sin, and be more mercifully dealt with. You cannot read this Epistle, or that to the Hebrews, and think so. "All these things happened unto them for ensamples, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." And the punishments which their offences met with are specimens of those which we may expect. Four special sins of the Israelites are mentioned by St. Paul as corresponding to the circumstances in which he found the Corinthian Church; idolatry, impurity, doubt, and discontent. "Is God among us, or not?" said the people in the wilderness, tempting Jehovah. Think you we shall be less punished than they, if we similarly tempt our God? This chapter gives the answer. Here, then, we meet a very solemn truth: the sacrifice of Christ does not alter God's Will: it does not make sin a trifle it does not make it safer to commit offences. It does not abrogate, but declares God's law. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame!" And these Corinthians were boasting of their privileges, vaunting their liberties, talking of rights instead of doing duties, speaking of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Reason, and all the time the same God who judged the people in the wilderness was ruling them by the same unalterable laws.

it.

II. The second thing contained in this chapter is the resumption of the argument on the difficulty about eating meat offered to idols, with further advice respecting Let me recall briefly what the difficulty was. If they eat the meat they seemed to sanctify idolatry: if they abstained, they seemed to say that an idol was a real being, and so they gave a sanction to superstition. It was one of those circumstances where a true decision on a duty lay in great obscurity. Now the Apostle admits it to be a difficulty, but he will not allow them to think

it an inextricable one. There is no excuse here for acting wrong: "there has no temptation taken you which is not common to man: " there is a way of escape, and by it they may rescue themselves without either guilt or hypocrisy. He had already counselled them to abstain for the sake of Love, lest their example might lead their weaker brethren to sin by violating their conscience: now he takes higher ground: and this is his argument. Every sacrificial feast in all religions is a kind of worship: in the Christian religion there was the Lord's Supper, and all they who participated in that rite were Christians. They communicated with Christ, they declared His character was their standard of life: "the Cup of Blessing which we bless, is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ?" And, further, in the Jewish religion all who ate of the Jewish offerings were Jews; they professed themselves to be such by sharing in the act. Thus, in the same way as all who partook of Christian sacrifices were Christians, and all who took part in Jewish were Jews, so all who sat at meat in idolatrous feasts communicated with idols, and formed one society with idolatrous worshippers. Such acts as these brought confusion into opinion, and the Church : "Ye cannot drink the cup of devils."

Here, however, a difficulty arose. Could the Apostle mean this literally? Partaking of Jewish altars, they shared, he said, with God; of Christian, with Christ; of heathen, with idols! Then the idol was a real thing after all? But in answer to this St. Paul explains himself: "What say I then? that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols anything? No: but the Gentiles sacrifice their offerings as to a demon. The heathen thought it a sacrifice to a real god, and would reckon any one who ate of it as a fellow-worshipper with them of a demon: hence the Corinthian Church could not do it without conveying a false impression: their presence would be taken as a sanction of heathenism. Thus these religious banquets being not only an injury to the Church, but also to the

heathen, the Apostle, indignant at this wrong, breaks out into forcible language, "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than He?"

With St. Paul we infer, in conclusion, two practical truths.

1. The law by which the Lord's Supper binds us to God. "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils." The term Sacrament has been already discussed that Feast is now called "Communion:" in it we have fellowship with God and His Church: it is the witness to the communion of saints. To some who attend it the Lord's Supper is a mere form; with others it is a means of some good, they know not what. But, except so far as it keeps us from evil, it is only a fresh cause of guilt for to go to that table, meaning to sin, to be selfish and worldly, well, then, you are a traitor to God and His Church.

2. The duty of attending to appearances.

Nothing can be more plain than the wise Christian casuistry by which St. Paul taught the Corinthians how to avoid hypocrisy on the one side, and a sanction of idolatry on the other. They were not to torment themselves with unnecessary scruples, else life would be a haunted thing. Live on freely and trustfully, said the Apostle; all things are yours. Enjoy all: but if any man be likely to mistake the act, if he observe on it, or call it inconsistent, eat not. Now we may think this time-serving; but the motive made all the difference: "Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other." Study appearances, therefore, so far as they are likely to be injurious to others. Here, then, is the principle and the rule; we cannot live in this world indifferent to appearances. Year by year we are more and more taught this truth. It is irksome, no doubt, to be under restraint, to have to ask not only, "Does God permit this?" but," Will it not be misconstrued by others?" and to a free, open, fiery spirit, such as the Apostle of the Gentiles, doubly irksome, and almost intolerable. Nevertheless, it was to him a most solemn consideration:

Why should I make my goodness and my right the occasion of blasphemy? Truly, then, and boldly, and not carelessly, he determined to give no offence to Jews or Gentiles, or to the Church of God, but to please all men. And the measure or restraint of this resolution was, that in carrying it into practice he would seek not his own profit, but the profit of many, that they might

be saved.

LECTURE XX.

DECEMBER 21, 1851.

I CORINTHIANS, xi. 1-17. - -"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. -But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, ferasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. — - For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. —— Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. - For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? - Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her for her hair is given her for a covering. -But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. - Now, in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse."

As the Gospels declare the principles of Christianity, so the Epistles exhibit those principles in their application to actual life. Specially valuable in this respect is this Epistle to the Corinthians, which might be defined as Christianity applied to the details of ordinary life. Now large principles, when taken up by ardent and enthusiastic minds, without the modifications learnt by experience, are almost sure to run into extravagances, and hence the spirit of law is by degrees reduced to rules, and guarded by customs. Of this danger Chris