Jesus claimed a place which no ordinary man can claim without blasphemy. Yet we never accuse Him of blasphemy or madness. II. As to the disciples.1. Theirs was an empty faith, and they were yet in their sins. An empty or void faith is one which has no centre, an empty thing like a soap-bubble, a filmy something floating in vacancy. For faith must have a person to whom to cling. Faith towards God will be strong or weak according to our conception of what God is. But if God sent Christ into this world, and then treated Him so as the Crucifixion indicates, what kind of a God is that to trust in? What an appalling mystery that the Creator, whom we call Father, should evolve into being such a soul as that of Jesus, simply to dash it into nothingness! No doubt of this being a devil’ s world then. 2. They were yet in their sins. The idea that Christ lifts us out of our sins, is one of which we cannot make too much. But if man is to die the death of the swine, why may he not live the life of the swine? III. As to those who have fallen asleep. They are perished. Fallen asleep in Christ! Suggestive word--so full of rest and quietude! But those of whom we thus think are not in this beatific state. If Christ be not risen, they are perished. We cannot believe that. Our loved ones are gone hence. Their going was a loss to us; oh, how great! Where is he? she? The idea of immortality is in my mind. How did it get there? How could it get into a mind not preadapted to receive it? Then this intuition is corroborated by Jesus the Christ. “ In My Father’ s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.” “ Now see,” says one, “ what these sceptics require us to believe: that all those who have shed a sunshine upon earth, and whose affections were so pure and good that they seemed to tell you of eternity, perished utterly as the selfish and impure! You are required to believe that the pure and wise of this world have been wrong, and the selfish and sensual all right.” But how can we believe it? The thing is impossible. The resurrection of Jesus the Christ says that they who have fallen asleep are not perished; they are in His keeping to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth. Perished! Why, even the material does not perish; it changes, but that is all. Why the spiritual? (Reuen Thomas, D.D.)The certainty of the resurrection of Christ The religion founded by Jesus Christ has many teachings in common with other religions of the world; spiritual teachings which concern the relationship of God to man, and moral teachings which concern the relationship of man to his fellow-men. Eminent among the truths thus exclusively proper to Christianity is the truth of the resurrection from the dead. The resurrection is essentially and notably a distinctive Christian truth. Other religions of the world have entertained, with more or less clearness, notions of the immortality of the soul. The ancient religion of Egypt (as we learn from the custom of careful and costly embalming, from the erection of massive sepulchral pyramids, and from the teachings of the Book of the Dead) manifested a consciousness not only of the immortality of the soul, but also of the ultimate re-union of the soul with its revivified body. But none of these ancient teachings are comparable, either in scope or perspicuity or inspiring power, with the Christian revelation concerning the rising from the dead. None of them unfold, as does St. Paul (chap. 15.), the characteristics of the risen body and the risen life. And, what is more important than all else, it is Christianity, and Christianity alone, which has furnished to the world a historic illustration and example of the risen life. No doubt there are many earnest, conscientious persons who find great, sometimes even insuperable, difficulty in accepting the fact of Christ’ s resurrection. It is a fact so wonderful, so awful, so glorious, so altogether unique in majesty and sublimity: it is, moreover, a fact so utterly unlike anything which the world has ever witnessed either before or since; both science and religion are helplessly unable to supply any parallel to it--that multitudes of thoughtful people shrink from accepting, and even utterly reject the fact. Yet, while fully allowing the possibility of honestly doubting, or even denying, the resurrection, still it seems to me that the difficulties of doubt are greater than the difficulties of faith; the difficulties of denial greater than the difficulties of acceptance.1. For, first of all, it is clear that the course of the world is a course of progress--progress frequently hindered by lapses and retrogressions. It is surely, then, natural--and none the less natural because of the retrogressions of Mohammedanism--to believe that this great law of progress and ascent should apply to religious knowledge and religious conduct and religious aspiration; and that Christianity should contain illuminations brighter and more heavenly than any of the religions which preceded it. 2. The inherent wonder of the resurrection is not greater than the inherent wonder of many every-day occurrences. In itself, and apart from the frequency of its occurrence, a birth is more marvellous than a resurrection; it is more marvellous that a life should begin to be than that its existence should be renewed and prolonged. If resurrections were as frequent as births, births would be considered more marvelous than resurrections. 3. But the non-recurrence of the resurrection, instead of being unreasonable and unnatural, is just the opposite. For why has there been only one resurrection in the long history of mankind? Simply because, during the whole course of that long history, there has been only one Christ. The resurrection was as natural, as necessary, to the Christ, as death is natural and necessary to us. The perfections of His holiness, and the prerogatives of His Sonship, made His corruption impossible and His resurrection a necessity. If the Son of God has, indeed, taken human flesh, then, I ask you, which is the more reasonable and the more credible supposition--to believe that His body never saw corruption, or to believe that His body is dead, eternally dead? 4. This, moreover, is our answer to those who affirm that the resurrection of Christ goes contrary to the laws of nature. For who, we ask, shall say what was the law of nature in the instance of the Christ? If there had been many Christs and only one of them had risen, while all the others had turned to corruption, then we should rightly have deemed that the one resurrection was contrary to the laws of nature operating upon the Christs. But as there has been only one Christ, we have no means of judging what were the laws of nature in His case, except from what actually happened to Him. 5. And what is the alternative of rejecting the resurrection? The alternative is that Christianity is founded on a falsehood; and that Christ and His apostles are deceivers and untrue. (Canon Diggle.)Terrible conclusions resulting from the denial of two great gospel facts Conclusions resulting from the denial of-- I. The general resurrection.1. The non-resurrection of Christ. What is true of the whole is true of all the parts. If no man can rise from the dead, then Christ is still numbered amongst the dead. 2. That departed Christians are no more. Those thousands who accepted Christ, lived according to His teaching, and who quitted this world have perished--can you believe it? Are they quenched in eternal midnight? 3. That there is no mere pitiable condition in this life than that of Christians. It is implied-- (1) That there are men in a pitiable condition on this earth. (2) That the pitiable condition exists in different degrees. (3) That the degree of pitiableness is regulated by hope. Man is always hoping, and therefore enduring one of the greatest elements of suffering, viz., disappointment. (4) That the hope of a Christian if false will make him, of all men, the most to be pitied. The higher the object of our hope, and the more of the soul that goes into it, the more overwhelmingly crushing will be the disappointment. The man who has thrown his whole soul into Christianity, and who reaches a point when he is convinced of its imposture, is at that moment of all “ men the most miserable.” II. Christ’ s resurrection.1. That apostolic Christianity is vain. (1) It is an empty phantom, a worthless fiction. The resurrection of Christ was the foundation stone m the temple of Paul’ s teaching. Take that stone away, it falls and becomes worthless rubbish. (2) We are impostors; can you believe this? What motives have we to impose? Either supposition is eternally inadmissible. 2. That the faith of the disciples was vain. What a wreck of faith is involved in the denial of Christ’ s resurrection! Vain is-- (1) Faith in the credibility of historic testimony. On what stronger historical testimony can any fact rest than that of the resurrection of Christ? (2) Faith in the accuracy of philosophic deduction. The rapid progress of Christianity in the Roman Empire in its first stages, and its subsequent influence throughout, the world, reveal a mass of phenomena which you cannot account for if you deny the resurrection of Christ. (3) Faith in the moral value of character. Did a nobler character than Christ’ s ever exist? And yet if He rose not then is He an impostor. (4) Faith in the righteous government of God. If a Being so transcendently excellent as Christ is to be crushed for ever in the grave, then where is the justice of Heaven? 3. That the followers of Christ are still in their sins. But the Christians at Corinth were conscious that they had got out of their sins. “ Such were some of you, but ye are washed,” etc. Consciousness, the highest ultimate argument, protested against Paul’ s statement that they were still in their sins, hence it goes to verify the fact of the resurrection of Christ. (D Thomas, D.D.)If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. If there be no resurrection Christ not risen Paul refused to consider Christ’ s resurrection as a miracle in the sense of its being exceptional and aside from the usual experience of man. On the contrary, he accepts it as the type to which every man is to be conformed. Precedent in time, exceptional possibly in some of its accidental accompaniments it may be, but nevertheless as truly in the line of human development as birth, and growth, and death. Christ being man must submit to the conditions and experience of men in all essentials, in all that characterises man as human. And therefore, if resurrection be not a normal human experience, Christ has not risen. The time at which resurrection takes place, and the interval elapsing between death and resurrection, Paul makes nothing of. A child may live but three days, but it is not on that account any the less human than if he had lived his threescore years and ten. Similarly the fact of Christ’ s resurrection identifies Him with the human race, while the shortness of the interval elapsing between death and resurrection does not separate Him from man, for in point of fact the interval will be less in the case of many. Both here and elsewhere Paul looks upon Christ as the representative man, the one in whom we can see the ideal of manhood. If any of our own friends should die, and after death should appear to us alive, a strong probability that we too should live through death would inevitably be impressed on our mind. But when Christ rises this probability becomes a certainty, because He is the type of humanity, the representative person. As Paul here says, “ He is the firstfruits of them that sleep.” When the farmer pulls the first ripe ears of wheat and carries them home, it is not for their own sake he values them, but because they are a specimen and sample of the whole crop; and when God raised Christ from the dead, the glory of the event consisted in its being a pledge and specimen of the triumph of mankind over death. (M. Dods, D.D.)And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.-- Reverse the proposition I. Preaching is not in vain.1. It has power.2. Effects moral miracles. II. Faith is not in vain. It brings--1. Comfort.2. Pardon.3. Life. III. Therefore Christ is risen. (J. Lyth, D.D.)What comes of a dead Christ We do not prove that an event has happened by showing the advantages of believing that it has. Paul here deals with the results that would follow from the denial of a Resurrection to show, not that it has taken place, but that the belief of it is fundamental to Christianity. With the resurrection of Christ-- I. The whole gospel stands or falls. It is emptied of its contents. There is nothing in it. A dead Christ makes a hollow gospel; a living Christ makes a full one. If the Resurrection goes--1. The supernatural goes; if the Resurrection remains, the door is opened for the miraculous. We hear that all miracle is impossible. The historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ shatters all such contention. That fact is the key of the position. Like some great fortress standing at the mouth of the pass, as long as it holds out, the storm of war is rolled back; if it yields, all is surrendered. 2. All the peculiarity of Christ’ s nature goes with it. His life is full of claims to a unique position. Is He in the grave still? If so, there is no use in mincing the matter, Jesus Christ’ s talk about Himself was false. But if He has risen, then He is “ declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead.” 3. The special character and efficacy of His death goes. If He lies in the tomb, then it is idle to talk of sacrifice for sin; but if He has come forth from the grave, then we have the great Divine attestation to the acceptableness of His expiation. So, if all these things go, what is left is not Christianity: yet a great many think all is left--viz., the beauty of Christ’ s words, the loveliness of His character, His position as our Pattern. Yet, says Paul, if that is all I have to preach, I have nothing but an empty shell to preach. II. The character of the witnesses stands or falls. The apostle puts his finger upon the real state of the case when he says, “ This is the question: Are we liars or are we not?” He points out, too, the palpable improbability, when he says that, if so, they are “ false witnesses of God” --men believing themselves to be servants of the God of truth, and thinking to advance His kingdom by telling a monstrous falsehood. But the vulgar old theory has been long abandoned, and now the men that least accept the apostles’ theory are those who abound in compliment to their moral elevation, to the purity and beauty of their religious character. But Paul would have said to them, “ I do not want your compliments; my business is to tell a plain story. Do you believe me, or do you not?” They talk about illusions. Strange illusions that sprung up in a soil that had nothing in it to prepare for them! There was no expectation which might have become parent of the belief. Illusions shared by five hundred people at once! We are shut up to the alternative, either Christ is risen or these noble lives of self-sacrifice and lofty morality are the spawn of a lie. III. The faith of the Christian stands or falls. Twice the apostle says, according to A.V., “ Your faith is vain.” But the two words are not the same. The first means “ empty.” The second (1 Corinthians 15:17) means “ having no effect.” A dead Christ makes--1. An empty faith. There is nothing for faith to lay hold of. It is like a drowning man grasping a rope’ s end swinging over the side of the ship which is loose at the other end and gives; or like some poor creature falling down the face of a precipice, and clutching at a tuft of grass, which comes away in his hand. A dead Christ is no object for faith. Faith is empty of contents unless it grasps the risen Lord; and if it lays hold of Him, it is solid and full. 2. A powerless faith. A religion which does not bring conscious deliverance from sin, both as guilt and as tendency, is not worth calling a religion. Unless for the Resurrection, we have no ground of belief in the expiation and sacrifice of the Cross; and unless we have a faith in a Christ that lives to help and quicken and purify us, we shall never really be delivered from the dominion of our sins, nor live a life of purity and of righteousness. IV. The heaven of Christ’ s servants stands or falls. A dead Christ--1. Means dead Christians (1 Corinthians 15:18). The one thing that makes immortality certain is the fact of Christ’ s resurrection. A living Head means living members; a dead Head means members dead. 2. Makes deluded Christians (1 Corinthians 15:19). People say, “ What a low notion that is! Would it not be better to be a Christian than not if there were no future life? Did not the Stoic philosophers, who said, “ Virtue is its own reward,” reach a higher level than this apostle? I do not think so. Notice, he does not say they are most to be pitied, because of any sorrows or trouble that they have had here, but because the nobler the hope the more tragic its disappointment. And of all the tragedies of life there would be none so great as this, that Christian men cherishing such aspirations should all the while have been clutching a phantom, grasping mists. If we, journeying across the desert, are only cheated by mirage when we think we see the shining battlements of the eternal city, which are nothing but hot air dancing in empty space, surely none are more to be pitied than we. On the other hand, a living Christ turns these hopes into certainties, and makes us, not the most pitiable, but the most blessed of the sons of men. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Consequences of denying the resurrection of Christ If Christ be not risen, then vain is our faith-- I. In the credibility of historical testimony. If their testimony is not to be taken, history is worth nothing. II. In the certainty of philosophical deduction. The rapid prevalence of Christianity in the Roman Empire, in its first era, and its subsequent influences throughout the world, present a mass of phenomena, of which you have no philosophic cause, apart from the resurrection of Christ. Deny that, and you find all history teeming with effects of which yon can find no sufficient cause. III. In the worth of human character Character is the foundation of confidence; and earth never had such a character to inspire human confidence as that of Christ. But if He rose not from the dead, then He is an impostor, and there is no character for us to trust. IV. In a future state of existence. Whatever probable evidence we may discover of a future state, its power depends on Christ’ s resurrection. V. In the moral government of God. If a being like Christ is to be smitten and crushed for ever by wickedness, then where is Divine justice? VI. In the power of moral exhortation. “ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things,” etc. This is the most powerful of all exhortations, yet it is delusion if Christ be not risen. (W. Johnson Fox.)If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.--Christ’ s resurrection the ground of belief in our own Few of us may have seen an Oriental pearl, and still fewer a collection of such gems, but we have no difficulty in believing, when we see one, that such also are the others, whether in the repositories of the wealthy, or even within the shells of the pearl-producing animals living at this moment at the bottom of the eastern seas. We hold in our hands a golden sovereign coined in the royal mint, and from its obvious appearance and properties we infer the facts of its origin and value, and never question, or think of questioning, the statement when made to us, that there are millions of such coins stored up in the cellars of the Bank of England. So, says the apostle, we ought to do with respect to the doctrines of the Resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is not a solitary instance; it is one of a class. It is evident that, if Christ has been raised from the dead, there can be no likeness or congruity between Him and His people, unless in these respects they are assimilated to Him. The stock must be like the sample--the coins in the Treasury to those in circulation--the stars hid, it may be, behind a cloud, similar to that which shines in the clear heavens. (L Cochrane, A.M.)And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.-- Logical consequences of rejecting Christianity There are two kinds of doubters: those who wish to doubt, and seek materials to strengthen their unbelief; and those who would be glad to believe, but are perplexed with doubts that they do not cherish. It is impossible to assist the first of these. Their difficulty is not with the head, but with the heart. I shall therefore pursue a line of thought adapted to assist the honest doubter. The text begins, not with an affirmation, but with a question; so I ask, What will follow from the assumption that the gospel of Christ is untrue? I. That God has never, in any supernatural way, spoken to man.1. There is no other religion that can be put into competition for a moment with the gospel as having claims to a supernatural origin. Of course, Judaism you would reject; and Mohammedanism, which is a mixture of Judaism, Christianity, and heathenism, in about equal proportions. 2. We come to systems of philosophy. Plato differed from Socrates in a great variety of modes. And what was the relation of Aristotle to Plato? But what is the condition of affairs to-day? A friend, who has been reading nothing but philosophy for twenty years, testified to me that he has not in all his library two works which substantially agree. But upon the assumption that philosophers do agree, how can they be authenticated? Can a system of philosophy span the river that separates us from the future state? Is it possible for a system of philosophy, without instruction from God, to interpret properly the plans of God, involving the whole course of human life and the final adjustments of eternity? And there will be nothing supernatural in it. 3. Now, let us look at it upon the basis of Nature. J.S. Mill logically argued that Nature is a contradictory witness. Look at her on one side, and she seems to say, “ The Being who made us is good.” Look at her on the other side, and she seems to say, “ He is not good.” II. The most elevating precepts we have are without a Divine sanction. Take, e.g., the Golden Rule. Some say that it can be found outside the Bible, and I will not deny it; but if it is, it is found without a Divine sanction. No man, according to the Scriptures, can love his neighbour as himself unless he first loves God and recognises the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Now take the specific applications of the Golden Rule. If the gospel be not true, the Sermon on the Mount is a purely human production. “ Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Why? “ For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” ; and there is no kingdom of heaven if the gospel be not true. III. The noblest examples are fictitious. The Book of Job must take its place by the side of Shelley’ s “ Queen Mab,” as a mere creation of human fancy. The character of Christ is but a rhapsody. Paul’ s character is entirely inexplicable; and even Peter must be set down as a myth if the gospel be not true. IV. It is folly to think of pardon for sin. In nature there is no proof, of any kind, of forgiveness. If the gospel is not true, a man cannot incur guilt, and therefore may dismiss the idea that he is guilty. It his conscience says he is, he can say to it, “ You are a presumptuous usurper. There is no law, and I cannot be guilty.” But men cannot do that; they know that they are guilty. But the man who has a sense of guilt, if the Bible be not true, has no power to secure its obliteration from his conscience. V. There is no regenerative influence. When a man for twenty-five years has tried to keep good resolutions, and has broken them, and has to acknowledge at the end of that time that be has made little progress in purifying his heart, he will do one of two things, according to his temperament: he will sadly relinquish the effort to obtain moral purity, or he will continue on without hope or any inward peace. The gospel of Christ declares that there is a regenerative influence. Now, if the gospel be untrue, there is none such; consequently, to doubt the gospel is to doubt whether there be anything which can possibly make men pure and good. VI. there is no comfort in trouble. It has been said by a French writer that philosophy conquers past and future evils. Dr. Johnson represents Rasselas as going to hear a philosopher, who taught him how to subdue his passions and to conquer trials without any difficulty. The next day, however, Rasselas found the philosopher tearing his hair and walking up and down in great agony. “ Why this grief?” asked Rasselas. “ Oh!” said the philosopher, “ my only daughter, the light of my home and comfort of my old age, is dead!” “ But, certainly,” said Rasselas, “ the philosophy which you so eloquently descanted on yesterday comforts you now? “ Oh, no,” cried the philosopher, wringing his bands; “ what can philosophy say to me now, except to show me that my condition is inevitable and incurable?” Rasselas went to Imlac and told him what he had heard, and he replied, “ They preach like angels, but they live like men.” The gospel does offer comfort to every class of afflicted persons, and Tom Moore only told the truth when he said, “ Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal” ; or, as I would say, earth has no sorrow that the gospel does not offer to heal. But if the gospel be untrue, all these offers of consolation are baseless. VII. There is no strength for temptation. How is a man to subdue his passions and propensities? Probably four-fifths of the persons who reject the gospel have sophisticated themselves into the belief that what is natural cannot be wrong. But there are men who reject the gospel that never have done that, and they keep on through life struggling and failing. Now the gospel offers to man several kinds of helps.1. The commands of Almighty God.2. Promises for every situation of trial and difficulty.3. Holy examples of men of like passions with ourselves.4. The privilege of taking these commands and of strengthening his faith by them at the very throne of grace. But if the gospel be untrue, every promise and command in the Bible may be thrown aside as a matter without any foundation in fact. VIII. There is no answer to prayer. A distinguished rationalistic preacher ceased to preach, and a friend asked him why he stepped. Said he, “ I liked the preaching, and could have got along with it very well as long as I lived; but there was one thing I could not get along with at all, and that was prayer. I did not expect my prayers would be answered, and never believed they would; and to stand up before the congregation and address the Deity as if I really believed that prayer produced a result, seemed to me too much like hypocrisy.” No man will long pray who has not a specific promise upon which to rest. IX. The institution of marriage is imperilled. This cannot be sustained without a religious sanction, and never was in the history of this world. The heaviest strain on human nature is chastity, and it cannot be sustained unless the obligation rests upon a solemn accountability to God, and the human race cannot sustain it without religious sanction after marriage, and never have. Polygamy, on the one hand, and either spiritual or carnal or free love on the other, would certainly spring up, as they have done, to run riot all over the world. X. You uproot the whole idea of future accountability, and the question of whether a man will live or die becomes a question of logic. What reason is there why a man utterly dissatisfied with life should not commit suicide? Suppose the case of a man wile has lost all his friends, his property, and his reputation? He is too old to begin again. Prove that he ought not to commit suicide. I cannot, unless you give me the gospel. You cannot find an instance of a sane, devoted, intelligent Christian, remitting suicide: but you can produce a hundred instances of irreligious men not insane committing suicide. The reason men are committing suicide, and making such a trifling thing of it, is the spread of infidelity, the spread of doubts as to future accountability. XI. Everything with regard to a future state of happiness must be remanded to the realm of conjecture. No man can prove a future state in any proper sense of the term. If you could show it to be probable, you could not determine the mode of existence, or the relation between the future and the present life, or get any means whatever to do so. Then, if the gospel be not true, let us face the issue and strike out, “ In My Father’ s house are many mansions.” Conclusion: Is it rational to believe that God has given no voice to man? Is it rational to believe that the noblest precepts are without a Divine sanction, etc.? It is not! Rather than believe that, I would believe “ There is no God!” But because I cannot say there is no God, I must say that He has spoken to man; and because I must say that, I must believe that the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has a supernatural origin. (J. M. Buckley, D.D.)Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.--Our lost ones I. Their character. In Christ. II. Their condition. “ Fallen asleep,” implying--1. Rest.2. Life.3. Hope. III. Their doom. “ Perished” --impossible. Then the assumption is false; Christ is risen, and they must also rise. (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Observe I. What is implied.1. That all men are miserable.2. In different degrees, but are comforted by hope. II. What is assumed.1. That our hope in Christ is false.2. That it only extends to this life. III. What is hypothetically asserted. That in such a case we are subject to greater--1. Delusion.2. Sacrifice.3. Disappointment.4. Sense of destitution. IV. What is the fact.1. We are not most miserable.2. Our hope is sure. (J. Lyth, D.D.)One life only an argument against God If human life, redeemed by Christ, be limited to this world, God has committed a cruel mistake in creating man. The greatness of man becomes a terrible charge against God. He has created appetites which He cannot satisfy, excited hopes which must perish, built a great ship and must destroy it because He cannot create a sea in which it can float. What would be thought of a man who built a splendid chariot and could not get it out of the workshop? A man believes in Christ, and so becomes identified with all that is known of purity, joy, and hope. He rejects the promises of the world; he gets all that the world can give and finds that it is a stone, not bread; his whole life becomes a hunger after something higher. Having thus developed he is told that his grave is dug, and that into it must be thrown every dream, hope, desire. This world is enough for creatures destitute of aspiration--for the lion and the eagle. They cannot hope, pray, aspire. One life only is an argument against-- I. God’ s goodness. Take men like the psalmists. They often sang as if they had laid hold of eternal life. They declared Jehovah to be all their salvation and all their desire. To all this God’ s answer is extinction. Can a more revolting blasphemy be conceived? II. His wisdom. Could not man have been made so as to be satisfied with the present world? We know how our generosity may become a pain and temptation to those upon whom we have bestowed it. Our gifts may be large enough to create dissatisfaction with our daily lot, yet too small to secure contentment with another. If it is not God’ s purpose to continue the consciousness with which He has endowed us, He has, so to speak, overbuilt Himself in creation. He should either have gone farther, or not so far. III. His power. But herein is God unlike His creatures. Impair one of God’ s attributes and you overturn the whole Godhead. Man may have special excellences and redeeming points of character; but in the case of God every point must be of equal strength and glory. Suppose His goodness to be infinite, and His power limited; then He is Jehovah no more. When He created man, did He not know that His power was incomplete? Has He been taught the insufficiency of His strength by results which He failed to foresee? Conclusion:1. We have before us, then, a strong presumptive argument in favour of another and higher life. That life suggests itself as the required complement of our present existence, and urges itself upon us in vindication of all that is Divine in God. Whatever speculative difficulties may arise in connection with immortality, the practical difficulties of the negative theory are insurmountable. 2. The theory of our life only bears more vividly up m the mediation of Christ. How bitter the irony of His appeals, how wasteful the sacrifice of His life, if a few pulsations be the measure of our existence. He spoke much of the life eternal: did it all mean that His most loving followers must be blotted out of existence? If so, His attempts at redemption aggravated the original injustice of our creation. 3. Granted that you never doubted the existence of the future life, this discussion is of the first importance. We may be called upon to give to others a reason for the hope that is in us, and we may feel more keenly the obligations which another life imposes on us to live nobly in this present world. If there is another life-- (1) In what relation does our present existence stand to it? Is it disciplinary? (2) What will be its effect in regard to, the moral confusion and restlessness of our present existence. Here virtue is often undervalued and vice successful. Is the glory of the Divine righteousness to shine through all the obscurities of the Divine government? Christian hope answers, Yes! (3) Can they be wise who exhaust themselves within the limits of the present world? What a fool is the mere money-gatherer! How deluded is he who mistakes the part for the whole. (4) Is not he the wise man who regulates the present by all that is solemn and sublime in the future? (J. Parker, D.D.)Hope in this world only I. What the text implies.1. That there is misery amongst men on this earth. This is obvious. “ Man is born to trouble.” But great as it is-- (1) It is not as great as man deserves. All suffering springs from sin. Misery does not grow out of the constitution of things. (2) It is not as great as man’ s happiness. For days and weeks of affliction he has months and years of happiness. (3) It is not as great as the good it will ultimately work out. 2. That misery amongst men exists in different degrees. Paul speaks of the “ most miserable.” There is a great inequality of suffering here. There must come a day for eternal justice to balance these accounts. 3. That the degree of misery is sometimes regulated by hope. Paul speaks of “ hope” as having to do with making men “ most miserable.” Man is ever living in the future; he seldom turns willingly to the past; his past sins terrify him, and even his past pleasures depress him. The present satisfies him not. His home is in the future. It is obvious that a principle so powerful must exert a wonderful influence, either for weal or woe. If the hope is directed to right objects, and rightly founded, it will be as a firm anchor, holding his ship securely amidst the tumultuous billows of his stormy life. But should his hope be not rightly directed and grounded, it is clear that though it may afford him for a time some amount of enjoyment, it will ultimately end in his confusion and distress. 4. That the hope of a Christian, if false, will make him of “ all men most miserable.” II. What the text means.1. Not-- (1) That apart from the resurrection of Christ, man has no evidence of a future state. All the Jews except the Sadducees believed in the existence of a future retribution; and Paul as a philosopher knew that human nature and human history prophesied a future state. (2) That on the supposition that there is no future life, the practice of virtue here would place man in a worse condition than that of vice. This would not be true; the life of virtue as embodied in Christianity would give a man considerable advantage even in this world. (3) That apart from a future state a godly life is not binding on man. Were there no heaven, no hell, man’ s obligation to love his Maker “ with all his heart, soul, strength,” would still remain. 2. Two things must be distinctly kept in mind in order fully to apprehend the idea of the apostle. (1) That he is speaking of himself and his evangelical contemporaries. The sufferings which they brought upon themselves in consequence of their faith in Christianity, and their efforts to extend it through the world, were unique in their enormity. In this age our faith in Christianity, and our endeavours to propagate it, entail little or no inconvenience. (2) That he supposes the disappointed to survive the discovery of the delusion. The very first flash of the terrible truth, that there was no future blessedness, would scathe their spirits into everlasting annihilation, and there would of course be no misery at all in the case. We must suppose the apostle therefore having the idea that there was a future state, in which he should live in vivid memories of the past. Up to the time of discovery, however great their suffering, Christians could not be “ most miserable.” An enthusiast, whatever his physical affections, is happy; he revels amidst the hallucinations of his own brain, and requires none of your pity if he survive not the discovery of his delusion. III. These suppositions enables us to see that the misery of which the apostle speaks is the misery of a tremendous disappointment. Note--1. The power which the blighted hope had obtained over the whole soul. There are some hopes that take but a slight hold upon the heart: But there are hopes like the tree that strikes its roots deep into the very fibre of our nature. When such hopes are torn away, it is as the “ giving up of the ghost.” Imagine the case of a man who had thrown his whole being into Christianity, being met at the moment when his hopes were at their zenith, and when his death was at hand, with the conviction that all was a delusion; and you have a man of all men “ most miserable.” Imagine that man still further fixed in a future state of deep despair, and regarding himself as the hopeless victim of a life of folly. Would he not say, Fool that I have been in spending a whole life in aiming at objects that were purely visionary. Had I been wise I should have adopted the maxim, “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” 2. The deception which the blighted hope prompted its subjects to practise. The apostle declares that on the assumption that Christ rose from the dead, they were “ false witnesses of God.” Most assuredly if there be no future state of blessedness, the whole life of the Christian is a living lie. His deception is-- (1) Earnest. He “ counts not his life dear unto him,” if he can only make men participate in his creed. (2) Systematic. It is not an occasional or spasmodic effort; it is the organised purpose of his being. He rears temples, forms societies, circulates books, preaches discourses, in order to win men over to his views. (3) Influential. He succeeds in his proselytism. Such is the deception Christians practise on the hypothesis that there is no future life in Him. How much would the memory of their deception heighten the misery of their disappointment on the discovery of their own terrible mistake! The feeling that they themselves had been deluded would be well-nigh intolerable; but the feeling that they had deluded others would be crushing. 3. The destitution in which the departure of the hope would involve the soul. Christianity works a most radical change in a man. It effects a “ regeneration.” Under its influence man becomes “ a new creation” ; old things pass away, all things become new; what he once loved he loathes, what he once sought he shuns, what he once valued he despises, what things were gain to him he counts loss. On the discovery therefore of the delusion, he would be left in possession of tastes and desires for which there was no provision. A thousand times worse is the state of such a soul than that of a parched traveller, who, beneath the agonising fires of thirst, falls prostrate on the Oriental sands, many leagues away from the refreshing streams. Conclusion: Thank God this is only hypothetic. The apostle does not speak as if he had any doubt, but in order to bring out the glorious fact on which it rests with greater fire and force. “ But now is Christ risen from the dead,” etc. We have hope in a blessed future, and therefore--1. When bereavement snatches from our embrace the dearest objects of our heart, let us not sorrow as do others. 2. Let us not envy the wicked in their prosperity, but bear up with fortitude, knowing that “ our light afflictions which are but for a moment,” etc. 3. Let us labour earnestly to indoctrinate all within our reach with the soul-saving principles of the everlasting word. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Life most miserable without hope in Christ These words have been a cause of much distress. Christians have felt that their hope in Christ made this life joyful to them. No doubt the very name “ hope” implies a looking forward. But they do not find that the mere thought of a change in their position constitutes their blessedness. “ Lo, I am with you always” ; “ My peace I give unto you” ; there, they say, is the secret of it. Certainly they have a right to claim St. Paul in general as the witness and highest authority for their persuasion. “ All things are yours,” etc., he said to these very Corinthians. He speaks of himself as “ rejoicing in tribulation.” He wished that Aguippa, Festus, and Bernice, and all who heard him, “ were both almost and altogether such as he was, except those bonds.” Was, then, that so terrible an exception, that he regarded the worshippers of false gods less miserable, as far as this life went, than he was? Does any one who knows anything of St. Paul’ s life and words believe this? Those very bonds became a cause of exultation to him, because through them Christ’ s name was made known in Rome. He counted, not some future promised felicity, but his office as an apostle of the Gentiles, which caused him to be the offscouring of all things, the highest privilege ever bestowed upon a mortal. Is this a man who was likely to say, “ I am utterly miserable here; but I can endure my lot, for I shall he well paid hereafter” ? But if that is not the meaning of the words, what is it?1. The Corinthians had heard him say, “ We are risen with Christ.” A party of them had built on this the conclusion that their spiritual resurrection was all that Christ had procured for them. St. Paul shows them that they were turning this half-truth, not to the destruction of the other half merely, but of itself. If they were not to rise in their bodies, Christ their Lord had not risen in His body. The very ground of the spiritual resurrection, of which they boasted, was their union with Him. God had justified them in Him. The new doctrine, in effect, disclaimed, his relation between them and Him. It left them a set of poor, separated, unredeemed creatures; “ yet in their sins.” It was very miserable to believe such a contradiction as this would be. 2. Christ had broken through the barriers of death, had brought the visible and the invisible world into one. Those who said “ The Resurrection only concerns us here,” established this separation again, and treated Death as to all intents and purposes the ultimate ruler, Life as shut up within threescore years and ten of conflict. This was to confound the dim hope of all nations. When the sense of present misery was very acute, there was a prophecy, arising in some minds almost to a conviction, that the other side of death might offer a compensation. Had not St. Paul a right to say then “ If we possess all that Christ came to give us, He has taken from us something which He has not taken from any others. That which has never been altogether a blank to them, in which there have been some bright Elysian spots, has become entirely a blank to us.” But it may be said, “ The apostle speaks of a hope in Christ. What could such a hope have to do with dreams of Greeks or Goths respecting an Elysium or a Walhalla? Being heathens, they certainly could not hope in Him.” But the principle which underlies all the apostle’ s teaching is that when Christ took flesh and dwelt among men, He declared Himself to be that King, whose manifestation in His own true and proper nature all had been desiring. If this be so, I cannot imagine how he could describe any hope which had ever been entertained by any human being, except as a hope in Christ. The gods whom Greeks or Goths worshipped could have kindled no hopes in them, only a vague, inconceivable dread. Whatever hope they had came from a secret source, a hidden root. The apostle, then, might truly say, that if the Corinthians who professed to believe that Jesus was the Christ, made His work upon earth an excuse for not looking beyond the earth, they had parted with some of the hope in Christ which their heathen brethren possessed. 3. But there is an ampler justification of the apostle’ s words. He had a much deeper impression of the misery of the world around him than any person who did not believe in the gospel could have had. The devil-worship and the sin which prevailed was revolting to him who worshipped a God of love, and who believed that the Spirit of Christ had come among men to make them after His image. Feeling as he did their misery, it would absolutely have crushed him if in this life only he had had hope in Christ, if he could have measured the future of mankind merely by anything that he saw or had yet experienced. The thought which we should often bring before ourselves as we walk our streets, and as we read of what is doing in other parts of the world, is--Are our hopes in Christ, for those whom we see perishing in filth, in ignorance, in moral debasement, only hopes for this life? Is the wisdom of rulers, the godliness of teachers, the benevolence of societies, all which seems to us to intervene between them and utter, absolute ruin? Oh, then, surely we must be of all men most miserable! To think of all the wickedness which is crowded into the most fortunate corner of this earth, and not to feel something very like despair, is very difficult. It would be impossible, if we were not encouraged and commanded to place our hopes, not in what we are doing, but in what Christ has done by His death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Holy Spirit. If we think that nothing is given yet; that we are merely to look for something to come, we are most miserable. If we think that all has been given--that we have nothing to long for--we are most miserable. But if we accept the signs and pledges of a perfect sacrifice made once for all, the vision of Him who died once and reigneth for evermore will become brighter and clearer. (F. D. Maurice, M.A.)“ Alas for us, if thou wert all, and nought beyond, O earth” The apostle does not say that all men are now miserable if there be no hope of the world to come. There are very many who never think of another life, who are quite happy in their way. But he speaks of Christian people, who are known by this, that they have hope in Christ--hope in His blood for pardon, in His righteousness for justification, in His power for support, in His resurrection for eternal glory. I. We are not of all men most miserable. He who shall affirm that Christianity makes men miserable is an utter stranger to it. For see--1. To what a position it exalts us! It makes us sons of God. Shall His foes have mirth, and His own home-born be wretched? We are married unto Christ, and shall our great Bridegroom permit His spouse to linger in grief? The Christian is a king, and shall the king be the most melancholy of men? 2. What God has done for us! The Christian knows that his sins are forgiven. And shall the pardoned offender be less happy than the man upon whom the wrath of God abideth? Moreover, we are made temples of the Holy Ghost, and are these dark, dolorous places? Our God is a God of love, and it is His very nature to make His creatures happy. 3. Their actual joy and peace. Our joy may not be like that of the sinner, noisy and boisterous. “ As the crackling of thorns under a pot” --a great deal of blaze and much noise, and then a handful of ashes, and it is all over. The Chiristian’ s joy does not depend upon circumstances. We have seen the happiest men in the most sorrowful conditions. Every Christian will bear wines that he has found his sad times to be his glad times, his losses to be his gains, his sickness means to promote his soul’ s health. We can rejoice even in death. II. Without the hope of another life we should be of all men most miserable. This is true, not merely of persecuted, and despised, and poverty-stricken Christians, but of all believers. Note that the Christian--1. Has renounced those common and ordinary sources of joy from which other men drink. We must have some pleasure. Well, then, there is a vessel filled with muddy, filthy water which the camels’ feet have stirred: shall I drink it? I see yonder a cool, clear stream, and I say, “ I will not drink this; I will drink of that.” But if it be but the deceitful mirage, then I am worse off than those who were content with the muddy water. So the Christian passes by the pleasures of sin, because he says, “ I do not care for them, my happiness flows from the river which springs from the throne of God and flows to me through Christ--I will drink of that,” but if that were proved to be a deception, then were we more wretched than the profligate. 2. Has learned the vanity of all earthly joys. We have chosen eternal things which are satisfying to the soul. Bat it is the most unhappy to know that this world is vain, if there be not another world abundantly to compensate for all our ills. There is a poor lunatic in Bedlam plaiting straw into a crown which he puts upon his head, and calls himself a king. Do you think that I would undeceive him? Nay, verily. If the delusion makes the man happy, by all means let him indulge in it; but you and I have been undeceived; our dream of perfect bliss beneath the skies is gone for ever; what then if there be no world to come? 3. Has had high, noble, and great expectations, and this is a very sad thing for us if our expectations be not fulfilled. I have known poor men expecting a legacy, and the relative has died and left them nothing; their poverty has ever afterwards seemed to be a heavier drag than before. Poverty is infinitely better endured by persons who were always poor, than by those who have been rich. The Christian has learned to think of eternity, of God, of Christ, and if indeed it be all false, the best thing he could do would be to sit down and weep for ever. 4. Has learned to look upon everything here as fleeting. Well, this is a very unhappy thing, if there be no world to come. III. Our chief joy in the hope of the world to come. There is--1. Rest.2. Victory.3. Happiness.4. Perfection. IV. Thus the future operates upon the present. Here is a man who has a machine for his factory. He wants steam power to work this machine. An engineer puts up a steam engine in a shed at some distance. “ Well,” said the other, “ I asked you to bring steam power here, to operate upon my machine.” “ That is precisely,” says he, “ what I have done. I put the engine there, you have but to connect it by a band and your machine works as fast as you like; it is not necessary that I should put it just under your nose.” So God has been pleased to make our hopes of the future a great engine wherewith the Christian may work the ordinary machine of every-day life, for the band of faith connects the two, and makes all the wheels of ordinary life revolve with rapidity and regularity. To speak against preaching the future as though it would make people neglect the present is as though somebody would say, “ There, take away the moon, and blot out the sun. What is the use of them--they are not in this world” ! Precisely so, but take away the moon and you have removed the tides, and the sea becomes a stagnant, putrid pool. Then take away the sun, and light, and heat, and life; everything is gone. Do you believe that apostles and martyrs would ever have sacrificed their lives for truth’ s sake if they had not looked for a hereafter? In the heat of excitement, the soldier may die for honour, but to die in tortures and mockeries in cold blood needs a hope beyond the grave. Would yon poor man go on toiling year after year, refusing to sacrifice his conscience for gain; would yon poor needle-girl refuse to become the slave of lust if she did not see something brighter than earth can picture to her as the reward of sin? The most practical thing in all the world is the hope of the world to come; for it is just this which keeps us from being miserable; and to keep a man from being miserable it is to do a great thing for him, for a miserable Christian--what is the use of him? But the man who has a hope of the next world goes about his work strong, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. V. This will let us see clearly what our future is to be. There are some persons here to whom my text has nothing whatever to say. Suppose there were no hereafter, would they be more miserable? Why, no; they would be more happy. Do you see, then, this proves that you are not a Christian; for if you were, the taking away of a hereafter would make you miserable. Well, then, what have I to say to you? Why just this--that in the world to come you will be of all men most miserable. “ What will become of you?” said an infidel once to a Christian man, “ supposing there should be no heaven?” “ Well,” said he, “ I like to have two strings to my bow. If there be no hereafter I am as well off as you are; if there be I am infinitely better off.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)The importance of the Resurrection St. Paul, in this great passage, makes Christianity answer with its life for the truth of our Lord’ s resurrection from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:14). If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we have made a capital mistake, and are of all men most miserable. I. What, then, is the hope respecting a future which we owe to our risen Lord? Is it the hope that we shall exist for ever? Is our continuous existence hereafter altogether dependent upon faith in and communion with the risen Christ? No, our immortality is not a gift of the Redeemer; it is the gift of the Creator. Belief in a future state does not begin with Christianity. It is as deeply rooted in the human soul as belief in God. In some sense it is wellnigh universal. The honour so widely paid to the graves of ancestors is a natural expression of belief in their survival after death. It was this belief which made an ancient Egyptian deem the embalming of his mummy the most important thing that could happen to him: it was this belief which built, the pyramids, which rendered the Greek mysteries of Eleusis so welcome to those upon whom the old popular religion had lost its power, and which made great thinkers, such as Plato, at least in their higher moods, capable of thoughts and aspirations which Christians, in all ages, have welcomed as almost anticipating their own. II. But to what sort of immortality does this anticipation point? It is not the immortality--1. Of the race. How is this shadowy survival entitled to the name of immortality? A race of beings does not live apart from the individuals which compose it. 2. Of fame. How many of us will have a place in the public memory and live in history? For most of us life is made up of duties of so humble a kind that they hardly have a place in our own memories from day to day, much less in those of others. But if there is no life after death, what is to become of them, that is, what is to become of this kind of immortality in the case of the greater part of the human race? Is not this immortality only a perpetuation of inequalities which disfigure our earthly life, and of which a future of absolute truth and justice would know nothing? 3. Of our good deeds. To say that a man lives in his good actions may be Christian language (Revelation 14:13). To this day the saints of the Bible history live in the works which are recorded of them. But, there are actions in all true and saintly lives which are known only to God, and which, so far as we can see, have no certain consequences here. But if the soul perishes at death, in what sense are they immortal? And are our good deeds our only deeds? Have not our evil deeds--some of them--consequences; and do these consequences punish the agent, if he really perishes at death? Others than he are punished. No; the immortality of our actions is not an immortality which satisfies the yearnings of the heart of man, since this yearning is based always and especially on its sense of justice. II. What, then, is the hope in Christ which redeems Christian life from the failure and misery alluded to in the text. It is the hope, that through His precious death and His glorious resurrection, our inevitable immortality will be an immortality of bliss. Of course it is not denied that He has “ brought life and immortality to light.” For multitudes before He came it was a vague and dreary anticipation: He has made it a blessed and welcome certainty. He has familiarised us with the idea that all live unto God (Luke 20:37-38); and He has further taught the future resurrection of the body, as completing the life beyond the grave (John 6:40). He thus has altogether removed the question from the region of speculation into that of certainty, founded upon experience; since when He rose from death He was Himself but the first-fruits from the dead. But the hope in Christ is the hope of a blessed immortality. This He has won for us by His one perfect and sufficient sacrifice on the Cross, whereby our sins are blotted out, and the grace of His Spirit and His new nature is secured to us, so as to fit us, by sanctification, for His eternal presence. Apart from this conviction, Christianity is a worthless dream; the efforts and sacrifices of the Christian life are wasted; we are the victims of a great delusion; we are of all men most miserable. Conclusion:1. There are signs in our day that faith in a future after death is less taken for granted than was the case a generation ago. One of these signs is the increased number of suicides all over Europe. There are not merely the pathetic suicides of the very wretched, there are the suicides of votaries of pleasure, who having exhausted all the facilities of enjoyment, throw it away like a toy which has ceased to please. Suicides like these mean that the opportunities for enjoyment have in certain classes outrun the power to enjoy. Suicides are only possible when through continuous enervation of the moral nature the awful realities of immortality have been lost sight of: and their increase is a serious symptom of what must be passing in large classes of minds. 2. Much seems to show that in the modern world two entirely different beliefs about man are confounded with each other. According to one of these man is really only the highest of the beasts that perish. Opposed to this idea is the Christian belief that man differs from the lower creatures altogether, except in the fact that he owns a body, which is governed by the same laws as theirs. For man, his body, instead of being the substantive and central part of his being, is an appendage. The soul of man no more dies when it leaves the body than the musical genius which makes that organ do so much to aid the devotion of God’ s people forfeits its knowledge and its skill when it ceases to touch the key-board. In man the central or substantive feature is the soul; and of the life of the soul, this earthly life in the body is but a very small portion indeed. It is related to what follows, as is a brief preface to a very voluminous book: it throws light on what is to come; it is relatively insignificant. “ The things which are seen are temporal: the things which are not seen are eternal.” (Canon Liddon.)The penalty of piety and its promise These words I. Demand explanation of us.1. Only the heavenly hope could compensate for the severity of their earthly experiences (2 Corinthians 6:11.). Speaking for himself, and having in view all of every kind that he was enduring for the sake of the gospel, he felt that all the peace and comfort which solaced other men’ s lives were absent from his own, and he concluded that without that grand compensation which was in store, he and they were the most to be pitied of all men. 2. In that case they were the victims of a miserable delusion. They were basing their whole life on a faith which was a falsehood; they were building everything on a rotten foundation; they were spending all their energies and surrendering all their opportunities to teach men that which their disciples were bound to disbelieve (1 Corinthians 15:14). They might well be pitied as the dupes of a dream. II. Provide suggestions for us.1. That there are consequences attending unswerving faithfulness we must all be prepared to meet. Not now the lash or the dungeon. It may be the biting sarcasm or the polite irony, etc. But it must be that “ all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). 2. That delusion is always pitiable. Men may be buoyed up by false hopes, and it may seem at a superficial glance that the cherishing of the error is positively gainful. But it is always better to walk in the light than to wander in the darkness. They who give way to plausible but unsound doctrine are to be pitied, however fair in the face these doctrines may be, however excellent be the spirit and intention of those that hold them. 3. That genuine piety has within it sources of pure and lasting joy (1 Timothy 4:8; 1 Timothy 6:6); and if the “ Manor Sorrows” could speak of “ His joy” so may we. (W. Clarkson, B.A.) 1 Corinthians 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead … first-fruits of them that slept.The resurrection of Christ I. The resurrection of Christ as an historic fact. If Socrates died of the fatal hemlock in an Athenian prison; if Caesar died upon the Roman senate-floor, stricken down by the daggers of assassins; then Christ, our Redeemer, not only died on Golgotha, but on the third day rose again, leading captivity captive. This miracle of the resurrection, as Neander has remarked, is not of the class designed for the conviction of unbelievers. It was rather, in the first instance, for such as already believed in Christ, and now needed only that their faith should be sealed and confirmed. II. The resurrection of Christ in its relation to previous economies. There were two of these economics, and under each of them a miracle bearing some resemblance to the resurrection of Christ. Under the first, or patriarchal economy, there was the miracle of Enoch’ s translation. Under the second, or Jewish economy, there was the miracle of Elijah’ s being taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire. Precisely what befel these men, it is impossible to say. But so much at least is certain, that these translations were not resurrections: for the men did not die. The fact proclaimed, and the doctrine illustrated by their departure, was simply the continued existence of the soul in a higher realm; in a word, the immortality of the soul, and not the resurrection of the body. So, also, of the resurrections which occurred under the Jewish economy. Elijah, it is true, restored again to life the widow’ s son at Zarephath; Elisha, the son of the Shunemite; and even Elisha’ s bones quickened the corpse which touched them. But these persons, thus recalled to life, all died again. Like the translations already spoken of, they attested rather the presence of a soul in man, destined to survive the striking of its tent of flesh. They attested the reality of a world of spirits, not so far removed but that those who had passed behind its curtain might be summoned back. That the body, reduced to ashes, should rise again, never more to be subject to decay, had only been proclaimed, not proved. The resurrection of Christ was, therefore, a new phenomenon. He was literally “ the first-fruits of them that slept” ; rising as none had ever risen before. III. The resurrection of Christ in its relation to ourselves. (R. D. Hitchcock, D.D.)Christ the first fruits We might take occasion hence to consider the great fact--Christ is risen, the symbolical figure by which that fact might be illustrated--the first-fruits--and the favour which follows--the resurrection of the pious dead. Refer to Leviticus 23:10, etc. The first-fruits were a typical representation of Christ presented to God after His resurrection.1. The first-fruits were of the same nature as the after fruits. Let this remind us that Christ is of the same nature as His people. He took a real human nature, that in that nature He might sanctify us, as the harvest was sanctified by offering the first-fruits to God. “ For both He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Had Christ died and risen in a different nature from ours, it would not have been conquering death for us. We could have derived no benefit or consolation from it. “ The Man Christ” ; “ that Man whom He hath ordained” ; “ a Man approved of God” ; “ in all things made like unto His brethren.” He had real flesh. He felt hunger, thirst, and weariness, which a mere spirit could not; and He had a real human soul, which could rejoice, grieve, be amazed, and angry. Being a Man, His resurrection to immortal life is the first-fruits of the human race from the grave. 2. The first-fruits were of superior excellence, being the best--most early ripe, and therefore stronger and more vigorous. Let this remind us of the excellency of Christ’ s human nature. He transcends all His brethren. He is without sin, and so excels in perfect purity. His soul had no base passions, His will no rebellion, His understanding was not obscured by mistakes, errors, or prejudices; His body was not influenced by bad habits, nor led astray by sensual appetites. Nor was He only free from sin; there were all the excellences which are comprised in perfection itself. He was, of all the sons of men, the first ripe for heaven--His ripeness was perfect, rich, delightful holiness and love. 3. As the first-fruits, being first ripe, were of superior excellence, and so were a shadow of Christ, so they were to be first gathered in. And thus they resembled Christ as “ the first born from the dead,” the first of all those who rose from the grave to immortality. It was fit that the Captain should lead the way to the soldiers, that the Conqueror of death should be the first to take possession of life, that He who was first in the perfection of holiness and grace should be first in the perfect possession of life and glory. 4. As the first-fruits were gathered on the morrow after the Sabbath, it is remarkable that our Lord rose, as “ the first-fruits of them that slept,” on the morrow after the Sabbath. 5. The sheaf of first-fruits was lifted up by the priest, and waved to and fro in the air, as an offering presented to the Lord. Christ, as a Priest, presented Himself as the First-fruits to God. The sheaf was waved, to be accepted:for Israel, and Christ presents Himself to God that we may be accepted before Him. As the first-fruits were presented to God, so our risen Lord rose to Him. “ In that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” 6. The corn of the first-fruits was threshed out and winnowed, and the pure corn was pounded, roasted, and, together with the oil and frankincense, was waved before God. Then part of it was made an offering by fire and the rest was the priest’ s. When Christ arose, He left all that was mean, humiliating, and mortal, left our sins, with His grave-clothes, in the sepulchre, as new corn separated from chaff. And the oil and frankincense may remind us of the oil of gladness with which the risen Saviour was anointed above His fellows, and the sweet frankincense of His intercession, which is sweet to God; and He offers Himself to God in flames of love, as the first-fruits, with oil and frankincense, was offered on the altar (a handful of them). The rest was for the priests, intimating that Christ, as raised from the dead, is the sweet and pure food of faith to which the spiritual priesthood are entitled. On earth and in heaven, Christ is immortal Bread, living Bread, and souls feast on Him and live and grow. 7. The first-fruits sanctified the whole crop. It might then be gathered in, but not before. Christ the first fruits being raised, such is the power of His resurrection, that the saints through Him have right to rise to a blessed immortality. But for that, they that are fallen asleep in Christ had perished. But by His resurrection they are sanctified for life and glory. 8. The first-fruits being accepted of the Lord for Israel, not only sanctified the harvest, but were a pledge that the harvest should follow. He is called the First-fruits, to convey the idea that the rest must come after. This is the doctrine and argument of this whole chapter. The favour pledged to the Church by the resurrection of Christ is the resurrection of all her members in the last day to fellowship with Christ in life, glory, and a blessed immortality. That state to which He arose, do they arise to also in their measure and order. As a prelude to this, some arose alter His resurrection. This shows that the resurrection of Christ has a retrospective influence, and sheds the dew of heaven on the graves of all who died in faith from the beginning. As He died for the sins under the first testament, so shall the ancient believers arise by virtue of His resurrection. It has also a prospective influence on the believing multitudes yet unborn.1. The same power is employed in raising Christ and His people. “ The exceeding greatness of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.” The utmost ability in man cannot re-kindle the vital spark. As no creature was employed to awaken Christ, so none shall quicken them. Here Omnipotence will work without means, and the heavenly house will be “ a house not made with hands.” 2. As it was the same Christ and the same body that arose, so the very bodies which fall asleep in Christ will again awake. The harvest will resemble the first-fruits in this also. It may not be every particle. “ This mortal shall put, on immortality.” 3. The same Spirit that quickened Christ will quicken us. It is spoken of as a privilege to be quickened by the Spirit (Romans 8:1-39.). The wicked may be raised by mere power, the saints by a holy and gracious influence. The Holy Spirit will then put forth His influence in its fullest display of power, sweetness, and glory like the influences of the spring on the vegetable world. 4. The whole Trinity concurred in Christ’ s, and shall also in our resurrection. 5. Sin lay on Christ before His death; and there was still some portion of the curse on Him while He lay in His grave. But He arose free from the burden. Saints have to contend with sin while in the body; but they will rise free and pure. 6. Christ wept in His last sufferings. He rose to weep no more. So from the eyes of risen Saints “ God shall wipe away all tears.” It is a resurrection to joy. 7. Christ; rose with His human soul full of love to His people, and they shall rise in the perfection of attachment to all who love the Lord. All envy, hatred, and alienation--all discord, strife, and evil surmisings will be destroyed for ever. 8. Christ rose with a body fit for heaven; and so shall they. “ Raised in power,” spirituality, and glory, all marks of their fallen and degraded estate shall disappear. “ Their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ’ s glorious body.” Contemplate, then, the “ end of the world” as the Redeemer’ s harvest. See the angels gathering the sheaves into the garner after the first-fruits. (The Evangelist.)The Resurrection I. The fact of the Resurrection.1. This event is indisputable. (1) Heaven attested it (see Matthew 28:2; Luke 24:2; Luke 24:4-7). (2) Earth also bare her testimony (Matthew 28:2; Matthew 27:52-53). (3) Enemies who were obliged to acknowledge that the body was no longer in the sepulchre, and could only produce the testimony of sleeping witnesses against it. 2. The agency by which it was effected. (1) Infidels perceive that the Christian system is signed and sealed by a miracle that requires one of the mightiest displays of omnipotence; they cannot affirm that God has affixed the broad seal of heaven’ s approbation to a lie. Since, then, it is so manifest that God alone could effect it, they do not presume, like the magicians of Pharaoh, to stretch forth the hand in bold and impious imitation. (2) We often find it ascribed to God without any distinction of persons (Acts 2:23-24; Acts 3:13-15). At other times, however, it is referred to the Father (Romans 6:4); at others to the Son (John 2:19; John 2:21); at others to the Spirit (Romans 8:11). 3. Its necessity. It was necessary-- (1) Because Christ had Himself made His resurrection a test of His claims (Matthew 12:1-50). (2) Without it credence must be withheld from the teachings of His apostles (1 Corinthians 15:14). (3) That He might make efficacious intercession for His people, and secure to them all the blessings of the everlasting covenant (Romans 5:10; Hebrews 7:24-25). Remember you have not “ a dead Saviour,” but one who has triumphed over death and all your foes. When Suwarrow, the Russian general, was being borne wounded from the battle-field, his soldiers, discouraged by the disappearance of their beloved commander, fell into confusion and fled; when the hardy veteran perceived it he leapt from his litter, mounted his horse, bleeding as he was, and exclaiming, “ My children, I am still alive,” rallied them, and led them back to victory! And shall not the discouraged Christian rouse every energy anew, when he hears Jesus, the great Captain of his salvation, exclaim, “ I am He that liveth, and was dead, and, behold I am alive for evermore.” II. The relationship which, by virtue of His resurrection, is formed between Christ and His people--that which exists between the first-fruits and the entire harvest. Christ the first-fruits, His people the plentitude of the ingathering. Hence we learn that the resurrection of Christ is inseparable from that of His people. Christ cannot be complete without His people. He is the “ Vine,” but where were the perfection of the vine without “ the branches” ? He is the “ Head,” but where were the perfection of the head without “ the members” ? Where shall we find completeness, perfection, beauty, in the “ Husband” without the “ bride,” in the “ Foundation” without the superstructure, in the “ First-fruits” without the fulness of the ingathering? Notice--1. That Christ is the “ first-fruits” of the Resurrection of His believing people only. It is true that by His power all shall rise again. But it is with believers only that this relationship will be recognised. The term employed is, “ them that slept,” which evidently refers to the children of God (1 Corinthians 15:18). As He was the “ first-fruits of them that slept” on the resurrection morning (Matthew 27:53), so also “ them which sleep in Jesus” to the end of time, “ will God bring with Him.” But ere you can “ fall asleep in Jesus,” you must live a life of holiness in Jesus. If you go down to the grave with a heart unrenewed, you will rise again, indeed; but it will be “ to the resurrection of damnation.” 2. The order of the Resurrection. The righteous and the wicked will simultaneously rise from their graves. One common resurrection will precede one common judgment (John 5:28-29; Matthew 25:31-34; Matthew 25:41-46; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Revelaiton 20:12, 13). 3. The nature of the change which will pass on the bodies of the saints. It will be a change from all that is earthly and gross and vile to that which is heavenly and holy and refined (1 Corinthians 15:35, etc.). By what mode this marvellous change shall be effected we know not. It is enough for us to know that our present vile and wasting body shall undergo a great and ennobling change, divesting it of all that is gross and fading, and clothing it in a robe of brilliance and majesty which shall make it “ shine as the brightness of the firmament, as the stars for ever and ever.” Conclusion: The subject affords ground of consolation--1. For those who are suffering from bereavement. 2. To those whose lot is sickness and poverty in this vale of tears. (J. Gaskin, M.A.)The certainty and joy of the Resurrection The apostle has been contemplating the dismal consequences which would arise if we only had a dead Christ. Then he turns away from that dreary picture, and with a change of key, from the wailing minors of the preceding verses, he breaks into this burst of triumph. I. The certainty of Christ’ s resurrection. “ Now is Christ risen.” The way to prove a fact is by the evidence of witnesses. I, therefore, protest against confusing the issues which is popular nowadays, when we are told that miracle is impossible, and therefore there has been no Resurrection, or that death is the end of human existence, and that therefore there has been no Resurrection. The men who argue thus are no more logical than the reasoner who, when told that facts were against him, with sublime confidence in his own infallibility, said, “ So much the worse for the facts.” Let us deal with evidence, and not with theory.1. In this chapter we have a record of the resurrection of Christ, older than, and altogether independent of, the Gospels; that this Epistle is one of the four undisputed Epistles of the apostle; that, therefore, this chapter, written at the latest, some twenty-seven years after the Crucifixion, carries us up very close to that went; that it shows that the Resurrection was believed all over the Church, and therefore must have then been long believed; that it enables us to trace the same belief among the Churches at the time of Paul’ s conversion, some five or six years after the Crucifixion, and that so we have absolutely contemporaneous testimony. This is not a case in which a belief slowly and gradually grew up. 2. And the witnesses are reliable and competent. It would be an anomaly, far greater than the Resurrection, to believe that these people were conspirators in a lie, and that the fairest morality and the noblest consecration grew up out of a fraud. But the apostle avers that that is the only tenable alternative. “ If Christ be not risen, then are we men who are lying to please God.” The fashionable modern theory, that it was hallucination is preposterous. Hallucinations that five hundred people at once shared; that lasted all through long talks, spread at intervals over more than a month; that included eating, drinking, the clasp of the hand, and the feeling of the breath; that culminated in the fancy that a gathered multitude of them saw Him going up into heaven! The hallucination is on the other side, I think. 3. Another valuable way of establishing facts is to point to others which indispensably require them for their explanation. I do not understand how it was possible for the Church to exist for a week after the Crucifixion, unless Jesus Christ rose again. How came it that these people, with their Master taken away, and their bond of union removed, and all their hopes crushed, did not say, “ We have made a mistake, let us take to our fishing again, and try and forget our bright illusions.” That is what John the Baptist’ s followers did when he died. Why did not Christ’ s do the same? Because Christ rose again and re-knit them together. Christianity with a dead Christ, and a Church gathered round a grave from which the stone has not been rolled away, is more unbelievable than the miracle, for it is an absurdity. 4. Then there is another thing. Suppose, after the execution of Charles I, a pretender had sprung up and said, “ I am the king!” the way to end that would have been for the Puritan leaders to have taken people to Westminster Abbey, and said, “ Look! there is the coffin, there is the body, is that the king or is it not?” Jesus Christ was said to have risen again. The rulers could have put an end to the nonsense in two minutes, if it had been nonsense, by the simple process of saying, “ Go and look at the tomb and you will see Him there.” But this question has never been answered, and never will be, What became of that sacred corpse if Christ did not rise again from the dead? The clumsy lie, that the disciples had stolen away the body, was the acknowledgment that the grave was empty. If the grave were empty, either His servants were impostors, which we have seen is incredible, or the Christ was risen again. II. The triumph in the certitude of that resurrection. The apostle has been speaking about the consequences which would follow from the fact that Christ was not raised. If we take these and reverse them, we understand this great burst of triumph from the apostle’ s lips.1. The risen Christ gives us a complete gospel. A dead Christ annihilates it. “ If Christ be not risen, our preaching is vain,” i.e., empty--a blown bladder; nothing in it but wind. Strike the Resurrection out, and what have you left? Some beautiful bits of moral teaching, a lovely life, marred by tremendous mistakes about Himself and His relation to men and to God; but you have got nothing left that is worth calling a gospel. 2. A living Christ gives faith something to lay hold of. A dead Christ makes our faith “ vain,” i.e., “ of none effect” or “ powerless.” (1) The risen Christ gives something for faith to lay hold of. Who can trust a dead Christ, or a human Christ? It is only when we recognise Him as declared to be the Son of God, and that by the Resurrection, that our faith has anything round which it can twine, and to which it can cleave. (2) If Christ be dead our faith, if it could exist, would be as devoid of effect as it would be empty of substance. It would be like an infant seeking nourishment at a dead mother’ s breast, or men trying to kindle their torches at an extinguished lamp. It would fail to bring deliverance from sin. 3. The risen Christ gives us the certitude of our Resurrection. Many men talked about a western continent, but Colunbus went there and came back again, and that ended doubt. Many men before, and apart from Jesus, have cherished thoughts of an immortal life, but He has been there and returned. And that only puts the doctrine of immortality upon an irrefragable foundation. Conclusion: If you will let Him, He will make you partakers of His own immortal life.1. “ The first-fruits of them that slept” is the pledge and the prophecy of all the waving abundance of golden grain that shall be gathered into the great husbandman’ s barns. The apostle goes on to represent the resurrection of “ them that are Christ’ s” as a consequence of their union to Jesus. He has conquered for us all. 2. There are two resurrections; one, that of Christ’ s servants; one, that of others. They are not the same in principle--and, alas! they are awfully different in issue. “ Some shall awake to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (A. Maclaren, D.D.)The law of the resurrection 1. Our common ideas and fears of death are more Pagan than Christian. Death to many men is the blank wall around life beyond which they look or plan for nothing. But physical death does not hold the first place in the economy of redemption. The Bible assigns it a subordinate place. Sin, indeed, entailed the certainty of death for man; but Adam was not commanded by the Lord to live every day a slave bound under the fear of death. Man is to work out his time here, and to pass through death, as born under the higher law of the Spirit, and with the possibility of eternal life always before him. And in the New Testament the chief use made of the fact of death is as a metaphor. Sin is death; the maid whom the people, thought dead Christ said “ sleepeth.” The importance of natural death falls into the background, and the new birth of the Spirit comes into the foreground. 2. The Christian doctrine of the Resurrection is a stumbling-block to faith because of this exaggerated estimate of death. We speak as though death were the ultimate law of life, and thus we have to smuggle in our hope of the resurrection as a miraculous exception. Exactly the opposite is true. Life is the law of nature, and death a natural means to more life and better. The resurrection of Jesus was not the great exception to natural law; it is an exemplification of the higher, universal law of life. In the opinion of the apostle the resurrection of Jesus was no more out of the Divine order of things than the first-fruits of the summer are exceptions to the general law which in the autumn shall show its universal power in every harvest-field. 3. The resurrection of Jesus is the great miracle of history, the corner-stone of the evidences of supernatural religion. But the miracle was not the fact itself, but in that He was raised before the last great day, and that He should be seen by men in His intermediate state between earth and heaven. And the God of the living had His own sufficient reason for making this one exception. It was partly for our sakes, that the world might believe. Was it not due also to the person of Jesus that He should not wait with all the saints for the day of final redemption? The miraculous thus in Jesus’ resurrection pertains to the manner and time of it rather than to the essential fact of it. It was an exceptional fruit appearing before the harvest, which is the end of the world. If you should see a tree blossom, and the next morning find the fruit already ripe, you would say, That is extraordinary! It is not indeed contrary to the nature of the tree that fruit should ripen, yet contrary to all our experience of growth that the fruit should ripen in a day. And it would not be impossible to conceive a quickening of nature’ s forces which might cause a plant to break into fruitfulness contrary to our experience of its usual times and seasons. Somewhat so is Jesus’ resurrection a first-fruit of the tree of life; not in itself contrary to the law of life, but in its manner and time out of the common order. I. There is no little Scriptural evidence for the belief that the resurrection of Jesus, although exceptional in time and manner, is an instance of a general law of resurrection.1. This was Jesus’ teaching,. He answered the Sadducees by asserting that the dead shall be raised, but He placed the fact of the Resurrection upon the fundamental principle that life, not death, is God’ s first law. The highest law of human nature according to Christ is that it should “ live unto God” ; if there is to be eternal death, that death must come in as the exception, as the falling back of a soul from the kind of life for which it was created to the lower powers of corruption. It is born for freedom and life in constant relation to the living God; if it is to perish it can only be by making itself, through some inner falsehood, subject to corruption. 2. The Lord’ s own resurrection is set forth as an event which could not possibly have failed to occur (Acts 2:24; Acts 2:27). How can holiness see corruption? how can life itself be given over to death? Impossible! It would have been a miracle had not Jesus risen from the dead--a miracle without reason, a miracle against the living God, had He not risen from the dead--the first-fruits of this power and order of Divine life in the creation. 3. The same truth comes out grandly in the apostolic gospel of the Resurrection. What is this wonderful chapter but a setting forth of the glorious law of the resurrection? First the historical fact that Jesus was seen after His death is solemnly attested; then Jesus’ resurrection is declared to be the first-fruits of the whole harvest of life which is to follow; and then this process of the resurrection is shown to be in the largest and profoundest sense natural. It is a spiritual outgrowth from this body of death. (1) The nature of the resurrection is in accordance with law. If there is a natural body there is also a spiritual body--the latter is just as much in the Divine order of things as is the former--the creation is made and constituted for the higher spiritual body as much as for the lower natural body. (2) Its method is in accordance with law. First the God-given seed, then its quickening in the earth, then its springing up out of its earthliness into its own element, and its being clothed upon with its own proper form and texture, as God gives “ to each seed a body of its own.” (3) Its whole process is in accordance with law (1 Corinthians 15:46-47). The apostle was not standing dazed before a miracle. He has caught a glimpse into the first principles of life which go deeper than death. He has learned that the resurrection is the promised fulfilment of the laws of life which have been with God from before the foundation of the world. The stars which differ in glory are no more miracles in the sky than is the resurrection of the dead to the apostle who had seen the risen Lord. The sun and the moon are no more exceptions to the ancient order of the heavens than the souls of men raised from the dead, and clothed upon with the shining glory of the celestial, are out of the Divine order and harmony to the eye of the apostle who has seen the risen Lord. II. The Biblical teaching of the resurrection is that it is in accordance with law. Why should it seem otherwise to us?1. Why should we regard it as a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? Is there anything which we have seen upon this earth which contradicts the spiritual law of our full redemption? Apparent con.tradictions to this gospel there are, but not one which is real. On the other hand, there are positive facts arranging themselves now in lengthening lines, over which we look straight out into the unseen and the eternal. As I cannot think of a star except as I think of it as in the sky, so I cannot think of this visible sphere of things or nature except as existing in some invisible realm and larger presence. And particularly in confirmation of this Scriptural faith in the Divine orderliness of the resurrection and eternal life, let me now merely suggest these considerations. (1) We do know this, that death is not the only law of nature; there is also the law of life. (2) It is a fact that of the two laws life, not death, is the higher and prevailing power so far as we can see. The earth was dead, so they tell us, ages ago. Now how this earth lives! (3) Even here, where death reigns, life has been growing higher, more complex, more capable of larger correspondences with things. Between the lowest living thing and the brain of man there is a difference of life wide as the distance between the earth and the heavens. Plainly, then, without any doubt, life is something stronger thus far upon this earth than death. Notwithstanding death, life grows to be more and richer. 2. But this is not all. What is death, so far as we can see? Here is a minute living thing in a glass of water. You turn the water out. That living particle is now mere dust upon the glass. Dead--that is, it is no longer moving in an element corresponding to its capacity of vital movements. Death, then, is simply some wrong or imperfect adjustment of life to external conditions. But death may be partial, then, not entire. A part of the body may be dead. A man may be dead in some relations, and still live in others. There is a sense in which we die daily. Life is the principle, the force, the law; death the limitation, the accident, the partial negation of God’ s great affirmation of life in things. Now see where this thought leads. (1) Death is the sundering of certain relations of life towards outward things. (2) Therefore, when the body finally is wholly dead and buried, when all these physical relations are wholly broken off, so much of life is certainly gone, but nothing else in a man, if there is anything more of him, is dead. “ You may catch me if you can find me,” said Socrates, as he let his body go. And the Scripture says, “ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” 3. This view of the partial and negative power and function of death opens up a further rational possibility of life. We have only to suppose a living soul in perfect adjustment to God, and all God’ s laws of things, to conceive of a being possessing eternal life. “ This is life eternal that they might know Thee,” etc. In such perfect adjustment of being to God and His laws the finite spirit would exist in its final spiritual embodiment. Eternal life would be the perfect harmony of the inward and outward conditions--the final union of the spirit of the just made perfect with God and His universe. Conclusion: If these things be so it follows that our true life consists in our coming at once into the right correspondence with that which is the real and eternal element of life--with God and His righteousness. We are made to live in perfect harmony with all good, beautiful, and true things, or in communion with God. The only thing to be feared is spiritual death. That is non-adjustment of our hearts to God. There is one thing which I cannot but fear, and that is the loss of one’ s own soul. And I am afraid of the death which I see already going beyond the physical man, benumbing the conscience, and chilling the very souls of men. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (Newman Smyth, D.D.)The resurrection of Christ Contemplate this as-- I. An established fact. It is established--1. On the testimony of the most competent witnesses--those who had a thorough knowledge of the facts, and such an invincible love for truth as would render it impossible for them to misrepresent them. 2. On the very existence of Christendom. What gave birth to Christendom? The gospel; and the truth of the gospel rests on the resurrection of Christ. 3. On the consciousness of genuine disciples. Such consciousness attests that they are “ not in their sins,” and they feel that this deliverance came from the gospel. II. A significant fact. The reference here is to the “ first-fruits” of the harvest (see Leviticus 23:12-19). Those first-fruits were both an earnest and a sample of the full harvest at hand. Hence Christ’ s resurrection was regarded--1. As a pledge of the resurrection. As He rose so will all rise. 2. As a pattern. The sheaf waved before the Lord was a specimen or sample of what remained in the field to be gathered in. “ Our vile bodies shall be fashioned and made like unto His glorious body” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22). III. An influential fact. Between the influence of Adam and that of Christ on the race there is--1. A resemblance. The resemblance is in its extensibility. Though Adam’ s influence upon the race is more extensive at present than that of Christ, it is not more extensible. It has in it the power of extending over the whole race down through all times, and it will do so. 2. A contrast. The influence of the one is destructive, the influence of the other quickening. If by death here bodily death is meant, then the idea is that Christ will quicken to life all that have died. But what does it mean to be in Adam and in Christ. In the sense of character. All men live in the characters of others; children in the character of their parents, pupils in their masters, the present generation in the preceding. The characters of the men of past ages constitute the moral atmosphere of existing men. In Adam’ s character--the character of selfishness, carnality, unbelief--all unregenerate men live to-day, his principles pulsate in all hearts. In the character of Christ, in His self-sacrificing love, spotless purity, and godly devotion, all the godly live to-day. Now those who live in the character of Adam must die, not merely in the sense of the dissolution of the soul from the body, but in the more awful sense of the dissolution of the soul from God; whereas those who live in the character of Christ live by a vital connection with the Eternal Fountain of all life. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Christ’ s resurrection I. Our Lord’ s resurrection from the dead is the pledge and earnest of all Christian hope.1. That it should be the corner-stone of Christian doctrine strikes at the root of all religious theories which ignore the miraculous in Christianity. The story of Christ begins and closes with the supernatural--the incarnation and the resurrection. 2. It is constantly represented as the supreme fact in Christianity. (1) Christ often foretells it as such (Matthew 17:9; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; Matthew 12:40; John 2:19; John 11:25, etc.). He thus committed Himself to a test by which His claims might be proved, or the reverse. (a) If He did not rise men would know He was a self-deceiver, if not an impostor. (b) As the Holy Son of God He could not remain in the power of death, which is a penalty for sin. (c) As such, moreover, He might give Himself up to death for a time, to secure a great end in the economy of salvation, but He must have life, indestructible, in Himself--must rise. (2) The apostles made it the supreme fact in their preaching (Acts 4:2; Acts 1:22; Acts 4:33; Acts 23:6; Romans 4:1; Romans 6:5; Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:3; 1 Peter 3:21). 3. It was established by evidence which admitted no question in the mind of St. Paul, long the bitter opponent of Christianity (1 Corinthians 15:5-8). II. Why so much stress is laid on the resurrection of Christ.1. It was the confirmation of all His promises as the founder of a new religion. (1) Had He lain in the grave the proof to which He appealed, of being sent to save men, would have been wanting. (2) His resurrection was a confirmation of His claims by the Eternal Father. (a) Of His claims to be an atoning sacrifice for sin. Of His being, in reality, the Son of God. “ Declared to be the Son of God, with power,” etc. (b) Of His having entered into His glory at the head of the new spiritual kingdom He had founded. (3) In the presence of His resurrection all doubts vanish from the minds of the apostles as to His being able to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Him (1 Corinthians 15:14; 1 Corinthians 15:17-19; cf. Romans 8:34). (4) But, now that He is risen, all is bright with a glorious hope. “ He was raised for our justification, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” “ We have an advocate with the Father.” “ He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” 2. It was the pledge of our own resurrection and future happiness. The words spoken over the tomb of Lazarus come back with awful power from the heavens now Christ is risen … I am the resurrection and the life.” Those, also, spoken to His disciples--“ Because I live ye shall live also.” (1) In Him humanity conquered death. The destiny of man linked with Him. He is the first-fruits the streamer that heralds the day. The bud of spring that foretells the glory of June. (2) He has thus brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. The contrast between the darkness of the future before Christ and its holy radiance since. Caesar demanding that Cataline should be spared since death ended existence. Cicero bewailing his daughter’ s death without a ray of hope beyond earth. (3) Christ’ s resurrection has “ begotten us again to a lively hope.” It has attracted us to the eternal world as the home of our Elder Brother. 3. It is the constraining impulse to a holy life. (1) To be like Christ the ideal of His followers, since He showed us the path by which alone we can gain a happy immortality. Gratitude and love draws out the heart to an absolute devotion to His service, that service being a holy life. As He has risen, so we are constrained to seek a spiritual resurrection from our old selves to newness of life, to be like Him, and hereafter rejoin Him. (2) His resurrection has secured us heavenly grace to assist us on this course (Acts 2:23 : John 16:7). (3) The resurrection of Christ is a pledge of the future triumph of His kingdom. “ All power given Him in heaven and on earth.” “ He must reign.” (Cunningham Geikie, D.D.)The resurrection: Christ the first-fruits I. The pictures here given of the death of the saints.1. As a sleep. Not that the soul sleeps, but the body in its lonely bed of earth, beneath the coverlet of grass, with the cold clay for its pillow. (1) With sleep we associate the ideas-- (a) Rest. On yonder couch, however hard, the labourer shakes off his toil, the merchant his care, the thinker his difficulties, and the sufferer his pains. Sleep makes each night a Sabbath for the day. So is it with the body while it sleeps in the tomb. The weary are at rest; the servant is as much at ease as his lord. (b) Forgetfulness. The soul forgets not, and we have no reason to believe that the glorified are ignorant of what is going on below. But what do their bodies know? Take up the skull, see if there be memory there. See where once the heart was if there be any emotion there. Gather the bones, see if they are still obedient to muscles which could be moved at will as passing events might affect the mind. (c) Benefit. In the old tradition Medet, the enchantress, cast the limbs of old men into her cauldron that they might come forth young again. Sleep does all this in its fashion. The righteous are put into their graves all weary and worn, but such they will not rise. (2) The sleep of death is not-- (a) A dreamy slumber. The involuntary action of the mind prevents us at times from taking rest in sleep. But not so with the dear departed. In that sleep of death no dreams can come. (b) A hopeless sleep. We have seen persons sleep who have been long emaciated by sickness, when we have said, “ That eye will never open again; he will sleep himself into eternity.” But it is not so here. They sleep a healthy sleep--they sleep to wake, and not to die the second death; go wake in joyous fellowship when the Redeemer stands in the latter day upon the earth. (3) Ought not this view of death to prevent our looking upon it in so repulsive a light? Did you ever feel horror at a sleeping child or husband or wife? And do not wish the departed back again. Would you wake your friend who has fallen asleep after excruciating pain? 2. As a sowing. The mould has been ploughed, and the husbandman scatters his seeds. They fall into the earth, the clods are raked over them, and they disappear. So it is with us. We call Death a reaper--I call him a sower. He takes these bodies and sows us broadcast in the ground. And if this is so let us have done with all faithless sorrow. “ The granary is empty,” says the farmer. Yes, but he does not sigh over it; for the seed is put into the ground in order that the granary may be filled again. “ Our family circle has been broken,” say you. Yes, but only broken that it may be re-formed. The stars are setting here to rise in other skies to set no more. II. The connection between the resurrection of Christ and that of believers. Some take very great delight in the hope that they may be “ alive and remain” at the coming of Christ, but not to die would be to lose the great privilege of relationship with Christ as “ the first-fruits.” The allusion is to the Jewish feast, when the first sheaf was brought out from the harvest as a token of the whole, and first of all heaved upward as a heave-offering, and then waived to and fro as a waive-offering, being thus dedicated to God in testimony of the gratitude for the harvest. The Passover was celebrated first, then came a Sabbath-day, then after that came the feast of first-fruits. So Christ died on the Passover day, the next day was the Sabbatic rest. Christ’ s body therefore tarried in the grave; then early in the morning of the first day, the feast of the first-fruits, Christ rose. Christ was the first that rose--1. In order of time. All who were raised before died again, and, with the exception of Lazarus, none were ever buried. Christ was the first who really rose no more to die. He leads the vanguard through the dark defile, and His brow first salutes the light of heaven, We admire the man who discovers a new country. Christ is the first who returned from the jaws of death to tell of immortality and light. 