TH

LECTURE LVI.

2 CORINTHIANS, x. 1-18.- -March 20, 1853.

HE Second Epistle has until now been addressed to those in Corinth who felt either love or admiration for St. Paul, certainly to those who owned his authority. But with the tenth chapter there begins a new division of the Epistle. Henceforth we have St. Paul's reply to his enemies at Corinth, and his vindication is partly official and partly personal. They denied his apostolic authority and mission, declared that he had not been appointed by Christ, and endeavoured to destroy his personal influence in the Church by sneers at his bodily weakness, his inconsistency, and his faithlessness to his promise of coming to Corinth, which they imputed to a fear of his own weakness of character. Powerful enough in letter-writing, said they, but when he comes, his presence, his speech, are weak and contemptible. To these charges St. Paul answers in the remaining chapters. We will consider two subjects :

I. The impugners of his authority.
II. His vindication.

It is necessary to

I. The impugners of his authority. distinguish these into two classes, the deceivers and the deceived; else we cannot understand the difference of tone, sometimes meek, and sometimes stern, which pervades the Apostle's vindication. For example, compare the second verse of this chapter with the first, and you will remark the different shades of feeling under which each was written. This change.

of tone he himself acknowledges in the fifth chapter of this Epistle: "For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause." His enemies had become embittered against him through the deference paid to him by the rest of the Church. Hence they tried to make

with insincerity (2 Cor. i.

him suspected. They charged him 12, 13, 18, 19). They said he was ever promising to come, yet never meaning to do so; and that he was only powerful in writing (2 Cor. x. 10). They accused him of mercenary motives, of a lack of apostolic gifts, and of not preaching the Gospel. They charged him with artifice. His Christian prudence and charity were regarded as devices whereby he allured and deceived his followers. We must also bear in mind that the Apostle had to deal with a strong party spirit in Corinth: "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ " (1 Cor. i. 12).

We are informed in this chapter, that of all these parties his chief difficulty lay with that party which called itself Christ's. This was not the school inclined to ritual, which followed St. Peter, nor the Pauline party, which set its face against all Jewish practices and drove liberty into licence; nor yet that party which had perhaps a disposition to rationalize and followed Apollos, who, having been brought up at Alexandria, had most probably spent his youth in the study of literature and philosophy. But it was a party who, throwing off all authority even though it was apostolic, declared that they received Christ alone as their Head, and that He alone should communicate truth directly to them.

First then let us observe, that though these persons called themselves Christ's, they are nevertheless blamed in the same list with others. And yet what could seem to be more right than for men to say, "We will bear no name but Christ's; we throw ourselves on Christ's own words-on the Bible; we throw

aside all intellectual philosophy: we will have no servitude to ritualism?" Nevertheless, these persons were just as bigoted and as blameable as the others. They were not wrong in calling themselves Christ's; but they were wrong in naming themselves so distinctively. It is plain that by assuming this name, they implied that they had a right to it more than others had. They did not mean to say only, "We are Christ's," but also, "You are not Christ's." God was not, in their phraseology, our Father, but rather the Father of our party; the Father of us only who are the elect. In their mouths that Name became no longer comprehensive, but exclusive. Thus St. Paul blamed all who, instead of rejoicing that they were Christians, prided themselves on being a particular kind of Christians. The great doctrine of one Baptism was to teach the feeling of Christian brotherhood. All were Christ's: all belonged to him: no one sect was His exclusively, or dared to claim Him as their Head more than another.

This is a feeling which is as much to be avoided now as it was in the time of the Apostle. We split ourselves into sects, each of which asserts its own peculiar Christianity. This sectarianism falsifies the very principle of our religion, and therefore falsifies its forms. It falsifies the Lord's Prayer. It substitutes for "our Father," the Father of me, of my church or party. It falsifies the creed: "I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord." It falsifies both the sacraments. No matter how large, or true, or beautiful the name by which we call ourselves, we are for ever tending to the sectarian spirit when we assume some appellation which cuts others off from participation with us when we call ourselves for example, Bible Christians, Evangelicals, Churchmen-as if no one but ourselves deserved the name.

Secondly, let us observe that, however Christian this expression may sound, "We will take Christ for our teacher, and not His Apostles or His Church," the spirit which prompts

it is wrong. This Christ-party amongst the Corinthians depreciated the Church, in order to exalt the Lord of the Church; but they did so wrongly, and at the peril of their religious life. For God's order is the historical; and these men separated themselves from God's order when they claimed an arbitrary distinction for themselves, and rejected the teaching of St. Paul and the Apostles, to whom the development of Christ's doctrine had been entrusted. For the phase of truth presented by St. Paul was just as necessary as that prominently taught by Christ. Not that Christ did not teach all truth, but that the hidden meaning of His teaching was developed still further by the inspired Apostles.

We cannot, at this time, cut ourselves off from the teaching of eighteen centuries, and say, "We will have none but Christ to reign over us ;" nor can we proclaim, "Not the Church, but the Lord of the Church." We cannot do without the different shades and phases of knowledge which God's various instruments, in accordance with their various characters and endowments, have delivered to us. For God's system is mediatorial, that is truth communicated to men through men.

See then how, as in Corinth, the very attempt to separate from parties may lead to a sectarian spirit, unless we can learn to see good in all, and Christ in all. And should we, as this Christ-party did, desert human instrumentality, to sink into selfwill: we cut ourselves from the Church of God, and fall under the popery of our own infallibility ?

What dangers on every side! God shield us! For these present days are like those of which we are speaking. The same tendencies are appearing again: some are disposed to unduly value law and ritual, some aspire to a freedom from all law, some incline to a merely literary religion, and some like the Christ-party here spoken of, to pietism and subjective Christianity. Hence it is that the thoughtful study of these Epistles to the Corinthians is so valuable in our time, when

nothing will avert the dangers which threaten us but the principles which St. Paul drew from the teaching of Christ, and which he has laid down here for the admonition of the Church at Corinth.

II. His vindication. St. Paul vindicated his authority, because it was founded on the power of meekness, and it was a spiritual power in respect of that meekness. The weapons of his warfare were not carnal: "Though we walk in the flesh," he says, 66 we do not war after the flesh,”—that is, We do not use a worldly soldier's weapons, we contend, not with force, but with meekness of wisdom and with the persuasiveness of truth. This was one of the root principles of St. Paul's ministry: If he reproved, it was done in the spirit of meekness (Gal. v. 1); or if he defended his own authority, it was still with the same spirit (2 Cor. x. 1). Again, when the time of his departure was at hand, and he would leave his last instructions to his son Timothy, he closes his summary of the character of ministerial work by showing the need of a gentle spirit: “The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves."

Here again, according to his custom, the Apostle refers to the example of Christ. He besought the Corinthians "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He vindicated his authority, because he had been meek, as Christ was meek: for not by menace, nor by force, did He conquer, but by the might of gentleness and the power of love: "Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not." On that foundation St. Paul built; it was that example which he imitated in his moments of trial, when he was reproved and censured. He confessed his own "baseness of appearance;" if others had low thoughts of him, he had low thoughts of himself.