humiliation. It was the unexaggerated picture of a human life actually lived out in this selfish world of ours! Upon this I make two observations :

First The true return for ministerial devotedness is a life given to God. St. Paul details the circumstances of his own rare ministry, and he asks in return, not the affection of the Corinthians, nor their admiration, but this: that they "receive not the grace of God in vain :" and again (v. 13), “ Now for a recompence in the same be ye also enlarged." To all human hearts affection is dear, and respect and veneration precious. But none of these things is true payment. Hence St. Paul says: "Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord." And again he says, "As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus." And St. John in his Second Epistle, writes: "I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth;" and again, in his Third Epistle, he says to Gaius: "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." This, I do not say is, but ought to be, the spirit of every minister of Christ: to feel that nothing can reward him for such efforts as he may have been permitted to makenothing, except the grace of God received, and life moulded in accordance with it. No deference, no love, no enthusiasm manifested for him, can make up for this. Far beyond all evil or good report, his eye ought to be fixed on one thing-God's truth, and the reception of it.

Secondly: The true apostolical succession. Much has been said and written to prove the ministers of the Church to be lineally descended from the Apostles; and, further, to prove that none but they are commissioned to preach God's word, to administer God's sacraments, or to convey the grace of Christ. We do not dispute this; we rather admit and assert For purposes of order, the Church requires a lineal succes

it.

sion that is, authority delegated by those who have authority. But this is a poor line of succession-to take the outward descent as all, and to consider the inward as nothing. It is the same mistake that the Jews made in tracing their descent from Abraham's person, and forgetting their spiritual descent from Abraham's Father.

Now the grounds of apostleship alleged here are all spiritual ; none are external. Again, in the twelfth chapter of this Epistle St. Paul says: "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." Thus St. Paul does not graft his right of appeal on any proud, priestly assumption, but on an inward likeness to Christ. Therefore the true apostolical succession is and must be a spiritual one. The power of God is not conveyed by physical contact, but by the reception of a Spirit. He is a true minister who is one from sharing in the spirit of an Apostle, not from the ordination and descent from an Apostle. True, there is a succession. The mind of Christ, as set forth in His Apostles, acts on other minds, whether by ideas or character, and produces likeness to itself. Love begets love; faith generates faith; lofty lives nourish the germs of exalted life in others. There is a spiritual birth. John was the successor of the spirit of Elias. Luther was the offspring of the mind of Paul. We are children of Abraham if we share in the faith of Abraham; we are the successors of the Apostles if we have a spirit similar to theirs.

LECTURE XLVIII.

2 CORINTHIANS, vi. 11-18.

-December 26, 1852.

IN

N our last lecture we saw that St. Paul, after explaining the grace of God to a world reconciled in Christ, had besought the Corinthians not to receive that grace in vain. For a passage in Isaiah assured them that it might be in vain: it announced the awful truth that there is such a thing as a day of grace, and that that day is limited. Accordingly, as an ambassador first, and then as a fellow-worker with God, in which capacity he enumerates his sufferings and labours, St. Paul entreats them not to receive that grace in vain. In the close of this chapter, he expresses more definitely his meaning. For a general entreaty to become a Christian is vague. Sanctification is made up of many particulars. To use the grace of God, is a duty composed of various branches. Two of these are chiefly dwelt on here. The duty of separation from the world, and of purification from evil.

To-day we shall only consider the former.

I. The exuberance of apostolic affection.
II. The recompence desired.

I. The Apostle's affection overflows in an exuberant apostrophe: "O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged" (v. 11). His love was deep, and this flow of eloquence arose out of the expansion of his heart. But in explaining this we take the second clause first, as the former is the result of the latter.

ren."

First: "Our heart is enlarged." Now what makes this remark wonderful in the Apostle's mouth is, that St. Paul had received a multitude of provocations from the Corinthians. They had denied the truthfulness of his ministry, charged him with interested motives, sneered at his manner, and held up to scorn the meanness of his appearance. In the face of this his heart expands !—partly with compassion. Their insults and haughty tone only impressed him with a sense of their need, with the feeling of their wandering ignorance. They were his "childHow could he resent even unmerited reproach from them, bound as they were to him by so dear a tie? He had suffered for them: He pardoned them, for they did it ignorantly. His spirit sought for them the only excuse it could. Thus spoke, before him, One who loved even more than he: for the same thought occurs in the dying words of Christ: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." How worthy a successor of his Master's spirit! How generous! What a well-spring of Love, inexhaustible in its freshness as in its life! And this is the true test of gracious charity. Does the heart expand or narrow as life goes on?

If it narrows, if misconception or opposition wither love, be sure that that love had no root. If love is slain by injury, or even enmity, was it love in its truest sense? "If ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" And this love is given to all, partly from looking on all as immortal souls in Christ. The everlasting principle within makes all the difference. For it is not the mere instinct of lovingness which makes the Christian :-to love the soul in Christ, imputing righteousness to it as God does, knowing the powers it has in it to produce good-feeling what it should be, and what it may become, and loving it as Christ loved it-this is the Christian charity. Hold fast to love. If men wound your heart, let them not sour or embitter it; let them not shut up or narrow it; let them only expand it

more and more, and be able always to say with St. Paul, “My' heart is enlarged."

Secondly. St. Paul's eloquence: "Our mouth is open unto you." He might have shut his lips, and in dignified pride refused to plead his own cause. But instead, he speaks his thoughts aloud-freely, not cautiously; and, like Luther in after times, lays his whole heart open to view. This he does in words which, even though a translation, and that translation from a language which was not the Apostle's own, stirs the soul within us. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Be sure that a man who speaks so, has nothing to conceal. St. Paul had no after-thought, no reservation in his life or on his lips: he was a genuine man, true in the innermost recesses of his spirit.

II. The recompence desired.

He asked for the enlargement of their heart towards him : which was to be shown in their separation from the world. This is the only true recompence of ministerial work.

The subject is difficult always, and especially in connection with these texts, which were written for a particular time and purpose. Now in explaining any passage of Scripture, two things have to be done: first, to put ourselves in possession of the circumstances under which the words were spoken, to endeavour to realize the society, persons, feelings, and customs of the body of men, and of the time, to whom and in which the. passage was addressed; secondly, to discern in what point and principles the passage corresponds with our circumstances. For otherwise we misinterpret Scripture, misled by words and superficial resemblances. This is what Christ meant in His description of the wise Scribe, who "brings out of his treasures things new and old." For the great office of the expounder is to adapt old principles to new circumstances, and to read the present through the past.

First then, let us comprehend' the words and the cir