2. In point of cause; for as He comes back from the grave He brings all His followers behind Him in one glorious train. We read of Hercules descending into Hades and bringing up his friend. Verily went Christ thither, and He gave no sop to Cerberus, but cut off his head. 3. In point of pledge. The first-fruits were a pledge of the harvest. 4. As the representative of the whole. When the first-fruit sheaf had been waved before God it was considered that all the harvest had been brought into the sanctuary. So when Christ rose He consecrated the whole harvest. All the righteous dead were virtually risen in Him. III. The influence of this doctrine.1. Let us look well to the holiness of our bodies. “ Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?” Now if our eyes look upon vanity we have defiled the windows of God’ s house; if our tongues speak evil we have desecrated its gates. Let us see to it that our feet carry us nowhere but where our Master can go with us, and that our hands be outstretched for naught but that which is pure and lovely. 2. Are we among those for whom Christ stands as first-fruits? (C. H. Spurgeon.)Christ the first-fruits All shall rise at the last day, and be clothed with their bodies again. “ But will all that rise enter into Christ’ s joy? Only if they rise after His likeness. The crop from which the first-fruits were picked was not all of the same quality. There may have been wild grapes and fruit of brambles amid the crop of the vineyard, and there may have been tares and thistles among the crop of corn. These would be cast into the fire, and none but what are of the same kind as the first-fruits, grapes and corn, laid up in store. So it will be at the resurrection harvest. None but such as are like to Christ, the first-fruits, will be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. There is, therefore, much to warn us here. That which goes into the ground as seed of bramble or thistle will rise bromide or thistle, so he that goes into the grave a child of wrath will rise a child of wrath. Note-- I. That which is the grand property of everything that bears fruit, growth. As all men bear fruit of some kind, they are growing up from something and to something.1. What, then, is the seed in our hearts from which we are growing? Is it the good seed of the Word of God? It is easy to determine. The manner of the plant’ s growth declares its seed. (1) Is there in the heart-- (a) A spreading forth of the love of God? (b) A continual rise, as if of lively sap, of the sense of the mercies in Christ, of the experience of the earnest of His promises, of the motions of the Holy Spirit, of the promptings of good thoughts, godly meditations, heavenly affections? (c) The shooting upwards of the stem of the seeking of God, the believing in Christ, the hoping of the good things to come, the raising of the desires? (d) The shooting downward of a good hold of faith, of a rooting in love, of a seeking of spiritual nourishment? (e) Shooting sideways into branches of love toward the brethren, of exercise in good works, of example to edification? Who can doubt the seed of such a plant? (2) But, on the contrary, if the heart-- (a) Rise and swell with the motions of ungodliness. (b) Shooting upward in rebellion against God. (c) Shoot downward in carnal desires, earthly affections, devilish inclinations. (d) Shoot sideways in carelessness of living, bad example, indifference to God’ s honour and glory--who does not know that it is the bad seed sown by the devil in the heart of man when he was asleep in the unwatchfulness of this world? And who is not certain of the nature of its fruit, that it will be a poisonous berry, to the shame and scandal of the vineyard and field of God in which he has been suffered to grow up?2. What is the fruit to which we are growing. There can be no doubt of a plant bearing its natural fruit, but there may be a doubt of its bearing fruit at all. But we hardly ever see worthless plants disabled from bearing fruit. Who ever saw the thistle blighted? It is the valuable fruits that are so uncertain, and the more precious they are so much the more tender they are, and require greater care to bring them to perfection, for they are not in their natural climate. And is the sinful world the natural climate for the precious fruits of holiness? No; all ungodliness thrives in it, blossoms without fail and in all abundance, and brings forth fruit most plentifully. But how different is it with the plant which comes up in the heart from the seed of the Word of God. The heat of temptation, the cold of indifference, the blight of unbelief, the floods of ungodliness, are all against it, and it requires to be nursed carefully, watched continually. II. On our growth, whether for good or for evil fruit, depends our place on the day of the harvest of which Christ is the first-fruits. Our characters are decided for holy or unholy when we go into the grave; our place is decided, for happiness or misery, on the day that we rise out of it. It is astonishing how watchful some men are in keeping out such thoughts; it would be well if others would be as watchful in keeping them in. A person may indeed look forward to a happy resurrection without attaining it, because he may delude himself with false hopes; but no one will ever attain a happy resurrection without looking forward to it. (R. W. Evans, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Salvation by man When Paul says “ by man” he refers to Christ; only taking advantage of the fact that, since the Son of God incarnate, is become a proper man, it is permitted us to regard the power of salvation as included in humanity itself. Christ is not so much to be thought of as being external, but as a regenerative power so inserted in humanity as to be, in a sense, of it. The word “ since” supposes an impression felt of inherent fitness, requiring the corporate disadvantages of the fall to be made good by a corporate remedy. Consider, then-- I. The antecedent probability of such a remedy, indicated by familiar analogies. It is God’ s manner to make all things largely self-remedial when attacked by disorder. The bush that is bent, as soon as it is let go springs up suddenly by an elastic force within. Cut it down and it will set to new growths. Every animal body has a distinct self-medicating force in its own nature, called by physiologists the vis medicatrix. The same is true of all defections of character, the man must repair his losses by a process of recovery undertaken by himself; the whole world toiling at his vices and dishonors could not repair one of them. The same is true of society. What, then, shall we expect when humanity is broken by sin, but that if God organises redemption, He will do it in a way to have it appear as a redemption from within, executed in a sense by man? II. We not only want a supernatural salvation (for nothing less than that can possibly regenerate the fall of nature), but in order to have any steady faith in it we must have it wrought into nature and made to be, as it were. One of its own stock powers. Note the eagerness that turns such multitudes of our time after the doctrine of progress.1. Yet there is no fiction more baseless than a strictly natural progress, for after the fact of sin the progress of the race must be (as we see it is) from bad to worse. We want a salvation that is to us all that this doctrine of progress pretends to be, and God gives us to see the general humanity so penetrated with the supernatural by Christ living in it, as to be, in a sense, working out redemption from within itself. 2. Meantime, if it were possible to restore the fall of our race by any kind of wholly external agency, supposing no concurrent struggles operating from within, it would reduce our character and grade of insignificance to a virtual nullity. But the Saviour being or becoming man, the salvation dignifies and raises man even before he receives it. III. Since it is continually assumed in Scripture that we fall as a corporate whole, we naturally look for some recuperative grace to re entered into the race, by which so great a disadvantage may be repaid or overcome, True, we are not born of Christ physiologically. The correspondence must not be understood to hold in any but a general and qualified way. Let it be enough that as Adam is our head physiologically, so is Christ our head by the head influences He inaugurates. Good souls have a power to get into the race by collateral propagations of their goodness, when bad souls have almost no such power at all. They have a destiny of headship, becoming Adams in the sublime fatherhood of their power. And so it is, illustrating the Divine by the human, that the incarnate Word of God’ s eternity, coming into birth and living and dying as a man, fills the race with new possibilities and powers, starts resurgent activities, and overtops the sin abounding with a grace that so much more abounds. IV. Consider now some of the Scripture evidence of the subject. It declares the the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’ s head. The woman’ s whole posterity, including Christ, shall do it, God being always present in the struggle. Here and there the hidden method is departed from, and God does something for or upon our humanity and not through it, but nothing works like a power that does not work by man. When Christ comes, perfect in all Divinity, He gets into the common family register as man, and puts the struggle on as being a struggle of race. And when He is gone a gospel is born, and, though there seems nothing here but the same humanity there was before, it is a very different fight as respects the power of it. Observe how even Holy Scripture is written by man, bearing in every book the stamp of the particular mind in whose personal conception it was shaped. And the gospel of Christ is to be preached by human ministers, and the disciples are to be newer incarnations of Christ, and, in a sense, by their gifts, prayers, and sufferings, vehicles, also, of the Spirit. “ Ye are the light of the world.” Conclusion:1. We have, then, a very significant presumption raised, that when any breakage or damage occurs in any legitimate institution of the world, God has put in somewhere some kind of self-remedial force to mend it. 2. Note the immense responsibility thrown upon Christ’ s followers. Christ lays it on them to be gospellers with Him, and to really believe is to come into the great life-struggle of Jesus. 3. Lift up your heads, O ye drooping ones! Christ is in the world. He is about us, within us, going through all things, moving onward in all. Leaven does not make a noise when it works, and yet it works. No river runs to the sea more certainly or steadily than the great salvation by man runs to conquest and a kingdom. 4. Observe the beautiful delicacy of God in His plan of salvation. He makes it not a salvation for man only, but contrives to make it, as far as possible, a salvation by man. True, it is all by Christ, and yet it is by the Christ within--the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And so, instead of making His mercy a mere pity that kills respect, He makes it a power that lifts into character and everlasting manhood. And when we shall go home to be with Christ, what shall we do but confess in lowliest homage--“ Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” ; raising our finale, also, to sing, in the glorified majesty of our feeling, “ And hath made us kings and priests unto God.” (H. Bushnell, D.D.)For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.-- Adam and Christ Consider-- I. The points of resemblance between these two beings as traced out in different parts of Scripture.1. Adam was the immediate creation of God. He had no other father--neither had Christ’ s human nature. 2. In the perfect beauty of holiness was Adam created. And of Christ we are told that He was “ holy, harmless, undefiled.” 3. The crown of dominion over the earth and the creatures was set upon the head of Adam; but this is more fully verified in the exalted humanity of Christ (Hebrews 2:8-9). 4. Adam was transported from the part of the earth where he was created to Eden; Christ ascended from the world to the heavenly Paradise. II. The points of dissimilarity between them. There is between them the distance of humanity and deity. Christ was able to vivify His own body. He was made a “ quickening spirit” ; but Adam “ was made a living soul” only. III. The relation in which these personages stand to human beings, and the manner in which it is formed. To Adam all stand related by a natural connection--our bond with Christ is a bond of faith. IV. The consequences accruing to us from this relation.1. The baneful effects of our connection with Adam. 2. The benefits which come to us from our bond with Christ. (J. Leifchild, D.D.)The Adam and the Christ The apostle is not content with affirming the obvious fact, that as Adam died, so all men die. He traces the death of all to the death of the one, and affirms the work of Christ to be coextensive and coefficient with the work of Adam. Just as in Romans 5:12-21 he connects the results of Christ’ s redemption with the sin which brought death into the world and all our woe. I. Throughout the Scriptures Christ is set forth as the creative Word and wisdom of God. Without Him was not anything made that was made. By Him, “ the Quickening Spirit,” Adam was made in His image, after His similitude. Adam, by his trespass, defaced that Divine image; but he did not altogether obliterate it. He brought evil and death into our nature; but there was still in that nature some remnant of its original beauty and goodness. And to this day our nature is a compound in which good and evil are strangely blended; the good of God, the evil of ourselves. In every child we see some bad, some good tendencies. Whence do they derive that goodness? From Christ, the Creative Word. All in himself and in us that Adam could not, or did not, wholly spoil, is a remnant of man’ s original endowment; it is the work and gift of Christ. And therefore it is that the better man, the better self, in us speaks with an authority which the worse self never claims. II. But it is not as Creator alone that Christ saves us and gives us life: it is also as Redeemer, the “ Second Man, the Lord from heaven,” who took our flesh and dwelt among us. Whatever our view of “ original sin,” we all admit that the sins of the father do affect the very nature of his children; and that therefore, if by transgression our first parents fell from their purity, it may very well be that we are the worse for their transgression. But it is not equally easy to see how the redemption of Jesus should have a similar effect on us before we believe on Him. Yet a little consideration may suffice to show us that whatever Christ does must affect the whole human race in the same way in which it is affected by Adam’ s sin. For what gave Adam his power over us and the renditions of our life? Simply the fact that he was our father; in the subordinate sense, our maker. Like begets like. God begot Adam in His likeness; Adam begot men in his likeness. As he transgressed, we suffer for his transgression. But who made Adam? Christ, the Creative Word, that afterwards took flesh and became man. If, then, whatever Adam did affects us, simply because we descend from him, will not whatever Christ--from whom also we descend--does, affect us? and affect us by so much the more as Christ is greater than Adam? If we can conceive that Christ, the Living and Creative Word, should have perished, should not we all have perished in Him? And if He, our Maker, assumes our nature, and renders a perfect obedience, must we not all be the better for His obedience? As well might the sun move from its place without influencing, in every part, the whole solar system, as the eternal Christ descend to earth, and dwell a Man among men, without sending a vital influence through the whole of humanity. III. But how are all men the better for the grace of Christ? Death, moral and physical, was the consequence of Adam’ s transgression. Had he become only what he had made himself, he would have sunk irremediably into evil. Had we in our nature only that which, in the strictest sense, we derive from him, we should be only evil. That he did not, that we do not, become the mere bondslaves of evil, is all of “ grace” ; it is because we derive from Christ other and better qualities than we inherit from Adam, because Adam derived from Christ other and better qualities than those which he superinduced upon his nature. As we have seen, even before we believe in Christ we have a better and a worse self contending in us for the mastery. Consider the children you know. Nay, consider the very worst man you know. Is there not a double nature in him? Has not even he a better self? Does he not know that it is the better, and that it should be supreme? This is the benefit all men derive from the redemption of Christ, that they have “ the Christ” in them, just as the harm they inherit from Adam is that they have “ the Adam” in them. But for the grace of Christ they would never have had that “ better self,” of which they are conscious even when they wrong it by sinning against it. Conclusion: Perhaps it may be objected, “ But Adam was the first man. Christ did not come into the world for four thousand years after sin was in the world.” It might be enough to reply that Christ was in the world before Adam, or how could He have made Adam? that He has never left the world: that He was in Adam as a spirit of righteousness and truth after the Fall, and in all who lived before the Advent: for how else could He have taught them what they knew of the spiritual and eternal world? how else could they have striven against His Spirit? how else could they have tempted Christ (1 Corinthians 10:9). How else could all the fathers drink of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:1-4; cf. Hebrews 11:26). But this objection springs from our purely human way of regarding things. We are in time, and judge events by the measures of time. We are so made that we can only conceive of events locally and in succession--i.e., within the limitations of time and space. But these limitations do not restrain the Inhabitant of Eternity. There is no before and after with Him. If the eternal Christ had been the last man on the earth, none the less His redemption would have passed in its effects through all the eras of time, and have moulded the destinies of all generations. We indeed cannot tell how; but neither can we comprehend the mere conception of eternity: how, then, can we hope to comprehend Him who sits above all of time, or to calculate the issues of His redeeming work?2. Again, it may be asked, “ But if all men are to live in Christ as all men die in Adam, does not the parallel involve the ultimate recovery of the whole human race? No; both the Adam and the Christ are in us: the Adam with his “ offence,” the Christ with His “ grace” ; the Adam with his “ disobedience,” the Christ with His “ gift of righteousness.” And we have to choose between them. Yielding to the Adam, we die; but if we yield to the Christ, we shall “ never die,” but “ reign in life” through Him. If we are not obliged to yield to Adam’ s sin, why should we be obliged to yield to Christ’ s grace? (S. Cox, D.D.)The solidarity of salvation 1. A friend we love, how distinct and individual seems to us all he says and does! And his most marked peculiarities become dear to us simply because they are his and his only. 2. And yet, if we go home with him, counter-discoveries greet us on every side. We see in his father whence came that look in the eyes, and in his mother that turn of the mouth, that shade of colour in the hair, and his voice in his young brother. But is he any the less a distinct character? 3. How deep our searching might go if we penetrated the hidden ground of our friend’ s life. And science could take up his mannerisms, and show us their exact parallel not only in the locality where he was born, but in the ancient homes of the English in the far north. Nor is it his body only into which these multitudinous influences have entered, but into his character and mind. We are using the stored experiences of bygone generations, and cannot throw off the domination of their hidden forces, for they lie at the most secret places of our souls. Old faces, long buried, look out of our eyes; voices from out of forgotten and unknown graves speak through our lips. Yet nothing of all this burdens us; we are ourselves; we miss nothing of our free manhood. We all of us live one life. Out of the same earth we grow, like plants out of a common soil, and each of us puts out our own colour, and shape, and scent. And it is by this unity of race that we effect a combined advance; civilisation is only possible, because the genius of each generation can be retained and transmitted. 4. But, then, we cannot accept the gains of heredity and refuse the losses. And why, then, are we perplexed, if, by this same habitual law, we all in Adam die? We men form one body; and to prohibit poison, once introduced, from spreading over the whole, would be done only at the cost of forbidding that body to perform its functions, at the cost of wrecking its structural life. Let Adam once have sinned, and we, who are in Adam, have the seeds of sin within us. Our freedom is all the more free when it acts under the uplifting pressure of a splendid inheritance; nor is it at all sensible of any diminution because its sin bears witness to the miserable story of a guilty stock. 5. “ In Adam all die.” Yes! but hidden in this very mystery is the possibility of a redemption. The transmission that makes for the corruption of all, can be turned to the needs and uses of the regeneration. God converts the conditions of the curse into the very instruments of the blessing. In Adam, it is true, all would die; but, then, in Christ, all may be made alive. So, in the Beloved Son, man becomes new-begotten of God. 6. And now let us measure His task. His virtue must imbed itself by roots as deep and strong as those by which sin has dug its dire fangs into the inherited flesh. It must pervade and embrace the entire bulk of fallen and human nature. Everything that is ours He must make His. And ours, now, was a life bound down under a curse, smitten with the blight of sorrow. Yet He became ours; wholly human, wholly knit into our common fate, implicated with us in all our woe. And yet, lo! He has brought with Him into our burdened days the new vitality. The entire movement in which we had found ourselves held is reversed. 7. As that old sin spread out its baneful influence, ring upon ring, circle upon circle, so this new life issues out over the whole, in circle after circle, in ring upon ring. There is the outermost ring of that dim heathen world which has been brought nigh, in the Risen Christ, to the Father. And they, even they, amid ugly and foul confusions, are not insensible to that strange stirring which is the movement within them of the resurrection--a movement blind yet prophetic--prompting them to deeds which Christ will yet own as His at the Last Day. And within that ring is the ring of a civilisation that, for all its miserable stains, has yet this mark of Christ upon it; it can never lose its hope--a hope that has in it always the power of a recovery. We cannot despair, though the Lord delayeth His coming. And within that ring is the ring of those who cling to Christ. The Lord knows them that are His, and He showers down favour upon them as they look up to Him. And within this ring, again, its very heart and core, is Christ’ s living Church. Christ’ s love beats like a great heart, pulse upon pulse, expelling that slow death which has crept over the body of humanity. And, thus, “ in Christ, all are made alive.” You and I, we are none the less free, because in Adam we all died; and then in Christ, in some strange recovery, achieved for and by God, we all were made alive. Just as we won the free exercise of our English name out of the very necessities which had made us English; so, out of our very bond to Christ, we win the energy to become free friends of Christ. Out of His action we are made free, and the more He does for us, the more we are enabled to do for ourselves. You are free this very minute to rise and follow Christ. 8. But such high freedom cannot but be perilous. It is not yours to choose whether you will rise with Christ or no. All rise with Him; all through Him are dragged through the darkness of the grave, and will stand before the judgment of God. As we must have died in Adam, so we must rise in Christ. And what is it, then, that strikes chill as fear upon our hearts? Can it, indeed, be that the freedom regained in Christ can itself be turned against the name of Him who inspires it? Yet this can be. We shall rise; but where will that order be in which we shall have placed ourselves? What if our approach to God be as the nearing of a great heat that scorches and kills? Holiness is as a fire to sin. (Canon Scott-Holland.)Spiritual death Adam, as used in this passage, is, so far as we shall regard it, only a synonym for sinfulness.1. We assume that human nature is sinful. The degree of this sinfulness, I care nothing about. Look wherever you may and you will find the trace and evidence of deep depravity. 2. Note also that there is no sin without a sinner. Sin is not a vague, weird, devil-like shadow, which no one can grasp and define; it is a palpable fact. Whenever you find it, you find it in the shape of a deed done by some doer. 3. Human nature in its rudiments is precisely what it has always been; the world in the aggregate is just what it was a thousand years ago. We flush to the same wicked passions to-day that flamed in the lusts of our fathers. The old Adam still lives, sins, dies. If you demand proof, I point to your gaols, to your gallows, to yourselves. 4. There are those who do not resist temptation; some because they have never been successful in their resistance, and hence despair has entered into their souls. When Satan has threaded the very fibres of hope out of man, he has won a triumph indeed. The gambler that can take another’ s money, and feel no compunction, illustrates how thoroughly sin can get the mastery of a human being. Such people are dead in trespasses and sins. You run a pin into your body and you scream because it is a live body. And so, while conscience is alive, the thrust of a wicked thought through it causes exquisite torture. But when one can lie, and steal, and be drunken--when these barbed iniquities can be driven day by day into the very centre of a man’ s life, and conscience receives the stab without a spasm--then is it dead. Hence, sin is moral suicide. This is what men mean by the phrase: “ He has no conscience.” 5. All sin is a sin against God. He stands embodied in every creation that He has made. Sin is an electric current, and it matters not along what wire the shock of it is delivered, it finally enters His breast. Do you wonder that He is quick to interpret the insult? Does not a mother resent any injury done to her child? Whoever sins against himself sins against God. For all that makes us to differ from the beasts of the field is the Divinity within us. 6. We can never know how evil sin is, because we cannot measure the evil it works. And this because we cannot know how sublime are the possibilities in the nature which it destroys. He who without cause breaks a bud from a stem, has done a deed the evil of which we can measure. He has destroyed a rose. But he who murders a child has done a deed the sin of which we cannot measure; for we cannot tell how much good that child might have done. Much less can you measure the evil which sin works when it destroys a soul. For none, save God, knows what are the possibilities of a soul. In front of all our sinfulness stands the great fact, staring us in the face, that we cannot keep it to ourselves. For whatever makes me worse, makes all worse who intimately know me. Nor is there any knowing where sin ends. The Bible says that parental transgressions lap over five generations. The tide of human life flows on still turbid and dark; and even the filter of Christianity seems incapable of purifying the unsightly stream. We have done nothing evil that is not to-day as chemically potent to darken the purity of the world, as on that day and at that hour when the sinful deed, or word, or imagination dropped, like a black globule, into it. The young vulture, once having broken its chain, or overflown the wire, returns no more. So it is with sin. Once out of our reach it is for ever beyond our control. (W. H. H. Murray.)Spiritual life 1. At the root of all higher life in man is a protest against his living a lower life. This protest we call conscience. Without it, men would be devils at birth. Within you all is this root of holiness. If you do evil, it condemns; if you do well, it applauds. Christ means the Anointed, the Consecrated, the Kingly One. Whatever, therefore, is kingly and consecrated in you, He represents. He is, as it were, your best self. Your higher life, therefore, is Divine. So far as you live in it you live in God. And out of this thought comes great hope for many. For there be many, I feel, that live in God and know it not. 2. Now the glory of the whole world is the glory of the life that is in it. A landscape in which there is no green, growthful thing, a level stretch of sea without ripple or current, a house in which no life stirs, a human face, set, colourless, rigid in all its lines--there is no glory in all these. Wherever you look, your eyes instinctively search for life. If you find it not, your soul instinctively draws back within itself. Death is universal horror. Life demands life. It lives on companionships. These are to it what sunshine and moisture are to plants. Only in this connection do we apprehend that fine eulogy of Christ, “ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” 3. Now all life is not the same life. There is the life of beast, of bird, of man. Beyond we come to the life of angels, of spirits; and over all we find the Great Spirit, in whom all life is, and out of whom all life comes. God. In man you find the indwelling life graded as to quality and use. There is body-life, mind-life and soul-life. And the qualities and expressions of the last are finer than the qualities and expressions of the others. Now the life which we have in Christ is the life of the finest qualities in us. It is the life contained in those faculties and powers which are not only immortal, but which are adapted in their nature for the finest uses. 4. Life which is simply continued existence, is a low order of life. There is a life, the result of which is a curse. A bird which should lose its bird instincts and become swinish, would offer to our gaze a spectacle abhorrent to that sense in us which interprets the eternal fitness of things. And so when the man forgets that he is a spirit, when he deserts heaven and makes his home in the earth, offers a spectacle abhorrent to every instinct of justice and propriety. 5. Now, there is no denying that the earthly tendency is in us all. Neither is there any denying that the heavenly impulse is in all who allow it to dwell in them. Man is not an empty vase. He is filled, inwardly, with soul-life capacities. And in these capacities are seed-like qualities which need only Divine quickening to germinate to holiness. The best recognition of this native nobility in man is seen in the incarnation. I thus swing myself up to God’ s standpoint and looking down upon the reckless of earth, exclaim: “ What a pity that such a creation should misdemean himself in that style!” When I see one engaged in brave battle with some appetite, breasting up against some passion, or striving against unfortunate circumstances to better himself, I say “ The original impulse to virtue has not wholly left the race yet.” My angels are not in the sky, but in the bosoms of men and women striving to be better. God is born in some men, and He groweth with their growth. The patience, the courage, the abhorrence of evil, the shrinking from coarseness, the innate love of pure things which are in the Divine nature, are in them. 6. Now this Divine element in human nature, this something in man which is finer than man, had perfect expression in Jesus. It was the moral perfection of the human being, Jesus, that made Him worthy to be called Christ. The title was descriptive of the man. 7. Pattern your lives after the model presented for your guidance and your inspiration in the character of this matchless being. In Him, standing here, behold the union of both worlds; the humanity of earth inspired with the divinity of the skies. Do you wonder that such a being should say, “ The kingdom of God is within you” ? Nay! For He felt that the foundations of that kingdom were laid in the capacities of His own bosom. As David said touching the Father, so we can say touching our Elder Brother, “ I shall be content when I awake in Thy likeness.” Let the dead within you hear the voice to-day which calls it from its grave, and let it come forth and stand ready for action in the front rank of your purposes and endeavours. “ If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.” Every man must make his own world, as Jesus made His. And all who live upon the earth who would be like Him, must live above it. 8. This must be observed also, that whoever comes into that way of living which Christ had, comes into it first by the way of positive resolution. And this resolution is his own. It is conduct which makes character. And you can make your conduct whatever you please. Now he who continues in good conduct, continues in Christ (John 15:4; John 15:6). The man who ceases to practise the actual virtues that Christ practised, is a withered man, morally. (W. H. H. Murray.)The Christian’ s life in Christ 1. All which our Lord has is ours, if we are indeed His. As Man, He received gifts, that He might give them to men. As Man, He received the Holy Spirit, that He might again dwell in man, and clothe us with the holiness which we lost in Adam. For our sakes He sanctified Himself, that we also might be sanctified by the truth. His shame is our glory; His blood our ransom; His wounded side our hiding-place from our own sins and Satan’ s wrath; His death our life. And what, then, should His life be? What but the sealing to us of all which He had wrought for us? What but the bursting of the bars of our prison-house, the opening of the kingdom of heaven? 2. All this is to us “ in Christ.” “ In Christ shall all be made alive.” We shall live then, not only as having our souls restored to our bodies, and souls and bodies living on in the presence of Almighty God. There is a higher blessedness yet in store, viz., to live on “ in Christ.” For that implies Christ’ s living on in us. For we can only dwell in God by His dwelling in us. To dwell in God is not to dwell on God only. He takes us out of our state of nature, in which we were, fallen, estranged, in a far country, out of and away from Him and takes us up into Himself. 3. This is the great difference between us and the brute creation. They are not capable of the presence of God. He made them; He extendeth His providence over them. Yet their spirit goeth downwards to the earth, not upwards to the God who gave it. This is also the great difference between us and those who lived under the Old Testament. Closer is the nearness of God to those who will receive Him, than when He walked with Adam in Paradise, or seemed to sit with Abraham, or to speak to Moses face to face, or when the angel in whom His presence was, wrestled with Jacob, or when One, in the form of a Son of Man, was with the three children in the fire; yea, nearer yet, than when, in the flesh, His disciples did eat and drink with Him. For all this nearness was still outward only. Such nearness had Judas also, who kissed Him. Such nearness shall they plead to whom He shall say, “ I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” 4. The Christian’ s nearness He hath told, “ We will come unto Him, and make our abode with Him,” in holiness, peace, bliss, cleansing love. It is not a presence to be seen, heard, felt by our bodily senses; yet nearer still, because when the bodily senses fail the inward eye sees a light brighter than all earthly joy; the inward ear bears His voice; the inmost soul feels the thrill of His touch; the “ heart of hearts” tastes the sweetness of the love of the presence of its Lord and its God. The Everlasting Son dwelleth not as He doth in the material heavens, nor as He sanctified this house of God, nor as He did in the tabernacle, but united with the soul, and, in substance, dwelling in her, as He did personally in the man Christ Jesus. 5. This then, as it is the special mystery of the gospel, so is it of the Resurrection--to be “ in Christ.” This is our justification, sanctification, redemption, in Him; this our hope for those who are departed before us, that they are “ fallen asleep in Him” ; are dead, but in Him (1 Thessalonians 4:16); this is our hope in the day of judgment, that we “ may be found in Him” ; this our perfecting (Colossians 1:28), this our endless life (verse 22), this is the consummation of all things (Ephesians 1:10). Through Christ’ s resurrection we have a new principle of life in us. The Spirit, which dwelt in Him “ without measure,” He has imparted to us His members, that it may sanctify us, spiritualise our very bodies here, keep in us the true life, if we forfeit it not, and so, through that Spirit, shall our dust again be quickened, and we be raised at the last day to life (Romans 8:9). 6. The Spirit not only “ cometh upon” those who are Christ’ s, as of old, but is within them, (Romans 8:9-10). And if the Spirit abide in us, how should not the body, so lived in, have life? (Romans 8:11). The resurrection, then, of our Lord is not only a pledge of our own; it is our own, if we be His. His body is a pattern of what is in store for ours, since we, if His, are a part of it. Conclusion: Since these things are so, we may well stand in awe of our very selves and of the majesty bestowed upon our frail nature (chap. 3:16). “ Grieve not” away “ the Holy Spirit of God.” For if the evil spirit find the dwelling-place whence he was cast out “ empty,” “ he will take to himself seven spirits more wicked than himself, and will re-enter and dwell there.” Let us then, as we would hope at the last day to “ rise to life,” and not to “ shame and everlasting contempt,” seek, and watch, and pray, to rise with our risen Lord now. (E. B. Pusey, D.D.)The power of the resurrection The resurrection of Christ-- I. Is the great public manifestation of His authority over physical decay and death. This it is by being His own personal conquest of that power as it had been exercised upon Himself: a characteristic which separates it from all other instances of similar miraculous restorations. All others, in whatsoever age of the world, had been raised by a power from without: He alone by Himself. The power that revived all, stands self-revived. II. Being a self-resurrection, stands alone as a monument of His inherent power of life. There seems a sort of progressive scale of the other resurrections noted in the gospel history. The daughter of Jairus was raised before she was conveyed from her chamber; the son of the widow of Nain was being carried out to burial; Lazarus had been four days in his grave. Neither were self-raised; Christ was self-raised. III. Was the result of a power that did not cease at His departure from the world. The whole Church is the monument of its existence and its exercise; it is built upon His resurrection. For there is a spiritual resurrection and there is a physical resurrection. The latter was wrought by Christ when on earth, as a visible symbol of the other, and a proof of His power to effect it. His own resurrection from the dead mysteriously exemplified both: the general resurrection of the just at the consummation of all things shall again and for ever combine them. The resurrection of Christ, once performed in act, is immortal in energy; He rises again in every new-born child of God. IV. Should prompt the desire for the final consummation of His work, the restoration of an immortal body to an immortal soul. “ In Christ shall all be made alive.” All men are to be made alive spiritually and physically. Behold! we stand alone in creation; earth, sea, and sky can show nothing so awful as we are! The rooted bills shall flee before the fiery glance of the Almighty Judge; the mountains shall become dust, the ocean a vapour; the very stars of heaven shall fall as the fig-tree casts her untimely fruit! Yea, heaven and earth shall pass away, but the humblest, poorest, lowliest among us is born for undying life. Amid all the terrors of dissolving nature, the band of immortals shall stand before their Judge. (W. Archer Butler, M.A.)The results of Christ’ s resurrection Consider--I. The results of Christ’ s resurrection to us. It is a pledge of the resurrection of all who share in His humanity.1. Why does this result take place? (verse 22). Do not understand the apostle as if he merely said, “ If you sin as Adam sinned, you will die as Adam died.” This was mere Pelagianism, and is expressly condemned in the article on Original Sin. According to the Scriptures we inherit the first man’ s nature, and that nature has in it the mortal, not the immortal. And yet there are in all of us two natures, that of the animal and that of the Spirit, an Adam and a Christ. St. Paul explains himself: “ The first man was of the earth, earthy” ; and again, “ The first man Adam was made a living soul.” (1) Recollect that the term “ a living soul” means a mere natural man endowed with intellectual powers, with passions, and with those appetites which belong to us in common with the animals. In this our immortality does not reside; and it is from fixing our attention on the decay of these that doubt of our immortality begins. It is a dismal and appalling thing to witness the slow failure of living powers; as life goes on to watch the eye losing its lustre, and the cheek its roundness; to see the limbs becoming feeble and worn; to perceive the memory wander, and the features no longer bright with the light of expression; to mark the mind relax its grasp; and to ask the dreary question--Are these things immortal? You cannot but disbelieve, if you rest your hope of immortality on their endurance. Now the simple reply is, that the extinction of these powers is no proof against immortality, because they are not the seat of the immortal. They belong to the animal--to the organs of our intercourse with the visible world. Therefore it is not in what we inherit from Adam the man, but in what we hold from Christ the Spirit, that our immortality resides. (2) Nay more, the growth of the Christ within us is in exact proportion to the decay of the Adam. “ Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” And this evidence of our immortality is perpetually before us. It is no strange thing to see the spirit ripening in exact proportion to the decay of the body. Many an aged one there is who loses one by one all his physical powers, and yet the spiritual in him is mightiest at the last. 2. When will this result take place? (verses 23, etc.) Note-- (1) That the resurrection cannot be till the kingdom is complete. (2) That certain hindrances at present prevent the perfect operation of God in our souls. We are the victims of physical and moral evil, and till this is put down for ever, the completeness of the individual cannot be; for we are bound up with the universe. Talk of the perfect happiness of any unit man while the race still mourns and while the spiritual kingdom is incomplete! No, the golden close is yet to come, and the blessing of the individual parts can only be with the blessing of the whole. And so the apostle speaks of the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain together until now, “ waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (3) That the mediatorial kingdom of Christ shall be superseded by an immediate one; therefore the present form in which God has revealed Himself is only temporary. When the object of the present kingdom of Christ has been attained in the conquest of evil, there will be no longer need of a mediator. Then God will be known immediately. Then, when the last hindrance, the last enemy, is removed, we shall see Him face to face, know Him even as we are known, awake up satisfied in His likeness, and be transformed into pure recipients of the Divine glory. That will be the resurrection. II. Corroborative proofs. These are two in number, and both are argumenta ad hominem. They are not proofs valid to all men, but cogent only to Christians.1. When baptized, Christians made a profession of a belief in a resurrection, and St. Paul asks them here, “ What, then, was the meaning of their profession? Why were they baptized into the faith of a resurrection, if there were none?” (verse 29). 2. “ Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” (1) If the future life were no Christian doctrine, then the whole apostolic life--nay, the whole Christian life, were a monstrous and senseless folly. (2) And again, Christian life, not merely apostolic devotedness, is “ a grand impertinence.” “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” and if this life be all, we defy you to disprove the wisdom of such reasoning. How many of the myriads of the human race would do right, for the sake of right, if they were only to live fifty years, and then die for evermore? Go to the sensualist, and tell him that a noble life is better than a base one, even for that time, and he will answer: “ I like pleasure better than virtue: you can do as you please; for me, I will wisely enjoy any time. It is merely a matter of taste. By taking away my hope of a resurrection you have dwarfed good and evil, and shortened their consequences if I am only to live sixty or seventy years, there is no eternal right or wrong. By destroying the thought of immortality I have lost the sense of the infinitude of evil, and the eternal nature of good.” (3) Besides, with our hopes of immortality gone, the value of humanity ceases, and people become not worth living for. We have not got a motive strong enough to keep us from sin. Christianity is to redeem from evil: it loses its power if the idea of immortal life be taken away. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.) 1 Corinthians 15:23-24 But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’ s at His coming.The sequences of the resurrection I. When and how will the dead be raised?1. Generally Paul’ s answer amounts to this. The resurrection is not a single act. All men are to be raised, “ but every one in his own order,” i.e., “ in his own troop.” The apostle sees an universal conflict between life and death. Christ the Lord of life has already achieved a personal victory; but all others are still in the thick of the conflict. What is to be the issue? Through the power of Christ’ s life, troop after troop they will achieve their conquest, and defile before their victorious Captain with joyful acclamation. Christ’ s resurrection, “ the first-fruits,” is the first triumph in a series of triumphs over death; the second that of those “ who are Christ’ s at His coming.” It is impossible that they, with His life in them, should be holden of death, though death may keep them in ward for a while. 2. Do the dead in Christ rise before the other dead? (1) Let us ask St. Paul to be his own interpreter. His fullest utterance Isaiah 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. The Thessalonians apprehended that only those who were alive when Christ came would reign with Him. Hence they mourned, as those without hope, over their brethren who departed this life, and thus lost their thrones. To comfort them, the apostle affirmed that those who are alive and remain will have no advantage over the Christian dead. The dead in Christ will rise first; and then those who are alive wilt be caught up to meet Him. Here, then, though he does not speak of a general resurrection, St. Paul does speak of one in which only those who sleep in Christ will take part. (2) As his meaning is still obscure, let us call in another interpreter. In Revelation 20:1-15 St. John describes at length the time and scene which were in St Paul’ s mind. “ But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” How much of this vision is symbol, we cannot tell. But it is impossible to read it without admitting that, at least in St. John’ s thought, there were to be in the future two successive triumphs of life over death; the first, at the resurrection of those who are in Christ; the second, at the general resurrection of all the dead. (3) This view of the future illustrates many other Scriptures, and is confirmed and expanded by them (Jude 1:14-15; 1 Corinthians 6:2). But how should the saints come with the Lord to judge the world, unless they had had part in the first resurrection? (4) The great Scripture, however, is Matthew 25:1-46. (a) The discourse commences with the parable of the ten virgins. When the Bride-groom comes the lamps of five are “ going out” --at the point to expire. And so, when the Lord comes, they are not ready for Him. Yet they may be saved. For all we are told is that they are too late for that time; not that when they went to buy oil, the shops were shut. They were buying oil when they should have been burning it, and therefore were too late for the marriage supper. It is not the final judgment which is here set before us. Those who miss the first may be in time for the second resurrection. (b) The same thought expressed in the parable of the talents. All who received talents from “ the lord” are of his household. Two are faithful to their trust. One servant fails. The foolish virgins thought their task too easy: the slothful servant thinks his too hard. When his master comes, he has nothing but excesses to offer, and bases his excuses on a wilful misconception of the master’ s character. He is cast into the outer darkness. This is a parabolic delineation of the first resurrection, of the judgment of the Church rather than of the world. For there are many in the Church who misconceive the character of God. Among the awful possibilities of life there is also this: that “ those who have once been enlightened,” etc. (Hebrews 6:4-6), may fall away beyond the reach of penitence, and therefore beyond the reach of redemption. (c) But at this point we pass from the first to the second resurrection, from the judgment of the Church--which may extend through the millennium--to the judgment of the world. For now “ all the nations” are gathered before the Son of Man. Those who stand on the right are the “ sheep who were not of this fold,” the men of every nation who, taught by His Spirit though not through His gospel, have wrought righteousness. To them the King will say, “ Come ye blessed of My Father,” etc. Mark their response. They cannot say, “ Lord, Thou didst not entrust us with talents.” They do not know Him, nor His gifts. Mark also the Lord’ s reply: “ Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these My brethren” --and here we must suppose Him pointing to the saints who have come with Him to the judgment--“ ye did it unto Me.” In short, all the details of this solemn scene indicate that “ the saints” are distinct from “ the righteous” ; that they are already with Christ in glory, not before Him for judgment. II. “Then the end,” etc. (verse 24). These words are expanded in the verses which follow. All this means that all the authority of man over man, all the power of death over the race, and even all the grace of Christ in the Church, are Divine expedients for delivering men from their bondage to the lusts which destroy them, and for quickening them into a new better life: that the authority of man and the power of death only reach their true and benignant ends as they are penetrated by the Spirit of Christ: that Christ, therefore, must reign till these various forms of rule are suffused by His Spirit; and that then, when all these have achieved their purpose, “ the end” will come; the Divine expedients, having served their turn, will vanish away, and higher forms of life take their place; we shall know God, not only through the Son, but as He is in Himself, and the God whom as yet we know only through Christ, even the Father, will become all in all of us.1. It is not difficult to see how all forms of human rule and authority are, at least, intended to check the evil dispositions of men, to save us from anarchy, from the tyranny of brute force and unbridled selfishness. Bad as the world is it would be far worse but for the restraints of domestic and political authority. Nor is it difficult to see that even the death we often fear is a wholesome check upon us. The mere fear of it holds back the tyrant from many crimes, the criminal from many offences. 2. Nevertheless human rule is apt to be austere and unlovely. Till it is penetrated by the Spirit of Christ, if it does some good, it also does much harm; and, in so far as it does harm to men, it is the enemy of Christ. Death, again, is a horror, till the light of life and immortality shine through it; and, in so far as it inspires the fear that hath torment, death is the enemy of Christ. Therefore God has ordained that Christ shall reign till He has put all enemies beneath His feet, till His Spirit has penetrated all forms of domestic and civil control, and suffused death itself with the splendours of life. But when He shall thus have drawn all things under Him, the reign of Christ will have achieved its purpose; the world will be full of living men who dwell together in charity, and to whom death means more life and fuller. Having achieved its purpose, the reign of Christ may well come to an end. It will be merged in the universal kingdom of the Father. The Mediator will be lost in the God to whom He has reconciled all men, from whom they can never more be alienated. God, even the Father, will be all in all. Unlike the princes of this world, the Divine King will reign, not when, but only until, He has put all enemies under His feet. 3. This, then, is the glorious prospect which lies before us. To our mortal weakness, indeed, we may find no beauty in it that we should desire it. For we do not care to rise above our need of Christ: the thought of losing Him is intolerable to us. Let us therefore remember that we do not lose a child when we find and love his father. We then really find the child, understand him better, love him more. And, in like manner, we shall not, in finding God, lose Christ. We shall then first truly find Him, know Him as we never knew Him before, love Him with a more perfect love. 4. Whatever else and more may be meant by Christ delivering the kingdom to His Father, and God becoming all in all, at least this must be meant: that the future is to be a grand progress, a golden ladder which we shall climb, round after round, till we stand amid the awful and transfiguring splendours of the eternal throne; a constant advance towards the central light, a constant increase in life, power, wisdom, charity: a beatific vision, which grows and spreads as we gaze upon it, and pours an enlarging volume of energy and peace into our souls. (S. Cox, D.D.)Christ the first-fruits I. The figure suggests the idea of precedence. As the presenting of the first-ripe fruits preceded the gathering in of the remainder of the harvest--so Christ’ s rising from the grave, and, on His ascension, appearing before God, was the prelude of the rising of all His people and their gathering in to everlasting life. The resurrection of the blessed surety was the first irrecoverable and permanent rescue from the power of the grave. He was the first released victim which death was never to get back. II. The second idea suggested by the type is that of security. The first-fruits, when duly offered to the Lord, in obedience to His prescription, and as a becoming expression of dependence and thankfulness, formed a kind of Divine pledge to Israel of the remaining harvest. There are two ways in which the resurrection of Jesus may be considered as giving assurance of the resurrection of His people.1. It involved in it an attestation, on the part of the Father that sent Him, to the divinity of His mission, and to the truth of all His testimony. 2. It was closely connected with His death, as the principal proof of its having answered its end. That end was atonement. It is not the fact that Christ died, even connected with the additional fact of His rising again, that constitutes the gospel. Both the facts may be believed, and yet the gospel rejected. The gospel lies in the purpose of His death--“ He died for our sins” ; and then His resurrection becomes the evidence of the purpose having been effectually answered--of the Father’ s having accepted the propitiation. III. The last idea suggested by the figure in the text is resemblance. The first ripe fruits were a specimen of the harvest. They were to be the best indeed in quality; and had it been otherwise, the type would ill have agreed with what the apostle represents it as having prefigured. For we must never fancy that, in the case before us, resemblance means the same as equality. The glory of His people can never be supposed equal in degree to that of Jesus Himself. But the glory shall be the same in kind; His the glory of the sun, ours of those stars that receive and reflect His light. See Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2; Colossians 3:4. And oh, is not this enough?--enough to kindle all the ardour of desire, enough to fill the conceptions of the most capacious mind, enough to exhaust the efforts of the boldest and loftiest imagination? To be like Christ! Oh, what is there higher, holier, or happier, which it is possible for you to wish, either for yourselves or for the dearest objects of your love? (R. Wardlaw, D.D.)Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God.-- The coming of the end The end comes-- I. To man’ s greatness. Alexander the Great conquered all that was known of the world, and sighed because there was only one world to conquer, and yet one small grave in Babylon was large enough to hold him and his greatness. Solomon’ s wisdom and greatness were such that there was none like unto him, and yet he “ was buried in the city of David his father.” If I visit the Pyramids of Egypt, I am reminded of the glory of the Pharaohs, yet if I were to touch one of these Pharaohs roughly he would crumble into dust. William the Conqueror was a mighty king, yet his horse stumbling over the hot ashes of a burning town brought all this greatness to an end. Napoleon’ s ambition knew no bounds, and yet a lonely tomb holds all that remains of that mighty conqueror. II. To our opportunities for good. All have these opportunities, yet some of you are not using them. An end will come to them. God will not always strive with man, and then the recording angel will point sadly to the text, “ Then cometh the end.” III. To a life of open sin and dissipation. I see men and women staggering out of taverns, I see them gambling in reeking rooms. I see women hovering through the streets seeking whom they may devour, then I open my Bible sadly and read the text, “ Then cometh the end.” And it is nearer by forty, or fifty, or sixty years than when you were born. What sort of end is it going to be? Conclusion:1. There are only two kinds of endings possible for you: if you are in Christ Jesus, then the end will be for you the end of waiting, of toil, of sorrow, and it will be the beginning of peace, of joy, of rest everlasting. But for those who die in their sins, the end must be the end of all hope, of all amendment, and the beginning of the blackness of darkness for ever. 2. Choose then this day, whom you will serve! (H. J. W. Buxton, M.A.)The certain end I. It is not possible to rule these words out of life.1. You tell of any process; but always by and by the process is exhausted. “ Then cometh the end.” Your story has to round itself with that. (1) We see a child growing up from childhood into manhood; but at last “ cometh the end.” (2) You start upon a new business, build you a new house, begin some new study, whatever you do, “ then cometh the end,” is written, however far away, as the conclusion which all must reach. (3) Our text tells that even of the great work Christ is doing it is written, “ Then cometh the end.” 2. This constant recurrence of ends in life must certainly mean something. It may beget a mere frivolity. It may make it seem as if nothing were worth beginning or prosecuting very thoroughly. Or it may give a freshness and vitality to living. “ Now or never.” II. What sort of tempfr it ought to produce.1. Note the way in which men’ s desire and men’ s dread are both called out. (1) Look at man’ s desire of the end. (a) It is a part of his dread of monotony. There is something very pathetic in man’ s instinctive fear of being wearied with even the most delightful and satisfactory experiences. Is it not a sign of man’ s sense that his nature is made for larger worlds than this? “ I would not live alway,” has been a true cry of the human soul. (b) But there is something deeper. Very early there comes the sense of imperfection and failure, and the wish that it were possible to begin the game again. And as life goes on that conviction grows. Tell any man that he, out of all these mortals, was never to die, and by and by must come something like dismay; for every man has gathered something which he must get rid of, and so there is promise to him in, “ Then cometh the end.” (c) But so far as life has been a success, the same satisfaction comes. It is a poor thing for a traveller along a dreary and difficult road to be able to say, “ Thank God, there is an end to this!” But for a man to say, “ This road is glorious, but no doubt beyond is something yet more glorious still,” that is a fine impatience. The noblest human natures are built thus. “ Let the life be filled with the spirit of the springtime, and the end which comes shall be the luxuriance of summer! “ And so in many tones, yet all of them tones of satisfaction, men desire the end. It is like a great company of travellers coming together in sight of the resting-place where they are to spend the night, and lifting up all together one great shout of joy. Their hearts have various feelings. Some are glad because their day’ s task is done, others because of the new task which they can see opening out beyond them for to-morrow. (2) Turn to the other side and think of the dread with which men think of the coming of ends in life. Can we give any account of this dread? (a) It is the sheer force of habit. That this which is should cease to be is shocking and surprising. Even in that dread there is something which is good it is good for the tree to love the soil in which it grows and to consent with difficulty to transplanting. It is good that the burden of proof should be on the side of change. (b) Men shrink from the announcement of the coming end because they know how far they are from having exhausted their present condition. A boy has longed to be a man, but when he stands upon the brink of manhood and looks behind him over the yet-unreaped acres of his youth, he is almost ready to go back and postpone his manhood till he has taken richer possession of those harvest fields. And so of the great end. Who wants to die so long as this great rich world has only had the very borders of its riches touched? (c) But even more than this, perhaps, comes in the great uncertainty which envelops every experience which is untried. The passage from light into light must be always through a zone of darkness. How we are feeling this in these days! Old social conditions are ceasing to be possible any longer. In their place new ones are evidently coming, and who is not conscious of misgiving and of dread as he enters with his time into the cloud of disturbance that hovers between the old and the new? This is a large part of the reason why the most miserable cling to life, counting it better. “ To bear the ills they have than flee to others which they know not of.” 2. Blessed indeed it is for man, standing in such confused and mingled mood, that the end of things does not depend upon his choice, but comes by a will more large, more wise than his. The workman’ s voice has not to summon out of the east the shadows of the night in which no man can work. “ It comes of itself,” we say. We mean, “ God sends it.” (1) How many things there are of which we say, “ I thank God I may do this, but I thank God also that the time will come when I shall stop doing it! “ Our business associations, journeys, schools, homes, are of this sort. They are good and welcome because they are but for a while. Our mortal life, that too we are thankful for, but thankful also that it shall not last for ever. But all this satisfaction in the temporariness comes only from its being enfolded and embraced within the eternity of the eternal. There must be something which does not pass away, something to which comes no end. The soul and its character, God and His love and glory--it is because within these as the ends of life all other things are enfolded as the means of life, that we can be reconciled to, nay, even can rejoice in the knowledge that the means must cease when they shall have made their contribution to the end which must endure for ever. But to know no everlasting end or purpose, to have nothing but the means to rest on, to see them slipping out of our grasp and leaving nothing permanent behind--that is terrible! How is it with you? There comes an end to all these things which you are doing now! Not because God snatches them out of your hands, but because they exhaust themselves and expire, because they are by their nature temporary and perishing, they die. Have you anything to which there comes no end? Any passion for the character and love of God? Those are eternal. There is no end to the great ends of life. (2) A noble independence this gives to a man’ s soul. Poverty comes up and joins you, and you say, “ Welcome. Poverty. We will walk together for a while, and when you have done for me all that you can, then I will dismiss you with my thanks.” Riches comes rolling up to be your fellow-traveller, and you say, “ Welcome, Riches. There will come an end to you; but while you last we will be friends, and you shall help me.” The more your soul is set upon the ends of life, the more you use its means in independence. You use them as a workman uses his tools, taking them up in quick succession, casting down one after the other, never falling in love with the tool because the work possesses him. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)The end of the kingdom of grace Consider-- I. What that kingdom is which Christ is to surrender. 1. There is the kingdom of nature, presided over not by the God of grace, but by the God of providence. In it there is system, order, reason, laws, everything that makes up a kingdom. But this is not the kingdom spoken of here, because it is not peculiarly Christ’ s, and there is no necessity it should pass away. There are many reasons for believing that all its glory and richness only separated from man’ s sinfulness shall be preserved. 2. Now, there is over and above this the high, celestial, glorious kingdom in which the Lord reigns amongst His people and His angels in unveiled majesty. But this is not the kingdom whereof the apostle is speaking; for what reason is there that it should end? It is a kingdom in which God has gathered together the very choicest of all creatures. No; unless all Scripture be untrue, this kingdom of recompense and of glory is meant to be indestructible. 3. There is, however, a kingdom which is neither the kingdom of nature nor the kingdom of glory, but something between the two: but nevertheless, it belongs to earth in one respect, and to heaven in another. Its great object is to rescue sinners, and to build them up in holiness; and therefore the subjects of this kingdom are those that have been once rebellious, but, through the grace of God, have been brought into a state of loyalty and allegiance to the Lord. One of the grandest sketches we have of this kingdom is in Psalms 110:1-7, where we see the Lord’ s willing people being established, and His enemies crushed, and Christ reigning till He hath put all enemies under His feet. All men being originally God’ s enemies, are predestined to be subdued--subdued by grace, or subdued by power. It is simply a question for ourselves in what department we shall find ourselves placed--enemies who have been reduced into friends, or enemies who are destined to be “ broken.” Now this kingdom being provisional, is destined to pass away. Why should the scaffolding remain when the building is completed? When God’ s mighty work is finished, should there be ministers, ordinances, means of grace? II. The particular time at which this is to be done.1. At the moment that Christianity was launched, calamities began to thicken upon the house of Israel. Jewish tribulation is running its course, but that will come to an “ end.” “ Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” 2. There is another dispensation that has set in concurrently with that of Gentile mercies. In “ the times of the Gentiles” we are now living. But this dispensation must come to its “ end.” 3. Another dispensation seems to have started concurrently with the dispensation of Christianity; that of Antichrist. Paul tells us in Thessalonians and 1 Timothy that in the last days perilous times shall come; and that this antichrist shall go on until the Lord shall “ consume him with the Spirit of His mouth, and destroy him with the brightness of His coming.” So that will have an “ end.” 4. There is another grand expectation, viz., that of the returning Redeemer. And now take up these scattered threads and bring them, as they require, to a definite point connected with the second advent of our Master. Now is it not something to stand upon the mountain-top, and to look down upon all these railway trains making their way to one point? To one plunging on with the title of “ Jewish doctrines,” and another with the title “ Gentile privileges,” and another with the title “ Antichrist” stamped upon them? Is it not something in the far distance to see the faintest glimmer of an unearthly light, and to see by the direction of all these various forces that they are hurrying one and all precisely to the same point, and eventually meeting at the world’ s great centre, the returning Saviour? When all these destinies come to receive their concurring fulfilment, then the prophecy before us stands accomplished. And when that end comes there shall come a crush of kingdoms, for everything that is earthy shall fall into destruction, and “ The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ” ; and the Master shall be all in all. There shall also be the crush of a kingdom. The kingdom of grace is wanted no longer; it has done its necessary, its devoted work, long enough; for it has educated the Lord’ s people for their privileges. And then the mighty President shall take it in His hands, and lay it down before the throne of His Eternal Father. Christ’ s official existence, not His natural and intrinsic glory, will terminate, and then, without distinctions of official character, “ God shall be all in all.” (Dean Boyd.)The transitory and the eternal We never repeat these words in reference to that which is charming without a certain sense of pain. Yet it is true in regard to all that pertains to us or to our surroundings. The longest, brightest day must end. Each season, each journey, vacation, however pleasant or prosperous, every human relationship, must end. The earthly life of each, though lengthened to a century and full of gladness, must come to an end. The structures built by man outlive the builder, and seem to say, “ We only are left behind, while the people once here are for ever gone!” “ The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed.” The globe grows old and the new heavens and earth hasten. Even the mediatorial system is but for a time. So with everything with but one notable exception. The soul’ s life is not to end. These facts suggest some practical lessons. I. These things which are passing away are not to become the object of the supreme desire of the spirit which is not to come to an end. It is of course possible to go to extremes.1. Some affect a disgust for pleasure and property, but by right enjoyment we are recreated. We are not to undervalue it. Again, property may be held without undue ambition or worldly pride. Christianity honours toil and reminds men that Jesus was a working man, and Paul as well. Economy is good. Omnipotence has recognised it. True religion is not hostile to the spirit of thrift and carefulness in acquisition. 2. But there is peril in the other extreme. We are apt to love pleasure and property inordinately. The soul’ s welfare is subordinate, and so the lesson of the text is timely, “ Then cometh the end.” The most opulent wealth will pass away. II. There is a Divine purpose in these fleeting objects and experiences, to wit: to serve the culture of the soul which does not pass away.1. The beauty and enjoyment He furnishes us so richly is intended to give tone and tincture to our taste; and by a contemplation of His handiwork our minds are affiliated with His. 2. So, too, by the proper gratification of the instinct of possession our will force is invigorated. The more means we possess, the more of culture we can give ourselves and households, the more useful we can be in the world. Moreover, character is unfolded in these activities. There is an Italian proverb that “ The solitary man is either a beast or an angel.” 3. The body, too, is a means of spiritual culture. Our appetites are to be curbed and our passions confined, and so physical forces may now aid in our spiritual enrichment. 4. This world, though it is to come to an end, is another educational power. Its wealth we are to garner, its mines explore, and its forces subdue. All things are to minister to man, and to be subordinate to the soul’ s life. III. To the soul that has thus wisely used the transitory things of time, “ the end of all things” does not in any sense mean defeat, disaster. What is the end of a campaign? Victory. Of a revolution like that of 1776? A new nation. The end of some superb cathedral, like that of Cologne, six centuries in building, is a poem in stone. The end of a true life is not destruction, but consummation. The river finds its end in the distant sea, and the day its end in the glory of a star-lit sky, a glory only seen when the day has found its close. We should not be sad, therefore, as the summer is ended, the harvest past, the journey completed, and the friendly associations terminated which cheered us for a season. The traveller passes the river, the village, or city on his way home, and is not disappointed, for he journeys to an end, his home. We seek an end. (R. S. Storrs, D.D.)Christ resigning His administration There are two different ideas attached to “ kingdom.” One regards it as the empire of Satan, and the other as the empire of Christ. If the former be adopted, then the passage teaches that when Christ has subdued all the principalities and powers of this kingdom, He will deliver the whole up to the Father. Then “ the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever.” If the latter, then it means that when Christ, in the exercise of His mediatorial authority, has subjugated all the powers of moral evil, He will deliver up His commission to God, who will then be acknowledged as the absolute ruler of all. The latter is the most plausible. Learn then-- I. That the government of our world is administered by Christ. The New Testament is full of the doctrine that Christ reigns over our world, and this explains several things otherwise inexplicable.1. The perpetuation of the human race. Death was threatened on Adam if he sinned. He sinned, and died not, but became the father of the human family. The Biblical doctrine of mediation is the only principle that explains this. 2. The coexistence of sin and happiness in the same individual. Under the government of absolute righteousness we should antecedently expect that wherever there was sin there would be misery proportioned to it. There is perfect happiness in heaven, because there is perfect holiness; there is unmitigated misery in hell, because there is unmixed depravity; but here there is sin and happiness. The mediative government is the only principle that explains this 3. The offer of pardon, and the application of remedial influences to the condemned and corrupt. Under a righteous government, how is this to be explained? This is explicable only on the ground that He is “ exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance,” etc. II. That Christ administers the government of our world in order to put down all human evils. There are two classes of evil referred to.1. Moral. “ All rule, all authority, and power.” Sinful principles are the moral potentates of this world--“ the principalities and powers of darkness.” Christ’ s government is to put them down from governments, churches, books, hearts, etc. 2. Physical. “ The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Death is the issue--the totality of all physical evils. Christ will destroy this. He will one day open the graves of the globe. III. That when these evils are entirely put down, Christ will resign His administration into the hands of the everlasting Father. Moral evil shall be exterminated, and death swallowed up in victory. Then comes the end. Christ having finished the work that was given Him to do, resigns His office. The end realised, the means are no longer needed. Patriarchalism had its day; and Abraham delivering up his ministration to Moses. Judaism had its day: and Moses delivered up his ministration to Christ. Mediation is having its day; and when it shall have realised its design, Christ will deliver up His administration to the primal fountain of all authority and power. IV. That when Christ shall have resigned His administration, God “ will be all in all.”1. This does not mean-- (1) That there will be dissolution in the human and Divine in the constitution of Christ. (2) That Christ will lose any part of His influence in the Divine empire. Christ will ever rise in the esteem and devotion of all who know His history, and especially of all who have been saved by His grace. (3) That God will become something different to the universe in general than He has ever been. To the unfallen districts of His vast kingdom He has ever been “ all in all.” 2. The apostle is speaking of humanity, and what he means, I presume, is that God will become “ all in all” to it--that He will become to man, after this, very different to what He had ever been. Two facts will illustrate this. (1) He will treat all men after this on the ground of their own moral merits. From the fall up to this period He had treated them, during their existence in this world, on the ground of Christ’ s mediation; but now, the mediation removed, each man shall “ reap the fruit of his own doings.” (2) All good men will, after this, subjectively realise the absolute one as they have never done before. The atmosphere of their nature purified, He shall appear within them as the central orb, revealing everything in its light--uncovering the Infinite above and the finite beneath--making the finite manifest and glorious in the conscious light of the Infinite. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The end of the mediatorial reign The Scriptures constantly teach that Christ’ s kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and of His dominion there is no end. In what sense, then, can He be said to deliver up His kingdom? It must be remembered that the Scriptures speak of a threefold kingdom as belonging to Christ. 1. That which necessarily belongs to Him as a Divine person, extending over all creatures, and of which He can never divest Himself. 2. That which belongs to Him as the incarnate Son of God, extending over His own people. This also is everlasting. He will for ever remain the head and sovereign of the redeemed. 3. That dominion to which He was exalted after His resurrection, when all power in heaven and earth was committed to His hands. This kingdom, which He exercises as the Theanthropos, and which extends over all principalities and powers, He is to deliver up when the work of redemption is accomplished. He was invested with this dominion in His mediatorial character for the purpose of carrying on His work to its consummation. When that is done, i.e., when He has subdued all His enemies, then He will no longer reign over the universe as Mediator, but only as God: while His headship over His people is to continue for ever. (C. Hedge, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:25 For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The reign of Christ This world is His battlefield now; and when this conflict is at an end there will be an end to something else, “ He shall reign till--,” and no longer. I. Who are Christ’ s enemies?1. All those agencies in the world which are opposed to God. Christ is on the throne for God; so that whatever in evil spirits, in bad men, in society, in institutions, habits, experiences, is warring against God, is against Christ, and He is against it. 2. All those agencies in the world which are against us. He is on the throne for us. Our cause is His. Every evil which injures or threatens us. (1) All our intellectual enemies--ignorance or error. (2) All our moral enemies--sin in every form. (3) All our physical enemies--pain, sickness, disease, death--all these are included among Christ’ s enemies. 3. We may answer the question by referring to Christ’ s life in the flesh. He came here to do battle; and all His life He was engaged in the conflict, attacking--not men; He never touched a man in any way but to bless him--but He was in conflict with all the powers of evil of which men were the instruments and victims. And the battle is still the same. Through His true people He is now carrying on the war with ignorance, unrighteousness, pain. And we may be sure that He will be victorious, not only because it is said in the Bible, and we therefore believe it, but because it is God that is engaged in the conflict. II. What should be our supremest cares in reference to this great conflict?1. To be ourselves delivered. We must each ask himself, will He put my enemies under His feet? It depends on whether you will let Him undertake for you. Your faith must lay hold of His strength. 2. To take our part in it on His side. In this great conflict there is no neutrality. And for what reasons should it be our great care to range ourselves in this battle on His side? Because-- (1) It is an honourable service. Frenchmen speak with no unnatural pride of having served under the “ Great Napoleon.” Something of the lustre of the name and achievements of the great captain is reflected in his humblest follower. And so it is in the spiritual conflict. (2) Christ has a claim upon our service. It is our cause that He is contending for, and it cost Him His life. (3) It is a strife for goodness and human happiness. (4) There is victory with that side. 3. To engage ourselves in that part of the field where spiritual evils are the enemies combated against. Noble is it to follow Christ in the war He waged with physical evils; but the noblest work is to spread Christ’ s truth, for where that is spread all evils diminish. And further, what is the life of the body compared with the life of the soul? (D. Thomas, B.A.)Christ’ s conquests This world is a vast stage erected for the display consummation of a mighty design by the power of the Lord Jesus. Scripture has distinctly affirmed that “ all things were created by Him and for Him.” The world was made for Jesus; and man, the most distinguished of its tenants, was called into existence chiefly that he might add to the Mediator’ s glory. In His glory the eternal blessedness of millions is involved; and the consummation of His mighty work will be the seal and fulness of the felicity of the redeemed. Now in the management of this stupendous design, the Mediator is pursuing His way to the glory which awaits Him through the midst of foes. There are foes in whose destruction we may not be able to trace any of that consolation which it is the apostle’ s object to afford. The priests and Scribes of Israel constituted themselves His personal enemies, and “ the stone which the builders rejected” has fallen upon them and crushed them to powder; but our comfort or advantage appears to be this, that the enemies rather of the Saviour’ s cause than of His person are spoken of; and with that cause Jesus has so entirely identified Himself, that He reckons hostility to it as hostility against Himself. There is-- I. Satan, who from the first has evinced himself the foe of the cause of Jesus. But his power is day by day contracting; and one by one are his strongholds wrested out of his hands. His most formidable opposition was his personal struggle with the Saviour, in which he enjoyed a momentary triumph; but it was a triumph which placed a lever underneath the foundations of his throne. The gospel of which that day’ s achievement forms both the power and the theme, has gone forth under the sanction of the Redeemer’ s command, over those tracts and territories where “ the god of this world” had long held unbroken sway. And the means by which the Saviour has enlarged His kingdom are marvellous. Satan, as he was upon the day of the world’ s redemption, is defeated with his own weapons. Though covetousness may have sent ships to far distant shores, and rapine may have subjugated one country to another, and injustice may have torn the slave from kindred and from home--still see we not, that in more territories being laid open to the inroads of the gospel, and other influences being brought to bear upon benighted lands, that Satan has been foiled by superior wisdom, and the empire of the Mediator increased by his defeated policy! II. Corruption in the hearts of God’ s believing people. The Mediator’ s most glorious title is “ the King of Saints” ; and that which chiefly prevents Him from being so now, in the fulness and majesty of the expression, is the existence of that secret and unholy principle in the hearts of Christians. But this corruption under the laws of the Mediator’ s reign is destined at length to be totally dethroned. The work of subduing it is one of mystery and time, and for the subduing of it Jesus has a train of instrumentalities at His disposal. By troubles, trials, disappointments, the hand of illness and bereavements. In every child of God it is daily waxing more feeble, which shows that, ultimately, it must be utterly extinguished, for “ Jesus must reign,” etc. III. The ungodly. These may not all take Paine for their text-book, or Voltaire for their leader; but yet from the circumstance of their being unconverted; they must be reckoned among His enemies. “ The carnal mind is enmity against God” --“ They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now such the Mediator will put under His feet. Contrary to the usual course of His government, He will do little towards effecting this object here. But, while an enemy remains unpunished, the throne of the Mediator must stand. IV. Death. The trophy and the triumph of the Satanic hosts. It was among the firstfruits of their victory. But in the arrangements of the Mediator’ s rule this enemy is destined for destruction! Even now is his power abridged, and his strength much departed from him; for Jesus has gone down into death’ s domains, and, in the dark seclusion of the tomb, passed through a conflict with him, from which He has returned a conqueror! And this victory He perpetuates in the persons of the members of His kingdom; for there is not one of them who feels not that death, though he may awe, can no longer terrify. Even upon this world, death to them has ceased to be an enemy; but oh! if we would see him, not simply shorn of his strength, but stripped of his existence, we must throw forward our glance to the resurrection morning. That hour shall see all enemies subdued. (Dean Boyd.)The victories of Christianity How real was the faith of St. Paul! Only some twenty years had passed since the Crucifixion. The memory of it was fresh; the shame and stigma recent. Nevertheless, the apostle declares his faith not only in the resurrection of Jesus, but in His universal dominion. The vividness and reality of the apostle’ s faith was common to all the Christians of that first age, and is very quickening and reassuring to ours. When St. Paul wrote these words the believers were but a handful. As yet they had mastered no stronghold of the enemy. In but three or four of the great cities of the world they had barely effected a lodgment. At Rome they had scarcely as yet been heard of. And yet says the apostle, “ He must reign,” etc. The apostle’ s great word is now in course of fulfilment. Though even yet we by no means see all things put under Christ, still the pledge has been already afforded of victory in every kind and over every form of opposition. We have but to pursue the advantages we have gained. I. The earliest triumphs of Christianity over idolatry are the pledge to us of her ultimate victory over every form of heathenism.1. The two great historical triumphs were-- (1) Over classic paganism and other old-world idolatries. When Paul and Barnabas set forth from Antioch on the first missionary advance, the whole world was “ wholly given to idolatry.” Heaven, earth, ocean, and the great underworld teemed with divinities. Idolatry coloured all life, embraced every relation of being, held all things whatsoever under its spell and its thraldom. How wonderful an undertaking, then, was it for the obscure missionaries to set forth upon their errand! Can we wonder greatly that John and Mark shrank back from such an enterprise? And what must have been the courage and faith of Paul when, in the renowned “ eve of Greece,” he stood up, without a friend or comrade, to challenge alike philosophers and idolaters? or when he undertook at Corinth--the lascivious and the worldly--to preach Christ and Him crucified, as Wisdom, Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption? or when he planted himself at Ephesus, where all the inhabitants were fanatics in their worship of their “ great goddess” ? But the word of God everywhere grew mightily and prevailed. And so with the other Christian pioneers. The work spread and leapt from province to province, from shore to shore, from age to age. About the beginning of the second century, Pliny wrote that in Bithynia the new faith had so spread that the temples were everywhere deserted. Half a century later Justin Martyr testifies that there was no nation in whose language prayers and thanksgivings were not offered to God in the name of Jesus. Yet a little later--Tertullian grandly boasts that, though “ but a people of yesterday,” the Christians had filled every place except the heathen temples. For three centuries did the Roman State keep up a relentless persecution, but all in vain. At length, Diocletian having exhausted in vain all the resources of power and cruelty, the Christian Church came forth finally victorious. (2) Scarcely, however, was this struggle over before another began. After the destruction of the Western Empire by the barbarian invaders, Christianity had to address itself anew to the task of conquering the conquerors of the world. But the Northern tribes in succession came within the pale of Christian profession. The Christian faith survived the wreck of all things else. A deep, dense night rested upon the face of the mingled nations. But the Spirit of God in the midst of the thick darkness was moving upon the chaotic waters, and by the results, when the curtain began to lift, we know that the work was going on. The victory over the Northern barbarians won Europe for Christ, and we inherit its results in the purer, more vigorous and enlightened Christianity of to-day. 2. These things being so, how can we doubt what the results must be of the contest now being waged by Christianity against heathenism? The Christianity of the present day is in all respects superior to that of the age of Constantine, and to that which overcame the heathenism of the Goth, the Teuton, and the Kelt. (1) How then can the heathenism of India and China withstand it? As a matter of fact, the progress of Christianity in some parts of India, and especially in Ceylon, during the last forty years has been such as to demonstrate that in less time than it took for our holy religion to vanquish Roman idolatry the heathenism of India shall yet yield to the power of Christ’ s gospel. As for China, we have hardly taken hold of its fringe, but we have already seen enough to prove that the power of Christianity needs only to be faithfully applied by an adequate missionary force, and China, like all the world besides, must yield to the gospel. (2) As for the barbarian idolatries of to-day, we have evidence all the world over how surely and swiftly they are vanquished by the word of Christ. The negro race has already largely yielded to the truth. New Zealanders and American Indians, Fijian and Burmese have accepted the faith of Jesus. Everywhere the like result must follow. II. In the past successes of Christianity we have a pledge of the triumph of free and pure Christian faith over Popish tyranny and corruption. I. Popery proper, the special creation of the Roman Ecclesiastical Court and Empire, is a priestly growth and usurpation. It is a selfish corruption--and throughout there has been a struggling protest against it. There has been a lay mind in continual revolt, and many even among the priesthood abhor the yoke by which they are bound. The pretensions of the Papacy are doubtless as arrogant and as blasphemous as ever. But this is perfectly consistent with the real weakening of the Roman power. Pius IX could not enact the part of a Hildebrand, though he did summon a so-called OEcumenical Council. He could claim for himself infallibility, but he could not set his foot upon the neck of princes nor cast an interdict over an empire. He could not even prevent his holy city from being wrested from his hands and made the capital of a free kingdom. The Pope is no longer the great Potentate of the world.2. The effect of the Vatican Council has been to produce alienation in the minds of the noblest among those who felt the spell and attraction of a Church so ancient, so vast, and in many respects so grand in its memories and its achievements. 3. Immense was the power of the Papacy, forty years ago, over every Catholic country of Europe. Now there is scarcely one land in which religion is not, at least professedly, free, and the gospel of Christ in its purity is not more or less preached. 4. Now if the Christianity of the fourth century prevailed to subdue the Imperial heathenism of Rome, much more shall the purer, more powerful, and better organised evangelical Christian life and truth of to-day prevail over this Papal heathenism. What is needed is that the truth and the falsehood should be distinctly defined and discriminated, that the gospel should be known as gospel, and the heathen superstition discerned as heathen superstition. If we cannot yet say that “ Babylon is fallen” --though assuredly some of its grandest towers have been overthrown never to be restored--we may at least be confident that the politico-ecclesiastic power of Rome is now at an end, and that she can no longer, as in the past, cause the nations to drink of the mingled cup of her abominations. III. The past victories of Christianity over heathen and sceptical philosophy are the pledge of its future triumphs. It is often said that science is the great enemy of faith. But science, as such, has nothing to say as to the contents of Revelation or the articles of our faith. Its proper sphere lies wholly apart. Some of the profoundest men of science have found no incompatibility whatever between their science and the faith of a Christian. It remains, accordingly, that the sources of scepticism must be in what are called philosophical doubts or in historical criticism.1. Whether Atheistic or Pantheistic in its form, Philosophical Scepticism can never extensively prevail. It has many times striven to assert itself against the Christian faith, but always only to be defeated. Of old the philosophy of Epicurus and his school was overborne by the living witness of Christianity. The philosophers, whether Stein or Platonic, could not arrest the triumphant progress of St. Paul. The Pantheistical Neo-Platonism of Alexandria did its utmost to oppose the power of Christianity, but in the end was entirely overthrown. In modern times Hume found his subtlety vain against the rising tide of evangelical faith and power. The infidelity of France was rebuked and put to shame by the horrors of the French Revolution, so manifestly the fruit of French infidelity. And to-day what is the weight, the force, of speculative philosophy in comparison of the living powers and forces of Christianity, which were never so mighty as they are at this present time? 2. As to historical criticism, the essential arguments on behalf of Christianity to-day are the same as those which triumphed in the last century. The forms of objection are, doubtless, varied, and the details differ, but the nature of them is essentially the same, and the answer is essentially the same. The victory won in the last century will not be lost in this. And to-day the vaunting foes of Christianity are boldly met, and the battle is turned to the gate. Never was there so goodly a company of Christian believers gathered from every rank of life, and including not only men of ordinary capacity and of average character and influence, but the highest intellects and the most influential personalities in the land. (J. H. Rigg, D.D.)Good news for loyal subjects “ Must” is for the king; and concerning King Jesus there is a Divine necessity that He must reign. He was once the King of misery--in that kingdom He reigned supreme. That thorn-crown is pre-eminent in the sorrows which it signifies. To-day He is the King of glory, enthroned far above all principalities and powers. He must reign because He is God. “ The Lord reigneth” must ever stand a truth. He must reign as man; for the Lord has made a covenant with David that of his seed there should sit upon the throne of Israel for ever a King to rule in righteousness, and Jesus of Nazareth is that King. He must reign also as the Mediator. At this time the sovereignty of the world is committed to His keeping, the headship of His Church, the government of providence, the ruling of heaven, and earth, and hell, as the mediatorial monarch. I. What are thy reasons for this “ must” ? The lamb as seen by John had seven horns of power, and here are seven reasons why he should possess the throne for ever.1. His empire in itself is such as to ensure perpetuity. There have been many empires of which men said that if they were overthrown, the very pillars of the earth would be removed; yet in due time they were swept away. Christ must reign because-- (1) His reign over the human mind is based upon truth. At one time Plato reigned supreme over thoughtful minds; then Aristotle; but another philosophy supplanted him, to be in its turn subverted by the next. Things which were accounted sure and wise are now ridiculed. And why? Because these systems of philosophy and thought have not been based upon truth. But the truth which Jesus taught, reads as if it were delivered but yesterday. Christianity is as suitable to the nineteenth century as to the first. (2) His dominion over human hearts is based upon love. Napoleon said at St. Helena:--“ My empire has passed away. I founded it upon the sword, and it is gone. Jesus Christ established an empire upon love, and it will last for ever.” His person is the incarnation of love, His teachings are the doctrines of love, His precepts are the rule of love, His Spirit is the creator of love, His whole religion is saturated with love, and because of this His kingdom cannot be moved. (3) It is the one great remedy which this sad woe-begone world requires. The world is like the troubled sea that cannot rest, and there is but one foot which can tread its waves, and but one voice which can say, “ Peace, be still.” Jesus is the true liberator of captive nations. The agonising groans of earth demand the sovereignty of Jesus, and therefore we believe that He must reign, for God will yet give His creature what it needs. His Father decrees it. Up till now God has maintained the throne of His Son. Read Psalms 2:1-12 and see. 3. Divine justice demands it. The Father promised that He should be a leader and a commander of the people, and determined as the result of His humiliation that He should mount to a superior throne as the Son of man and the Son of God. Shall God belie His word? 4. It is inwrought into the order of providence. A few months ago the trees were bare; but it was in the order of providence that there should be a spring, and here it is. We cannot say that in any one day it seemed to make any great advance. Even when the days lengthened we saw no great progress, but, surely and steadily the veins of the trees were filled with sap and the buds first swelled and then revealed their glories. So Christ’ s reigning is woven into the warp and woof of providence, and though He has not yet drawn all men unto Him, it is coming. 5. The Holy Spirit has been given to the Church to subserve this glorious end. He can soften the most obdurate, He can turn to kindness the most cruel, and lead into light the most darkened. Now, the possession of the Holy Spirit is the Church’ s treasury. Here is her battleaxe, and here are her weapons of war. You who preach Christ, or teach Him in the school, do not become discouraged under difficulties, when you recollect that you are workers together with God. 6. Christ is naturally the chief of the human race. “ He is the chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely.” There is none to rival Him. 7. The power to reign belongs to Him. “ All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” “ Go ye, therefore,” saith He, “ and teach all nations.” Jesus Christ is no puny pretender to the throne, nor a rightful owner without power to win His own, but as His cause is good, His arm is strong. Ours is no desperate warfare, but a royal crusade, in which every soldier is even now a priest and a king, and is on the way to the banquetting-halls where men feast with God, and Jesus for ever and ever wears the fadeless diadem. II. The encouragement to be gathered from this “ must.” If Christ must reign, then--1. All our enemies shall be subdued, (1) Now, you are called to fight daily with sin, and here is your consolation, Jesus must reign. The Christ in you must bruise Satan under your feet. He shall put His foot on the neck of my pride, and shall command my every thought and wish. Where I cannot rule, Jesus can. Jesus has made us kings and priests that we may reign over the triple monarchy of our nature--spirit, soul, and body, and that, by our self-conquest, He may be undisputed sovereign of the Isle of Man. Corruption is very strong, but Christ is stronger. (2) When the last enemy appears in view, it shall only be an opportunity for new triumphs, when the Lord of life shall reveal Himself with renewed splendour. 2. Our efforts are, after all, not in vain. If Christ must reign, then every soldier who fights for Christ is contributing to the victory, and every one who in any way advances the cause is working with sure and great results. 3. What becomes of us is of no consequence at all. If He will only take me into the royal galley, and let me pull till I have no more life left, I will be satisfied, if I may but row my Lord towards His throne, and have but the smallest share in making Him glorious in the eyes of men and angels. What cares my heart for herself if she may but see Jesus set on high? How this ought to inspirit all of you who grow downhearted about the cause of Christ! Do you not believe in the gospel as the power of God? III. An admonition.1. “ Jesus must reign.” You have been opposing Him, have you? You are kicking against the pricks with naked feet: you are stumbling upon this stone, and you will be broken; and if the stone shall take to rolling down, like a massive rock, on you, it will grind you to powder. 2. If Jesus Christ must reign, then you who have never submitted yourselves to Him to accept Him as your monarch, will find His reign as terrible as it is sure. He will reign over you, either by your own consent or without it. