the Circumcision. Then there were the Alexandrians, who connected both Judaism and Christianity with Orientalism, whose grand philosophical problem was the speculation on Evil, and who believed that God, retiring from all communication with matter, conducted the creation and government of the world through mediatorial Emanations from himself, of which emanations Christ was the chief. This is the party known in the Church by the name of Gnostics, and at Corinth Apollos was their reputed leader: whilst among the Grecians there was the philosophic party, who, like the orthodox of the present day, identified Christianity with some speculative tenets; —and what we may call the Antinomian party, who were either the insincere and unworthy disciples of all ages, disciplined by their own passions, not by the spirit of the Son of God, or the prototypes of those fanatics of later times (and this is the tendency of all doctrines that teach the native corruption of man), who have maintained that the body was so radically and incurably worthless, that it might be given over to corruption without imparting contamination to the associated soul, that had no common essence with it, and was of another element.

It was to maintain the unity of the Church Universal against these unspiritual strifes, that St. Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians; and the great principle unfolded in it is the practical spirit, the moral force of Christianity,—that it is neither a philosophy, nor a system of doctrines, nor a ritual, nor a law; - that any of these may combine with it, or refuse to combine with it, without

affecting its essence or its efficacy, -for that it is itself a baptism of the heart and of the moral affections into the spirit of the life of Christ, — a baptism not by Paul, nor Cephas, nor Apollos, but by the Holy Ghost, a devotion of the whole man, not to any theories or speculations whatsoever, but to the mercy, the self-denial, the trust in God even to death, of the cross of Christ. Here have we from an Apostle, and he the most speculative and theoretical of them all, an exposition of the sources of Christian unity; and putting aside the superficial differences of the intellect, he penetrates to the deep, unchanging heart of man, and declares that all are of the Body of Christ in whom his spirit of love and consecration lives and works, and that this is the fellowship of the Son of God, to be so united to him by inward bonds, that through the imitation and the obedience of love he is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and entire redemption.* We must bear in mind, then, the sectarian state of the Corinthian Church in the examination, to which we now proceed, of the first chapter of this Epistle.

It might be possible to present in a few words the train of ideas in this introductory chapter, but it is the duty of an expositor, not to give the bare thought, but if possible to let us into the spirit of the living writer, and to clothe the exposition with his individuality. I shall therefore aim chiefly to throw emphasis, as it were, on those passages that

* 1 Cor. i. 30.

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are most characteristic of St. Paul, and are in his peculiar manner. And I shall often have to ask your attention to two of these characteristics, closeness with which he adheres to his object in writing; and the rapidity and effect with which he draws conclusions, and makes applications, without any formal approach or statement of the preliminary grounds, — leaving it to the reader to discover the suppressed premises. He is at once the most discursive, and the most condensed of writers, cursive in allowing his thoughts and heart free play, -condensed, in the quantity of argument and emotion he concentrates on every subject which he touches on his rapid way.

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In the very salutation, occupying the first three verses, he lifts a warring and distracted Church out of the hot and close atmosphere of local contentions, into the loftiness and serenity of catholic sentiment. He presents them to God as part of the Church Universal. He associates them with the communion of saints. Place and circumstance disappear, for throughout the world, and in the world beyond the grave, the people of God, those who have fellowship with Christ, have one heart, and breathe one spirit. Inasmuch as each has some resemblance to him, all must have that common resemblance to one another. Here, in the very first sentence, we have the essence of the Epistle:"Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the Church of God. which is at Corinth, called to be saints, with all, in every place, who are disciples of Jesus Christ our

Lord, who is both their Lord and ours, grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."-"Though this Epistle," says Chrysostom,* "was written only to the Corinthians, yet he makes mention of all the faithful in the whole world, showing that as the universal Church should be one, though separated by many places, so much more ought that in the same city,—for if place separates, yet a common Lord unites."

From the 4th to the end of the 9th verse, St. Paul presents to the Corinthians the obligations and thankfulness of spirit they owed to God for a participation in the Gospel of his Son, suggesting that they should not by unchristian hearts show themselves unworthy of that grace which caused "the testimony concerning Christ to take root amongst them," and that the same God who had called them into the fellowship of his Son, must desire to keep them in the same fellowship for ever.

In the 10th verse we have ano her instance of the closeness with which St. Paul keeps his aim before him, even in his forms of address: "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ," into whose fellowship you are called, how comes it that other names are mentioned among you,—or that you break the unity of that discipleship which you all have to Christ, by taking the names of fellow-disciples? "You are of Paul, and you of Apollos, and you of Cephas, and you of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? were you baptized

* Quoted by Billroth, Biblical Cabinet.

into the name of Paul? I thank my God that I baptized none of you, with some trifling exceptions, - so that none of you can say I baptized into mine own name." It has been much questioned whether, by the clause "and I of Christ," we are to understand that there was a Christ party in the Corinthian Church, by a monstrous abuse of words taking that name to designate some class peculiarity, or whether by that clause St. Paul meant to signify that there were an exceptional number who refused discipleship to others, and took the name only of their great Master. There is nothing in the construction to indicate that those who called themselves "of Christ" were less sectarian than the others, and as there evidently had sprung up in the Corinthian Church a strong opposition to the apostolical authority of Paul, a vehement Jewish party who deemed his Christian doctrine of freedom from the law, and of the spirituality of the Gospel, to be a scandalous innovation, it may be that in the name of the Christ party there is a covert attack on the apostolic character of St. Paul, intimating that he was not, like Peter, a personal disciple and companion of the Lord; - and we shall afterwards find, that against such a party St. Paul had expressly to defend the authenticity of his Apostolic commission.

The two verses from the 14th, in which he disowns all leadership amongst them, are in the most characteristic manner of St. Paul. The dash of indifference with which he treats the whole subject of Baptism, when he finds that the converts were taking class names from those who had baptized