seems to let the Corinthians-and, through them, the world-into every secret of his soul. The transparency of the revelation of himself is to me something unequalled in all sacred literature. Let us run over a few examples of it in some of the first few chapters.

"God who comforteth us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God' (i. 4).

"Our consolation aboundeth by Christ" (i. 5).

"We had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God" (i. 9).

'Our rejoicing is this-the testimony of our conscience" (i. 12). "We are your rejoicing-ye are our's" (i. 14).

"I call God for a record for my soul, that to spare you, I came not," &c. (i. 23).

"I determined I would not come again to you in heaviness" (ii. 1). "Out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears" (ii. 4).

"I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother" (ii. 13).

"We are the savour of life unto life-of death unto death' (ii. 16).

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Such trust have we through Christ to Godward" (iii. 4).

"As we have received mercy we faint not . . . by manifestation

of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience" (iv. 1, 2).

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels " (iv. 7).

"Death worketh in us, but life in you. . . We also believe, and therefore speak" (iv. 12, 13).

"Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us,” &c. (iv. 17).

"In this we groan, earnestly desiring," &c. (v. 2).

"We walk by faith, not by sight" (v. 7).

"We give you occasion to glory on our behalf” (v. 12).

"Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause " (v. 13).

"In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience," &c. (vi. 4).

"As deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known " (vi. 8, 9).

"Our mouth is opened unto you, our heart is enlarged. not straitened in us," &c. (vi. 11, 12).

Ye are

Now the question arises, how is it that a letter so almost purely personal, forms by God's providence a book, and by no means the smallest book, of the Canon of Scripture? We answer, because of these very personalities with which it abounds. It shows us how God, Who has endowed us with personal qualities, with hearts, affections, sympathies, sensitiveness, yearnings after a requital of our love, does not intend these sensibilities to be hidden under a dignified reserve, but to be brought to bear on that which answers to them in our fellows. If there is a motto to be chosen for this letter—a human motto, touching the inmost spirit of its teachingit should be "heart to heart."

It teaches us that such a type of Churchmanship as was exhibited in former times, and in some specimens reaching down to this time, the dignified ecclesiastic, wrapping himself up in his mantle of chilling reserve,1 doing all he can to avoid the possibility of being called upon to give an opinion, always on the look-out to snub, to put down, to bow out-that such an one is in heart and soul utterly alien from the type set forth by the Spirit of God in the New Testament.

But there is another remarkable lesson to be learnt from this Epistle. How one and the same man, in the same letter, to the same persons, can at times, with the utmost sincerity, abase himself almost beneath the feet of his children, and yet at the same time threaten them, if they do not obey him, with the severest spiritual punishments, and these, too, in combination with temporal punishments, for no word of "fulmination " has ever gone beyond "to deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." 1 Cor. v. 5. Consider the abasement. "Ourselves your servants for Jesus'

1 A poor country clergyman, well nigh broken hearted with discouragement, imagined that his bishop was the man to whom he might properly unburthen his griefs, so he speeds to the palace of one of the first-if not the first scholar in the kingdom-and begins his pitiful story; but is speedily cut short with the question, "My dear Sir, is there not in your village a shop or office with a blank pane or two of wood, and a slit in the pane with the words 'letter box' over it? Could you not have sent what you wish to tell me through that and-" Well, we need not finish. But would not a Bishop's time be thus unduly taken up? Would he not lose more than half an hour? Yes, but in that half hour he would at least learn patience, forbearance, and how this may lead to God's teaching him charity and sympathy, and so furthering his salvation

sake." "We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (we are like Gideon's pitchers and lamps). "Death worketh in us, but life in you." "All things are for your sakes." "Whether we be beside ourselves it is to God, or whether we be sober it is for your sakes." “Receive us, we have wronged no man.” "Ye are in our hearts to live and to die with you." "We were comforted in your comfort."

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But consider the assertions of Church power: 66 I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power." "Shall I come to you with

a rod?" (1 Cor. iv. 19, 20). "I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some." "Being ready to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." 'Being absent now, I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that if I come again I will not spare."

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Now this abasement and this assertion is only natural. It is the outcome of his distrust and of his faith-his distrust of himself, as being nothing and less than nothing, apart from Christ: and his faith in Christ, as the Head of the Church, as the Ordainer of Sacraments, as the Institutor of severe, yet merciful discipline, as the Strength of His Ministers, accompanying their word, whether of binding or loosing, with His own power.

Altogether it is a study is this Epistle-a study in the school of Christ-a study of weak human nature, abiding as human nature, but to the uttermost sanctified, ennobled, informed, inhabited by the Spirit of God.

After all this it seems impertinent almost to speak of the genuineness of this Epistle, and its place in the Canon from the first.

It seems to be quoted at least three times in the Epistle of Polycarp, thus: (chap. iv. 14) “He who raised Him from the dead will raise up us also," ch. ii. " also (viii. 31) providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and men," (ch. vi.) also (v. 10) "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (ch. vi.).

Also several times in Ignatius, thus: "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." (Epistle of Ignatius to Romans: iii.)

Irenæus quotes it many times (in an index now before me about twenty-five times), thus: "For as the Apostle does say in the second (Epistle) to the Corinthians: For we are unto God a sweet savour

of Christ; in them which are saved and in them which perish.'” (Adv. Hær. iv. xxviii. 3.)

Clement of Alexandria quotes the Epistle above forty times, thus: "Only let us preserve free will and love: troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." (Miscellanies, iv. 21.)

Tertullian above seventy times, thus: "But further, in recounting his own sufferings to the Corinthians, he certainly decided that sufferings must be borne. 'In labours,' he says, 'more abundant, in prisons very frequent, in deaths oft;''Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one."" (Scorpiace, ch. 13.)

For MSS. and Versions, see the Introduction to the Romans, p. 18.

A COMMENTARY.

THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

CHAP. I.

called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through AUL, "fute to, and sostienes our brother,

PAUL

will of God."

с

& Rom. i. 1. b 2 Cor. i. 1. Eph. i. 1. Col. i. 1.

c Acts xviii. 17.

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1. "Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the "Called to be an apostle," literally a called apostle." No doubt emphasis is to be laid on called." He was not a self-appointed Apostle, as some were, but in writing to the Corinthians he thought it good to assert that he was an Apostle by special calling, as some among them had thrown doubts on this (ix. 1-6).

"By the will of God." All things take place by God's will: but in an extraordinary way God showed His will in the selection of St. Paul to the Apostolic office. With respect to the eleven, Christ had recognized them as the peculiar gift of His Father to Himself, "Thine they were, and thou gavest them me (John xvii. 6); and so it was with St. Paul. This election or selection on the part of God the Father is asserted very markedly by him in Gal. i. 15: "It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace." In 1 Tim. i. 1 his Apostolate is "by the commandment of God our Saviour." In the economy of Redemption Christ does nothing apart from His Father: He does not even of Himself-of His separate Will-select His own special representatives.

"And Sosthenes our brother." Rather the brother, the well

B