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death Death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed I. The nature of that enemy. Consider--1. The dissolution of the human frame. The body is a wonderful machine, which bears the mark of Divine wisdom and skill. If we look upon the Goths and Vandals as the enemies of society because they destroyed the ancient monuments of art, what must we think of death? 2. Death puts an end to all that is terrestrial. All schemes and thoughts that relate only to time are destroyed. As much, therefore, as the world is worth, so much is death to be considered as a formidable foe. Say, ye ambitious, ye lovers of wealth or pleasure, what will these things avail you when you are summoned to meet this last enemy? 3. It dissolves the tenderest ties of nature and affection. Death tears asunder husbands and wives, parents and children, etc. One part of the mortal compound is left by him to mourn while the other part is mingled with corruption. Death so mars the features that the most passionate admirers of beauty are constrained to say, “ Bury my dead out of my sight.” All the fruits of friendship are withered by his breath. Nor is there any union so closely formed but it will be cut asunder by this great enemy. 4. Its moral or eternal consequences (1 Corinthians 15:56). The death of the body is by no means the full infliction of the penalty of the Divine law. It is but a preparation; like knocking off the chains and fetters from a prisoner who is about to be led forth to the place of execution (Romans 6:23). 5. There are many properties of this enemy which give him the pre-eminence of terror. (1) He is an inexorable enemy. Others may be bribed by riches, soothed by flatteries, moved by the tears and sorrows of a suppliant, or reconciled by a mediator; but not he. (2) Death is an impartial enemy. Other enemies have particular grounds of quarrel; they do not oppose the whole of the species, but some individual, or individuals; but every one of the human race is the object of his enmity; his arrows will level all in the dust. (3) Like other great monarchs he also has harbingers to herald his approach--pains, afflictions, diseases, etc. (4) As these are his forerunners, so he has dreadful instruments for destruction--famine, pestilence, war, the lightning, and the earthquake. The air, the elements, food, etc., are often converted into instruments of death, II. Why he is called the “ last enemy.” To denote the completeness of the Redeemer’ s conquest: nothing remains after the last.1. This is the last enemy of the Church of God in its collective capacity. Persecution shall cease, affliction be removed, fears and terrors of conscience quelled, temptations overcome, and Satan subdued: still the triumphs of death will remain; a large portion of what the Lord has redeemed will remain under His dominion; the bodies of believers will continue in the grave till the final consummation of all things. 2. He is the last enemy of every believer. The Christian obtains a hope of pardon; he goes on conquering one temptation after another, but he knows that, after all, his body must come under the power of this enemy, and remain for a season in his dark domain. 3. To other men what ought I to say of the last enemy? However long they have escaped his power, he will meet them at last, and they must conquer him or be defeated and lost for ever. III. Christ has conquered this enemy in part and will ultimately destroy him. Note--1. The degrees and stages by which Christ conquers death. (1) By His incarnation and passion He purchased a right, in behalf of the human race, to conquer death. Power and right are two distinct things; and, among men, the former is frequently opposed to the latter. Christ, as God, had power to put down death; but it was necessary, in order that it might be put down fitly and properly, that such an expiation should be made as would remove the guilt on account of which mankind were doomed to die (Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 2:14-15). (2) Christ, by His Spirit, gives the earnest and the pledge of victory over the last enemy: He takes away the power of sin, which is the sting of death, and He communicates the principle of life. Whoever is enabled, through the Spirit, to lay hold of Jesus Christ by faith lays hold of Him who is the “ resurrection and the life.” 2. When these preparatory measures have taken place the empire of death shall be sapped to the foundation. It has, indeed, been a widely extended empire, founded on, or spreading over, the ruins of all other empires: it has comprehended within its domains all the seed of Adam: it has continued from age to age. But the final stroke will produce the entire overthrow of this wide and lasting dominion. Conclusion: “ What is the proper improvement of this subject?1. To raise our eyes in adoration and gratitude to the conqueror of death. 2. To elevate believers above the sorrows and afflictions of time! This enemy is the “ last” ; when he is destroyed, the field will be quite clear; the vast field of eternity will be free from every molestation. (R. Hall, M.A.)The last enemy destroyed Consider death as-- I. An enemy.1. It is always repugnant to the nature of living creatures to die. God has made self-preservation one of the first laws of our nature. We are bound to prize life. 2. It entered into the world through our worst enemy--viz., sin. It came not in accordance to the course of nature, but according to the course of evil. Physiologists have said that they do not detect any particular reason why man should die at fourscore years. The same wheels which have gone on for forty years might have continued their revolutions even for centuries, so far as their own self-renewing power is concerned. 3. It embitters existence. 4. It has made fearful breaches in our daily comforts. The widow has lost her stay; the children have been left desolate. O death! thou art the cruel enemy of our hearths and homes. 5. It has taken away from us One who is dearer to us than all others. On yonder Cross behold death’ s most dreadful work. Could it not spare Him? Were there not enough of us? 6. It bears us away from all our prized possessions. “ These things,” said one, as he walked through his grand estate, “ make it hard to die.” When the rich man has made his fortune he wins six foot of earth and nothing more, and what less hath he who died a pauper? 7. It carries us away from choice society. 8. It breaks up all our enjoyments and employments and successes. 9. It is accompanied with many pains, infirmities, and since the decay and utter dissolution of the body is in itself a most terrible thing, we are alarmed at the prospect of it. He is an enemy, nay the enemy, the very worst enemy that our fears could conjure up, for we could fight with Satan and overcome him, but who can overcome death? II. The last enemy.1. The dreaded reserve of the army of hell. When Satan shall have brought up every other adversary, and all these shall have been overcome through the blood of the Lamb, then the last, the strongest, the most terrible, shall assail us! The soldiers of the Cross have pursued the foe up to the city walls, as if the Lord had said to his soldier, “ There are more laurels yet to win.” 2. But if death be the last enemy we have not to fight with him now; we have other enemies, and in attending to these we shall best be found prepared to die. To live well is the way to die well. 3. Notice--for herein lies the savour of the thought--it is the last enemy. Picture our brave soldiers at the battle of Waterloo; for many weary hours they have been face to face with the foe; now the commander announces that they have only to endure one more onslaught. How cheerfully do the ranks close! The last enemy! Soldiers of Christ, do not the words animate you? Courage! the tide must turn after this, it is the highest wave that now dashes over thee. 4. Having overcome death, peace is proclaimed, the sword is sheathed, the banners furled, and you are for ever more than a conqueror through Him that loved you. III. An enemy to be destroyed. At the resurrection, death’ s castle, the tomb, will be demolished, and all its captives must go free. But although this is a great truth with regard to the future, I desire just to conduct you over the road by which Christ has, in effect, virtually destroyed death already. He has taken away--1. The shame of death. A man might hold his head low in the presence of angels who could not die, but now we can talk of death in the presence of archangels and not be ashamed, for Jesus died. 2. The sting of death. Christmas Evans represents the monster as driving its dart right through the Saviour, till it stuck in the Cross on the other side, and so has never been able to draw it out again. 3. Its slavery. The bondage of death arises from man’ s fearing to die. 4. Its greatest sorrows. Death snatches us away from the society of those we love, but it introduces us into nobler society far. We leave the imperfect Church on earth, but for the perfect Church in heaven. We leave possessions, but death gives us infinitely more than he takes away. Death takes us from sacred employments; but he ushers us into nobler. If death doth but give us a sight of Jesus, then let him come when he wills, we will scarcely call him enemy again. An enemy destroyed in this case becomes a friend. IV. The last enemy that wilt be destroyed. Do not, therefore, give yourself so much concern if you do not feel death to be destroyed in you at present. Remember that dying grace is of no value in living moments. Expect that if your faith is not faith enough to die with, yet as a grain of mustard seed it will grow, and enable you to die triumphantly when dying time comes. You have many enemies who are not destroyed, e.g., inbred sins. Look well to them. Until they are all gone you must not expect death to be destroyed, for he is the last to die. Expect to lose thy dear ones still, for death is not destroyed. Hold them with a loose hand; do not count that to be freehold which are only leasehold; do not call that yours which is only lent you. And then remember that you too must die. (C. H. Spurgeon). The last enemy destroyed Note-- I. What death the apostle here speaks of and styles an enemy. We may view this death with reference to-- 1. The creature it divides. We live by the conjunction of soul and body, and the separation of them is death. 2. The state it puts an end to. We are here in a state of probation, wherein heaven is to be won or lost. Death ends this state. 3. What follows upon it (Ecclesiastes 12:7). II. What kind of enemy it is.1. A common enemy: common to young and old, rich and poor, saints and sinners. 2. A hidden enemy. We know that there is such an enemy; but know not when it will make its assault upon us. 3. An enemy we are always liable to. In the midst of life we are in death. 4. A most powerful and irresistible enemy. There is no defence against its stroke, nor way to escape or prevent it. 5. An authorised enemy. It comes by commission from heaven, and acts according to His order, in whose hand all our times are. 6. An inexorable enemy. No wealth can bribe, nor eloquence persuade, nor cries or entreaties move, nor holiness awe, or otherwise prevail with it to spare. 7. A formidable enemy. And it may be said to be so in regard of (1) Its forerunners, the sicknesses, pains, and wearisome restless days and nights that load it on. (2) What it is, and comes to do, and of what follows upon it. III. The rank death holds among our enemies. It is the last. This intimates1. That there are others that we are not to overlook and be unconcerned about. A Christian’ s life is a continual warfare, and he is to finish the conflict by dying. 2. Whatever enemies go before it, death, to a believer, will be the last. After this the warfare will be over. IV. That it is to be destroyed.1. The way of its destruction is to be by the resurrection. 2. Of this we are secured by Christ’ s death and resurrection, whereby He hath laid the foundation of His people’ s happiness, and hath obtained all power in heaven and earth to complete it. V. Death, as it is to be destroyed, is to be destroyed last. (D. Wilcox.)The last enemy destroyed 1. Death is represented in Scripture under very different, aspects; at one time he is the king of terrors--at another a slave; now in full possession of all his power--and then spoiled and abolished. In one place you will find the inspired writer speaking of it as a gainful thing to die, whilst in another he seems to shrink from dissolution. There is no great difficulty in understanding why these opposite representations should thus be given. If he still reign, it is by sufferance, no longer by right, as a minister employed by God in the effecting certain purposes, and not as a ruler exercising undisputed supremacy. 2. But whilst there is this variety we may safely say that death is never represented as desirable in itself. Death may, in some sense, be made to perform towards us the part of a friend; but, nevertheless, death is never set before us in Scripture as a friend, but invariably as an enemy. It came into the world with sin, constituting the burden of the curse which sin had provoked; and though, through the interference of Christ, provision has been made for the complete removal of the curse, death still retains so much of its original character that it cannot be regarded as anything but a foe. Consider-- I. With what justice death is styled an enemy.1. Coming into households and filling them with mourning, marring the might and withering the beauty of man, snatching away the wise in the midst of their searchings after knowledge, and the useful ere they have half perfected their benevolent plans, what enemy is so destructive as death? What conqueror ever made such ravages? Whose progress ever caused so much terror? Witness the tears of orphans and widows; witness the rapid pains which attend the taking down of the “ earthly house of this tabernacle” ; witness the dishonours of the grave. And if we consider that death sends the immortal part to the judgment-seat of God, cutting off all opportunities for repentance, no language can exaggerate this enemy’ s office. 2. But death is an enemy even to the righteous. Is it nothing that the soul has to go alone into the invisible world, without that body, through whose organs it has seen and heard and gathered in knowledge while a sojourner below? We do not dispute that the soul will have great enjoyment in the separate state. The saint has exchanged labour for repose, danger for security; but in making the exchange he has laid aside his weapons as well as his anxieties, and must rest in comparative inactivity till the voice of the Son of Man revivify his lost members. Then count it not strange that we suppose the souls of the buried saints crying out like those which St. John saw beneath the altar. “ How long, O Lord, how long?” These souls do not feel that every enemy is yet trampled under foot, though they do feel the final conquest to be as certain as though already were the last foe annihilated. II. Why is the destruction of this enemy deferred?1. Certainly this does seem strange. We cannot but feel that so complete was the victory won by the Redeemer that death might have been at once annihilated. The original curse was exhausted when that sinless One who made Himself our substitute expired on the Cross, and it would only be allowing the consequences of Christ’ s work to take immediate and continued effect, had He been the last human being who died. We know that numbers are to be living on the earth at the time of Christ’ s second appearing, and that these are to escape death altogether, and to become instantaneously what they would have been had they undergone dissolution, and we may certainly learn from this that there might be universally the “ swallowing up of mortality in life.” 2. And it is very interesting to consider why this is not the case. Were it so-- (1) Men would still have to live a period of probation; but the difference would be, that when the period of probation came to a close, there would be no intermediate state. The righteous and unrighteous would disappear altogether from the scene, the one entering immediately body and soul into heaven, the other into hell. But now there is something so humiliating about death and the grave, something which so demonstrates the evil of sin, that we feel as though it would be to take from us what is most wholesome and instructive to substitute the process of translation for the process of dissolution. It is hardly possible now to put away altogether some such thought as this--What must sin be, which could bring such a doom on a creature that was made in the likeness of God! (2) There would be no resurrection, and a resurrection is just that article of faith which lays a vast demand on our submissiveness and belief. We can afford to spare nothing which tends to show the nature of transgression or to lead us to the simply taking the Almighty at His word. (3) Survivors would miss much comfort, and be liable to great errors. We appear not to have lost all connection with the dead, so long as we have their graves. And over and above all this the vanishing away of matter would be very likely to induce a persuasion that man was actually annihilated, or give rise to theories as to the nonentity of matter. (4) There could be no general resurrection, and of all the wonderful proofs of Divine almightiness, probably none is to be compared with this: and this besides will constitute the majestic triumph of Christ. He who was a “ Man of sorrows” and refused a resting-place shall speak the word and bid Himself be attended as a conqueror by multitudes. And shall we doubt that the spirits of the righteous in the separate state thankfully forego the being advanced at once to their summit of happiness, inasmuch as the delay is to contribute to the splendour of His final manifestation. (H. Melvill, B.D.)Christ the Destroyer of death I. Death an enemy.1. It was so born. Death is the child of our direst foe, for “ sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” “ Sin entered into the world and death by sin.” 2. It does an enemy’ s work. It tears in pieces that comely handiwork of God, the fabric of the human body. This Vandal spares no work of life, however full of wisdom, or beauty, for it looseth the silver cord and breaketh the golden bowl. Whither can we go to find no sepulchres? The tear of the bereaved, the wail of the widow, and the moan of the orphan--these have been death’ s war music, and he has found therein a song of victory. War is nothing better than death holding carnival, and devouring his prey a little more in haste than is his common wont. Death has done the work of an enemy-- (1) To those of us who have as yet escaped his arrows. Those who have lately stood around a new-made grave and buried half their hearts can tell you what an enemy death is. What head of a family among us has not had to say to him, “ Me thou hast bereaved again and again!” Especially is death an enemy to the living when he invades God’ s house. The most useful ministers and most earnest workers are taken away. (2) To those who die. All that a man hath will he give for his life, yet death cannot be bribed. When death cometh even to the good man he is attended by such terrible heralds and grim outriders as do greatly scare us. And what comes he to do to our bodies? He comes to take the light from the eyes, the hearing from the ears, the speech from the tongue, the activity from the hand, and the thought from the brain. 3. It is a subtle enemy, lurking everywhere, even in the most harmless things. 4. It is an enemy whom none of us will be able to avoid, take what by-paths we may, nor can we escape from him when our hour is come. 5. Sudden, too, full often, are its assaults. II. An enemy to be destroyed.1. Christ has already subdued death. (1) By having delivered His people from spiritual death. “ And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (2) By restoring certain individuals to life. (3) By removing from it its penal character through His death on the Cross. Why die the saints then? Because their bodies must be changed ere they can enter heaven. “ Flesh and blood” as they are “ cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” (4) By His resurrection. As surely as Christ rose so did He guarantee as an absolute certainty the resurrection of all His saints. (5) By the work of His Spirit in the saints, who enables them to face the last enemy without alarm. 2. But death in the sense meant by the text is not destroyed yet. He is to be destroyed, and how will that be? (1) At the coming of Christ, those who are alive and remain shall not see death. But in the case of the sleeping ones, death shall be destroyed, for they shall rise from the tomb. The resurrection is the destruction of death. (2) Those who rise will not be one whit the worse for having died. There will be no trace upon them of the feebleness of old age, none of the marks of long and wearying sickness. (3) There shall be no more death. “ Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him” ; and so also the quickened ones, His own redeemed, they too shall die no more. “ Because I live, ye shall live also.” III. Death is to be destroyed last.1. Because he came in last he must go out last. First came the devil, then sin, then death. Death is not the worst of enemies. It were better to die a thousand times than to sin. 2. Death is the last enemy to each individual Christian; therefore leave him to be the last. You do not want dying grace till dying moments. Ask for living grace, and glorify Christ thereby, and then you shall have dying grace when dying time comes. 3. Why is death left to the last? Because Christ can make much use of him. (1) There are, perhaps, no sermons like the deaths which have happened in our households. (2) If there had been no death the saints would not have had the opportunity to exhibit the highest ardour of their love. Where has love to Christ triumphed most? Why, in the death of the martyrs at the stake and on the rack. So is it in their measure with saints who die from ordinary deaths; they would have had no such test for faith and work for patience as they now have if there had been no death. (3) Without death we should not be so conformed to Christ as we shall be if we fall asleep in Him. (4) Death brings the saints home. He does but come to them and whisper his message, and in a moment they are supremely blessed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The last enemy destroyed There is an enemy before every one of us, and we are all advancing to encounter him; let each ask himself, In what spirit, in what strength, under whose banner, and with what hope? I. I will mention three reasons why death should be called an enemy. First, because of his probable antecedents. Secondly, because of his certain concomitants. And thirdly, because of his possible consequences. A brief word upon each.1. The latest stage of earthly life is commonly a time of trial--a very valley of humiliation. The consciousness of reduced strength must be very trying to a man of vigour. 2. Still the antecedents of death are but probable; he himself may prevent them by an earlier stroke than is usual. But of the concomitants of death we cannot say even this. They are certain; they must be. And what are they? I will name but one--separation. Death is loneliness in its strongest sense. 3. I hasten to the consequences of death. I called the antecedents probable. I called the concomitants certain. I must call the consequences (blessed be God) only possible. Still that possibility is dreadful. I suppose a man to be pondering the old question--What shall be after death? What shall I be, and where? An anxious and (apart from the gospel) an indeterminable inquiry. Only there is something within me which seems to tell me that I shall be after death. Can I be quite sure that things done in the body will not influence or affect that future existence? Can I be quite sure that words which have done injury to others, and imaginations which have done injury to myself, may not, in some strange way, be bearing fruit in that state into which death shall usher me? And if all this be (as we are at this moment supposing it to be) less than certain, still is not the possibility serious enough? Does it not make me feel that “ enemy” is the only name befitting him who is to introduce me into a condition, at the very worst, so mysterious and so critical? II. We thank Jesus Christ for not requiring us to do violence to natural convictions, by changing the appellation of that terrific foe, whom each one of us has inevitably to encounter. But we thank Him still more for having revealed to us one way of meeting and conquering this foe; yea, for words stronger far than any promise of resistance or of victory--“ The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death!”1. The foundation is laid for the individual destruction of death, when a man heartily believes in Jesus Christ as his Saviour. A young man is alarmed by the first touch of serious illness--none so timid on this point--lest it should run on into that which is fatal. And the feeling lasts; which of us has got over it? But whenever in any particular instance a man turns heartily to Christ as his Saviour, then is the foundation laid, in his case, for that which St. Paul here calls the destruction or the abolition of death. 2. Again, we read at the end of this chapter, that “ the sting of death is sin.” And we must distinguish at all times between what is called the guilt of sin and what we all understand by the power of sin. It is sad that we should be obliged to do so. But, unhappily, all experience tells us--and we need the warning most of all for ourselves--that a person may take to himself the comforts of the gospel without knowing anything really of its living strength. Therefore I say that we must separate that first step towards the destruction of death--faith in the merits of Jesus Christ--from this second step, the habitual growing mastery over self and sin by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, given to all who ask for Him in the name of Jesus. 3. The next step carries us far onward; it is a death-bed cheered by the sense of a Saviour’ s presence. This is the result of the other two. 4. And yet, thus far, although death has been boldly encountered, and although, in one sense, he has been vanquished, yet to the end, in another sense, the victory has remained with him. The lifeless body has been left his prey; he has carried it off, he has triumphed over it, he has made it his very sport and trophy. Not till all the dead shall have been raised in newness of life can the Destroyer of death be said to have fulfilled His mission. Till then, death may have been overruled, may have been made tolerable, may have been even, in certain cases, converted into an instrument of blessing; as when the same apostle said, “ I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better” ; but never till then will death have been abolished and annihilated; never till then will the corruptible have put on incorruption, and mortality have been swallowed up of life. (Dean Vaughan.) 1 Corinthians 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son … be subject.Christ subjecting Himself I. Christ reigning. Our text speaks of the time when 1 Corinthians 15:25 shall be accomplished.1. Christ’ s kingdom is to exist till all things are subjugated to it. It is set up to bring to obedience those who are rebels to God’ s government. (1) It virtually began with the first human rebel; when the promise was made that “ the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’ s head.” (2) After Christ’ s dearth and resurrection, His kingdom was actually established, and His “ ambassadors” have ever since been “ beseeching men in Christ’ s stead to be reconciled to God.” (3) Christ’ s kingdom is remedial rather than judicial, and He seeks to rule by constraint rather than restraint. 2. This kingdom will eventually be universal. Here is no uncertainty, no speculation. “ The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” “ I have sworn by myself,… that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” II. Christ subjecting himself.1. Humanly speaking, Christ subjected Himself to the Father when He assumed our nature, and submitted to the death of the Cross. His present exaltation is the reward of that submission (Philippians 2:1-30), and consists of a relative dominion which will come to an end when Christ has finished the peculiar work for which it was established. 2. The relative subjection of the incarnation was voluntarily and not derogatory to His Divinity. Christ was God manifested in the flesh. 3. Nor will it be derogatory to Christ’ s Divinity to “ subject Himself” by yielding up the lordship of the mediatorial kingdom. His glory and dominion will be the same, it will merely be a change in the form of administration. III. God as “ all in all.”1. This does not mean that God the Son shall be lost in the Father, for Christ is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This expression is also used of Christ. He is spoken of as “ the fulness of Him that filleth all things,” and as “ all, and in all.” God the Father is not “ all in all” to the exclusion of the Son, but with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost. 2. It is the Triune God that is here spoken of as “ all in all.” The mediatorial kingdom having come to an end, the relative position of Christ being no longer required, there is seen only the Divine absoluteness in the never divided Trinity. 3. The Triune God “ all in all” means that the Divine will be supreme by a universal, voluntary, glad consent. When God is absolutely our “ all in all” we shall have secured the highest happiness we are capable of. (Homiletic Magazine.)The final submission of the Son to the Father That from the moment of His final triumph the Son will bow to the Father in a sense in which He does not now, must be expounded in harmony with Luke 1:33. “ Of His kingdom there will be no end” ; and with Revelation 11:15, “ The kingdom of the world has become our Lord’ s and His Christ’ s: and He will reign for ever and ever.” In this latter passage the united reign of the Father and Son is described by the remarkable words, “ He will reign.” Perhaps the following imperfect human comparison may help to harmonise these apparently contradictory assertions. Conceive a king who never leaves his palace, but commits all public acts of royalty to his son, who performs them in the name, and at the bidding and according to the will, of his father, whose will his son always approves. Such a son we might call a sharer of his father’ s throne; and, in another sense, the sole ruler of his father’ s realm. Conceive now that a province is in rebellion, and that, to bring it into submission, the king invests his son, for the time of the rebellion, with full royal authority. The son begins in person the war against the rebels; but before its completion he returns to the capital in which his father reigns and directs thence the war until order is completely restored. Even in the presence of his father he exercises the full regal authority given to him for the suppression of the revolt. While the rebellion lasts he seems to be an independent ruler; though really ruling only at the bidding, and to work out the will, and restore the authority of his father. But when order is restored, the son gives back to the father this delegated royalty: and even the apparent independence of the son’ s rule ceases. Henceforth the father reigns with undisputed sway. The difference between the special authority delegated to the Son for the suppression of the revolt and afterwards laid down and the abiding authority of the Son as the Father’ s representative, I cannot define. Probably it is connected with the fact that in consequence of sin the Son did what the Father never did, viz., became man and died. May it not be that in consequence of this He exercises now an authority which is specially His own, and which will continue only for a time? (Prof. Beet.)Our relations to Christ in the future life That Christ is to be in some sense eternal, and the eternal joy of all believers, we cannot willingly doubt. What kind of personal relation to Christ we are to hope for and hold, as our authorised and fixed expectations for the future life? Among those who hold the Trinity more lightly, or in a more nearly Sabellian way, as a dramatising of God to serve the occasional uses of redemption, it is common to assume the discontinuance of it, when the uses of redemption no longer require it. But there is a fatal want of depth in this conception. If there was a necessity of the Three to carry on the redemption of the world, as this partly Sabellian view supposes, it was not a necessity of sin, but of mind--finite mind, all finite mind; existing therefore ab aeterno in aeternum. We have now a great first point established, viz., that when the Son is spoken of as finally to be made subject, or so far discontinued as to let God be all in all, it cannot be meant that the Son is to be taken away, or disappear, in any sense that modifies at all the fact of Trinity. If God is to be all in all, it must be as Trinity and not otherwise. How then shall we understand the apostle when he testifies that the “ Son” shall be subject or retired from the view? He is speaking plainly of the Son as incarnate, or externalised in the flesh, visible outwardly in the man-form and known as the Son of Mary. He it is that, after having--as a king outwardly regnant--put all things under His feet, is in turn to become subject also Himself, that God may be all in all, and the machineries hitherto conspicuous be for ever taken back as before the advent. The only objection I perceive to this construction is, that the word Son here appears to be used in connection with the word Father--“ delivered up the kingdom to God even the Father,” --“ then shall the Son also” --as if it were intended to say that the Son as in Trinity is to give place to the Father as in Trinity, and He to be henceforth sole Deity. But there is a two-fold relationship of Father and Son appearing and reappearing constantly; viz., that of the Father to the incarnate Son and that of the Father to the pre-incarnate Son; that which gives Him earthly Fatherhood and that which gives Him celestial, ante-mudane Fatherhood. The apostle was not careful here to put a guard for the saving of the eternal Sonship, because he did not imagine the need of saving that, any more than of saving Deity itself. He was only thinking of the mortal Sonship, and giving us to see the essentially temporal date of its continuance. Trinity then as He conceives will remain, but the mortal Sonship, the man, will disappear and be no more visible. And let us not too hastily recoil from this. It may be that we have been promising ourselves a felicity in the future world, made up almost wholly of the fact that we shall be with Christ in His humanly personal form, and have used this hope to feed our longings, quite apart from all higher relations to His Eternal Sonship. Their word is Jesus, always Jesus, never the Christ; and if they can see Jesus in the world to come, they do not specially look for anything more. Heaven is fully made up, to their low type of expectation, if they can but apprehend the Man and be with Him. Religion reaches after God, and God is Trinity, and all the gospel does, or can do, by the name and human person of Jesus, is to bring us in and up to a God who is eternally above that name. Our relations to Christ, then, in the future life, are to be relations to God in Christ, and never to the Jesus in Christ. There is, I know, a conception of our gospel which has its blessedness in Jesus, because it meets God in Him, and is specially drawn to His humanity, because it even finds the fulness of God bowed low in His person. This so far is genuine gospel. And it would not be strange if a disciple thus wonted in God should imagine that the joy of his faith is conditioned for ever by the human person at whose ministry or from whose love it began. What, then, is the future glory, he will ask, if he does not bring him in, where he can see the very Man of the Cross? And who is this but Him that you seek? Surely He is somehow here, and this is somehow He. You missed Him, perchance, because you were looking too low down, out of the range of Deity, to find Him; whereas now you find Him throned in God, hymned in God, as the everlasting Son of the Father--and yet He is somehow Son of Mary still, even as He is the Lamb that was slain. (H. Bushnell.)The termination of the mediatorial kingdom There are two great truths presented by this verse and its context--the one, that Christ is now vested with a kingly authority which He must hereafter resign; the other, that, as a consequence on this resignation, God Himself will become all in all to the universe. We begin by observing the importance of carefully distinguishing between what the Scriptures affirm of the attributes, and what of the offices, of the persons in the Trinity in regard of the attributes, you will find that the employed language marks perfect equality; the Father, Son, and Spirit being alike spoken of as Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent. But in regard of the offices, there can be no dispute that the language indicates inequality, and that both the Son and Spirit are represented as inferior to the Father. This may readily be accounted for from the nature of the plan of redemption. This plan demanded that the Son should humble Himself, and assume our nature; and that the Spirit should condescend to be sent as a renovating agent; whilst the Father was to remain in the sublimity and happiness of Godhead. And it is only by thus distinguishing between the attributes and the offices that we can satisfactorily explain our text and its context. The apostle expressly declares of Christ, that He is to deliver up His kingdom to the Father, and to become Himself subject to the Father. And the question naturally proposes itself, how are statements such as these to be reconciled with other portions of Scripture, which speak of Christ as an everlasting King, and declare His dominion to be that which shall not be destroyed? There is no difficulty in reconciling these apparently conflicting assertions if we consider Christ as spoken of in the one case as God, in the other as Mediator. And you cannot be acquainted with the scheme of our redemption and not know that the office of the Mediator warrants our supposing a kingdom which will be finally surrendered. The grand design of redemption has all along been the exterminating evil from the universe, and the restoring harmony throughout God’ s disorganised empire. He was not indeed fully and visibly invested with the kingly office until after His death and resurrection: for then it was that He declared to His disciples, “ All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth.” Nevertheless the mediatorial kingdom had commenced with the commencement of human guilt and misery. But when, through death, He had destroyed “ Him that had the power of death,” the Mediator became emphatically a King. He “ ascended up on high, and led captivity captive,” in that very nature in which He had “ borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” He sat down at the right hand of God the very person that had been made a curse for us. It is certainly the representation of Scripture, that Christ has been exalted to a throne, in recompense of His humiliation and suffering; and that, seated on this throne, He governs all things in heaven and earth. And we call this throne the mediatorial throne, because it was only as Mediator that Christ could be exalted. The great object for which the kingdom has been erected, is, that He who occupies the throne may subdue those principalities and powers which have set themselves against the government of God. And when this noble result is brought round, and the whole globe mantled with righteousness, there will yet remain much to be done ere the mediatorial work is complete. The throne must set for judgment; the enactments of a retributive economy take effect; the dead be raised, and all men receive the things done in the body. Then will evil be finally expelled form the universe, and God may again look forth on His unlimited empire, and declare it not defiled by a solitary stain. Now it has been our object, up to this point, to prove to you, on scriptural authority, that the Mediator is a King, and that Christ, as God-man, is invested with a dominion not to be confounded with that which belongs to Him as God. You are now therefore prepared for the question, whether Christ has not a kingdom which must be ultimately resigned. We think it evident that, as Mediator, Christ has certain functions to discharge, which, from their very nature, cannot be eternal. When the last of God’ s elect family shall have been gathered in, there will be none to need the blood of sprinkling, none to require the intercession of “ an advocate with the Father.” Then shall all that sovereignty which, for magnificent but temporary purposes, has been wielded by and through the humanity of Christ, pass again to the Godhead whence it was derived. Then shall the Creator, acting no longer through the instrumentality of a Mediator, assume visibly, amid the worshippings of the whole intelligent creation, the dominion over His infinite and now purified empire, and administer its every concern without the intervention of one “ found in fashion as a man.” “ God shall henceforwards be all in all.” Now it is upon this latter expression, indicative as it is of what we may call the universal diffusion of Deity, that we design to employ the remainder of our time. We wish to examine into the truths involved in the assertion that God is to be finally all in all. It is an assertion which, the more it is pondered, the more comprehensive will it appear. You may remember that the same expression is used of Christ in the Epistle to the Colossians--“ Christ is all and in all.” There is no disagreement between the assertions. In the Epistle to the Colossians St. Paul speaks of what takes place under the mediatorial kingdom; whereas in that to the Corinthians he describes what will occur when that kingdom shall have terminated. We learn, then, from the expression in question, however unable we may be to explain the amazing transition, that there is to be a removal of the apparatus constructed for allowing us communications with Godhead; and that we shall not need those offices of an Intercessor, without which there could now be no access to our Maker. There is something very grand and animating in this announcement. If we were unfallen creatures, we should need no Mediator. The mediatorial office, independently on which we must have been everlastingly outcasts, is evidence, throughout the whole of its continuance, that the human race does not yet occupy the place whence it fell. But with the termination of this office shall be the admission of man into all the privileges of direct access to his Maker. In ceasing to have a Mediator the last barrier is taken down; and man, who has thrown himself to an unmeasured distance from God, passes into those direct associations with Him “ that inhabiteth eternity,” which can be granted to none but those who never fell, or who, having fallen, have been recovered from every consequence of apostacy. And therefore it is not that we depreciate, or undervalue, the blessedness of that condition in which Christ is all in all to His Church. We cannot compute this blessedness, and we feel that the best praises fall far short of its deserts; and yet we can believe of this blessedness, that it is only preparatory to a richer and a higher. To tell me that I should need a Mediator through eternity, were to tell me that I should be in danger of death, and at a distance from God. There is, however, no reason for supposing that the human race alone will be affected by the resignation of the mediatorial kingdom. We may not believe that it is only over ourselves that Christ Jesus has been invested with sovereignty. It would rather appear, since all power has been given Him in heaven and earth, that the mediatorial kingdom embraces different worlds, and different orders of intelligence; and that the chief affairs of the universe are administered by Christ in His glorified humanity. It is therefore possible that even unto angels the Godhead does not now immediately manifest itself; but that these glorious creatures are governed, like ourselves, through the instrumentality of the Mediator. Hence it will be a great transition to the whole intelligent creation, and not merely to an inconsiderable fraction, when the Son shall give up the kingdom to the Father. It will be the visible enthronement of Deity. The Creator will come forth from His sublime solitude, and assume the sceptre of His boundless empire. And it is not, we think, possible to give a finer description of universal harmony and happiness than is contained in the sentence, “ God all in all,” when supposed to have reference to every rank in creation. Let us consider for a moment what the sentence implies. It implies that there shall be but one mind, and that the Divine mind, throughout the universe. Every creature shall be so actuated by Deity, that the Creator shall have only to will, and the whole mass of intelligent being will be conscious of the same wish, and the same purpose. It is not merely that every creature will be under the government of the Creator, as a subject is under that of his prince. It is more than all this. It is that there shall be such fibres of association between the Creator and the creatures, that every other will shall move simultaneously with the Divine, and the resolve of Deity be instantly felt as one mighty impulse pervading the vast expansion of mind. God all in all--it is that from the highest order to the lowest, archangel, and angel, and man, and principality, and power, there shall be but one desire, one object. This is making God more than the universal Ruler: it is making Him the universal Actuator. But if the expression mark the harmony, it marks also the happiness of eternity. It is undeniable that, even whilst on earth, we find things more beautiful and precious in proportion as we are accustomed to find God in them, to view them as gifts, and to love them for the sake of the giver. It is not the poet, nor the naturalist, who has the richest enjoyment when surveying the landscape, or tracing the manifestations of creative power and contrivance. It is the Christian, who recognises a Father’ s hand in the glorious development of mountain and valley, and discovers the loving-kindness of an ever-watchful guardian in each example of the adaptation of the earth to its inhabitants. What will it be when God shall be literally all in all? It were little to tell us, that, admitted into the heavenly Jerusalem, we should worship in a temple magnificent in architecture, and bow down at a shrine whence flashed the effulgence and issued the voice of Jehovah. The mighty and overwhelming thing is that, according to the vision of St. John, there shall be no temple there; but that so actually shall God be all, that Deity itself will be our sanctuary, and our adorations be rendered in the sublime recesses of the Omnipotent Himself. And if we think on future intercourse with beings of our own race, or of loftier ranks, then only are the anticipations rapturous and inspiriting, when Deity seems blended with every association. The child may be again loved and embraced. But the emotions will have none of that selfishness into which the purest and deepest of our feelings may now be too much resolved: it will be God that the child loves in the parent, and it will be God that the parent loves in the child; and the gladness with which the heart of each swells, as they recognise one the other in the celestial city, will be a gladness of which Deity is the spring, a gladness of which Deity is the object. Thus shall it be also in regard of every element which can be supposed to enter into future happiness. It is certain, that, if God be all in all, there will be excited in us no wish which we shall be required to repress, none which shall not be gratified so soon as formed. Having God in ourselves, we shall have capacities of enjoyment immeasurably larger than at present; having God in all around us, we shall find everywhere material of enjoyment commensurate with our amplified powers. Let us put from us confused and indeterminate notions of happiness, and the simple description, that God shall be all in all, sets before us the very perfection of felicity. The only sound definition of happiness is that every faculty has its proper object. And we believe of man, that God endowed him with various capacities, intending to be Himself their supply. Thus, at present, we make little or no approach towards knowing God as He is, because God hath not yet made Himself all in all to His creatures. But let there once come this universal diffusion of Deity, and we may find in God Himself the objects which answer to our matured and spiritualised faculties. We profess not to be competent to the understanding the mysterious change which is thus indicated as passing on the universe. But we can perceive it to be a change which shall be full of glory, full of happiness. Thus we look forward to the termination of the mediatorial kingdom as the event with which stands associated our reaching the summit of our felicity. There is then to be a removal of all that is now intermediate in our communications with Deity, and the substitution of God Himself for the objects which He has now adapted to the giving us delight. God Himself will be an object to our faculties; God Himself will be our happiness. We can only add that it becomes us to examine whether we are now subjects of the mediatorial kingdom, or whether we are of those who will not that Christ should reign over them. If God is hereafter to be all in all, it behoves us to inquire what He is to us now. Can we say with the Psalmist, “ Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee?” How vain must be our hope of entering into heaven if we have no present delight in what are said to be its joys! Again we say, that, if it be heaven towards which we journey, it will be holiness in which we delight: for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meetness for a world in which God is to be all in all for ever and for ever? (H. Melvill, B.D.)That God may be all in all--God all in all I. In the shifting scenes of the world’ s life. When we look out upon the tangled web of history, the rise and the fall of mighty empires, the changing dynasties, the successive forms of government and social life, the instability of all things, the recurring cycle of events, the growth which ends only in decay, the constant ebb and flow of political life, our heart will sometimes ask, Is there any thread which strings together this chaotic mass, is there any design which is growing towards maturity by these accumulations of the ages? Are we to believe in the world’ s progressive life, or are we to resign ourselves to despair, looking out upon the present and the past as an ever-varying kaleidoscope, in which the combinations seem to follow one another at random, and with no fixed law? In the text we read the answer. Beyond and above the busy turmoil of earth, the blessed Trinity lives and loves, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. A Divine purpose runs throughout the ages, and under the ever-changing forms of life, God is fulfilling Himself in many ways. II. In the destinies of the Church. If at times we feel anxious as we think of her conflicts; if at certain eras Christ seems to sleep within the tempest-tossed barque; if she no longer goes forth as in her early days, in the freshness of her strength and joy, to convert the world to the obedience of the faith, yet we know that she ceases not to be the bride of her unchanging Spouse; the eternal Trinity is in the midst of her, therefore shall she not be removed; God is working where we can see nothing but the perversity and the strivings of man; He is all in all. III. In our temporal life. Looking at life from one point of view, how baffling, how meaningless does it appear! What mean the complaints which reach us in so many forms, not so much of life’ s deep sorrows, as of its inconsistencies and apparent aimlessness, its want of harmony and completeness of any kind? Purposes unfulfilled, aspirations unrealised, emotions wasted, paths which seem to lead nowhither, these lie a heavy weight upon the heart of humanity. Where is to be found the note which shall simplify this complex life of ours? how shall we be enabled to look back upon it with quietness and confidence, and feel that all has been working together for our final perfection and happiness? If we have been in any degree cherishing the spiritual life within us, such a power is to be found in the thought of Him, who has done all things well, who, behind the restless, ceaseless changes of life, has been carrying out His eternal purposes concerning us, has been step by step training our soul for its everlasting home--who out of the unchangeableness of His own eternity has seen the end from the beginning, and been Himself the real but unseen agent in all that has befallen us. IV. In our spiritual life. This also is full of change and variety; it needs to be reduced to some principle of unity. There is the varied atmosphere of the inner life, times of joy and refreshment, times of fears and misgivings--there is the oft-renewed struggle with some besetting sin, the consciousness of God’ s grace working within us to its weakening or overthrow. There is an element of restlessness even in our deepest, truest life. But God is working within us to will and to do of His good pleasure; He is Himself the Way, by which we travel to Himself the end; Himself the Life in whom alone we live; Himself the prize when all our warfare is accomplished. God is our all in all. Conclusion: Thus we find that all centres at last in God; all existence stands at length in relation to Him, who is the Fount of all being. The life of nations as well as that of individuals springs out of the exhaustless depths of His eternal counsels. Life is indeed many-sided and discordant when we look at it out of our own human weakness and imperfection, but as we view it in the light of God we learn to believe that all is well. Apart from Him its greatest achievements appear poor and unsatisfactory: when referred to Him its smallest details are dignified and ennobled. (S. W. Skeffington, M.A.) 1 Corinthians 15:29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all. Baptism for the dead The baptized for the dead mean all those persons who, saved from a world of sin, from Pagan ignorance, and from the power of Satan, passed through the ordinance of initiatory baptism, there to fill the places and to carry on the work of the dead martyrs, as fresh soldiers fill the ranks of those who are slain in battle. What shall they do? Secular motives for such a profession they had none. What must be their disappointment if the hopes of spiritual recompense were delusive? This method of interpretation suggests-- I. That the disciples of Christ are always described as a peculiar people.1. They are separated from the world--“ I have chosen you out of the world.” The duty such a separation involves is manifest. 2. They are avowedly united one to another--in the fellowship of holy love. We much neglect our duty and our privilege if we neglect or refuse such communion with the people of God. 3. They form an organised and well connected body, in which every member has his proper place and office. The Church is likened to a kingdom, a house, a body, an army. II. That the individual disciples of Christ are frequently removed, and their places rendered vacant by death. The ranks of Christ’ s army are constantly being thinned. When the text was written many lost them through the bitterness of persecution. But the ordinary causes of death still exist. The best must die.1. We see vacant places in the leadership; ministers, rulers, governors must lay down their authority. 2. We see vacant places among the rank and file. Our beloved companions are called away one after another, and our own turn must soon arrive. III. That God always will raise up others to take the place of those who are removed. The Church of Christ is unchangeable and lasting as the throne of God, and, as such, neither can the gates of hell prevail against it, nor the change of time affect its constitution, nor the deaths of its individual members occasion its dissolution. It may suffer a temporary eclipse by the loss of its brightest ornaments, but it is never abandoned, and others soon rise to take the place of those gone before, The whole history of the past is a living commentary on this truth. IV. That the prospect of the resurrection to a future life is the consoling element in all the changes of the present. If it were not for this prospect all else would be utter loss. “ Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if Christ had not become the first-fruits of them that slept?” All their labour would have been in vain and their duty lost. (Homilist.)Baptism for the dead I. Many commentators have declined to accept these words in their obvious sense. Here are some of their interpretations: “ What shall they gain who are baptized only to die?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized when dying, as a sign that their dead bodies shall be raised? … What shall they gain who are baptized for the removal of their dead works?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized into the death of Christ?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized for the hope of the resurrection of the dead?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized into the place of the dead martyrs?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized into the name of the dead?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized in order to convert those who are dead in sin?” “ What shall they gain who are baptized over the graves of the dead?” i.e., martyrs--a custom which existed in the post-apostolic Church. “ What shall they gain who are baptized for the good of the Christian dead?” i.e., to accomplish the number of the elect, and to hasten the kingdom of Christ. Taken together, these sound like a series of ingenious answers to a conundrum, no one of which is the true answer. And thus they read us a most impressive homily against putting forced, or “ spiritual” meanings on the plain words of Scripture. These opposing constructions of St. Paul’ s words refute each other, and warn us that we must abide by the natural and obvious sense of the passage, in whatever difficulties it may land us. Take them literally and St. Paul says, that in the Corinthian Church men were baptized for, in the stead of, the unbaptized dead. II. We have many historical traces of the custom of baptizing for the dead. Tertullian and Chrysostom attest that it existed among the Marcionites (A.D.130-150). Epiphanius relates that a similar custom prevailed among the Corinthians, a still earlier sect, and adds: “ There was an uncertain tradition handed down that it was also to be found among some heretics in Asia, especially in Galatia, in the times of the apostles.” St. Chrysostom gives us a graphic picture of such a baptism. He says: “ After a catechumen was dead, they hid a living man under the bed of the deceased; then, coming to the bed of the dead man, they spake to him and asked whether he would receive baptism, and he making no answer, the other replied in his stead, and so they baptized the living for the dead.” Similar observances have obtained in all ages. The Februarian lustrations for the dead are familiar to all readers of Ovid. Tertullian refers to them as very much on a level with the Corinthian baptism for the dead. They were designed to contribute in some indefinite way to the welfare and happiness of the Roman dead. With the Jews, if any man died in a state of ceremonial uncleanness, which would have required ablution, one of his friends performed the ablution; he was washed, and the dead man was accounted clean. In a kindred spirit the Patristic Church once placed the eucharistical elements in the mouths or hands of the dead. III. Now a custom which has obtained so widely, and which still lives virtually in the Roman “ masses for the dead,” must have had some humane and noble motive. Nor, I think, is the motive far to seek. Death often lends new life to love. When we have lost those who were nearest to us, we long to do something to prove the sincerity of our love. Suppose, then, that in Corinth a son, who had often listened to the Christian preachers, lost the father who had listened with him. Both, let us assume, have been impressed by the truth, but they have not been drawn by it into the Christian fellowship. The father dies: and now the son resolves that he will hesitate no longer. He will put on Christ by baptism. But the dear father now dead--can nothing be done for him? He might have been baptized had he lived a little longer: perhaps, as he lay a-dying, he lamented that he had not been bolder. Are his good intentions, his regrets, to come to nothing? May not his son’ s baptism be in some sort the father’ s too? May not the son say to the minister of the Church, “ My father would have been baptized had he lived; I will be baptized for him” ? If he did say that, we may be sure the minister would respect his feeling; possibly he might even share it. For we must not forget how ignorant the Corinthians were, and that on the main sacramental and doctrinal points. And if vicarious baptism were administered by any one teacher, if those were admitted to baptism who were moved thereto by love of the dead as well as by love for Christ, we can easily see how a superstitious custom would soon grow up in the Church. IV. But Paul knew this to be a mere superstition. Can we suppose that he would argue from it without condemning it.1. And yet, did he not, in becoming all things to all men, that he might save some, often accommodate himself to the views and feelings of those whom he addressed when he could not share them? We can hardly suppose that St. Paul admired the allegorical method of interpretation which was so dear to many of the Jews. Yet, in speaking or in writing to men who used this method, he often adopted it (Galatians 4:21-31). So again, as he passed through Athens, he saw an altar with this inscription, “ To the Unknown God.” The Athenians meant only some god whom they did not clearly know, who might well consort with the crowd of divinities in their Pantheon. “ Him,” says St. Paul, “ I declare unto you.” But it was not any such god as was in their thoughts, but the only wise and true God. Here again, therefore, he was accommodating himself to views which he could not share; he appealed to the polytheism of a heathen race in order to set forth Jesus as the Saviour and life of men. So, once more, when he took a Jewish vow, and, after a Jewish custom, shaved his head at Cenchrea; or when he went and purified himself in the Temple, or when he caused his “ son Timothy” to be circumcised, he became as a Jew that he might, gain the Jews. Is it impossible, then, that, in persuading the Corinthians of a resurrection, he should appeal to a superstitious custom which he himself did not approve? 2. Nevertheless, one does not like to conceive of St. Paul as doing that. The least we should expect of him is that, if he condescended to use such an argument at all, he would disconnect himself from the superstition on which it was based, and hint his disapproval of it. And this much, I think, he does. There are traces of his tacit disapprobation of this baptism for the dead even in our English version. Mark the tone of his argument before and after the 29th verse, and you will see how completely he identifies himself with his friends at Corinth. If the dead rise not, he says in the previous verses, our preaching is vain, your faith is vain, etc. It is all we and you. The same tone dominates the subsequent verses. Contrast with this the tone of verse 29. “ Else,” i.e., if the dead rise not, “ what shall they do who are baptized for the dead?” St. Paul no longer speaks of we and you, but of they and them, as though he were speaking of men with whom neither he nor his friends were in perfect sympathy. And this change of tone is much more marked and obvious in the Greek. To give effect to his change of tone and the niceties of his grammar, we may paraphrase his question thus: “ What will become of those,” or, “ What good account of themselves can they give, who are in the habit of being baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not? The very ground and motive of their custom is cut from under their feet by a denial of the resurrection, and therefore they, of all men, should be the very last to deny it.” V. Note one of the grave moral questions the subject suggests. I have spoken of the humane and universal feeling in which this vicarious baptism probably had its rise and strength. We have lost those who were dear to us, and if we have hope for all our dead, we can sympathise with the anguish of those who have no hope. We can see that if fears for their eternal welfare had been added to our sorrow at the loss of those who were very dear to us, that added burden would have been enough to break our hearts. And the question I would fain suggest is--Are your children to long, when you are taken from them, that they could be baptized for the dead? If only because you love those who will be after you, and would save them from vain longings and inconsolable regrets, it will be well for you to consider this question, and to act out your answer to it without delay. (S. Cox, D.D.)Baptism for the dead I. The connection of the passage. It is connected with verse 20, the intervening verses being a parenthesis. Paul has been speaking of the vanity of the Christian life apart from the resurrection (verses 19, 20), and then after a digression on the order of the resurrection, suggested by the word “ first-fruits,” he resumes his argument. “ Else,” if Christ be not risen, “ what shall they do that are baptized for the dead?” But whilst the passage is thus disconnected from what precedes, it is directly connected with what follows (verse 30). If Christ be not risen, what is the use of our enduring sufferings for our faith in Him? II. The apostle’ s train of thought.1. His chief argument is that derived from the resurrection of Christ. “ If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is not Christ risen,” consequently “ your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins,” and in testifying to it “ we are found false witnesses.” But we have the most convincing proofs, from numerous and unquestionable witnesses, of Christ’ s resurrection, which is a proof and pledge of ours. 2. If there be no resurrection, then dead believers are annihilated (verse 18), and their Christianity, as it is inseparably connected with suffering, has augmented the misery of human existence (verse 19). But this is a consequence that cannot be admitted (verse 20). 3. And analogous to this the apostle argues that if there be no resurrection, all the trials of believers are useless; not the practice of the Christians, but that of the Epicureans, is reasonable (verses 30-33). Now it is evident that it is to this argument that the text belongs; therefore, baptism for the dead must be connected with the sufferings of believers. III. The text therefore means baptism to fill the place of the dead.1. The apostle represents one set of Christians succeeding another: when their ranks were thinned by death others rushed in to supply their place. But why so if there be no resurrection? Why do they voluntarily submit to like suffering for their faith? Such an interpretation agrees well with what follows. And what a noble idea does this give of Christians. They fill up the ranks and fight in the battle in which their companions have fallen. And what a touching scene it must have been in times of persecution to see the baptized, like soldiers, occupying the breach which death had made in their ranks, thus verifying the observation that “ the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” 2. This interpretation gives us a striking view of the nature of baptism. It unites the baptized living with the baptized dead; it is the ceremony for our enrolment into the great army of the living God; it ensures the perpetuity of the Church, and supplies it with a constant succession of those who bear the name of Jesus; it is a solemn consecration to the service of Christ, and imposes upon us the duties which our predecessors performed, and enables us to look forward to those rewards which they now enjoy. (P. J. Gloag, D.D.)Baptized for the dead The words, “ baptized for the dead,” do not, either necessarily or naturally, imply (in the original) a vicarious baptism: the “ for” is “ in behalf of,” rather than “ instead of” --at the utmost “ for the benefit of,” whatever sense may be given to it--as champions or advocates, rather than as proxies or substitutes. I. St. Paul speaks (we venture to think) not of a caprice, and not of a superstition--not of a local custom, not of a human invention, not of a pious fancy, and not of a morbid and perilous addition to the faith and rule of the Churches: he speaks, we believe, of the ordinance of baptism as the risen and departing Saviour instituted it, and he unfolds to us here in brief, as elsewhere in detail, the connection of that ordinance with the foundation-fact of the resurrection. Every Christian baptism is a baptism for the dead. Not only is the resurrection of the dead one of the articles of the apostles’ creed which the person to be baptized professes himself to believe--as Chrysostom says, commenting upon this passage, “ When we are about to baptize, we bid the man say, “ I believe in the resurrection of the dead,’ and after this confession he is plunged in the sacred fountain” --not only is there this connection between the sacrament and the doctrine--but also, as the same great writer goes on to explain, the very immersion in, and emergence from, the baptismal waters, is a symbol of the burial and the resurrection that shall be--it is an insertion into the Saviour dead and risen, it is the typical foreacting of that funeral and that revival, the anticipation of which is the saint’ s life, the realisation of which is the saint’ s glory. To be “ baptized for the dead” is to vindicate, by our baptism, the sure hope of the dead--namely (to use again St. Paul’ s words), that, as we believe that Christ died and rose again, even so “ them also which have been laid to sleep through Jesus shall God bring with Him.” If there is no such hope--“ if the dead rise not at all” --what shall they do, which way shall they turn themselves, who have been subjected, on becoming believers, to that Christian baptism, which is, being interpreted, the assertion of the right of the dead, not only to immortality in a world of spirits, but, definitely and specifically, to a resurrection of the body? “ Why,” he adds, “ if there be no such hope, are the generations of the faithful thus ‘ baptized for the dead’ ?” II. The saying opens to us a new region of duty. We are apt to imagine that death breaks all ties. Certainly it breaks some. Ties of office--ties of courtesy--ties of parentage and wedlock--death breaks these--as to their form. But not even these, surely, as to their substance. What shall we say of the son whose heart does not burn within him at the slighting mention of a dead father--what shall we say of the patriot who has no sense of shame at the ridicule of a great statesman departed, or of the subject who is capable of no resentment when he reads some cowardly outrage upon the memory of a dead sovereign? Yes--“ cowardly” I call it, if it concerns the dead. The characters of the dead are the heirlooms of the living. To disparage a dead man is like injuring a child or insulting a woman. If you must calumniate the departed, begin on the day of the funeral--while at least there may be some one to answer you--son, brother, friend--some one to call you to the reckoning--some one to challenge you to the proof. These, indeed, are more or less personal matters. They affect but a few--generally the more famous, the more illustrious, of mankind. But St. Paul tells us that there is an honour, and by consequence a dishonour, which may be done to all the dead. There is way in which we can disparage, or in which we can vindicate them, as a class. We may be baptized for them. And when he explains himself he says, We may either assert for them, or doubt for them, or deny to them, a resurrection--which is, in other words, an immortality of complete being. Let us not forget that we ourselves shall soon have gone across from this world to that. “ Baptized for the dead?” then, baptized for ourselves. Let us cling now to that Easter which shall be our all then!1. Let us thank God for the gospel. The gospel is true or not true--but at least it is clearly defined and very simple. Christ died for our sins, and was buried, and the third day rose. In Him we live--He is the Resurrection and the Life. Let us settle these matters. To live in suspense about Jesus Christ is to live in a trance, incapable of true speech or true action. Settle that question--and let it settle all else. I can recognise no plea for waiting. That which will be true at your death is true to-day. If true, it involves duties. Amongst others--and of that the text speaks-- 2. A duty towards the departed. How often have we turned back from the open grave, as from a closed book or a career ended! Anxieties we have silenced by a peradventure, unuttered but tolerated, that all may be well because all may be nothing. Prayers for the dead are un-Protestant--the dead are in the hands of God. Duties to the dead are ended--neglected or done, they are of the past. Let them rest in peace. Nay, we have still to be their champions. We have still to think of them as being and to be--as members of the Church, as possessors of the Spirit. We have still to be in communion with them--meeting them when we pray--meeting them when we worship--meeting them when we communicate. We have still to feel, when we bring a little child to baptism, we are standing up for the dead. We are asserting the resurrection of the body. (Dean Vaughan.)Baptism for the dead Just as Christ died both for us and our sins, i.e., with a mind bent “ over us,” in order to our redemption, or “ over our sins,” with an eye to their abolition (see verse 3), even so catechumens in baptism emerged from the hallowed streams with their thoughts busy about or intent upon the dead, not as particular persons, but as a general class, distinct from the living on earth. And both context and circumstance together proclaim that the ulterior view of a neophite’ s mind, bending over the long roll of the dead, is their resurrection. But to make certainty doubly certain, St. Paul adds, “ If absolutely not raised are dead men, why do persons actually receive baptism on their account?” Between the death of the Duke of Wellington and his public funeral, I remember a lady, pointing to some crape near her, saying, “ This will be of use for the Duke of Wellington.” The text came immediately to my mind as parallel in structure to the sentence uttered, which, expanded in full, signified, “ This crape will be of use for me to wear on the day of Wellington’ s funeral.” (Canon Evans.)The Church-world There is a community of men whose principles, spirit, aim, character, and destiny, distinguish them from every other class of human society. The text presents this Church-world:-- I. As thinned by death--“ the dead.” The great law of mortality enters this realm. The intelligence, virtues, devotions, and usefulness of this Church-realm, constitute no barrier to the entrance of death. But--1. He appears here as the messenger of mercy--outside as the officer of justice. 2. He leaves behind him here consolation for the survivors, but outside unmitigated sorrow. II. As replenished by conversion. By those who are baptized for the dead I understand those who, from Pagan darkness, were converted by the gospel, and were admitted into the visible Church, there to fill up the place of those who, by martyrdom or otherwise, had been called away by death. The new convert then took the place of the departed saint. No sooner is one Christian removed from his station than another is raised up by God to supply the loss. As Joshua succeeded Moses, Elisha Elijah, Eleazer Aaron, so one man is ever raised in the Church to take the place of another. This succession affords a lesson--1. For humility. The man of most brilliant talents, distinguished position, and extensive usefulness in the Church, has nothing whereof to flatter himself; however important he may be, the Church can do without him. When he fails, others are ready to step into his place, and to be baptized for the dead. 2. For encouragement. God’ s redemptive plan will go on, whatever happens to individual agents. “ He buries His workmen, but carries on His work.” Let us learn to trust God rather than His most distinguished servants. The treasure is only in earthern vessels--vessels that must crumble. III. As living in hope. This language implies that the hope of a future state, of a resurrection, was a vital thing in the experience of the Church; and so it has ever been, is, and will ever be. The Church lives in hope. It “ reckons that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glories that shall be.” It is “ waiting for the adoption” ; it is “ looking for the blessed appearing,” etc. Paul does not mean, however, that the religion of Christ is of no service to man if there be no future state. Let us answer his two questions.1. “ What shall they do?” We venture to reply, not renounce religion, but continue faithful for ever. Should there be no future, Christian virtue is good. You will lose nothing by it should you be annihilated: you will not feel even the disappointment, but you will gain immensely by it, even in the present life. “ Godliness is profitable unto all things.” 2. “ Why are they then baptized?” We answer, because the claims of religion are independent of the future state. Were there no heaven, no hell, we should be bound to be truthful, honest, benevolent, God loving, etc. (D. Thomas, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:30-34 And why stand we in Jeopardy every hour?The hourly jeopardy: the daily death We have now reached the second of St. Paul’ s argumenta ad hominem. The first is the argument for the resurrection from the baptism of the dead. The second is the argument which he derives from his perils and sufferings. Admit that his hope would not make him ashamed, and his career was noble and heroic: deny it, and his career was a senseless bravado. Good trees do not spring from evil roots. Devotion to truth, a charity capable of all sacrifices--these are qualities which do not grow out of a lie, or faith in a lie. That cannot be a lie which made St. Paul so true and great a man. St. Paul begins by asking, “ If the dead rise not, why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” and he affirms, “ I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:30-31). We know what his life was like. I. The apostle’ s life was a daily death, an hourly jeopardy.1. Elsewhere, he furnishes us with a more detailed description, and thus supplies us with the best commentary on these words (2 Corinthians 11:23-28.) But mark how he says it (1 Corinthians 15:31). Instead of “ I protest,” read, “ I swear” ; for St. Paul here uses a common Greek form of oath. He frequently employs the most solemn adjurations. Christ’ s “ Verily, verily,” is an oath. Nay, the Almighty Himself is represented as swearing by Himself (Hebrews 6:16-18; Genesis 22:16-18). But let us also note by what Paul swears--“ by my boast of you which I have in Christ Jesus.” The Corinthians were the seal of his apostleship. His very oath, therefore, must have touched their hearts, and have predisposed them to a cordial acceptance of that which he was about to advance. It is, indeed, by these delicate touches of a most tender and loving nature, that St. Paul declares himself to us and constrains us to love and admire him. 2. The apostle cites one special instance of the jeopardy in which he always stood (1 Corinthians 15:22). If we assume that St. Paul did on one occasion fight with beasts in the Ephesian stadium, his argument is plain. It means that here again he was a mere idiot to incur deadly peril, if he were teaching a lie. But this is improbable. Paul was a Roman citizen, and could not therefore be legally condemned to the arena, he could very hardly have escaped from it with his life. In the Acts, moreover, there is no hint of any such conflict; nor does the apostle ever refer to one in any catalogue of his dangers. On all these grounds we conclude that he is here speaking metaphorically, viz., that he had to encounter men as brutish and fierce as wild beasts. Such figures of speech are common in all ages and lands. Heraclitus expressly calls the Ephesians “ beasts,” using the very word which St. Paul employs. And no one who reads Acts 19:1-41 will deny the propriety of the epithet. The multitude rushed into the theatre like a herd of bulls in wild stampede, and, like bulls, bellowed some one thing, and some another: and then, like beasts irritated by a red rag, as soon as they heard that Alexander was a Jew, went mad with rage, more like beasts that want discourse of reason than rational men. As St. Paul listened to their din, the epithet of Heraclitus may have occurred to him and have fixed itself on his memory. And if his letters to the Corinthians were written after the tumult at Ephesus, he may here allude to that confused and terrible scene. In Ephesus, as elsewhere, he risked all, because he believed in Christ as the resurrection and the life (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:8-10). II. To run such a risk daily and hourly, St. Paul affirms to be impossible to men who did not believe a future life (verse 32).1. Those who believe that dead men are not raised have as their motto, “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” which the apostle cites from (Isaiah 22:13). Yet it is curious to note that at Anchiale in Cilicia (the apostle being of Tarsus in Cilicia) there was a statue with this inscription: “ Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndraxes (Sennacherib), built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Stranger, eat, drink, and play, for all the rest is not worth this” --this being a fillip which the fingers of the statue were in the act of giving. In the prophet it has a special historical reference. Jerusalem was besieged by the Babylonians. The slain lay unburied in its streets. Dearth preyed on the living. By all these calamites God was calling His people to repentance. Instead of responding and waxing desperate with despair, they gave themselves to reckless mirth and revelry, crying, “ Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” It is this outcry of desperate ghastly mirth--which has been heard in Athens, in Florence, in London, in Paris, as well as in Jerusalem--which St. Paul quotes, which he puts into the mouth of those who deny a resurrection. To them, human life is a mere siege. The hosts of death are encamped against it. The fatal assault may be delivered at any moment. Why should they restrain their appetites? “ Why deny themselves to-day for a to-morrow that may never dawn? Why desire a morrow which brings no hope with it? Better eat and drink, and snatch what little pleasure may be had! (cf. Wis 2:1-9). 2. This was the tone taken in the apostle’ s time by the degenerate Epicurean school. It was the prevalent tone of the empire. In Corinth the ghastly revel was at its height. 3. Hence it is that St. Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, lays such emphasis on the resurrection. If he can help it, he will not so much as have them listen to those who jest about the future life, or deny it, or urge them to riot and excess because they must soon perish. They may think there can be no great harm in hearing what these scufflers have to say. “ There is harm in it,” replies St. Paul. One of your own poets long since said, “ Vile speeches honest customs do corrupt.” And if you listen to the Epicurean speeches which are rife about you, your habits of thought and life will degenerate. And we have not outgrown the need of this proverb. I have known men listen complacently to jests against good morals or religious truths, although they themselves condemn irreligion and immorality Their excuse is that it is “ only a jest,” that “ words break no bones,” that “ a little freedom of speech does no harm.” The wise Greek poet was not of their mind; nor was the holy apostle. 4. From the words with which St. Paul closes this paragraph (verse 34) there is reason to fear that the good Christian customs of some of the Corinthians had suffered from the vile speeches of the heathen. “ Wake up from your orgies,” he exclaims. Their only hope lay in rousing themselves to righteousness. They would come to “ the knowledge of God” as they set themselves to do His will. They would learn that there was a resurrection unto life as they ordered their present life wisely, holily, and in the fear of God. Conclusion: Of the many points of interest incidentally suggested by these verses, none, perhaps, is more pertinent to the present time than St. Paul’ s use of the Greek poets; for there are still good people who object to the introduction of what they call secular topics into religious discussions or exhortations, and object to a classical curriculum for students destined for the Christian ministry, and, therefore, it may be well to ask them to consider the example of St. Paul. Here, if he quotes from a Hebrew prophet, he also quotes from a Greek poet; and it would be hard to deny that the same spirit which moved him to cite Isaiah also moved him to cite Menander (see also his quotation from Aratus and Kleanthes in Acts 17:28, and from Epimenides in Titus 2:12). The probability is, that he had studied the Greek poets only less earnestly than the Hebrew prophets. His use of them sanctions our use of them. There is also abundant proof that the apostle was as familiar with the Greek philosophy as with Greek poetry: we cannot so much as gather his meaning in many parts of his Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, etc., except as we acquaint ourselves with the themes and terms of Hellenic speculation. This is a sufficient proof that secular learning is lawful and desirable in those who handle “ the things of the Spirit” ; that this, like all other gifts or accomplishments, may be and ought to be devoted to the service of God and of His Christ. (S. Cox, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:31I protest … I die daily.I die daily I. Inevitably--by the natural decay of nature. II. Voluntarily--by self-mortification. III. Experimentally--by a growing indifference to the world. IV. Believingly--in hope of a better life. (J. Lyth, D.D.)I die daily 1. Deposit my soul in Christ’ s hands.2. Resign the interests of earth.3. Cultivate a closer communication with another world.4. Realise death as the means of attaining my wishes.5. Subdue the corruptions of nature. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Dying daily 1. In a certain sense we all do this. The very moment we begin to live we commence to die. The whole of our life is like an ebbing tide. 2. Of some also this may be affirmed in a very painful and unhappy sense. They die daily because they feel a thousand deaths in fearing one. “ Through fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to bondage.” They are afraid to die, and yet are so fascinated by death that they cannot take their eyes from off it. 3. Paul used this expression in an heroic sense; every day he deliberately put his life in jeopardy for the cause of Jesus Christ. In these more silken days, we cannot run such serious risks. We know professors who cannot imperil their business or venture the breaking of some fond connection for the sake of Christ. Alas! many are ashamed of Jesus. 4. Our text we shall now take in a practical spiritual sense. Note-- I. Some previous necessaries for the practice of this art. The Christian--1. Must be willing to die; for if he shall shrink at death, and covet life, it will be a miserable necessity to him that he will have to die one day. In order that a man should be willing to die daily he must be a saved man, and know it. 2. Must be even desirous of departure, and cheered with the hope of the better land. To an ungodly man, to die can never be a thing to be desired, for what remaineth to him after death? But to the believer death is gain. 3. Should have a good understanding, and a clear knowledge as to what death really is, and what are the matters that follow upon it. What is it to die? Is it to cease to be? Is it to part with every comfort? If so, we might indeed be excused if we shut our eyes to the dreary prospect. To die is nothing, but to be at once with Jesus in paradise. II. Wherein it consists.1. To consider every day the certainty of death. We are but strangers and sojourners; we are only right when we act as such. The Lord knowing that we should try to shake off the remembrance of death, has so helped us as almost to force us to it; by-- (1) The frequent departures of others. God rings the funeral knell in our ears, and bids us remember that the bell may next toll for us. (2) The course of nature. Look at the year travelling from spring to winter, and the day from morning to night. Every flower blooms that it may wither. (3) The premonitions of death in ourselves. What is that grey hair but the foretoken of the coming winter which shall freeze the life current? What are those aches and pains, that decay of the eyesight, that dulness of hearing, those tottering knees? Don’ t avoid these thoughts because they seem sombre; familiarise yourself a little with the grey tints of death, and they will brighten before your eyes. 2. To put your soul, by faith, through the whole process of death. Anticipate the final stroke, the upward mounting, the eternal beatific vision. 3. To hold this world with a very loose hand. Birdlime so much abounds. When a man wins a little gain it sticks to him. Our dear friends and children are all strong chains, binding our eagle-souls to the rock of earth. “ Ah,” said one, as he was shown a rich man’ s ample house and luxuriant gardens, “ these are the things that make it hard to die.” Our bereavements would not be half so sharp if we always viewed our friends as being lent to us. A man does not cry when he has to return a tool which he has borrowed. Rejoice to say, “ The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” etc. 4. To test our hope and experience every day. Alas! for that evil habit of taking our religion for granted. Each day examine yourself whether you be in the faith. The man who is in a sound business does not object to overhaul his stock and examine his books; but the man to whom bankruptcy is imminent generally seeks to shut his eyes to his actual position. 5. To come every day, just as you did at conversion, to the Cross of Christ; and if you can always live as a lost sinner saved wholly by a precious Saviour, you are then fit to live and fit to die. 6. To take care to be always in such a place and state that we should not be ashamed to die therein. Hence, the believer has no licence to be found in places of ungodly amusement. The Christian, also, should never be in a state of temper in which he would be ashamed to die. 7. To have all our affairs in such a condition that we are ready to die. (1) Whitefield would not go to bed until everything was in order, for he said, “ I should not like to die with a pair of gloves out of place” ; and yet I know some believers who have not made their wills, and if they were to die to-day a wife whom they love so well might be put to serious suffering. (2) So should it be with all our acts towards God. Some of you have not yet fulfilled the Master’ s command with regard to baptism. Some of you have unconverted children, and you have not spoken to them about their souls. III. Its practical benefit.1. It will help us to live well. We should not be covetous and grasping if we knew that the heap would soon melt or we should be taken from it. We should not attach so much importance to trifles, if we felt that there were grander things close at our heels. If we saw our candle flickering in its socket, we should be far more diligent. 2. It will help us to die. No man would find it difficult to die who died every day. He would have practised it so often, that he would only have to die but once more. 3. The benefits of dying daily are commensurate-- (1) With the whole period of human existence. You young people would not be likely to plunge into youthful gaieties to your own damage, if you felt that you might die young. You men of middle age, how it would check you in that hasting to be rich, if you felt that you must soon be parted from it! And you who totter on a staff, nothing will keep you in holier or happier frame than to be always dying the death of Jesus that you might live His life. (2) With every position. Is a Christian rich? he will not be purse-proud. Is he poor? He will not murmur, for he recollects the streets of gold. If he is seeking after knowledge, he will mingle with it the knowledge of Christ crucified. If he be toiling for a livelihood, he will seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Make a believer a king or a pauper, and the art of dying daily will help him in either position. Put him under every temptation, and this will help him, for he will not be tempted by the offers of so brief a happiness. Daily dying is as useful to the saint in his joys as in his griefs, in his exaltations as in his depressions. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The Christian’ s duty of dying daily I. Show you what the duty is. To die once is a lot appointed for all; to die daily is a duty practised, a blessing obtained by few; most live as if they were never to die; because the day is evil, they put it far from them.1. To die daily is to set death always before us as a change which “ will one day certainly come.” 2. It is to be ready to meet death, as a change which may suddenly come. 3. To die daily is to wait for our change, as what we desire, were it God’ s will, should come speedily (Philippians 1:23). 4. To die daily is to resign our souls solemnly into our Redeemer’ s hands, as those who know not whether they have another day to live. To leave them with His faithfulness, love and care, who hath said, “ I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” II. Why are we to be found in the constant practice of it?1. This redounds greatly to the glory of God. He is honoured by a lively frame and an upright walk. For the sons of God, and of glory, to live wholly strangers to death, or to be afraid of it; how does this sully their character and shame their profession! 2. It makes much for the establishment and consolation of other Christians. It greatly saddens the hearts of younger Christians to hear those that are going off the stage of life mourning and complaining, as if they were wholly in suspense as to their eternal state. Sure, were you to converse more with God, you would speak more for Him. What though your hopes for the present fail, the God of your hopes lives. 3. This is a frame which is highly beneficial to our souls. III. How does the regular practice of this duty redound to the comfort of our own souls when death really comes?1. They that die daily die comfortably, because by this means we make death familiar to us, and those we are well acquainted with we are but little afraid of. 2. Dying daily has a farther influence upon our comforts, because hereby we are “ weaned from the world,” and all worldly enjoyments, and those things which we are weary of we are glad to leave behind us. 3. By dying daily our “ accounts are clearly stated” between God and us; and what condemnation have we then to fear? 4. By dying daily we learn to look beyond death while we are looking at it; and all is peace and joy there for ever and ever. I shall now close all with a few remarks.1. How dreadful is it for them to think of dying who have not as yet begun to live. 2. The truest wisdom is to be prepared against the greatest danger; our everlasting all depends upon our dying well. 3. Unless we know Christ savingly we can neither die daily nor die comfortably. He is the Lord our righteousness, and our strength. 4. It is dangerous living, even for the Christian himself, without keeping his dying time ever in view; for a view of death is the greatest bridle upon indwelling sin, next to an immediate grant of mortifying grace from above. 5. Should we not make haste with our living work when we know not how soon our living time may cease? 6. Learn hence the excellency and sweetness of the Christian’ s life. Interest in Christ makes life pleasant and death joyful. (J. Hill.)Of dying daily 1. We must die while we live, in order that we may live when we die. We must habitually consider ourselves as mere strangers in this world, who are on pilgrimage to another. Our mortal life must be a daily death, in conformity with the sufferings of Christ. 2. This description of the Christian’ s life on earth may seem to some repulsive. Remember this, then, that in the language of Scripture you are dead already. When born into the world you were dead in trespasses and sins; but now “ Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” We are thus taught to look upon ourselves as dead to this world, from the moment we are brought into covenant with God. 3. But since, to each of us is allotted a longer or shorter period of sojourning therein, our condition may be fairly spoken of as a dying daily--i.e., we have to “ crucify the old man,” those corrupt tempers and appetites which remain in us though we have been made regenerate, but which are at variance with the love of God. And this can only be done by a process slow and lingering, like that experienced by the victim on the cross. We cannot cast out the evil spirit at once; all we can do is to struggle with it, to keep every entrance by which it could gain admission fast and closed. We cannot destroy the noxious plant at once, but we may tear off each bud as it shoots forth. Yet, as all this is an anxious and a toilsome process, those who are engaged in it may be described as dying daily. 4. Now, it is not to be denied that religion, viewed as involving a continual struggle with our natural appetites, has something unattractive in it; and it seems hard at first to understand how her ways can be ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace. But the question for persons to decide is, not whether they like the prospect of mortification and self-denial, but whether it is not far preferable to submit to any amount of suffering rather than, after spending a few short years in selfish gratification, to pass to death eternal? It is hard when the world invites, to renounce it; when Satan allures, to resist him; when the flesh tempts, to deny it; but if these, when yielded to, will keep me for ever from God, then I will fight against them all the day long, and, the Lord being my helper, they shall gain no mastery over me. It is hard to mortify the members; to say to the eyes, see not; to the ears, hear not; to the tongue, taste not; to the hands, touch not. But if these things place my soul in jeopardy, I will rule them with a rod of iron. It is hard to submit one’ s own will to God’ s, but it were harder still to be shut out from His presence for ever. 4. Application: The first step towards dying daily is to establish within ourselves, practically, the feeling that we may die any day. Another step is to learn to discipline our earthly affections, by dwelling upon the thought that, though relations and friends are blessings for which it believes us to be very thankful, still they are only loans lent us by the Lord. And the same rule which applies to our earthly friends must be brought to bear on our worldly possessions. We must discipline ourselves to part with them by voluntary privations (1 Corinthians 7:29-30.) (F. E. Paget, M.A.)Daily dying There is a daily dying that is-- I. Inevitable. There is a daily dying of--1. Our corporeal frame. In each human body the seed of death is implanted, the law of mortality is at work. There is decay with every respiration and heart-throb. The water does not more naturally roll towards the ocean, or a falling body gravitate towards the centre of the earth, than the human frame runs every moment to dissolution. This fact should teach us-- (1) That worldly-mindedness is an infraction of reason. What a monstrous absurdity it is to set our supreme affections upon objects from which we are departing every moment! No anchor can stop this ship of destiny. All “ Life Insurance” offices recognise and act upon this fact. Every man’ s life is less valuable to-day than it was yesterday. (2) That sorrow for the departed should be moderated. Their departure was but obedience to the resistless law of their nature, and that same law is daily bearing us whither they are gone. Why battle with destiny? (3) That Christianity is an invaluable boon to mortals. It does two things--it teaches us that there is a future world of blessedness, and points us the way by which that blessed world is reached. 2. Our social world. We live not only with others but by them. But the social circumstances which feed our life are changing every day. The circle of the nursery in which we once lived is gone; the circle of the school and other circles in which we lived have broken up long ago. 3. Our mental motivity. The motives that influence us to action are elements of life, and they are constantly dying. A realised purpose has lost its motivity. Many of the loves, hopes, fears, romances, ambitions, which once formed much of our life, have been buried long ago in the ever-widening cemetery of the soul. II. Optional. This death is of two kinds.1. There is the criminal. In the depraved soul, sensibility of conscience, generosity of impulse, elasticity of intellect, freedom of thought, spirituality of feeling--the sinner is constantly murdering these, and their blood cries to heaven for vengeance. “ To be carnally minded is death.” 