Christian liberty is internal. It resides in the deeps of the soul; a soul freed by faith is safe from superstition. He who fears God will fear nothing else. He who knows moral wrong to be the only evil, will be free from the scrupulosities which torment others. It is that free self-determination which rules all things, which can enjoy or abstain at will. This spirit is expressed in "All things are yours, whether life or death, things present or things to come-all are yours." Hence is clear what St. Paul so often says in his Epistles. This liberty can manifest itself under outward restrictions; for the spirit, exalted above all outward restrictions, no longer feels them to be restrictions. So if a Christian were in slavery, he was Christ's freedman, that is he has a right to be free; but if by circumstances he is obliged to remain a slave, he is not troubled as if guilty of sin: he can wear a chain or not with equal spiritual freedom. Now upon this the Apostle makes this subtle and exquisitely fine remark:-To be forced to use liberty is actually a surrender of liberty. If I turn "I may" into "I must," I am in bondage again. "All things are lawful to me." But if I say, Not only lawful, but I must use them, I am brought under their power. For observe, there are two kinds of bondage. I am not free if I am under sentence of exile, and must leave my country. But also I am not free if I am under arrest, and must not leave it. So too, if I think I must not touch meat on Friday, or that I must not read any but a religious book on a Sunday, I am in bondage. But again, if I am tormented with a scrupulous feeling that I did wrong in fasting, or if I feel that I must read secular books on Sunday to prove my freedom, then my liberty has become slavery again. It is a blessed liberation to know that natural inclinations are not necessarily sinful. But if I say, All natural and innocent inclinations must be obeyed at all times, then I enter 1081+163 into bondage once more. Christ proved to St. Peter that He was free from the necessity of paying tribute, the law being unjust as applied to Him. But had He felt Himself bound by conscience not to pay it, He would not have been free. He paid the tribute, and thereby proved His liberty. For he alone is free who can use outward things with conscientious freedom as circumstances vary; who can take off restrictions from himself or submit to them, for good reasons; who can either do without a form or ritual, or can use it. See then, how rare as well as noble a thing is Christian liberty! Free from superstition, but free also from the rude, inconsiderate spirit which thinks there is no liberty where it is not loudly vindicated; free from the observance of rules, of rites, of ceremonies; free also from the popular prejudices which dare not use forms or observe days; and free from the vulgar outcry which is always protesting against the faith or practice of others. The second plea of the teachers St. Paul is here condemning is, the rights of Nature. There is some difficulty in the exposition of this chapter, because the Apostle mixes together the pleas of his opponents, with his own answers to those pleas— states them himself, in order that he may reply to them. The first part of the thirteenth verse contains two of these pleas; the second part of this verse, with the fourteenth, contains his reply. I. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats"- -a natural correspondency. Here are appetites, and things made on purpose to satisfy appetites. "Therefore," said they, "Nature herself says, 'Enjoy!"" 2. The transitoriness of this enjoyment furnishes an argument for the enjoyment. "God shall bring to an end both it and them." That is, the body will perish, so will the food and the enjoyments—they do not belong to eternity, therefore indulgence is a matter of indifference. It is foolish ignorance to think that these are sins, any more than the appetites of brutes which perish. Το Now to these two pleas, St. Paul makes two answers. the argument about correspondency of appetites with the gratifications provided for them-an argument drawn from our nature to excuse gluttony and sensuality-he replies thus, "The body is not for self-indulgence, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." In other words, he tells of a more exact mutual correspondency. He reveals a true and higher nature. Here again, we see that St. Paul comes into collision with a common mode of teaching, which says man's nature is utterly vile and corrupt. These Corinthians said that, and St. Paul replied, No! that is a slander upon God. That is not your nature. Your true nature is, the body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. There is much confusion and dispute about this word "nature," because it is rather ambiguous. Take an illustration. The nature of a watch is correspondence with the sun, perfect harmony of wheels and balance. But suppose that the regulator was removed, and the mainspring unchecked ran down, throwing all into confusion. Then two things might be said. One might say, It is the nature of that watch to err. But would it not be a higher truth to say, Its nature is to go rightly, and it is just because it has departed from its nature that it errs? So speaks the Apostle. To be governed by the springs of impulse only-your appetites and passions-this is not your nature. For the nature is the whole man; the passions are but a part of the man. And therefore our redemption from the lower life must consist, not in a perpetual assertion and dinning reiteration of our vileness, but in a reminder of what we are what our true nature is. To the other plea, the transitoriness of the body, he replies, You say the body will perish: "God shall bring it to an end." I say the body will not perish. "God hath raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His power." It is the outward form of the body alone which is transitory. Itself shall be renewed-a nobler, more glorious form, fitted for a higher and spiritual existence. Now here, according to St. Paul, was the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. He taught that the Life which proceeds from faith carries with it the germ of a higher futurity. It will pervade Humanity to its full extent until body, soul, and spirit, are presented blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus. And hence too, he drew an awful argument against sin. Some sins are committed without the body; sins of sensuality and animal indulgence are against the body. Our bodies, which are 66 members of Christ," to be ruled by His Spirit, become by such sins unfit for immortality with Christ. This is an awful truth. Sins committed against the body affect that wondrous tissue which we call the nervous system: the source of all our acutest suffering and intensest blessing, is rendered so susceptible by God, as to be at once our punishment or reward. Sin carries with it its own punishment. There is not a sin of indulgence, gluttony, intemperance, or licentiousness of any form, which does not write its terrible retribution on our bodies. Lax notions respecting self-indulgence are simply false : sinful pleasures are not trifles and indifferent. Irritability, many an hour of isolation, of dark and dreary hopelessness, is the natural result of powers unduly stimulated, unrighteously gratified. In conclusion, it follows that nothing is really indifferent. In itself perhaps, it may be ; but under special circumstances Duty always lies one way or the other, and nothing presents itself to us in our daily life simply in itself, as unconnected with other considerations. And so Christian love makes all life one great Duty. LECTURE XV. I CORINTHIANS, vii. 10-24. -January 4, 1852. HE whole of this seventh chapter of the First Epistle of THE Apostle some questions of Christian casuistry. In the application of the principles of Christianity to the varying circumstances of life, innumerable difficulties had arisen, and the Corinthians upon these difficulties had put certain questions to the Apostle Paul. We have here the Apostle's answers to many of these questions. There are, however, two great divisions into which these answers generally fall. St. Paul makes a distinction between those things which he speaks by commandment and those which he speaks only by permission; there is a distinction between what he says as from the Lord, and what only from himself; between that which he speaks to them as being taught of God, and that which he speaks only as a servant, "called of the Lord and faithful." It is manifestly plain that there are many questions in which right and wrong are not variable, but indissoluble and fixed; while there are questions on the other hand, where these terms are not fixed, but variable, fluctuating, altering, dependent upon circumstances. As for instance, those in which the Apostle teaches in the present chapter the several duties and advantages of marriage and celibacy. There may be circumstances in which it is the duty of a Christian man to be married, there are others in which it may be his duty to remain unmarried. For instance, in the case of a missionary be right to be married rather than unmarried: on the it may |