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them, breathes at once his genuineness, and the scornfulness with which his natural temper sets aside all comparisons between spiritual realities and outward forms: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius";- and then, as if the matter had been too trivial to live distinctly in the memory, he adds, "and I baptized the family of Stephanas, and whether I baptized any other of you I know not.”

"

From the 17th verse to the end of the chapter, the preaching of the Gospel St. Paul declares to be his only business; - that Gospel, "the glad tidings from God, which could in no way be made a source of separation, for that it had no connection whatever with that speculative philosophy about which men may differ, nor with that glory of individuals which bands men under leaders, — and had only to do with God, and sonship unto Him after the likeness of Christ, — with the free grace of the universal Father, and our obedience as loving children after the pattern of the faith and self-devotion of Christ upon the cross. All the glory of this belongs to the God who gave it, and all the leadership to Christ crucified, the author and finisher of this Faith. who, besides these, in the matter of Christianity, shall presume to put in a claim for an individuality of his own? Will the Gentile, whose Philosophy could not teach him the true God, nor save the world from polytheism? Will the Jewish Scribe, whose outward Law could not keep him in spiritual and saving connections with the God whom it revealed? Will the Sceptic and Disputer, whose highest Wis

And

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dom is to doubt, and who has arrived at no sound faith on any rock of the soul? St. Paul branches his declaration of the indestructible character of Christian unity against the Jew, who would identify the Gospel with a ritual law; and against the Gentile, who would identify it with some speculative system : "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, and not with the word-power of philosophy, but with the heart-power of the cross. The Messianic Jew-sensual, earthly, and millennial in his conceptions of Messiah takes offence at the word made flesh,' the meek Son of God, the Galilean and the crucified; and to the Greek, conversant only with airy speculations, the establishment of a divine kingdom through a suffering Son of God, sounds strange foolishness, and not worthy of the notice of philosophy.* But who can escape exposure under the practical test, 'By their fruits ye shall know them'? Where is the Philosopher? What eminence has he attained, what fruits has he gathered, as a teacher of religion and a revealer of God? Where is the Jewish Scribe or Rabbi? Did he ever discover for the world the reconciling Gospel of God? Where is the Disputer, Critic, and Sceptic? Has he been able by cavils and dialectics to bring his own soul into the light divine? If not, then let them all give way, and, instead of dismembering Christ by pretensions of their own, accept with united hearts the salvation of his incarnate Truth. When all these had failed to reveal religious truth, and to sanctify the

* Verses 17, 18.

soul, then God sent his Son. When the world in its own wisdom knew not God with any approach to his wisdom, then it pleased him, by the preaching of this which the scribe and the sophist deem foolishness, to save them that believe. The Jew requires an overwhelming exhibition of outward power,—and the Greek seeks an intellectual display of subtle wisdom, but we preach a moral power and a moral wisdom; even Christ the Lord, who by his doctrine and his life hath given to his true disciples the spiritual knowledge of his Father, and practical power to become the sons of God." * And since the Gospel

that knew it not, how

is the gift of God to a world can Greek or Jew presume now to fasten his own individuality on that universal spirit, or to make a party within the bosom of that heavenly Truth to which neither the cold speculations of the one, nor the law-wisdom and outward righteousness of the other, was able to attain, but which God by his Son revealed to the poor in spirit, and opened as a spring of living water in the hearts of the meek? Who can claim as his own, or find a source of divisions in the Gospel of God, the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness, and the new life after the image of the obedience of Christ? The glory is God's, - for the gift is his, and all are his children, who by union with his Christ are formed into one spiritual family, sanctified in heart and life. This is St. Paul's idea of Christian unity; this the inward bond of the Church Universal. To partake of the spirit of

* Verses 19 - 24.

Christ is to be of the communion of the saints: and to set up any other pretensions, to speak of any other qualifications, is the only heresy.†

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I need not point out how healing would be the application of these catholic principles to our own times and our own hearts. How unavailingly has Paul written and preached! His writings are turned against himself; - his purposes frustrated by perversions of his own words. He is quoted in support of principles which he would have deemed destructive of the universality of the Gospel, — for he knew but of one Gospel, the union of the soul with God through the love of Christ. How can men read this chapter, and break the Christian unity by demanding other terms of Church-fellowship than some love and reverence in each heart for one common Lord,some reflections on each spirit from him, the image of God! But we must be willing to include those in the Church Universal who would exclude us. In whatever soul we see breathings of the goodness of God, of the love of Christ, we must recognize the closest bond of Christian brotherhood, and see one of the spiritual family of the invisible Father, of the Church of God in heaven;-for there can be no eternal separation between souls that love a common master, that revere a common image of the Father of spirits, -and whose desires, affections, and moral longings

are the same.

* "In the strictest sense of essential, this alone is essential in Christianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us, which was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus."-Coleridge.

↑ "Schism and Separation."

SECTION II.

DISSENSIONS FROM SPECULATIVE SOURCES.

UNITY CANNOT

BE BROKEN IN THINGS THAT ARE ONLY SPIRITUALLY DISWITH WHICH THE SPECULATIVE FACULTIES ARE

CERNED,

NOT VITALLY CONCERNED.

1

CHAP. II. 1–16.

So I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in the prominency of speech [Argument] or wisdom, declar2 ing unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to regard any thing among you, except Jesus Christ, 3 even him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, 4 and in fear, and in much trembling. And my doctrine, and my preaching, was not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power; 5 that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

but

6 Yet we speak wisdom in the estimation of those who are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world nor 7 of the rulers of this world, that come to naught we speak the wisdom of God in his mystery, that hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages 8 unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have 9 crucified the Lord of Glory, but, as it is written, Eye did not see, and ear did not hear, neither entered into the heart of man, the things which God prepared for

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