2. There is the virtuous. The highest life of man is a daily dying to all that is mean, false, mercenary, unspiritual, and uncharitable. The apostle felt this when he said, “ I,” that is my carnal self, “ am crucified with Christ” ; nevertheless, “ I,” that is my spiritual self, “ live,” etc., etc. (D. Thomas, D.D.)On the utility of meditating on death Such meditation-- I. Teaches us to value all earthly things aright, and perpetually corrects the fallacy of our calculations by reminding us of the period to which they apply; it discourages those schemes of injustice and ambition, the fruits of which are distant, by reminding us that that distance we may never reach. II. Improves the mind--1. By destroying in it trifling discontents, and by blunting the force of all the malevolent passions. Jealousy and hatred cannot coexist with the prospect of the last hour. It diminishes the importance of the offence we have suffered, awakens that candour which self-love has set to sleep, and makes us think, not of the trifling scenes which are past, but of the awful events which are to come. 2. It aggrandises the mind as the near approach of death itself is commonly accustomed to do; for men on their death bed often evince an heroism of which their lives have afforded little or no symptom, forgive injuries which should have been forgiven years before, faults which should have been rectified before half the race of life was run, confession of Christ who had been denied before the world. The distant contemplation of death leaves us greater time for godly actions--whatever seeds it casts into the mind may spring up and fructify. III. Induces us to consider by what means we shall avert its terrors. Can we figure to ourselves anything more dreadful than a human being at the brink of death who has never once reflected that he is to die? Let us, then, in youth and strength gather a decent firmness for that trial. IV. Opens up the prospect of eternity. In the contemplation of heaven the persecuted man figures to himself a state of rest; the poor, an exemption from want; the sick, health; the weak, power; the ignorant, knowledge; the timid, safety; the mean, glory; the parent looks for his lost child across the great gulph, and the widow for her husband; the soul lifts itself up to the great Author of our being who has sanctified and redeemed us by the blood of Christ. V. Teaches us that the evil is not without its remedy. That through Christ we are become the lords of death, that the mere separation of matter and spirit is a pang of so short a moment that it is hardly a rational object of fear, that the real pang is the remembrance of a misspent life. If you think the accumulation of such thoughts is awful take care that they do not accumulate. Conclusion: The choice is, Shall we meditate voluntarily on death as a religious exercise, or shall we be haunted by the image of death as a terrific spectre? Shall we gain wisdom by meeting the danger, or shall we, like children, be bribed by the tranquillity of a moment to keep it off? The image of death follows the man who fears it, it rises up at feasts and banquets; no melody can soothe it; it is undaunted by the sceptre or the crown. All men suffer from the dread of death; it is folly to hope you can escape it. Our business is to receive the image, to gaze upon it, to prepare for it, to seek it, and by these means to disarm. (Sydney Smith.)God’ s gladiators There is a well known picture which represents a band of gladiators who are going to fight in the Roman Amphitheatre; with shields lifted and bowed heads, they address the Emperor thus--“Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant” (Hail Caesar! we are going to die, salute thee). And so they go to the hard fight which can only have one ending. St. Paul was thinking of such a scene (1 Corinthians 15:31-32). He would have us understand that we are all God’ s gladiators sent into the arena of this world to fight, and that in that battle we must turn our eyes to Christ, and ever say, “ Hail, Master! we who are dying daily, salute Thee.” I. We must fight.1. This world is one long battle to the Christian. It is the coward alone who yields without a struggle, who gives himself up as the slave of sin. (1) Sometimes God’ s gladiators are called to fight with wild beasts out in this busy world. The sins and temptations of society, the evil words and works of our fellow-men meet us. (2) Sometimes the wild beast is caged within ourselves. It may be the lion of our angry, cruel temper, or of a proud rebellious spirit, or of an impure desire, or of a faithless, discontented thought. 2. And there is but one thing for us to do, we must fight or perish. Some of the hardest battles are fought by our bedside, or when we lie, like the sinful woman, prostrate in the dust, where Jesus wrote His words of pardon. II. We must die.1. God’ s gladiators can only come out of the battle when death sets them free; they leave their bodies scarred by many a wound, to rest here on the battle-field of earth, but God’ s angels bear their spirits to paradise. Every day we live we see a comrade falling in the ranks of battle, but still the Church marches on to victory; another fills his place. In the American war a wounded soldier heard the bugles of the enemy close at hand; weak as he was, he crawled out of the ambulance, and seizing a rifle, tried to march to the front. The doctor assured him that he was too feeble, and that the exertion would kill him. “ If I must die,” said the soldier, “ I would rather die in battle than in an ambulance.” 2. Happy are God’ s gladiators who die fighting. There are signs and tokens all around to show us that we die daily. Read the dim writing of old letters, look at your book of photographs, turn tenderly to the dead flowers between the leaves of your Bible, or gaze on the picture which childish fingers coloured, what do they say to us? We understand now what these relics say to us, “ Behold, we die daily.” The vacant places around us teach us that our place will one day know us no more, that we, like our brethren, shall pass to the land which has never been surveyed, and the great secret which is between God and His creatures. But not till our fight is over, and our work finished, “ man is immortal till his work is done.” III. We must ever look unto Jesus, who will raise up from the dead. (H. J. W. Buxton.)Daily dying We die daily. We are connstantly returning to the earth the materials we received from it. Every movement of our bodies, every exercise of thought and will, every muscular and nervous effort, is accompanied by a corresponding change in the structure of our frames--exhausts the vitality of so much brain, and nerve, and muscle. Every part of our body is undergoing a process of disintegration and renovation; constantly throwing off old effete matter, and constantly receiving deposits of new and living matter. Day and night, sleeping and waking, this ceaseless dying and ceaseless resurrection is going on with more or less rapidity; the river of life flows on changing its particles, but preserving the same form and appearance. In seven years the whole structure is altered down to the minutest particles. It becomes essentially a different body, though the individual still retains his original form and his personal identity unimpaired. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.) 1 Corinthians 15:32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not?--Beasts at Ephesus Note here-- I. A low judgment of human nature.1. There is no good reason for taking the text literally. Had such a terrible struggle taken place it would have been recorded in the Acts, and often referred to by Paul himself. 2. By wild beasts he means men, gross and savage in wickedness. Heraclitus called the Ephesians èḉñéá. If we refer to Acts 19:1-41. we shall find that certain men were entitled to the designation. We read of them “ being full of wrath,” of the whole city “ filled with confusion,” of some “ crying out one thing and some another.” They seem to have been bereft of reason and given up to the wildest fury of passion. 3. Paul was not alone in classifying such men with beasts. The Baptist called some of his hearers vipers, and Christ compared such men to swine. The Bible speaks of wicked men in two stages lower than humanity. (1) The sensual, who are in a state where the senses rule the soul, where the animal is supreme. Is not this the state of the mass of men? The great question is, What shall we eat, what shall we drink? etc. (2) The devilish. Men have the power of getting lower than the beasts. By the power of their imaginations they kindle their passions into a diabolical heat, and, by bringing the elements of nature into new combinations, they generate and nourish unnatural appetites. II. A fierce struggle for human nature. “ I have fought with.” Paul fought with men for men.1. The battle was inevitable to his mission. He was the messenger of truths that struck directly at their prejudices, their habits, their greed (Acts 19:27). 2. The battle was most benevolent on his part. Love, not anger, was its inspiration. He fought for them by fighting against their prejudices and their sins. 3. the battle was most unequal in circumstances. Numbers, authority, influence, wealth, were all arrayed against one penniless foreigner. In moral battles numbers are an inferior consideration. One man in truth may conquer a nation in error. III. A great problem for human nature. “ What advantageth it me?” etc. The apostle does not say either that there would be no advantage in a godly struggle for truth were there no future life, nor that such a struggle was to be conducted with a view of advantage. He puts the question and leaves it to be answered. Our answer will be that on the assumption that there is no future life, godliness will be--1. Of physical advantage to man. The habits of life promoted by Christianity are conducive to bodily health and longevity. 2. Of mental advantage to man. It generates sentiments, it starts trains of thoughts, it awakens hopes, which yield to the mind a happiness which nothing else on earth can afford. If Christianity is only a dream, it is a dream from which we would not awake. 3. Of social advantage to man. Christianity has proved itself to be infinitely the best system for promoting the peace of families, the order of society, the prosperity of nations. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Fighting beasts at Ephesus It would be greatly to the satisfaction of our curiosity if we could mention exactly what was the historic form of this trial. And there is an interpretation of this passage which insists that Paul was once compelled to fight literally with wild beasts. Indeed, tradition has caught up the story, and told us that he braved the beasts most dauntlessly in the attack, and, while the audience waited to see him torn in pieces, he suddenly invoked the powerful interposition of high heaven with a wonderful gesture of his outstretched hand. The suppliant animals refused to do him harm. Lions came cringing to his feet, and, like so many tame dogs, began licking his wounds where the scourge blows had broken the skin. Now we have in 2 Corinthians a complete catalogue of Paul’ s sufferings; but fighting in the arena is not among them. We understand this text, therefore, as a figurative description of the great conflict he had with wild Ephesian men; and with such an interpretation the question comes within the reach of every Christian put under severe conflict. When any good man is forced into a fight he is often constrained to ask, “ What advantageth it me?” It so happens that the inquiry has a right noble answer. I. The fine possession of a manly reminiscence. We always have a high respect for a difficulty we have actually surmounted. Evermore there remains deep in our hearts the joyous consciousness for once at least of having stood true when under fire. II. Quickened growth in grace. Conflict makes men sober and thoughtful; then it makes them gentle and kind; then it makes them forbearing and charitable. III. Power for leadership among men. Men trust the veterans from hard-fought fields. IV. Fellowship with Christ (Hebrews 12:3). Those who are persecuted for Christ’ s sake receive precisely what He received; the disciple is mot above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord. V. It renders more luminously welcome the heavenly outlook. “ No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast.” All will be peace and rest and satisfaction. (C. S. Robinson, D.D)Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. The house of feasting, or the epicure’ s measures 1. The text is the epicure’ s proverb, began on a weak mistake, thought witty by an undiscerning company, and prevailing greatly because it strikes the fancy and maintains the merry meeting. The pagans recommended sensuality in this life because they knew of no enjoyments in another. 2. They are to be excused rather than us. They placed themselves in the order of beasts, making their bodies but receptacles of flesh and wine; therefore they treated themselves accordingly. But why should we do the same things who have higher principles, and the revelation of immortality? 3. To reprove the follies of mankind and their improper motions towards felicity. Note-- I. That plenty and the pleasures of the world are no proper instruments of happiness. A man must have some violence done to himself ere he can receive them. If we go beyond what is needful, we put that to hazard which nature has secured. It is not nature that desires superfluities, but lust. By a disease we acquire the passion for luxuries, which eventually become necessaries, and then cease to gratify. Contrast the happiness of the virtuous poor man in his cottage, his sound sleep, quiet breast, easy provision, sober night, healthful morning, and joyous heart, with the noises, diseases, passions, which fill the houses of the luxurious and the hearts of the ambitious. II. Intemperance in eating and drinking is opposed to the epicure’ s design. The voluptuous man has the least share of pleasure.1. It is an enemy to health which is a handle by which we can apprehend pleasure, and the same which makes life delicious. For what content can a full table administer to a man in a fever? Health carries us to Church, and makes us rejoice in the communion of saints; but an intemperate table makes us lose all this. It bears part of its punishment in this life, and has this appendage, that unless it be repented of it is not remitted in the life to come. The epicure’ s genial proverb might be a little altered. “ Let us eat and drink, for by this means to-morrow we shall die” ; yet it is not so, for such men lead a healthless life; they are long in dying, and die in torment. What folly for men to pray for healthy bodies, and then pour in loads of flesh and seas of wine. The temptations which men meet with from without in these cases are in themselves most unreasonable, and soonest confuted. He that tempts me to drink beyond measure, what does he, but tempt me to lay aside my reason, or civilly invite me to a fever? When Athens was, destroyed by the plague, Socrates escaped through the temperate diet to which he had accustomed himself. He had enough for health, study, philosophy, and religion; but he had no superfluities to bring on groans and sickly nights. All gluttons are convinced of the excellence of temperance in order to moral felicity and health; for after they have lost both they are obliged to go to temperance to recover them. Fools, not to keep their health by the means which they seek to restore it! Such men “ heap up wrath against the day of wrath.” When the heathen feasted their gods they gave nothing but an animal, poured a little wine on the altar, and burnt a little frankincense: but when they feasted themselves they had many vessels of Campanian wine, turtles, beeves, wild boars, etc. And little do we spend on charity and religion; but we spend so much on ourselves that we make ourselves sick, and seem to be in love with our own mischief. 2. A constant full table is less pleasant than the temperate provisions of the virtuous, or the natural banquets of the poor. “ Thanks be to the God of nature,” said Epicurus, “ that He hath made that which is necessary to be ready at hand, and easy to be had; whilst that which cannot easily be obtained is not necessary at all,” i.e., in effect it cannot be constantly pleasant: for want makes the appetite and the appetite makes the pleasure; so that men are greatly mistaken when they despise the poor man’ s table. Fortune and art give delicacies, nature gives meat and drink; and what nature gives fortune cannot take away, whilst every change can take away what is only given by fortune. Moreover, he that feasts every day, feasts no day; and however a man treats himself, he will sometimes need to be refreshed beyond it. A perpetual fulness will make you glad to beg pleasure from emptiness and variety from humble fare. 3. Intemperance is the nurse of vice, and no man dare pray to God for a pure soul in a chaste body, if he lives intemperately, “ making provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” For in this case he will find “ that which enters him shall defile him,” more than he can be cleansed by vain prayers that come from his tongue and not from his heart. 4. Intemperance is the destruction of wisdom. “ A full gorged belly never produced a sprightly mind.” The heavy and foul state of an intemperate person may be compared to the sun, clouded with fogs and vapours, when it has drawn too freely from the moisture of nature. But temperance is reason’ s girdle and passion’ s bridle, the strength of the soul and the foundation of virtue. 5. Intemperance is a dishonour to the nature, person, and manners of a man. But naturally men are ashamed of it, and night is generally a veil to their gluttony and drunkenness. III. Some rules and measures of temperance.1. Our natural needs. Hunger, thirst, and cold, are the natural diseases of the body; food and raiment are their remedies, and therefore the measures. But in this there are two cautions-- (1) These are only to be extinguished when they are violent or troublesome, and not to the utmost extent and possibilities of nature. (2) These must be natural, not artificial and provoked: for many men make necessities to themselves, and then think they are bound to provide for them. 2. Reason. Eating and drinking so as to make the reason useless or troubled is intemperate. Reason is the limit beyond which temperance never wanders. Intemperate men are so stripped of the use of reason that they are not only useless as wise counsels, but have not reason enough to avoid inflicting evils upon themselves. 3. The fitness of the body for useful service. Overloaded with food or drink, the mind cannot think, nor the body work with any sprightliness. (Jeremy Taylor.)The folly of thoughtlessness of religion Is it not foolish to be living in this world without a thought of what you will do at last? A man goes into an inn, and as soon as he sits down he begins to order his wine, his dinner, his bed; there is no delicacy in season which he forgets to bespeak. He stops at the inn for some time. By and by the bill is forthcoming, and it takes him by surprise. “ I never thought of that--I never thought of that!” “ Why,” says the landlord, “ here is a man who is either a born fool or else a knave. What! never thought of the reckoning--never thought of settling with me!” After this fashion too many live. They eat, and drink, and sin, but they forget the inevitable hereafter, when for all the deeds done in the body the Lord will bring us into judgment. (C. H. Spurgeon.) 1 Corinthians 15:33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.Self-deception Of all species of deception, self-deception is the most detrimental; it is like having a traitor in the fortress who betrays his country to an enemy. Be not deceived-- I. By a corrupt heart. An eminent man said once, “ Paris is France” ; it is more correct to say, “ The heart is the man” ; “ As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” The seed contains the future flower, the small acorn the majestic oak, the egg the poisonous viper; so also the heart contains the germ of the future glorified saint or doomed spirit (Matthew 15:19). Every healthy man can easily see that consumptives are gradually approaching the great change; but they tell you they are improving in health, and persist in deceiving themselves to the last. We have people that are morally consumptive, “ whose end is destruction.” They do not believe it. “ The heart is deceitful above all things,” etc. These obstinately refuse the aid of the Great Physician, until their moral nature falls into the second death. “ Create in me a clean heart, O God,” etc. II. By a polluted imagination. Imagination--1. Is like a merchant’ s ship, she bringeth her food from afar. The poet mounts upon the wings of this imperial faculty, and brings back rich treasures from fairy land, and presents them to us in the form of poems and dramas. In ancient mythology spring is pictured as a young maiden whose lap is full of flowers, and all the paths she walks are strewn with them. 2. Is a beautiful maiden, whose voice is enchanting as the song of the nightingale. But, alas! she is not always chaste. When celebrating the inhumanities of the hero, her skirts drop human blood. When she ministers to the lusts and passions of men her crown is tarnished: she becomes a wanton coquette at the bidding of Horace, Ovid, and Byron; but at the bidding of Job, Isaiah, and Milton she becomes “ a woman clothed with the sun,” etc. The reason why imagination sometimes wanders to forbidden paths is because she is the slave of the heart. The influence of the moon upon the tide is not more regular and absolute than that of the heart over the imagination. III. By the habits of society. The phrase “ good manners” is not used now in the sense in which it is used here. We mean etiquette; but Paul meant virtue--all that is noble and heroic. Be not deceived. One may have the beauty of Venus and the charms of Cleopatra; and another the figure of Adonis and the polish of Chesterfield, and still be void of “ good” manners, What are the genteel habits without religion? Apples of Sodom, having a charming outside, but an inside of dust; a dead body dressed in a white winding sheet and decked with flowers which only hide a mass of putrefaction. So refinement, polish, and accomplishments are often only the adornments of one “ dead in trespasses and sins” (1 Samuel 16:7). (W. A. Griffiths.)Evil communications I. Good manners are supposed as the result of--1. Early training.2. Religious influence. II. May be corrupted.1. The tendency of the heart is evil.2. The world is wicked.3. The influence of its example pernicious.4. There needs decision and watchfulness. III. Will certainly be corrupted by evil communications.1. The choice of bad company shows the inclination to evil.2. Such company is insinuating.3. Insensibly lowers the tone of morality.4. Destroys shame.5. Hardens the heart. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Evil communications Let me-- I. Explain this doctrine.1. Good manners, although applied by St. Paul to those Christian principles from which his converts were in danger of being seduced, may be understood as including both right sentiments and holy practice. 2. The term “ evil communications,” means the associating with evil men. 3. Such evil communications corrupt the mind, sap the principles, and taint the conduct. In the case of the upright Christian, whose duty leads him to intercourse with the world, this tendency may, indeed, be counteracted by watchfulness and prayer, and by the preventing grace of God. But if, without this defence, a man will freely associate with the ungodly, the effect will soon be visible in his character. 4. The injurious effect of evil communications is not described as taking place in any sudden or striking manner. Corruption is a gradual change. Silently, but surely, evil communications corrupt good manners. II. Confirm it, by an appeal to--1. The Word of God (Proverbs 4:14, etc., 9:6, 13:6; 2 Peter 2:1-22.). 2. Maxims of wise men. St. Paul’ s words are borrowed from a heathen writer. This shows that Reason without the aid of Inspiration has led men to the very same conclusion with the apostle. To this I will add the modern saying of “ a man is known by the company he keeps.” 3. Take the cases of Lot, Solomon, etc. 4. Personal experience. Look back through your past lives, and recollect in how many instances your views and conduct have been influenced by the example of those among whom you lived. III. Apply it. Be not deceived.1. As to the reality of your danger from ungodly society. We soon perceive the perilous situation of a son, a daughter, or a friend; but we are apt to be very blind when the case becomes our own. There is no safety in the society of those who have not the fear of God before their eyes. If they be openly immoral or unprincipled, all connection with them is perilous in the extreme. But their society is scarcely less dangerous to a true Christian, if, while destitute of religion, their outward behaviour is plausible and decorous. 2. As to your ability for resisting the influence of evil communications. A man may say, “ I know that there is danger, but my principles are fixed: and, as I do not go into such company, out of any love for their bad conduct, I shall easily avoid what I know to be wrong.” The man who talks thus is ignorant both of the power of temptation and of the weakness of his own heart, and he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. And should the tempter suggest, as he did to Jesus, that God will give His angels charge over you to keep you, recollect that there is no promise of such protection to those who quit the path in which the Lord requires them to walk. 3. As to the possibility of separating yourself from ungodly connections. 4. As to the final tendency of that corruption, which arises from evil communications. (J. Jowett, M.A)Evil communications I. The import of the phrase.1. Bad books.2. Company.3. Associations. II. Their evil tendency.1. They corrupt the heart.2. Deprave the character.3. Destroy reputation.4. Spoil happiness.5. Ruin the soul. III. The means of escaping them1. Avoid them.2. Cultivate the company of the good. 3. Study the Bible.4. Watch unto prayer. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Evil communication The text is a quotation from the Greek comic playwright Menander, which illustrates 1 Corinthians 9:22-23. In this sceptical age all teachers should go to the forges of the Philistines to sharpen their intellectual tools, so as to be able to meet their enemies on their own ground.I. What are these evil communications? They are those of--1. The tongue. (1) Lying. The Bible shows, by precept and example, that God hates the liar (Proverbs 12:22). (2) Foolish and profane talk. Certainly we do not condemn mirth and wit; but great care must be taken lest the comic should predominate in us. “ A hearty laugh maketh glad the heart, but the laughter of the fool is as the crackling of thorns under a pot.” Moreover there is a kind of talk which blunts the moral feelings and lowers the dignity of man. The slandering gossip of the drawing-room and the coarse humour of the tap-room are equally condemned (Ephesians 4:29). (3) Swearing. This mean habit is too prevalent amongst all grades of society. 2. The pen. In former times the evils of the pen were comparatively small, because only few could read what fewer still could write. But in this age of cheap literature the evil of the pen rivals the evil of the tongue in its magnitude. There is-- (1) The novel. Every young man and woman should read the masterpieces of imaginative literature as recreation; yet the greatest admirers of fiction admit that for every good novel there is a dozen bad ones. Truth after all is stranger than fiction; get good books, read and study them. (2) The theatre, which has been all along one of the principal enemies of the Church: one is the nursery of rectitude, honesty, and charity: the other is the school of infidelity and genteel licentiousness. 3. The pencil. Nothing contributes more towards the education of the heart and the refinement of the feelings than familiarity with high art; but on the other hand, nothing is more infectious than familiarity with lewd pictures. II. How to eradicate these evil communications.1. Form a close and frequent intercourse with the people of God. The help afforded to Christians by mutual interchange of thought, feeling, and experience will be found to be wonderfully effective; as will also the biographies of good men. 2. Form a close and frequent intercourse with Christ. Enter into a covenant with Him, and He will keep thee in all thy ways. (W. A. Griffiths.)Nature and danger of evil communications This maxim of the heathen poet Menander accords with universal experience, and was worthy, therefore, of being adopted as a portion of the sacred record. The connection is not that in which we should have expected such a maxim; but the occasion of it was this: by a mixture of the corrupt communications of false teachers the Corinthians had been led off from the fundamental doctrine of the gospel. Hence we may learn the necessity of being on our guard in this respect. I. What are evil communications? We cannot, of course, entirely avoid intercourse with bad men; this would be “ to go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:10-11). The intercourse of society must be maintained, without respect to the characters of men, to such an extent as the business of life requires. An unsocial spirit that would lead us, like the Essenes of old, into the solitudes of the wilderness, would be inconsistent with the genius of Christianity and the example of our Lord. But still, we must not, under pretence of yielding to the necessary calls of business, cultivate and cherish that “ evil communication” which “ corrupts good manners.” Those communications may be justly regarded evil--1. Which have a tendency to taint the purity of the mind by associations of a lascivious and sensual nature. 2. In which religion is not adverted to, or has no hold upon the mind, where the fear of God is evidently dismissed, and there is no scriptural rule of action. 3. Which abounds with objections to Christianity, and is calculated to produce a doubt, either of its Divine origin, or of the certainty of its most important truths. 4. Which is avowedly and aggressively infidel (2 John 1:9-10). 5. Which proceed from those whose moral principles are loose, with respect to the great obligations of justice and equity, and who indulge in dishonourable practices. II. The way in which evil communication operates in corrupting good manners. It is one of the fundamental laws of nature, that our minds should be subject to perpetual modification from the minds of others. We may determine what society we will keep, but not what influence that society shall have upon us. One of the first feelings of every person who goes into company is to please and be pleased. Hence we plainly perceive that there is a preparation in the very nature of society for an assimilation of our minds to the principles and dispositions of those with whom we converse.1. Let us suppose, then, that the society into which we enter is not positively vicious, in any other sense than as it is distinguished by a total absence of religion; it is not too much to say that this society will possess a very pernicious influence over any mind. It is dangerous to be accustomed to the absence of religion. Next to the infusion of positive impiety, the most evil element in which the mind can be placed, is that out of which religion is expelled. 2. Suppose the society into which we enter be impure, such communications must corrupt good manners. Must not the primary effect be, at least, gradually to enure the mind to the contemplation of vicious objects, without horror and disgust? 3. Suppose that the society into which we enter be distinguished by a rejection of Christianity, or of its great doctrines. To hear the cause of Christ attacked without being in a situation, in a becoming manner, to undertake its defence, must bare an injurious tendency. Conversation, if we intend to please and be pleased, should never be a scene of continual dispute; we must either relinquish such society or hold our peace. III. The caution is strongly implied in the words, “ be not deceived.” Be not deceived--1. By the adduction of false precedents. Our Lord mingled indiscriminately with all descriptions of persons; but do not imagine that it would be safe for you to do so. Recollect the infinite disparity of His situation and character, and yours. 2. By your past experience. You have been frequently exposed to vicious society, and perceived none of these evils. “ Be not deceived” ; you are very ill judges, it may be, of the state of your own minds; you may imagine that you have received no injury, but what has been the effect of such society on your private devotions? Has it endeared to you the Scriptures, or estranged you from them? 3. By any complacent reference to the time of life at which you have arrived, or the progress in religion which you have already made. At whatever period of life you have arrived, “ evil communications” will “ corrupt good manners.” Solomon, in his youth, feared God, but when old age came upon him, through the contagious example of his idolatrous wives, he forsook the God of his fathers. 4. By any supposed strength of resolution with which you may enter into such society. When confederacies are formed it requires a powerful effort to break them. It is far less difficult to keep out of society than to resist its current. Conclusion: Let me suggest one or two cautions of prudence.1. Let those who have a serious sense of religion bind themselves with the vows of God, and enter on a solemn profession of them at an early period of life. Let all young persons unite themselves to those whom God has touched by His Spirit, and is guiding, under the convoy of the Captain of salvation, to eternal glory. The Church will willingly receive all such as are desirous of uniting themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant. 2. Let it be remembered, that with those with whom you voluntarily associate here, you shall be associated hereafter by the disposer of all things, for ever. With whom would you have your everlasting portion? (R. Hall, M.A.)The influence of association When we find the heathen and Christian giving utterance to the same sentiment we ought the more to heed its importance. We are so constituted and circumstanced that none of us can live to himself, and none of us can die to himself. Each necessarily exerts a great influence on many others, and is acted on in turn by those with whom he is associated. If “ evil commumications corrupt good manners,” it is to be inferred that good communications work for good upon the character. Of course in each case it must be supposed that the association is both intimate and voluntary. It does not always come to pass that the child of religious parents is religious himself; neither is every one who lives with the ungodly a partaker in their ungodliness. I. There is in all of us considerable desire of being esteemed or approved. This desire is morally allied to that dislike of being singular which has so mighty an operation upon men. With those with whom we are in constant intercourse, we wish, if possible, to stand well, and we feel that this cannot be, so long as there is distinct opposition in their principles and motives to our own; and it is almost a necessary consequence that we shall gradually assimilate ourselves to their tastes and tendencies, and thus seek to escape the unpleasantness of being singular, and therefore of being tacitly disapproved, by acquiring resemblance, or softening down points of difference. For instance, suppose a man, not of vicious habits himself, thrown continually into association with the dissolute. He will feel that there is no affinity between himself and his companions, and it will be very galling to feel himself thus an object of dislike, whilst his desire is to be esteemed. But what is galling he will endeavour to escape from. Then the question is as to the mode of escape. If he be possessed of great moral courage, he may break loose from the pernicious associations; but if not he will cease to be singular by becoming like. He may not form any distinct resolution of this, but the almost certainty is that his virtuous principles will be undermined, and he will gradually get rid of what was unpleasant in his situation by getting rid of what was offensive in his character. II. Over and above this desire of approval, consider the force of example. Our nature is prone to imitation, and practically seeing a thing done is more likely to move us to the doing of the same than any precept we can enforce. Undoubtedly men do feel encouraged to do evil by seeing others do it, just as though less danger were incurred by breaking God’ s laws in company than in breaking them alone. A man whose conscience has been active, remonstrating against a particular sin while he has not mixed with those who are in the habit of that sin--place him with such persons, and you know very well that he will be led through the mere force of example to its habitual commission. Conclusion: We think we have said enough to warrant us in urging, especially upon the young, the vast importance of taking heed with whom they make their association. We might almost dare to say on the strength of the foregoing statements, that in choosing your companions for time you choose your companions for eternity. Never, therefore, let it be thought that it can be a trivial or unimportant thing with whom you contract intimacies. Rather be assured, that such is necessarily the influence of man upon man, that to make friends with the righteous is to gain a vast assistance towards saving the soul, and to make friends with the wicked is to advance a long stage towards everlasting ruin. (H. Melvill, B.D.)The evils of bad company I. It is dangerous to our characters. To have the same attachments and dislikes, the same pursuits and aversions, has always been esteemed the foundation of friendship; similarity of disposition, of sentiments, of manners, is the usual bond which unites companions together. The world forms its judgments by general rules; when it sees a man a frequent spectator of the excesses of the vicious, it takes for granted that he is a partaker also, and an approver of them. II. It will have a proportionable pernicious influence on our fortunes. Reputation has been always looked on as the surest step to wealth and preferment. Whoever wishes to advance himself esteems a good character as useful, if not essential, to that end, and is as anxious to preserve it as the miser to preserve his gold. Let the ambitious, the covetous, those who aspire after dignity or wealth, think of this, and if they have no better motive for declining the society of the vicious, let them decline it as they have regard to the gratification of their favourite passion; let them be restrained by their interest, if they have lost their virtue. Bad company may likewise hurt our advancement in life another way, as it usually involves us in idleness and extravagance, and leads as to dissipate, or, at least, to neglect to improve, the provision bequeathed us by our ancestors. III. It is dangerous to our quiet. As he who takes a viper frequently to his bosom, though he may awhile escape with impunity, will one time or other certainly repent of his rashness; so let, that man beware who has made choice of a confirmed vicious character for his intimate, for however strong in appearance his attachment be, if appetite or interest invite, he will certainly sting him to the heart. Can any reliance be placed on him who lives in a continued state of disobedience and ingratitude to his Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, that he will not, when any imaginary pleasure or profit may accrue to him by it, betray or even ruin his fellow-creatures? But if, added to this state of rebellion towards God, he has been known in his general commerce with his brethren to be false and treacherous, is it not the height of folly in any individual to expose his family and affairs to his machinations, under the vain hope that he should belie his general conduct to be true to him alone? IV. It is prejudicial to our morals, and of consequence dangerous to our eternal salvation. Man is by nature prone to imitation; this is observed by every wise parent, and turned as much as possible to their children’ s advantage by every good one. What we are taught, however wise, virtuous, and prudent, will have little effect on us if it be contradicted by what we see. If a young person perceives that vice is no exclusion from the countenance and familiarity of those whom he has been accustomed to honour, it cannot but greatly diminish the abhorrence in which he has been taught to hold it. It is the property of vice to endeavour to draw over to its party all who come within its influence--the libertine, the drunkard, and all the other votaries of profligacy, have ever taken delight to render others as wicked as themselves; to compass this point they spare no arguments, no solicitations--the sons of virtue, I fear, are not half so anxious to make converts as the children of darkness to make apostates. (G. Haggitt, M.A.)On the progress of vice I. The contagion which is diffused by bad examples, and heightened by particular connections with persons of loose principles or dissolute morals. This, in a licentious state of society, is the most common source of those vices and disorders which so much abound in great cities. It is indeed disagreeable to contemplate human nature in this downward course of its progress. But it is always profitable to know our own infirmities and dangers. There are few but who set out at first in the world with good dispositions. The warmth which belongs to youth naturally exerts itself in generous feelings and sentiments of honour; in strong attachments to friends, and the other emotions of a kind and tender heart. At that period they repudiate whatever is mean or base. It is pleasing to them to think of commanding the esteem of those among whom they live, and of acquiring a name among men. But, alas! how soon does this flattering prospect begin to be overcast. How many pass away some of the most valuable years of their life tossed in a whirlpool of what cannot be called pleasure so much as mere giddiness and folly. There are certain degrees of vice which are chiefly stamped with the character of the ridiculous and the contemptible; and there are also certain limits beyond which if it pass it becomes odious and execrable. If to the other corruptions which the heart has already received be added the infusion of sceptical principles, that worst of all the evil communications of sinners, the whole of morals is then on the point of being overthrown. For every crime can then be palliated to conscience, every check and restraint which had hitherto remained is taken away. Miserable and deluded man! to what art thou come at the last? Dost thou pretend to follow nature, when thou art contemning the laws of the God of nature? when thou art stifling His voice within thee, which remonstrates against thy crimes? when thou art violating the best part of thy nature by counteracting the dictates of justice and humanity? II. This brings me to the next head of discourse; to suggest some means that may be used for stopping in time the progress of such mischiefs; to point out some remedies against the fatal infection of evil communications.1. The first and most obvious is, to withdraw from all associations with bad men, with persons either of licentious principles or of disorderly conduct. The circumstances which chiefly attract the liking and the friendship of youth are vivacity, good humour, engaging manners, and a cheerful or easy temper; qualities, I confess, amiable in themselves, and useful and valuable in their place. But I entreat you to remember that these are not all the qualities requisite to form an intimate companion or friend. Something more is still to be looked for; a sound understanding, a steady mind, a firm attachment to principle, to virtue, and honour. As only solid bodies polish well, it is only on the substantial ground of these manly endowments that the other amiable qualities can receive their proper lustre. Destitute of these essential requisites they shine with no more than a tinsel brilliancy. Allow me to warn you that the most gay and pleasing are sometimes the most insidious and dangerous companions. 2. In order to prevent the influence of evil communications it is farther needful that you fix to yourselves certain principles of conduct, and to be resolved and determined on no occasion to swerve from them. Setting the consideration of religion and virtue aside, and attending merely to interest and reputation, it will be found that he who enters on active life without having ascertained some regular plan, according to which he is to guide himself, will be unprosperous in the whole of his subsequent progress. But when conduct is viewed in a moral and religious light, the effect of having fixed no principles of action, of having formed no laudable standard of character, becomes more obviously fatal. From hence it is that the young and thoughtless imbibe so readily the poison of evil communications, and fall a prey to every seducer. They have no internal guide whom they are accustomed to follow and obey; nothing within themselves that can give firmness to their conduct. They are, of course, the victims of momentary inclination or caprice. 3. As a farther corrective of evil communications, and as a foundation to those principles which you lay down for conduct, let me advise you sometimes to think seriously of what constitutes real enjoyment and happiness. Your days cannot be entirely spent in company and pleasure. Seize that sober hour of retirement and silence. Indulge the meditations which then begin to rise. Cast your eye backwards on what is past of your life; look forward to what is probably to come. Think of the part you are now acting, and of what remains to be, acted, perhaps to be suffered, before you die. If your hearts secretly reproach you for the wrong choice you have made, bethink yourselves that the evil is not irreparable. Still there is time for repentance and retreat; and a return to wisdom is always honourable. Were such meditations often indulged, the evil communications of sinners would die away before them; the force of their poison would evaporate; the world would begin to assume in your eyes a new form and shape. 4. Let me once more advise you to look forward sometimes beyond old age; to look to a future world. Amidst evil communications let your belief and your character as Christians arise to your view. Think of the sacred name in which you were baptized. Think of the God whom your fathers honoured and worshipped; of the religion in which they trained you up; of the venerable rites in which they brought you to partake. (H. Blair, D.D.)On evil communication I. In almost every case the young begin well. They come out of the hand of nature pure and uncorrupted. II. It is wise in them, in the second place, to reflect for what it is that they were born, and in what consists the real happiness of mortal life. III. It is wise in them, in the last place, to look beyond the world, and to consider the final destiny of their being. And to us, my elder brethren, it is a reflection of no common interest--that our folly and imprudence may thus poison the minds of the pure, and introduce guilt and woe into the innocent family of God.1. There is, in the first place, an “ evil communication” to the young, which proceeds from the abuse of rank and affluence. These are the high and the valued situations of life, to which all others naturally look up--and it is their manners which necessarily give the tone and fashion to their age. Of what fatal consequence it is to every generation when rank and fashion are only the leaders of folly, and when riches are employed in vice and sordid dissipation; and, what is even worse, when the manners of the higher ranks of mankind are assimilated to all that is base or degrading in the lower. How many, alas! of the young are the victims of these abuses of prosperity? 2. There is, in the second place, an evil communication to the young which arises from the abuse of learning and talents. Of all the employments of human wisdom, the noblest certainly, and the most genuine is that of the instruction of the ignorance, and the support of the innocence of youth. Yet the world shows us that there are men who have deserted this sublimest duty--who please themselves in spreading doubt and unbelief, and who delight to employ their powers with withdrawing all the most sacred principles of religion and morality. 3. There is, in the last place, an evil communication to the young from the society of the aged in vice itself. (A. Allison.)Fatal tendency of evil associations While seeking for a rainbow in the Handeck Falls another lesson was learned. A beautiful butterfly was sporting in the sunshine, and either through carelessness, or the fascination of the pearly drops which shot from the fall in profusion, went too near, was caught in the falling shower, and hurled to destruction in the awful gulf two hundred feet below. Who does not see in this an every-day occurrence? Young people, in the thoughtlessness which the pursuit of pleasure engenders, go to places in winch they “ see no harm,” and, alas! are soon hurled into the gulf of disgrace here, and of everlasting despair hereafter. (Gavin Kirkham.)Depraved by evil associations Sir Thomas Lawrence, the eminent painter and president of the Royal Academy, commended the pictures of a young artist, and then said to him: “ You have round your room two or three rough, clever, but coarse Flemish sketches. If I were you I would not allow my eye to become familiarised with any but the highest forms of art. If you cannot afford to buy good oil-paintings, buy good engravings of great pictures, or have nothing at all upon your walls. You allow, in intercourse with your fellows, that ‘ Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ So is it with pictures. If you allow your eye to become familiar with what is vulgar in conception, however free and dashing the handling, and however excellent the feeling for colour, your taste will insensibly become depraved. Whereas, if you habituate your eye to look only on what is pure and grand, or refined and lovely, your taste will insensibly become elevated.” Sir Thomas’ s advice, which is as applicable to books as to pictures, was enforced by an anecdote. The artist of reputation, who had never seen any of the works of the greatest painters, went with Sir Thomas to see one of the best collections on the Continent. It was arranged according to the different schools--beginning with the German, proceeding to the Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Bolognese, the Venetian, and ending with the Umbrian. The artist was so fascinated with the vigour, the colour, the invention, and the drawing of Rubens’ s pictures that Sir Thomas had difficulty in dragging him away from them. After visiting the several schools they came to the Italian collection, with its Guidos, Titians, and Raphaels, before which they lingered until the hour for closing the gallery. The contemplation of these beautiful, chastened works of the Italian masters so educated the visitor’ s taste that, on repassing the Rubens pictures, which a few hours before had delighted him, he shuddered at their grossness. Environment That environment is an immense and controlling natural law for the sustenance of life has come to be a fact as conceded and confessed as that Biogenesis, or life only proceeding from life, is the inexorable natural law for the beginning of life. Environment, as the natural law for the sustenance of life, is energetic, with two main influences upon life. The first influence is that of variation. The life itself varies as the environment gets changed. Hunter put a sea-gull into such environment that it could only get grain to eat. The result was that the stomach of a bird, normally adapted to a fish diet, came in time to resemble in structure the gizzard of a grain feeder like the pigeon. Holmgren fed pigeons for a lengthened period on meat diet, and their gizzards became carnivorous stomachs. How constant and controlling this varying power upon life is, is seen in the adjustment of animals to their habitat--the flounder, burying himself in the mud and sand at the bottom of its sea or river, takes on its hue; the fur of the polar bear is white as are the arctic snows amid which it lives; the alternating narrow stripes of shadow and sunshine inter-braided amid the tangled Indian jungles are photographed and stereotyped upon the Bengal tiger which seeks its prey among them. But is not this varying force of environment upon life a natural law for life as thoroughly energetic in the spiritual world as in what we call the natural? What man’ s spiritual life does not get shape and take on colour from his environment? The books he reads, the social atmosphere in which he is immersed, the daily business to which he sets his hand, the companionships he chooses--how do their varieties, their purities or impurities, their nobleness or lowness, react into variations within himself. The law of environment which, in the natural world, bleaches the brown coat of the hare into the white coat of it in the arctic regions, is only the same law plying its changes upon man in the spiritual world. 1 Corinthians 15:34 Awake to righteousness.Moral resurrection This chapter generally deals with the resurrection of the body; but the text refers to the resurrection of the soul. And this is a greater and more glorious work than the other, because-- I. The soul is greater than the body. What is the casket to the jewel, the house to the tenant, the barque to the crew? “ Heap worlds on worlds; one soul outweighs them all.”2. It can only be accomplished with the full concurrence of the man. In the material resurrection the man has no choice, but the soul will not rise without its own consent. 3. It requires a higher agency. Mere volition and force will effect the material resurrection. Christ had only to say to Lazarus, “ Come forth” ; but thousands of souls dead in sin He appealed to, yet but few came out of their spiritual graves. Mere volition will not do it; it requires argument, suasion, love, example. 4. It is an invaluable blessing in itself. The material resurrection will be an intolerable curse to the wicked; but the resurrection of the soul is evermore a blessing. 5. It is necessary to qualify us to understand the resurrection of the body. This is suggested by the text when viewed in connection with the apostle’ s object. Rectitude of soul is a better interpreter than any hermeneutic skill. Note-- I. The condition from which man is summoned. What is moral sleep?1. It is not the sleep of-- (1) The animal faculties; they are often more active in consequence of the sleep of the soul. (2) The intellectual powers; the imagination may be as active as Byron’ s, the reason as Voltaire’ s, and yet the soul may be asleep. (3) The social sympathies; they are active when the soul is asleep. 2. When is the soul asleep? When it is not inspired in all its powers by supreme love to God. This is not like sleep-- (1) In being the ordination of God, as is natural sleep; it is contrary to His desire and command. (2) In being the means of refreshment. Moral sleep is a corroding and an exhausting state. 3. There are certain points of resemblance which warrant the figure. (1) Insensibility. There is a world of grand and solemn realities around the sinner; voices deep and loud speak to him; and visions of awful majesty pass before him. Yet he is dead to all. He is dead to himself and to God. (2) Fictitiousness. Objects flit before the natural sleeper that have no real existence; to the moral sleeper, heaven, hell, God, eternity, are but as dreams. Sometimes they may startle the man, but like the dream, the impression soon departs. The life of a sinner is fiction--a great lie. (3) Transitoriness. Sleep is not a permanent state. “ They that sleep, sleep in the night.” There is a dark spiritual night brooding over the moral sleeper, and one of two very different mornings must break the slumbers of all. (a) There is the morning of spiritual reformation--the morning when “ God commands the light,” etc. Then the soul awakes, and finds itself in a new world--a world full of God, and exclaims, “ Surely God is in this place,” etc. (b) The other morning is the morning of retribution. The awful manifestations of that morning will startle the most sleepy into active consciousness. II. The state into which we are summoned. Men are not required to awake to business, pleasure, or fashion; they are all alive in relation to these things. But concerning righteousness they are asleep.1. The state of righteousness includes-- (1)Living righteously towards God and His universe. (a) Be just to yourself; that is virtue. (b) Be just to others; that is morality. (c) Be just to God; this is piety. (2) Being treated as righteous. 2. The getting of man into this righteous state is ascribed to Christ. He furbishes-- (1) The moral force by which it is done. (2) The moral reasons by which the past wrongs may be overlooked. “ He is made unto us,” etc. 3. This righteous state includes-- (1) Harmonious action.(2) Social usefulness.(3) Spiritual progress.(4) Heavenly fellowships. III. The voice by which we are summoned. “ Awake.” Paul is but the organ of the Divine voice. This Divine voice sounds through--1. All history. Turn over the sin-stained annals of the world, and you will find every chapter pealing with the word, “ Awake.” All the miseries of the awful past sprang from the want of righteousness. 2. The moral constitution of our nature. Conscience, with more or less emphasis, calls upon every man to “ awake.” 3. The memories of sainted friends. 4. The whole Bible of God. (D. Thomas, D.D.)A call to the unconverted I. A lamentable condition. “ Some have not the knowledge of God.” II. A merited reproof. This is “ shameful” with all the means of enlightenment around you, and implies the love of darkness. III. An earnest call to a better life.1. Awake. Seek forgiveness.2. Put away sin and follow after holiness. (J. Lyth, D.D.)I. Observe that a state of sin is here represented by sleep.1. Unconcerned.2. Unapprehensive of danger. II. Observe that man, being careless and secure in the midst of the greatest dangers, he is called upon to “ awake.” This is an instance of the care and compassion of God. He calls us by His providences, His Holy Spirit, His Word, His ministers, etc. III. Observe that we are called to awake to righteousness, and to renounce sin.1. “ Awake to righteousness.” (1) To a sense of the necessity of righteousness.(2) To the practice and pursuit of righteousness. 2. “ And sin not.” (1) Sin not, in hope that there is no resurrection.(2) Sin not, in hope that there is no judgment.(3) Sin not, in hope that there is no state of future punishment.(4) Sin not, in hope of future repentance.(5) Sin no more. Why shouldst thou destroy thyself, and “ stand in jeopardy every hour?” “ The soul that sinneth shall die.” “ The wages of sin is death.” IV. Observe the charge alleged against some of the Corinthians. “ Some have not the knowledge of God.” May not the same thing be charged upon some of us? Do we know God, so as to fear Him, so as to be reconciled unto Him by Christ, so as to love Him, so as to serve Him with a perfect heart and willing mind? If not, then in the apostle’ s sense we do not know Him. “ I speak this to your shame.” It is our shame. Because we have so many means of knowing Him, so many reasons to know Him drawn from our wants, etc. (J. Walker, D.D.)Sin not.-- Sin not I. The condition implied.1. Ignorance.2. Insensibility.3. Peril. II. The earnest call.1. To serious reflection.2. To righteousness, both the knowledge and practise of it.3. To vigilance. (J. Walker, D.D.)The sins Easter Day condemns This warning, in the midst of an elaborate argument about the resurrection, reminds us that Christianity is intended to be a regulative rather than a speculative system, that it is a law for our life, not merely a theme for our thought. Paul brings to bear the resurrection as an argument against sinning. It is an argument against-- I. Degrading the body. It is the body that is to rise as well as the spirit. Avoid, then, both the extreme of pampering it in animalism, and of despising it in asceticism. II. Absorption in this world. Beyond the time-world there is another; beneath the sense-world there is another. Live for the unseen and the eternal. III. Wronging Christ, For us He was the Conqueror, which implies that for us He went through the battle. The resurrection is--1. The seal of His Divinity. Shall we slight His Divinity?2. The sign of His power. Shall we defy His power?3. The token of His love. Shall we neglect His love? (U. R. Thomas.)For some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.-- The knowledge of God 1. Knowledge lies at the foundation of religion; for, if we are to serve and worship God we ought to know who and why we are to worship; and it is this which renders religion a reasonable service. 2. Ignorance is the fruitful source of wickedness. The heathen were devoted to the grossest abominations--because “ they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,” the Corinthians were erroneous in doctrine and licentious in practice, because “ they had not the knowledge of God.” I. What is this knowledge? It cannot be a knowledge of the Divine essence; for of the essence of anything we know just nothing at all. “ Canst thou, by searching, find out God?” etc. This knowledge must be considered as--1. Theoretical to begin with. From the visible things of creation may be clearly inferred the existence and perfections of a great First Cause; but we can learn nothing of His justice or His mercy, or of the method of reconciliation with Him through Christ from nature. The Bible is the only book whence we can acquire a satisfactory knowledge of God; because there God has been pleased to give a revelation of Himself. Here He is seen as the just God and the compassionate Saviour, giving His Son to death that He may make the sinner alive. 2. Experimental. A person may study navigation at school and acquire a theoretical knowledge of it, but he must reduce that knowledge to practice, then, becoming a skilful pilot, his knowledge is experimental. We may study medicine by books, or at a university; but until we walk the hospitals our knowledge is not experimental. Now, we may believe that God knows all things, and our belief may be merely theory; but when He has removed the veil from our understandings, and shown us all that is in our hearts, then we have experience of the infinite knowledge of God. We may believe that God is pure, and this may be all theory; but when we have been given to see sin as exceeding sinful, Then we have an experience of the purity of God. We believe that God is almighty--but that, too, may be all theory. When, however, He has effected a change in our moral nature, which is nothing less than a new creation, then have we experimental proof of the power of God. We may believe that Christ is a Saviour; but this may be nothing more than a mere general apprehension; but when we have seen ourselves guilty and undone, and when He has said, “ Thy sins be forgiven thee,” we experimentally know the power of the grace of the Lord Jesus. 3. Practical. There is no perfection of God but which, if experimentally known, will have a practical influence upon us. If we know His greatness and codescension, this will humble us; if we know His holiness, we shall abhor whatever is offensive to His purity; if we know His justice, we shall tremble at His power and be driven for a refuge to the great atonement; ii we know the whole Divine character, we shall love Him with all our heart, and serve Him with all our powers. That knowledge which does not improve the life is very little worth. Hence the character of a wicked man is included in this, that “ he knows the God.” II. Some have not this knowledge.1. They do not admit the truth of God. 2. They do not fear Him. They who know God, know that He is awful in power, glorious in holiness, and that it is a fearful thing to fall into His hands. As such, they fear to offend Him, and reverence His law. 3. They do not trust in Him. Every instance of doubt or of unbelief are just a total or partial ignorance of the Divine character; for “ They that know Thy Name will put their trust in Thee.” 4. They do not love Him. III. The want of the knowledge of God is a great shame.1. Nothing can be more important than that ignorant creatures should know their safety; that weak and perishing creatures should know where their strength lies; that the miserable should know where happiness is to be found; and that an immortal spirit should know its portion. 2. This knowledge will have considerable influence upon our duties. We are called to serve God, and we cannot, serve an unknown God. 3. We have adequate means put into our hands to acquire this knowledge, if we have inclination to avail ourselves of them in nature, the Scriptures, through the Holy Spirit, etc. 4. For this knowledge, too, we have also adequate faculties. Can it be said that our faculties are adequate to the attainment of every other kind of knowledge but that which most concerns us to be acquainted with? 5. We have the most important and positive motives to urge us on to secure this knowledge. “ Godliness is profitable unto all things,” etc. In this knowledge standeth our eternal life. Conclusion: This is interesting to us all; and every man ought to inquire of his own conscience, “ Do I know God?”1. Alas! of some it may be said--by your fruits your ignorance of God is too clearly manifested. 2. There are some who profess to know God--but is that knowledge real? is it experimental? (W. Atherton.)The shame of living without the knowledge of God I. The knowledge of God.1. There is a knowledge of God obtained by reflecting on His works. 2. There is a knowledge of God obtained by perusing His Word. 3. There is a knowledge of God by a revelation of Himself to the mind. This knowledge has been usually termed experimental. II. Some have not this knowledge.1. Avowed infidels have not the knowledge of God.2. Profligate sinners have not the knowledge of God.3. Nominal Christians have not the knowledge of God. III. This was spoken to their shame.1. Consider the object of this knowledge. A Being who unites in Himself all possible perfections. How disgraceful to live in ignorance of God! 2. Consider the congeniality of this knowledge with the nature of man. Our first parents were invested with a large share of it; and the human soul was formed for its possession. 3. Consider the means afforded us for obtaining this knowledge. 4. Consider the ease with which this knowledge may be secured. Human knowledge is often obtained with difficulty. 5. Consider the happiness which you will forego, and the misery you will share, by living without this knowledge. We conclude by observing--1. How important is the knowledge of God! How insignificant is human science when put into competition with this! 2. How solicitous should we be to ascertain whether we are in the possession of this knowledge. 3. How shameful to live without the knowledge of God! (Sketches of Sermons.)The immediate knowledge of God Who, then, are these Corinthian disciples, that they have not so much as the knowledge of God? Plainly enough our apostle is not charging them here with ignorance, but with some lack of the Divine illumination which ought, if they are true disciples, to be in them. They certainly know God in the traditional and merely cognitive way. Indeed, the apostle is discoursing to them here of the resurrection of the dead, which is itself a matter based in Christian ideas. We shall best understand the point assumed in this impeachment, I think, if we raise the distinction between knowing God, and knowing about God. Doubtless it is much to know about God, about His operations, His works, His plans, His laws, His truth, His perfect attributes, His saving mercies. But true faith itself discovers another and more absolute kind of knowledge, a knowledge of God Himself; immediate, personal knowledge, coming out of no report, or statement, or anything called truth, as being taught in language. It is knowing God within, even as we know ourselves. The other is only a knowing about God, as from a distance. It may be well to say that we have two denials set against this doctrine. One is the denial of the philosophers outside of Christianity, speculating there about the cognitive functions, and making what they conceive to be their specially profound discovery, that knowledges are possible only of things relative. Therefore, God being infinite, cannot be known--God is unknowable. They say nothing of faith, they have no conception of any such super-eminent, almost Divine talent in our humanity. Could they simply trust themselves over to God, to live by His tender guidance and true inward revelation, they would never again call Him the Unknowable. The other and second form of denial as regards the immediate knowledge of God, sets up its flag inside of the Christian Church and among the muniments of doctrine. Here the possibility of faith is admitted, and the necessity of it abundantly magnified. But the faith power is used up, it is conceived, on propositions; that is propositions which affirm something about God. It does not go through, and over, and beyond, such propositions, to meet the inward revelation or discovery of God Himself. They do not even conceive it as a possibility, that we should know God Himself as a presence operative in us; even as we know the summer heat by its pervasive action in our bodies. We do not know the heat by report, or debate, or inference, or scientific truth interpreting medially between us and it; we do not see it, or hear it, or handle it, and yet we have it and know that we have, by the inward sense it creates. What then is the truth of this matter? Why it is that human souls or minds are just as truly made to be filled with God’ s internal actuating presence, as human bodies are to be tempered internally by heat, or as matter is made to be swayed by gravity, or the sky-space to be irradiated by the day. God is to them heat, gravity, day, immediately felt as such, and known by the self-revelation of His person. So at least it was originally to be, and so it would be now, had not this presence of God internally and personally to souls, this quickening, life-giving God-sense, been shut off by sin. Is it, then, to be said or imagined that, in the new birth, or new-begun life of faith, the subject really knows God by an immediate knowledge? He may not so conceive it, I answer, but it is none the less true. He will speak, it may be, only of his peace, but it will seem to him to be a kind of Divine peace. Thus you have every one two kinds of knowledge relating to yourself. One is what you know mediately about yourself, through language, and one that which you have immediately as being conscious of yourself. Under the first you learn who your parents were, what others think of you, what effects the world has on you, what power you have over it, and what is thought to be the science, it may be, of your nature, as an intelligent being. Under the second you have a knowledge of yourself so immediate, that there is no language in it, no thought, no act of judgment or opinion, you simply have a self-feeling that is intuitive and direct. Now you were made to have just such an immediate knowledge of God as of yourself; to be conscious of God; only this consciousness of God has been closed up by your sin and is now set open by your faith; and this exactly is what distinguishes every soul enlightened by the Spirit, and born of God. Observe now in what manner the Scriptures speak on this subject. And the time would fail me to merely recount the ways in which it is given as the distinction of faith or holy experience, that it carries, in some way, the knowledge of God, and differs the subject in that manner from all that are under the blindness of mere nature. The Holy Spirit, in like manner, is spoken of in a great many ways, as the intercoursing life and immediate inward manifestation of God. But there is an objection to this mode of conceiving holy experience, as implying an immediate discovery of God, which I am properly required to notice. What is the use, in this view, some will ask, of a Bible, or external revelation? what use of the incarnation itself? Does it follow that because we have an immediate knowledge of heat we have therefore no use at all for the scientific doctrine of heat, or the laws by which it is expounded? There is also another objection to be noticed here, which moves in the exactly opposite direction, where those who know not God complain that revelation, as they look upon it, does not reveal Him, and that God is dark to them still, as they could not expect Him to be. If there be a God, they ask, why does He not stand forth and be known as a Father to His children? Why allow us to grope and stumble after Him, or finally miss Him altogether? They are not satisfied with the Bible, and if we call it a revelation of God, they do not see it. We must not make Him responsible for the blear and self-blinding of our sin. And if it were not for this I think we should all see Him plainly enough, and always, and everywhere. For it is the whole endeavour of His management to be known. Now this exposition of God’ s truth converges practically, as I conceive, on a single point of broadest consequence; correcting a mistake almost universally prevalent in some greater or less degree; the mistake I mean of being overmuch occupied in religion with matters of the head. The true evidence of discipleship is knowing God. Other men know something about Him. The Christian knows Him, has Him as a friend. And there is no substitute for this. Observances, beliefs, opinions, self-testing severities--all these are idle and prove nothing. If a man knows God, it is a fact so grand, so full of meaning, that he wants no evidence beside. Now as these keep off the light of their day by the ever-busy meddling of their understanding, there is another class who have never found the day by reason of their over-busy, over-curious endeavours to make ready for it. They are waiting, and reading, and reasoning, as they think, to get light for conversion. They are going to be converted rationally, nursing all the while a subtle pride of this, which only makes them darker and puts them farther off. After all you have reasoned, faith is still to come. The roads of the natural understanding are in a lower plane, you must rise, you must go up into trust and know God--God Himself--by the inward discovery of His infinite spirit and person. What is wanted, therefore, for us all, is summed up in this Christian word faith--faith in Christ, or faith in God; for it makes no difference. Thinking and questioning stir the mind about God, faith discerns Him, and by it, as the soul’ s open window, he enters to be discerned. Would that all of you could know how much this means. (H. B Bushnell, D.D.)On the knowledge of God How deplorable would be our condition if universal knowledge were necessary in order to our happiness! For, alas! how very little do the wisest know! There is, however, a certain kind of knowledge essentially necessary to our happiness, viz., “ the knowledge of God.” If we would enjoy peace, and secure future good, we must be “ acquainted with Him” (Job 22:21). This knowledge infallibly leads to eternal life, and is, in fact, an anticipation of it (John 17:3), whereas they who are destitute of it remain in spiritual death (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). And quite agreeable to Scripture is the testimony of reason. As creatures who are dependent continually upon God for all we have or hope for, we owe to Him our worship and service. But to worship and serve Him in an acceptable manner is impossible if we do not know Him. Consider-- I. The nature and origin of the knowledge of God. He is infinite and incomprehensible to our limited faculties. He is a Spirit, and invisible to our bodily eyes. If therefore He do not reveal Himself to us, we can never know Him. But He does reveal Himself in the works of creation and providence, in the Bible, in His Son, and by the illumination of His Spirit. II. The fruits of this knowledge.1. Humility.2. Confidence attended with inward peace (Psalms 9:10; Isaiah 26:3).3. Love (1 John 4:8). (J. Benson.) 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up?and with what body do they come? How are the dead raised up? I. These words meant, “ How can the dead be raised up?” Let us try to find an answer to it.1. If any man really believe in the existence of a Great First Cause, his answer would at once be, “ With God all things are possible.” He who built the house, and allowed it to be pulled down, can rebuild it. But we should not rest the answer upon this. 2. What has been done can be. Now, we affirm--and it is the subject of this chapter--that there is now passed into the heavens a man who was once dead--Christ. And this fact rests upon the irrefragable evidence adduced in this chapter; and this evidence is such that when a great infidel went to work to prove Christianity untrue, it ended in his being convinced, by the candid examination of it; and Gilbert West’ s book is a standing evidence of the truth of the resurrection. We answer the question, “ How are the dead raised up?” by saying, It has been done. What God has done He can do again. II. But the question may mean the curious inquiry as to the manner of the resurrection. With what body will they rise? Will it be the same body that was buried? Will all its particles be the same? Will the ashes of Wickliffe, e.g., that, after the body was dug up and burned, were thrown into the river, which carried them into another river, which carried them into the sea--will all those ashes be brought together? Now I shall answer this by showing that when we shall be raised-- 1. We shall know that we are the same persons that lived. It is a fact well known that our bodies are continually changing. Unless there were particles being continually taken up, how would the meals that we regularly take to repair the waste, increase the size of the body? The boy of seven, the youth of fourteen, the young man of twenty-one, and the full-grown man of thirty, has really and truly had a fresh body every seven years. Yet which of us is not conscious that we are the same persons that we were as little children--not the same pieces of matter, but the same persons? And this is necessary for the judgment. It is a principle of English law that it is the person that did the offence that must be tried for it. Twenty years may have elapsed since the murderer did the deed; the hand that shed the blood may have been changed in that time; yet he is the same man, knows that he is the same, and is answerable for the crime that was done twenty years ago. We shall, in this sense, be the same, and have to give account of the things done in the body. 2. Others will know us to be the same. The great missionary Moffat, in one of his journeys, fell in with an African king, and began to tell him of the resurrection; and as he went on he saw that iron man’ s face begin to work convulsively; and when the king could speak he said, trembling all over, “ What! do you say that I shall see the men whom I have slaughtered in battle?” He seemed as if he saw before him the victims of his courage, as he had thought, but of his cruelty, as he now began to think. At the great day others will know us, however changed we may be. Seducer, you shall recognise the woman whom you have flung heartless on a cold world, and left to vice, misery, and an early death. Tempter of youth, you shall recognise the thoughtless boys you enticed from duty, and they shall know you. Infidel, you shall recognise those whose little faith you sapped by specious arguments, whose little hope you took away. Hume is related to have shaken the faith of his mother, and when that mother was dying, finding that his arguments would not support her, she sent for him to tell her again what he had told her before, for she found she was sinking into eternity with nothing under her feet. Hume shall meet his mother, and his mother know her son that did this unfilial work upon the soul. And you who are really Christians, you shall recognise every one of those whom you lead to Christ. 3. And yet we shall be changed. (1) From corruption to incorruption. Decay is sown in our blood, and when we are laid in the grave we are sown in corruption; when we are raised we shall be incapable of decay. (2) From dishonour to glory. “ It is sown in dishonour.” Who of us does not know that? But when the body is raised it will be in the glory of Christ as He shone on the Mount of Transfiguration. (3) From weakness to power. How soon are we tired! How soon does our mind exhaust our body! How soon are we wearied with work and with pleasure too! But when these bodies are raised they will be incapable of fatigue, and capable of exertion such as we cannot dream of now. “ They rest not day nor night.” (4) Suddenly--in the twinkling of an eye--at the last trump. Conclusion: “ They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation.” (W. W. Champneys.)The resurrection body (with Philippians 3:21):--When the fact of the resurrection has been established, there remains a number of very interesting and important questions concerning the manner and the time of the resurrection, and the relation of the resurrection-body to the present one. These questions are not simply for the delectation of our curiosity, because clear views of the nature of our future life and of the transformation which our present life is to undergo through the energy of the power of Christ cannot fail to influence our present life and to inspire us with enthusiasm for the Lord whose glory we are to share. I. What, then, are the principles of the resurrection as given in the words before us? 1. Take first of all the passage in Philippians, and you will find it assert the following principles-- (1) In the resurrection the spirits of the just will appear not in a disembodied, but an embodied, state. (2) Between these two bodies there is a relation of continuity. (3) The transformation is effected through a spiritual energy within us. The word here translated “ working” has an intensely “ inward” significance. It means in-working, a working in the heart of things, and particularly in the spiritual processes of life. The “ working of the power by which Christ subdues all things to Himself” is the spiritual force with which He floods the centre of things, and so leavens and transforms the whole. So the power that forms the new body must be sought in spirit. (4) The complete resurrection-body is not existent until the final appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ. (5) The power and principle of this resurrection have their type and origin in Christ. 2. Now, if you turn to the passage in Corinthians, you will find several of these principles over again, with some supplementary matter. (1) The transition from the body of humiliation to the body of glory is effected through a development which is in the truest sense natural, that is, in accordance with the laws of ideal human life. (2) The natural and the spiritual body are not to be conceived as consisting of identical particles, but as different stages in a process of development, which are said to be identical owing to the continuity of the life that fills them. II. Having these definite principles to check and to direct us, we wish to examine in the light of them such conceptions as are, or may be, formed of the manner in which the resurrection-body shall come into being and be united to the spirit to which it belongs. The Scripture-phrase, “ the resurrection of the dead” does not refer either to spirit or body in separation from one another, but to the reappearance of the complete human life in a state of glory. The theory that flings the body away as a temporary fetter, and denies it a share in the resurrection-life is clearly and emphatically condemned. It is in violent opposition to the whole genius of Christian thought. It is foreign to all that we know of the mind of Jesus Christ and His apostles. The “ ego” of Christ’ s conception is certainly not an independent spiritual essence, whether embodied or disembodied. It is always the entire life in its association of soul and body. Whether He directs his attention to this life or the next, the human “ unit” is always a complex one. How, then, is the resurrection-body produced, and what is its relation to the body which is placed in the grave? If we turn to our principles we shall find that they clearly contradict the resurrection of the identical particles laid in the grave. The whole spirit of the passage in Philippians is in opposition to it, for instead of the idea of an inert mass being indued with life again after a long period of death, the passage glows with the conception of a continuous energy, and a great transformation effected by an informing process of life. The passage from the epistle to the Corinthians is still more explicit in its testimony. For the two principles we found there, viz., that the resurrection-body is produced by a development in accordance with true laws and processes of life, and, that it does not reproduce the identical particles of the earthly body--are both in direct contradiction to the commonly received theory of the resurrection. Probably the misconception has arisen through mistaking the bearing of Paul’ s beautiful series of antitheses respecting the resurrection. When Paul says, “ It is sown … It is raised,” he is not speaking of the body only, but of the entire man as be appears first in the earthly, and afterwards in the heavenly, state. It is this earthly life of ours that “ cannot be quickened except it die,” and that through death shall inherit incorruption. The transition, therefore, is one of spirit and life. It is a living transition from the present living association of soul and body to a higher form of such association, the development of the “ higher” body requiring as its necessary condition the death of the lower body, as the living seed flings off its old body that a higher embodiment of the life of the seed may take its place. Some obscure questions remain, which may become clearer to Christian thought by and by. They are such as these: Does the new body co-exist at any period with the earthly body, and has it already reached any stage of development at the hour of death? Or is it at death only a “ latency,” ready to leap into full development and activity at the appearing of Jesus Christ? If so, how will this non-development affect the present life of the blessed dead? These questions open up a vast field of thought that has scarcely been entered except by one here and another there. But we may lay down one thing more as clear and certain, namely, that the full development of the “ body of glory” will not take place until the Lord appears. III. I trust that this discussion will have impressed upon you that the Scripture-teaching concerning the resurrection-body trenches upon great questions of Divine power and glory, and embodies great principles of transformation and development that may well impress our imagination, and, even though but obscurely understood, may profoundly inspire our life.1. One result of this faith is, that it gives fulness and substantiality to our future life. The human body is no encumbrance fastened upon the spirit, like a fetter on powerful wrists, so that the spirit would be more complete without it. God never loaded a life with a useless encumbrance of that kind. Rather, the body is necessary for the complete life of the man, to give it individuality and fulness. We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed--such an anticipation would be too shadowy and ghostly. 2. Belief in the resurrection-body is ultimately bound up with faith in the foundations of Christianity. I do not say that disbelief in the full resurrection of the dead is at once and always attended by disbelief in the central truths of Christianity. Fortunately or unfortunately, men are not always consistent, and may for a time hold together beliefs that are destructive of one another. Yet I have no doubt that disbelief in a resurrection-body is a logical denial of the foundations of Christianity, and must be constantly exerting an influence that tends to draw away a man from the heart of Christian truth. For it must be noted that the distinguishing feature, the very soul of Christianity is belief in a person. Jesus is infinitely more than a mark in history to suggest noble ideas. He is life, and the certainty of life for us. In Him we see, in full view on the stage of human life, the battle of humanity fought and won. If any one attenuates the saints’ future life into an intangible “ ego” he cannot heartily believe in that living, I may almost say earthly, portraiture of immortality which Christ gave. Generally you will find such an one attach ever lessening importance to the earthly life of Jesus, until His Christianity is a philosophic rationalism, with the name of Christ meaninglessly attached to it. 3. The Christian view of the resurrection sets great value on our present life, even on its physical relations. Therefore, it is able to say with an authority of its own: Give to God the full service of body, soul, and spirit, for eternity shall glorify you in the whole range of your life. (John Thomas, M.A.)The resurrection To the sceptical question, “ With what body do they come?” Paul’ s answer is-- I. Not in the same as that which was deposited in the grave. The old body is destroyed. The death of that seed from which the plant springs is the mere destruction of its husk. Its hidden life, something altogether distinct from its clothing, germinated and broke through its husky garb, which dissolved in the earth. So “ flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.” The gross is gone for ever. II. With a body that will have an organic connection with the buried one. The oak, though it has not a particle of the old acorn in it; the butterfly, though it has not a particle of the grub egg from which it sprung in it; the stalwart man, though he has not one particle of that matter which he had when an infant on his mother’ s knee, has an organic connection with it. So Paul virtually says of the resurrection body, though it has nothing in it of the old materials, it has a casual connection with it. What is that mystic thing which connects the acorn with the oak, the man with the infant? Tell me that, and I may perhaps tell you that which connects the resurrection body with that which was buried. We know that seeds that have been buried in darkness for thousands of years, will, when brought into the genial air and sunbeam, break into life; may it not be that in the human body there is an invisible, indestructible germ--what the old Jew called the “ immortal bone,” and Goethe the “ monad” --that will spring to life when, by the interposition of Heaven, all the graves of the world shall be thrown open? Is there an undying embryo in this gross body of ours out of which will spring one day a glorious body? III. With a body which God in His sovereignty will bestow.1. God clothes life. “ To every seed his own body.” There is no doubt that in the universe there is life unclothed by matter. It may be so with the angels; it is so with God. Around us there may be immeasurable oceans of naked life; but we only know something of the embodied. No science has as yet told us what life is. 2. God clothes life with the fittest body. “ All flesh is not the same flesh.” Life has boundless varieties, but God gives to each its fitting body. The hare and the elephant, the wren and the eagle, the minnow and the leviathan, all have bodies fitted to the peculiarities of their distinctive life. 3. God clothes life according to His own pleasure. “ Giveth a body as it hath pleased Him.” He chose the form, the hue, the garb, of each life. Our resurrection body will be as it “ hath pleased Him.” Then-- (1) It will be beautiful, for He is the God of all taste, the Fountain of all beauty, the Standard of all aesthetics. (2) Useful, for He is the God of benevolence. Exquisitely suited to our present sphere are the bodies we now have. (3) Glorious. “ There is one glory of the sun,” etc.; so also with the resurrection of the just. IV. With a body that will be a vast improvement on the old one. Paul attributes three predicates to the present body--corruption, dishonour, weakness: to the resurrection body, three predicates--immortality, glory, and power. What an improvement! (D. Thomas, D.D.)The resurrection body I. This question we have all asked.1. At death something goes out of the body--that which vitalised it, that which we could not touch, nor weigh, nor measure. No sooner has this something gone, than the body immediately begins to return to its dust. Nothing can arrest it. We may make a mummy of it, but a mummy is not a body. In the British Museum are many specimens of mummies. They excite no human interest, only appeal to curiosity and create aversion. 2. The necessity for this material body of ours arises from the fact that we belong, temporarily at least, to a material world. Without such bodies we could not see, or feel, or touch, or recognise this world. It would not exist for us. 3. Recall what Paul says elsewhere in other parts of his letters about the body. Writing to Roman Christians, he calls it a “ body of death.” To the Corinthians he speaks of it as a wild beast to be kept in subjection. To the Philippians he speaks of “ this body of our humiliation.” And yet, when we have said everything to its disadvantage, we cannot withhold a recognition of the wonderful way in which the body sympathises with and serves the purpose of the mind and spirit. The old Greeks recognised its lines of beauty in their Dianas and Apollos. They lived intelligently and artistically for the body. But they proved to the world that the service of the body, even when artistically pursued, issues in enfeeblement, effeminacy, and corruption. Art refines to a degree, but only to a degree. They who talk of regenerating men by opening art museums and multiplying picture galleries must be people with but little reflection. In Athens of yesterday, and in Paris of to-day, we have the most salacious of all populations. When, however, we study the body under the influence of the mind and spirit, how admirable it often is--revealing and concealing the thought of the mind--the feeling of the soul! suggesting to us how possible it is to elevate even this body, and treat it as if it were a temple--a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. 4. This body is a body of humiliation, and yet it suggests a body of a very much higher and nobler kind. As the mind develops, as the heart enlarges, this body becomes more and more unadapted to it. Age is not of the mind and heart; it is of the body only. Spiritually-minded men do not become in feeling and spirit old, like men of the world. There is nothing that preserves juvenility like true piety. There is nothing ages men and women like the opposites of the graces of the spirit. Envy, hatred, jealousy, un-charitableness--these bring the wrinkles into the face, and the age into the soul. II. But the body that is, is the only forerunner of the body that shall be. All the way through this chapter the apostle is fighting the thought that we ourselves put into the phrase “ disembodied spirits.”1. He goes to nature and finds a suggestion there. Why, even in nature, he says, you sow not the body that shall be, only a bare grain--the vital element that rises above the earth takes to itself a body suited to it. Every vital thing has in it a tendency to gather to itself a bodily form suited to its necessities and conditions. The grub in its grub state is embodied in one form and way; by and by, as it advances in its life, that body is no longer suited to it, but a new body is developing: soon it seems to die into its chrysalis state; but, lo, an entirely new creature, no longer with the limitations of the grub body, emerges; a creature that now sports in the air, and no longer crawls on the earth. It has its own body, but how different from the grub body; yet there is a vital connection between the one and the other. Each stage in it has been preparing for the next. And everything has its own body suited to its state and environment. And not sameness, but variety, is the order of creation. There are terrestrial bodies--bodies that belong to earth. There are celestial bodies--bodies that belong to the heavens. And each and all of these have their special glory and beauty. A star is of one order, a sun of another, but each has its own glory. And so with bodies. There is a body that belongs to man in his state of dishonour. Another which belongs to him in his state of glory. 2. The natural body is the type and promise of the spiritual body, but it is not the spiritual body. It has the same relation to it as the terrestrial has to the celestial, as corruption has to incorruption, etc. Everything lower points to a higher. Man is never disembodied; all through time he is an embodied spirit, and when he has sloughed off his time body, his earth body, he has still a body, but one suited to him in a way and to a degree to which this body has never been suited (verses 48, 49). All earth forces and powers and laws have been in our earth body. Like the earth, it has been subject to the law of gravitation and decay, to constant change. We have borne the image of the earthy. “ We shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The one is not complete without the other. The spirit of man in its next stage of being will have a body suited to it. Not a body subject to all the diseases, infirmities, neuralgias, aches, and pains to which this is subject. Every one shall have his own body, the body suited to express his inward character; but it shall be as superior to this present material body as the body of the butterfly is to that of the grub. (Reuen Thomas, D.D.)The resurrection of the body Note-- I. The difficulties in which that fact seems involved. The resurrection is exhibited in the Bible, not as a speculative truth, but as so intimately bound up with our salvation, that to prove it false were to prove the human race unredeemed (verses 16, 17). It were useless, then, to adduce proofs from revelation, seeing that we have it explicitly declared that, unless the dead rise, Christianity would be reduced into fable. The question, then, is whether there lie such objections against the resurrection as make it incredible, and thus justify us in rejecting the testimony of Scripture.1. Can we demonstrate that the resurrection falls without the limit of possibility, and that the effecting of it would overpass Omnipotence? If we are not prepared with such a demonstration, it is childishness to argue against the resurrection from its difficulty. If the Bible had ascribed it to a finite agent, reason might fairly have argued that the disproportion between the thing done and the doer furnishes ground enough for rejecting the statement. But will any one declare that the resurrection exceeds the capability of Him who is to achieve it? No man who admits that God created everything out of nothing should hesitate to admit that God can raise the dead. 2. We allow, however, that this general demonstration is scarcely sufficient for the case; and we proceed, therefore, to consider certain difficulties which still suggest themselves. We begin by warning you against the idea that, provided the soul be hereafter united to a body, it will matter nothing whether it be the same body which it tenanted on earth. The grand use of the resurrection is that the same beings may stand in judgment as have here been on probation; but they are not the same beings unless compounded of the same body and soul. But our bodies, it may be said, are here perpetually changing. Yes, but such change in no degree interferes with the thorough sameness of the person. Suppose a man to have committed a murder, and that after thirty years the guilt is brought to light, and the assassin put on trial, what would the judge and jury say if the criminal should plead that, because in thirty years his body had been often changed, he was not the same person as committed the murder? And supposing, that in place of being discovered by his fellow-men, the murderer had remained undetected till arraigned at the judgment bar of Christ, in what body must he appear in order that the identity of the man may be rigidly preserved? Certainly it will not be necessary that he appear in the very body which he had when he took away a fellow-creature’ s life; nothing is necessary but that his soul be clothed in matter which had once before clothed it. It is unquestionable that the same matter must enter at different times into the construction of different bodies; nourished by seed, which seed is itself nourished by the earth, which earth is the receptacle of the dust of human kind: it is indeed possible that there are component particles in the arm which I now lift which have entered successively into the limbs of men of bygone generations, and that the portion wrought up into the members of the men of one age will yet again be moulded into flesh. And if the same matter may belong successively to different men, to whom shall that matter belong in the resurrection? We observe on this that the man is the same man if his future body be composed of particles which at any time have made up his present. It is not necessary that all the dust which hath ever been wrought into his corruptible members should hereafter be wrought into his incorruptible: indeed, we know not how small a portion of the same matter may suffice for the preservation of identity: this we know, that the man is the same man in the vigour and efflorescence of health, and when wasted by long sickness into a skeleton: the abstraction at one time, and the addition at another, of large masses of animate matter, interfere not at all with personal identity. Hence it is evident, that, even if much which now belongs to my body belonged at other times to the bodies of other men, there may yet be enough belonging exclusively to myself, and kept distinct by the omniscience and omnipotence of God to cause, when wrought into a dwelling-place for my soul, that I shall be the same individual who now pleads in the earthly sanctuary, and tells his fellow-men of re-opened graves and quickened generations. II. What answer may be given to the questions of the text? The grand characteristic of our resurrection bodies is to be likeness to the glorified body of Christ (Philippians 3:21). Now there is every reason for concluding that Christ when transfigured appeared in that glorified humanity in which He now sits at the Father’ s right hand. And if Christ, when transfigured, exhibited humanity in its glorified condition, we learn that our bodies, though made wondrously radiant, shall be distinguished, as now, the one from the other, by their characteristic features. The Saviour was not so altered as not to be known. And if we would examine more minutely into the change which shall pass upon our bodies, enough is told us in this chapter.1. “ It is sown in corruption” : the principle of dissolution is in this framework of matter, and, whatever for a time its comeliness and vigour, it is the heir of death, and must say to corruption, “ Thou art my father,” etc. But “ it is raised in incorruption,” imperishable and unchangeable. 2. “ It is sown in dishonour.” Here the body is a degraded thing, and the grand business of a Christian is to “ crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts.” But “ it is raised in glory” : no longer the seat of unholy propensities, no longer furnishing inlets by its senses and appetites for manifold temptations. 3. “ It is sown in weakness.” Who feels not how the body is now a clog upon the spirit, impeding it in its stretchings after knowledge, as well as in its strivings after holiness? But “ it shall be raised in power” : no longer needing rest, no longer subject to waste, the body shall be an auxiliary to the soul in all her searchings after truth. 