Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

NINTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

JUDGMENTS OF OLD OUR PRESENT WARNINGS.

1 Cor. x. 5, 6. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

ST. PAUL, in one part of his epistle to the Church at Corinth, reminds them that by one Spirit they had all been baptized into one body, had all been made to drink into one Spirit, were the body of Christ, and members in particular, and their bodies temples of the Holy Ghost. That was the state of salvation into which they had been brought. He had preached to them the Word of Life; they had received the Word and been baptized; and hence they had received those gifts of the Holy Ghost, that new-birth in Christ, that divine illumination, of which he speaks. Such was the good, the excellent beginning of

their new life as Christians; such the effectual ministry of St. Paul, who by God's grace made out of a dark, blinded, unbelieving, heathen people a flock of Christ, a household of faith, a fresh branch of the universal Church of Christ.

But what had happened since that first reception of the Gospel in their hearts? How had they used their first gifts? How had they gone on when St. Paul left them and went himself to convert others to the faith? If we open his first epistle, we shall read a disappointing, disheartening tale. He is in this case constrained to "come with a rod;" he breaks out at once into rebuke; they were cooling in their first love, forgetting Gospel wisdom, falling back into worldly ways, yielding to the temptations of the devil and their lusts, shrinking from the mortifications of the cross, and suffering themselves to be drawn aside from that course of holy living without which no man can see the Lord. Here was an Apostle's trial, to behold the plants which he had planted in Christ's vineyard withering away, to see the Church which he had founded in pure doctrine, pure laws of life, obscured, defiled with divers sins; the children whom he had begotten unto a lively hope of eternal life, casting away their obedience to that living law, and allowing them

selves, through the deceitfulness of sin, to be robbed of the hope of the inheritance laid up for them in heaven. To have left them full of the Spirit and to hear of so quick a departure from the law of the Spirit, to have laboured so much for their salvation, to be told that the weeds were already choking the Word, and making it unfruitful, this must have been sore news to the Apostle's spirit. It is a sore trial to those who watch over souls, to press men to Christ and to have that word of exhortation set at nought, to behold men wilfully bent upon the ruin of their souls; but it is, if possible, a sorer trial to see those who once gave promise of walking well, falling back from that heavenward course which they once so wisely loved, and letting their hand drop from the plough.

And so it is, that unless men watch their gifts of grace, they will fall back; unless they press forward and advance in the godly life, they will wax worse and worse; they will lose what they once had from God; for, as the Apostle plainly shews in this case, we may be baptized by the Spirit, drink of the Spirit, become temples of the Holy Ghost, be enriched with divine gifts from above, yet there is no absolute security, no absolute certainty that we shall keep those gifts.

And just see from what a height of grace unto what a depth of sin the Corinthians fell. When the Apostle writes down their sins, his pen has enough to do to count and number their transgressions. He begins first of all with those who appeared to hold an especial place in the Church, those whom in common language we should call the more religious portion. He chides them for splitting into religious sects and parties contrary to the will of Christ. "I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it." Then he goes on to other sins, "It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you;" "there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another; ... nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren;" "ye are carnal;" "ye are full;" "some are puffed up;" "some have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame."

Here was a change! To what an evil state and how quickly this Apostolic Church sank! First of all the Apostle said, "Ye are the body of Christ; by one Spirit have ye all been baptized into that one body; ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of your God; your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." And yet

now, he says, “Ye are vexing yourselves with religious debates, with new doctrines dividing Christ; ye are contentious, quarrelsome, fornicators, adulterers, drunken, without the knowledge of God; ye come together not for the better but for the worse." Thus does the Apostle at once shew them side by side the grace they had received, and their manifest abuse of that grace; thus does he boldly shew them, without dissembling, the fearfulness of their sins, who had received much from God and done much for Satan. He had that love for his flock that he would not let them perish in their sins; he had that true love that he did not shrink from rebuking them when they deserved rebuke, for he himself had witnessed that it is an office of the ministers of Christ not only to exhort, but, if need be, to rebuke also.

"Ye

But it was not enough with him to say, have sinned," to read over to them the inventory of their sins, and to say, "I speak this to your shame." It was not shame only that he desired; he wanted repentance, change, amendment of life, a stirring up of the gift that was in them, a fresh start in the spiritual race, a casting out of that multitude and diversity of sins, that legion of evil tempers with which they were possessed. It