the true meaning of "to sanctify" is to set apart, and hence to consecrate to any work. Thus spoke Christ, "For their sakes I sanctify, set apart, devote Myself." His life was a voluntary devotion of Himself even to the death, as well to save others as to bear witness to the truth. It is this attribute of the Divine nature in Humanity that the Church exists to exhibit now on earth. And then it is a church most truly when it is most plainly devoted. Thus it was in martyr times, when the death and persecuted existence of the saints of God were at once the life-blood of the Church and a testimony to the truth of its Faith. But then it is not, plainly, the Church, where bishops and priests are striving to aggrandize their own power, and seeking to impress men with the idea of the infallibility of their office. When the ecclesiastical dignity makes godliness a means of gain, or when priestcraft exercises lordship over the heritage of God, then it is falsifying its mission, for it is existing to establish, instead of to destroy, selfishness.

Secondly, It exists to establish sanctity.

The Church of Corinth was formed, as we have said, of peculiar elements. It arose out of a democratic, and therefore a factious, community It sprang out of an extremely corrupt society, where pride of wealth abounded, and where superstition and scepticism looked one another in the face. It developed itself in the midst of a Judaism which demanded visible proofs of a divine mission. Ancient vices still infected the Christian converts. They carried into the Church the savor of their old life, for the wine-skin will long retain the flavor with which it has once been imbued. We find from these epistles that gross immorality still existed, and was even considered a thing to boast of. We find their old philosophy still coloring their Christianity, for on the foundation of the oriental idea that the body was the source of all sin, they denied a future resurrection. We find the insolence of wealth at the Lord's Supper. We find spiritual gifts abused by being exhibited for the sake of ostentation. Such was the

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Church of Corinth! This is the Early Church so boasted of by some! Yet nowhere do we find, " These are not of the Church; these are of the Church." Rather all are the Church the profligate brother, the proud rich man, the speculative philosopher, the mere partizan, the superstitious and the seeker after signs, all are called to be saints." All were temples of the Holy Ghost, though possibly admonished that they might be defiling that temple. "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost"— that "Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" In the face of this the hypothetical view of Baptism is impossible. Publicans and sinners may be in the Church, and yet they are called God's children, His children, redeemed though not sanctified; His people pardoned and reconciled by right, though the reconciliation and the pardon are not theirs in fact, unless they accept it. For it is possible to open the doors of the prison, and yet for the prisoner to refuse deliverance; it is possible to forgive an injury, and yet for the injurer to retain anger, and then reconciliation and friendship, which are things of two sides, are incomplete. Nevertheless, all are designed for holiness, all of the professing Church "called to be saints." Hence the Church of Christ is a visible body of men providentially elected out of the world to exhibit holiness, some of whom really manifest it in this life, while others do not; and the mission of this society is to put down evil.

his

are

Thirdly, Its universality. "With all who, in every place, call upon the name of Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours.

The Corinthian Church was, according to these words of the Apostle, not an exclusive airágns Church, but only a part of the Church universal, as a river is of the sea. He allowed it no proud superiority. He would not permit it to think of itself as more spiritual or as possessing higher dignity than the Church at Jerusalem or Thessalonica. They were called to be saints along with, and on a level with, all who named the Name of Christ.

Is this our idea when we set up Anglicanism against Romanism, and make England the centre of unity instead of Rome ? There is no centre of unity but Christ. We go to God with proud notions of our spirituality and our claims. We boast ourselves of our advantages over Dissenters and Romanists. Whereas the same God is "theirs and ours; the same Christ is" theirs and ours." Oh! only so far as we feel that God is our Father not my Father, and Christ our Saviour not my Saviour, do we realize the idea of the Church. “The name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours. What a death blow to Judaism and

party spirit in Corinth!

Lastly, unity.

Christ was theirs and ours. He was the Saviour of all, and the common Supporter of all. Though individual churches might differ, and though sects might divide even those churches, and though each might have a distinct truth, and manifest distinct gifts, yet Christ existed in all. The same one Spirit, His Spirit, pervaded all, and strengthened all, and bound all together into a living and invisible unity. Each in their several ways contributed to build 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 from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ."

This is, if you will, a formula, but forms like this teach much; they tell of the Spirit from which they originate. 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 a higher Life, and above and beyond all things the Apostle wished them this. He wished them not "Health" Happiness," but " Grace and Peace" from God our Father. And now comes the question, What is

nor "

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the use of this benediction? How could grace and peace be given as a blessing to those who rejected grace, and not believing felt no peace? Let me try to illustrate this. When the minister in a representative capacity, in the person of Christ, declares absolution to a sinner, his absolution is not lost if the man rejects it, or cannot receive it; for it returns to him again, and he has done what he could to show that in Christ there is a full absolution for the sinner, if he will take it. Remember what Christ said to the seventy: "When ye enter into an house, say, Peace be to this house; and if the Son of Peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it, if not, it shall return to you again.'

The validity of St. Paul's blessing 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, sons of God: they "set to their seal that God was true."

our Father and the special revelation of Father, and when we

"Grace and peace from God Lord Jesus Christ." For the Jesus Christ is, that God is our believe that, not merely with our intellects, but with our hearts, and evidence in our lives that we believe it, and that this relationship is the spring of our motives and actions, then will flow in the Peace which passeth all understanding, and we are blessed indeed with the blessing of God.

LECTURE III.

JUNE 15, 1851.

That in every

So that

1 CORINTHIANS, i. 4 – 13. - "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the Grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; - Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. - God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ."

OUR work to-day will be from the commencement of the fourth to the end of the thirteenth verses, in which we find two points; first, the Apostolic congratulations from the fourth to the tenth verse; and, after that, the Apostolic warning and rebuke, from the tenth to the end. First, then, the Apostolic congratulation - "I thank my God always on your behalf," &c. Let us remark here how, in the heart of St. Paul, the unselfishness of Christianity had turned this world into a perpetual feast. He had almost none of the personal enjoyments of existence. If we want to know what his life was, we have only to turn to the eleventh chapter of the second Epistle: "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned," &c. That was his daily outward life; yet we shall greatly mistake the life of that glorious Apostle if we suppose it to have been an unhappy one. It was filled with blessedness; the blessedness which arises from that high Christian faculty through which a