4. “ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” The body of the risen Redeemer, though certainly material, yet it had in a high degree the attributes of spirit, for it could be made invisible, and could enter a chamber with closed doors, thus proving itself no longer subject to the laws which matter now obeys; and so matter shall partake much of the independence of spirit, and the body be fitted for accompanying the soul in all her marchings over the area of the universe, and in all her divings into its most secret recesses. The natural body is a structure which belongs fitly to the natural man who “ receiveth not the things of God.” Conclusion: We are told nothing of the body with which the wicked shall come. The natural body may remain the natural, and if the resurrection consigns this to be sown a natural body and to be raised a natural body, you reach the summit of all that is terrible in conception; when you suppose the grave thus sending up the drunkard thirsting for wine where there is no wine, and the miser always hankering for gold where there is no gold, and the sensualist to be galled by the impress of voluptuousness where there may exist the sense, but not the objects, of concupiscence. Seeing, then, there is no escaping the resurrection, ought not each one of us to ask himself solemnly the question, “ With what body shall I come--with the natural or with the spiritual?” (H. Melvill, B.D.)The resurrection, credibility of “ How are the dead raised?” This Paul answers by arguments from analogy. I. The nature of the argument. Analogy is probability from a parallel case. We assume that the same law which operates in the one case will operate in another if there be a resemblance between the relations of the two things compared. Thus, when Christ said, “ Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground,” etc. As in nature life comes through death, so also is it in the world of spirit. The law of sacrifice, which accounts for the one fact, will also explain the other. Thus St. Paul shows that the life of the seed is continued after apparent death in a higher form, and argues, that in like manner the human spirit may be reunited to form.2. How far this argument is valid. It does not amount to proof; it only shows that the thing in question is credible. It does not demonstrate that a resurrection must be, it only shows that it may be. 3. Now, it is in this way that St. Paul concludes his masterly argument. He proves the resurrection from the historical fact, and by the absurdity which follows from denial of it, and then he shows that so proved, it is only parallel to the dying and upspringing corn, and the diverse glories of the sun, and moon, and stars. But it is not on these grounds that our belief rests. We fetch our proofs from the Word of God, and the nature of the human soul. II. The credibility of the resurrection.1. There are two difficulties advanced. (1) The question, How are the dead raised? may be a philosophical one. We are told that the entire human body undergoes a complete change every certain number of years, and that it is dissolved in various ways. Those who are wise in such matters tell us that there is not a single portion of the globe which has not, some time or other, been organic form. (2) The other question is merely a sneer, “ With what body do they come?” It is as if the objector had said, “ Let there be nothing vague: tell us all about it, you who assert you are inspired.” 2. Now, to these objections Paul replies. He discerns in this world three principles. (1) That life, even in its lowest form, has the power of assimilating to itself atoms: he takes the corn of wheat, which, after being apparently destroyed, rises again, appropriating, as it grows, all that has affinity with itself: that body with which it is raised may be called its own body, and let it is a new body. (2) The marvellous superabundance of the creative power of God. “ There is one glory of the sun,” etc.; and yet there is a difference between them. There are gradations in all these forms--bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial. Now, are we to believe that God’ s wisdom and power should be insufficient to find for the glorified spirit a form fit for it? We simply reply to the objection, “ With what body do they come?” “ Look at the creative power of God!” (3) The principle of progress. The law of the universe is not Pharisaism, the law of custom stereotyped. Just as it was in creation, first the lower and then the higher, so (verse 46) at first we lead a mere animal life, the life of instinct; then, as we grow older, passion succeeds, and after the era of passion our spirituality comes, if it comes at all. St. Paul draws a probability from this, that what our childhood was to our manhood--something imperfect followed by that which is more perfect--so will it be hereafter. 3. St. Paul finds that all this coincides with the yearnings of the human heart (verse 54). This is the substance of two prophecies, one in Isaiah, the other in Hosea, and expresses the yearnings of the heart for immortality. No man, in a high mood, ever felt that this life was really all, ever looked on life and was satisfied, ever looked at the world without hoping that a time is coming when that creation which is now groaning and travailing in bondage, shall be brought into the glorious liberty of the Son of God. And this feeling, felt in a much greater and higher degree, becomes prophecy. And when we look around, instead of finding something which damps our aspirations, we find the external world corroborating them. Then how shall we account for this marvellous coincidence? Shall we believe that God our Father has cheated us with a lie? (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The natural resurrection The day dies into night, and is buried in silence and darkness; in the next morning it appeareth again and reviveth, opening the grave of darkness, rising from the dead of night: this is a diurnal resurrection. As the day dies into night, so doth the summer into winter; the sap is said to descend into the root, and there it lies buried in the ground; the earth is covered with snow or crusted with frost, and becomes a general sepulchre; when the spring appeareth all begin to rise; the plants and flowers peep out of their graves, revive, and grow, and flourish: this is the annual resurrection. The corn by which we live, and for want of which we perish with famine, is notwithstanding cast upon the earth and buried in the ground with a design that it may corrupt, and being corrupted, may revive and multiply; our bodies are fed by this constant experiment, and we continue this present life by succession of resurrections. Thus all things are repaired by corrupting, are preserved by perishing, and revive by dying; and can we think that man, the lord of all these things which thus die and revive for him, should be so detained in death as never to live again? (Dr. John Pearson.)The resurrection possible To understand the apostle’ s reply to the question we must lay firm hold of these two things: first, that he is speaking of the man, who is dead, not of the mass of matter undergoing dissolution in the earth; second, that his purpose is to point out analogies to the fundamental conception on which his proof rests, viz., the conception of a progress that is not checked but realised through death. I. In the relation of the seed to the plant we recognise--1. That death is, in some cases at least, necessary to the perpetuation of life. 2. That this perpetuation involves a development. 3. That this development is not automatic, but the consequence of a creative and beneficent act of God. 4. That in this act God appropriates indefinite material to produce the development of definite kinds. II. The analogy of the various kinds of flesh teaches us that this limiting of the limitless in the formation and development of kinds consists in differentiating their physical constitution. III. The analogy of the various glories in sun, etc., intimates that such a differentiation of nature implies a difference also in sphere of action. Conclusion: To apply all this to the subject in hand, it means--1. That the believer’ s relation to Christ involves development.2. That this development implies death as one of its conditions.3. That this development is brought about “ through God’ s creative and beneficent act.4. That it is a development within the limits of kind.5. That it involves a change in mode of existence.6. That it necessitates and secures transference of the entire man into another sphere. (Principal Edwards.)The analoqies of nature Note-- I. The death is often a condition of new and higher life. Paul first teaches us the parable of the seed (verses 37, 38). Is that which thou sowest the body that will be? No: a new body springs from the corruption of the old, more complex, beautiful, and adapted to the higher region in which it has its life. But though the form of the grain be changed its identity is not lost. To each of the seeds God gives its own body. It you sow wheat, you reap wheat; if you sow barley, you reap barley, etc. The form is changed, but the identity is preserved. We draw no proof from the analogy; but we feel that it is not so difficult for us to conceive the resurrection of the body now that this natural resurrection of the seed is brought home to our thoughts. We see, e.g.--1. That dissolution does not inevitably imply destruction, nay, that it affords no clear presumption of it even. Nothing sown is quickened except it die. And therefore, it may be that the dissolution of the body is not its destruction: it may pass through death to a form more comely and perfect, to a more fruitful service, to more life and fuller. 2. When form is changed identity may be preserved. The grain rots and dies that the vital germ may be quickened and fed, and each grain takes its own new body: wheat remains wheat, and rice, rice. And so if we ask, “ How are the scattered and vapourised particles of which our bodies are composed to be recovered and compacted into a new organism?” Nature replies, “ That may not be necessary. Much may die and yet the vital germ may live.” If we say, “ We do not care simply to live, but to be ourselves,” Nature replies, “ To each of the seeds God giveth its own body, not another’ s. And therefore, though your new form may differ from the old, it may be that you will remain the same, and find the same friends about you, each in its own likeness, though enlarged and glorified. You may have exchanged the winter of seed-time for the golden splendours of an eternal summer; but nevertheless you may still be what you were.” II. The same substance may take various forms.1. Earthly bodies differ from each other (verse 39). Men, beasts, fish, birds are all composed of flesh and blood. Yet this one flesh--how infinite its variety of forms! 2. If then of one flesh God can weave these infinite varieties of animal life, each exquisitely adapted to its peculiar element and conditions, can we suppose that His power is exhausted by the forms now visible to us? Is it not in accordance with all the teachings of Nature that, if at death men pass into a new element and new conditions of life, God should adapt their organism to its new conditions, that He should develop in it new faculties and powers? 3. Heavenly bodies differ from earthly (verse 40). There is one matter as there is one flesh. Compare sun, moon, stars, planets, comets with the various orders of beasts, fish, birds, or with mountains, streams, trees, flowers; and how immeasurable is the diversity! Yet God made them all and made them of the same substance, and if it please Him, He can mould the identical substance of which all physical nature is composed into new forms. Nay, more; the matter of the heavenly bodies is in each case adapted to its conditions, and varies as these vary. And therefore the presumption is strong that if death should greatly change our conditions, our physical organism will change with them, and be adapted to them. If death should lift us to heaven, we may well believe that, as we were here adapted to an earthly lot, so there we shall be adapted, for a heavenly lot. 4. Heavenly bodies differ from each other (verse 41). It is not simply that each of the heavenly bodies had its own light: it has its own glory, its peculiar characteristics, its proper excellence. From the earliest ages, when men tilled the fertile plans of Chaldaea, they have distinguished differences of light even in the planets--the blue ray of Mercury, the golden lustre of Venus, the red and bloody portent of Mars, the deep orange gleam of Jupiter, the leaden hue of Saturn. And these differences of light speak of differences of place, magnitude, structure. The one glory of the heavens is a complex of many different glories. And if of one substance God has woven the infinite and differing globes of light, how incommensurate our thought of Him, did we suppose that He could not out of the one substance of this mortal body weave many different bodies, each perfect in its kind and for its purpose, each answering to its conditions and rising as they rise! (S. Cox, D.D.)Harvest sermon It is evident that St. Paul had not walked in the corn fields in vain. Nor let us do so. Note-- I. The sentiments and feelings with which we should contemplate the corn fields, as they grow ripe unto the harvest.1. Devout reverence and awe. I sympathise with Dr. Johnson, who uncovered his head whenever he passed a church, and worshipped with bare head in the corn fields. What a manifestation of the living God, in quiet, ceaseless, beautiful, benign energy! 2. Joyful gratitude. In everything give thanks, for a bad as well as a good crop; for thus God teaches us that man does not live by bread alone. 3. Practical brotherly kindness. The heart can scarcely fail to expand at the sight of the exceeding bountifulness of the great Father, into some joyful sense of oneness with all our brethren of mankind. II. The analogies which the corn fields supply; or rather the lessons which these analogies teach.1. That much in the moral and spiritual world which appears to perish wholly, still lives, at least, in its issues and results. It is thus with our sins--thus with words and works of truth and charity. 2. That in order to the preservation and reproduction of life, there must be change, dissolution, death. This is true of institutions, forms of thought and doctrine, generations, persons, illustrated in the solemn law of self-sacrifice adduced (1 Corinthians 11:24-25.)3. That in preserving and developing truth and holiness in successive generations, and bringing all high and benign purposes to their issue, God does far more than man, operates more powerfully and constantly. “ God gives it a body” (Mark 4:26-27). It belongs to man to hope and quietly wait, as well as to work, and to remember that all great changes wrought in man, either in the community or the individual, resemble rather the processes and results of agriculture, than those of manufacture. 4. That results often little accord with, and far surpass our designs and expectations: “ as it hath pleased Him.” Illustrated in Protestantism, in the Divinely shaped result of Luther’ s attack on indulgencies; in the United States, in the result of the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers; in what will be probably the issue of those efforts many are now making for church reformation. Let us be true to principles and trust in God for their future embodiment. 5. That, nevertheless, results are appropriate and fixed. God acts by law and not with caprice and fickleness. “ To every seed his own body.” Apply to individual conscience. “ Whatsoever a man soweth,” etc. 6. That the harvest of the world shall come. God’ s purposes ripen to their accomplishment as certainly as grain, in spite of exceptional eases, ripens for the sickle. “ Be patient, therefore, brethren,” etc. (J. Glyde.) 1 Corinthians 15:36-40 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.The reproof of scepticism I. Justly severe. “ Thou fool.” Because--1. It is opposed to God and Divine truth.2. Is based in ignorance and self-conceit. II. Severely just. Because--1. It ignores the analogy between natural facts, and the higher purposes of God.2. Cannot realise anything beyond the domain of natural sense.3. Denies everything it cannot realise. (J. Lyth, D.D.)From death to life The text may be applied to-- I. The facts of nature as here. II. The events of history.1. In general. Note the fate of empires. They are born, grow, decay, die or are killed, and out of their ruins, phoenix like, the new emerge: evolution succeeds revolution. So with the dynasties who rule these empires. 2. In particular rulers and statesmen die to give birth to their successors. Moses dies, but Joshua rises. John must decrease that Christ must increase. Saul holds the mantle of martyred Stephen and then wears it. III. The phenomena of providence. “ The old order changeth, giving birth to new,” etc. “ Our little systems have their day,” etc. Each age has its own mission, and having accomplished it, it dies only, however, to hand on the results of its mission which are embodied in the work of the next. IV. The development of the Church. This is marked by a series of burials and resurrections, beginning with the burial and resurrection of its great Head. “ The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.” What was more completely dead than Christendom before the reformers awoke it into life! What was deader than religion in England before the great evangelists of the last century aroused it into activity! What are revivals but resurrections of dead churches? V. The progress of the soul. True manhood is ever mounting on its dead self to nobler things. This is true--1. Mentally. What intellectual revolutions a thoughtful man passes through! How dead are the dreams of childhood, the ideals of youth, the purposes of later years! How opinions, principles, beliefs change, and how necessary for the mind’ s growth that they should! 2. Spiritually. From the moment when a man passes from death to life to the moment the mortal puts on immortality moral growth consists of a perpetual dying to sin that righteousness may live. (J. W. Burn.)And … thou sowest not that body that shall be.--The present and future of the body 1. Christianity does not teach us to despise even the mortal body. We are taught that Christ Himself--“ without whom was not anything made that was made” --formed man of the dust of the earth. The body, therefore, is a sacred thing; the very handiwork of Christ, though sadly marred and spoiled. By His incarnation a new sacredness has been added to it. God was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The instrument whose strings could be made to express the harmonies of a Divine perfection, cannot be too feeble for the lowlier music of the holiness proper to humanity. 2. Although we are taught to expect that this mortal body must be transfigured before our feet can stand on the pavement of the city of God, yet how wonderful a thing it is even now! I do not refer to the marvels of its mere physical structure, the miracles of skill which the anatomist delights to celebrate. I refer to the relationship which exists between every part of your physical nature and your thoughts, your affections, your conscience and your will. It is the necessary servant, and sometimes the imperial master of an immortal nature which sprang direct from God, and is still capable of intercourse with Him. Take the eye, and dissect it as skilfully as you please; but for that the soul would be a stranger to the splendid pageantry of nature, and to the more affecting beauty which irradiates the faces that we love. And, what is, if possible, more wonderful still, the body is gradually moulded and transformed by the energy or feebleness, the purity or the wickedness of the soul within. The inward kindness makes the eye gentle--the inward fury makes it burn with a terrible fire. The very lines of the face are gradually determined by the thoughts which occupy the most secret sanctuary of the soul, and the passions by which the depths of the heart are agitated. 3. But yet, mighty as are the susceptibilities of our physical being, it is not yet equal to the high claims of its spiritual alliance. We are hindered and enfeebled by it continually. Hardly have we plunged into our work before fatigue compels us to lay it aside; hardly has the day begun before the night returns, and with it the necessity of sleep. By the most trifling physical accidents the very mightiest are made powerless. No brilliance of genius, no heroism of moral nature can wholly defy the tyranny of weakness and suffering. The richest wisdom, the noblest moral energy, may all be made nearly useless by physical infirmity, and must at last be driven away from the world altogether by physical death. 4. Let us be thankful that we sow “ not that body that shall be.” “ Bare grain” is cast into the ground, but after a few months the hidden life reappears in the slender and graceful stalk, and the richly laden ear. So shall it be in the resurrection of the just. The body will rise again; but, thank God, not the same body (verse 34). As yet we cannot imagine the nature or the results of that transforming process which our “ flesh and blood “ must undergo before they can inherit the “ kingdom of God” ; but the unsuspected capabilities of human nature, even on its inferior side, have already been most wonderfully illustrated in the resurrection of Christ, and His enthronement at God’ s right hand. He reigns not as God merely, but as man. His entire nature has been received into glory. The body in which He endured the feebleness, and suffering, which made up His earthly history, He wears still. Think, then, of the vast and tremendous duties to which the Redeemer of man has been appointed. And yet, in the discharge of the duties of His high government, His brain knows no weariness, His strength no exhaustion. A few hours of public teaching, when He was on earth, made it necessary that He should lay His head on a pillow and seek repose, though the night was dark, and the winds were loud, and the billows rough. But there is no danger now when the tempest is raging of finding Him asleep. And our vile bodies are to be made like to His glorious body. (R. W. Dale, D.D.)Four important principles bearing upon the doctrine of the resurrection I. Change of form--thou sowest not, etc. II. Identity of body--to every seed his own body. III. Identity of species--wheat cannot produce tares or tares wheat--neither can the sinner be raised a glorified saint nor the saint a reprobate sinner. IV. Difference in the degree of development in the same species--one stalk of wheat is more fairly developed than another, “ God giveth,” etc. so also in the resurrection of the dead. (J. Lyth, D.D.)But bare grain.--Bare grain During the last week we have had a second edition of our summer, which seemed almost gone--a second edition, abridged, condensed into a few days, but charming, because unexpected. No wonder the poor Indian, with untutored mind, lonely in his narrow thought, feeling after God, if haply he might find Him, dreamed that he saw in the haze illumined sky of October some glimpse of the happy hunting-fields where his fathers roamed. Work-people in Europe, besides their regular wages, expect some little extra gift, which they call, in Italian, buono-mano. And they seem to take more pleasure in their buono-mano than in their regular wages. These warm days in September are Nature’ s buono-mano. God has left this margin of the unexpected, the casual, around all the majestic machinery of law, in order to give us the joy of feeling the gift, to give Himself the joy of being loved as the Giver. Let us be thankful that there are some surprises in the world, some things which elude mathematics, some Indian summer days which come when no one has predicted them, to warm the heart through and through; because being unlooked for, they seem more like a direct gift from God. This return of summer in the form of Indian summer has suggested to me the subject of returning events, of recurrence in human affairs, of the circular and spiral movement in history and life. Things come back, but when they come back they are seldom exactly what they were before. Summer returns as Indian summer; history is always repeating itself, but on a higher plane. The difference between two men, one having Christian faith and the other not having it, is this: both commit the same faults, and repeat the same experience, but the one repeats it always high up. He has more faith, more hope, more love to God and man. Thus he takes the past with him, as precious seed of a better future. His youth departs, with its golden summer days, but returns again an Indian summer with mellower warmth, and a more enchanting peace. The Christian army marches ever to the east, with the dawn shining on its white shields of expectation. But just in proportion as this faith is wanting, life goes round and round, in a mere mill-horse circle of routine. If we look only at this, life grows very tiresome. The despair of the Book of Ecclesiastes comes over us, and we say, “ What profit has a man of all his labour that he takes under the sun?” For all “ things return, according to their circuit.” But the New Testament teaches another lesson than the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is a proof of the Divine origin of these gospels and epistles--that they are full, through and through, of the spirit of hope. Throughout they cry to us: “ The life we sow to-day is seed of something better to come to-morrow. We do not plant that which is to be, but only its seed. Our present life, which we are leading now, compared to that which is to come to us, is only as naked seed is to the green and graceful plant which springs from it.” The Old World of Pagan religion and philosophy was very much ennuyed. It expected nothing, it had little hope left in its heart. Now, the new life of Christianity consisted very much in giving hope to the world. As when a glacier pours its enormous river of ice through Alpine ravines, descending into the valleys, it wastes away imperceptibly, and turns to moist vapours, filling the valley with masses of foliage--so this glacier of despair melted in the warm breath of the new Christian life. The letters of Paul and Peter are full of expectation of Christ’ s coming to reign on earth. That great expectation of Christ’ s coming was the seed that the New Testament planted in civilisation; and it has borne its fruits in all human progress. The one thing needful, the only essential in Christianity, is to have Christ formed within us, the hope of glory; hope of glory here, in all forms of growing goodness, generosity, honour; and of glory, honour, immortality hereafter. Christ Himself was the seed planted in Palestine, which has come up in Christianity in that new body which pleased God. When in the world Jesus worked outward, physical miracles. He works miracles still, but in a new way. “ The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,” but not now by a mere touch or word. We have blind asylums, and deaf and dumb asylums, and sanitary associations. These all proceed from the Christian spirit of humanity, and so come from the seed which Christ’ s miracles planted. Those miracles were bare grain, to which God gave the body which pleased Him. Visitors to Rome, looking out from its lofty walls over the Campagna, see with delight the long line of arches which cross the plain, converging towards the city from the distant mountains. They are the remains of the ancient aqueducts, which formerly brought supplies of water to the immense population of ancient Rome. Visitors to Chicago are carried down to see a tunnel running two miles under the lake, which brings pure water in inexhaustible supplies to that new-born metropolis of the prairies. The methods differ, the water is the same. Forms change, but the needs of men remain. So the soul of man needs always to drink the same living water of faith and hope. The water is the same, whether it is drawn up from Jacob’ s spring, or brought through a Roman aqueduct, or spouts from an artesian well, or is pumped up through a Chicago tunnel. So, if we have love to God and man, and have faith in the great and blessed future, if we believe good stronger than evil, and life more permanent than death, it is no matter by what Jewish or Roman aqueduct or modern creed that pure water comes. God gives it the body which has pleased Him, and to every seed its own body. (James Freeman Clarke.)But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.--The permanence of human identity I. Natural life preecedes spiritual life--in the sinner. II. Natural life is combined with spiritual life--in the believer. III. Spiritual life is consummated in the glorified natural life--in the risen saint, yet the man loses nothing essential to his identity. (J. Lyth, D.D.)All flesh is not the same flesh.--The wealth of Divine power displayed I. In the visible creation.1. Variety of living forms.2. Adaptation to different spheres.3. Degrees of glory and beauty. II. In the resurrection.1. The same body yet wonderfully changed.2. Adapted to heaven and hell.3. Differing in glory. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The falsity of the development theory I. All flesh is not the same flesh.1. Man differs from a beast in the very constitution of his flesh, blood, nervous system--as also other genera of animal life. 2. Modification is possible, but change is a pure assumption unsustained by facts, and contradicted by revelation. II. Much less is all spirit the same spirit.1. The spirit of the beast goeth downward.2. The spirit of man returns to God. III. The folly of such assumptions is manifest--they contradict. 1. Fact.2. Reason.3. Eternal and infallible truth.4. And incur a terrible responsibility. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The resurrection body will be wonderfully changed I. In its tissues. Though its elements be substantially the same, the variety of flesh proves the possibility (verse 39), the Word of God asserts its certainty (verse 50). II. In its adaptations--to a new and heavenly sphere--there are bodies celestial and terrestrial. III. In its appearance--all glorious--yet one glory of the sun, etc. The first shall be last, etc. (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:41-42 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon.Degress of glory in heaven I. What this means. That as the Lord has displayed His mercy and His love to holiness, by rewarding a short and imperfect obedience by an eternal glory, so it is accordant with these perfections to confer higher degrees of this glory on those whose obedience has been more constant, and piety more ardent. While we maintain this--1. We allow that all will nevertheless be perfectly happy, according to their faculties and power of enjoyment. 2. We also maintain that in many things their felicity will be common. It will be common in-- (1) Its object, the blessed God and adorable Redeemer.(2) In its subject, all the powers of the glorified body and soul.(3) In its duration, which will be eternal.(4) In its security, since all the blest are sustained by the Divine promise and faithfulness.(5) In the full satisfaction of soul which all will possess. II. This is proved--1. By Scripture. (1) By all those passages which lay down, in general terms, the great role of God’ s proceedings with the children of men (2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 2:6; 2 Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 6:7-9). (2) From the account which Paul gives of the different rewards which will be given to the ministers of the gospel (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). In this representation there are persons who obtain salvation, and yet have not the recompense which the wiser administrators of the Word receive. And therefore we conclude that there will be the same difference between hearers, according to the manner they have profited. (3) From Daniel 12:3. As there is a difference between the general brilliancy of the firmament and the lustre of the stars, so there shall be a difference between those ordinary Christians who obtain felicity and those zealous persons who have been the instruments of the conversion of many sinners. (4) From the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:1-48.). (5) From those passages where we find the patriarchs, the prophets, and the apostles represented as occupying a more conspicuous situation in glory than ordinary believers (Matthew 8:11; Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30). 2. From analogy. Look at-- (1) Nature. In what an infinite variety of methods do you see the Creator displaying His perfections! (2) The operations of grace. “ There are diversities of gifts, though but one Spirit.” (3) Christians. How various their attainments, knowledge, holiness, and joy, though all beloved by God! (4) The heavenly host. Though all holy and happy, there are archangels, and angels, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. 3. From the transactions of the judgment-day, and the nature of the future felicity (Matthew 25:1-46.). III. The objections that have been made against it.1. Perhaps the most plausible has been drawn from the parable of the labourers in Matthew 20:1-15. But how can the reward signify eternal life, since it is given to the murmurers and envious (verse 14). The design of the parable is to repress the pride of the Jews, and show the propriety of the vocation of the Gentiles. It has no reference whatever to future reward. 2. “ Are not all believers, through the merits of Christ, alike justified and adopted, and must they not therefore be alike glorified?” But do the blessings of God spring less from grace because He has established a wise order in the distribution of them? There are different degrees of holiness and comfort enjoyed by Christians upon earth; then, there may be different degrees of glory in the world to come. The objection is precisely as strong against a difference in sanctification as against a difference in glorification. 3. “ As all the blessed are perfectly holy, they must all be perfectly and alike happy.” The conclusion by no means follows. Are the angels alike elevated because they are all perfectly holy? We know that there are distinctions among them. If two diamonds are of the same water and perfection does it follow that there may not be a difference in their weight and value? 4. “ They all derive their felicity from the same source, the beatific vision of God, and therefore their felicity most be equal.” But may we not view the same sun, and receive its rays differently? When vessels of capacity cast into the same ocean are filled by the same mass of waters, must the quantity they receive be alike? 5. “ The titles given to the redeemed are the same; they are all called kings, the sons of God, the spouse, the members of Christ.” And are not these names given to believers on earth, and, notwithstanding, do we not see a great diversity among them? Are all kings equal in power? Have all sons the same inheritance? Have all members of the body equal honour? (H. Kollock, D.D.)Diversity in the heavenly inhabitants Such a variety is-- I. A fact well sustained.1. By all analogy. No two objects are exactly alike. This variety reveals the illimitable inventiveness of the Divine mind, and gives to the universe its freshness and charm. 2. It meets the instinctive love for the new in human souls. All souls loathe monotony. A dead uniformity would crush out its life. 3. It agrees with the varieties found amongst men here. No two minds are alike. Is it conceivable that in the higher world all souls will run into a common mould? 4. It accords with the general teaching of the Scriptures. Paul speaks of the temple of the good as composed of gold, silver, and precious stones. Christ refers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as sustaining the most honourable positions at the heavenly feast. II. Essential to social blessedness. Suppose a society, all of whose members shall be exactly alike in temperament, experience, attainments, modes of thought, and forms of expression. Why, such a state of things would be incompatible, not only with social enjoyment, but with social life. The monotony would become intolerable. The utmost variety in speculative thought is compatible with unity of heart; and the larger variety in spiritual temperament and conception in any circle--where all hearts are one--the higher the social enjoyment. Most unwise, most impious have been the attempts to force on all men the same system of thought and form of worship. III. Consistent with the highest unity. Whatever variety in the stars--1. They have one centre. Some larger, some smaller, some dimmer, some brighter, some moving more quickly, and some more slowly, yet all move round the same central orb: so with sainted souls. Whatever their diversities, they revolve round one great centre--God. 2. They are controlled by one law. Attraction moves all, regulates all, keeps each in its place and speed. One law, the law of love, rules all sainted souls above, however illimitable their varieties, 3. They fulfil one mission. They all catch the light from the central orb, and flash their borrowed radiance abroad through all their spheres. So with souls above. They are all the recipients and reflectors of Divine light and love. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Identity and variety Note-- I. The idea of identity and variety ministering to each other.1. St. Paul bases the argument for immortality upon the richness and splendour of this mortal life. Often have men made heaven a compensation for the woes of earth; St. Paul makes it not a compensation, but a development. How much nobler is this! For he who finds the manifold glories of this mortal life to be the symbols of immortality, will always be led to live this life as intensely and profoundly as he can, in order that the higher life may become real and attractive to him. 2. Identity and variety express the tone and feeling which life demands. Identity is sound, solid, and substantial; variety is vital, interesting, and novel. To quicken identity with variety, to steady variety with identity, is to make a man always keep himself and yet always feel the power of new conditions around him. Think of the best men you have known, and you will find in them these qualities in their highest union. 3. See how largely this union pervades the universe, and how, wherever it appears, it gives richness and depth. (1) Take nature. Lark and lily, sunbeam and cloud, river and mountain, ocean and land; it takes but the most elementary knowledge to feel the oneness of them all; still all our senses are tingling with the tidings of their differences that they are always sending to us. (2) Take the history of man. This cannot be rightly understood unless illumined by this double truth. Ages come and go, each stamped with its own character. There are ages of war and ages of peace, centuries of thought and centuries of action, etc., etc. Each has its own glory. In the eyes of the inhabitants of each it seems as if all other times were inglorious. We rejoice in the nineteenth century; but greater is the sum of all centuries, this ever changing life of man. The ages of the cloisters and castles, of dreams and of mysteries, are all needed; each of them, while it is different, may be proud of all the rest. (3) So with nations. England, France, America--each is a living being with a character unlike all the others, and yet bearing a true identity with them because both it and they are made up of men, and have shaped all their ways and institutions out of the needs of the same old manhood, living on the same old earth. Nations, like children, match themselves with each other, and are as apt to envy or contemn others as they are great or small; but Palestine, Greece, Rome, America, or England, who can decide which is greater? “ There is one glory of the sun,” etc.; and, altogether, they fill the radiant sky. (4) Take the occupations of mankind. Three men are close together in the street; one of them makes shoes, another writes books, another is the mayor. It is foolish and false to say that there is no rank or precedence here. One of them demands higher powers and education than the others. It is perfectly right that the shoemaker, if he has power to rise, should leave his bench and write a book, or become mayor. But there are other truths besides this. (a) That each of these arts has its own absolute standard, its own good or bad ways of doing its own work. (b) That each art, so far as it lives up to its own standard, becomes a true utterance of the universal human nature, which gets its value from the fact that it is at once identical with and different from all other utterances. These truths make the richness and harmony of all active life. (5) And so with men. We have the greatest varieties of man, the thoughtful or the active, the Conservative or the Radical, etc.; but below all men are men, and every man is man. If variety fails, mankind is a great dreary, undistinguishable monotony; if identity fails, mankind is a great tumult of confused and inharmonious particles. How unchristian either of these views is the Incarnation teaches. Christ is at once the inspiration of the individual and the assertion of the identity of man. He is the revealer of the Fatherhood of God, and thus builds mankind into a family where each is distinct and yet all are one. II. Its consequences, and the sort of life and character it will make in him who entertains and accepts it.1. It will produce self-respect. Here are you, seemingly insignificant, yet-- (1) You are a different creature from any that the world has ever seen. (2) You are a branch of the tree of life from which sprang Isaiah and St. John. God forbid if you are really a sun and not a star, that any compulsion of your fellow-men should keep you in the star’ s place, and shut you out of the sun’ s. But you do know yourself; you are a star, and not a sun; your place is subordinate, secondary. What then? If you do your work with perfect faithfulness, you are making just as genuine a contribution to the substance of the universal good as is the most brilliant worker. It is the fable of the mountain and the squirrel: “ If I cannot carry a forest on my back, neither can you crack a nut.” “ There is one glory of the sun,” etc. 2. Respect for others is bound up in such self-respect as this. The philanthropist, all eager to set right the world, is apt to become furious at the sight of the scholar; and the scholar, in his turn, is ready to despise the bustling restlessness of the man who is for ever organising committees, petitioning legislators, and screwing up the loosened machinery of charity. “ There is one glory of the sun,” etc. Surely it must be possible for men to be devoted to their own work and yet thankful for the work which other men are doing, which they can neither do nor understand. “ All things are yours, and you are Christ’ s, and Christ is God’ s.” 3. This truth may also apply to the different degrees and conditions in which our own lives are passing. You and I are this to-day; to-morrow or the next year we may be something quite different. To-day we may be insignificant, to-morrow or the next year we may be prominent, or vice versa. How shall we look upon this uncertainty of human life? Let us look upon each as a distinct thing, with its own values and meaning, and yet feel how our human life may still be the same, ever spreading itself out to larger things. This harmonises everything. Conclusion: To Paul this truth was a proof of immortality. He would have men live upon earth, yet conscious of their capacity for heaven. Is not that what we want--the life of earth now, the life of heaven by and by, each clear with its own glory, and our humanity capable of them both? We must not lose either of them in the other. We must not be so full of hope of the future that we cannot do our daily work here upon the road. We must not be so lost in dull work on the earth that we shall not be perpetually inspired by the hope of heaven. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)Death and the grave the physical preparation for the perfect humanity of the resurrection state A dewdrop, so says the Oriental fable, hung on a rose leaf. It was a summer morning; and delighted with itself and the calm loveliness around, it could have hung there for ever. But, alas! it soon fell to the ground. What a change! Earth for the bright sky, and darkness for the ten thousand hues of nature’ s loveliness! But through its dark prison-house in the earth it gradually passed till it reached a river, by which it was conveyed to the ocean; and there, deposited in one of its rocky cavities, it became a brilliant and costly gem. In due course the hand of man reached it; and from its long rest in isolation and darkness, it was taken, polished, and set in gold--finally terminating its career by occupying the place of honour in the very diadem of majesty itself! Such is the fable which illustrates the principle of development affirmed here. “ It doth not yet appear what we shall be,” etc. Our connection with this world is very insecure, and in a moment that connection may be dissolved. We hang like the dew-drop on the odorous petals of the rose; and some of us, perchance, would be willing to hang there for ever. But a touch suffices to loosen the attachment, and downwards we are carried to the darkness of the earth. Are we then extinguished? Far from it; we have only passed from one domain of creative instrumentality to another. The river of God will bear us to the ocean at length. There our resting-place shall be provided; but from the secret recesses of the spirit-world we shall emerge again, like a gem of purest water and costliest price, to adorn the diadem of the King of kings. The apostle asserts that this principle of development universally prevails throughout nature, and that the “ glory” of mundane arrangements is mainly dependent upon it. Childhood has its glory; so has youth; so has mature manhood; so even has old age; and when man reappears at the resurrection, it will be to supply another illustration. As sun, moon, and stars all differ from one another in glory, so will the risen and immortal man be distinguished from man fallen and immortal. I. All the redeemed are on their journey towards mental and corporeal perfection; and all the phenomena of the present life have a bearing on that destiny. There are two preliminary stages of human existence--the first beginning at birth and ending at death, the second commencing with death and terminating at the resurrection. Everything in the universe proceeds by steps. The acorn does not bound in an instant to the dimensions of the full-grown oak. Why should not man, therefore, the most wonderful of all God’ s works, be Divinely carried through many preliminaries? Before birth man passes through various stages of development, and could we but realise our arrival at physical perfection, and take, in connection with that, the certainty that every stage and event going before contributes towards it, we world be much more patient under trials. The afflictions of the present life, being temporary, will soon pass away; but the obedient submission to the will of God, the compassion for the afflicted, and the other virtues which they have fostered and brought to maturity, are permanent improvements in our character, and may be needed even in eternity. So in the intermediate state influences are at work upon both which bear with prodigious force on our final perfection. What we shall be in eternity is as much the result of causes operating there, as the full-grown man is the product of the causes which carry the infant from childhood to maturity. Such reflections ought to mitigate the fear of death, and comfort all mourning friends. II. We may arrive at some explanation of the fact itself.1. The Shorter Catechism, in answer to the question, “ What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?” says, “ The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.” The body, although left behind to decay, is not forgotten; it is still “ united to Christ.” The living Christ in heaven regards it, even then, as part of His spiritual body … not dead, but only sleeping,” and by that repose preparing for the awakening of the resurrection day. And as, when children or other loved ones go to rest, care is taken to provide a place of security for them, and, if need be, a guard set; over their slumbers, so, we may be sure, there is a special superintendency of the dead, with a view to prepare for what is to come. The crooked may be made straight, the defective supplied, the hideous made beautiful. And who is to affirm that there may not be influences in nature quite competent to produce this result? The acorn has a wonderful power of extracting such substances from the earth as are fitted to constitute an oak; and so is it with every other seed. Nay, it is within the competency of science and skill greatly to modify and improve the various products of the vegetable creation. There are chemical affinities also whose operation can exhibit the most extraordinary changes. What is so cheap and worthless as a piece of charcoal; what so precious as a diamond?--and yet in constitution they are absolutely identical. The grave may thus become the alembic in which the clay of man’ s fallen humanity is transmuted into the gold of the kingdom of heaven. 2. Then again the believer is a temple of the Holy Ghost. The effect of this is to consecrate the body, or to make it holy. Why, then, should we imagine that the Holy Spirit should maintain His union with the soul, and abandon altogether the body? The separated spirit cannot but think much and often of its ancient and close companion, and God the Spirit cannot possibly be divorced from any member or fragment of that temple wherein He had a loved abode. (J. Cochrane, A.M.) 1 Corinthians 15:42-45 So also is the resurrection of the dead.It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. The resurrection I. Its essential character.1. It is not the work of an age, but of a moment--not a gradual process, but an instantaneous act. 2. It is to be distinguished in its nature from-- (1) An awakening out of a soul sleep.(2) A clothing of the unclothed spirit.(3) A restoration of our flesh and bone in like form as before. 3. It is a work of perfect beauty. II. Its certainty. A threefold voice testifies to it.1. The voice of nature, which shadows it forth.2. The testimony of the Scripture, which confirms it.3. The testimony of the spirit within, which awakens the expectation of it. III. Its glory.1. The enemy which at this hour shall be annihilated.2. The condition of happiness which begins now.3. The kingdom of God which will now be completed. (Prof. Van Oosterzee.)The resurrection body I. Its substance.1. Material and identical: that which is sown is raised, and not by any process but by the Word of God. II. Its properties.1. No longer corruptible, but undecaying, vigorous, and immortal. 2. No longer dishonoured by sin and defect, but; holy, beautiful, glorious. 3. No longer weak and frail, but endued with extraordinary capabilities and strength. 4. No longer a natural body subject to sense, passion, and the necessities of the earthly nature, but governed by the Spirit. III. Its life. Not natural, but mysteriously sustained by the life-giving Spirit: for there is a natural and there is a spiritual body. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The resurrection harvest Look at those grassy mounds in the light of this truth; the eye of faith sees them change into a field sown with the seeds of immortality. Blessed field! what flowers shall spring there! What a harvest shall be gathered there! In the neighbouring fields, “ Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap.” But here how great the difference between what is sown amid mourners’ tears, and what shall be reaped amid angels’ joys; between the poor body that we restore to the earth, and the noble form that shall spring from its ashes. Those who saw Lazarus’ putrid corpse, with health glowing on its cheek, saw nothing to match the change the grave shall work on these mouldering bones. (T. Guthrie.)The resurrection of the dead I. The doctrine teaches that the same body shall be raised in glory to a nobler life. II. Its evidence.1. The Word of God.2. The resurrection of Christ.3. The quickening Spirit within us. III. Its use. It teaches us to take care of the soul first--then the body, not to enfeeble it by folly, pollute it with sin, neglect it in suffering, or mourn it when dead. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The resurrection of the saint I. The body is sown, not buried. No exact analogy with the seed; life is extinct. Yet it is sown in hope of a new life. II. Will be gloriously transformed--from corruption to incorruption, etc. III. Will be fashioned after the example of christ. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The old house and the new When we pluck down a house, with the intent to rebuild it, or repair the ruins of it, we warn the inhabitants out of it, lest they should be soiled with the dust and rubbish, or offended with the noise, and so for a time provide some other place for them; but, when we have newly trimmed and dressed up the house, then we bring them back to a better habitation. Thus God, when He overturneth this rotten room of our flesh, calleth out the soul for a little time, and lodgeth it with Himself in some corner of His kingdom, repaireth the imperfections of our bodies against the resurrection, and then, having made them beautiful--yea, glorious and incorruptible--He doth put our souls back again into their acquainted mansions. (Chrysostom.)Life in heaven a spiritual life in a glorified body I. The body will be a fit organ for the spirit.1. A new body, incorruptible, glorious, vigorous, spiritual.2. Yet substantially the same that was sown in the grave, therefore glorified by the power of God as the organ of the redeemed spirit. II. The spirit will be developed in its full perfection.1. Freed from ignorance and sin, from the control of the body, from the capability of suffering.2. Yet retaining its peculiar properties. (1) Knowledge, which must then be perfected in sight.(2) Will, that shall then be clothed with power.(3) Sensibility, that will be filled with enjoyment. (J. Lyth, D.D.)It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. Dishonour belongs to the corpse of even the richest and the noblest in the land. You may conceal that humiliation by a splendid coffin, a rich funeral pall, the pomp of lying in state, and a costly monument; but the corpse is a poor, poor thing, with all your elaborate attempt to conceal its shame. The loveliest, sweetest maiden that you know soon becomes ghastly in the coffin, and you long to put the body out of sight. It was the shock of such a sight that made Don Francis Borgia, one of the founders of the Jesuits, renounce the world and devote himself to a religious life. It was the custom in Spain not to bury any of the royal family until some grandee of the highest rank should look within the coffin and identify the body. Queen Isabella, to whom Francis had been much attached, was smitten down by death. Don Francis was chosen to look within the coffin and say whether or not it was the corpse of the queen, whose eyes, now closed in death, had always turned in kindness unto him; whose every facial lineament was perfectly familiar unto him. Amidst the half-uttered prayers which commended her soul to the Divine mercy and the low dirge of the organ, Francis advanced with streaming eyes and reverently raised the covering which concealed the secrets of the grave;… but the horrible change which death had wrought upon the queen’ s countenance was so loathsome and appalling that Francis turned aside to shudder and to pray, and from that day the courtier became a monk. Verily Queen isabella’ s body was sown in corruption and dishonour, in spite of all the funeral pomp and show! But the resurrection body of every Christian shall be incorruptible, spiritual powerful, and glorious. (F. W. Aveling, M.A.)It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. At Stratford-on-Bow, in the days of Queen Mary, there was once a stake erected for the burning of two martyrs, one of them a lame man, the other a blind man. Just when the fire was lit, the lame man hurled away his staff, and turning round said to the blind man, “ Courage, brother, this fire will cure us both.” So can the righteous say of the grave, “ Courage, the grave will cure us all; we shall leave our infirmities behind us.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.--The natural body and the spiritual body At first the phrase “ a spiritual body” seems a contradiction in terms. “ Body” and “ spirit” are not only distinct in our thoughts, but opposite. I. St. Paul has in part prepared us to understand the phrase by his argument from the analogies of nature.1. He has taught us that one life, one flesh, one glory, may take many forms; the same flesh: it clothes itself in many forms in man, in beasts, in fishes, in birds, modified by the external conditions in which it is placed. So, also, there is one glory of light; but it takes many and diverse forms in the suns, the moons, the stars. And that bodies answer to the quality of the inward life, and are adapted to it, and to the conditions in which it is to act. This is the law of the universe. 2. Let us illustrate this. (1) Take the parable of the Grain of Wheat. The seed is cast into the ground. In the husk are whatever the vital germ needs for its sustenance; and these, by the process of fermentation, are reduced to the very state in which the germ can most easily assimilate them. Its roots strike downwards, the stem springs upward, and soon we get the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear. And this new body, no less than the old, has all that it needs for the nourishment of its life, and is no less exactly adapted to its conditions. But how vast the change! From an earthly, it has become an aerial body, which draws vigour and comeliness from the bountiful heavens. (2) Take the Greek parable of the butterfly. Psyche, the butterfly, has two bodies. First, it is a worm, creeping slowly on the earth, ugly, liable to be crushed, destroying the leaves on which it feeds, and the fruit which they should shelter. Finding itself grow sick with age, it spins its own shroud, coffin, grave, all in one--to prepare for its resurrection. At length, when the appointed time has come, out of the body of the crawling worm there breaks a new body, all the old imperfections taken away. Instead of creeping on the earth, it flies; for ugliness, it is clothed in beauty; instead of destroying that on which it feeds, it now feeds on the delicate fragrant flowers, and fertilises them by carrying pollen from plant to plant: the lovely flowers paying a willing tribute to the yet higher loveliness of the flower angel. (3) Once more; as I stood looking at my marine aquarium one hot summer day, I saw on the surface of the water a tiny creature--half fish, half snake--not an inch long, writhing as in a mortal agony. I was stretching out my hand to remove it, lest it should sink and die and pollute the clear waters; when lo, in the twinkling of an eye, its skin split from end to end, and there sprang out a delicate fly. Balancing itself for an instant on its discarded skin, it preened its gossamer wings, and then flew out of an open window. Afterward I saw the marvel repeated again and again, and thus I learned that on sea as on land God bears perpetual varied witness to the mystery of the resurrection. 3. Therefore we may fairly assume that this universal law holds good of man, that he too will pass into a new form, a form more heavenly and spiritual, as his capacities are spiritualised and he rises into more heavenly conditions. II. If we look a little more closely into the word translated “ a natural body,” Paul’ s meaning will grow upon us, and the argument become more cogent.1. The Greeks called the soul psyche, as well as the butterfly. And as psyche stood for soul, of course psychical stood for soulish, or of the soul. So St. Paul speaks here of a soulish and of a spiritual body, just as elsewhere he speaks of a soulish and a spiritual man. He held, as Aristotle held before him, and as the ablest metaphysicians still hold, that man is composed of body, soul, and spirit. He meant-- (1) By the soul all of intelligence and emotion which we possess in common with other animals, though in higher degree. (2) By the spirit, our moral nature; the higher reason and conscience. With him the psychical man is the man in whom the psyche rules; the man who is intelligent, but uses his intelligence for ends bounded by time and space; but the spiritual man is the man in whom the spirit rules; in whom conscience, faith, love, are supreme. 2. St. Paul holds that so long as we remain soulish men, we have the very body adapted to our present stage of life and to the conditions of our life. But he also holds that if we live in the spirit, and walk in the spirit, we thus develop capacities and graces to which the present body gives neither full scope nor adequate expression. Therefore it is that, like the seed which has the life of wheat in it, our bodies must be sown in the earth that they may spring up heavenly bodies. Therefore it is that, as the caterpillar, which has in it the germ of a nobler life, lies down in death that its life may pass into a new aerial body, so we must lie down in the grave that, shedding these earthly husks, we may be clothed upon with a spiritual body, incorrupt, immortal, strong, glorious. 3. Our present body only imperfectly expresses our spiritual life; it veils from us many of “ the things of the Spirit,” it impedes us in the pursuit of spiritual excellence. When the spirit is willing, how often is the flesh weak! The more spiritual we are, so much the more do we feel that we are in bondage to the flesh, and crave that spiritual body which, instead of veiling and clogging, will further and express all that is highest in us and best. How bright and animating the hope, then, that one day we too shall have a body as quick and responsive to the spirit in us as the mortal body to the soul, a body whose organs will minister as delicately and perfectly to our spiritual capacities, energies, virtues, graces, as the senses now minister to the energies and passions of the soul! (S. Cox, D.D.)A spiritual body is a bodily organism adapted to the life of the spirit, and controlled thereby. In it the soul has taken its proper position of subordination: man’ s spirit now holds the administrative power, and, ruled by Gods Spirit, rules the body through the executive medium of the willing soul. Man is at last what God originally intended him to be, a creature in whom the spirit is the personifying principle and the seat of government: his proper self down from his own spirit, as from a throne, reigns supreme over the soul, and through that over the body, in a threefold harmony: the harmony of the parts is the harmony of the whole: for the body is now reconstituted meet for the new government: it is pneumatic, no longer psychical. In the hour of Adam’ s probation, as his spirit was to him the vehicle of fellowship with the Holy Spirit and his body the channel of communication with the sensible world, so his soul or self-living nature had to decide between two attractions, a higher and a lower, whether it would consent in accordance with the Divine intention to be determined by the spirit and thereby continue in fellowship with God, or would conclude against God and choose a life of selfish independence. By the fall of Adam his fellowship with God was dissolved, and the Divine life of his spirit was quenched, although its Divine substance remained, but not unimpaired. (Canon Evans.)The relation between resurrection and immortality The doctrines of immortality and resurrection stand somewhat in the same relation as a block of marble to a finished statue. The Christian doctrine of resurrection is the natural fact of immortality wrought into shape. We may know there is a statue in the marble, but how beautiful it may be, in what grace of posture it may stand, what emblems may hang upon its neck or crown its head, what spirit may breathe from its features, we do not know till the inspired sculptor has uncovered his ideal and brought it to light. The analogy may go farther. As an artist works a mass of marble into a statue, putting mental conceptions and meanings into it that are no part of the marble, so Christ has given a Divine shape to immortality and filled it with beautiful suggestions and gracious meaning. We see in the statue the mind of the sculptor as well as the marble; so in the doctrine of the resurrection we see the mind and purpose of Christ as well as the bare fact of future existence. Our spiritual bodies Our spiritual bodies will doubtless have new powers, and new glories, as much beyond those we now have as the flower in the sunshine, beautiful and fragrant, is beyond the seed under ground. May it not be that the wonderful development of our national powers by the inventions of Christian civilisation are but hints and glimpses and foretastes of the enlarged powers of our spiritual bodies? In the microscope, in the telescope, in the telegraph and telephone, in our facilities of travel, in the connection of mind with mind hinted at in some of the facts of mesmerism, all which a few years ago were but wildest dreams, but have more than realised the fables of the “ Arabian Nights,” may we not have gleams of the dawning rays of our spiritual bodies when the resurrection morn shall have come? A curious illustration of the possibilities of our spiritual bodies was given not long ago in the American Popular Science Monthly. Sound is the vibration produced on us when the vibrations of the air strike on the drum of our ear. When they are few, the sound is deep; as they increase in number, it becomes shriller and shriller; but when they reach forty thousand in a second they cease to be audible. Light is the effect produced on us when waves of light strike on the eye. When four hundred millions of millions of vibrations of ether strike the retina in a second, they produce red, and as the number increases the colour passes into orange, then yellow, then green, blue, and violet. But between forty thousand vibrations in a second and four hundred millions of millions we have no organ of sense capable of receiving the impression. Yet between these limits any number of sensations may exist. We have five senses, and sometimes fancy that no other is possible. But it is obvious that we cannot measure the infinite by our own narrow limitations. (Christian Age.) 1 Corinthians 15:45-50 The first man Adam was made a living soul Adam and Christ Or the mystery of life contemplated:-- I. In its sources.1. Adam was endued with natural life, Christ with a life-giving Spirit.2. The natural preceded the spiritual.3. The natural is of the earth, the spiritual is the Lord from heaven. II. In its communication.1. From Adam we derive the earthy or natural life, from Christ the heavenly.2. The image of the earthy precedes the heavenly.3. As the earthy body (flesh and blood) cannot inherit heaven, it must be exchanged for an incorruptible body. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The two Adams I. The resemblance.1. The existence of each rose not in the ordinary course of nature. Neither came by the ordinary laws of human generation. (1) The first was formed out of the dust of the earth, and derived his spirit from the breath of God. (2) the second was conceived of the Holy Ghost. The pedigree of each is unparalleled in the history of the race. 2. Each commenced free from sin. (1) The first was created in the image of God; all his faculties were well balanced and free from all bias to wrong. (2) The latter was harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. 3. Each had a nature capable of temptation. Temptability is an attribute of all created intelligences. Where there is no power to go wrong, there is no virtue in keeping right. (1) The first Adam was tempted, and was conquered. (2) The second was tempted, and triumphed. 4. The character of each exerts a momentous influence upon the whole race. (1) The character of the first generated a moral atmosphere of sensuality, ambition, selfishness, unbelief. (2) The character of the second generated an atmosphere that is morally salubrious, sunny, and invigorating. He who lives in the first atmosphere is still in Adam, and is earthy. He who lives in the second is Christly and spiritual. II. The dissimilarity.1. The one had a sublimer connection with God than the other. Adam was the offspring, representative, and steward of God. Christ was God-man. God was in Him in a special sense, unfolding truths, working miracles, and reconciling the world unto Himself. Be was God “ manifested in the flesh.” The one yielded to the devil, the other conquered him. 2. the One possessed a higher type of moral excellence than the other. The character of the first was innocence, not holiness. Holiness implies intelligence, convictions, efforts, habits. This had not Adam. Hence he gave way to the first and simplest temptation. This holiness Christ had in the sublimest degree; and He triumphed over principalities and powers of evil, and made a show of them openly. 3. The influence of the one upon the race has been infinitely pernicious, that of the other infinitely beneficent. The first planted that upas whose pestiferous branches have spread over all men, and whose poisonous food all have tasted and been injured. The other planted the tree of life, bearing fruit for the healing of the nations. 4. The moral influence of the one is destined to decrease, the other to increase. “ Where sin abounded, grace will much more abound.” “ The kingdoms of our God shall become the kingdoms of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever.” (D. Thomas, D.D.)The first and the last Adam 1. St. Paul bases his assertion that “ if there is a psychical body, there is also a spiritual,” first, on the analogies of Nature; second, on the nature of Man as revealed in Holy Writ (see 1 Corinthians 15:44); third, on the historical facts that Adam had the one and Christ the other. 2. Note, however, some interesting preliminaries. The opening clause of the text is almost an exact quotation from Genesis 2:7; that the second refers to Christ is proved by these two facts: that with the rabbis, at whose feet Paul sat, “ the last Adam” was a common name for “ the Messiah” ; and that St. Paul never uses the designations the second Man,” or “ the last Adam,” of any one but Christ. Again the rabbis bid us note that Moses says, not “ man was made, but became a living soul.” They hold that when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, He conferred on him the higher spiritual nature of man; but that, when Adam sinned, he fell, and became a man in whom the soul ruled rather than the spirit. And the rabbis have the Scriptures on their side. What was “ the fall” but a fall from the higher life of the spirit into the lower life of the soul, into a life of mere intelligence and passion as distinguished from a life of righteousness, faith, love, joy, peace? Why was he debarred from “ the tree of life” but because that it was no longer meet that his body should put on incorruption and immortality? I. The first man Adam became a living soul.1. The psychical or soulish man is a man in whom the soul is supreme. Conscience, righteousness, faith, God, etc., do not stand first with him; but man, time, earth, the gratifications of sense and intellect. Was not Adam a man of this type? When the spiritual crisis came his faith failed him. God was not first with him, nor God’ s will. 2. A soulish man he came to have a soulish body. Indications of this are seen in-- (1) Adam’ s newborn shame of his nakedness.(2) The passion which made Cain a murderer.(3) The infirmities, the special forms of death and corruption, to which Adam and his children became liable. Nevertheless, as our own experience proves, the body, even when thus changed and depraved, was nevertheless perfect in its adaptation to the faculties, functions, cravings, needs of the soul. II. Christ, the last Adam, was a life-giving spirit.1. He was the true spiritual Man; for in Him all faculties and passions of the soul were in subjection to the spirit. To Him, living and walking in the spirit, all that is of earth and time and soul was as nothing when compared with the eternal realities. And therefore He could refuse all the kingdoms of this world, and could hasten to help any man, however lowly, however earthly, and seek to quicken in him, by help to the body, the life of the spirit. Of a charity so intense that He loved every man, of a faith so clear and strong that He looked through all the shows of time to the eternal substance, of a hope so lively that He despaired of no man, of a righteousness so pure that even the practised eyes of incarnate evil could find nothing in Him, of a peace so perfect that even His unparalleled labour and conflict could not impair it; in heaven even while He was on earth; making His Father’ s will His daily food, He stands before us the one true spiritual Man. 2. So also the last Adam teaches us what the spiritual body is. (1) He had a body like to ours, yet not altogether the same as ours. Conceived of a Virgin by the Holy Ghost, Christ took our flesh as Adam took it, from the hands of God, immaculate; receiving a physical body which might change and rise into “ a spiritual body” without passing, as our bodies must, through the purifications of corruption. We die perforce. But He “ laid down” His life. He saw no corruption. It was not possible that He should be holden of death. (a) And therefore we see signs of the spiritual body even in the body of His humiliation. Virtue went out of Him. He lived not by bread alone. He walked on the storm-tossed waves. On Mount Tabor He stood before the eyes of His amazed and dazzled disciples a spiritual man in a spiritual body. (b) But all these signs of the spiritual m the physical region of His life were prompted by that which is of the spirit, not by that which is of the soul. It was at the touch of faith, of spiritual need and desire and trust, that virtue went out of Him. It was that He might feed the hungry, succour the distressed, or deliver the imperilled, that He exerted a supernatural control over natural laws: and He fed, succoured, delivered men that they might come to know Him, and God in Him, and thus possess themselves of eternal life. When the weak physical frame was transfigured with an immortal strength and splendour, it was because His spirit was rapt in the ecstasies of redeeming love as He talked with Moses and Elias, because He saw that the work of His redemption would be triumphantly accomplished. (2) After His death and resurrection, the signs that He inhabits a spiritual body grow more apparent. Though He can still eat and drink, etc., He glides through closed doors, passes as in an instant from place to place, vanishes from their sight as the disciples recognise Him. At His will, He is visible or invisible: He is here. He is there; the spiritual body being now as perfect a servant of the spirit in Him as the psychical body of the soul. He can eat, but He does not need to eat. His body is raised into higher conditions, endowed with loftier powers. It is heavenly, not earthly; it is spiritual rather than physical or psychical. Conclusion: Do any ask: “ But what is all this to us? Adam and Christ were both exceptional men. If the first Adam was a psychical man and the last Adam a spiritual man, how does that bear on St. Paul’ s argument? “ It is much--nay, it is everything--to us; and that precisely because both Adam and Christ were exceptional men, who stand in an exceptional relation to the human race. For (verse 22) both the Adam and the Christ are in us, and in all men; that they contend together in us for the mastery; that it is at our own option to side either with the one or with the other; and that, according as we espouse the first Adam or the last, we become earthly or heavenly, psychical or spiritual men. If we permit the Christ to reign in us, in our mortal members, our mortality will put on immortality--as His did, and be swallowed up of life--as His was. Like His, our spiritual manhood will demand and receive a spiritual body. And therefore St. Paul may fairly exhort us that, “ as we bear the image of the earthly (man), so also we should bear the image of the heavenly.” ( S. Cox, D.D.)The second Adam “ a quickening Spirit” Human relationships correspond with those which subsist between Jesus Christ and His people, and doubtless were constituted to shadow it forth. In procuring the redemption of His people, Christ assumes the standing of a husband, who, by uniting Himself to us, made Himself capable of standing in our place, and answering for our acts. In advocating our cause, that He may do this effectually, and with an experimental feeling of our wants, He assumes the place of a brother unto us. By His resurrection He assumes the relationship of a father, the giver of life and of being to His people. As the natural life, or life of the soul, is to be traced to the first man Adam, so the spiritual life in the believer is to be traced to Christ, the last Adam. But here, however, the resemblance ends. Adam was but a living soul, capable of continuing the same life in others who should succeed him; but Christ, by His resurrection from the dead, has become “ a quickening spirit,” capable of giving life unto the dead. Note the bearing of the text-- I. On the foundation of the Christian’ s salvation.1. The apostle here enumerates only two men of all that have ever lived: because all men stand in such a relationship to the first Adam, and all believers stand in such a relationship to the second, as they can stand in to no other man. We do not see, in the ordinary course of human generation, that all children are born with what is peculiar in the sinful propensities of their immediate progenitors. By dint of care you may guard against the outbreaking of those sins which have been peculiar to the immediate progenitor; but you will not be able by your utmost care to root out the evil which is in the heart of man. And the inference from this is that there is a connection between us and the first man Adam which does not subsist between us and our immediate parents, or any intermediate link of the chain by which we are connected with our first progenitor. And so it is written of Adam, that he “ begot a son in his own image, after his own likeness” ; who thus deriving from him his life of nature, shared with Adam in all the miserable circumstances of his fallen condition. When God created Adam, He created all men; all therefore stood, and all fell in Adam: all in him became not only exposed to the consequences, but also infected with the very nature of his sin. 2. Now there is no greater difficulty in the idea that having union with the last Adam as a quickening Spirit, we are endowed with His life and His likeness, than in the former idea. This is the only foundation of our salvation. Salvation is not to be found in the reformation of conduct, in a difference of feeling, in an act of the mind, but in a vital union with Christ. II. On the trials of the Christian’ s present condition. The great peculiarity in the Christian’ s condition is that while he is a quickened spirit in union with Christ the quickening Spirit, he yet has a body proper only to a soul, by still having, in his own nature, union with the first Adam. This throws a striking light on many passages in Scripture which are descriptive of the Christian experience (2 Corinthians 5:1-4; Romans 8:22-23; Romans 7:24). What do these (and a variety of similar passages) express but the desires of the quickened spirit to be released from this prison-house in which it is pent up? And does not this also point out the Christian’ s resource under such trials? What is it but to walk by faith and not by sight? (Romans 8:10-13; Colossians 3:1-5). III. On the Christian’ s future prospects. We are as yet, indeed, in the natural body--the body proper to a soul; but there is a spiritual body; and as we are now by faith quickened in spirit, so there is a renewal unto holiness to this body also, which shall be revived, and glorified, and changed into the likeness of Christ’ s glorious body. For as the resurrection of Christ shows us the perfection and sufficiency of Christ’ s work, so ours will bring to perfection in us the fruit of His work. As it was His resurrection that showed Him to have come out from under the effects of imputed sin, into the possession of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was; so ours will show us to have come out of the course of sin and of the flesh into the enjoyment of that glory. As it was His resurrection that showed Him to be the Conqueror of Satan; so ours will show us to be conquerors over all evil through Him. As it was by His resurrection that He was declared to be the Son of God with power; so it is ours by which we shall be manifested to be sons of God. (W. Dodsworth, M.A.)The last Adam Note-- I. The relation between Christ and Adam which is implied in the name. A name used to designate a party whoso proper name it is not, expresses a symbolical or typical relation between the two (Romans 5:14). Adam prefigured Christ--1. In the holiness of his nature. There have been only two men who were free from every taint of sin when they came into the world; and there never will be more. 2. In his dominion (Psalms 8:1-9; cf. Hebrews 2:1-18.). Adam as the lord of this world, and the creatures contained in it, symbolised that King who has on His head many crowns. 3. In his marriage (Ephesians 5:25-33). 4. In his trial. (1) By God. A course of obedience was prescribed to him, and a reward was promised if he followed it. Do this and thou shalt live, was the substance of what God said to Adam. To the Son of God also a course of obedience was prescribed: and on this account He took the form of a servant. To Him, too, it was said, Do this and live. (2) His trial by Satan. 5. In his covenant headship. The covenant with Adam was expressed in the form of a threatening (Genesis 2:16-17), while the covenant with Christ was expressed in the form of a promise (Galatians 3:16); but the fact is unaltered that there was a covenant with each. Now Adam, in his headship, typified Christ in-- (1) The representative character which he bore. The first progenitor represented his posterity. Such representation is not unusual. Parents represent their children, and princes their subjects. But the only case which for magnitude and grandeur can be likened to that of Adam, is the case of Christ. (2) The vicarious action of Adam under the covenant, which furnishes a typical illustration of that which was vicarious in the Saviour’ s career. (3) The imputation and legal reckoning of Adam’ s vicarious procedure to his posterity. Analogous, in some measure, to this, is the legal reckoning which we see applied to great trading companies for the doings of their managers. So vicarious action was binding on Christ (Romans 5:12-19; Galatians 3:13). (4) The transmission of moral qualities and tendencies from Adam to all his posterity. The first man, by his fall, not only contracted guilt, but brought upon his nature the taint of corruption; and that taint is communicated through him to all mankind. In Christ, the Son of God, there is a holy human nature. And by the power of His Holy Spirit, effecting a real and vital union between Him and His people, they become holy as He is holy. II. The relation which is implied by prefixing to the name “ adam” the term “ last.” Christ is called “ David” and “ Solomon.” But He is not called “ the last David,” or “ the last Solomon.” John the Baptist is called “ Elias,” but not “ the last Elias.” These were types and only types. But Adam was not a mere type. There was, beyond this, a public and official relation between him and Christ; so that if Adam had not gone before, or if he had been other than he was, or had actual otherwise than he did, there would have been no need of Christ. The common name is suggestive of the unity of obligation being derived from the first member of the series. The special term “ last” is suggestive of the obligation being at last fulfilled.1. Let the two Adams be contrasted. (1) In respect of what they were (verses 45, 47). (2) In respect of what they accomplished. (a) The first Adam entailed only sin upon his posterity; the last Adam has for His people righteousness: He is their righteousness (Romans 5:19). (b) The first Adam condemns all; the last Adam justifies all (Romans 5:18). (c) In the first Adam, all die, all are dead (Romans 5:15-17); in the last Adam, Christ, all are made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22; 1 Corinthians 15:18-19). 2. Let our Lord’ s success, as the last Adam, be considered in opposition to the failure of the first Adam. Christ, as the last Adam, succeeded by fulfilling the obedience to the law in which the first Adam failed, and by overcoming the obstacle which the first Adam’ s failure created. The last Adam is perfect, as a competitor for the prize--eternal life to man--which the first Adam lost; as a worker at the task in which the first Adam broke down. (1) In respect of his vicarious action. In that respect he is emphatically the “ last Adam.” His vicarious action was perfect. There was no flaw in it (Hebrews 5:8-9; Romans 5:19). (2) In respect of the imputation and legal reckoning of his vicarious action (Romans 5:18). (3) In respect of the actual transmission and communication of all the life and holiness which His vicarious action involves. As the last Adam, He has the Holy Spirit to give. And by the gift of the Holy Spirit He effectually secures the salvation of all who are His. (A. Gray.)Christ the archetype of Adam Sometimes, after an engraven steel-plate has given forth some pictures it is destroyed, in order to enhance the value of the copies thrown off. If the copies were all destroyed, then the ideal would be lost. But when one type was thrown off and planted in paradise, the original remained when the copy was spoiled. Man still remained--the Eternal Son remained. (W. Anot, D.D.)The wonderful contrast I. Adam was a living soul, which includes--1. Reason; thus above the brute, and able actively to glorify God. They passively praise Him. 2. Spirituality, or knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness in mind and soul. Nothing can comprehend holiness but the image of that holiness. 3. Happiness. Holiness is happiness; God infinitely happy, because infinitely holy. He must delight in His own image, and for us to wear that image is a greater honour than, if it were possible to be invested with creative power. 4. Immortality. We are immortal, but not independently so; God alone is (1 Timothy 6:16). II. The last adam a quickening spirit. He quickens--1. From spiritual death (Ephesians 2:5).2. The afflicted (Psalms 119:50).3. The backslider (Hosea 14:4).4. From the grave (Philippians 3:20-21). We manifest our oneness with Adam by our disobedience, and our oneness with Christ by our obedience. The most glorious work of God is the renewal of a human soul, and its transition from grace to glory. How grateful we should be that God has promised that His work within us shall be as perfect as His work for us (Ephesians 5:14). (Homiletic Monthly.)Natural and spiritual life I. Adam was made a living soul.1. Endued with natural life.2. His body possessed no inherent immortality.3. Its perpetuated life depended upon obedience and his access to the tree of life.4. Consequently he could not in any case confer immortality upon his descendants. II. Christ was made a quickening spirit.1. Possessed life in Himself, hence His resurrection.2. Communicates it to all who believe in Him.3. Hence also He will raise them up in the last day. (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural.The natural and the spiritual I. The natural precedes the spiritual. This is seen in--1. Nature. Not until the earth was complete did God create man, a spiritual being, “ in His own image and after His own likeness,” etc. Thus man stands at the head of the creation. By his physical organisation, which is natural, he is connected with all that is below him. But by his higher nature, which is spiritual, he is allied with God. 2. History. A nation is well advanced before it exhibits marked spiritual characteristics. Our own ancestors were rude men. Now the Anglo-Saxon race leads the world of thought. 3. The progress of revelation. The Old Testament histories and genealogies prepare the way for Christian doctrine. Bible study proceeds from the natural to the spiritual. 4. The development of religious life. “ When I was a child I spake as a child,” etc. The existence of such a principle suggests the necessity of great consideration for weakness. “ We then that are strong ought to bear,” etc. Weakness may be on the way to strength. Therefore it should be encouraged. II. The natural conditions the spiritual. The spiritual life must inevitably be affected by the natural life with which it is associated. What a help health is to the spiritual faculties! what a restraint sickness is! As dissipation enfeebles the body, it very soon weakens the mind. How distressing it is to see a really great man like Solomon or Alexander a slave to dissipation! We feel that this is robbery. The spiritual power of such men requires the best assistance of their natural powers. How much has been lost in this way! III. The spiritual governs the natural.1. The questions, What shall I eat? What shall I drink? What is the limit of indulgence? are answered here. The natural is for the spiritual, the spiritual governs the natural. That which is truly best for the spiritual must determine the activities of the natural. 2. The more spiritual classes cannot thrive if the less spiritual classes are neglected. The thought and the sympathy of the palace must enter the hut and transform it into a neat cottage. The thought and the sympathy of the hut must go out to the palace, that the helping hand of kindly interest may be grasped. The masses must be instructed. But if the masses need education, then surely they must be willing to be taught. Christianity urges all men to be considerate, the higher to consider the lower, the lower to consider the higher. IV. The natural is to give way to the spiritual. Not until the spiritual is completely realised does man discover the end of his existence. A tree lives, blossoms, bears fruit, and dies. It has accomplished the purpose of its existence. Not so, however, with man. He just begins to live when he dies. How emphatic are the words of Christ! “ I am the Resurrection and the Life,” etc. “ I am come that they might have life,” etc. (H. M. Booth.)The true development I. Natural life necessarily precedes the spiritual, or heavenly.1. Progression is the law of all life. 2. So man was created in a lower condition with the prospect of advancing to a higher. 3. Natural life, so far from rendering a nobler life doubtful, much rather justifies the hope of it (1 Corinthians 15:45-46). II. The natural and the spiritual life are mysteriously united.1. Apparently they are distinct, as in the first and second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:47-48). 2. But they are really the same nature under different forms (1 Corinthians 15:49)3. Hence when the earthly is lost in the heavenly humanity is still essentially the same. III. The spiritual life is the glorification of the natural life. Man’ s destiny is immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50). The present mode of life (flesh and blood) is temporary, therefore must the natural be glorified that man may live for ever. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The natural precedes the spiritual Many an objector, on hearing the saying of 1 Corinthians 15:44, might say, Why should not God create the perfect spiritual life at once? St. Paul in answer applies a general law of the universe to the case before him. It would be contrary to the Divine order in God’ s creation, which is first the natural, and afterward the spiritual. Consider-- I. The universality of this law. This is disclosed--1. In the order of creation. Note the principle of gradation on which the universe arose in Genesis. And this is confirmed at every step by science. First, the formless earth, then the green herb, then the lowest forms of animal existence, then the highest types, then man, the last and noblest. And then, perhaps, an age to come, with a higher and nobler race of beings. 2. In the progress of the Jewish nation. Recollect their origin. They were a nation of slaves. Originally, too, they were of a rude, hard stock, and became in Egypt and in Palestine sensual, idolatrous, and money-loving. You are reminded of one of those trees whose exposed roots are seen gnarled and twisted, hard as iron, more like rock than wood, and yet whose foliage above is rich and noble: below extends the basis of the coarse and natural, above are manifested the beautiful and spiritual. By slow gradations did this nation of slaves rise into a spiritual people. 3. In the progress of the human race. St. Paul says, Adam was “ of the earth, earthy” ; and again, he calls him “ a living soul,” that is, a natural man--a man with intelligence, perception, and a moral sense, with power to form a society and to subdue Nature to herself. The fall, then, was a step downwards from innocence, but also it was a giant step in human progress. It made goodness possible: for to know the evil, and to conquer it and choose the good, is far nobler than a state which only consists in our ignorance of both. Until the step of nature has been passed, the step of spirituality cannot be made. Thus did the race begin to share in the spiritual; and among many nations, and by means of many men, was the progress of mankind evolved; but their light was too scattered, and their isolated lives imparted little life. So the next stage in the progress of the race was the coming of Christ, the spiritual Man, whose prerogative it was, not as the first Adam, to live in Eden for Himself, but as the second Adam, to die on Calvary for others; not as the first Adam, to receive happiness, but as the second Adam, to confer life. It was no longer the natural man, but the quickening Spirit, that represented the race to God. II. This law is true of us as men.1. Our natural affections precede our spiritual. According to the two great commandments, in the order of importance the love of God is first; in the order of time the love of man. Love to man also begins lower down. We do not love our neighbours first, nor embrace the race in our affection all at once; we ascend from a lower point. The table given on Sinai only specifies one kind of love, but in the fifth commandment they all lie as the furture oak-tree lies in the acorn; the root of all the other developments of love is love and honour unto parents. “ The child is father to the man.” The friend, the husband, the citizen are formed at the domestic hearth. Out of human love grows love to God. For a time the father represents God to the child. He is to train the affections which afterwards shall be given to God; and the brother those which shall expand hereafter for Christ. You cannot force love to God. 2. The moral precedes the spiritual. There is a time when the Adam is formed within us, when the Christ begins to be formed, when we feel within us the sense of “ Christ in us, the hope of glory,” when the “ living soul,” as ruler of the man, gives place to the “ quickening spirit.” But there are two slates through which we pass. (1) It was through temptation that the first Adam fell from a state of nature. It was through temptation, too, that the second Adam redeemed humanity into a state of grace. (2) Through sorrow. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)The law of the psychical and the spiritual It is in the history of the individual man that we find our best illustration of St. Paul’ s law. As babes and sucklings, our life is animal and instinctive, we are a mere complex of appetites--appetite for food, for warmth, for sleep: the mind is dormant. Soon however we begin to take notice, and to respond to notice; to imitate sounds; to pry into the nature of the things around us and their relation to us. Then we learn to name them, to speak about them, to like and dislike them. Intellect awakens; we master our first abstractions; we learn to put words for things. Our schooling commences; perception, imagination, memory, understanding are developed: all the intellectual facets of the soul are polished: and still we carry into this new stage of our life many of the animal and instinctive qualities of the earlier stage. After, and in much blended with, the intellectual comes the passionate era. We rise into that fine frenzy in which we live in another heart, in which we prefer, or fancy we prefer, another’ s good to our own. With love comes the long train--desire, envy, jealousy, hatred of rivals, indifference to former affections, ambition to shine and to please. It is the passionate stage of our existence. In and through all these earlier stages there may be the rudiments of spiritual life. We may have formed some conception of God, of His goodness; we may have felt some love, some trust in Him. But, as a rule, the proper life of the spirit is kindred within us, or becomes regnant within us, only after we have passed through the intellectual and passionate stages of our course. The spiritual is not first in us, but the psychical. Nay, however early we may begin to think of God and to love Him, it is obvious that we must have learned to think before we can think of God that we must have learned to love before we can love God. (S. Cox, D.D.)The two grand types of character The words show-- I. That man has set before him two moral images or types of character. The “ earthy” and the “ heavenly.” These two are essentially distinct.1. The one is sensuous, the other spiritual. (1) The earthy man is material, partially developed-- (a) In his views of happiness. All his pleasures are of a sensuous order. (b) In his views of wealth, viz:, worldly property. (c) In his views of dignity, viz., the highest worldly position. (2) the spiritual man lives behind the visible phenomena, realises the eternal. To him the invisible is the only reality; moral excellence, the only wealth and dignity. Though in the world, he is not of the world. He has citizenship in heaven. 2. The one is practically selfish, the other is benevolent. (1) The earthy man is controlled by a regard to his own pleasures and aggrandisements. All outside of himself he values only so far as it serves him. (2) The heavenly man is benevolent. His personal feelings are submerged in the ever-rising seas of sympathy with humanity and God. Like Christ, he pleases not himself. 3. The one is practically atheistic, the other is godly. (1) The earthy man sees nothing but natural law, order, etc. “ God is not in all his thoughts.” The universe to him is only either an eternal or a self-produced and self-regulating machine, a house that either has never had a builder, or whose builder has deserted it. (2) The heavenly man sees God in all, like David, and, like Enoch, walks ever with Him. II. That man does bear the one; he should bear the other. Every man, in the first stages of his life, bears the image of the “ earthy.” This fact is at once the crime and the calamity of the race. But whilst we do bear the one image at first, we should strive to bear the other because--1. It is right. This heavenly image realises the soul’ s highest ideal of excellence. It is that for which we unconsciously hunger, and for which we shall hunger for ever unless we get it. 2. It is practicable. (1) We have the model in its more imitable form in Christ. He was pre-eminently spiritual, benevolent, godly; and never was there a character more imitable than Christ’ s--the most admirable, transparent, unchangeable. (2) We have the means in the most effective forms. The gospel reveals the model, supplies the motives, and pledges the spiritual influences of heaven. 3. It is urgent. To do this is the grand mission of life. Unless the work is fulfilled our existence becomes a failure and a curse. To pass from the “ earthy” to the “ heavenly” is to pass from darkness to light, from sin to holiness, from Satan to God. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The Divine order The method of God’ s working is upward progress. His path is “ as the Shining light,” etc. I. In the creation of the material world. First, there was the globe without life; then a world filled with life and beauty. First the protozoans, molluscs, and sponges of the primeval world; after that, man created in the image of God. II. In the natural development of each individual man.1. There is helpless infancy. Physical, mental, spiritual forces, and wild passions sleep in that little nebulous mass like thunderstorms in the quiet clouds or summer. 2. By and by we arrive at youth, this blossoming season of our nature, the time of fancy. 3. After that comes manhood. There is now fulness of reason and strength and responsibility. III. In the dispensations of revealed religion. “ The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Moses was an inspired man: Christ is “ God manifest in the flesh.” Moses was faithful as a servant over all his house--Christ as a Son in His own house, whose house are we; and the grace and truth are more excellent than the law. The law demands obedience, but gives no help to obey; the gospel creates within us new hearts which make obedience a delight. The law revealed sin; the gospel proclaims pardon. The law threatens; the gospel invites. The great promise of the law was,” Thou shalt inherit the land” ; that of the gospel is, “ I give unto them eternal life,” etc. The law was for one nation; the gospel is for the whole world. The law was the shadow; the gospel is the substance. The law was bondage; the gospel is liberty. IV. In Christian experience and in the development of Christian character.1. Faith in religion is easy in childhood. Little children fresh from the hand of God are not sceptics. They have the power of reverence and faith. For a time they worship father and mother. They never regard the material universe as a thing to be weighed, and understood, and measured. It is to them a solemn mystery. Being thus constituted, it is the easiest thing in the world to teach a child to utter words of prayer. 2. The young man discovers that much ignorance has mingled with the reverence of childhood, and has not sufficient experience to replace his early fancy with the solid structure of reality and truth. Besides, the powers of childhood become full in youth. Self-will is strong, and the whole republic of the passions is up in arms against the authority of reason and conscience. But Christ is there, and His voice is heard amid the arrogant and noisy voices of the flesh. There is a long struggle. The young man wavers; but, thank God! Christ perseveres, and the “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” shows that Christ has taken possession of his will. 3. The struggle is not yet over. A time of deep thought and anxious reflection arrives, and brings with it an intense desire to know the reason of faith, the basis of belief. The intellect demands greater evidence than is or can be given. It asks for demonstration. But during this time of intellectual revolt Christ is there; Christ speaks with authority and love, “ Believe on Me when thou canst not know. Worship before the mystery; what thou knowest not now thou shalt know hereafter.” Christ is victorious again, and the pride of the intellect subsides, and the mind bows before Christ, saying, “ Thou art the power and wisdom of God; and I wish to be Thine for ever and ever.” 4. After this comes old age--the best period of all by far. Childhood is untried innocence; youth little better than rebellion against Christ; manhood a struggle against intellectual difficulties and spiritual enemies; but as the years pass on, the man’ s whole nature is subdued and sanctified. The love of God is shed abroad in his heart. The peace of God, which passeth understanding, keeps his heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Joy unspeakable and full of glory flows in plentifully upon his spirit. By and by visitors from the unseen come and say, in tones never heard before, “ Brother, come away.” What is best in the tree is the last to get perfect. V. In the increase of the spiritual kingdom in the world. Here we may well ask, Can the gospel live and multiply? Think of China and India, whose very nature is engrained with their false religion and their fantastic philosophy. Can they be changed? But we need not go so far to seek difficulties. Think of the state of things here in England. Think, e.g., of the adoration of wealth and appearances. Can religion live in this dense atmosphere of worldliness? Think again of the unbelief of the age in which we live. There are unhealthy summer days when physical activity is almost an impossibility. A heavy, oppressive, stagnant atmosphere weighs down upon the land. That is a symbol of the spiritual atmosphere of Europe to-day. It is permeated with a spirit of unbelief. I ask again, then, Can Christianity live? Yes.1. It has lived and increased in spite of the most determined opposition. After eighteen hundred years of trial and opposition, “ the foundation of God standeth sure.” The powers of men and the powers of darkness have exerted themselves to remove this foundation, but it standeth sure, in spite of persecution and in spite of criticism. 