was difficult for rich men to enter into the kingdom of heaven. They were more disposed to the pleafures, which riches furnifh; than to the comforts, which religion adminifters: and even they, who had embraced Christianity, found much work for the apoftle in keeping them. pure from the contagion, that was fpread around them.

Befides the gay, and thoughtlefs, the apoftle had another kind of people to contend with.. These were philofophers: and tho' they were a more refpectable fet of men than the other, they were, at the fame time, perhaps more intractable. A state of learning is in itself, no, doubt, favourable to religion, at least in a certain degree; and has ever been found fo: but the philofopher himself has fometimes too much wifdom to be taught. The Corinthian philofophers certainly had; and were in general rather inclined to add fomething of their own to amend the gofpel; than to accept it in that fimplicity, in which Paul preached it.

To the latter the text alludes. These philofophizing chriftians (many of whom were probably teachers alfo) the apoftle recalls to the fimplicity of the gospel. He fets before them his own example..

example. He came not, he tells them, with the excellency of Speech, or the enticing words of man's wisdom. He knew nothing among them, but Jefus Chrift, and him crucified: adding, that he had never preached the words, which man's wif dom teacheth; but which the Holy Ghoft teacheth; comparing fpiritual things with fpiritual.

In this paffage the apoftle gives us the only true rule of interpreting fcripture, which I fhall endeavour to explain, by fhewing--first, How the apoftes were directed by it And, fecondly, How far it seems applicable to us.

I. In the first place, the apostle tells us, he avoided the words which man's wisdom teacheth.

In the apostle's days, indeed, man's wisdom had made but little progrefs in matters of religion. We read of Hymeneus, Philetus, and a few others, who feemed defirous of being teachers, before they understood what they affirmed. But their number was fmall.

Man's wisdom, however, was a kind of leaven, which made a rapid progrefs. We need only curforily examine ecclefiaftical hiftory to fee it's mifchievous effects. There we find men running fuch lengths of folly, extravagance, wildnefs,

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nefs, and I may add of wickednefs, that we may well fuppofe, it was in the spirit of forefight, that the apostle puts us fo much on our guard against man's wisdom. Man's wisdom hath filled innumerable volumes: the gofpel is comprised

in one.

In this ingrateful field we might wander long. The history of man's wisdom is the history of his opinions; and of these there is no end. Zeal, and indifcretion; pride, and vanity; bad meanings, and good meanings, have all contributed to interpret what the Holy Ghost teacheth, by the words of man's wifdom. Inftead therefore of wandering in this wide wilderness, let us fix our eyes on thofe great land-marks which the apostle has fet up to lead us fafely through it.

The apoftles were immediately infpired. They taught, as the Holy Ghost inftructed. Immediate inspiration brought all things to their remembrance, whatever their blessed Lord had taught them.

At the fame time, it should seem that the infpiration of the apoftles was reftricted to what was new in the religion they taught or if not wholly new, yet fo obfcurely fhadowed out in prophecies, and prophetic types, that it needed

needed explanation. The great truths, with regard to the redemption of the world the interceffion of Chrift his atonement for fin-the conditions of acceptance the univerfality of the chriftian religion-the motives it holds out the purity it hath introduced into morals—the certainty of a future state-and of a last judgment were all, no doubt, ftrongly impreffed on the minds of the apoftles, and properly opened by immediate infpiration. In any of these great truths, mistakes were dangerous-memory was frail—and there were yet no written records. At the fame time fuch notices as were already on the records of inspiration — thofe divine truths contained in the books of the Old Testament-wanted no farther illuftration from the Holy Ghoft. Here nothing more seems to have been neceffary, than the use of reafon and common fenfe. And thus the apoftle distinguishes between the things, which God had revealed by the fpirit; and the act of comparing Spiritual things with fpiritual. The one he calls declaring the teftimony of God: the other was plainly the exertion only of reafon. Nothing more than the exertion of reafon was neceffary to prove the connection between the Old Tefta

ment and the New-or to point out the completion of prophecies -or to fhew, how the types of the law were fulfilled. Of this mode of reafoning we find abundant inftances among the facred writers in the epiftle to the Hebrews especially.

Thus then infpiration feems to have been neceffary to direct the apoftles in what was hitherto unknown: but human reafon feemed fufficient to enable them to apply what had been already infpired.

II. Let us then now fee, how this rule, which guided the apoftles, appears applicable to us or in what way we are to speak what the Holy Ghoft teacheth, comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual.

In the first place, I think, it plainly appears, we have no reason to expect immediate direction from what the Holy Ghoft teacheth. To wait for defultory illapfes of the fpirit to lead us into truth feems to have little countenance from fcripture; unless indeed we apply to ourselves fuch paffages, as by the faireft rules of interpretation can apply only to the apostles. And furely the greatest caution is neceffary in fettling a