they inflicted on the cause of Christ, by failing to hold before the world the realized Image of a Christian Brotherhood. The Kingdom of God on Earth, the Reign of Love and Holiness, was as manifestly set at naught, and in the individual case proclaimed a failure, by the violation of its Peace, as by the violation of its Purity. It was too evident, that neither the litigious, nor the unholy, had established a Kingdom of Heaven.

In our Translation the fourth verse of the sixth chapter is unintelligible: "If, then, ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church." Paul's meaning seems to have been: "If, then, ye have matters of judgment amongst yourselves, about affairs relating to common life, - do ye call in, to judge between you, those [unbelievers] who have no place in the Christian community? I speak this to your shame."

In the moral reasonings which St. Paul ascribes to the Corinthians, from the twelfth verse to the end of the eleventh chapter, there are the distinct suggestions of an Antinomian spirit. St. Paul, as his custom is, meets all such gross sophistry, such scandalous falsifications of the Liberty of the Gospel, by an appeal to first principles: "What did you profess, when you became Christians? To yield up your members to Christ, as instruments to work in his spirit, and do his will. What did you lay aside, when you professed Christ as your Master? The mastery over yourselves. You are not your own; your Master is in heaven,—and a holy spirit must

rule

you. Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ, - and he that is united with the Lord

must be of one spirit with him? your body is the Temple of the

Know ye not that Holy Spirit which

is in you, which ye have from God, — and that ye are not your own? - therefore, glorify God in your body."

Even in matters of indifference in themselves, St. Paul maintains that Christian Liberty is a great responsibility, which must be exercised under two conditions that we infringe the Liberty of none,and that at no moment, by indulgence in things indifferent, shall we be deprived of the mastery over our faculties, or be incapacitated for the severest Christian service. "Indifferent things are lawful for me but they may be inexpedient. Indifferent things are lawful for me: but I will not be enslaved by any thing." How much are we all enslaved by enemies, that seem too trivial for the energy of Conscience to rise in its awfulness and slay! Petty weaknesses, and loose habits, creep over us and bind our giant strength. Small cares, some deficiencies. in the mere arrangement and ordering of our lives, daily fret our hearts, and cross the clearness of our faculties; and these entanglements hang around us, and leave us no free soul able to give itself up, in power and gladness, to the true work of life. There is the profoundest moral truth in that doctrine of St. Paul's, that entire mastery over the physical nature is the only basis from which all the higher power of character must proceed. The severest training and self-denial, a superiority to the servitude of indul

gence, are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness, - much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works. In the lassitude and indulgence by which we deprive the soul of this physical fitness and freedom, many of us greatly sin; nor is there a spiritual counsel that ought daily to penetrate the soul with more solemn tone than that high resolve of Christ's freeman, I will not be brought under the power of any thing."

III. It could not but happen in the circumstances of the Early Church, that great anxiety and perplexity should arise in connection with the domestic relations. Ought a man, whom Persecution might at any moment leave no home upon the earth, to involve others in these trials of his faith? Must not the Cross be borne alone, rather than "a sword pierce through the soul" of family and kindred? Again, in the case of domestic relations already existing, if only one of the parties should be converted to the Gospel, how could that intimate communion of thought and spirit, without which the relation is a practical falsehood, subsist between a Christian and an Idolater? Did the spiritual change dissolve the temporal relation, in which there was no longer a soul of Truth? St. Paul gives his judgment on these points, which seem to have been brought before him in the form of questions by a Letter from the Corinthians, in the seventh chapter. His answers are avowedly given, in relation to the temporary circumstances of an infant Religion struggling

for existence, and demanding the complete self-sacrifice of its first members, and are framed, not upon unchanging principles, or laws of the Moral Nature, but upon considerations of present wisdom and expediency. He leans to the side of freedom from care and private relations; and in a case where fidelity to God and the domestic affections would cross, and make for each other severe temptations, he would be for giving no "hostages to Fortune." But he confesses that this was only what he deemed best for himself, and that he was no Law for others: "For every one hath his own gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that." The cir cumstances in which a man works out his mission of faithfulness to his highest convictions, may be of any nature whatever, if in them that faithfulness is preserved, and the spirit of Truth and Duty honestly wrought into outward expression. This was the noble Principle which Christ's Apostles announced, for the guidance of the Church in the most critical times. The spirit of Christianity is strong enough to sustain itself and sanctify Life, under any outward relations. Fret not against the outward Circumstance, but take up its burden with a Christian heart, and the right soul will, in time, put all things right, and spiritually adjust the relations of life:-"Art thou called, being a Slave? Deem that your obedience is paid to God, and care not for it; receive your external relations as from God, for both the slave and the freeman are the servants of the Lord, and he is the noblest who is faithful to his spiritual Master at the severest post." If Slavery was doomed to pass away before the Chris

tian sentiment, every slave sustaining his hard relations in a Christian spirit, was exhibiting the inherent equality of all humanity, and emancipating the world."Art thou called in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? 'Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing;

but the keeping of the com

mandments of God." "Art thou called, having an unbelieving husband? Desert not thine own faith for him, but sanctify him with thy believing mind. Brethren, let every one remain with God, in that state in which he was called."

All external relations are alike to those who in them make no shipwreck of faith and conscience. Only, let no man's soul settle down upon present things, or fail to see that the essence of Joy, as of Duty, has no abode on earth, and, being divine and eternal, must soon change its transient form to inherit its imperishable substance. The essential character of joys and sorrows springing out of temporal relations is their transitoriness, the essence of all spiritual bonds is their preservation by God, — their immortality with Him in the infinite world. "But this I say, brethren, Whatever be your outward relations, the time is short; it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none, and they that weep, as though they wept not (as though God had already dried their tears), — and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not, sitting loose to life, they possessed not,

and they that buy, as though and they that use this world as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away: and I would have you to be without vain anxiety." (vii. 29, 31.)