2. Christianity has affinities with all good things. Truth, virtue, love, science, philosophy, literature, are good, and the gospel is nearly related to all these. It creates them where they do not already exist; and where they exist, it inspires and promotes them. Nothing good dies. It is falsehood, and not truth; evil, and not good; moral deformity, and not moral beauty, that is going to disappear. The gospel is the grandest truth, the greatest good, the most beautiful revelation ever given to man; and therefore it cannot perish. “ The word of the Lord endureth for ever.” 3. We have the old promise of the Holy Ghost. Goethe’ s last words were, “ More light! more light!” This is the cry of the age. It is not more external evidence that is needed, but more internal illumination, more power of spiritual vision in the minds of men. The light is here in Divine plenitude. Christianity is either supernatural or it is nothing. Christianity makes its way in the world by the coming of the Spirit of God into contact with the spirits of men. Conclusion: The progress is not rapid. But let the Church calm her heart. Let us learn to wait and work. And, above all things, let us not be afraid. “ He that believeth shall not make haste.” God’ s method is upward progress, and that upward progress is slow in its development. But the progress is certain, and the end is sure. (T. Jones, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 15:47-49 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. The first and second man I. The first--is of the earth, earthy--consequently--1. Confined to earth.2. Perishes with the earth. II. The second--from heaven, heavenly.1. Rules the earth.2. Opens heaven.3. Lives for ever. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Of the earth, earthy Χοϊκος properly means “ clayey,” but is here used to express man’ s terrestrial nature. Because he is of the earth in his origin--i.e., as to his body, there is a terrestrial side to his nature and sphere of action. From this we may infer-- I. That man in his sinless state had a body capable of dying. If he had continued sinless, his body would have been rendered immortal by a Divine act, and we gather from Genesis 3:22 that the tree of life was the appointed sacrament of immortality. This is consistent with Romans 5:12. In the case of man sin brought death, not mortality, into the world. The correctness of this hypothesis is confirmed by the side light it throws upon the voluntariness of Christ’ s death. As Christ was sinless, death was not a necessity to Him, though He had a mortal body; and as He was Divine as well as sinless, death was impossible to Him without a voluntary act of “ laying down” His life. II. That the divine image in adam consisted, negatively, in sinlessness and, positively, in a potential and rudimentary goodness; by no means in the full perfection of human nature. Christ does infinitely more than restore our original state (cf. Wis 8:1). (Principal Edwards.)The second man In what sense is our Lord the second man? There were so many millions intervening between Him and Adam. The answer is that all the others were mere copies of the first; whereas Christ introduced a new kind of man, and became the head of a new family. I. The differences between Adam and Christ. There is a difference.1. Of origin. (1) The first man is of the earth, earthy.” (a) Whatever may be said of Adam’ s Divine parentage, according to his physical nature, he and his belong essentially to this earth; they are part of its fauna, and stand at the head of long lines of animal life, which, commencing with the lowest of sensitive creatures, find their highest term in man. All the materials of his physical life and being belong to the planet of which he is the chief inhabitant, of whose vital forces he is simply the highest outcome, the most elaborated product. (b) There are many who tell us that man is “ of the earth, earthy,” in the sense of being descended from the lower forms of animal life through the process of natural selection; but this can only be received as an hypothesis; yet there is nothing in it contrary to Scripture. If true it gives a new and most marvellous aspect to the Incarnation. Of course, if our ancestors were “ marine ascidians,” so were His; and thus we see Him in an unexpected sense, gathering together in one, and summing up in Himself all created life (Ephesians 1:10), and reuniting it unto God. I do not know why a Christian should be staggered at the thought of one unbroken continuity of life; for the great gap in the cycle of life, which seemed to be eternally impassable, was above man, not below him, and yet we know that this gulf which separated the highest creature by an infinite distance from the Creator was bridged by the condescension of the Son. (2) For the second man was the Lord from heaven. His origin was as distinctly Divine and heavenly as Adam’ s origin was earthy. 2. Of nature. This difference was not in wealth, happiness, beauty, nor in any of those things which ordinarily make one man superior to another, for in all these things Christ voluntarily placed Himself at a disadvantage; but it was in holiness. (1) Adam was a rebel, a sinner; and after him all we are the same. No doctrine of the Scripture is more confirmed by constant experience, or more in accordance with modern science than that of hereditary sin. For not only does every child afford a fresh example of the tendency to do wrong, but as the instinct by which the young bird feeds itself is the transmitted experience of its remote ancestors, so the mortal evil which began in Adam has become an inseparable characteristic of his race. (2) But Christ was not sinful. Coming into the world by a miraculous and immaculate conception, it was said to Mary, “ That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” ; and this holiness, which belonged to Him by virtue of His origin, He kept spotless amidst all the temptations of His earthly life. And what was the consequence of this holiness? This--that He was by right immortal and incorruptible, even as man; death and the grave could have no claim on One who had no sin. But did He not die? Yes, truly; but it was by His own permission. Being holy, although He was capable of death, it was not possible that He should be holden of it. I have seen some large insect fly into a spider’ s web, and the hungry spider has come forth with haste, thinking he has caught a finer prize than has fallen into his clutches for many a long day. But the prisoner is stronger than any for which the web was made; he gathers up his might, he throws himself hither and thither, he shakes the web violently, he rends it from top to bottom--he is gone, and has left the broken net and the baffled spider behind him. Even so death had spread his snares for the sons of men, and had caught them all one by one, and had held them fast; at last came the Son of Man, and He, too, died like men, and death and hell rejoiced together over their notable captive. But they did not rejoice long; their toils were not made for Him. The bands of death were to Him as the “ green withes” were to Samson. As the flush of morning comes back upon the earth, as the tints of spring return upon the trees, and we cannot say at what moment it begins, so did Christ rise, we know not when; it needed no effort nor preparation; it was as natural and proper to Him to live, to be abroad in the freedom of unfettered life, as it is for the dew to rise when the sun is warm. II. Christ is called the second adam because--1. He introduced into the world a new type, a new order of humanity--a child of man, indeed, but such a child of man as had never been seen before. He was the beau ideal of the human race; all that is noble and lovely in other human beings was united in Him, and all that is noble and lovely in our dreams and fancies about what human beings might be was realised in Him. You have heard of those tropical plants which are said to blossom but once in a hundred years, then, having thrown up a single spike of exquisite white blossom, to die. This (however exaggerated in fact) may serve to illustrate the relation of Christ to the human race: once, and once only, humanity blossomed up and put forth one exquisite faultless flower, in which its entire life culminated, in which all its possibilities were exhausted; that flower was Christ, the Son of Man, par excellence, the second man. 2. But Adam not only set a type, but he began a race, a series like himself, and thus he became the fountain-head of a guilty and perishing humanity. In like manner Christ began a new race, and became the fountain.head of a new regenerate human life, cleansing itself from sin, rising victorious over death. (R. Winterbotham, M.A.)The believer’ s pedigree 1. On the one side traced to Adam who is of the earth--on the other to Christ who is the Lord from heaven. 2. On the one side he derives an earthly nature, on the other a heavenly. 3. On the one side he is stamped with the features of the earthy, on the other with those of the heavenly. 4. On the one side he can claim no inheritance in the kingdom of God, on the other becomes heir of all things. (J. Lyth, D.D.)As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy.-- The earthy and the heavenly I. The earthy--frail, sensual, dying--can only produce his like. II. The heavenly--pure, spiritual, immortal--communicates His own nature by a new birth, to be consummated in the resurrection. (J. Lyth, D.D.)As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.-- The assimilation of Christians to the Redeemer I. The redeemer of the world is the heavenly.1. The Scriptures represent Him as the express character of God’ s person, the brightness of His glory. The perfections of the Divine nature indeed shine forth in all the works of creation; but there is a clearer and more glorious display of them all in “ God manifest in the flesh.” 2. His life and character demonstrate Him to be the Heavenly. II. The points of similarity between the heavenly and those with whom he stands connected.1. That we may be humble, contemplate the dissimilarity. There is in Him the complete perfection of those various graces and virtues of which, in the saints, there is only an extremely remote resemblance. 2. But although the dissimilarity be great, there is an obvious similarity. (1) In heavenliness of mind. A carnal Christian is a contradiction in terms.(2) In faith. Like Christ, they put their trust in their heavenly Father.(3) In being of a devotional spirit.(4) In humility.(5) In their conversation.(6) In active goodness. (T. Swan.)On heavenly-mindedness A soul chained down to earth is as little suited for the occupations of heaven as is a body framed of the dust for becoming the eternal tenement of a spirit that liveth for ever. Temper, in its widest acceptation, is the uniform frame of the mind; the disposition, which it partly derives from nature and partly from circumstance; but to which, in its better condition, it is principally reduced by Divine grace and by religious cultivation. Thought is a sudden conception or a process of the intellect, and the fitful spring of action. Passion is a desultory violence of the soul when roused by external impressions. Both thought and passion are subject to variations in the same breast, and both may have intervals of cessation. But disposition is the inward light--the permanent hue of the heart, which tinctures the moral complexion, and blends with the whole course of thought, action, passion and existence. What, then, is that spirit, that disposition, which prevails among the blessed above, and by imitating which we may humbly aspire to be joined to their high and holy association?1. In its reference to God it implies a spirit of devotion. To acquire the habit of contemplating, under all circumstances, the bond which connects earth with heaven, and of acknowledging the impulse which all the affairs of life are constantly receiving from an unseen arm: to discover providence where ignorance sees but chance, or where pride confesses only the power of man; to hear the voice of God in the accents of instruction; to trace His workmanship in the magnificence of Nature; to admire His beneficence throughout the varied year, whether crowned with blossoms or laden with sheaves--this is to imbibe the spirit of the heavenly; for the works and the wonders of Providence, we may rest assured, for ever occupy the meditations, the converse, and the praises, of the blessed, in the courts of light. 2. The temper and spirit of heaven may be considered, secondly, as it relates to our neighbour. Charity is the bond of union among the blessed above; all is there harmonious as the silent chime of the spheres. 3. It now remains to consider heavenly-mindedness in its immediate relation to ourselves. Humility is the pre-eminent virtue of the heavens. Another feature in the disposition which looks towards a heavenly prototype, and a feature relating to ourselves, is purity. The enjoyments of heaven, and the affections of its inhabitants, we may be sure, are unstained by the cloud or shadow of a thought that may suffuse the mind with the tinge of shame. But the crowning quality of temper, which at once unites and assimilates probationary mortals unto the multitude--the Sabaoth of heaven--is serenity. To this entire composure it cannot be expected that creatures such as we, in a state like that which we inherit, can attain. But here, too, though all may not be achieved or hoped, the task is not to be wholly relinquished. Some self-discipline is practicable; and what is practicable is what God expects. We have the treasury of grace for our feebleness--we have devotion as the key which unlocks it. (J. Grant, M.A.)As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. The image of the earthy and of the heavenly I. The image of the earthy.1. Sin.2. Sorrow.3. Death. II. The image of the heavenly.1. Holiness.2. Happiness.3. Life. (F. A. Cox, LL.D.)The attainment of the image of the heavenly The great hindrance to our reception of the full power of these words lies in the difficulty of realising them as a present experience. We fancy that death is the great magician. Paul contemplated the change as actually begun. We were once merely natural men, and knew nothing of the higher spiritual world. Then quickened by the grace of God in Christ we became spiritual. Thus because the quickening Spirit of Christ is forming His image in us now, the earthly shall perish, and we shall wear the image of the heavenly. Just as the flowers which open beneath the summer sunshine are folded in the dark buds which are beaten and tossed in the winter winds; just as the strength of will, the fire of feeling, etc., of a man are hidden in the child, so the heavenly life is within us now, and because it is there it is possible for us to reach the full formed image of the heavenly. I. The great aim of Christian aspiration--“ to bear the image,” etc. This is one of the deepest longings of the soul. We yearn for rest, for service, for happiness; but there is a deeper longing; we want to be holier, heavenlier men. This is also the all-embracing Christian aim. Every prayer for light, blessedness, strength, is gathered up and centred in the aim to be like Christ. Observe His image has three great features.1. Divine vision--the spiritual insight that realises the presence of God and the unseen world. It is true that we cannot see God and the radiance of eternity with the bodily eye; but were we like Christ, we should apprehend them through the sympathies of the soul. 2. Divine love. We admit the feebleness of our love to God, yet in many ways we aspire after a deeper love. What means our perpetual unrest, our constant effort after the unattained, etc., but the yearning after that love of God which alone can fill us, our longing after the image of Christ who realised it fully. 3. Divine power. II. The hindrance to its attainment. “ The image of the earthy,” i.e., the body of corruption whose tendency is--1. To limit aspiration to the earthy. 2. To become an aid to the sin of the soul. Conclusion:1. Our aspirations must be earnest and real. What we sincerely aspire to be we may become. 2. Our endeavour must be practical. Meditation alone will do but little. 3. God will aid us by the discipline of life. Many strokes may be needed; but as the form of immortal loveliness lies concealed in the block of stone, and is being moulded stroke by stroke by the sculptor’ s genius, so the heavenly form in man is being developed by the Eternal Sculptor, who by His discipline is unveiling in us the image of His Son. (E. L. Hull, B.A.)Perfection in heaven I. Wherein consists the image of the earthy.1. In innocent infirmities; hunger, thirst, weariness, etc., and the like. How unlike are we in this respect to the blessed who hunger no more, and thirst no more, and rest not day nor night. 2. In sinful imperfections, commonly expressed by the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of nature. 3. In the consequences. (1) The miseries of this life.(2) Death.(3) A liableness to suffer under the wrath and curse of God for ever. II. The respects in which true believers shall bear the image of the heavenly.1. In the glorious spirituality of the body. How vastly will it differ from what it now is (verses 42-44). 2. In the perfect holiness of the soul. 3. In complete happiness. 4. In immortality. (D. Whittey.)The believer’ s assimilation to Christ I. The characters here placed in contrast.1. The earthy.2. The heavenly. II. The fact assumed--“ that we have all borne,” etc.1. The first man is emphatically styled earthy (verse 47). (1) On account of his origin.(2) Because of his tendency.(3) Because of his apostasy. 2. But Christ is the heavenly One, because of-- (1) His pre-existence.(2) The moral beauty and glory displayed by Him while on earth. 3. Therefore it is said that we have borne the image of the earthy. 4. And not only because of this, but also because the first man’ s moral image has become characteristic of us. III. The promise in reference to believers. A perfect moral resemblance to Christ will be attained at the last day. (J. Scott.)Man’ s present and future I. Confirm the lamentable fact that, by nature, we all bear the image of the earthly. So says my text; so says my experience, the melancholy experience of all ages and nations; so witness our own feelings in the endurance of those ills to which mortality is subject. Behold it--1. In our bodies, which are earthly, frail, and tending to dissolution. What is that in the cold corpse which shocks the feelings of humanity, and harrows up the soul? It is the image of the earthly Adam! And ere long you shall bear it too. 2. We all bear this image in our souls. (1) Our souls are defiled with sin.(2) Our souls are exposed to Divine wrath, and thus bear the image of the earthly. II. Rejoice in the glorious truth that, as believers, we shall also bear the image of the Lord from heaven.1. It is first impressed upon us at the time of our regeneration. Effectual grace then gives a new bias to the mind, and the Father of the spirits of all flesh then makes us new creatures in Christ Jesus. The Saviour imparted to us the principle of grace; He made us, who before lived only for folly and sin, to pant after holiness as our noblest pursuit; to grasp after purity as our noblest attainment. 2. This image shall visibly discover itself through the whole course of the Christian’ s life, producing a happy effect upon his temper, his passions, his pursuits; it shall make him to speak, to look, to live, like the children of God. 3. This image shall be rendered more striking and glorious on the resurrection morning. (T. Spencer.) 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God I. The general law.1. This carries with it its own proof: for, obviously, darkness might as well become light, or death life, as that which is corrupt rise into the incorruptible. On this point St. Paul is earnest and absolute. The exception of 1 Corinthians 15:51 is only an apparent one. Those who are alive when Christ comes will nevertheless be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52). 2. Note the significance of this law. Flesh and blood is a Scripture term for the lusts and passions of our lower nature. Jewish readers would instantly apprehend its force. To them “ the blood was the life” ; and therefore it was shed in sacrifice. It was the seat of passion and desire, of all that is lawless and irregular; and therefore they were not permitted to partake of it. Their conception finds utterance to-day in such phrases as, “ His blood is up,” or, “ A hot-blooded fellow.” St. Paul uses the term here as the symbol of this life, these lusts, these corruptions, which cannot inherit incorruption. 3. Mark the different use of the phrases “ flesh and blood” and “ flesh and bones” in the New Testament. “ Flesh and blood” cannot inherit; the incorrupt and heavenly kingdom, but “ flesh and bones” may and do. After His resurrection Christ had flesh and bones (Luke 24:37-39); and Christians are “members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” (Ephesians 5:30). Christ’ s blood as the symbol of life has been shed for the redemption of the world: as the symbol of corruption, it is poured out, exhausted. “ Flesh and bones” may still be retained even when the natural becomes a spiritual body; but the life that pulses through it is that of a higher than mortal existence. II. The truths and hopes which underlie it.1. The truth for which St. Paul contends is not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body. Centuries before Christ the Greeks had believed that the souls of the departed survived the pangs of death. But these souls were not themselves, they were but their shades. Elysium was as thin and unsubstantial in its avocations and joys as the poor ghosts that tenanted it. And as nature shrinks from disembodiment, the Greeks were accustomed to offer rich garments on the tombs of heroes, if so be that, being thus clothed, they might not be found naked, and a Corinthian queen is said to have appeared to her husband after death, entreating him to burn dresses for her as a covering for her disembodied spirit. We may smile at all this, but none the less we are touched by this naive childish testimony to the universal dread of disembodiment, the universal desire to be clothed upon with some vesture whether of earth or heaven. To men gazing thus sadly into the future St. Paul’ s strong hearty words must have been as health to the sick. So, then, they were not to become disembodied spirits, but to be clothed upon with a body more exquisitely attuned to the faculties and energies of their spiritual life! 2. In our Lord’ s risen body we have the express type of the spiritual bodies we are to wear. (1) The body which His disciples recognised was essentially the same although it had undergone a mysterious change. What that change was St. Paul hints in the phrase, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Consequently we find that they did not instantly recognise Him when He came to them. They knew Him only as He was pleased to make Himself known. He was not bound by material laws. He is found present, no one knows from whence. He passes away, no one knows whither (John 20:19; Luke 24:31; Acts 1:9). In the person of Christ we see the whole man--body, soul, and spirit--raised from the grave. We see all the intelligent and passionate faculties of the soul held in perfect subjection to the higher claims of the spirit. The body is not simply restored to its pristine vigour and purity, but lifted To a higher and more spiritual pitch. It is not unclothed, but clothed upon. “ The corruptible has put on incorruption, the mortal has put on immortality.” (2) And this is the change that must pass on us, if indeed “ Christ be in us, the hope of glory.” Like Him we are to put on immortality and incorruption: not to break with the past, nor to lose our identity; not to be changed beyond our own recognition or that of our friends, but to be purged from the corruptible and baser elements of our nature, to be redeemed from our bondage to sense, and its laws; to be transfigured, that the spirit which Christ has quickened in us may dwell in a quick spiritual body--a body that shall not check, nor thwart, nor dull, but perfectly second and express, the untiring energies of our higher and renewed nature. As a man awaking for a moment from a mortal trance, so we may wake from the sleep of death, and say, nothing is lost, but, ah, how much gained! (S. Cox, D.D.)The change required that we may inherit the kingdom of God I. The kingdom intended.1. Not the kingdom of Christ on earth.2. But the kingdom of God in glory, which is heavenly and eternal. II. The unfitness of man for it.1. His nature is morally corrupt.2. Physically it is earthly and corruptible. III. The change necessary.1. A new birth.2. A resurrection. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Corporeal transformation Paul here speaks of a bodily transformation that is-- I. Indispensable (verse 50). “ Flesh and blood,” i.e., our mortal nature, cannot inherit the heavenly world. He does not say why--whether the state of the atmosphere, or the means of subsistence, or the force of gravitation, or the forms and means of vision, or the conditions of receiving and communicating knowledge, or the nature of the services required. “ Flesh and blood” can no more exist yonder, than the tenants of the ocean can exist on the sun-burnt hills. In such corporeal transformations there is nothing extraordinary, for naturalists point us to spheres of existences where they are as regular as the laws of nature. II. Certain (verse 51). “ Mystery” here does not point to the unknowable, but to the hitherto unknown, viz., that “ we shall all be changed.” “ We shall not all sleep.”1. Some will be living when the day dawns. “ As in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, they ate, they drank,” etc. 2. Both those who will be living and those who will be sleeping in the dust will undergo corporeal transformation. III. Instantaneous (verse 52). “ The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,” etc. IV. Glorious (verses 53, 54). The transformation is from mortality to immortality, from the dying to the undying; “ death will be swallowed up in victory.” The idea may be taken of a whirlpool or maelstrom that absorbs all that comes near it. (D. Thomas, D.D.)The necessity of the believer’ s resurrection arises I. Out of the nature of the kingdom of God, which is--1. Heavenly.2. Spiritual.3. Incorruptible.4. Divine.5. Holy. II. Out of the imperfection of the human body, which is--1. Earthly.2. Sensual.3. Corruptible.4. Sinful. III. Out of the purpose of God.1. It is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom.2. The body of flesh and blood cannot inherit it.3. Therefore it must be subject to a marvellous change. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.-- Corruption cannot inherit incorruption I. Corruption.1. Implies dissolution.2. Is on earth a natural law.3. Overtakes man in consequence of sin. 4. Includes decay, disease, death, decomposition. II. Incorruption.1. Implies immortality.2. Is the distinguishing feature of the heavenly world.3. Results from the immediate presence and power of God.4. Secures purity, happiness, immortal vigour, eternal life. III. The incompatibility of the two.1. Is obvious.2. Hence the absolute necessity of a change not only in man’ s moral but physical condition.3. To be effected in the resurrection.4. That man may inherit eternal life. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Behold, I shew you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all he changed. The mystery of the resurrection revealed I. The great change.1. Its nature. (1) The resurrection of the dead.(2) The transformation of the living. 2. When and how effected. (1) At the last trump.(2) In a moment.(3) By the power of God. 3. Its absolute certainty. II. The triumph.1. Death swallowed up in victory.2. Hence the exultation of the redeemed over death and the grave. III. The means of participation in it. The victory is--1. The free gift of grace.2. Through Christ.3. By the destruction of sin. IV. The practical lesson,1. Steadfastness.2. Abundant toil.3. Confident hope. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Change I. Our life on earth is full of change. Every hour brings changes and chances. The sun which rises to shine on happy children’ s faces, bright with laughter, sets over a desolate home. Have you ever seen the famous picture of “ The Railway Station” ? That, or the reality, will show you any day what “ a tangle” life is. There you will see youth and age, joy and sorrow, success and failure, hope and despair, going their several ways in the great journey of life. II. But the greatest change of all is yet to come. There will be a change--1. In our bodies. The poor, worn-out clothing of flesh which was laid in the grave to decay, will be no longer needed. As the trees are clad with new clothing in the spring-time, so will our souls be at the great spring-time of the Lord’ s coming. As the beggar forgets his rags when wrapped in soft raiment, so shall we doubtless forget our poor bodies, or remember them only as a dream when one awaketh. Here they are constantly getting out of repair. When we are changed, we may believe it will be always well with us in body. 2. In our minds and feelings. We shall be improved by the lessons we learn, just as we see a child altered by wise and careful schooling. The man of science has a world of knowledge and beauty open to him which the unlearned does not dream of. So in the school beyond there must be a still wider world of which the cleverest men know nothing. Then our mind, no longer warped by prejudice, will understand rightly; then “ we shall know even as we are known.” We shall see clearly what seemed so dark and perplexing before. We shall understand how some of God’ s dealings with us, which appeared so strange and hard, were the best of blessings for us. III. The change will be very great, but we ,shall be fitted for it. IV. The change will not make us feel lonely. In that land none are strangers. Sometimes when one is going to emigrate, I have asked him if he did not expect to feel very strange and lonely, and the answer was, “ Oh no, I have friends waiting for me there.” And so with us. V. Though the great change comes then, there must be a change in us now. Our most constant, prayer should be, “ Give me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.” (H. J. W. Buxton, M.A.)The final change This is one in which you will be, not merely spectators, but parties concerned. It is an event the most certain. It is a solemnity that is continually drawing near. Note-- I. The union there is among the followers of the redeemer. “ We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”1. Of the number of this universal Church, some “ sleep.” Death is often an alarming subject, and to reduce this dread we should do well to view it;as Scripture does as a departure--a going home--a sleep. Man is called to labour, and “ the sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much.” So Christians must “ work while it is day,” etc. But then they will “ rest from their labours.” Sleep is a state from which you may be easily awakened; and, lo!” all that are in their graves shall hear Christ’ s voice, and come forth.” 2. Many will be found alive. The earth’ s inhabitants will not be gradually consumed till none are left: the world will be full; and all the common concerns of life will be pursued with the same eagerness as before. And, “ as it was in the days of Noah,” etc. Many of the Lord’ s people too will be found alive; and perhaps they will be much more numerous than at any former period. II. In what manner will this be disposed of? “ We shall all be changed.” We are always varying now. But what a change is here from time to eternity, from earth to heaven, from the company of the wicked to the presence of the blessed God: from ignorance to knowledge; from painful infirmities to be “ presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!” But the change principally refers to the body: “ for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” etc. Enoch and Elias, though they did not die, passed through a change equivalent to death. The same change which will be produced in the dead by the resurrection will be accomplished in the bodies of the living by this transformation; and of this we have the clearest assurance (verses 42-44). III. The ease and despatch with which all this will be performed. “ In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” What a view does this give us of the dominion and power of God! Think of the numbers that will be alive--all these metamorphosed in one instant. And “ why should it be thought a thing incredible?” “ Is anything too hard for the Lord?” IV. The signal. “ At the last trump,” etc. When the Lord came down on Horeb to publish the law, “ the voice of the trumpet waxed exceeding loud.” By the sound of the trumpet the approach of kings has been announced. Judges in our country enter the place of assize preceded by the same shrill sound. And those who have witnessed the procession well know what an awe it impresses, and what sentiments it excites. Will the last trump call you to “ lamentation, and mourning, and woe” ? or will its language be, “ Lift up your heads with joy, for your redemption draweth nigh” ? Conclusion: He who will then be the Judge, is now the Saviour. He will then say to the wicked, “ Depart” --but He does not say so now to any--His language is, “ Come.” (W. Jay.)For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.-- The trumpet shall sound It is said when Lord Nelson was buried at St. Paul’ s Cathedral, all London was stirred. As the funeral procession passed on, it moved amid the sobbing of a nation. Thirty trumpeters stood at the door of the cathedral with musical instruments in hand, and when the illustrious dead arrived at the gates of St. Paul’ s Cathedral these thirty trumpeters blew one united blast; but the trumpets did not wake the dead. He slept right on. What thirty trumpets could not do for one man, one trumpet will do for all nations. The trumpet of judgment The blowing of trumpets at particular seasons was a statute for Israel. The trumpet was to be blown on the solemn feast day, to assemble the people together, to direct their march when the camp was to be moved, they were to be sounded over the burnt-offerings, and at the new moons, and when the year of jubilee arrived to proclaim liberty, also to summon the people to war. To this St. Paul alludes, when he says, “ If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” All this was typical of the trumpet of the gospel which is to resound till all are warned to flee from the wrath to come (Psalms 89:15). But there is another trumpet we must all hear. I. The manner of its sound.1. Sudden. Our Lord intimates this (Matthew 24:38, etc.). The destruction of Jerusalem was a fit representation of this, it was awfully sudden. When the trumpet sounds to judgment there shall be the giddy and profane pursuing their unhallowed pleasures. In a moment! in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet shall sound! Oh! to be found watching, waiting, praying, ready. “ Blessed is that servant who, when his Lord cometh, shall be found so doing.” 2. Universal. It shall re-echo in heaven, reach every corner of earth, and penetrate the dark abyss of hell. Every soul shall hear it that ever lived in the world from the days of Adam to the period when the last infant shall be born, the king and the peasant, the righteous and wicked, etc. You who dislike the sound of the gospel; you who neglect the great salvation; you, formal professor, and self-righteous pharisee; you, hypocrite with the mask of religion--all must hear it. 3. Final. It is the close of all things the termination of our probation. There is a period when you shall hear of salvation, when you shall attend the sanctuary, when you shall read the Bible and surround the sacramental table for the last time. II. The import of its accents. The Sound shall proclaim--1. The end of time. How solemn the thought! Now we have the seasons in regular succession, times of business, recreation, devotion, etc. But soon time shall be no longer. The river of time will be emptied in the ocean of eternity. Oh! then, now seize it, and sail in the ship of the gospel, and you shall be safely conducted by the Divine Pilot till you glide safely into an ocean of bliss, that knows not the ruffle of a wave. 2. The resurrection of the dead. 3. The approach of the Judge. It shall be glorious. How unlike His first advent. The scene will be majestic beyond description. How great the designs of His coming! Not to present an atoning sacrifice, but to hold the last assize. He shall come to explain the mysteries of His providence, to display the riches of His grace, in the consummation of the happiness of His people, to vindicate His justice in the everlasting destruction of His foes. III. The solemnity of its results.1. The final triumphs of the righteous. 2. The eternal punishment of the wicked. (Ebenezer Temple.)The resurrection I. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpet? That this will announce our Saviour’ s coming to judgment is frequently asserted (Matthew 24:31; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). As at the giving of the law, so at the judging of men according to that law, God shall cause some such sound to be uttered as shall be heard over the whole world, and summon all men to appear before His judgment-seat, and when this sounds then shall the dead be raised. II. Who are those dead that shall be raised at the sound of this trumpet?1. There is a threefold life: natural, the union of the soul to the body; spiritual, the union of Christ to the soul; eternal, the communion of the soul with God. Answerable to this there is a threefold death. (1) Natural, when the soul and body are divorced from one another. (2) Spiritual, which is the separation of the soul from Christ. Though many by grace are redeemed from this, yet all by nature are subject to it. And as all by nature are subject to it, so do most by practice still lie under it. Dead as to all sense of sin, as to all spiritual graces, as to all heavenly comforts, as to that life of faith which the children of God are quickened with. (3) Eternal, the separation of the soul from God; and you that lie under the spiritual death of sin must either get yourselves quickened by the life of faith in Christ, or else except by eternal death to be separated from the Lord of Life. 2. Which of these shall be raised? All of them, and yet it is the naturally dead which are chiefly to be understood here. III. How shall the dead be raised? When the trumpet shall sound by the power of the most high God, every man’ s body being made fit to receive its soul, the soul shall immediately be united to it, and so we, even the very self-same persons that now we are, shall be raised to answer for what we have done here. IV. How doth it appear that the dead shall thus be raised?1. From Scripture (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29; Matthew 22:31-32). 2. From reason. (1) Christ has been raised. (2) The soul is immortal, and it is against all reason that one essential part of man should be continued in its being, and the other should be turned to nothing. (3) Justice requires that they that are co-partners in vice and virtues should be co-partners also in punishments and rewards. Though a sin would not be a sin without the soul, yet it would not be committed without the body. The body could not sin unless the soul consented; the soul would not sin so often unless the body tempted. V. How shall they be raised incorruptible? The apostle here treats of principally the resurrection of the saints, who shall be raised incorruptible.1. In their souls, which being wrought up into an exact conformity to the will of God, will be emptied of all corruptions, and blessed with all perfections. 2. In body. As our souls shall be void of all corruptions, so shall our bodies be of all imperfections, for these our vile bodies shall be made like unto Christ’ s glorious body. What is sown a natural shall be raised a spiritual body; it shall not any longer be a clog to us in the performance of duties to God; but it shall be as quick, agile, and subservient as if it was advanced beyond the degree of a body, and had commenced a soul. 3. In their happiness. There shall be no crosses in their relations, no losses in their possessions, no disgrace in their honours, no fears in their preferments, no irregularities in their affections, no sorrow in their joys, no darkness in their light, not one drop of misery in the whole ocean of happiness they shall enjoy. VI. What is meant by we shall be changed? There will be a change in--1. Our opinions. We shall think otherwise of most things. Here we are apt to look upon sin as amiable, and grace as not desirable; but then we that once esteemed all things before God, shall look upon God as to be esteemed above all things. 2. Our conditions. A Dives in this may become a Lazarus in the other world; and a Lazarus here, a Dives there. (Bp. Beveridge.) 1 Corinthians 15:53-57 For this corruptible must put on incorruption.The great change The apostle presents this-- I. As a contrast betwixt what man now is and what he will be.1. Twice over the apostle affirms the change from corruptible to incorruption, and from mortal to immortality; first as a matter of necessity, then as a matter of fact. Four times over, also, he uses the same word, translated “ put on,” which means, to “ go into,” as into a place of covering or shelter; and hence to go into one’ s clothes, to attire, to array one’ s self or others in garments, ornaments, or the like (2 Corinthians 5:2). 2. Death, then, is a mere “ unclothing” of the man, and if there is any propriety in the analogy the “ unclothing” leaves him in possession of the full integrity of his being: he has simply stripped off his garments, and for a season laid them aside. It is still competent for him to resume them, or to array himself in different attire; and on reinvestment he cannot be other than he was before. Very great may the change be betwixt the “ clothing” before death and that which is “ put on” at the resurrection, but the language of the apostle implies that its use and purpose in both cases are the same. 3. Then, again, the apostle informs us, twice over, that that which in the one state is corruptible and mortal, becomes in the other state incorruptible and immortal. The thing is the same in both states, but placed under different conditions. At present it is organised matter, liable to decay, injury, and dissolution; but that same organised matter will be found in a state of “ incorruption” and “ immortality.” II. As a victory over death and the grave.1. The words mean properly “ unto victory” ; the idea being that the process of extermination goes on like a battle that is waged until a triumphant victory is secured--that is, “ aye and until” death is totally abolished. Death at the resurrection is destined to be cast, like a stone, into an abyss, so profound that it never will be brought up or appear again. 2. Death is compared to a venomous reptile which has wounded its victims and introduced into their body its deadly poison. Dissolution, it is true, does not immediately follow the implanting of the sting, but there is pain and anguish, and death ensues in due course of time. And then comes the victory of the grave, or Hades. Like a resistless conqueror, it lays hold of those whom death has prostrated, consigns the body to the house appointed for all living, and the soul to the mysterious condition of disembodied consciousness. Well may this be called a victory, for nothing can be conceived of as a more complete overthrow of human hopes and desires; but introduce the idea of resurrection and it is plain the victory passes over to the other side. The conqueror is despoiled of his triumph; and from being a victim, sin-ruined and dying man, restored to that high standard of corporeal life for which he was originally designed, is in his turn a conqueror, all the more distinguished and glorious that his triumph lasts for ever. III. As a boon for which gratitude ought to be felt and thanks returned. Gratitude is the appropriate sequel of benefits bestowed and appreciated. But to realise to the full the emotion of gratitude of which the apostle here speaks, we must actually close with and appropriate the glorious boon. This is the office of faith. None are excluded from the offers of the gospel: all are invited to partake of its blessed privileges; and however great and precious these privileges may be, so far as the present world is concerned, the actual consummation is the resurrection of the body and a portion in the kingdom of God. When the wilderness journey was over, and the wars of the settlement in Canaan at an end, how gladsome would every household be and every heart in Israel as they sat down each one under his vine and fig-tree, and none to make them afraid! But this was only a type of far more glorious things to come, when the epoch of sorrow and death is over, and the entire company of God’ s redeemed enters upon the long-promised inheritance. (J. Cochrane, M.A.)The celestial body of a Christian after the resurrection I. The grounds of the belief of a Christian concerning this change of a corruptible and mortal into an incorruptible ann immortal body. I appeal to all sensible men whether that God, who is the Author of motion, by which all alterations in bodies are made, who brought this goodly frame of the world out of an heap of indigested matter, who formed the body of Adam out of the dust, who has so framed nature, that a spring of vegetables should succeed their death in winter; who caused even the dry rod of Aaron to bud, and blossom, and bring forth almonds; who has given skill and power to men, by fire and other natural causes, to open and refine the grossest bodies; whether that God who hath done these great things is not able to put together the parts of an humane body which He made, contrived, and formerly joined, and to advance the frame of it from grossness to purity. To think He is not is next to no thinking at all, and it is to reproach God’ s power and knowledge and wisdom. It is more than barely credible, it is certain, that God who can do all this will at last do it because He has said He will. II. The consequence of this belief is very comfortable; for great and many are the advantages derived to Christians by being clothed with a celestial body. There is scarce a comparison to be admitted betwixt this earthly body and that which shall be at the ascension of Christians. They differ more than the least and dimmest star, and the brightest and greatest luminary in the firmament of heaven. The happiness derived from the change of a natural to a spiritual body consisteth in a deliverance--1. From the grossness of the former, as it is a body of this flesh and blood. 2. From the disorderly motions of it, as it is a corruptible body. 3. From the perishing nature, decay, and fall of it, as it is both a corruptible and mortal body. III. What shall we do that we may come at these several great advantages of living at last in an heavenly body? The way to have better bodies is to have more virtuous souls. God hath put us into this body, as into the habit of a pilgrim on earth, as probationers for a more excellent clothing. And, according to our patience, our self-denial, our keeping the body in subjection to the mind, our governing the appetites and passions of it, so shall the resurrection and ascension of it be. (Abp. Tenison.)This mortal must put on immortality.-- The mortal immortalised Those who take thought for immortality are divided into two schools, the sensuous and the spiritual. The one picture to themselves a heaven of physical blessedness, a glorified earth--immortality only the state of the well-developed mortal! The other class regard heaven as a state utterly unlike the mortal--where the soul shall exist in the transcendental majesty of a risen spirit rather than as a redeemed and yet veritable man in Christ Jesus. Now both of these notions are alike unphilosophic and unscriptural. The text teaches not transubstantiation, but transfiguration--a change not of an essence, but only of aspects--and gives us twofold data for solving the problem of the after state. I. The identity of the immortal creature with the mortal. Though at death we are unquestionably to lose whatever belongs only to this rudimental life--as the chrysalis drops the exuviae in developing the wings--yet all faculties and functions essentially human are to be ours for ever.1. Even in regard of the body is this strictly true. Whatever may be the bliss of the intermediate state yet reason and revelation alike declare it to be unnatural, and so imperfect. Death, self-considered, cannot be a benefit. It is not a step in a progress--it is an interruption, a judicial infliction, God’ s curse upon sin. Indeed, how the soul can act when divested of this body we cannot understand. And therefore from the dust, as a trophy of the mediatorship, is to be reconstructed a new body like Christ’ s, to be part of the redeemed and immortal man. 2. This identity is more manifestly true in regard to the mind. Even as a philosophic inquiry there appears no reason why death should work any change in our rational nature. Accepting immortality as a simple matter of faith we should expect that, as the last enemy rocked its dwelling into dust, it would emerge from the ruins with all its peculiar habits of thought, and at precisely its attained point of progress. 3. And so with the affections. There is no stranger mistake than that which regards these as the specialities of the present life. The heart is among the most indestructible elements of our being. Pure intellect, unsoftened by affection, is simply monstrous. Entering heaven with our logic intensified and our love gone, our sympathies would be fiendish. In this respect “ the mortal does put on immortality.” Said our Saviour, standing by the beloved dead with the sisters of Bethany, “ He shall rise again ‘ your brother’ still.” Death annihilates no pure affection wherein a Christian heart rejoices. “ The water of life” is no Lethe of forgetfulness. Death, then, does not destroy nor mutilate the mortal. The immortal creature will be man with a human body, a human intellect, a human heart. II. The marvellous and all-glorious transfiguration of that nature. The word “ immortality” is a simple negative. There are things for which human language can have no name. While we remain mortal, inspiration can only describe the future in negatives.1. The body shall be the same with eye to see and tongue to speak, but as the seed is transfigured into the queenly flower, so great shall the change be. With what new senses and organs it may be furnished God hath not told us. In this very chapter Paul seems struggling under the burden of the magnificent description--“ It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.” And what notion can we form of incorruptible matter? “ It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory.” The body, a house of leprosy, with all its senses instruments of temptation, is to be reconstructed into a palace of the higher life--fashioned like Christ’ s glorious body! “ It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” This poor, imperfect instrument of the intellect, requiring constant care lest it be injured by the using, shall be changed into a mighty and imperishable engine wherewith to work out unwearied the grand ministrics of eternity! “ It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Its material elements, no longer controlled by material inertia, impenetrability, and attraction, but (like Christ’ s raised body, which could pass closed doors and float up to the firmament) shall be the equipment of the soul when it would explore the mysteries of creation and traverse immensity in adoring contemplation. 2. If the dwelling-place be thus glorified what a transfiguration must await the spirit inhabitant! This intellect, how it sometimes towers and triumphs! What discoveries it hath made! Milton’ s song! Newton’ s march through the universe! Yet all this was the mortal; the doings of the cradled child with its playthings. And who shall tell us, then, of the child’ s manhood? 3. But unto man’ s heart rather than to his head shall be accorded the loftiest prizes of eternity! To think of that (while unchanged in all its gentle, blessed, earthly affections) putting on immortality, is the highest conception we can form of man’ s kingship and priesthood in the city of God. (C. Wadsworth.)Mortality and immortality I. We are mortal. As a simple statement of truth, this proposition needs neither proof nor illustration. If it did, the one might be found in the churchyard, the other in the sighs of the mourner. But while we all know and acknowledge the fact of our mortality, it is strange how seldom we consider it, how little we are affected by it. Those among us who are the most devoted to pleasure are universally found to be the most regardless of death. This can be accounted for only on the supposition that they think not at all, either of mortality or immortality, that sensual pleasure is an opiate powerful enough to lull every anxiety, to preclude every solemn reflection. And yet it seems incomprehensible how any thinking being should be able to shut his eyes to the fact that he is dying. The world is full of death, from the first and feeblest efforts of life, up to its most perfect examples. II. We are immortal; and it is from this second fact in our destinies that death derives most of its solemnity, and all its moral force. It is fearful to think that this very spirit, busied now with trifles, must continue to exist, busied with something, for ever and ever. Mere fatigue may lull the most wretched here into the repose of a little slumber; but when this mortal shall put on immortality, there shall be no opiate for ever and ever to soothe the spirit’ s sorest anguish, not even a troubled dream to vary the uniformity of torture. The spirit may prey for ever on itself, but shall never be consumed--it may weep and wail for ever, without wailing itself to rest. III. The change between the present and future conditions of man will not destroy the identity either of his person or character. There is no alchemy in death to distil charitable and holy dispositions from the gross elements of selfishness and malignity--in it there is no purgatorial fire to change our base metal into refiner’ s gold. As the soul enters the troubled waters of dissolution, so must it pass out of them on the other side, bearing that very transcript of character which time and the world have written on it. Are we striving, then, day by day, incessantly, to lay the restraints of godliness on our naturally rampant corruption? Are we watching and praying to guard our hearts from temptation by all the defences of piety and devotion? (W. Stevenson.)The mind exchanging the mortal for the immortal Paul uses this language in relation to the body, but it may be useful to apply it to the mental and moral part of human nature. To-- I. Systems of thought. All errors of judgment are mortal and must perish. And what system of human thought is not intermixed with ideas not true? Look at systems--1. Of philosophy. Many have already died out because of their errors; and existing systems because they are often contradictory reveal their errability, and consequently must die. The sensational, idealistic, mystic, and eclectic schools are all shifting as the clouds. It will not be always so; the true must take the place of the false in the realm of thought. 2. Of theology. How contradictory are most of them to each other and to some of the most vital things embodied in the life and teachings of Jesus. Many have died; some are dying; and all will sooner or later die. Human souls will one day have the “ truth as it is in Jesus.” “ Our little systems have their day. They have their day and cease to be.” II. Elements of human character. Analyse the character of unrenewed men, and you will find moral principles that must die out if there be a God of justice and benevolence in the universe--e.g., avarice, envy, pride, malice, ambition, and selfishness. The human mind was never formed to be influenced by these. The fact that they are antagonistic to the moral constitution of the human soul, to the character of God, and to the order and well-being of all, show that they must sooner or later die. Human souls will one day put off this mortal and “ put on” the immortal; “ Righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost,” etc. III. Institutions of human life.1. Our political institutions are mortal. Human governments are constantly dying. The unwisdom in their method of management, the unrighteousness of some of their laws, the haughtiness of those in power, and their constant fattening upon the overtaxed millions give mortality to governments. Man will one day put off these and put on the government of common sense, common justice, common benevolence. Men are craving not for the aristocratic or democratic, but for the theocratic, the reign of God, which is the reign of honesty and love. 2. Our ecclesiastical institutions are mortal. Whether they are Papal, Episcopal, Wesleyan, or Congregational, they are more or less mixed with error and must die. IV. Types of human greatness. Some see the highest greatness in the millionaire, some in the triumphant conqueror, some in a monarch, some in ancestry and high-sounding titles. But such types of greatness agree neither with the reason nor the conscience of humanity. Because they are false they are mortal, and they will have to be exchanged for the immortal. The time will come when men will regard Christ as the only true type of greatness. Conclusion: What a glorious change awaits humanity! St. Paul speaks of the resurrection of the body. But there is a more glorious resurrection--a resurrection of the soul from the false, the unrighteous, the impure, to the true, the right, and the holy. (D. Thomas, D.D.)So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption … Death is swallowed up in victory.--Death is contemplated I. As an enemy. Because it--1. Interferes with human happiness.2. Divides us from our friends, etc.3. Separates soul and body. II. As an enemy that must be fought.1. All must die.2. The struggle is often bitter and painful.3. Must be maintained by faith, etc. III. As an enemy that shall re utterly destroyed.1. In the resurrection to eternal life.2. By Jesus Christ. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Death swallowed up 1. The death of sin in the life of grace.2. The death of the body in the hope of life.3. The corruption of death in incorruption. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Death swallowed up in victory The victory is-- I. Glorious.1. The body rises.2. Is clothed with immortality. II. Is complete. There is no more sickness--pain--death. III. Triumphant.1. Christ celebrates the triumph of His grace.2. Saints participate in it. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Death swallowed up in victory It is a dreadful sight to see an army routed and flying. But in my text is a worse discomfiture. It seems that a black giant proposed to conquer the earth. He gathered for his host all the aches and pains and maladies of the ages. He threw up barricades of grave-mound. He pitched tent of charnel-house. Some of the troops marched with slow tread, commanded by consumptions: some in double-quick, commanded by pneumonias. Some he took by long besiegement of evil habit, and some by one stroke of the battle-axe of casualty. He won all the victories in all the battle-fields. Forward, march! the conqueror of conquerors; and all the generals, presidents, and kings, drop under the feet of his war charger. But one Christmas night his antagonist was born. As most of the plagues and sicknesses and despotisms came out of the East it was appropriate that the new conqueror should come out of the same quarter. Power is given Him to awaken all the fallen of all the centuries. Fields have already been won, but the last day will see the decisive battle. When Christ shall lead forth His two brigades, the risen dead and the celestial host, the black giant will fall back, and the brigade from the riven sepulchres will take him from beneath, and the brigade of the descending immortals will take him from above, and “ death shall be swallowed up in victory.” (T. De Witt Talmage, D.D.)Victory over death Here is-- I. A formidable enemy. Death, “ the last enemy.” Death is here personified and represented as a devouring being, swallowing up all the generations of men. “ Death reigned from Adam to Moses” ; witness its ravages! Death is an enemy--certain, solemn, universal, and sometimes sudden. See Rachels weeping for their children. II. A powerful conqueror. God the Saviour. Death could not be conquered but by death. Oh how costly was that victory! the Lord of life suffered and died, and ascended into heaven leading death captive and triumphing over it as our surety and representative. III. A complete victory. “ Death is swallowed up in victory,” or for ever swallowed, abolished, destroyed in victory, or into victory. Christ has secured the immortality of the body--delivered from death and the grave; an entire destruction of the empire of death (Revelation 20:14; John 11:25-26). After you have died you never can have the conflict again. Remember it is the last enemy; the cup of trembling shall no more be put into the hand, for “ there will be no more death” ; the inhabitants shall no more say they are sick; all tears shall be wiped away (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:4). There shall exist nothing but eternal life. “ Because I live ye shall live also.” Thus every enemy is put down. (J. Boyd.)Triumph over death I. What is it to triumph over death?1. Negatively. (1) Not to die as the brutes, without any appreciation of what death is.(2) Not to die as sceptics who do not believe in a future state.(3) Nor as the stoics who submit in silence to an unavoidable evil. 2. Positively it implies-- (1) An intelligent apprehension of what it is for a man to die.(2) A scriptural and well-founded persuasion that the power of death to injure us is destroyed.(3) A joyful assurance that to die is gain. II. The way in which the power of death is destroyed.1. It is only so far as death is a final evil, and as it separates us from God, that it is to be dreaded. 2. Therefore it is only to sinners, and on account of sin, that death is the king of terrors. 3. Sin, however, derives its power from the law, which gives sin its power to condemn. 4. What, therefore, satisfies the law destroys the power of sin, and thus deprives death of its sting. 5. Christ having satisfied the demands of the law gives us the victory over death. III. How are we to avail ourselves of this provision for our triumph?1. We must be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. 2. We must know that we are in Him. 3. We must be prepared to give up the treasures and pleasures of this life for heaven. 4. We must therefore live near to God and elevated above the world. IV. The experience of God’ s people.1. Some die in doubt.2. Some in praise.3. Some in triumph. It matters little, provided we are only in Christ. But it is of great moment that when death comes we shall have nothing to do but die. (C. Hedge, D.D.)The believer’ s triumph I. Our bodies, in the present state of existence, are characterised by attributes of degradation. Our bodies bear many circumstances of dignity and grandeur. We are “ fearfully and wonderfully made” ; and there is that in every man which may lead us to see that he bears the image of God. But we are-- 1. Corruptible. 2. Mortal. We are subject to innumerable diseases and accidents to languor and decline. We wear down by slow degrees, or are snapped asunder in a moment. 3. What is the reason that we are subject to such an allotment? The answer is, sin (Romans 5:1-21.). We cannot look on one grave that was not opened by sin, nor on one body that was not laid low by sin. II. A period is ordained when our bodies are to be invested with principles of restoration. If we could look on no prospect but the tomb, then we might freely admit that human existence, with all its circumstances of joy, would yet be but misery. But by the gospel “ life and immortality” are “ brought to light.” Notice three things in reference to this change.1. The agency by which it is to be effected. All those events which concern our acceptance and final salvation are committed to Christ. As He has made peace by the blood of atonement, and as He is the medium of all grace and blessing, so by Him is to be the great adjudication which shall fix our destiny. Divine must be His attributes at whose bidding all the graves shall uncharnel, and all their countless inhabitants stand before Him. 2. The attributes of which it is to consist. By connecting the attributes of incorruption and in, mortality with the resurrection, we may be furnished with two ideas respecting our future change. It is to consist-- (1) Of an entire conformation to the image of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:49). (2) In an introduction to the perpetuity of perfect happiness. Eternal life is only another word for eternal happiness. 3. The certainty with which it is invested. “ In Christ shall all be made alive.” “ This corruptible must put on incorruption.” III. The arrival of this period shall be known as one of splendid triumph. By a fine poetic figure death is set forth as a powerful foe; and all the pains, etc., which death has inflicted are to be regarded as so many victories achieved by him. But there is a counter foe; and there is a victory achieved over this formidable foe. Glorious will be that victory!(1) A sufficient payment for all the trials of mortality. (2) A complete and satisfactory explanation of all the dark passages in the moral government of God upon earth. When all the redeemed shall join in one loud melodious song--“ Unto Him that loved us,” etc. Conclusion: The subject furnishes--1. A ground of substantial consolation while we contemplate the departure of our Christian friends. 2. A ground for solemn and serious examination as to our state in reference to the arrival of that solemn hour. (J. Parsons.)The Christian’ s triumph over death I. Death may naturally be considered as an enemy. II. True Christians shall obtain a complete victory over death.1. The victory is in some measure obtained even in the present life. Death hath now, in effect, changed its nature, it only hurts the body, not the soul it only puts an end to those pursuits, employments, and entertainments which are suited to the body and this present world, but not to those about which holy souls are engaged, and with which they are delighted and improved. Nay, it is become, on many accounts, a benefit; as it puts an end to their temptations and conflicts, doubts and fears. A present victory is obtained by the calmness with which the saints die; and that joy unspeakable and full of glory, with which the Spirit of Christ sometimes replenishes their hearts, when the flesh is sinking into the dust. 2. The victory shall be perfected in the future world. (1) All the faithful servants of Christ shall be raised again.(2) Their bodies shall be transformed into the image of Christ’ s body.(3) They shall be fixed in a state of complete and everlasting happiness. Reflections:1. Let us contemplate the power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so illustriously displayed in this triumph over death. 2. Let us reflect on the difference between good and bad men with regard to the consequences of death. 3. Lastly, let the servants of Christ be calm and resigned in the view of their own death, and when their pious friends are removed. (J. Orton.) 1 Corinthians 15:55-58O death, where is thy sting?O grave, where is thy victory? Death in idea There are two aspects in which this language might be regarded.1. As the sentiment of the redeemed after the resurrection. Literally, then, death will have lost its sting, and the grave its victory. 2. As the expression of an exultant sentiment which the apostle felt even now, and which may be enjoyed by all true Christians. This is the view that we now adopt. Death was to the apostle, as yet, an idea, and it is worthy of our notice that death affects us, while living, only in idea. It is a friend or foe--victim or victor--according to our mental conception. If our ideas be gloomy, it will cloud the sunshine of life; but if bright, we shall spend our days in cheerful usefulness, and view the grave as a lumined pathway to an immortal future. The passage suggests-- I. The popular idea. It is implied that the bulk of men viewed not death as the writer did. The popular idea--1. Has a “ sting.” The allusion is to some venomous serpent, having not merely mortality, but agony, in his sting. There is no idea that stings an ungodly man like that of death. 2. A “ victory.” It not only stings like a serpent, but crushes like a conqueror not merely the body but the soul--the man. Some are all their lifetime subject to bondage through this idea. The boldest worldling cowers and turns pale before it. Hence on deathbeds princely fortunes have been offered for its postponement. Dr. Johnson was the slave of this idea. 3. A felt connection with sin. The sinner’ s sense of guilt will be according to his knowledge of law, and the terror of death will be according to his sense of guilt. The apostle means either that sin is the cause of death, or the cause of the poignancy of the idea. Both facts are equally true, but the latter is most to our present purpose. It is felt guilt that gives a “ sting” and “ victory” to the idea of dying. All that is horrific in the idea starts from a sin-stricken conscience. Such, then, is the popular idea of death. Wherever Christianity is not received, you find it. Hence it is pictured as a cruel hunter laying snares for men; an horrific angel, with a cup of poison in his hand; a gaunt and ghastly skeleton; a mower, with his scythe, cutting down every blade in the field of humanity; and sometimes a king of terrors, treading empires in the dust. II. The Christian idea.1. Has neither sting nor victory. “ Where is thy sting?” “ Where is thy victory?” They once existed, but are gone. 2. Instead of sting and victory, has rapture and triumph. “ Thanks be unto God,” etc. The victor has become the victim--the anguish of the sting has given place to the ecstacy of the song. 3. Comes to man through one medium. The old idea of death has given way to this, not through the philosophies or religions of the world, but through Christ. (1) How does Christ give this idea? The common answer is, by taking away the sense of guilt, and bringing “ life and immortality to light.” This chapter suggests, by awakening in the soul a new spiritual life. No intellectual conviction could ever plant this ides in a soul “ dead in trespasses and sin.” (2) But how does a new spiritual life do this? Because it involves-- (a) A stronger sympathy with the Arbiter of our destiny than with any other being--a moral oneness with that God in “ whose hands our breath is, and before whom are all our ways.” Where this is not, there can never be anything but gloom in death: a dread of God must give a dread of death. (b) A stronger sympathy with the spiritual than the material. Wherever the attachments of life are on the material, the idea of death must ever be distressing, on account of the separations it involves; but where the most sympathy is with the “ unseen and eternal,” death will be regarded, not as severing connections, but as uniting them in closer and dearer fellowship, and will therefore be joyously welcomed. (c) A stronger sympathy with the future world than the present. Where there is a stranger sympathy with the present world than the future, the idea of severance must ever be painful; but where it is otherwise, the event will be hailed. (3) Now, this spiritual life comes to man through Christ. To give it was the object of His mission. “ I am come that ye might have life,” etc. What, indeed, could give a controlling sympathy with the Eternal but Christ’ s revelations of His infinite love? What could remove guilt from the conscience, but faith in His sacrifice? What could awaken a generous sympathy with the spiritual and the future but His disclosures of the “ many mansions” ? His doctrines, works, example, death, spirit, all are to quicken the spirit in this new life. Conclusion: The subject supplies-- 1. An argument for the value of Christianity. The world’ s idea of death is a miserable one: whatever mind it possesses, it paralyses. Christianity alone can destroy this idea, and help man to meet his fate with a halcyon soul. 2. A criterion of character. What is your idea of death? Are you its victim or its victor? I take this to be a testing question. Fear of death is heathenism, not Christianity. (D. Thomas, D.D.)No sting in death I. What is this “ sting of death”? It is not So much any actual pain in dying. We go through greater pains very often during life. It lies in--1. The parting. The very thought of being separated from those we love is anguish. 2. The general dread of the unknown. No hand to clasp! No voice to hear! However we have lived, it will be a solitary thing to die. 3. A sense of shame. “ I am ashamed to meet some whom I shall see again. I am ashamed to give up a life so little used, so sadly wasted!” 4. The sense of actual sin. “ I am going to a God I have offended, and whose law I have broken. Must He not in very justice cast me out?” And where shall I go? What suffering do I not richly deserve? And the fear rankles in the breast, and conscience wakes up its phantoms and its horrors. II. Its cure. The whole “ sting” of sin, and therefore the whole “ sting of death,” passed into Christ, and death is left stingless to all who believe and accept Him. See the actual results.1. Parting? It is nominal. Death does not change or interfere with the communion of saints. For a little while the departed are invisible, but they will very soon be visible again. 2. The darkness cannot be. If He is there who is the light, how can there be darkness? 3. How can the passage be lonely? “ When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee.” And are we not attended by angels? 4. And shame, Am I not clothed in His perfect righteousness? And Jesus is with me. Where is the shame? And be my sins what they may, they are cast into the depths of the sea; they will not be mentioned; they are no more. 5. And what room can there be for fear? “ Fear thou not, for I am with thee.” (J. Vaughan, M.A.)The sting of death extracted The reason I like the gospel is that it has taken out of my path the worst enemies I ever had. My mind goes back to twenty years ago, before I was converted, and I think very often how dark it used to seem at times as I thought of the future. There was death! what a terrible enemy it seemed! I was brought up in a little village in New England. It was the custom there when a person was buried to toll out the age of the man at his funeral. I used to count the strokes of the bell. Death never entered that village, and tore away one of the inhabitants, but I always used to count the tolling of the bell. Sometimes it would be away up to seventy, or between seventy and eighty; beyond the life allotted to man, when man seemed living on borrowed time when cut off. Sometimes it would be clear down in the teens and childhood, for death had taken away one of my own age. It used to make a solemn impression on me; I used to be a great coward. When it comes to death, some men say, “ I do not fear it.” I feared it, and felt terribly afraid when I thought of the cold hand of death feeling for the cords of life, and thought of being launched into eternity, to go to an unknown world. I used to have dreadful thoughts of God; but they are all gone now. Death has lost its sting. And as I go on through the world I can shout now, when the bell is tolling, “ O death, where is thy sting?” And I hear a voice come rolling down from Calvary: “ Buried in the bosom of the Son of God.” He robbed death of its sting; He took away the sting of death when He gave His own bosom to the stroke. (D. L. Moody.)The conquest of death I. Wherein it consists.1. Christ has overcome death; delivers them that were in bondage through fear of death; takes away the sting in the article of death. 2. Has conquered the grave by His resurrection, and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. II. How it is secured.1. By faith in Christ, which destroys sin and satisfies the law. 2. By abounding in the work of the Lord. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Victory over death I. It is from actual sin that death derives his power. We speak of death as coming in the course of nature; but it is a penal infliction, and pertains to man, not as a creature, but as a sinner. But for sin, death had never been. I have no doubt that from the mind of Christ when He was on earth, this association was never absent. In all the temporal woes which He witnessed, He saw sin. If this association were more strongly and habitually in our minds we should benefit more than we do by scenes of death and visits to the grave. Every time we are reminded of our mortality we ought to be reminded of our sinfulness and the consequent value to us of salvation, III. It is from conscious sin that death derives his terrors. I grant there is something that awes the spirit in the unknown sensations of dying, in the dissolution of soul and body, in the dissolution of the ties that connect us with friends, and in the darkness and loathsomeness of the grave. Yet admitting all this, still it is no one nor all of these that constitutes the cause of our dread in the anticipation of death. It is the assurance that “ after death” is “ the judgment.” Could this be removed, what a large proportion of the terrors of death would be instantly dispelled! An awakened conscience is fearful; yet an unawakened conscience is still more so. III. It is by the death of Christ that death is bereft of his power. If the power of death arise from sin, then the only way in which it can be done away is by the expiation and forgiveness of sin; sin must be atoned if death is to be destroyed. The Bible accordingly is full of this doctrine. The death of Jesus was the finishing of His atonement. In His resurrection we bare the Divine attestation of the atonement having been satisfactory and accepted; His rising from the dead was His full release as the Substitute of the guilty for whom He died. But how is it, then, that Christians die? It is not God’ s plan that the final destinies of individuals should be publicly manifested and settled before the time; it would supersede the final judgment, and interfere with the grand final manifestation of the power of the risen Lord in the winding up of the scheme of redemption. But observe--1. The curse is taken out of death to all who are in Christ. Death is the messenger of peace that calls their souls to heaven. 2. The power of death is destroyed by the death of Christ, inasmuch as then was the virtual, though not the actual destruction of that power. “ I am the resurrection and the life,” etc. IV. It is by faith in the death of Christ that death is divested of his terrors. If a sense of guilt inspires the fear, by what can the fear possibly be quelled but by a firm belief in the Divine propitiation? It was when Jesus “ through death destroyed the power of death,” that He “ delivered them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” ; but that deliverance can only be enjoyed through faith in Him, who gained the victory, who “ spoiled principalities and powers,” etc. (R. Wardlaw, D.D.)Victory over death I. Death and its sting.1. Sin gave death his being, and it also gives him his terrors. With the utmost propriety is sin compared to a sting; for it at once pierces, pains, and poisons. Sharpened by temptation, and nicely smoothed and polished by a thousand alleviating circumstances and plausible excuses, it enters insensibly into the soul, and, before we are aware, torments our consciences with pain, and poisons our faculties with its malignant influence. Its power pierces, its guilt pains, and its pollution and defilement are its poison. And every time we commit it, it wounds us afresh, puts us to fresh pain, and spreads its poison wider and deeper: and, alas! so often have we committed it, that our whole soul is infected, and all its powers corrupted. 2. Now sin derives its strength from the law. Not that the law encourages sin: far from it. The law forbids it, and denounces “ indignation and wrath” upon all that commit it. But, the fountain of our nature being polluted, and continually pouring forth the most baleful streams, the law, like a mound placed in the way of a torrent, opposes, indeed, the rapid course of this overflowing of ungodliness, but, not drying up its source, only makes it rise the higher, and, in the end, flow with greater force and rapidity. For men, finding that they have sinned, and are still inclined to sin, and that they are condemned on that account, are wont to grow desperate in sin, till sin, thus manifested, irritated, and increased, “ by the commandment, becomes exceeding sinful.” 3. In the meantime the sinner, while urged forward by “ the law in his members,” which “ wars against the law of his mind,” observes how be perpetually advances towards the precipice of death, and is led to fear he shall fall into “ the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Hence, oppressed with horror and despair, he cries out, “ O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? “ Who shall draw the sting of death, and show him to be a disarmed enemy? This is the language of every awakened sinner’ s heart. Being enlightened to see the spirituality, obligation, and extent of the Divine law; being convinced he has repeatedly transgressed it, and is, therefore, involved in the curse of it, he finds himself in dreadful bondage through fear of death. And in this condition he continues till he becomes acquainted with Him who took part of our flesh and blood, that “ by death He might destroy him that had the power of death,” etc. II. How death is disarmed of his sting and we are enabled to triumph over him. It is Christ who disarms death of his sting, and this He does by removing the guilt, breaking the power, and washing away the defilement of sin. When we come under grace as a living and powerful dispensation, sin hath no more dominion over us, and the wrath of God being removed with the guilt of sin, and an accusing conscience departing with the power of sin, we have peace both within and without, and “ rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” And thus our fear of death and hell is exchanged for a blessed hope of immortality and joy. (J. Benson.)Victory over death and the grave The apostle has demonstrated the resurrection by an elaborate argument, and states his conclusion as the fulfilment of Isaiah’ s prophecy (Isaiah 25:5). He remembers the promise of God by Hosea (Hosea 13:14), and in a burst of eloquent exultation he defies his former enemies. I. The challenge (verse 55).1. Where is the sting of death? Alas! and is it nothing to die? Is it nothing to leave this fair earth, our pleasant homes, our loving friends, etc., and to be buried and become as dust beneath the sod? Has death no sting when we hold the beloved, who made life precious and the world beautiful, by so frail, brief, melancholy a tenure? Has it no sting in that “ life-long pang a widowed spirit bears” ? Is there one among us such a miracle of uninterrupted happiness, so insensible to others’ grief, as not to have felt its keen and lingering sharpness? 2. Where is the victory of the grave? Where is it not? Power cannot resist it. Riches can purchase no allies skillful to avert it. There is no discharge in this war for wisdom, or youth, or virtue, or strength. 3. Yet, were there nothing beside this, the calamity would be light. A gloomy anticipation, a few tears, a sharp pang, and all would be over. We should sleep, and dream not. But there is more than this. Whence came death? God is angry with us and death is the executioner of a Divine sentence, the avenger of a broken law. Death had no sting for man, and the grave no victory, till sin entered into the world; but now “ death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The law of God, which condemns the sinner, gives death power to seize and hold him fast. Wherever there is sin, its wages are death. Wherever death is, there must be sin. Yes! even in the death of the sinless Lamb of God, for He bore our sins. Here is the sharpness of death’ s sling. It is the evidence and punishment of sin. What a strange lethargy must that sinner be in who feels it not, but sleeps stupidly on, dreaming of lust, and gain, and pride, till death wakens him with eternal agony! 4. Here we see the strength and valour of Christian faith; for, knowing that he must die, and the grave cover him, Paul stands up bravely, and flings defiance in their faces. To learn the secret of his courage, we must consider-- II. The thanksgiving (verse 57). This, with the preceding verse, answers three questions:1. Whence is the victory? God gives death its sting and the grave its victory. So long as God arms them, it is impossible to resist them. God, therefore, alone can give us the victory, by becoming our Friend. When He is our Friend, His ministers, which were our enemies, must be our servants. 2. How is the victory given? Death is the penalty of sin, and, while the law condemns the sinner, he must remain captive to death and the grave. But Christ, by satisfying the law, plucked out the sting of death, and ravished the victory from the grave (Hebrews 2:14-15). More than this, He demonstrated His victory over the grave; bursting the bars asunder, He dragged forth captivity captive, making an ostentation of His spoils, openly triumphing. But the full manifestation of His triumph and ours is kept for the day of the resurrection. 3. Wherein does our victory consist? The believer triumphs-- (1) In Christ’ s perfect atonement.(2) In Christ’ s resurrection.(3) In the final resurrection. (G. W. Bethune.)Fear of death: its causes and remedies The fear of death is almost universal. It affects individuals in various degrees, but suffers few to entirely escape it. Let us examine, then, the causes which render death so formidable, and then the considerations which will deprive it of its sting, and the grave of its victory. A primary cause, which renders death so formidable to mankind, consists in their natural love of existence. This is an instinct held in common with the brutes. All kinds of life cling to their being with inveterate tenacity. Even the martyr or patriot, sacrificing their lives for their country or faith, experience a secret disinclination to make the offering. The discontented--the wearied--the afflicted in mind, body, or estate--at the last dread, and, if possible, avoid the conflict. God has implanted in man an instinct which will not permit him to yield existence without a struggle or a pang. The solemnities, too, with which we surround it, invest death with many of its terrors. We render it as ghastly as possible. It should rather be regarded as a passage from the troubles of life into the happiness of eternity. Presented under this light it is a joyful occurrence, and therefore should be less drearily apparelled. The obscurity, moreover, which veils the eternal state, arms death with many of its terrors. Unbelievers, of course, labour under no uncertainty. Materialists by conviction, death in their view is followed by annihilation. Or, should this creed be erroneous, condemnation must be the result of their unbelief. Any way their case is lost. Hence, by them death is regarded with peculiar dread. Nor are believers without their misgivings as to the future. Even though certain as to a future state, doubts will arise as to their position in it. They know the conditions of salvation, but have they been fulfilled? is their title good to the promised inheritance? Remorse of conscience, too, with many, produces similar results. Recollection of the past gives sorry promise for the future. While death is distant the harsh monitor may be hushed. But, when nigh, death is sure to rouse it, if guilt lies heavy on the heart. Even the unbeliever cannot avoid its stings, nor the hardened repel them. The sick-bed bears frequent witness to the agonies which they inflict on the stricken reprobate. Neither is the Christian entirely free from them, The best have much to answer for. And, lastly, fear of punishment makes him an object of dread to many. But are there no means of diminishing this influence which death possesses over us? Christians have been known to meet death cheerfully, and for their faith even court its embraces. In Christianity, then, we shall discover the means of emancipation from this slavery. From the gospel we shall obtain power to deprive death of its sting, and the grave of its victory. Are we too enamoured of life? Do we put on it too high a value? Do we cling to it with too much tenacity? Let us learn from the gospel to prize it no higher than its real worth. Surrounded with gloomy pomp, with sombre trappings, do we regard death with superstitious dread? Let us learn from the gospel to strip it of these adventitious terrors. Do we fear death as the tyrant, which separates us from friends and relatives--which entails loss of wealth and honour, of title and substance? Let us learn from the gospel to estimate these advantages at their real value--to consider them as transitory, mutable, and unsatisfactory. Do we doubt as to the state beyond the grave? Is it to us an unknown country? Or, known, do we question our title to its possession? Let us go to the gospel. There life and immortality are brought to light. Is remorse active? Has conscience sharpened its stings? By the gospel, again, we learn that no case is hopeless while life remains; that there is balm for the most wounded spirit, and that to the prayer of repentance and faith no request is denied. And do we dread the retribution beyond the grave? Let us again turn to the gospel. There we shall find words of hope and consolation. There we shall find means of escape from impending judgment. There we shall discover that “ with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption.” (John Budgen, M.A.)Death and the grave When tyrants are overthrown the nations of the earth breathe freely; from prince to peasant all rejoice, and every heart is raised to heaven, and hallelujahs go up to the throne of God, and the Prince of Peace is blessed for bringing back hope to the world, and driving fear from its dwellings. I. “ The sting of death is sin.” The shame and the deformity of guilt, the degradation of a nature fallen from the image of God, the pains of remorse--these are some of the forms in which death stings the soul through sin; and who that has seen the terror-stricken conscience craving a few more days of life. II. But what if death cannot sting the soul in the hour of its last life-trial, it can surely sting the heart. “ All that a man hath will he give for his life” ; it is sad to part with this. To leave the work of our hands for others to perfect, to give up our pleasant ministry and all the rewards that went with it, surely this is bitter, and herein at least death has for a moment its victory and its sting. Such is not the experience of faithful hearts, hearts which have been taught that “ to live is Christ and to die is gain” ; who have learnt that if to abide in the flesh be pleasant for the sake of those who remain, to depart and be with Christ is far better. III. Let it be granted, then, that death has no sting for the soul of the Christian, nor can he fasten his sharp fangs upon the heart which is taught of the Spirit of God. But what of the body? Can we look upon that thin frame so worn that the very mother scarcely knows her own child, and then deny that death at least can torture the body if it cannot torment the soul of the faithful? When death laid his hand upon the Son of God, and saw His body, weary with watching and worn out with persecution and agony, sink under the burden of His Cross, and then lifted up and nailed through His tender hands and feet to the tree He was too weak to carry, He may have cried in triumph, “ Behold, the sting of death!” And yet it was that very agony that enabled His Victim and His Conqueror to say as He gave up the ghost, “ It is finished.” When the faithful heart is taught by grace how glorious it is to be made partaker of the sufferings of Christ, that its pains are not sent in wantonness, but to remind it of its Redeemer’ s power to help and presence to heal, that every pang that waits on the soul’ s last struggle to be free is another step towards the liberty it so desires, then the sense of physical suffering is swallowed up in the prospect of what lies so nigh. IV. But if the sting of death affects the dying Christian himself neither in body nor in spirit, there are surviving hearts in tears and deep sadness. Here, then, is the sting of death piercing the souls of the living, if it has no torment for the dying. V. Death then retires before the power of faith and acknowledges that its power is gone, the sharpness of its sting made void. But the grave! there is the victory; there is the curse carried out to its humbling accomplishment; “ dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.” Alas, how are the mighty fallen! humbled indeed to the dust and brought down to the dwelling of the worm! O grave, great is thy victory, if this be all of what was once so great and dear and beautiful and good. But is it all? What do we read? “ It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption,” etc. (A. J. Macleane, M.A.)Victory over death and the grave Consider-- I. The interrogatory of the apostle.1. What is the sting of death? (1) The sting of natural fear. The feeling is one common to all nations. Our very nature chills at the thought of it. (2) But the manner of death is a part of the sting, and many consequently are afraid of their supports failing them in the last encounter--their mind’ s decay, their adversary’ s concentrated strength and malice. (3) To the apostle, however, the sting of death lay in its retributive character. Hence, when men are afraid of death, it is not so much nature trembling at what she may have to suffer, as conscience affrighted at the penalties it feels to deserve. We call death the king of terrors, and that which makes him so, which makes his reign terrible, his night gloomy, his valley dark, is the implanted feeling of our nature that he is the commissioned magistrate of heaven come to reckon with us for our sins. “ The wages of sin is death.” 2. But our text assumes these wages to have been paid, and this king of terrors to have been disarmed. Now, this change in the moral aspect and attributes of death, whilst as an endured penalty it must remain, is effected by Christ-- (1) As the destroyer of death by the Cross. The lordship of death stands in this, that he is the executioner and instrument of the law of God which man has broken. But Christ satisfied, discharged, magnified this law, and thus vanquished the death which had its strange behests to do. And now this minister of justice lacks his authority. There is no judge to deliver us to the officer. “ There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” “ Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died.” “ O death, where is now thy sting?” (2) As the Lord of the invisible world. “ O grave, where is thy victory?” Seeing that beyond the third day the soul of Christ was not left in the grave, neither did His flesh see corruption? Yet not for Himself did Christ obtain this victory. It was rather in order to an exhibited demonstration of His sovereignty over the mansions of the dead, a comforting assurance to those who were about to walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death that they need fear no evil. II. Seeing, then, we have such a hope in the prospect of death, “ let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”1. It may be a part of the sting of death to think that thereby thine eyes must close eternally on the things of this present world; but if “ blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest frown their labours, and their works do follow them,” O death, where is that sting? 2. It may be a part of the sting of death to think of the friends you must leave behind you; but if, besides re-union with these friends, we are to have converse with the Redeemer, with angels, what becomes of that sting? 3. It may be a part of the sting of death that your children will be fatherless and your wife a widow; yet if He is faithful that promises, “ Leave the fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in Me,” then what becomes of that sting? (D. Moore, M.A.)The last triumphant conflict I. Its bitterness.1. Death has a sting.2. The grave a victory. II. Its issue.1. The sting drawn.2. The victory reversed. III. Its certainty secured to every believer.1. Through Christ.2. In the hope of the resurrection. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Death I. Its sting. Sin occasions the pangs of--1. Separation.2. Conscience.3. Fear at the prospect of meeting God.4. Apprehension in the thought of judgment. II. Its power. Derived from the law, because--1. It announces the penalty of sin.2. Manifests the evil of sin.3. Enforces the punishment of sin and perpetuates it. III. Its defeat.1. Through Christ.2. Achieved by every believer. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Death I. Unveiled. It derives--1. Its power from actual sin.2. Its terrors from conscious sin. II. Conquered.1. Christ takes away its power.2. Faith takes away its terrors. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Death and fear When Sir Henry Vane was condemned and awaiting execution, a friend spoke of prayer, that for the present the cup of death might be averted. “ Why should we fear death?” answered Vane. “ I find it rather shrinks from me than I from it.” (Little’ s Historical Lights.)No fear of death Among the few remains of Sir John Franklin that were found far up in the Polar regions there was a leaf of the “ Student’ s Manual,” by Dr. John Todd--the only relic of a book. From the way in which the leaf was turned down, the following portion of a dialogue was prominent: “ Are you not afraid to die?” “ No.” “ No! Why does the uncertainty of another state give you no concern?” “ Because God has said to me, ‘ Fear not. When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.’” This leaf is preserved in the Museum of Greenwich Hospital, among the relics of Sir John Franklin. Sting of death As his (Simeon’ s) drew near, he broke out, “ It is said, ‘ O death, where is thy sting?’ “ Then, looking at us as we stood round his bed, he asked, in his own peculiarly impressive manner, “ Do you see any sting here?” (Life of Simeon.)The sting of death is sin That is, death would have no power to injure us if it were not for sin. This is true for two reasons.1. Because if there were no sin there would be no death. Death is by sin (Romans 5:12). 2. Because sin gives death, when it has been introduced, all its terrors. If sin be pardoned, death is harmless. It can inflict no evil. It becomes a mere transition from a lower to a higher state. (C. Hodges, D.D.)The sting of death is sin I. There is a sting in death.1. That there is such a sting in death appears from-- (1) The horrors of wicked men when they come to die. (2) The unwillingness, even of the dearest of God’ s children, to undergo this last, rude, and violent shock of death. (3) The attitude of Christ towards it (Matthew 26:39). 2. What there is in death that should make its sting so sharp and poignant, and cause such a natural antipathy against it in us? (1) The harbingers, which go before it, to prepare its way--languishing diseases, racking pains, etc. (2) Its annihilation of all the comforts and enjoyments of life. (3) The separation of those dear companions, the soul and body. (4) The consideration of those dishonours and disgraces which shall befall the body upon this separation. (5) The deliverance over into eternity, which we have deserved, should be infinitely miserable to us. II. The sting of death is sin.1. It was only sin that brought death into the world (Romans 5:12). 2. Death received its terrors from sin (Hebrews 2:15). Conclusion: If sin be the sting of death--1. Let us beware that we add not more poison to this sting. 2. Then the only way to disarm death is by cleansing thyself from sin. 3. How unspeakably happy are those to whom the sting of death is taken out by the death of Christ! (E. Hopkins, D.D.)The sting of death A slight acquaintance with man will convince us of the truth of two propositions.1. That every man is labouring to obtain some object. 