for you, on account of the exceeding grace of God in 15 you. Now thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.

We obtain the richest Lessons in moral Wisdom, whenever a great Mind applies itself to determine the permanent Principles that are involved in some pressing, practical occasion. We then get the Ideal of Duty, but clear, definite, and of commanding obligation, because exhibited in immediate connection with actual affairs. It is like Christ's sketch frorn Life in answer to the question, "But who is my neighbor?"—and with no escape from the closing appeal, which seems to proceed out of the circumstances like the voice of Righteousness itself: "Go thou, and do likewise." - In the eighth and ninth chapters, St. Paul sets forth the spiritual Laws of Christian Liberality; the Principles of Action which must direct, preserve, and ripen its impulses, that they may bear their best fruit. The special occasion was the sympathy of the Gentile Churches with the Poverty and peculiar afflictions of the Parent Church at Jerusalem, —the source of their own spiritual riches, and the Duties of that Sympathy.

A year before, when St. Paul was closing his First Epistle to the Corinthians, he had commended to their charitable care the poorer brethren at Jerusalem, and given directions as to the manner in which their Benefaction should accumulate. On the first day of each week, a contribution, proportionate to the prosperity which God had given, was to be laid apart. Jerusalem must have stood out before

the imagination of a converted Heathen as the City of God, venerable in holiness and privilege, and to provide for its necessities a pious duty, a dear service, such as in all ages the strong hands and hearts of the world have regarded the office of ministering to the wants of those, from whose supposed sacredness and devotedness of life has been derived the knowledge of spiritual and eternal things, — the Sages, Priests, and Prophets of Mankind. More venerable than Delphi to the Greek, might well appear Zion to the converted Gentile; and even an enthusiasm of Charity and Self-Devotion be nothing more than natural to those thus brought into living relations with that "Oracle of God," when told that "the Saints" of the Mystic City, the brethren and disciples of the Lord, their own Teachers and Fathers in the Faith, were in poverty and persecution. From the beginning, this connection had existed between the mother and the daughter Churches. When Paul and Barnabas went up to Jerusalem from Antioch to consult on Christian Union and Gentile Liberty, they were charged, as a sign of the Brotherhood of the Churches, that they should remember the Poor.*

The zeal of the Corinthians in this service of Brotherhood, St. Paul now instigates by the example of the liberality of the Macedonian Churches, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. He had sent forward Titus, and other representatives of the Churches, to take charge of the practical details; and in

* Gal. ii. 10.

these two Chapters he unfolds and enforces the duty and the principles of Christian sympathy between Church and Church, nation and nation, man and man, as members of one spiritual Family. He hints at the comparative poverty of Macedonia, and then records, as an example, their eminent generosity. The merit of this was increased by their great and recent sufferings on account of their profession of Christianity: "In a great trial of affliction their spiritual joy, and out of its depths their poverty still overflowed and brought forth the riches of Singlemindedness." This benevolent spirit St. Paul calls the "grace of God, bestowed on the Churches of Macedonia," the fruit of His most signal favor and presence in their hearts. So is every good disposition, the best and greatest of His gifts. This is the true Christian sentiment: "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy goodness and Thy truth's sake!"- We are most richly blessed by God when He puts it into our hearts to do and to wish Good; a blessing infinitely greater than the means of doing so with which He has endowed us. We have already received more at God's hands in the disposition to give, than any brother can in the external gift that we communi

cate.

1. The source of this disposition in the Macedonians is indicated in that word, in the second verse, so unhappily translated "liberality."— In their " Single-mindedness," they adopted the doctrines and principles of the Gospel as realities of the Heart, — they entered into the spirit of Christian Union and Broth

gave

erhood, in the Apostles' language, they themselves to the Lord." We are not now discussing the Political Economy of Alms, but the actual effects Christian principles would produce on hearts possessed by the Gospel sentiment, if they believed that Brethren were in destitution.

St. Paul calls every motive into play, by stating that he would not wish the Corinthians to be inferior to any other Church in such gifts: and we may provoke one another to good works. He hints also, that, as they made no slight pretensions to other distinctions, they should not be deficient in this the crowning gift. (VIII. 7.) Yet he takes not away the grace of their benevolence by spoiling its spontaneous character; he only fans the flame that was selfkindled, by the warming breath of sympathy with the active goodness of others. He tells them that he had himself made use of their own readiness in order to kindle the flame in Macedonia, that their

and that he had even

zeal had stirred up many, boasted of their promptitude, so that his own credit was now involved in the zealous completion of their liberality. (IX. 2 – 5.)

2. (VIII. 8, 9.) He affirms the principle that their zeal in this cause would test the degree of reality in which they had embraced the doctrine of Jesus, who identified himself with all mankind, and therefore became poor and rejected of men, as the Universal Saviour, when he might have been rich and accepted as the Jewish Messiah. Beautiful argument for Christian Mercy, when addressed to Gentile Churches! That they should now identify them

selves with the Jewish Christians, and, in the sentiment of their spiritual brotherhood, forget their Nationality, even as Christ had divested himself of Jewish glory, that he might identify himself with Humankind. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sakes he became poor, that ye by his poverty might be rich." These words have no relation to a preëxistent state. He was rich as God's Christ; and if he had consented to be the Jewish Messiah, if he had followed the suggestion of the Tempter, from the pinnacle of the Temple looked down upon the Jewish world as his Messianic realm, and descended among them as the expected Deliverer, would have had a Monarch's place; and his poverty, and rejection in this world, were the consequences of his faithful purpose to be the spiritual Saviour of Mankind. You will observe that St. Paul, writing to Gentiles, says, "It was for your sakes he became Poor." And it is always in this connection with Gentile Redemption, that mention is made of the Humiliation of our Lord. He was rejected of the Jew for the Gentile's sake. He would not sit upon that narrow, theocratic Throne. He would not be the Son of David; he must be the Son of Man, and the Son of God.

3. (Verses 10, 11.) He states it as a Rule, and Principle of Love, that we should complete, and accomplish without hazardous delay, the merciful projects of the Heart. What the impulse of Mercy prompts to be done, can with no safety, and with no faithfulness, be put off:-"You have been in