2. That according to the intensity of the interest he feels in the object will be his delight in pursuing it. The merchant is looking onward to retirement from business. The same principle actuates the warrior on the battle-field. His object is military glory, a name in the annals of fame, the applause of the brave. You have an object before you--a happy dying hour--rest after the storms of life are past. That is the object before you; and, if you would secure it, you must get rid of the sting of death, you must go on to perfection. We lay down, then, for our discussion, one proposition--that, if a happy and triumphant death-bed be desirable, and if a gloomy and miserable death-bed is to be deprecated, then go on to perfection. We do not mean to dwell upon the nature of Christian perfection, but simply upon the results of perfection upon a dying hour. How solemn is life’ s last hour! The journey is ended, the immortal candidate is on life’ s last shore. Memory retouches all the past, and in a few minutes he seems to live the whole of life over again. Here the soul seems to say to the body, “ We have been companions long, we have travelled together life’ s rough road, but now home is in view the spirit has now launched into eternity; it has commenced its upward flight; the earth, like a little dark spot, grows less and less; heaven opens upon the vision. There is nothing in heaven or earth can give a ray of light to an expiring infidel. How are we to account for these gloomy death-bed scenes among professors of religion? I answer--First, a want of regeneration; many of them have never been born again. Secondly, backsliding. “ I was converted,” says one; “ I could tell the time and place of my conversion.” Ah! but you are a backslider now. Thirdly, remaining depravity. Can you say, I have been free from the slightest touch of sin since I believed? I don’ t think one of you can say so! The remains of sin in the heart are like powder; and only let a spark fall into it, and there will be an explosion. There has been powder enough in our hearts, and this world is full of sparks. One is saying, “ I contracted an unsuitable marriage; I was unequally yoked, and all has been wrong ever since.” Another is saying, “ I formed an improper connection in business.” “ I,” says another, “ fell--gave way to bad tempers, angry passions; and, oh! there are a thousand witnesses in my own breast.” Conscience bears witness--loud, distinct, and clear; but God has brought the wanderer back--back to the throne of grace. If you harbour and indulge these enemies of God in your heart, what kind of a death will you have? Only get this sting removed, and your nature purified, and then you will have a happy death-bed. Bless God, you may start for glory, and never strike a rock! See! see that vessel leaving the port of Liverpool. She passes the pier-head; she jostles her way through the crowd of shipping that obstructs her passage; she clears every dangerous point; she escapes the sandbanks that lie concealed under the waters; she gets fairly out on the ocean; by and by she gets an overhaul, and all’ s right. Every inch of canvas is now crowded on, and on she bounds before the breeze. At length the shout, “ Land ahead!” is heard; she heaves in sight of port; she reaches it. As the captain steps ashore his friends hail him with sparkling eyes, “ Well, captain, what sort of a voyage?” “ Oh, capital; ‘ tis true we have had a few tremendous gales, but we have never split a sail, snapped a rope, or lost a spar; and here we are safe in harbour!” “ Well, captain, we congratulate you on your voyage.” Glory to God! you may yet get safe out of harbour, clear every rock and pass, full sail, into the port of glory, amidst the congratulations of the heavenly host. “ My grace is sufficient for you.” If you would have a happy death, go on to perfection. A holy Christian will have a happy death; this is the rule; I know there are exceptions to every rule, and there are exceptions to this. (J. Canghey.)The strength of sin is the law This must be the law of God in its widest sense; not the Mosaic law, which would make the declaration amount to nothing. The law is the strength of sin, because-- I. Without law there world be no sin (Romans 4:15). The very idea of sin is want of conformity on the part of moral creatures to the law of God. If there be no standard to which we are bound to be conformed, there can be no such thing as want of conformity. Sin is the correlative, not of reason, nor of expediency, but of law. If you take away law, men may act unreasonably, or in a way injurious to themselves or others, but they cannot sin. II. If there be no law there can be no condemnation. Sin is not imputed where there is no law (Romans 5:13). III. The law not only reveals and condemns sin, but exasperates and excites it, and thus gives it strength (Romans 7:8-12). (C. Hodge, D.D.)The strength of sin is the law The law-- I. Discovers sin, and makes it appear in its own colours; the more light and knowledge of the law, the more sense of sin, as in transparent vessels dregs are soon discerned (Romans 7:9). When by a sound conviction disguises are taken off from the conscience, we find sin to be sin indeed. Paul was alive before--that is, in his own hopes--as many a stupid soul makes full account he shall go to heaven, till conscience be opened, and then they find themselves in the mouth of death and hell. II. Gives strength to sin in regard of the obligation of it; it bindeth over a sinner to the curse and wrath of God. God has made a righteous law, which must have satisfaction; and till the law be satisfied, we hear no news but of a curse, and that makes death to be full of horrors (Hebrews 10:27). III. Augments and increases sin by forbidding it; lusts are exasperated and rage upon a restraint, as the yoke makes the young bullock more unruly. Now, put all together, and you will understand the force of the expression, “ The strength of sin is the law.” The discovery of the law stops the sinner’ s mouth, and the curse of the law shuts him up, and holds him fast unto the judgment of the great day, by which restraint sin grows the more raging and furious; all which, put together, make death terrible; not an end of misery, but a door to open into hell. (T. Manton, D.D.)The law is the strength of sin 1. Any man who thinks or feels at all about sin knows that it is the strongest principle within him. His will is adequate for all other undertakings, but it fails the moment it attempts to conquer and subdue itself. The experience of the Christian likewise demonstrates that sin is the most powerful antagonist that man has to contend with. Nay, more, this heat and stress of the Christian race and fight evinces that man must be “ strong in the Lord” in order to overcome sin. 2. The cause of this mighty strength of sin is the law of God. By the law is meant the sum of all that a rational being ought to do, under all circumstances and at all times. It is equivalent to duty, and includes all that is implied in the word “ right,” and excludes all that we mean by “ wrong.” At first sight it appears strange that this should be said to be the strength of sin. Yet such is the assertion here and in Romans 7:8-9; Romans 7:11; and we cannot understand these statements unless we take into view the difference in the relation which a holy and a sinful being respectively sustains to the moral law. St. Paul means that the law is the strength of sin for a sinner. For the saint, on the contrary, it is the strength of holiness. In a holy being, the law of righteousness is an inward and actuating principle; but for a sinful being it is only an outward rule. Law does not work pleasantly within the sinner, but stands stern outside of and over him, commanding and threatening. If he attempts to obey it, he does so from fear or self-interest, and not from the love of it. The “ law of sin” is the sole inward principle that rules him, and his service of sin is spontaneous and willing. 3. Hence the Scriptures describe regeneration as the inwardising of the moral law (Jeremiah 31:33). To regenerate a man is to convert duty into inclination, so that the man shall know no difference between the commands of God and the desires of his own heart. The two principles, or “ laws,” of holiness and sin, in order to have efficiency, must be within the heart and will. They are like the great fruitful laws that work and weave in the world of nature. All these laws start from within and work outward. The law of holiness cannot bear fruit until it ceases to be external and threatening and becomes internal and complacent. So long as the law of God is a letter on the statute-book of the conscience, but not in the fleshy tablet of the heart, so long must it be inoperative, except in the way of death and misery. This righteous law, then, is “ the strength of sin” in us, so long as it merely weighs down with a mountain’ s weight upon our enslaved wills, so long as it merely holds a whip over our opposing inclination, and lashes it into anger and resistance. How can there be any moral growth in the midst of such a hatred and hostility between the human heart and the moral law? Flowers and fruits cannot grow on a battle-field. As well might we suppose that the vegetation which now constitutes the coal beds grew up in that geological era when fire and water were contending for possession of the planet, as to suppose that the fruits of holiness can spring up when the human will is in obstinate and deadly conflict with the human conscience. So long as the law sustains this extraneous relation to the heart and will-- I. There is no genuine obedience.1. For genuine obedience is voluntary, cheerful, and spontaneous. The child does not truly obey its parent when it performs an outward act, outwardly insisted upon by its superior, from no inward genial impulse, but solely from the force of fear. Here lies the difference between a moral and a religious man. The moralist attempts, from considerations of prudence, fear, and self-interest, to externally obey the external law. It is not a law that he loves, but one which he would keep because of the penalty attached to it. And yet, after all his attempts at obedience, he is conscious of utter failure. But the renewed and sanctified man “ obeys from the heart the form of doctrine that is delivered” unto him. The Holy Spirit has inwardised it. He acts naturally, he acts holily, and when he sins he is uneasy, because sin is unnatural to a renewed heart. 2. Everything that is genuine, spontaneous, and voluntary wears the garb of grace and beauty; while that which is false, pretended, and constrained has the look of deformity. We admire the living plant, but we turn away from the artificial flower. So is it with the appearance which the moralist and the believer respectively presents. The one is rigid, hard, and formal; he rather endures his religion than enjoys it. The Other is free, cheerful, pliant; the Son hath made him free, and he is free indeed. 3. Another criterion of genuine obedience is love. But so long as the law sustains this extraneous and hostile relation to the heart and will, there is no love of it or its Author. No man can have a cordial affection for it until it becomes the inward and actuating principle, the real inclination of his will. Yet the law overhangs him all this while; and since it cannot produce the fruits of peace and holiness, it betakes itself to its other function, and elicits his corruption, and exasperates his depravity. II. Obedience is impossible.1. For the law is entirely outside the executive faculty. It is in the conscience, but not in the heart. It consequently gives no impulse and aid to right action. The law sternly tells the man that by his own determination and fault he is “ dead in trespasses and sins,” and condemns him therefor; but so long as it is merely didactic and comminatory, and not impulsive and indwelling, he derives from it none of that strength which empowers to righteousness. 2. But in the Christian, the law of holiness, by virtue of his regeneration and union with Christ, has become inward, spontaneous, and voluntary. It is no longer a mere fiery letter in his conscience, giving him knowledge of his sinfulness, and distressing him therefor; but it is a glowing and genial impulse in his heart. His duty is now his inclination, and his now holy inclination is his duty. Conclusion: This subject shows--1. That it is an immense work to make such an entire change and reversal in the relations that now exist between man’ s will and the Divine law. The problem is, to transmute the law of God into the very inclination of a man, so that the two shall be one and the same thing in the personal experience, and the man shall know no difference between the dictates of his conscience and the desires of his heart. 2. It is the work of the Holy Ghost. It is the result of God’ s “ working in man to will and to do.” (Prof. Shedd.)Thoughts on the last battle I. The sting of death.1. Sin brought death into the world. Men could be more content to die if they did not know it was a punishment. “ In Adam all die.” By his sin every one of us become subject to the penalty of death. 2. That which shall make death most terrible to man will be sin, if it is not forgiven. Consider a man dying, and looking back on his past life. To feel remorse is to have eternal torment commenced within the soul. 3. But if sin in the retrospect be the sting of death, what must sin in the prospect be? The moment we die the voice of justice cries, “ Seal up the fountain of forgiveness” he that is holy let him be holy still; he that is filthy let him be filthy still. The hour of death is like that celebrated picture of Perseus holding up the head of Medusa. That head turned all persons into stone who looked upon it. What I am when death is held before me, that I must be for ever. II. The strength of sin is the law. Most men think that sin has no strength at all. “ Oh,” say many, “ we may have sinned very much, but we will repent, and we will be better; God is merciful, and He will forgive us.” The strength of sin is the law in that--1. The law being spiritual, it is quite impossible for us to live without sin. It is not merely the act, it is the thought; it is not the deed simply, it is the very imagination, that is a sin. Oh, now, sinner, how canst thou get rid of sin? Thy very thoughts are crimes. Is there not, now, strength in sin? Hath not the law nerved sin with such a power that all thy strength cannot hope to wipe away thy transgression? 2. It will not abate one tittle of its stern demands. It says to every man who breaks it, “ I will not forgive you.” You hear persons talk about God’ s mercy. Now, if they do not believe in the gospel they must be under the law; but where in the law do we read of mercy? The law thunders out, without the slightest mitigation, “ The soul that sinneth it shall die.” If any of you desire to be saved by works, remember, one sin will spoil your righteousness. 3. For every transgression it will exact a punishment. The law never remits a farthing of debt. Now, if ye consider all this, are you prepared to take away the sting of death in your own persons? If you think so, go, O foolish one, go, twist thy rope of sand; go, build a pyramid of air; but know it will be a dream with an awful awakening. III. The victory of faith. Christ has taken away the strength of sin.1. He has removed the law. We are not under bondage, but under grace. The principle that I must do a thing--that is to say, the principle of law, “ do, or be punished, or be rewarded,” is not the motive of the Christian’ s life; his principle is, “ God has done so much for me, what ought I to do for Him?” 2. He has completely satisfied it. The law demands a perfect righteousness; Christ says, “ Law, thou hast it: find fault with Me; I am the sinner’ s substitute.” “ Who shall now lay anything to the charge of God’ s elect?” Now the law is satisfied, sin is gone; and now surely we need not fear the sting of the dragon. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The victory I. The victory. Victory supposes warfare, and warfare enemies. Let us mention a few of these.1. Sin. This is the cause of all the rest, but the name of Jesus was given to the Saviour because He was to save His people from their sins. His people consider sin as their chief enemy, and they rejoice that their Saviour gave Himself for them “ to redeem them from all iniquity,” etc. Let us examine this victory. Sin, even now, is to be found in a believer; but though sin lives in him, he does not live in sin, and though sin be not destroyed in him, it is dethroned in him. There is as much difference between sin found in a Christian, and sin found in a natural man, as there is between poison found in a serpent, and found in a man. Poison is found in a serpent, but it does him no injury--Why? Because it is natural to him, it is a part of his system; but poison in a man makes him sick, it is no part of his nature. 2. The world. Our Saviour said to His disciples, “ Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” But what is this victory? It is not fleeing from the world--fleeing is not fighting--but it is your abiding in the calling in which you are placed by God; discharging with diligence and zeal the duties pertaining to it; resisting the temptations belonging to it; and using all the opportunities it affords to do good. The man who thus lives overcomes the world. “ Who is he that overcometh the world?” etc. 3. Satan. “ I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” etc. “ For this purpose, therefore, was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” But you say, Did He not fall in the struggle? True, but it was in falling that He conquered. “ He spoiled principalities and powers,” etc. “ And because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same,” etc. 4. Death and the grave. He certainly conquers death-- (1) Who is not and cannot be injured by it, and to whom it is therefore expressly harmless. This is the case with every Christian. Death stung once, and a dreadful sting it was; it stung our Surety, who took our place for us; but it left its sting in Him, so that there is none for the Christian. (2) Who will be improved by it. The Christian rises with a better body than he laid down. (3) Who will rise above the apprehension of it (2 Corinthians 5:1). II. The acquisition. In other cases winning a victory is gaining a victory, but here--1. It is given. It is true we gain it; but He gives it. It is true we fight; but it is He causes us to triumph. He not only furnishes the crown, but He also gives us the capacity by which we acquire it. 2. It is dispensed through the mediation of the Lord Jesus. From the beginning to the end of our salvation, the propriety, expediency, necessity of Jesus as a mediator is not for one moment left out. “ He is all in all.” 3. It is gradually exemplified and accomplished. It is not said that He will give, though this is true, for it is already promised; nor that He has given us the victory, though this is true, for that is already promised; but He giveth us the victory; and this is true because it is gradually confirmed and experienced. III. The gratitude. If you feel gratitude to your fellow-creatures for their favours, surely you will not forget the boon of your salvation. There is nothing perhaps so vile as ingratitude. But how are we to express our thanksgivings? Gratitude consists in the return of a benefit received, and though we cannot make an adequate return, yet we may make a suitable return. “ Thanksgiving,” says Philip Henry, “ is good, but thanksliving is much better.” The best way in which a scholar can testify the honour of his tutor is by his proficiency. And our Saviour says, “ Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.” As a stimulus to gratitude.1. Dwell upon the blessings themselves.2. Get an increasing sense of your own unworthiness.3. Get an assurance of your own interest in the blessedness of the Lord. (W. Jay.)Our victory I. Over sin.1. The great fault and peril of sin is not so prominent as it was. Is there not too often the sanguine expectation that the disease will be cured by external remedies? You persuade, for instance, the drunkard to take the pledge, but you have not changed his heart. You destroy the rookery, and build the model lodging-house, but you have not destroyed the fascinations of crime. Unless we deal with sin, all our attempts at reformation will be in vain; the malady lies too deep for our superficial applications. 2. The gospel does not palliate sin; on the contrary, it drags off its disguises, and reveals it in its naked deft fruity. It shows sin to be a perversion of the moral being; it is the alienation of the heart from the love, the alienation of the will from the law of God; it is rebellion; it is that which God hates; it is that which must be put away before man can enter into fellowship with God. The gospel alone dares to reveal sin, because it gives us the power to conquer it. (1) In presenting to us a perfect life it shows us what human nature is capable of, and its present degradation. It first reveals sin in placing it in the full light of the Divine example, and secondly, in the light of the Cross it condemns sin. It shows it there in all its iniquity which only the blessed blood of the spotless victim can remove. (2) But if Christ had only been this, He would not have been our Saviour (verse 17). If He had only died, then death had the mastery over Him; we must be still crushed under the burden of sin, for we have no atonement; there is no righteousness in which we can be clothed; we cannot be partakers of a new life, since there is no source of life for us. “ But now is Christ risen from the dead” ; and in the power of this resurrection we have the victory over sin. God, in raising Him from the dead, has not only proclaimed that He has accepted the propitiation, but has exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour to lift off from us the burden of guilt, and to pour into our diseased spirits the life of His resurrection, the life of His Spirit, that we may gain the victory over sin. In no other way can we gain it; no efforts to lop off here and there the heads of that hydra-headed monster will prevail. The desire we thought we had beaten down, the passions we thought we had conquered, will reassert their mastery. But He, the risen Lord, has given us His life, has made us one with Himself, and in that loving union with Him the victory is ours. II. Over death. Death is a very real enemy. The fear of death; is not this the most terrible fear that assaults men? What is the fear of sickness, poverty, sorrow, old age, natural infirmities, compared with the fear of death? It is an awful thing to die; above all, if we do not know where we are going.1. Death is an agony, for it is the separation of body and soul; it is the dissolution of the man. And yet regarded in this light men do not always recoil from it. There are those who, not only in the excitement of battle, can meet death with steady nerve; there are those who, tired of life’ s efforts and disappointments, have welcomed death as a friend, and the bed of death has been like a sleep. 2. The agony of death does not trouble all, but the mystery of death, the thought of passage from a world of known existence to an undiscovered country, where men must give an account of deeds done in the body, this has made the bravest heart tremble. Two officers were riding together just before a battle. One of them, an earnest Christian, turned and said to the other, “ Are you prepared to die?” “ Death; don’ t talk to me of death,” was the reply, “ it will unnerve me.” The man was not a coward, but death was an awful thing to think of. No wonder that Paul speaks of men being subject to bondage through the fear of death. 3. Then beside, there is the anguish of bereavement. How many hearts has death broken, how many lives has he made desolate? Who has not felt that awful power? Must we shudder, and walk with faltering steps in presence of this dreadful enemy? “ No,” says the apostle. “ Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” St. Paul insists upon this fact as involving the resurrection of mankind. For it is not a simple human being that rises out of that grave; it is the everlasting Lord of Life, who, having life in Himself, took our human nature, and in that nature confronted death, and vanquished death, and rose victorious from the tomb. Conclusion: Are we partakers of this victory? We may repeat the Creed, “ I believe in the resurrection of the body,” and yet, alas! we may have no victory over death. How many baptized Christians have no doubt of another life, and yet live and die as if this world were all? And yet there is such a victory. Christ’ s risen life may be ours. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/bi/ 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 Now concerning the collection. Collection in church This is in close connection with the sublime argument about the resurrection. There is no gulf between doctrine and duty; rather, most intimate union between the hope of heaven and details of common life on earth. Duty is the fruit of rightly believed doctrine; character is the index and result of creed. I. The gift of property is God’ s special service, and the impulse of all godly men. It may be in His service in commerce and art, but in religion and philanthropy it is specially devoted to Him. Love must give. Lovers of God give to Him. Jacob at Bethel; David asking, “ What shall I render?” etc.; Mary bringing the alabaster box. II. The gift of property to God is enjoined as an obligation in Scripture. There are--1. Literal commands. (1) To the Hebrews, tithes, etc.(2) To the Christians, as in this chapter. 2. Promises of consequent blessings. “ Prove Me now herewith,” etc.; “ It is more blessed to give than to receive.” III. The gift of property to God should be systematic.1. Universal. “ Every one of you.” 2. Thoughtful. It is to be by a laying by, which means frequent thought, and on the first day of the week, when associations may well make the thought sacred. 3. Proportionate. “ As God hath prospered.” 4. Thoroughly unselfish. Here was a Gentile subscription for the needs of Jews--Corinth caring for Jerusalem. (U. R. Thomas.)Collections Deacon Ranson Parker, of New York, says: “ It is all very well to talk about the cattle of a thousand hills being the Lord’ s, but the fact is, some one must collect them together and drive them to market before they can be of much service to the Lord’ s cause.” This is a most sensible remark. In our churches there might be abundant funds for the work of the Lord if a more businesslike method was taken to collect the money. The poor pastor pines in poverty, and many loving hearts are ignorant of his need, or, being unsolicited, do not dare to offer a supply. The silver and the gold are the Lord’ s, but a kindly, genial person to collect the, precious metals is often needed. We know a Church which contributes more than f300 to missions, but this was not the case till an enthusiastic deacon took up the laborious task of going round to the friends. Are there not gifts of collection as well as gifts of preaching? If some deacons were really to care about their minister, might they not save him from downright want by personally looking up the seat subscriptions? It is wisdom to go round the thousand hills, if there be so many within reach, and fetch home some of the cattle, large and small, that there may be meat in the Lord’ s House. Christian giving Christian giving, this passage teaches us, is-- I. Positive. “ As I have given orders.” II. Personal. “ Let every one of you.” III. Private. “ Lay by him.” IV. Periodical. “ Upon the first day of the week,” weekly. V. Pious. “ Upon the first day of the week.” VI. Prospective. “ That there be no gatherings when I come.” VII. Proportional. “ As God has prospered him.” (J. T. C. Gullan.)Charity: its principles and methods We have here an illustration of one peculiar use of Scripture. This distress was long since relieved. The apostle wrote for his own time, yet the whole account is as fresh and instructive to us as it was to the Corinthians. Note-- I. The call for charity. We learn from Romans 15:26 that the Jewish converts were in great distress, and that St. Paul summoned the Gentile converts in Achaia, Galatia, and Rome to relieve them. Observe--1. How all distinctions of race melt away before Christianity. Collections had often been sent by foreign Jews, but here was a Jewish object supported by Gentiles--a new thing in the world. Christ was the Man, the Saviour, not of one people, but of the world, and in Him all were one. Henceforth there was neither Jew nor Greek, etc. 2. Jerusalem, Corinth, and Galatia were linked by a common object. You have seen a magnet applied to a mass of iron filings, and watched the multitude of delicate points all adhering to each other, through the invisible influence which, sent throughout them all, makes each in its turn a magnet. To scattered races, separate castes and ancient enmities, Christ was the Magnet which united all. 3. This had been done before by war and trade. In earlier times the different and even opposing tribes of the Roman republic were united on the field of battle; they felt they were warring for the same cause. Later we find that trade united men by mutual interest. “ We will not injure others, because, by so doing, we shall injure ourselves.” Christianity unites, not through a common hatred or interest, but through a common love. 4. Remark how in God’ s counsels sorrow draws out good. Pain and sorrow are mysteries. The sufferers at Jerusalem could not see the meaning of their sorrow; nor did they know how many a Greek and Roman was weekly laying up his store for them; nor how, through their pain, Galatia and Corinth and Rome were drawn by cords of love together. So we often suffer, and see no good result from it. But assuredly, we are not suffering in vain. Suffering works out for us a weight of glory, which tells how our characters are perfected through suffering; but there is a higher Christian light to see our pain in: it blesses others. This is the blessedness of the suffering of Christ; it is the law of the Cross. To be willing to bear in order to teach others!--to lose, in order that others may “ through us noblier live” --that is to know something of the blessedness He knew. II. The principle of its exercise.1. Systematic in manner (verse 2). That is, instead of waiting for one stirring apostolic appeal, they were to make charity the business of their lives. This contribution was to be a matter of principle, and not of impulse. One burning speech of St. Paul’ s might have elicited a larger sum. But he preferred the effects of steady perseverance to those of vehement emotion. For impulse is often mere luxury. To give largely, to strip off a coat to give to a shivering man, may after all be nothing more than a relief from importunity, or a compact with conscience, or a compromise with laziness. On the contrary, this systematic plan of St. Paul’ s-- (1) Costs something, and (2) teaches-- (a) the habit of a thoughtful life; it reminds us continually that there is something which is owed to God, and therefore is not our own; and it is well that, by an outward system, we should train our inward spirit to the unforgetful thought of our debt to Him. (b) Self-denial. It gradually lays the foundation of a life of Christian economy; not that which sacrifices one pleasure for another: for this is but mere prudence; but that which abridges pleasure, in order that we may be able to give to God. 2. The measure of liberality was “ as God hath prospered him.” (1) St. Paul establishes a principle here. He lays down no rabbinical maxim of one-tenth or one-fourth. He leaves the measure to our own conscience. “ Ask thyself,” he says to each, “ how much owest thou unto thy Lord?” (2) Besides a wide margin is here left necessarily for variety of circumstances. God prospers one man in fortune; another, in time; another, in talent; and time, talents, sympathy, are often better gifts than money. “ Silver and gold have I none,” said St. Peter, “ but that which I have I give unto thee,” and the man was healed. So now, often the greatest exercise of charity is where there is nothing given, but where the deserving are assisted to support themselves. Often the highest charity is simply to pay liberally for all things had or done for you; because to underpay workmen, and then be bountiful, is not charity. On the other hand, to give, when by so doing you support idleness, is most pernicious. 3. Now, the first principle will explain why the second is not realised. Men do not give as God hath prospered them, because they do not give systematically. They who have most are not they who give most, but the reverse, as is proved by the annals of all societies. Many are the touching cases where the givings of a servant, a governess, a workman, have more than equalled the munificence of the rich. So also was St. Paul’ s experience (2 Corinthians 8:1-4). The reason of this strange difference is, that system is easier with little than with much. The man of thousands squanders: every impulse is satisfied immediately; he denies himself nothing; he gives as freely when he is touched by a tale of woe, as he indulges when he wants indulgence. But his luxuries grow into necessities, and he then complains of his larger liabilities and establishment. Now let me appeal to those who really wish to do right in this thing. St. Paul’ s principle is the only safe or true one. Systematise your charity. Save, by surrendering superfluities first. Feel that there is a sacred fund, which will be made less by every unnecessary expense. (F. W. Robertson, M.A.)Christian philanthropy I. Its claims zealously advocated. In this matter Paul proposes the Galatians as an example to the Corinthians, the Corinthians an example to the Macedonians, and both as an example to the Romans (2 Corinthians 9:2; Romans 15:26). Were it not for the earnest advocacy of Christly men, practical social sympathy would become extinct. It is the living ministry of the gospel that keeps it alive, and in this it fulfils the grandest of all missions. II. Its operations wisely directed. Paul directed that the contributions should be--1. Personal. “ Every one of you.” No one was exempted, however poor; the widow’ s mite was acceptable. If no coin, then give service. 2. Systematic. Begin the week with deeds of practical benevolence. 3. Religious. “ As God hath prospered him.” Were this principle acted upon, some of the men who subscribe their thousands would be found to be churls, and those who subscribed their few shillings would appear as princes in the domain of practical charity. But, alas! how men reverse this principle! The more they have the less they give. III. Its contributions honestly distributed. How sadly is this duty frequently neglected, how much money given for charitable purposes is dishonestly used, and misappropriated every year! (D. Thomas, D. D.)The gladness of giving A Methodist minister says that in one of his charges a good man regularly gave every Sabbath f1 for the support of the Church. A poor widow was also a member of the same Church, who supported herself and six children by washing. She was as regular as the rich man in making her offering of twopence per week, which was all the could spare from her scant earnings. One day the rich man came to the minister and said that the poor woman ought not to give anything, and that he would pay the twopence for her every week. The pastor called to tell her of the offer, which he did in a considerate manner. Tears came to the woman’ s eyes as she replied: “ Do they want to take from me the comfort I experience in giving to the Lord? Think how much I owe to Him. My health is good, my children keep well, and I receive so many blessings that I feel I could not live if I did not make my little offering to Jesus each week.” How many there are who know nothing of the privilege of regularly giving something to the Lord’ s work! The poor Several causes had contributed to this poverty; and, among others, perhaps the persecution promoted by Paul. Many Christians were driven from their homes, and many more must have lost their means of earning a livelihood. But it is likely that Paul was anxious to relieve this poverty, mostly because he saw in it an opportunity for bringing more closely together the two great parties in the Church (Galatians 2:9-10). He saw that no doctrinal explanations were likely to be so fruitful in kindly feeling and true unity as this simple expression of brotherly kindness. I. In our own day poverty has assumed a much more serious aspect. The poverty which results from accident, or even from wrong-doing or indolence, could easily be met by individual charity or national institutions. But the poverty we are now confronted with is that which results from competition. So overstocked is the labour-market that the employer can name his own terms. Where he wants one man, a hundred offer their services, so that necessarily wages are pressed down by competition to the very lowest figure. In all our large cities there are thousands who by working sixteen hours a day earn only what suffices to maintain the most wretched existence.1. The most painful and alarming feature of this condition of things is, that every new method of facilitating business, every improvement in machinery, makes life more difficult to the mass of men. Individual charity is here a mere mop in the face of the tide. What is wanted is not larger workhouses where the aged poor may be sheltered, but such a system as will enable the working man to provide for himself against old age. What is wanted is not that the charitable should eke out the earnings of the labouring classes, but that these earnings should be such as to amply cover all ordinary human wants. What the working classes at present demand is, not charity, but justice. II. Is there any system which could check the evils resulting from competition?1. The essence of the demand of socialism is that “ whereas industry is at present carried on, by private capitalists served by wage-labour, it must in the future be conducted by associated or co-operating workmen jointly owning the means of production.” The difficulty in pronouncing judgment on such a demand arises from the fact that very few have sufficient imagination and sufficient knowledge of our complicated social system to be able to forecast the results of so great a change. In the present stage of human progress personal interest is undoubtedly one of the strongest incentives to industry, and to this motive the present system of competition appeals. The organisation of all industries and the management and remuneration of all labour demand a machinery so colossal that it is feared it would fall to pieces by its own weight. 2. Some of those who have given greatest attention to social subjects, and have made the greatest personal sacrifices in behalf of the poor, believe that deliverance is only to be found in the application of Christian principles to the working of the present competitive system. True progress here, as elsewhere, begins in character. 3. Appeal is confidently made to Christ by both parties. By the one it is affirmed that were He now on earth He would be a communist. Communism has been tried to some extent in the Church. In monastic societies private property is surrendered for the good of the community, and this practice professes to find its sanction in the communism of the primitive Church. But the account we have of that communism shows that it was neither compulsory nor permanent. 4. It is perhaps of more importance to observe that our Lord took no part in any political movement. He was no agitator, although He lived in an age abounding in abuses. And this limitation of His work was due to no mere shrinking from the rougher work of life, but to His perception that His own task was to touch what was deepest in man, and to lodge in human nature forces which ultimately would achieve all that was desirable. It was by the regeneration of individuals society was to be regenerated. The leaven which contact with Him imparted to the individual would touch and purify the whole social fabric. III. In any case the duty of individual Christians is plain.1. To seclude ourselves in our own comfortable homes and shut out all sounds and signs of misery is simply to furnish proof that we know nothing of the spirit of Christ. We may find ourselves quite unable to rectify abuses on a larger scale, but we can do something to brighten some lives; we can ask ourselves whether we are quite free from blood-guiltiness in using articles which are cheap to us because wrung out of underpaid and starving hands. 2. The method of collecting which Paul recommends was in all probability that which he himself practised (verse 2). But what is chiefly to be noticed is that Paul, who ordinarily is so free from preciseness and form, here enjoins the precise method in which the collection might best be made. He believed in methodical giving. He laid it on each man’ s conscience deliberately to say how much he would give. He wished no one to give in the dark. He knew how men seem to themselves to be giving much more than they are if they do not keep an exact account of what they give, how some men shrink from knowing definitely the proportion they give away. And therefore he presents it as a duty to determine what proportion we can give away, and if God prospers us and increases our incomes, to what extent we should increase our personal expenditure and to what extent use for charitable objects the additional gain. (M. Dods, D. D.)Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him. The weekly offering Let us-- I. Consider some general principles in relation to Christian gifts,1. Real religion demands the consecration of some part of our worldly substance to God. Gratitude to God constrains us to inquire, “ What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?” And God is pleased to encourage in us free-will offerings, and He has in all ages regarded them as a portion of His worship. Before the flood men took the firstlings of their flock and gave them to God. When Noah came out of the ark he took of every clean beast, etc., and gave them to God. Abraham tithed the spoil of battle for the service of God; and Jacob, on the plains of Bethel, vowed a tenth to God. In all the solemnities of Jewish worship the command went forth, “ None shall appear before the Lord empty,” and there were seasons when the spontaneous liberality of the people overflowed all the bounds of calculation. Further on the prophets dwelt upon the time when the Church of Christ should emulate and even surpass the enthusiasm of her elder sister. “ The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.” “ For brass I will bring gold,” etc. The Magi brought their costly tribute to the infant Saviour, typifying the great consecration that shall one day ensue of the world’ s wealth to Him. Mark Christ’ s approval of the widow’ s mites, and His rebuke of Judas. In apostolic times Barnabas sells his estates and gives the proceeds for the furtherance of the gospel. Name after name is recorded of both sexes as distinguished for high-minded self-denial in the same good cause. Each Epistle contains some reference to the universal duty. 2. The genius of Christianity loudly calls for enlarged benevolence. (1) The system of redemption is, from first to last, one prodigious process of gift. God loved the world and gave His only begotten Son. The Son loved us, and gave Himself to death for us all. The self-sacrifice of Christ has taught us more pathetically than words could say, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The patriarch might bring his first-fruits and his flocks with thankfulness as a recognition of the great Landlord of the world. The Jew in his tithes and offerings professed his attachment to the theocracy. But we have holier motives. The blessings obtained by sharing in salvation are so vast that they constitute the substance of which all antecedent privileges were but the shadow. Shall we then feel less of love, and practise less of self-denial? (2) Moreover, we have in the teachings and example of Jesus infallible lessons in the art of self-surrender. Wherein is our discipleship manifest if it be not by a preference of the glory of God to all inferior motives of time and sense? (3) The coming of Christ and the completion of His great work of atonement have greatly extended the responsibilities of His Church, for in Him there is neither Greek nor Jew, etc. With His Church the Saviour has left injunctions to subdue the whole world. 3. God has in all ages greatly honoured the consecration of wealth to His service. “ Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled,” etc. Many Christians will testify that their success in life is due to their dedication of their gains to God. We have yet to meet the man who has been impoverished by charity. But there are rewards of a holier kind. The illiberal man robs himself of the joy of being like God: he narrows the circle of his gratifications and limits their sources. II. Examine the apostolic instructions contained in the text. What force has this precept now? The reply is not difficult. An inspired apostle is the highest human authority in all that relates to Christian duty. Should any upon the basis of this Scripture adopt the custom of weekly offerings, they cannot be acting wrong. Nay, the strong presumption is that they are adopting the only course that is right. The objection that this is the only precept of the kind is not valid, for upon one passage in this same Epistle we establish our mode of commemorating the Saviour’ s love to us, may we not also upon another passage, that now before us, rest our mode of exhibiting our love to Him? In our text we find--1. The time appointed for religious gifts. The advantages that attach to this apostolic rule are numerous and important. Here is an appointed time of frequent occurrence, and thereby the duty is kept constantly before our attention. The Lord’ s day presents the leisure required for deliberate thought and finds us in the happiest state of mind for the performance of the obligation. The cultivation of a spirit of liberality becomes a part of the great work of Christian edification which belongs pre-eminently to the first day in the week. The present desultory mode is inconvenient in the extreme; it jumbles together the perplexities of business and the service of love; it has produced not a little ill-temper, and therefore we commend to you this financial system of the New Testament. Put by each Sabbath what you ought to give. Have somewhere a store which is not your own, but God’ s; and when applicants come meet them as a steward, who is dispensing what is his master’ s, not his own. This system is one that commends itself for its great facility. The working man could easily put by his one, two, or three-pence a week, whereas five, ten, or fifteen shillings would be an impossibility to him at the year’ s end. The tradesman who would not miss his ten shillings or sovereign each Sabbath would be troubled to surrrender at one effort the twenty or fifty pounds which he ought to give annually to the treasury of God. 2. The persons addressed--“ Every one of you.” All who have received the gospel are bound to do what they can for its diffusion. Smallness of means does not procure exemption. As under the law the poor man’ s pigeon was equally acceptable to God with the bullocks of his wealthier brother, so also were they equally required. The small contributions of the great number are even more desirable than the magnificent offerings of the wealthy few. 3. The rule and measure of contribution--“ As God hath prospered him.” (1) It is true that the New Testament does not assign the specific arithmetical amount which we shall dedicate to God. Amongst the Jews each head of a family was bound to give one-tenth to the support of the tribe of Levi, a second tenth for the great festivals of his nation, a third tenth for the poor. Beside these, there were free-will offerings, trespass offerings, and costly journeys to the temple. The aggregate of religious gifts among the Jews could not have been less than one-fifth of each man’ s income, and more probably involved one-third of it. (2) Now, while the spirit of the gospel is love, still it does give directions to regulate our conduct in relation to contributions. If love does not stoop to arithmetical calculation, it is only because this grace is profuse beyond all calculation. (3) The rule of the text requires that there should be a continual relation between our temporal circumstances and our religious benefactions. A Christian’ s wealth is not to increase and his subscriptions remain stationary. The more the Almighty prospers a man, the more He expects him to bestow (Deuteronomy 16:17). (W. G. Lewis.)On living by rule 1. St. Paul, the most disenthralled of all the apostles from the bondage of Judaism, here gives a rule on the subject of almsgiving. The wisdom of such a rule is obvious. A considerable sum would thus be gradually accumulated, which a man might hesitate to give in one lump. And then, again, such a rule ensured a gradual discipline in Christian benevolence which would be far more beneficial and a far greater test of character than one great effort. A great effort may be made in a moment of excitement; but continual little efforts can only be made on principle. Lastly, the collection would be over before the apostle’ s visit, and their minds would be ready to receive the spiritual benefits of his ministry. 2. Still, a rule it is. It defines the exact method and period. And it has all the narrowness inherent in the nature of rules, it is not adapted to the circumstances of all men. In the case of incomes not accruing weekly, the rule would require to be recast. And there is probably no modern Christian who thinks himself bound to its literal observance however much we may be bound to the spirit of it. 3. It is surprising, until we come to consider it, what a dearth of rules there is in the New Testament. The field of nature presents in this respect a remarkable resemblance to the field of Scripture; she furnishes materials for all the arts of life even as Scripture furnishes principles for holy living. There is stone in her quarries, clay in her soils, timber in her forests, coal in her mines, etc. The various arts of life develop these resources for the well-being of man. Without architecture we must sleep under the canopy of the sky, without the weaver’ s art we should be none the better for the sheep’ s fleece, and without the industry and ingenuity of man corn could not be converted into bread. Now just as nature furnishes all the materials of life, which art develops and makes up for use, so Holy Scripture furnishes the materials for all rules of holy living, which rules the spiritual instinct and experience of the children of God extracts and draws up in form. 4. From this very simple analogy, then, we learn the great importance as well as the subordinate position of rules. It was not the scope of the Scriptures to do anything beyond furnishing the principles of duty, just as it was not the scope of the Creator in nature to do anything beyond furnishing materials for the supply of man’ s various wants. Yet we cannot gather from hence that rules are not absolutely necessary for a holy life. 5. But be it observed that the adoption of rules is recommended not as a bondage but as a help to the will and as a discipline for bracing and hardening it. What Christian man can say with truth that he has risen above the necessity of all such rules? What Christian man could safely afford to dispense, e.g., with the obligation of private prayer morning and evening, and of stated public worship, although these obligations are bound upon him, not by the explicit letter of Holy Scripture, but by the godly customs and traditional usages of the Christian Church? As to almsgiving, some rule surely must be felt by all of us to be urgently needed, and here especially the form and shape which the duty will take will be almost infinitely various. Let each man only make sure of securing by his practice the principle, which is that God has a claim upon a certain fair proportion of our annual income, and that to withhold from Him such a proportion independently of the dishonour done to Him thereby, is as likely to be prejudicial to our spiritual interests as the withholding from Him a portion of our time for the exercises of devotion. Let this principle be deeply settled in the mind and then the details adjusted honestly in accordance with it. 6. In any case let our rules be such as may be easily and cheerfully observed, remembering that we are to serve God in the newness of the spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. Let the object be to make them a help, not to convert them into a penance. (Dean Goulburn.)The theology of money (Deuteronomy 8:18 and text):-- I. God gives the power to get wealth.1. Remember that and industry is turned into a sacrament, and you will feel yourself working side by side with God in the field, warehouse, pulpit etc. 2. This text strikes a blow at that most popular and mischievous fallacy that man is the maker of his own money. Men who can see God moulding worlds, cannot see Him suggesting our idea in business, or smiling on the plough. We have dethroned Him in the realm of commerce, and have put foul little gods called Trick and Cunning into the holy place. We have locked God up in the church. 3. There is always a danger of becoming entangled in the intricacies of second causes. If money fell like rain we should more readily concede that it came from God; but because it comes through circuitous channels we see on it no nobler image than Caesar’ s. But He who pours down the sunlight pours out the oil. He who arrays Lebanon in all the pomp of summer foliage gives wool and flax to cover the nakedness of man. 4. God wishes the fact to be treasured in the memory of His saints. Mark the consequences of this grateful recollection. (1) God and wealth will be ever associated. “ The silver and the gold are Mine.” (2) It will promote humility. “ What hast thou that thou hast not received?” (3) It will restore every act of life to its direct and vital relation to the centre of the universe. The man who can be atheistic in business could be atheistic in heaven itself. The man who never turns his warehouse into a church will turn the church into a warehouse. (4) It will put a check on all wastefulness. A man who outruns his resources is dishonest; his life is a perpetual felony. (5) It will beget a becoming gratitude and turn our heart and eye heavenward. II. The practical recognition this requires. Paul turns the principle to practical account. A time is named--God’ s elect day. The Sabbath is emphatically a day of remembrance. The measure is fixed: God’ s gift of power, “ As God hath prospered.” There is not a word about tenth, or fifth, or twentieth. The whole New Testament arithmetic is moral. The student is at liberty, indeed, to go back into the oldest Biblical records, and to discover what grateful men did in dividing and dedicating property, but the service here demanded is a service of love, gratitude, memorial; the heart will soon arrange the best methods of marshalling details. Note the results which would mark the adoption of this apostolic plan.1. The fickleness and fitfulness of benevolence would be terminated. Benevolence is now very largely a question of impulse. 2. The benevolent operations of the Church would be immensely facilitated. When help is required there is no difficulty with men who systematically store a portion for God. 3. The gratitude of the individual Christian would be kept in lively exercise. On every Lord’ s day he would not only pray for the kingdom, but show the reality of his word by the practical reality of his deed. Conclusion:1. You may suggest that it is troublesome to be dividing every week: is it troublesome to be receiving every week? 2. If you remember the Lord your God He will remember you. “ Honour the Lord with thy substance,” etc. “ He which soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly,” etc. (J.Parker, D.D.)And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve.--The cooperation of Church and minister Observe generally--1. That in matters of public interest the Church and the minister should co-operate. 2. That the Church approves and the minister commissions. 3. That the minister, where any solid advantage is to be gained, should be ready for any service imposed upon him (verse 4). (J. Lyth, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 16:5-9 Now I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia.God’ s will the rule and spiritual usefulness the end of life I. God’ s will should be the rule of life. Paul had made a plan to visit the Corinthians, to “ tarry a while” with them, but he rests this plan (no doubt dear to his heart) on “ if the Lord permit.”1. A belief is implied here, viz., that God is in the history of individual man. He is not merely in the material universe, in angelic hierarchies, in human communities, churches, families. He is not too absorbed or too great for this. Paul believed that God was interested in him personally, and that He arranged for him personally. There is something bracing and ennobling in this thought. 2. An acquiescence is implied here. I have no will of my own. Personally, I should like to winter with you, but I subordinate my will to the will of my God. I am in His hands, and am ready to act in everything according to His arrangements. II. Spiritual usefulness should be the aim of life. (1 Corinthians 16:8-9).1. Wherever the gospel signally triumphs, great opposition may be anticipated. Paul was now at Ephesus, where he had laboured for a considerable time, and with such success that passionate opposition was excited (Acts 19:9-20). It has ever been so: wherever there has been a great revival of religion there has been unusual opposition. The latent enmity of the serpent is ever roused by the dissemination of spiritual light. Christ kindled a fire upon the earth. 2. Opposition to the gospel often affords specially favourable opportunities for the labour of the evangelist. Religious excitement is ever more favourable to the spread of religion than religious monotony. You stand a better chance of converting an earnest sceptic than a stagnant religionist. Excitement opens a “ door.” 3. The true evangelist will be stimulated rather than discouraged by opposition. It is only little souls who are dismayed by difficulties. (D. Thomas, D.D.)I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost.--What Christianity does for a man 1. These sentences, casually thrown in, as it were, at the end of a letter, reveal incidentally, and therefore really, the spiritual quality and tone of the writer. It is one thing to make a formal statement of what Christianity has done, and another to show its results without any attempt at composition or eye to effect. An incidental touch will reveal the whole man. 2. Paul comes within sight in these instructions. In the previous chapter he was quite beyond the range of our vision. Here he becomes more like one of ourselves. These are only little sentences after the great thunder-bursts of the resurrection chapter, and come too soon to get their full force and value; but they show what Christianity did for Paul. It made him-- I. Most dauntless under circumstances of an intensely discouraging kind. Paul looked at the door rather than at the adversaries, and therein the quality of the man is disclosed. The great soldier must be in the thick of the fight. When the wolf is most dangerous, the shepherd must be most watchful. Paul seemed to have a kind of inborn liking for danger. Herein he was most Christ-like, and quietly but severely rebukes the most of his successors. What an eye we have for the adversaries! and therein is our quality revealed. What moaning there is in the ministry and the Church! The neighbourhood is going down; the population is moving; trade is bad; people are opposed to us. There are many adversaries: Paul is perfectly aware of that; and he counted them one by one, and said, “ Humanly speaking, they are an overwhelming majority, but Divinely speaking, they are for ever in a minority, for He that is for us is more than they that be against us.” We must take the completer view, and then we shall see that the great host that is encamped against the Lord is but a handful of moths. And so every adversary should be a stimulus to nobler endeavour--a prick in the side causing us to spring forward with more vital alertness and determination to win the battle of the Lord. We should have said that there being many adversaries was an excellent reason for leaving Ephesus; Paul made it a substantial reason for remaining there. II. Paternally and most tenderly considerate (1 Corinthians 16:10-11). Timotheus was young in experience; the kind of man that would soon be lost in a crowd; shrinking, modest, one who would never count for much if tumult were to rule the day. See, then, says Paul, “ see that he may be with you without fear.” When you shake hands with him, let him feel the pressure of love in the grip which welcomes him by holy symbol: under encouragement he can do a great deal. If he find you critical, pedantic, fault-finding, his young heart will sink. To be with the Church without fear--that is to elicit all that is best in the young minister. “ The fear of man bringeth a snare.” III. Magnanimous (1 Corinthians 16:12). Apollos was “ an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures,” Paul’ s “ bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible.” He knew that, yet he says, “ As touching our brother Apollos,” --there is tenderness in the very utterance of the man’ s name; he is not “ Apollos,” but “ our brother Apollos,” etc. We are now and then very human: there is perhaps a temptation to persuade Apollos to go in some other direction and so keep out of our particular way. Conclusion: We cannot put these things on from the outside; these are the fruits of the Spirit. All assumed courage is cowardice, a pretended considerateness is the most objectionable patronage, an affected magnanimity is hypocrisy. We must grow in these graces, but the growth must be from within; these are not to be taught or learned in the schools: these are the victories of grace, the miracles of God. (J. Parker, D. D.)Counsel and character It is not an unnatural demand that counsel should correspond with the character of the counsellor. How much Seneca and Bacon have lost in moral influence through the discrepancy between what they wrote and what they were! St. Paul’ s consistency comes out in a comparison between his advice in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 and his revelation of himself in 1 Corinthians 16:8-9. The Corinthians were exhorted to-- I. Vigilance. Well, was Paul careless? He resolves to tarry at Ephesus. Here he had to watch--1. Against the surprises of temptation. He was not ignorant of Satan’ s devices, and was incessantly watchful “ lest Satan should get an advantage over him.” “ He kept under his body,” etc. 2. Against the vicissitudes which might otherwise have thwarted his plans and marred his work. Acts 19:1-41. tells us of some of these vicissitudes and how Paul turned them to his own account. It was this Church he addressed when he urged this duty by the force of his well-known example (Acts 20:31). 3. For opportunities. It required no ordinary vigilance to detect in John’ s disciples the raw material of Christian missionaries, and to secure sufficient influence with the contradictory elements in the Jewish synagogue and the school of Tyrannus (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:19-22). II. Steadfastness. This quality is tested in two ways.1. By disheartening difficulties. These tried Paul to no ordinary degree in a city whose population “ deserved to be throttled man by man,” a city notorious for licentiousness, superstition, and idolatry. He was in jeopardy every hour; he died daily, yet his faith never wavered (1 Corinthians 4:9-13). No small portion of the trials enumerated in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 must have fallen to his lot at Ephesus. 2. By the existence of an apparently legitimate excuse for the want of it. A man is sometimes compelled to stand fast because he cannot move. The real test is when a way of escape opens. Such a way opened to Paul in the shape of an invitation to Corinth, and the seeming desirableness of accepting it. How much his presence was needed at Corinth; and the work at Ephesus surely would not suffer under the superintendence of Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos. The change would do him good. But no; his business was to do the work in hand so that it would not require to be done a second time. So he sent a letter with an influential deputation to Corinth, and chose to abide “ at Ephesus till Pentecost.” How many Christians beguile their conscience with the persuasion that an invitation to another sphere is a legitimate excuse for the abandonment of their present one of difficulty, whereas it may be only a subtle attack of the adversary on their steadfastness! Our text went further to strengthen a previous exhortation to abide in the calling wherein they were called in God. So it comes to us. III. Courage. He who said “ Quit you like men,” etc., illustrated his own counsel by resolving to “ tarry at Ephesus,” because--1. There was “ a great door and effectual” there. A great opportunity tests courage because it requires coolness, self-control, fortitude, and all the elements of the nobler heroism, Many a soldier who has nerve to follow when called to command or carry a forlorn hope, loses heart, not because of the danger, but because of the responsibility. 2. There were many adversaries--Jews, magicians, etc. IV. Charity. Charity--1. “ Is kind,” and he who is so anxious that “ all things should be done in charity,” sets the example (verse 10). Timothy had a delicate task to perform, and Paul therefore asked that he might perform it under conditions which would ensure credit and success. How many a promising youth for the want of a kind word or a helping hand has gone to wreck! 2. “ Envieth not.” It is as alien from the selfishness of jealousy as from the selfishness of greed. Now if any one could have excited Paul’ s jealousy it was Apollos, and yet hear what he says of him (verse 12). With what force does the exhortation come to all factions and rivalries, backed as it is by Paul’ s conduct “ as touching his brother Apollos.” (J. W. Burn.)A great door and effectual is opened unto me. An open door 1. St. John beheld a door opened in heaven. A door opened before him into the mysteries of the unseen, invited him to expatriate there. It was a door opened for ministerial labour and achievement on earth of which St. Paul tells us. Whose portion, would you choose? The chance of getting behind the veil would be very tempting; yet however passionately we might yearn, and with no unworthy yearning, to pierce the inscrutable, would it not be a diviner impulse that should lead us to accept the opportunity of bettering ill conditions or supplying needs that cry? 2. Which was the happier of the two, St. John or St. Paul? In the case of the former there would be a blissful excitement that bore in it a throb of pain, a sense of oppression, a half-fearful expectancy. Would his strength be sufficient for the scenes that would burst upon him? St. Paul’ s happiness, you may depend, was the simpler, purer of the two, as in the populous heathen city he found himself at liberty to tell his grand story, and felt around him a great field waiting for the good seed which the husbandman is eager to sow. With what buoyancy he would rise every morning, to resume his hopeful work; how peacefully he would fall asleep each night, thinking of the scenes which had cheered him, meditating on the proceedings for the morrow! And are we ever happier than in moments when scope is given us for doing what we have been craving to be able to do? The text suggests many thoughts. I. An open door--what would we not give for it?1. The feeling is something like the anxiety which a painter was under to put an open window or gateway in his picture which without that would be heavy; or a sick man’ s longing for the northern coolness and whispering breeze amidst the breathless, motionless evergreen forest of the South. We have a suffocating sense of fainting, of closeness, and ache to get out into fresher air and ampler space; but things hem us in from being and doing as we would. We can see perhaps a simpler, healthier, more rational life to live, and we inwardly desire to live it. There are interests that chain us down, and around us is a world of convention and custom through which we are unable to break. We are shut up to a daily round, so we are impatient. Have we not sighed thus at times for an open door to let us out? 2. Or, again, in earnest thought and contemplation we have felt that light was near; a faint glimmer has been descried by us. It seemed to us that only another step was required to carry us right into the light, and then just there we were stopped; on the verge of it, we were like a man groping about in a dark room for some article which he knows is very close by waiting to be grasped by his hand, but which he feels after in vain. Oh, for one further suggestion that would surely bring us to the land on the borders of which we are! 3. So once more, when wandering solitary in the summer fields, or in the silence of the lonely wood, watching the wondrous sunset at sea, has there never been a feeling with us that, however nature might be speaking to our minds and our hearts, there was something further, deeper, which it had to say--something for the communication of which only a little more faith, or delicacy, or peace in ourselves was needed? II. But we have had the happy experience of the opening of the door. And how charming it was when the means of doing what we have been craving to do presented itself, and we were free to follow the hitherto thwarted impulses! Suddenly or gradually a new view of a subject has come as with the opening of a window, and the whole aspect of things has undergone change. Or we have stumbled upon facts with which we were previously acquainted which promised to elucidate for us that which was previously inextricable; or, getting hold of a principle, we bare found we could apply it for guidance in relation to matters in dealing with which before we have been dubious or confused. Or the reading of some book, maybe the intercourse with some person has given us a new vision of life. III. There is such a thing as living always with a door open before us. As every man is his own strait gate, and the main difficulty in his way of improvement, so every man may be if he will his own open door. The secret of the difference between men in their growth is that some are receptive, and some are not. Some are standing every day to appropriate and assimilate all that meets them; and some are with souls more or less enclosed--angels walk by their thresholds and they do not ask them in; Jesus of Nazareth passes by and they are not about.1. Cultivate at the height of every achievement an ingenuous discontent. Evermore say, “ This is good, yet is there better than this.” 2. Try to discipline yourself to equanimity in the presence of petty troubles and grievances. Be very particular to have your mental chamber kept free from the disturbance of a host of shabby visitors. Many men live and die excluded from higher impressions, just because their avenues are all blocked. 3. Cultivate cheerfulness, resist gloom and despondency, than which nothing operates more to prevent appreciation and discernment of the good that offers itself. (S. A. Tipple.)The opening of a great and effectual door I. Imports--1. Opportunity. 2. Success. II. May occur in a most unlikely place. III. Invites us to enter it. IV. Usually awakens opposition. V. Should inspire persistent courage and effort. (J. Lyth, D.D.)A great and effectual door opened Consider-- I. The great and effectual door opened.1. A few years back and Ephesus was “ a door” not open to Christ. The temple of Diana was open, and thronged with worshippers from “ all Asia and the world.” The theatre was open, nourishing the worst passions of our fallen nature. Craftsmen had their open shops for the sale of models of the temple and images of the goddess. And yet Ephesus was a most important place, teeming with population, the capital of Proconsular Asia. How sad to see it a closed “ door” ! And is there no closed “ door” in the present day? I speak not now of many a heathen city, but of those closed “ doors” in the densely populated parishes of Christian England, where mammon has her open shops, licentiousness her open hells, infidelity her open halls. How distressing to see the “ door” of “ the broad way” wide open, and the many crowding through it, while “ the strait gate” is, to numbers, virtually the closed “ door” ! 2. But see the “ great and effectual door opened!” The apostle came and laboured there for the space of three years. It was in the course of this period that he saw “ a great door and effectual opened.” In his opportunity of making known the gospel, and in its ready admission to the hearts of many. Some so ignorant that they had not so much as heard “ whether there were any Holy Ghost,” became well-instructed Christians. “ Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them. So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.” And the gospel and the grace of God is still the same. Wherever faithful men labour in the spirit of the apostle, using the same instrument, and depending on the same grace, they commonly soon see, with delight and thankfulness, a “ great and effectual door” opening before them. II. The many adversaries. When we engage in any work for God we are taught to expect difficulties. In seeking our own salvation we are exhorted to count the cost; in co-operating to save souls we must calculate on opposition. The adversaries are--General. Satan, the adversary of God and man, always in every place opposing the work of God, and man’ s natural corruption renders him an easy prey to the enemy seeking his destruction. See how the apostle reminded the Ephesians of both these in his Epistle.2. Special. (1) The Jews the embodiment of that self-righteousness which is one of our most potent adversaries to-day. Have not we often had to contend, not only with open ungodliness, but also with this subtle adversary, working in the hearts of the more decent yet formal professors of religion? (2) The exorcists. So we must not be surprised if, when the true gospel is preached, there be counterfeits of the gospel circulated from corrupt motives by ungodly men. (3) Demetrius and the craftsmen. These, seeing the open “ door,” endeavoured to close it by violence And is there no such storm fast gathering around us in the present day? III. What is the consequent duty?1. To acknowledge the hand of God. Who but He, with His Divine hand, opened that “ great door and effectual” in Ephesus? And the Fountain-head continues the same--inexhaustible and Divine. Hence all our hopes and consolations. 2. To press forward. 3. Where we see the “ great door and effectual opened, “ although” there are many adversaries.” “ The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” It is not by an indolent wish, an occasional impulse of feeling, but by faithful perseverance, even “ unto death,” that we shall have “ an entrance ministered to us abundantly,” etc. (J. Hambleton, M. A.)Opportunity I. This word “ opportunity” springs from an old root signifying “ at port,” or “ in the harbour,” suggestive of the lines: “ There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Thus we think of the trader watching the market, ready to pounce upon every opportunity that he may turn it to gold. Thousands fail in life through neglect of such chances. When the Blucher of opportunity presents itself, they have not “ pluck” enough to charge, and so win their Waterloo. There are great national opportunities which present themselves once or twice in the lifetime of a country or community and never come again. Such an opportunity the Church of Rome had when some of her most faithful sons pointed out the sins and excesses which led to the Reformation. Such an opportunity the Church of England had in 1662, when she drove out the crown and flower of her ministerial ranks. Such an opportunity France had at the time of the Reformation of ridding herself of a blind superstition on the one hand, and a hopeless atheism on the other. Such an opportunity Jerusalem had nineteen centuries ago; but she spurned it, rejected it, and finally quenched it in the blood of the innocent (Luke 19:41-44). II. There are opportunities which belong to certain periods of life. There is the season of youth. How full it is of opportunities--for mental improvement, forming good habits, moulding the character, determining on a future line of action. Use it, therefore, as the springtime which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow provisions for a long and happy life. Now if this be true with regard to the physical and mental, how much more with regard to the moral and the spiritual! Says the poet: “ Heaven lies near us in our infancy.” The heart has not become stained and soiled; the conscience has not become seared and hardened. There are no hosannas so sweet to Christ as the hosannas of the young. Others, again, are becoming more advanced in years. Gradually they find themselves farther and farther away from the time “ when they were boys” --they have reached the autumn of life. Oh, what opportunities they have had! But while men were busy here and there, the golden opportunity was gone. Consider our opportunities of usefulness. Take the home, e.g., what a splendid chance it presents to Christian parents of influencing their children goodwards at the very gateway of life! And to a certain extent the same thing holds good with regard to visitors. When Lord Peterborough lodged with Fenelon for a season, he said, on leaving, “ After this I shall be a Christian in spite of myself.” Or possibly you occupy a position in some place of business, and one morning a child with a distressed look comes to say that “ father is very ill, and cannot come to-day.” Next morning an intimation reaches you that he is dead. Instantly a “ still, small voice” within whispers reproachfully, “ I have never in all these years spoken one word to this man about Divine things. I have lost an opportunity that will never return.” Oh, there is a day coming when these lost opportunities will appear in a clearer light and with more terrible and startling distinctness. “ Because I have called and ye refused,” etc. (Proverbs 1:24-28). “ Consequences are unpitying.” So, then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith. (J. Dymond.) 1 Corinthians 16:10-16 Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear.Paul’ s affectionate recommendation of Timothy teaches us that young ministers 1. Often need encouragement.2. Should be respected for their works’ sake.3. Ought not to be despised.4. Must be treated with tenderness and consideration.5. Have a claim on the affectionate sympathy of their elder brethren. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Ministerial solicitude We are reminded-- I. That human plans and purposes are fraught with contingency. “ If Timotheus come.” Uncertainty is an important factor in human calculations.1. Even Paul could not project his plans into the future positively. (1) The Macedonian cry of some more needy Church might be heard; new doors constantly opening, fresh emergencies might arise. (2) Fiery persecutions were rife, the murderer’ s hand might smite, bonds and imprisonment might hold. (3) Escaping all these, death was still on his track--accident or disease might prevent. Paul was wise in saying, “ If he come.” 2. So you are expecting your Timotheus, my successor. Do not forget the extent and variety of the interests to be looked after, or the contingencies that may arise in adjusting the many claims. The cause you are interested in is God’ s, so are the men. Let not your over-anxiety fence Him off from having a hand in selecting your pastor. II. Of the state of mind essential to ministerial success. “ With you without fear.” Paul wanted this young man to start off well on his new charge. He who is not “ without fear” is in bad company. He lets rooms, or, rather, helplessly admits an enemy who ties him hand and foot, and robs him of happiness and success. Every man “ who is a shepherd, and not an hireling,” will have a natural fear or timidity in taking charge of an important Church. You have the power to confirm or remove this feeling. It is with our people to swing us out into the tropics, or create a winter about us, and--oh, how cold it feels! III. Of the duty of the Church in this important matter. “ See that he,” etc., etc., make it your business. Take pains to let him know that he is appreciated, and has your goodwill and co-operation. Banish the insulting suspicion that you might make him proud if you told him you like his sermons. If such be the case, have the honesty to let him know it. If he be a man of God it will make him a better preacher and more humble. “ Now if Timotheus come, see that” --1. You do not, by needlessly eulogising your former pastor, produce in his mind the fear that he will never be able to fill “ the aching void.” 2. You do not, by needlessly unkind criticism, and fault-finding references to your former pastors, produce in him the “ fear” that he is among an unkind, fault-finding people; and that, possibly in a few mouths, they may be equally bitter against himself. Do not be in too great a hurry to weigh “ Timotheus, if he come” ; give him a chance. When you do weigh him, put him on a decent scale, and not one that weighs everything on a sharp hook. See that he is without fear when you put him on the scales; if fear go on with him, he will not register half his weight or worth. IV. That God’ s faithful ministers are all men of one work. “ He worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do.” He in his way, I in mine. Sanctified individuality is the great want of the times. Every man has his own mission, and, sanctified to God and duty, he can do a work which no other being on earth can do as well. Better wield the simple sling of David than the cumbersome armour of Saul. (T. Kelly.)Wholesome teaching for the older ministers I. Show a tender regard for the interests of young ministers. Timothy was young in years and in the faith; a man, too, perhaps of delicate frame and nervous temperament, and probably not distinguished by any great gift. In Corinth there were philosophers and orators in whose presence he would perhaps feel somewhat abashed. Hence Paul asks the Corinthians to treat him kindly, not to “ despise him,” nor in any way to dispirit him. Alas! it is not an uncommon thing for elder ministers to disparage the younger ones, and often treat them with disrespect, and even rudeness. II. Rise superior to all ministerial jealousies. If Paul had been capable of jealousy it would have been towards Apollos. He was a man of distinguished ability, and perhaps more popular even than Paul himself. Had he been jealous, Paul would have kept him out of Corinth as long as he could, instead of which he says (1 Corinthians 16:12). Jealousy amongst ministers, though most anti-Christian, is not an uncommon thing; and shows itself often in detracting innuendoes and symbolic looks and shrugs. III. Be not displeased if inferior brethren acquiesce not in your desires. Both the Christian experience and ministerial ability of Apollos were inferior to that of Paul. Notwithstanding this he did not comply with Paul’ s request; nor did Paul seem displeased (1 Corinthians 16:12). If Paul did not enforce his wishes on his brethren, how arrogant it seems for any uninspired minister to attempt it! The only authority which one genuine minister has over another is the authority of superior intelligence, experience, and moral force. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Personal notices Note--1. That with St. Paul personal considerations were not lost in general philanthropy. It is common enough to profess great zeal for humanity, whilst there is indifference about individual men. But St. Paul’ s love was to the Church generally, and besides to Aquila, Priscilla, etc. And is not this too the nature of God’ s love, who provides for the universe, and yet spends an infinity of care on the fibre of a leaf? 2. The value of the courtesies of life. There are many minds which are indifferent to such things, and fancy themselves above them. Prescott observes that “ liberty is dependent upon forms.” Did not the slow, solemn change in the English constitution, and our freedom from violent subversions, arise from the way in which precedent has been consulted in the manner of every change? But more love is dependent upon forms--courtesy of etiquette guards and protects courtesy of heart. There are three persons chiefly mentioned here. I. Timothy (1 Corinthians 16:10). Paul bespeaks for him official respect and personal consideration. Consider the circumstances in which young Timothy was placed in coming to a city where gifts were unduly reverenced, and where even the authority of St. Paul was treated lightly. Think how Timothy’ s own modesty would have silenced him, and how his young enthusiasm might have been withered by ridicule or asperity!1. St. Paul’ s pleading is an encouragement of goodness while yet in its tender bud. There is a danger of our paralysing young enthusiasm by coldness or by sneers. There are few periods in life more critical than that in which sensibilities and strong feeling begin to develop themselves. The question is about to be decided whether what is at present merely romantic feeling is to become generous devotion, and to end by maturing into self-denial; or whether it is to remain only a sickly sentiment, and by reaction degenerate into a bitter and a sneering tone. 2. Nowhere is feeling met with so little sympathy, or enthusiasm so kept down as here; nowhere do young persons learn so soon the fashionable tone of strongly admiring nothing, reverencing nothing. And this was a danger which Paul knew well, and could not overlook. In earlier days Apollos himself ran the same risk. He set out preaching all the truth that he knew enthusiastically. It was lamentably incomplete. Had the Christians met him--“ this young upstart does not preach the gospel” --there had been either a great teacher blighted, or else a strong mind embittered into defiance and heresy. But from this he was delivered by the love and prudence of Aquila and Priscilla, “ who expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.” II. Apollos (1 Corinthians 16:12). Note--1. The perfect absence of all mean jealousy in St. Paul’ s mind. Compare this passage with his earnest rebuke of the party of Apollos in the first chapter. On reading that it might appear natural to say, “ Oh, he cannot bear a rival!” But behold, it was zeal for Christ, and not jealousy of Apollos. These are some of the fine touches by which we learn what that sublime apostle was, and what the grace of God had made him. 2. The apostle’ s earnest desire to make Apollos stand well with the Corinthians. A meaner spirit would either have left his conduct unexplained, or would have caught at the suspicion resting on him; why did he stay away? But St. Paul would leave no misunderstanding to smoulder. He simply stated that Apollos had reasons for not coming; “ but he will come.” This is magnanimity and true delicacy of heart. III. The house of stephanas (1 Corinthians 16:15-16).1. See what Christianity is--equality, but not levelling. God’ s universe is built on subordination; so is God’ s Church. The spirit of the world’ s liberty says, “ Let no man lord it over you” ; but the spirit of the gospel liberty says, “ Submit yourselves one to another.” 2. They had addicted themselves to the ministry. Who had called them to it? No one, except God by an inward fitness. There are certain things to be done in this world which require peculiar instruments and qualifications. A call from God to do such a work is often shown by a willingness to do it; a readiness to stand forward and take the lead. When this is the case, and such men try to do good, they are often met with innumerable hindrances, as in the cases of Howard and Mrs. Fry. Now St. Paul says, This is wrong; you ought rather to help such. Let them take the lead--follow in their wake, and do not mar the work by any petty jealousy. Observe, then, it is as much an apostolic duty to obey persons who have “ addicted themselves” from inward fitness, as it is to respect an outward constitutional authority. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)As touching our brother Apollos.--Etiquette amongst ministers I. Is founded in their brotherly relation.1. As children of one Father.2. As co-workers in one cause. II. Excludes all undue assumption of authority--all right of dictation. III. Prompts them to think and speak kindly of each other. (J. Lyth, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.The requirements of the Christian warfare The associations of war and battle breathe in every word of this exhortation. It touches the heart as the spirit-stirring address of a trusted leader touches the hearts of his comrades at some great emergency of the conflict. As the foe gathers in the distance, half hidden behind the brow of the hill or beneath the shadow of the forest, and it remains doubtful for the moment at what quarter the storm will break, his warning voice calls to vigilance--“ Watch ye.” As the tide of war rolls its threatening masses onwards, and the advancing column of the enemy, grim and ominous as a thundercloud, threatens to overwhelm the slender line of defenders, the leader’ s clear voice is heard in the momentary hush of suspense, exhorting them to steadiness and constancy--“ Stand fast.” As the opposing lines break in the shock of battle confusedly, like the meeting of two angry tides, and warrior contends hand to hand with warrior, the familiar voice still sounds amid the tumult, “ Quit you like men.” As beneath the fury of the assault the line of the patriot host shakes and wavers, and the crisis calls for a courage prepared to die, but never to yield, I picture to myself the figure of the dauntless leader as he lifts his banner aloft and shouts, “ Be strong.” (Canon Garbett.)The demands of Christianity I. Vigilance. There were many evils in the Corinthian Church--dissensions, heresies, unchastity, intemperance, etc. Hence the necessity for watchfulness. But where do not evils abound? Hosts surround us all; hence “ Watch ye.” “ Watch and pray.” II. Stability. Do not be wavering, vacillating, “ tossed about by every wind of doctrine.” Strike the roots of your faith deep into the soil of eternal truth. Firmness is no more obstinacy than the strong rock or the deep-rooted oak. III. Manliness. There is nothing higher than this. There are great philosophers, poets, statesmen, etc., who are small men leagues away from the ideal. IV. Charity (1 Corinthians 16:14). Man’ s life consists of many “ things done.” Activity is at once the law and necessity of his nature. He only really lives as he acts. But while acts are varied, the animating spirit should be one, and that is love. (D. Thomas, D.D.)Four points in the Christian life The text contains four points that should characterise the Christian life. I. Vigilance. It is of the utmost importance that we should set a watch over our minds; for error is, so to speak, in the air. And since the ruling ideas of the mind colour all our thoughts, and affect all our actions, we cannot be too careful, when ideas seek admittance into our minds, to test them, that we may know their character; for false and evil ideas corrupt good and healthy minds. We see every object presented to the mind in the light of our ruling ideas; like coloured glass they transform everything into their own particular shade. In religious matters this is specially important. Whenever any object is presented to the mind for our acceptance, as religious men and women let us at once betake ourselves “ to the law and to the testimony.” This is all the more imperative since error can put on the manners of truth, and actually pretend to do truth’ s work. There are many false teachers in our day, and error is exceedingly busy; let us, therefore, vigilantly guard the door of our minds, that no false principles take possession of them to pervert our thoughts and best feelings. We need also set a watch over our hearts. The majority of people are easier influenced through their emotions than by means of their intellects. That is the secret of the numerous fascinating shows that are so carefully and strikingly got up and presented to the eye; the exhibitors know that men are moved by such things, and that when they are in such an excited state, they may be carried away and made anything of, whether for good or for evil, just as they may feel disposed. Whenever any serious attempt is made to excite our heart’ s affections we should be very careful to ask ourselves the questions, “ Are these appeals to my heart true?” “ Are the means used for this purpose true in the highest and best sense?” We should also be careful to ask ourselves the question, “ Whether the objects that are seeking entrance into our hearts are pure?” The “ wisdom that is from above, is first pure.” We should also ask ourselves the furl, her important question, “ Whether the things that are seeking our hearts are character-making in the truest sense?” Whether they are likely to make us true, just, honourable, pure, lovely, and thoroughly virtuous? Further, we must set a watch upon our spirits to guard our spirituality. The sharp edge of a knife, if pressed carelessly against a hard substance, will blunt and become unfit for use. Great care should be taken by Christian people to preserve the tone of the spirituality and vigorous point. Whatever lowers the tone of a person’ s spirituality hinders the progress of his higher and nobler life. If mingled with a given society; if going to the theatre; if reading a certain class of book; if either of these things, or any other practice, chills the spirit, and indisposes it to pray, it should certainly be abandoned as dangerous. We need, therefore, to set a vigilant watch over our spirits, that we may preserve a healthy and vigorous tone of spirituality that will thoroughly command our carnal passions and keep them in subjection. “ But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh,” etc. II. Steadfastness. “ Stand fast in the faith.”1. In our faith is the one true and living God. The bane of Greece was the multitude of her gods. The idolatrous upbringing of the Corinthians was, no doubt, a great hindrance to their spiritual growth. With many Christians God is a “ God afar off,” it is to be feared; hence their apathy and inertness in regard to religion and the state of their fellow-creatures around them. There were daring unbelievers in Corinth when Paul wrote this Epistle who denied the resurrection of the dead, and who were scattering error broadcast amongst the people. Let us stand fast in our faith in God, then, that He is a “ very present God,” who never leaves nor forsakes those who trust in Him. 2. Let us be firm in our faith in Christ as the only and sufficient Saviour. The Corinthians were in danger, from the special importance which the Greeks attached to wisdom. And if wisdom did not actually save humanity, according to them only the wise, in their sense of the term, would be saved. Paul combats this erroneous idea in the first chapter of this Epistle. So it is faith that saves, not wisdom--not true wisdom even. It is not morality that saves either. If it could have saved any one, it most certainly would have saved the rich young ruler in the Gospels. 3. Let us “ stand fast in the faith,” that the Scriptures are the only and sufficient rule of faith. III. Manliness. “ Quit you like men.” These words have a martial air about them; they sound like the utterance of a great general on the eve of a critical battle that was to decide the destiny of a mighty nation. The manliness of which the text speaks includes several parts.1. In the first place, it includes uprightness. Man was made physically erect that he might look heavenward with ease and pleasure. And man’ s moral conduct is to resemble his physical flame; it is to be upright. It must not have any twists in it, nor angles of any kind. The eloquent statesman, Henry Clay, propounded a political scheme to a friend once. “ It will ruin your prospects for the Presidency,” suggested the friend. “ Is it right?” asked Clay. “ Yes,” was the answer. Mr. Clay continued, “ I would rather be right than President.” Every Christian should do right; his Christian manliness demands it of him. Anything like unprincipled policy or time-serving is utterly out of place in a disciple of Christ’ s. 2. It also includes truth. The manly Christian is a true man. He does not think one thing and speak another. His words as truly represent his thoughts as the sound of a correct key in an organ represents a particular part of music. The same consistency is apparent between his feelings and his actions. Among the important objects of his life are “ Whatsoever things are true.” 3. And, further, it includes courage. Christian manliness is full of true valour. Fortitude is as prominent a feature of the genuinely good man’ s life as uprightness and truth. They will boldly enter a lion’ s den rather than deny their God. IV. True and manly vigour. “ Be strong.” The spiritual life is capable of great strength--that is clear from the characters of the faithful of all ages. Intellectual greatness may only be possible to a few; but great spiritual might is practically possible to all true Christians.1. Be strong in conviction. If we will but allow the light of the truth of the gospel to penetrate our minds, we shall be deeply convinced of its saving power, and the result will be that we shall “ be strong” in our adherence to the truth. Let us be careful not to mistake mere tradition for troth. 2. Be strong in love. In the verse which immediately follows the text the apostle directs the Corinthians, “ Let all that ye do be done in love.” Love is a special feature of Christianity. Love can do what no other faculty can; what many other faculties combined cannot do; hence our Lord’ s “ new commandment.” The loving man is a great actor--he is no dreamer, but a doer of the work of Christ. 3. Be strong in will. Strength of will is required in our struggles with the corruptions of our own hearts, and the sin that so abounds without and around us. (D. Rhys Jenkins.)A manly Christianity is-- I. Watchful. Because it--1. Is enlightened.2. Knows the danger.3. Provides against it. II. Steadfast. Because--1. It understands the faith.2. Appreciates its value.3. Resists unto blood. III. Strong--1. In experience and purpose.2. Hence immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. (J. Lyth.)Wise counsels 1. Guard against temptation.2. Hold fast your principles.3. Act with courage.4. Persevere with constancy.5. Do all in the spirit of love. (J. Lyth.)Three kinds of temptation There is an indissoluble connection between a man’ s character and his view of life. As a man is in moral quality, so will he conceive life to be. It is only the feeble and the worthless who ask, Is life worth living? The brave and the good live worthily, and so feel life full of worth. Sin produces despair. Holiness begets courage and faith. Take, as an instance, the man who writes these words. He had known hardness; his life had been a life of trouble and change, yet he had dared to brave it. And now, summing up the lesson of his life to the men he loved, he says, “ Watch ye,” etc. He enforces the duty. They are to watch. That duty is personal, and involves another: “ stand fast in the faith.” As they watch they keep the faith. As they keep the faith they quit themselves like men. As these three are together bound and realised in one character they are strong. I. Watch. The duty of watchfulness implies its need, and the need of watchfulness springs from the manifoldness of temptation.1. There are three great conditions or forms under which temptations come. (1) Social. True society is better than it was. Public life is purer and its standard higher. Education is more widely distributed, and as men say no man shall be ignorant, so they must come to say that no man shall make for us laws unless he be a moral man. Our commerce, too, has much of its ancient character of honour. But while we have ranch cause for gratitude, we have greater cause for watchfulness. Our society is sadly destitute of true economy, which means labour wisely directed and applied, the power of gathering in and reaping its abundant fruits, the skill and the will to make of these the most equal, ample distribution, so that they make wealth not simply for the few, but the whole. Our dangers grow from accumulation in the hands of the few, without distribution into the homes and for the comfort of the many. We spend their thirty millions on instruments of war, their three millions or a little more on education and the forming of men. Yet where lieth the strength of a people? Not in its arsenals, not in its army or navy, but in its men. The supreme need of a people is the forming of the people. There is something higher than the making of wealth; there is the making of men. The highest of all social necessities is the making of new men; that is possible only by the preaching and the teaching of the gospel of Christ. (2) Moral. There are dangers when conventional standards of morality are unreal and unjust. See a banker who has for nigh a whole generation lived on the savings of the hard-working man, the store of the widow and orphan. See him hardly punished--it seems a little more than a severe rebuke; and some tempted lad, in some hour of great need, for miserable theft stamped through years a criminal. Look at the seducer fresh from his guilt, judged to be fit by mother to wed the daughter. And see the victim, by the same, cast out, a thing unclean. There is nothing more mischievous than standards of that kind. (3) Intellectual. These are often said to rise from increased knowledge and activity. Nay, they rise from ignorance and intellectual frivolity. Newspapers to have power must be spiced. People must be tempted to read. And the result too often is that the mind grows so shallow that it cannot reflect the infinite heaven, So ruffled in its shallowness that it answers to every breeze of wind, and faileth ever to settle into an eternal calm, is a mind lost to holiest things, closed to dearest realities. Look at truth as needed by men for living, for dying, for eternity; and then dare no longer to be frivolous, come to have the truth, to seek the holy, to love the good, that is only of God. 2. All these dangers must be guarded against. Watch! Where a man carries that which is precious he ought ever to carefully guard it. Crossed you ever the mighty ocean on board a steamship that travels so stately and bears its hundreds in comfort and in joy? But, while all is lightness, there walks alone, solitary, watching in the very sunshine for sign of coming storm, the man who bears in his spirit that stately ship, these hundreds of lives, all the wealth she carries in her hold. And think you ever man went to sea, ever sailor guided across the ocean bark half so precious as you carry? Gifted with a nature so rich, a cargo so precious, the spirit ought to be all directed to the watching of evil, to the discovery of the good, and the place that is the haven of rest. II. Stand fast in the faith. The man that watches will stand. From him it will not be taken--faith in God our Father, yet our King; in Christ who is our Brother, yet our Priest; in that Spirit who is our Comforter, yet our Advocate. Stand fast therein. See that no man spoil you by vain deceit. See that no passion rob you by promised momentary pleasure. Keep the faith. God gave it you, and the faith cannot be kept pure without keeping pure the spirit. III. Be men. What is it to be a man? It is to bear God’ s image. Let the young man dare to be a man, let him, face to face with temptation, look to Him who only hath the power to save. Lost in the multitude, men in the multitude lose themselves. “ Quit you like men.” Dare to be innocent of vice, shut up the impure book, close the paragraph that speaks the unholy thing, and to be virtuous in thought, in speech, in feeling, knowing this, that the man who keepeth his own spirit pure is the man most approved of the Father. (Principal A. M. Fairbairn.)Watchfulness, steadfastness, manliness, strength I. Watch ye.1. What is it to watch? (1) It is opposed to carnal security.(2) It implies a care of our souls (Ephesians 5:15). 2. What must we watch over? (1) Our thoughts (Psalms 139:2).(2) Our affections (Proverbs 4:23; Colossians 3:2).(3) Our words (Psalms 17:3; Psalms 39:1; Psalms 141:3).(4) Our actions (1 Samuel 15:22; 1 Corinthians 10:31). 3. What must we watch against? (1) Ourselves (Jeremiah 17:9; James 1:22).(2) Satan (1 Peter 5:8).(3) The world (1 John 2:15).(4) Men. (a) That they seduce us not into sin (Proverbs 1:10-11). (b) Nor into error (Acts 20:29-31; Matthew 7:15; 2 Peter 2:1; 2 Peter 3:17). 4. What must we watch for? (1) For opportunities of doing good (Galatians 6:10), and performing our duty.(2) For death (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).(3) For the coming of Christ (Matthew 24:44). 5. When must we watch? (1) In time of prosperity. (a) That you be not proud of it (Jeremiah 9:23; 1 Timothy 6:17). (b) Nor trust in it (1 Timothy 6:17; Psalms 49:6; Psalms 52:7)(c) Nor abuse it (James 4:3). (d) Nor set your hearts upon it (Psalms 62:10). (e) To improve it to God’ s glory (Proverbs 3:9). (2) In time of adversity (Ecclesiastes 7:14). (a) Not to be impatient (Ezra 9:13; Lamentations 3:39). (b) But to be thankful (Job 1:21). (c) Not to charge God with injustice (Job 1:22). (d) Nor draw sinful inferences from it (Ecclesiastes 9:1). (e) To be better by it (Psalms 119:71; Hebrews 12:10). (3) At all times (Luke 21:36; 2 Timothy 4:5). 6. Why must we watch? (1) It is for your lives (2 Corinthians 6:5).(2) Many enemies watch against you (1 Peter 5:8).(3) Unless ye watch, no sin but you may fall into (1 Corinthians 10:12).(4) The more we watch over ourselves, the more God will watch over us (Psalms 121:1; Psalms 127:1).(5) The more watchful we are, the more comfortably we shall live.(6) We have but a short time to watch (Matthew 26:40).(7) Eternity depends upon it (Matthew 25:12-13).(8) We know not when our Lord will come (Mark 13:33; Mark 13:37; Luke 12:37). II. Stand fast in the faith.1. What faith must we stand fast in? (1) That God is (Hebrews 11:6).(2) That He is a rewarder of all that come to Him (Hebrews 11:6).(3) That the way to come to Him is by Christ (Hebrews 7:25).(4) That this Christ is God-man (John 1:14). (5) And hath satisfied for our sins (1 John 2:1-2).(6) And now intercedes for our souls (Hebrews 7:25).(7) That by His satisfaction and intercession our sins may be pardoned (Romans 8:33-34).(8) That He will come again at the last day (Acts 1:11).(9) That He will judge all the world (2 Corinthians 5:10). (10) That the wicked will then be condemned to hell, and the righteous received up into glory (Matthew 25:46). 2. Why stand fast in this faith? (1) Otherwise we can do no acts of piety (Hebrews 11:6).(2) Nor have our sins remitted (Galatians 2:16).(3) Nor our souls saved (Acts 4:12). 3. What are the means of this steadfastness? (1) Search the Scriptures (John 5:39).(2) Converse much with God in prayer.(3) Entertain no doubting thoughts.(4) Indulge no sin, lest it debauch your principles.(5) Oft frequent the public ordinances (Romans 10:17). III. Quit you like men. 1. What is it to quit yourselves like men? (1) Carry yourselves like men. (a) Like rational creatures. What more rational than that we should serve Him that made us (1 Corinthians 6:20); choose the best things before the worst (Isaiah 55:1-2); mind our own good and welfare (Matthew 16:26); do to others as we would have others do to us (Matthew 7:12); and submit to God’ s will (Lamentations 3:39). (b) Like those who have immortal souls (Genesis 2:7). (c) Like those who are capable of the enjoyment of God Himself (1 Corinthians 13:12). (2) Be valiant and courageous as men (Ephesians 6:10-11). (a) Be not daunted with afflictions (2 Corinthians 4:16-17). (b) Nor drawn aside with prosperity (Mark 4:19). (c) Press through all difficulties for heaven (Acts 14:22). 2. Why quit ourselves thus like men? (1) We have many potent enemies (Ephesians 6:11-12).(2) Without spiritual courage we can never conquer them.(3) The reward will make amends for all (1 Corinthians 15:58). IV. Be strong--1. In faith (Matthew 15:28; Romans 4:20).2. Love (Matthew 22:37).3. Trust on God (Job 13:15; Hebrews 13:5-6).4. Why? Be strong and courageous. (1) The stronger your graces are the weaker will your temptations be.(2) The stronger your grace is the greater will your comfort be (John 14:1).(3) Be but strong, and you need not fear but to press through all difficulties, and get to heaven. (Bp. Beveridge.)Stand fast in the faith I. The object indicated.1. The gospel requires faith.2. Has a right to demand it. II. The duty enjoined.1. Adherence to its doctrines.2. Conformity to its precepts.3. Advocacy of its claims. III. The importance of this duty. In its bearing upon--1. Ourselves.2. Others.3. The cause of God. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Christian steadfastness We address this to new converts, restored backsliders, and to Christians generally. I. The necessity for Christian steadfastness.1. Many foes to contend against.2. Much difficult service to perform. 3. Only the steadfast know true happiness and peace.4. Lack of steadfastness is dishonouring to God. II. Its means.1. Prayer.2. Watchfulness.3. Use of every possible means of grace.4. Faithful, open profession of allegiance to Christ. III. Its end.1. A place on Christ’ s own throne (Revelation 3:21).2. A crown of life (Revelation 2:10).3. A call to the service of heaven. (John Stevens.)Standing fast in the faith We might infer from magazines and newspapers that orthodoxy, or steadfastness in faith, is becoming very unpopular. But philosophy, mathematics, etc., have their “ doctrines” as well as Christianity. Note a few reasons for steadfastness in the truth. I. The mind is so constituted as not to be satisfied with anything less than certitude. As nature abhors a vacuum, so the mind dreads doubt--dreads to be like a ship drifting in darkness and storm with neither star nor sun, compass nor rudder. What would one not give to be on solid earth, who, like Noah’ s dove, is thus driven? Stand fast in the faith! Buy the truth and sell it not. II. This steadfastness is needed to withstand the influences working against us. A soldier in battle needs to stand, a tree in tempests needs to be rooted, and a ship needs an anchor; so we, in meeting the hostility of atheism and science, falsely so called, or kid-gloved, effeminate worldliness, or the supineness and apathy of the Church, need more than a feeble conviction of the truth, such as would be upset by some newly-discovered bone. Be rooted and grounded and able to give an answer, to him who asks you, of your faith. III. Only by steadfastness in the truth can we render competent service to the cause of Christ. A man of negative opinion, though right, is a feebler power than he who is earnestly wrong. But, to be positively right, believing with all the soul, is to be an increment of might. Such were Luther and Whitfield. Such is Moody, who never even ventured to lean against the corner of a college. Truth did not run over such souls, but into them, becoming a part of their moral fibre, making them aggressive and progressive. Such are not literary Sybarites. (T. B. McLeod.)Be strong I. In body. Purity and (where God gives health) strength of body seemed ever to St. Paul one ingredient in his estimate of true manliness. What is brutal and sensual in your bodies Christianity tells you to conquer, so that that body and its merely animal propensities shall not become your master. All that is innocent and pure in the manly exercise of it, all that is fearless in the brave uses of it, you should cultivate, ennoble, strengthen. If you have to fight for country, truth, or right, then be utterly indifferent to danger or to death. II. In soul, i.e., in intelleet. “ Be not children in understanding, but be ye men.” The empty boast that there must be a divorce between intellect and religion is false. True “ unsanctified intellect” has become too common a phrase; but there is such a thing too as “ unsanctified stupidity”’ and perhaps the Church has suffered just as much from one as from the other. There is a poor weak thing that calls itself “ advanced thought” --in which the thought is imaginary, and the advancement retrogressive--and which is, after all, merely the ghosts of old heresies, coming forth from their graves to frighten the nervous and unthinking. But real science, real philosophy, may ever win the homage of the holiest and most reverent souls. The truth they discover can never contradict the eternal truth of God. Antagonism between intellect and religion! Why the ablest thinkers have been Christians. The noblest high priests of science have also been the devoutest ministers at the altar of God. III. In spirit. The influence of the spirit of man, acted on and illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God, will raise him to the true dignity of manhood in all his nature. There is nothing “ manly” in being irreligious or indifferent. Would you consider him a man who was guilty of the basest ingratitude? And shall we consider the ingratitude less base--shall the unmanliness be diminished, because towards Him who “ emptied Himself” of the splendour of the Godhead and died for us! (T. T. Shore, M.A.)Manliness in religion 1. When Francis Xavier was passing through Navarre to his great life mission, he had to pass his ancestral castle. His companion asked whether he did not mean to visit his friends before he left Spain for ever. “ I defer that happiness,” he quietly answered, “ until I shall see them in heaven.” It was the manly utterance of a noble heart. 2. In the days of chivalry there was an ideal life, which our own matter-of-fact generation is disposed to despise. Underneath much that was over-strained and unnatural, there was taught a spirit of reverence, obedience, truth, and virtue, which it would be well for the world if they might be again brought back among us. 3. Even after the Fall man did not altogether lose the image of his Maker, and there is still left to him a portion which we call manliness. It is displayed by heroes on battle-fields, but the highest manifestation of it is in the consistent lives of devoted Christians. True manliness-- I. Is wholly incompatible with a half-way and reluctant obedience. If the religion of Christ be true, it is manly to confess it, and to act out our belief. They who receive the gospel in a manly spirit will shrink from no duty nor danger. Even the world will respect us when we are true to our principles. When Charles II visited Winchester during the building of his palace there, Dr. Ken was asked to entertain one of the king’ s concubines. This the good clergyman positively refused to do and Charles was much incensed. Again the application was made, and the stern response was, “ Not for his kingdom!” Not long after, the bishopric of Bath and Wells became vacant, and Charles said, “ No one shall have it but the little fellow who would not give poor Nelly a lodging!” II. Supposes persevering” persistency in the right, no matter what dangers may threaten. Soon after the Christian missionaries had settled in Fiji, the heathen held a cannibal feast in front of their residence. Shocked at the sight, the good men closed their doors and windows, when the savages insisted that they should come out and witness the custom. The captain of an American ship-of-war, hearing the startling tidings, came at once to the relief of the brave men, and offered to remove them to a place of safety. “ No,” was the firm response; “ the worse these people are, the more need of our staying where we are to teach them better.” When an insurrection broke out in Madagascar some time ago, before the soldiers set off, the great national idol was to be dragged forth to strengthen them for the conflict. It so happened that three hundred of the soldiers had cast off idolatry, many of whom began to waver, some through fear of death, others through love of wife and children. The leader of the party then read from the New Testament, “ He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me” ; “ He that loveth his life more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” It was enough, and all agreed to stand the fiery ordeal. The commanding officer was much enraged, and said, in a threatening tone, “ The god will avenge himself upon them!” The army marched forth to meet the insurgents, and came up to them in a deep ravine. Here the Christians were made to take the front rank, and their enemies believed that their destruction was inevitable. The hand of God so arranged the order of battle, that the expected course of events was reversed, and the Christians were left unharmed. III. Means indifference to the shafts of ridicule. A poor man, being much laughed at for his religion, was asked whether these constant, petty persecutions did not sometimes half tempt him to abandon it. “ No, indeed,” he answered; “ If Christians are so foolish as to let such people laugh them out of their religion, until at last they drop into hell, it is certain they cannot laugh them out again.” A young friend was making his first trip in a steamer, when his acquaintance was cultivated by a handsomely dressed person, who did his best to play the agreeable. Toward the close of day, the stranger remarked, in an indifferent tone, “ Some friends of mine are to have a nice game to-night, in my state-room, and we shall be glad to have you join us.” Taking out his pocket prayer-book, he answered, “ This is the only card I ever play with!” IV. Involves prompt and vigorous action. Good resolutions are not enough; they must be followed up closely and persistently by becoming deeds. A little boy in Holland was returning home one night, when he observed the water trickling through a narrow crevice in the dyke. He had often heard of the sad disasters which had happened from these small beginnings, and his first thought was to hasten home for help, but he remembered that even during his brief absence the opening might so increase as to defy all attempts to close it. Seating himself on the bank of the canal, he stopped the leakage with his band, and in cold and darkness sat by his post of duty until dawn of day. Assistance then came, the dyke was repaired, and hundreds of lives were saved. Do you ever think what a tide of wretchedness and ruin you may be the means of turning aside from multitudes of immortal beings, if you would faithfully use your daily and hourly opportunities of good? (J. N. Norton, D.D.)The manliness of godliness I. Things which are not manly.1. To believe without evidence. Credulity, the readiness to receive every assertion for truth, is childish; and it is worse than childish, when evil reports are easily credited and at all welcomed. We must believe much which we can never comprehend, and therefore cannot prove; but we must be sure that the witness is true. 2. To neglect known duty. Excuses are not arguments. “ That servant which knew his Lord’ s will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,” etc. From which it is evident that every one’ s duty is according to the knowledge which he has, might, and ought to have. 3. To prefer pleasure to business. In this generation there is neither honour nor hope for the idler. And why should not this principle hold as to heavenly things? 4. To find fault with any one unless it be needful, and then face to face. “ I withstood him to the face,” says Paul about Peter, “ because he was to be blamed.” If mankind would but obey this rule, the happiness of the world would be doubled at once. The apostle is very severe against “ whisperers, backbiters and inventors of evil things.” 5. To live only for the passing day. Brutes live for the present, men for the future. Forethought and prudence distinguish our nature from theirs. The wise man sent men to school to “ the ant” : and that provident little creature is a very good tutor even for Christians. II. Things which are manly. There are strange ideas abroad upon this subject, some concluding that scepticism, self-will, and swearing itself is manly. Some think that the more heartless, the more daring, the more manly. I give every one of sound mind at least the credit of knowing better. I am persuaded that there is truth in the saying, “ I dare do all things that become a man; and he who dares do more is none.” It is manly--1. To find out and hold fast the truth. All truth is precious, and “ the truth” is of all things most precious. “ Little children, I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” Surely in knowledge and discernment these little children were men. 2. To be serious about serious things. Men were made to laugh as well as to weep; but there is also abundant reason in the charge, “ Be sober.” Some affect to smile at those who are religious for looking grave and speaking solemnly; but life and death, sin and holiness, are matters for deep thought; and the gospel which delivers from sin and death, and entitles to life through righteousness, is in its very nature matter to make men serious. 3. To be kindly to all, and most to the weakest. The manliness of Christ consisted largely in His gentleness. 4. To fear God more than any man or all men. “ Fear Him, ye saints, and you will then have nothing else to fear.” 5. To overcome the devil himself by God’ s help. Conclusion:1. You need not despair of doing this very thing.2. By doing this you will recommend Christianity. (J. De Kewer Williams.)True manliness (To young men. 1 Kings 2:2, and text). Buckminster says that the sublimest thing in nature is true manhood. But long before Buckminster, Terence said, “ I am a man, and I regard nothing pertaining to humanity as foreign to me.” And long before him David said to his son and successor, “ Show thyself a man.” And long since then we find Paul saying, “ Quit you like men, be strong” ; “ Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” True manliness does not consist in-- I. The strength and size of the human body. This is the barbarian idea of manhood. II. Intellectual greatness--which our Maker confers on very few persons in any age. We are not responsible for the lack of great talents, but only for the culture and use of what we have. True manliness lies in heart power and conscience power. III. Chafing under wholesome restraints. It is no uncommon thing to find young persons who think an independent disregard of authority is manly, and when constrained by unavoidable circumstances to feel that the proper domain of their liberties has been invaded. This mistaken and unmanly feeling is apt to show itself, first of all, in opposition to parental authority. And the boy that frets under the restraints of home, will fret under the restraints of the school-room. And, having disregarded the wholesome restraints of home and of the school, he is now ready to disregard those of society; and it is no uncommon thing to see a young man, who commenced his unmanly course of disobedience in the family, graduating in prison. “ Show yourself a man,” then, in living in harmony with the Word of God, your conscience, and your environment. IV. Imitating, indiscriminately, the conduct or habits of others. There are many great men who have their eccentricities and defects; and yet it is just these that younger and smaller men almost always imitate. Many of the admirers of Alexander the Great imitated his intemperance, and not his chastity and liberality; and many of the pupils of Plato imitated his crooked shoulders instead of his philosophy. “ Show yourself a man,” then, not by merely imitating, but emulating the virtues of others and by shunning their vices. V. Following popular opinion, right or wrong, or any party, right or wrong. Popular opinion is generally fickle and very often wrong. It imprisoned Galileo, and erected the guillotine in France. In the Southern States it raised the standard of rebellion. There is a great deal of blind leading, and “ when the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” “ Show yourself a man,” by thinking and investigating for yourself. Study both sides of every important question. VI. A reckless disregard of the opinions of others. It is not manly to say, “ I don’ t care what others think of me.” Every true man cares, and ought to care. While every true man maintains his own independence of character, he is ambitious, at the same time, to merit the golden opinions of the virtuous and the good. When a man enjoys the love and confidence of a virtuous woman he enjoys, next to the love of God, the noblest thing on earth. “ Show yourself a man,” then, by showing yourself worthy of such confidence and such love. Again, if you would have others respect you, you must respect yourself. If you would enjoy the friendship of your fellow-men, you must be a true friend to yourself. Often the worst enemy a young man has is himself. “ Show yourself a man,” then, by being true to yourself and to your principles. VII. It is in vain to look for true manliness where there is no virtue or honesty or honour. The word virtue comes from “ vir,” which means a man; and to be virtuous, etymologically, is to be manly in the true sense; “ an honest man is the noblest work of God.” In the modern sense, virtue means manly purity as well as manly dignity.1. Now, then, he that would be honest in the much must be honest in the little. A young aspirant for office arriving at the hotel where the governor was stopping, and seeing a man whom he supposed to be the porter, ordered him to take his trunk to his room. The supposed porter charged him twenty-five cents, which he paid with a marked silver quarter worth only twenty cents. The young office-seeker then said, “ Here, porter, take my card to Governor Grimes’ room and tell him I wish an interview with him at his earliest convenience.” “ I am Governor Grimes, sir.” “ Oh! I did not know you were ,Governor Grimes! I beg a thousand pardons!” “ None needed,” replied the governor. “ I was rather favourably impressed with your letter, and had thought you well suited for the office you desire” ; and holding up before him the defective quarter, he said: “ Any man who would swindle a poor labourer out of the paltry sum of five cents would defraud the public treasury if he had the opportunity. Good evening, sir.” Again, it is dishonest and unmanly to try to sell an article for more than it is worth, or to try to buy an article for less than its market value. 2. “ Show yourself a man,” too, by respecting your own rights and honour, even if others do not; and at the same time remember that others have rights which are entitled to respect. “ Be courteous.” St. Paul shows what should be the deportment of a true gentleman or a true lady in these few words: “ In honour preferring one another.” 3. “ Show yourself a man,” by your moral courage and stability of character. “ Dare to do right, dare to be true.” Dare to say No, when you are tempted to do wrong, or to go to a wrong place. 4. “ Show yourself a man,” by emulating the virtues of the great and the good. 5. And at the same time that you are developing and using aright your own manly resources, do not fail to recognise the real source of your success in life, to wit: the grace of God. The inspired apostle who says, “ Quit you like men,” also says, “ Stand fast in the faith.” And it is a fact that the great men of the world--the men whose names and whose deeds stand brightest on the scroll of fame, were men of faith in God. Conclusion: Diogenes is said to have gone through the streets of Athens, in broad daylight, with a lighted lantern in his hand, and when asked by a citizen for the object of his search, he replied, saying: “ A man, sir, a man. I have found children in Sparta and women in Athens, but I have not found a man.” Now, I grant that since man fell from his climax in Eden, a man, a perfect man, has not been found save in the humanity of Jesus. Do you want a model of true manhood? You have it in Him. He has won His title to our heart-faith and our supreme regard by His God-like character. “ Christ died for us.” Then “ show yourself a man,” by showing yourself capable of appreciating such love as His; by giving Him your heart. Then and only then will you be in the line of your own true manhood. (W. B. Stewart, D.D.)True manhood What, then, is manliness?1. First, it is self-respect. I need hardly warn you that self-respect has an analogy to pride, or to the wretched vulgar ape of pride which is self-conceit. 2. And next to self-respect, manliness is resistance. The true man will not bend like a reed to every passing gust of that insolent ignorance which sometimes in the light-headedness of nations arrogates to itself the name of public opinion. He will not swim with the stream either in the Church or in the State, but will strike out against its fiercest waves. He will not spread his sail to the soft breeze of flattery and self-interest, but even when menaced with shipwreck will oppose his constancy and his convictions to the fury of the storm. Resist the temptations to be idle, self indulgent, vicious, and all the more if those around you are so. Resist the prejudices and the littleness of your own profession or school or party; resist the temptations of the impulses of your lower nature; and so far from being weakened by the struggle, the strength and fire of the conquered temptation shall be to you an added element of force, even as the Indian warrior believes that the strength of his vanquished enemy passes into his own right arm. Resist difficulties! Show that you have some iron in you, and are not all of straw! There are many spurious forms of courage, and that which is often most admired is the lowest and poorest, like that of the brutes. The manliest courage is that which rises superior to the fear of man. The manly youth will have a certain disdain and impatience of evil, a certain violence of truthfulness, a certain impetuosity of principle, conquering and combating all that is hollow and base and mean. He will not be at the mercy of a wicked code of a few silly or depraved companions for a few brief years, at the cost of having to reproach himself as a fool all the rest of his life. 3. And again, manliness is self-mastery. It sits self-governed in the fiery prime of youth obedient at the feet of law. And this self-mastery cannot be had without self-sacrifice. Any fool, the weakest, dullest, paltriest that ever was, can make a drunkard or a debauchee. There is no human clay so vile, no sludge and scum of humanity so despicable, but out of it you may make an effeminate corrupter, or lying schemer; but it takes God’ s own gold to make a man. No lacquer work, no tinsel suffices for the cherubim of the sanctuary. They must be hammered out of pure gold, seven times purified in the fire. (Archdeacon Farrar.)Manliness Manliness is not popularly associated with Christianity, and it is not difficult to see how this mistake has arisen. First of all, it has arisen because of the very prominence that is given in the New Testament to what it calls the virtues of meekness and forgiveness. Again, another cause for this popular misunderstanding arises from the mannerism of religious people. They get into a weak, maudlin condition, and adopt a voice and manner that repels any person who has got a spark of manliness in him, and thus there comes a certain smallness of mind, and a morose stupidity, that does much to strengthen the idea that to be a Christian is either to be a fanatic or an effeminate person. Another cause is distinctly attributable to the characters so often drawn by novelists of what a religious person is. They represent a man as a brave, generous, fine fellow, who was no religion at all. Furthermore, people have become accustomed to think of religion as something connected with deathbed scenes, with sickness, or as bearing an aspect of grim severity, and not at all enticing to any one who likes the free breezes blowing across the sea and across the moors, who likes a manly life, and wishes to take a manly part in it. What is Christian manliness? I answer that Christian muddiness is the courage of duty, according to the Christian ideal. Now let us try to understand this. Manliness is the courage of duty, because duty is the essence of all manliness. Courage separated from duty ceases to be manliness. There is a great deal of courage even in the criminal. That is the courage of the madman or of the devil. So mere physical courage may not be the courage of manliness in its best sense. The ferocity which makes the pugilist or the prize-fighter refuse to give in, that is not a bit more wonderful than what you find in brutes. The bulldog will do the same thing, so will the wild-cat, so will the ferret. That species of courage is not necessarily a high standard of courage. There is a certain spirit of self-assertion which is sometimes mistaken for manliness. The rough, impudent, “ I am as good as you,” is no indication of the possession of a manly spirit. There is a spirit of arrogance which has nothing to do with manly independence. It is little more than rude incivility, arising from want of consideration from others. Manliness, as the courage of duty, must forbid such things as degrade a man. Look at Christ, the ideal man! There was a life of courage under duty to God and to others, with no thought of self. Christ’ s life was one continual self-sacrifice. Duty to God and man is the climax of manliness. The great test of character is to be found in the manner in which the common details of life are met. It is far easier for the soldier in the rush of battle to do noble deeds than to live a faithful life in the barrack-yard, or in attending to dally drill. (D. Macleod, D.D.)Christian warfare I. The enemies with which you have to contend.1. The devil. 2. The world. (1) The men of the world engage on the side of the devil.(2) The things of the world--honours, profits, and pleasures, how dangerous are these! 3. The flesh, by which is meant the corrupt nature, is the most dangerous enemy of all. II. This exhortation implies--1. That you banish unnecessary fears, and engage in the warfare with boldness and resolution. 2. That you fight in Divine strength. 3. That you persevere in the combat. III. Motives.1. Your cause is good and highly important. It is “ the good fight of faith.” 2. You are engaged in the presence of many spectators. (1) God, whose eye penetrates into the inmost recesses of your hearts. He will be your impartial judge. (2) Angels. Shall we disgrace ourselves in the sight of heaven? 3. You fight under Jesus Christ, the Captain of salvation. 4. You are sure of victory in the end. (W. Linn, D.D.)Christ satisfying the instinct of courage I. Paul here appeals to the instinct of courage. In becoming Christians we do not cease to be men.1. Courage lies midway between timidity and recklessness. In matters of daring there is a deficiency which is cowardice, and an excess which is foolhardiness. (1) Timidity is common. Many shrink from pain, fly from danger, and in matters of principle more afraid of man that shall die than of God who must judge. (2) Foolhardiness is common. What mad prank cannot a schoolboy be dared to do? Who has not been culpably indifferent to health, influence, and character? But often the foolhardy is a coward. The man who will undermine his constitution by vice is afraid of infection. We refuse to either of these the sacred name of instinct. They are perversions, distortions of nature. 2. Nature is brave. Nowhere is cowardice honoured. (1) Greeks and Romans had but one word for courage and virtue. The coward in battle had better not return to face either his country or his home. The man who left wife or child a prey to violence or fire was henceforth an outlaw. (2) Courage is the idol of the young. It is this which underlies the hero worship of the river, the course, the field. (3) Nor will either young or old, so long as England is free or Europe Christian, fail to honour the sincerity that must speak the truth, and the conscience that would go to the stake for duty. 3. Yet courage has its abuses. (1) There is an intellectual foolhardiness seen in the upsetting of established convictions, the inversion of established convictions, the establishment of some exploded error. Many heresies have sprung out of intellectual bravery. It has seemed so manly to contradict traditions and beliefs. But there is a mental audacity as perilous as and more culpable than that which flings away life in Alpine climbing or in the circus or hunting field. (2) The same false courage has a more fatal place in things spiritual. What is it that sends the young traveller without arms, map, or guide on the journey of life? What is it that induces one who has been vanquished fifty times on a particular battlefield of temptation to try his chance there again? It was this instinct of courage that Satan appealed to in the wilderness. He had found it in its perversion in the fallen, but not in the perfect Man. 4. Though there is an instinct of courage in us, there are many counteracting instincts, insomuch that it must be, practically, either a rare gift, or else an acquired grace. (1) Few soldiers probably go into the battle eager for the fray. The very faith of our immortality forbids it. (2) We reverence and ought to reverence more the grace than the gift. If we know a person naturally sensitive, delicately organised, we admire far more in that person acquired courage, than the stolid acquiescence of one who has neither brain to throb, nor nerve to quiver. Christ’ s courage was of this nobler, less constitutional kind, as we see from His natural shrinking from death, and yet His persistence in the path of sacrifice. II. Christ satisfies this instinct--1. Of physical courage by showing in Himself how they who may have not the gift may have the grace. Wonderful has been the issue. Witness the martyrs. But excitement of love, hate, bigotry, etc., have had their martyrs. But there is a courage unsupported by excitement and sympathy, in the strength of which Christians have endured in unmurmuring patience lifelong pains, want, etc. 2. Of moral courage. There is nothing in Christ’ s character more pervasive than this. We see it in His fearless antagonism to the doctors of His age. He dared to speak the truth regardless of consequences. And thus He taught us courage. He bade us never fear truth--a thing necessary to remember in the face of the present attitude of Faith and Science. The moral courage which He showed in His teaching He also showed in His conduct; and it is here that we want most to cultivate it. Think of His solemn warnings against moral cowardice. How He bade us not be ashamed of Him and His words, and not to fear them who kill the body. 3. Of spiritual courage. (1) The courage of enterprise and aggression.(2) The courage of resistance. (Dean Vaughan.)Be strong 1. Weakness is always miserable; sometimes sinful. If a man, e.g., abstain from food, having food before him; if he neglect necessary exercise and become, through inaction, enervated; if he pamper the body; if he curtail rest; under such circumstances, to be weak is to be sinful. It is to such weakness that the apostle refers here. 2. Our prayer for you is that you may be strong; and our hope of your strength is not entirely in our prayer, nor in yours. Something more is necessary. In answer to such prayer, God would say to you, “ You must lay aside that weight, and that sin, which doth so easily beset you.” “ If you would be strong, you must nourish your spirit with that food which I give you.” Suppose that, instead of laying aside that weight, you retain it, and refuse the food offered you. God has answered your prayer in the directions He has given you, and in bringing before you the provision for your strength. The apostle had his eye upon these provisions and directions when he said, “ Quit you like men, be strong.” I. The things that are necessary to spiritual strength.1. Right and sound principle. “ God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but the spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.” Fear is a source of weakness, and love is a source of strength. If your religion is based upon dreading God, you will never be strong, if it is built up upon loving God you will be strong. 2. Mental and emotional nutriment. To have a strong mind, you must get God’ s thoughts into it. To have a strong heart, God must be the supreme object of affection. 3. Work. The doing that which God bids us to do, for inactivity invariably brings weakness. The more you do, the more you will be able to do. You find this in prayer, and in the ministrations of benevolence. 4. Self-control and government. “ I keep under my body.” 5. Seasonable rest. You must have repose; and if you do not get it, your power of doing sinks and dies out. You see this everywhere, and nowhere more than in the Christian Church. 6. Genial influences upon us. That which we may call light and sunshine--the “ love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto us.” Flowers will not bloom in darkness; and you cannot get a strong character, except in the love of your God. “ Thy gentleness hath made me great.” There are those who expose their children to all sorts of rigors to make them hardy, and perhaps sink them to the grave. The genial influence of real love makes the strongest character. 7. A good atmosphere. 8. Help wisely administered. If, in teaching a child, you do everything for him, he will do nothing. In helping the poor, if you do everything, you impoverish them. God never does this; but He so helps us as to bring out our own resources. 9. Abstinence from all enervating influences. From the principle of fear, e.g., and from carefulness run to seed, “ Casting all your care upon Him.” “ Fear not, say to them of timid heart, be strong.” 10. A will to be strong. II. All which is essential to strength we have in possession, or within reach.1. Right principle is given by God in revelation, and by His Spirit. 2. Bread of life has come down to us from heaven; the well of the water of life has been opened to us. 3. There is work God requires us to do. 4. We have directions for self-control, and we have examples. 5. Rest is divinely promised. 6. There is pure air in the house of prayer, in the Church of Christ, and always on the mount of religious meditation. 7. Help may be always obtained of God. We can lay aside every weight, or it would not be commanded. All that is necessary to make you strong is provided. Do you suppose the Saviour has left His work half done? or that He is doing it now partially? Conclusion: Be strong in your whole spirit, but especially in faith, in hope, and in love. (S. Martin.)Christian strength I. The exhortation: “ Be strong.”1. It is not natural, but moral strength that is here intended. A man may be as strong as Goliath, and at the same time quite as wicked. He may have the courage and magnanimity of an Alexander or a Caesar, and yet be a slave to his own lusts. The strength which Paul speaks of, like wisdom, it “ cometh from above,” and consists in our being strengthened with all might by God’ s Spirit in the inner man (Proverbs 16:32; James 3:17; Ephesians 3:16). 2. The exhortation is addressed to all Christians, whatever be their circumstances or situation, whether in a public or private capacity (Isaiah 35:4; Zechariah 10:6). 3. We need to be reminded that our strength lies not in ourselves, but in Christ our head (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). II. The particular cases to which the exhortation is applicable. We must be strong--1. To labour. The Christian’ s work is constant and complicated; “ it is not the work of a day or two,” as Ezra said respecting the reformation to be wrought in Israel, but of a whole life. As to the things of this life, he is not to be slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. But the labours of the spiritual life are still more arduous, and require greater efforts and greater self-denial (Acts 20:24; 1 Corinthians 15:10; 2 Corinthians 1:8). 2. To conquer. Christians are not only labourers, but soldiers; and as such they are called to endure hardness. Seeing that so many forces are combined against us, it is necessary that great strength be exerted. We must not indulge a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (Ephesians 6:11-12). 3. To suffer (Romans 5:3; Colossians 1:11). God’ s grace is sufficient for us, though nothing else is. If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. 4. To die. In order to obtain the victory and to die happy, we shall need-- (1) A strong and lively faith, well founded and brought into vigorous exercise (Genesis 49:18; Psalms 23:4; Psalms 73:26; 2 Timothy 4:6-8). (2) A well-founded and animating hope. (3) Great strength of affection, desiring to depart and be with Christ, which is far better (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Peter 3:12). (4) Strong consolation, and a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. (B. Beddome, M. A.)Strength Never would Christianity have made any impression upon the godless world which, eighteen centuries ago, it confronted and withstood, had its first teachers and disciples not been men of strength. It may be well, therefore, to consider--1. The nature.2. The extent.3. The source of Christian strength. (1) What kind of strength is required? Mere physical courage is not enough: we share that with the lower animals. Nor will intellectual power alone suffice; that may be sadly perverted and misused. Both of these are good in their way; but nothing save spiritual strength will carry the Christian triumphantly through the battle of life. This may co-exist with great natural timidity. (2) When do we need to be strong? At all times and in all circumstances: more than ever before, now that the line of demarcation between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God is so finely drawn. To live a consistent Christian life in these days, steering clear of the dishonesties practised in the name of “ business,” and the shams countenanced in the code of “ society” ; to denounce, heedless of self-interest, with firm faith in the ultimate victory of goodness and truth, will assuredly tax our strength to the utmost. (3) Whence are we to derive this strength? In ourselves it cannot be found; its source lies beyond the range of our natural abilities. It comes only from God, the Lord of all power and might, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy. He waits to infuse into each soldier of His the invincible strength which carries all before it. Those who profess to serve Him have no excuse for weakness. The weaker the instrument is by nature, the more splendid is the triumph of Divine grace and the testimony to the sovereign power of God. (J. H. Burn, B.D.)True strength We mistake strong feelings for strong character. A man who bears all before him--before whose frown domestics tremble, and whose bursts of fury make the children of the house quake--because he has his will obeyed and his own way in all things, we call him the strong man. The truth is, that is the weak man: it is his passions that are strong; he, mastered by them, is weak. You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings be subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him. And hence composure is often the highest result of strength. Did we never see a man receive a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale, and then reply quietly? That was a man spiritually strong. Or did we never see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself? Or one bearing a hopeless daily trial remain silent, and never tell the world what it was that cankered his home peace? That is strength. He who, with strong passions, remains chaste--he who, keenly sensitive, with manly power of indignation in him, can be provoked, yet can restrain himself and forgive--these are strong men, spiritual heroes. (New York Observer.)Vigilance needed If we travel by river steamer we are admonished by an inscription just below the steersman’ s platform “ not to speak to the man at the wheel.” A momentary distraction from attention to his duties might, in some circumstances, involve a deviation from the vessel’ s course full of danger to all on board. Like vigilance is needful in spiritual things. The soul must “ look right on,” undistracted by the vain conversation of a babbling world, if she would steer her course well for eternity, and avoid making shipwreck of her faith. (J. Halsey.)Watchfulness needed A thoughtful scholar of a generation that is passing away was once asked if he would take some bread and a glass of wine. His answer was, “ No; I will take some bread and a glass of water.” His friend smilingly answered, “ Bread and water--that is prison fare.” “ No,” said he, “ not prison fare, but garrison fare.” And it is garrison time down here. We can’ t afford to be off our watch, not keeping a constant look-out for dangers that are very real and imminent. “ What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!” 1 Corinthians 16:14 Let all your things be done with charity. Love more effective than logic As means towards the attainment of the best ends there is no comparison between these. The latter may convince the understanding and leave the heart unchanged, but the former will win the heart, and with that gained, the understanding will usually soon succumb. The difference between them is similar to that between a mallet and the sun in reducing ice to water. The mallet may break the ice into small particles, but each particle will remain ice still, while the sun’ s heat falling upon the ice will melt it into a fluid, and so impregnate the fluid with its warmth that while that warmth is continued the water cannot assume again its icy condition. So in changing opinions and reforming habits. Arguments will be of little avail without a loving disposition behind them. The opinions, after all cold pure arguments, will remain generally unchanged, or probably assume another false complexion, and the habits, if broken up for a little, will soon resume their wonted round. But if love prevails, the eyes looking it, the face beaming it, the words expressing it, the whole demeanour demonstrating it, the citadel of opinion will melt before the loving assault, and the heart will become ablaze with the sacred glow. Love and logic should at least go hand in hand in seeking the regeneration of the world. Love as a motive Ask yourselves what is the leading motive which actuates you while you are at work. I do not ask what your leading motive is for working, that is a different thing; you may have families to support, parents to help, brides to win; you may have all these, or other such sacred and pre-eminent motives to press the morning’ s labour and prompt the twilight thought. But when you are fairly at the work, what is the motive which tells upon every touch of it? If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that move you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or an animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fulness thereof. But if, on the other hand, it is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in precepts and laws, hope for academical or popular approbation, or avarice of wealth, it is quite possible that by sturdy industry, or even by fortunate chance, you may win the applause, the position, the fortune that you desire, but one touch of true art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long as you live. (J. Ruskin.)A universal rule I. The spirit of it is love. II. The applications of it is universal. III. The motive of it.1. To promote peace and love.2. Prevent strife and contention.3. Subdue enmity and opposition. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The universal rule I. To what applied. To all our--1. Thoughts.2. Feelings.3. Actions.4. Devotions.5. Church activities. II. For whom contemplated, All our--1. Family.2. Relations.3. Friends.4. Neighbours.5. Countrymen.6. Race. III. With what result. The promotion of all.1. Righteousness.2. Culture.3. Holiness.4. Happiness. (J. W. Burn.)The key which sets the world to music Man’ s life consists of many “ things done.” Activity is at once the law and the necessity of his nature. He only really lives as he acts, inactivity is death. But whilst the acts of men are numerous and varied, the animating and controlling spirit should be one, viz., love. It is thus in heaven, through all hierarchies. It should be thus on earth, and must be if earth is to have a millennium. This one spirit will-- I. Make us happy in all our activities. The labour of love is the music of life. All labour, however menial, if wrought under the inspiration of love, must yield happiness. II. Make us useful in all our activities. Every work performed by love is beneficent, it has a brightness in it to enlighten, a balm in it to soothe, a music in it to charm, an aroma in it to please. III. Give unity to all our activities. As the circulating sap binds the root, the trunk, and the branches, the leafage, blossoms, and fruit, into one organic unity, so love will give a harmony and completeness to all the numerous and varied acts of life. Why are men everywhere so unhappy in their labours, and their labours so socially pernicious, so disharmonious and divided? Because they are not animated and governed by this one spirit--love. The human labours of the world that spring from greed, ambition, vanity, blind impulse, envy, and resentment, keep individuals, communities, and nations in constant conflict and confusion. (D. Thomas, D.D.) 1 Corinthians 16:15-18 Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia. The house of Stephanas I. Its happiness--united in--1. Faith.2. Hope.3. Purpose. II. Its true nobility--precedence of--1. Heavenly birth.2. Experience.3. Rank.4. Influence. III. Its devoted service.1. Love to the brethren.2. Liberality of spirit.3. Sincere attachment to the cause of Christ. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The natural right of priority We all feel interested in firstborn children, first forms of enterprise, firstfruits of our labour. Natural feeling gives all first things prominence. First things-- I. Are done with intense feeling, as we see in the youth beginning business, the man entering on a new undertaking. Men brace themselves up for first things, and having no experience as to what strength is required, often put too much into it. Happily life is full of these first things, especially early life, and they exert a most gracious influence on us. II. Have a natural pre-eminence. The position and rights of the firstborn are an illustration of this. First things are felt to have a representative character. When a servant comes into a house the employers watch the first actions to see how they will frame. When a convert joins a Church the first forms in which Christian responsibility is met are closely scrutinised. Turning his mind back to their hopeful first things the apostle says to the Galatians, “ Ye did run well; who did hinder you?” III. Have promise for following things--as firstfruits have for harvest. A man’ s first work need not be his maximum standard, but it ought to be his minimum standard. A first result may tell of power, and power always holds the promise of what culture can make it. One convert made in a new sphere of labour holds the promise of a great ingathering. IV. Keep a prominent place in the memory, e.g., our first school, first place of business, first love, first sickness, etc. (R. Tuck, B. A.)That they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.-- Ministering to the saints I. A very needful work. Many of God’ s children are poor, and need the necessaries of life; many are afflicted, and need sympathy; many are weak, and need taking by the hand (Galatians 6:10). II. A very honourable and beautiful work.1. Angel-like (Hebrews 1:14).2. Christ-like (Matthew 20:28; Matthew 25:40). III. A work that may be exercised in many ways. Thus it is suited to all. IV. A work that merits recognition on the part of the Church. Those so engaged should be--1. Highly esteemed. They do much to elevate the tone of the Church; much to preserve it in peace and content; much to stimulate its zeal. 2. Encouraged. The work is trying. Those who encourage others often want much encouragement themselves. 3. Aided. This is probably what the apostle meant in verse 16. “ As they serve you, serve them.” V. A work very beneficial to the workers. “ They who water others shall themselves be watered.” We grow rich by bestowing. A sure way of getting to heaven is to get others there. (W. E. Hurndall, M.A.)That ye submit yourselves unto such.-- Submission due to the elders of the Church I. Its obligation arises out of their--1. Age.2. Experience.3. Services. II. Its extent reaches as far as they act. 1. In conformity with the apostolic faith; and2. Help forward its interests. III. Its fruits.1. Order.2. Edification.3. Unity. (J. Lyth, D.D.)Service and honour I. The vocation to spiritual ministry.1. Its first condition is sincere personal adhesion to Christianity (verse 15). 2. Christian ministers are of the most various kinds. They vary with capacity, opportunity, necessity. 3. Such services involve co-operation. Some leading, others following, etc. 4. “ Ministering unto the saints “ is an especial form of acceptable service. II. The honour and subjection due to those engaged in spiritual ministry.1. Regard and gratitude. Paul here sets the example. 2. Help. 3. Submission. There are many who should be ready not only to work with, but to work under. (Prof. J. R. Thomson, M.A.)Our duty to the truly useful We should-- I. Cherish the highest respect for them. Stephanas was one of Paul’ s first converts in Achaia, and his family the only one Paul baptized in Corinth, He and his were addicted to the ministries of love. Fortunatus and Achaicus had supplied to Paul what the Corinthians had neglected. The truly useful are the only truly honourable. A man is to be honoured not because of his ancestry, his office, his wealth, but because of what he is morally, and what he does generously in the way of helping the race. The philanthropist is the true prince. II. Heartily co-operate (verse 16).1. Co-operate with useful men. 2. In your co-operation let them take the lead. They have proved themselves worthy of your co-operation. (D. Thomas, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 16:17-18I am glad of the coming of Stephanas,… for they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Spiritual refreshment These three honoured members of the Corinthian Church came to consult the apostle on matters of faith and practice. But their visit was not simply official, for they were personally attached to Paul, and his grateful language is suggestive of the refreshment of spirit which is the result of Christian association. I. The need of spiritual refreshment.1. Work may weigh down the soul as well as the body. 2. Trials such as desertion, disappointment, may dispose to melancholy. 3. Living much alone is wearisome; the energies flag, the work suffers. II. Its appointed agents. Letters and books are precious, but often inadequate. Living fellowship with those likeminded with ourselves has a peculiar power in restoring the equilibrium of the soul. Paul felt, as we do, it hard to work without the smiles and personal encouragements of his friends. III. Its means. The presence of Christian friends is much, but the opening of their hearts, the inquiry concerning our successes and failures, are more. IV. Its results.1. Depression gives way to cheerfulness.2. Weariness to vigour.3. Sluggishness to vivacity.4. Despondency to hope. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.) 1 Corinthians 16:19-21 The Churches of Asia salute you. The social temperature of a Church While doctrines are being discussed in the pulpit, and ecclesiastical distinctions expressed in modes of worship and of discipline, there remains to be studied something quite as essential as these to the future of religion, in the common life that is going on beneath them, the varying phases of which it is impossible for any definition to express. Not second in importance to a Church’ s teaching or organisation, is the question of its temperature. The necessity of urging this is not diminished by the consideration of the extreme difficulty of ascertaining what, in Church life, is the exact figure at which the social thermometer should stand. The social habits of our English churches, to confine ourselves for a moment to them, will necessarily be determined to a large extent by our characteristics as a race; and enthusiastic sociability is not, as a rule, regarded as one of these. A witty Frenchman has observed that not only is England an island, but every Englishman is an island. The haughty reserve of manner for which he is celebrated on the Continent, and which at home carries him through a long day’ s journey in a railway carriage without opening his lips to his neighbour, is not likely to be cast on one side when he enters the church door. The difficulty in making advances to strangers in congregations is greatly enhanced by the presence in no inconsiderable numbers of this class. They resent the friendly greeting as an intrusion, and are capable of rewarding it with the look which, in one of Lord Beaconsfield’ s novels, a great lady bestows upon a person just introduced to her; a look conveying to its recipient the impression that she has never seen him before, that she has no interest in seeing him now, and not the slightest desire ever to set eyes on him again. One of the indispensable elements in the training of a Church social tactician is the cultivation of the faculty of recognising these people at a glance, and of knowing how to deal with them. There are those who value social recognition, and to whom the extension of a ready sympathy is of the first importance, both in regard to their own comfort and as a means of attaching them to the fellowship. Here, again, however, there are subdivisions. Some of these people possess in themselves the social faculty. They have “ the coming on humour,” and without much outside help will by the force of their own general attractiveness and geniality, speedily make their way and find themselves at home. Others, depending equally on the appreciation and sympathy of their fellows, and equally expecting it, embarrass their neighbours by the fact that they hoist no signals for a parley. They shut themselves up in their own interior, the windows of their nature shut, and the blinds drawn, and then are astonished and aggrieved that no one knocks at the door. The question of the social temperature of a Church depends for its answer to a considerable extent on the kind of heating apparatus there is in the pulpit. But warmth, fervour, and good-heartedness in the preacher are not enough. There must be organisation as well. Apart from this, the most impassioned discourse on brotherly love will not break through the reserve which prevents Jones in the pew from holding out a hand to Brown, the unknown, in the aisle. The idea of an “ Outlook Committee” attached to each Church is excellent. It should be a tolerably large one, of both sexes, and representing the cream of the community in intelligence, tact, good feeling, knowledge of the congregation and of human nature in general. A military officer once said that in a reputedly brave regiment perhaps one in ten would be really brave, it being the example of this tenth that kept the others in line. In a reputedly sociable Church there may, perhaps, be one in ten with the genuine social gift. It is from these, the men and women whose natural grace of temperament has been heightened and enriched by the spirit of Christ; who have the quick intelligence that both reads and remembers faces; who know and respect the social convenances, when to speak and when to refrain from speaking; whose heart knows by instinct the lonely and friendless, and by instinct goes out towards them, that the Look-out Committee should be recruited. Where it is not already in existence it is time to organise it. There is plenty for it to do. The proper comprehension of the conditions of this form of service, and the systematic development of all its capabilities, will put a new face upon many a community that is now languishing from neglect of a vital point. (Christian World.)The apostolic salutations indicate I. The unity of the Church of Christ.1. All the churches are united by common bonds.2. Should maintain a friendly intercourse. II. The interest which individuals should feel for the spiritual well-being of those at a distance. It should be--1. Heartfelt.2. Prayerful. III. The universal brotherhood of Christians and its fitting expression. IV. The loving relation between minister and people. Christian greetings I. From and to whom?1. Individuals.2. Households.3. Churches. II. Of what kind?1. Fraternal.2. Cordial.3. Mutual. III. Upon what basis?1. Not upon that of mere courtesy, common interests, or expediency.2. But “ in the Lord.” (1) In fulfilment of His command.(2) In imitation of His conduct.(3) Under the influence of His Spirit. (Prof. J. R. Thomson.)Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord.--Aquila and Priscilla The excellences of this worthy couple. They--1. Were members of the Church--in Ephesus.2. Hospitable.3. Well instructed in the truth (Acts 18:26).4. Had a Church in their house.5. Felt a deep interest in the Church at home and abroad. (J. Lyth, D.D.)With the Church that is in their house. A Church in the house I. What this Church is and when our families may be called Churches. Churches are societies--1. Devoted to God, called out of this world.2. Employed for God, pursuant to this dedication. II. Motives to persuade you to turn your families into churches.1. God will dwell in them.2. If you make them not churches Satan will have a seat there.3. It will be comfortable to yourselves.4. A good legacy.5. It will help to prosper the Church of God in the nation. (Biblical Museum.)The Church in the house (Romans 16:5) imports the Church meeting in their house, consequently implies-- I. The good feeling of the entertainer. II. The privilege of the household--Christ in the midst. III. The promise of blessing upon the neighbourhood. IV. The hope of reunion in heaven. (J. Lyth, D.D.)The Church in the house I. The simplest conception of a Church. A meeting or assembly. The term can only be applied to an organised body or material building figuratively. Two or three agreeing to meet together for worship may properly be called a church. II. Its close association with a home. It is interesting to note that the Christian assemblies were first sanctified homes. They did not need at first any architectural aids. III. Its fundamental features. Family religion extended to embrace family friends. IV. The lines of its probable development. These were fixed by--1. Increase of numbers. 2. Growth of wealth, bringing with it artistic sentiment and desires. 3. Rise of distinction between priesthood and laity, and the consequent development of ritual. (R. Tuck, B.A.)Family prayer This is a general custom in the households of evangelical Christians. No man ought to consider his piety of an active stamp who neglects to institute “ the Church” in his house. I. It is a duty. The Bible nowhere directly commands it; but--1. It is a duty by inference. When Abraham moved his tent to the plain of Mamre, he built there an altar unto the Lord (Genesis 13:18). The pious take their religion with them wherever they go. When David says, “ Seven times a day do I praise Thee,” remember there was no temple, and that at least two of these times may refer to morning and evening worship in the household. Daniel “ prayed in his house, sometimes himself alone, and sometimes with his family about him” (Daniel 6:10). Cornelius was a man that prayed in his house (Acts 10:30). Paul delighted to honour Priscilla and Aquila, and twice spoke of “ the Church that is in their house” (Text and Romans 16:5). This is interpreted by some to mean “ that their home was a sanctuary and their family a Church” ; but if others may assemble in the home for worship, how much more may not the family? We may certainly claim that family prayer conforms to the command, and is entitled to the promise contained in James 4:8. 2. A duty by example. It can hardly be doubted that the deeply pious in all times have prayed with their family in their households. Abraham, Joshua, David, Job, Daniel, all worshipped God in the family, and our Saviour confirmed the obligation; for He often prayed with His disciples, as His family or household. II. It is a privilege, Family prayer binds the household more closely and lovingly together. It is a great boon to consecrate the day with prayer before the household separates on its divers ways and on its manifold duties, What if they should never all meet again? To have omitted it on such a day would prove a lasting regret. How precious at night to commit our souls and bodies to that Guardian of Israel who neither slumbers nor sleeps! This gives a gracious opportunity to pray with our children and for our children. Says Cecil, “ It may be used as an engine of vast power in the family. It diffuses a sympathy through the members. It calls the mind off from the deadening effects of worldly affairs. It arrests every member with a morning and evening sermon, in the midst of all the hurries and cares of life. It says, ‘ There is a God!’ ‘ There is a spiritual world!’ ‘ There is a life to come!’ It fixes the idea of responsibility in the mind. It furnishes a tender and indictors father or master with an opportunity of gently glancing at faults, where a direct admonition might be inexpedient. It enables him to relieve the weight with which sub-ordination or service sits on minds of inferiors.” III. Inquiries.1. Are we prayerless Christians? 2. Do we keep the fires burning brightly and continually upon the family altar? 3. Do we excuse ourselves because of non-ability and lack of confidence? Remember the man who hid his talent in a napkin. 4. Do we make it cheerful with song, instructive with Scripture, hallowed with prayer and precious with all its memories? (Homiletic Monthly.)A church in the house I. Churches are societies devoted to God, called out of the world, taken in out of the common to be inclosures for God. He hath set them apart for Himself; and, because He hath chosen them, they also have chosen Him, and set themselves apart for Him. The Jewish Church was separated to God for a peculiar people, a kingdom of priests. Thus our houses must be churches; with ourselves we must give up our houses to the Lord, to be to Him for a name and a people. All the interest we have, both in our relations and in our possessions, must be consecrated to God; as, under the law, all that the servant had was his master’ s for-ever, after he had consented to have his ear bored to the door-post. II. Churches are societies employed for God, pursuant to the true intent and meaning of this dedication.1. Keep up family doctrine. (1) You must read the Scriptures to your families, inquiring sometimes whether they understand what you read. (2) You must also catechise your children and servants so long as they continue in that age of life which needs this milk. 2. Keep up family worship. You must not only, as prophets, teach your families, but as priests, must go before them in offering the spiritual sacrifice of prayer and praise. (1) You ought to make family acknowledgments of your dependence upon God and His providence, as you are a family. (2) You ought to make family confessions of your sins against God; those sins you have contracted the guilt of in your family capacity. (3) You ought to offer up family thanksgivings for the blessings which you, with your families, receive from God. (4) You ought to present your family petitions for the mercy and grace which your families stand in need of. (5) You ought to make family intercessions for others also. There are families you stand related to, or which by neighbourhood, friendship, or acquaintance you become interested in, and concerned for, and these you should recommend in your prayers to the grace of God, and your family that are joined with you in the alliances should join with you in those prayers. 3. Keep up family discipline, that so you have a complete church in your house, though in little. Reason teacheth us, “ that every man should bear rule in his own house” (Esther 1:22). And since that, as well as other power, is of God, it ought to be employed for God, and they that so rule, must be just, ruling in His fear. (1) Countenance everything that is good and praiseworthy in your children and servants. (2) Discountenance everything that is evil in your children and servants. Use your authority for the preventing of sin, and the suppressing of every root of bitterness, lest it spring up and trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. (S. Hayward.) 1 Corinthians 16:22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. Love to Christ (Ephesians 6:24 and Text):--Though so dissimilar, both texts teach the same truth, viz., that love to Christ is the indispensable condition of salvation. I. Why is love to Christ thus necessary? Because--1. Christ is God--God in the clearest form of manifestation--the sum of the Divine perfections. All that there is in God to command the supreme duty of loving Him is in Christ, therefore it is impossible to love God without loving Christ, and not to love Christ is not to love God. 2. Christ is God in our nature, and is thus invested with special attractions, because-- (1)Possessed of another kind of excellence. (2) Brought into a relation to us He sustains to no other order of beings. 3. Christ loved us and given Himself for us. To be insensible of this claim on our affection is indicative of the greatest moral depravity. 4. By His love and death Christ has opened a way to us from degradation and misery to eternal life and glory. 5. We are shut up to the necessity of loving Christ or Satan. There are but two sovereigns, and you must choose between them. II. What is it to love Christ, and how can we tell whether we love Him or not? Where this love is there will be--1. A feeling of reverence and complacency which prevents us from ever treating Him with neglect or indignity, and which makes His society delightful. 2. Zeal for His honour. Any disrespect shown Him is painful to us, and anything which promotes His glory is a source of delight to us. 3. A desire to please Him, to do His will. (C. Hodge, D. D.)The importance of love to Christ I. The Lord Jesus Christ is truly and eminently lovely, and is therefore to be loved. Consider the nature and actings of this grace.1. If Christ be considered as able to do that for us, and communicate that to us, which we want, love is evinced by desire. The believer cannot be satisfied without Him. 2. If He be considered as having already manifested Himself to the soul, then love exerts itself in a way of delight. “ Whom having not seen, ye love,” etc. 3. As Christ has an interest to be carried on in the world, love displays itself in zeal for His honour. “ If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” 4. If we consider Christ as offended with our sins, and having suffered for them, love manifests itself in grief and sympathy. “ I am crucified with Christ,” says the apostle, “ and I could not do less.” 5. If we consider Christ as glorified in heaven, love expresses itself in joy and triumph. II. Notwithstanding all this amiableness in Christ, there are some who no not love Him. Such persons have--1. No real esteem for the Saviour. “ Unto you that believe, He is precious.” 2. No true faith in Christ. 3. No obedience and subjection to Christ. “ If a man love Me, he wilt keep My words.” III. All who love not the Lord Jesus Christ, are chargeable with aggravated guilt, and expose themselves to the severest displeasure of God. Because--1. He is so dearly beloved of God.2. He is so lovely and desirable in Himself.3. He has given the most astonishing proofs of His love to sinners. Consequently the want of love to Christ will be destructive of religion here, and happiness hereafter. This one defect destroys the excellency and life of all religion. Without love, faith is dead, repentance legal, fear slavish; and all duties void of this principle are vain. As to future happiness, heaven is a place of love; and to entertain one person there who is not a lover of Christ, would disturb the order and break the harmony of that blessed society. Conclusion:--1. Love to Christ may be easily discovered. (1) By the current of your thoughts. What persons love, they think much upon; and the pleasant image is continually before them. (2) By the care of your lives. Can you say that to you to live is Christ? Now, then, let conscience do its office, and it will easily tell you whether you love Christ or not. 2. Not to love Christ is a crime of tremendous guilt, which is attended with dreadful aggravations; for-- (1) It is a sin without cause. It admits of no reason or excuse. (2) It is also a sin against many causes. (3) It is the cause of many other sins. (S. Lavington.)Loving Christ and the penalty of neglecting it Note the position which this verse occupies.1. This Epistle was dictated to an amanuensis, and now Paul adds “ The salutation of me Paul with my own hand” : a form immediately followed, in most of his Epistles, by the apostolic benediction: but here he interposes the text. I think this shows us the state of his heart, which was full of Christ: he could not suppress the strong affection he entertained for the Saviour, and here he overflows. 2. Interposed as it is between the signature and the benediction, he intends it to have all the weight which apostolical authority can give it. Note-- I. The duty enjoined.1. Its object. (1) The old law was comprehended in two commandments, of which the first was greatest, “ Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God,” etc. The New Testament puts forward a similar claim on behalf of Christ; and it were easy to argue from this, that Christ is the one Jehovah for whom the old law challenges our supreme and undivided love. Indeed, this very name is here applied to Him. He is set before us, while claiming our affections, as “ the Lord.” (2) He who claims our love bears not only the incommunicable name, but a name common to many of His fellow-men: Jesus. (3) Bears another name, or rather title--Christ, or Anointed; because He sustains those offices into which men were commonly inducted by anointing, and which, as God-man, He sustains on behalf of mankind--Prophet, Priest, and King. God, Man, Mediator between God and men--whoever does not present Him in these three aspects robs Him of a part of that which essentially belongs to Him: whoever does not exhibit Him under this threefold character does not show you the Christ of the Scriptures, but some idol of his own invention. 2. The love which is claimed in His behalf must be-- (1) Sincere. You find a distinction made in the Scriptures between loving our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and pretending to love Him. (2) Supreme. “ If any man will come after Me” --“ if any man will be My disciple,” he must be prepared to “ hate father, mother,” etc. At the time when this was spoken, there went great multitudes after Him: but this was the doctrine by which He proved them. There are multitudes who will come after Him still, if He will be content to follow in the train of some beloved pursuit, or lust. Religion would be the most popular thing in the world, and would carry the whole world before it, if it were at liberty to waive this point. But Christ will have the first place in our affections: whatever stands opposed to Him we must hate; whatever is in harmony with Him, and dependent upon Him, must be loved in subordination to Him. (3) Ardent. The Scriptures are wont to illustrate this subject by a comparison taken from fire. There may be a spark, and if that spark is blown, it may rise to a vehement flame which many waters cannot quench. You have only to neglect it, and it will expire. But you are told that you must stir up the gift of God. (4) Constant; and that because He is always the same; that is due to Him at one time is due to Him at all times. (5) Practical. “ This is the love of God that we keep His commandments.” 3. The evidences of this love. I cannot help thinking, that in the case of every human object of affection, the love which there was need to try by many signs, would hardly be counted worth having; that where there is so much uncertainty whether we love Christ or no, one thing is certain--that we do not love Him very much: but still, for the sake of those who love, and who search after the signs and marks, let me give you one or two. (1) The love of the brethren, i.e., the brethren of Christ, as well as ours: and it is in that light that they are principally to be regarded. If a man feels his heart expanded towards all Christians--if he is willing to bear with their weaknesses, and relieve their necessities, for Christ’ s sake--he loves Christ. But on the other hand, if he will stand aloof from them, does he love Christ? If he says he does, Christ Himself says he is a liar. He tells you they are His representatives, and whoever does not to them as he would to Christ, if Christ stood in person before him, does not love Christ as he ought. “ By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another.” (2) Whoever loves Christ, rejoices in the return of the Lord’ s Day. You have days of meeting among friends; and the offering of every expression of joy is appropriate to such meetings. This is the day which Christ sets apart to meet His friends. Do you love His Sabbath, and do you rejoice in its return? Do you honour the Lord and keep His ordinances? If so, there is ground to hope you love Christ. But if the Sabbath is a weariness, your love to Christ is yet but a name--there is no substance in it. (3) The Bible is Christ’ s love-letter to His people. Who loves to read and honour it? Who comes to it with a relish, as a friend reads a letter from a loved friend? He loves Christ: this is a sign which cannot be mistaken. II. The penalty denounced. Whoever will not stand this test, what is to become of him? “ Let him be accursed: our Lord is coming.” This form of expression is said to be taken from the practice in the synagogues in excommunicating offenders. They had three forms of excommunication, in the last or highest of which they used this expression, and this was always understood to imply the sentence of final and irrevocable ruin. Now, says the apostle, this is the doom of all who do not love Christ.2. The curse does not fall now: the lovers of Christ and those who do not love Him go on, perhaps, very much with equal steps through life. But “ the Lord is coming” ; and at His coming He is to separate between those who love Him and those who do not love Him. The tares and the wheat grow together till the harvest; we cannot separate the hypocrite from the sincere until some overt action incontestably proves that the profession is false. The day of separation is at the end of the world; and to this St. Paul alludes, “ The Lord is coming,” to discern between the true professor and the false. 3. The Lord delayeth His coming: but why? Not out of weakness, not out of forgetfulness, but that in the interval the curse may be averted. 4. I know that you cannot command your affections, but I tell you what you can do--you can go to the throne of grace and pray that the Holy Ghost may shed it abroad in your hearts. (G. Osborn, D.D.)Want of love to Christ is I. Rebellion against the highest authority. “ This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him.” Want of love is therefore transgression of the will of God and rebellion against Him. II. Contempt of the highest excellence. Whether you consider the, Divine nature of our Lord, or His human nature, or His mediatorial character, there is in Him everything calculated to attract. “ He is altogether lovely” ; therefore not to love Him is to have a degraded mind, and to throw contempt on the highest manifestation of human excellence and Divine love. III. Ingratitude to the highest benefactor. Consider what we owe Him in connection with His incarnation, death, intercession. Think of the sinfulness of rejecting Him in the light of the truth that those who despise Him live because of His intercession. Conclusion: Is there anything to be said in extenuation of this guilt? The greatest argument for love is love. “ We love Him because He first loved us.” You cannot force the slave to love his master; but what do you think of the child that, after receiving increasing kindness, refuses to love a parent? One sees the guilt in such a case. God is not a hard Master; Christ does not treat us as slaves. Oh, if His love is not in our hearts we are indeed hard, unfeeling, thankless, justly under the anathema of God. (W. Cadman, M A.)Not loving Christ and its consequences I. What are the claims of Christ upon our love?1. He is God. If this were the only ground, He would surely have every right to expect our love. He who is the Author of every mercy therefore demands our love. 2. And yet, having failed of obtaining it as Creator, having had His laws insulted and His majesty dishonoured, He hath sought to win our love by such an act of love as even exceeds the mercies of creation, viz., redemption. Whatever you require for your admission into heaven, His love hath done it all. And now He offers His salvation freely. 3. Now, is this Friend of our lost souls unreasonable when He asks our hearts of us? We give them to our friends on earth. II. Who are the men that “ love not” that Lover of their souls?1. The world. Here are a great variety of characters, but all are alike in this, they “ love not the Lord Jesus Christ.” They live without Him, neglect His Word, discountenance His cause, love and follow practices which are His abomination. 2. Hypocritical professors, Christ’ s own definition of those who “ love Him not” is “ He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings.” True, they may say high things of Him, yet all this is like the kiss of Judas, whilst they are doing all things in their life and practice to dishonour and affront Him. They love sin. III. The guilt these men incur. Who can fathom the depth of their ingratitude! To have forgotten the mercies of creation is an awful blot upon our nature; but when He dies for our iniquities, and calls us to His pardoning mercies, who shall estimate the blackness of his guilt who treats this Saviour lightly? “ If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin” ; all our other sins look nothing when compared to this. IV. The awful doom of all those who “ love not the Lord Jesus Christ.” “ Let them be accursed at the second coming of the Lord.” There is a curse which rests upon the head of every man by nature as a breaker of the law of God (Deuteronomy 27:26); and to deliver our souls from this was the great end of our Redeemer’ s death (Galatians 3:13). To those therefore who receive Him and rely upon Him this curse is turned into a blessing (Romans 8:1). But they who “ love not the Lord Jesus Christ” remain under that curse from which He died to set them free (John 3:36; 1 Corinthians 15:17). To reject a Saviour, as it is a more aggravated sin than to reject the law, so will it meet with a more aggravated condemnation (Hebrews 10:28-29). “ The curse of the law” is terrible; but “ the wrath of the Lamb” ! what will that be? (A. Roberts, M.A.)The sin and doom of the loveless I. Why is the Lord Jesus Christ to be loved? This love was the pervading emotion of early times, and its fervour quailed not at martyrdom. The memory of the Cross was fresh, and faith wrought by love. That love was a distinct and personal attachment, and is so still. For this love is a rational affection. It is not an emotion which springs up, none can tell how or why. Nor is it any caprice or feverish excitement. It rests on a sure foundation--on a “ tried corner-stone,” viz., the knowledge of Christ’ s person and claims.1. Is He not “ the chiefest among ten thousand” as a man? and were He not more than man, you cannot but love Him. “ Thou art fairer than the sons of men.” The sexes divide between them the elements of perfection, and a perfect man or woman might not be a perfect being. But all that is tender and graceful in woman, and all that is noble and robust in man, met together in Jesus. Nature is never prodigal of her gifts. Birds of gay plumage have no song; strength is denied to creatures endowed with swiftness. As one man is generally distinguished by the predominance of one class of virtues, and another man by another, so the union of both might realise perfection. Had the peculiar gifts of John and Paul been blended, the result might have been a perfect apostle. Were the intrepidity of Luther, the tenderness of Melancthon, and the calm intellect of Calvin combined in one person, you would have the model of a faultless reformer. But every grace that adorns humanity was in Jesus in fulness and symmetry. No virtue jostled another out of its place. None rose into extravagance--none pined in feeble restriction. Perfect in every relation of life, wise in speech, pure in conduct, large in compassion, intense in beneficence, replete with everything that charms into attachment and rapture, He was the incarnation of universal loveliness. 2. But Christ’ s humanity was assumed into a personal union with a higher nature. To take a nature so low, to save a race so guilty, and by an agony so awful, was the effect of a love that could only dwell in the bosom of Jehovah. And oh what a labour He accomplished! He secured for us the best of boons, and delivered us from the worst of evils. And surely we must “ love Him, because He first loved us.” II. How Jesus is to be loved. If our creed be, there is none like Christ, then the language of our heart will be--None but Christ! His claims are paramount, and therefore love to Him must not only be ardent, but supreme. Now, it is not of the absence of love in the Church we complain so much as of its lukewarmness. In many love only warms towards Christ on the first day of the week, and falls into slumber on the other six days. The plant could not maintain its life by the enjoyment of air, soil, and water once a week, and the animal would drag out an enfeebled existence if it depended on a similar periodical nutrition. No; it is of the nature of love to give its object an immediate and permanent existence in the heart. If Christ were loved, His image would ever dwell within us; and were He loved supremely, that image would gather in upon itself our deepest attachment, and exercise an undivided sway over thought, purpose, speech, and action. III. The sin and danger of not loving Christ. It implies--1. Ignorance of His person, claims, and work. The more men know Him, the more does their heart burn with this gracious and absorbing affection. And surely ignorance of Him must bring a merited anathema. For such ignorance is wholly inexcusable, with the Bible before it and the Cross in its view. 2. Unbelief. “ Faith worketh by love.” But if absence of love imply absence of faith, what a curse must follow” “ He that believeth is saved, but he that believeth not is condemned already.” Severed from Christ the soul is lost for ever. 3. Unlikeness to God. And if, on a point so tender, he is unlike God, will not God frown upon the sinner and punish him? 4. Unfitness for heaven. Heaven is a region where love to Jesus predominates--where it gladdens every bosom, and gives music to every anthem. But the unloving mind is not allowed to join in these warblings, for none but the new heart can sing the new song. Without love to Him, because unconscious of any salvation from Him, it would feel no reason to bless Him. 5. The certainty of the curse--“ Our Lord cometh.” The Church rejoices in that motto, but it is the terror of the wicked. The cloud that guided Israel consumed and terrified the amazed Egyptian. And He comes for the very purpose of making inquisition--of ascertaining who have responded to His love, and confided in His atonement. Nor can He be deceived. His eye, as it looks upon the mass, scans every individual and looks down into his heart. Nay, the heart without love will at once discover itself by its tremor. Nor can it escape. Subterfuge and evasion are alike impossible. But not only does the awful formula certify the curse, it also embitters it--Our Lord cometh--He whom men are bound to love as Saviour pronounces the dead anathema. From other lips it would not be so awful; but surely such an anathema from the lips of Love must arm itself with a burning and unbearable terror. (J. Eadie, D.D.)A negative crime and a positive punishment This expression may be regarded--1. As a grand characteristic of Biblical appeal. It appeals to the heart, and seeks the reformation of the world by the reformation of the individual, and the reformation of the individual by the reformation of the heart. 2. As an incidental argument of the Godhead of Christ. The Bible claims for Him supreme love, but supreme affection belongs to God. Paul makes our destiny depend upon love to Christ. Would he make our destiny depend upon mere love to man, to Abraham, David, Isaiah, or John? 3. As a solemn test of a true character. The essence of a true character consists not in ideas or mere actions, but in love, and in love for Christ. “ Lovest thou Me?” said Christ to Peter. The text contains-- I. A negative crime. This state of mind in relation to Christ is--1. Unreasonable. There is everything in Him to call out the highest love. There are three kinds of love of which we are susceptible--gratitude, esteem, and benevolence. The first requires manifestation of kindness; the second, of moral excellence; the third, a purpose for the common good. Christ manifests all these, and therefore deserves our highest love. There may be men who have power to excite in our natures, in some degree, love in some of these forms; but Christ alone has power to excite all in the highest degree. 2. Ascertainable. We can soon ascertain whether we love Christ or not. The chief object of love will always be-- (1) The most engrossing subject of thought.(2) The attractive theme of conversation.(3) The source of the greatest delight in pleasing.(4) The most transforming power of character.(5) The most identified with our conscious life. 3. Deplorable. This love is the only true regulative power of the soul. Where this is not, or where it is misdirected, all the powers of our nature are misemployed, and all is confusion. Then, indeed, the life of the soul is dead to virtue and to happiness. Our happiness consists in supreme affection, and our supreme affection, to yield happiness, must be directed to an object absolutely perfect, reciprocative, and ever enduring. Such an object is Christ, and such only is He. II. A positive punishment.1. Its nature. “ Let him be Anathema.” The word primarily means anything that is laid up, or set apart for some particular purpose. The secondary and general meaning is “ accursed,” devoted to ruin (cf. Galatians 1:7-8; Romans 9:3). It is one of Paul’ s strong words to express a terrible evil. Cut off the planet from the sun, and it rushes to ruin; the river from the fountain, and it is gone; the branch from the tree, and the limb from the body, and they die. The soul, cut off from Christ--its centre, fountain, root, life--is destroyed. 2. Its certainty. “ Maran-atha,” “ the Lord will come.” Christ will come to execute judgment upon those who love Him not. Paul had written the other part of his letter by an amanuensis, but to write these terrible words he takes up the pen himself. Men are accursed, not merely because they hate Christ, rebel against His authority, profane His ordinances, but because they do not love Him; whatever else they do in philanthropy, etc. (D. Thomas, D. D.)Anathema I. The crime supposed. Not to love Christ supremely is--1. Unreasonable--He is supremely lovely.2. Ungrateful--He has loved us.3. Unjust--He has a right to our love. II. The punishment threatened.1. The punishment.2. The time.3. The certainty. Application-- (1) It is the duty of all men to love Christ.(2) Christ knows those who love Him. (G. Whitefield.)Anathema and grace 1. Terror and tenderness are strangely mingled in this parting salutation. Paul has been obliged, throughout the whole Epistle, to assume a tone of remonstrance, and here he traces all their vices to their fountain-head--the defect of love to Jesus Christ--and warns of their fatal issue. 2. But he will not leave these terrible words for his last. The thunder is followed by gentle rain, and the sun glistens on the dewdrops (verse 23). Nor for himself will he let the last impression he one of rebuke or even of warning (verse 24). Is not that beautiful? And does it not go deeper than the revelation of Paul’ s character? May we not see in these terrible and tender thoughts a revelation of the true nature both of the terror and the tenderness of the gospel which Paul preached? Note-- I. The terror of the fate of the unloving. “ Anathema” means an offering, or a thing devoted. In the story of the conquest of Canaan, e.g., we read of places, persons, or things that were “ accursed,” i.e., devoted or put under a ban. And this “ devotion” was of such a sort as that the subjects were doomed to destruction. So Paul tells us that the unloving, like those cities full of uncleanness, when they are brought into contact with the infinite love of the coming Judge, shrivel up and are destroyed. “ Maran-atha” is a separate sentence. It means “ our Lord comes,” and was perhaps a kind of watchword. The use of it here is to confirm the warning of the previous clause, by pointing to the time at which that warning shall be fulfilled.1. “ The Lord comes.” Paul’ s Christianity gathered round two facts and moments--one in the past, Christ has come; one in the future, Christ will come. For memory, the coming by the cradle and the Cross; for hope, the coming on His throne in glory. And between these two moments, like the solid piers of a suspension bridge, the frail structure of the present hangs swinging. There have been many comings in the past, besides the coming in the flesh. One characteristic is stamped upon them all, and that is the swift annihilation of what is opposed to Him. The Bible has a set of standing metaphors by which to illustrate this thought--“ A flood,” “ a harvest,” the waking of God from slumber, etc. The second coming will include and surpass all the characteristics which these lesser and premonitory judgment days presented in miniature. 2. The coming of the Lord of love is the destruction of the unloving--not the cessation of their being, but a death worse than death, because a death in life. Suppose a man with all his past annihilated, with all its effort crushed, with all its possessions gone, and with his memory and his conscience stung into clear-sighted activity, so as that he looks back upon his former and into his present self, and feels that it is all chaos, would not that fulfil the word, “ Let him be Anathema” ? And suppose that such a man, in addition to these thoughts, and as the root and the source of them, had ever the quivering consciousness that he was in the presence of an unloved Judge! The unloving heart is always ill at ease in the presence of Him whom it does not love. The unloving heart does not love, because it does not trust nor see the love. Therefore, the unloving heart is a heart that is only capable of apprehending the wrathful side of Christ’ s character. So there is no cruelty, no arbitrariness in the decree that the heart that loves not when brought into contact with the infinite Lord of love must find in the touch death and not life, darkness and not light, terror and not hope. 3. Paul does not say “ he that hateth,” but he that does not love. The absence of love, which is the child of faith, the parent of righteousness, the condition of joy in His presence, is sufficient to ensure that this fate shall fall upon a man. II. The present grace of the coming Lord. “ Our Lord cometh.” “ The grace,” etc. (verse 23).1. These two things are not contradictory, but we often deal with them as if they were. But the real doctrine says there is no terror without tenderness, and there is no tenderness without terror. You cannot have love which is anything nobler than facile good nature and unrighteous indifference, unless you have along with it aspects of God’ s character and government which ought to make some men afraid. And you cannot keep these latter aspects from being exaggerated and darkened into a Moloch of cruelty unless you remember that underlying them and determining them are aspects of the Divine nature, to which only child-like confidence and love rightly respond. The terror of the Lord is a garb which our sins forces upon the love of the Lord. 2. Note what the present grace is. A tenderness which gathers into its embrace all these imperfect, immoral, lax, heretical people in Corinth, as well as everywhere else--“ with you all.” And surely the love which gathers in such people leaves none outside its sweep. Let nothing rob you of this assurance, that the coming Lord is present with us all, and all we need, in order to get its full sunshine into our hearts, is that we trust Him utterly, and, so trusting, love Him back again with that love which is the fulfilling of the law and the crown of the gospel. III. The tenderness, caught from the Master Himself of the servant who rebukes (verse 24). There is no other instance where he introduces himself and his own love at the end, after he has pronounced the solemn benediction. But here, as if he had felt that he must leave an impression of himself on their minds which corresponded to the impression of his Master that he desired to leave, he deviates from his ordinary habit, and makes his last word a personal word--“ My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.” Paul embraces all whom he has been rebuking in the warm embrace of his proffered love, which was the very cause of his rebuke. The healing balm of this closing message was to be applied to the wounds which his keen edged words had made, and to show that they were wounds by a surgeon, not by a foe. Because the gospel is a gospel, it must speak plainly about death and destruction to the unloving. The danger signal is not to be blamed for a collision. “ Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” (A. Maclaren, D.D.)Loving Jesus Christ First, love Christ so far as to lay down the pleasures of this life for Him, and so far as to lay down the life itself for Him.2. Love Him, then, as He is presented to thee here: love the Lord, love Christ, love Jesus. As He is the Lord, thou wilt fear Him; but no man fears God truly, but that that fear ends in love. Love Him as He is the Lord, that would have nothing perish that He hath made. And love Him as He is Christ, that hath made Himself man too, that thou mightest not perish. Love Him as the Lord that could show mercy, and love Him as Christ who is that way of mercy which the Lord hath chosen. I have found Him, and found that He, who by His incarnation was made able to save me (so He was Christ), by His actual passion hath saved me, and so I love Him as Jesus. When I conceit, when I contemplate my Saviour thus, I love the Lord, and there is a reverent adoration in that love; I love Christ, and there is a mysterious admiration in that love; but I love Jesus, and there is a tender compassion in that love, and I am content to suffer with Him and to suffer for Him rather than see any diminution of His glory by my prevarication. And he that loves not thus, that loves not the Lord God, and God manifested in Christ, Anathema, Maranatha, which is our next and our last part. Whether this Anathema be denounced by the apostle by way of imprecation, that he wished it so, or pronounced by way of excomnmnication, that others should esteem them so and avoid them, as such persons, is sometimes debated amongst us in our books. But we rather take this in the text to be an excommunication denounced by the apostle, than an imprecation. Now the excommunication is in the Anathema, and the aggravating thereof in the other words, Maranatha. The word Anathema had two significations: that which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God, or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too. From the first kind men abstained because they were consecrated to God, and from the other because they were aliened from God. By the light of nature, by the light of grace we should separate ourselves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons, and that with that earnestness which the apostle expresses in the last words, Maranatha. It is superabundant perverseness to resist Christ now, now that He hath appeared already and established to Himself a kingdom in the world. And so St. Chrysostom seems to take it too. “ Christ is come already,” says he. If any excuse could he pretended before, yet since Christ is come, none can be, But that is not all that is intended by the apostle in this place. It is not only a censorious speech, it is a shame for them, and an inexcusable thing in them, if they do not love the Lord Jesus Christ; but it is a judiciary speech, thus much more, since they do not love the Lord. “ The Lord judge them when He comes.” “ I,” says the apostle, “ take away none of His mercy when He comes, but I will have nothing to do with them till He comes; to me He shall be Anathema, Maranatha, separated from me till then; then the Lord, who shows mercy in minutes, do His will upon him.” To end all, if a man love not the Lord, if he love not God, which is, which was, and which is to come, what will please him, whom will he love? (J. Donne.)Affection ungratefully withheld After Joan of Arc had won the great victory at Orleans, and made clear the way for Charles the Seventh to be crowned king, she was taken prisoner, and subjected to the most brutal treatment at the hands of her enemies; still her ungrateful king refused to make a single move to liberate the one who had freed his subjects, and made him heir and king. My unsaved friend, you are doing the same thing. As you read the simple narrative, you doubtless will say, “ King Charles was ungrateful, and deserved punishment.” Yet Jesus Christ left His heavenly home, came down to earth, suffered, and died that you might be crowned the “ child of a King,” and you refuse to even acknowledge Him. Should the anger of God consume you, could you say aught in your defence? (Sharpened Arrows.)The sin of not loving Christ “ To refuse to love Jesus Christ, I affirm, is to do Him all the evil which an open enemy could, or at least would do. If Jesus Christ had come into the world, as a king into a revolted province, in order to extinguish rebellion, and cause the silence of terror to reign in it, He might be satisfied with a trembling submission, and care nothing for the evil we do Him. But such a submission He did not desire, nor can desire. That alone which He desired, that alone for which He descended to the earth, the end to which He directed all His toils, was the conquest of our heart. Separate from that triumph, every other is nothing to Him. (Dr. Vinet.)Want of love to Christ a fatal sin How great is the sin of not loving your Lord and your Saviour! “ Oh! but you see, sir, that is a mere negative thing. It is what we do that we are accountable for to God; it is our positive actions that we must render an account for at the last.” Is that so? Is there no sin in not doing what you ought to do? If your neighbour’ s house were in flames to-night, and you saw them belching out of the windows, would it be no sin for you to sit calmly in your own dwelling, and not go at midnight to raise the family from their fatal sleep? Would you think so if to-morrow morning you looked at their skeletons amid the charred and blackened ruins? Suppose there is some man in this chapel to-night, who lives in a comfortable and luxurious mansion, but his own mother is in an almshouse, I say to him, “ Where is your old mother?” He says, “ In the poorhouse.” “ Do you know, sir, that you are practising a diabolical cruelty?” “ Oh! but I am doing nothing to my mother.” “ It is your not doing; it is your living in luxury, and she lying there on that hard bed of poverty and neglect that stamps you, sir, with that most damnable sin of breaking God’ s fifth commandment. It is what you do not do that stamps you as an ingrate to her that bore you.” Oh! my friends, yet out of Christ, it is the sin of not loving Christ that makes you guilty before God. Not loving Him is pronounced in all cases a positive and fatal sin. (T. L. Cuyler.)How he came to say it How came the tender-hearted Paul to throw those red-hot words at the Corinthians? Not to love Christ is-- I. Unreasonable and unnatural. Tradition tells us that He was the most infinitely beautiful being that ever walked our small earth, and to a lovely exterior He joined all loveliness of disposition. The sunshine of His love mingling with the shadows of His sorrows, crossed by the crystalline stream of His tears and the crimson of His blood, make a picture worthy of being called the masterpiece of the eternities. He was altogether lovely--always lovely, and lovely in everything. Lovely in His sacrifice. Why, He gave up everything for us, and He took everybody’ s trouble. Now suppose that, notwithstanding all this, a man cannot have any affection for Him. Why “ After all this, ‘ if a man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.’” II. Unjust. Just look at the injustice of not loving Him. There is nothing that excites a man like injustice. If there ever was a fair and square purchase of anything, then Christ purchased us. If anything is purchased and paid for, ought not the goods to be delivered? And you will go to law for it, and, if need be, hurl the defaulter into jail. Such injustice as between man and man is bad enough, but between man and God it is reprehensible and intolerable. After all thin purchase “ if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.” III. Suicidal. If a man gets into trouble, and he cannot get out, we have only one feeling towards him, sympathy and a desire to help him. But suppose the day before he failed, W. E. Dodge had come into his store and said: “ My friend, I hear you are in trouble. I have come to help you,” and suppose the man were to say, “ I don’ t want it; I would rather fail than take it; I don’ t even thank you for offering it.” Your sympathy for that man would cease immediately. Now Christ hears of our spiritual embarrassments. He finds the law saying, “ Pay me what thou owest.” Pay? We cannot pay a farthing of all the millions of obligation. Well, Christ comes in and says, “ You can use My name.” Now suppose the soul says, “ O Christ, I want not Thy help. Go away from me.” You would say, “ After all this ingratitude and rejection, ‘ if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.’” IV. Cruel. The meanest thing I could do for you would be needlessly to hurt your feelings. Now, Christ is a bundle of delicacy and sensitiveness. Oh, what rough treatment He has received sometimes from our hands! Every time you rejected the Lord you struck Him. How you have broken His heart! Do you know there is a crucifixion going on now? You say, “ Where?” Here! When a man refuses to love Christ and rejects Him, the apostle intimates that. He “ crucifies the Lord afresh.” By our sins we have done this. When I think of all this, my surprise at the apostle ceases. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.) 1 Corinthians 16:24 My love be with you all. Paul’ s love to the Corinthians was I. Sincere. Witness the Epistle.1. Its faithful dealing.2. Wise counsels.3. Earnest admonitions.4. Sublime lessons.5. Patient and loving spirit. II. Comprehensive--including all, even those who had offended. III. Christian in its source, nature, operation, and effect. (J. Lyth, D.D.)