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society. In their offerings to their idols, a part only of the victim was consumed, the rest was eaten by the worshipper and his friends. Some of the Corinthians, upon the strength of their knowledge of the nothingness of idols, made no scruple to sit and eat in an idol's temple. But others, who had not such strength of conviction, were scandalized at such a sight, and looked upon such participation as defilement. For their sakes, the Apostle tells them, that it was proper to abstain. "When ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak consciences, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth." Moreover, he says, that participation in idol feasts would seem to be inconsistent with their allegiance to Christ. For as the Israelites were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did drink of the water miraculously given them from the rock, the allegiance which they owed to Moses was analogous to that which the Christians acknowledged to Christ by baptism and the Lord's Supper. As the idolatry of the Israelites in the wilderness was treason to Moses and to God, so participation in the idolatrous worship of the Corinthians ought to be considered an act of apostacy from Christ. "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say; the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the com

munion of the body of Christ? Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils."

Paul, when he was at Corinth, instead of drawing his support from those to whom he ministered, as it was ordained by Christ, had wrought with his own hands to supply his necessities. This, after his departure, was brought up against him, either as degrading him, or as arising from a conscious want of apostolic authority. He goes on to tell them why he had done so. Preaching the Gospel was a necessity laid on him by God, and he could not refuse to do so. "If I do this thing willingly, I have a reward, but if against my will, a stewardship is committed to me. What is my reward then? Verily, that when I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the Gospel."

The next subject is the regulation of their religious assemblies. He gives some directions for the costume in which the Christians of both sexes should appear in their public worship, and then passes on to the communion, which they had grossly abused. Having been accustomed all their days to the idolatrous feasts of the heathen world, which were too often occasions of intemperance and excess, they formed the same low and sensual conceptions of the purposes of the Lord's supper, and overlooked en

tirely its symbolic and spiritual character. The consequence was, that it was no longer to them an occasion of religious edification, but of degrading indulgence; so that they came together not for the better, but for the worse. The Apostle displays to them the impiety and criminality of their conduct. Those he says, who thus pervert the rite, not only get no good from it, but make it an occasion of sin, and thus eat and drink to themselves, not edification, but condemnation.

Among the disorders of their public assemblies was an abuse of spiritual gifts. An obscurity hangs over this subject, which perhaps can never be dissipated, arising from the fact that we can form only dim conjectures of what those gifts were. The most we know of it is, that they were the occasion of confusion in their public services, and envy and emulation among the members. The Apostle enumerates no less than eight classes of persons as officiating in the early Christian assemblies, Apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, healers of diseases, assistants, rulers, and speakers in different languages. What part these different persons took in the exercises of their public assemblies, we are unable even so much as to conjecture. The most we know is, that some composed hymns, some prayed, some taught, some spoke in foreign languages, and others interpreted what was spoken. What the Apostle

complained of was, that they were not orderly in the exercise of these gifts, but with an indiscreet zeal, or ostentatious forwardness, insisted on obtruding their spiritual contributions upon the assembly without waiting for each other. The result was, great confusion and disorder in the church: "When ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let every thing be done for edification. If any one speak with a tongue, let it be no more than two, and at most three, and that in succession, and let some one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the assembly. Let the prophets speak not more than two or three on the same occasion. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace."

Finally, he comes to the great and cardinal doctrine of the resurrection, and he makes concerning it one of the sublimest discourses in the New Testament. He considers it, what indeed it is, the pivot on which the whole religion of Christ turns; "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." Nothing can be more satisfactory, than to see this Apostle, whom we might at first suspect of some tendency to enthusiasm, resting his own faith and that of the church, upon the simple facts of the Gospel, so plain, so palpable, so level

with the meanest capacity to all time. The Gospel was true and authoritative, not because it was a probable human speculation, man was to live again and be judged according to the deeds done in the body, not because there is a natural presentiment in his breast that such is to be the fact, but because Jesus of Nazareth, who had taught this doctrine on the authority of God, had been raised from the dead by Almighty power, and been seen and recognised by his former companions and disciples. This great fact, he makes the corner stone of the Gospel, and justly, for on it depends the certain conviction of two of the most important truths which concern man's duty and destiny-the divine origin of the doctrines which Jesus taught, and the certainty that the moment which severs the soul from the body does not consign it to oblivion, but makes it a denizen of immensity and eternity. This was in fact the Gospel of salvation to the world, for moral instruction was not so much the want of man as religious conviction; a clearer knowledge of duty was not so indispensable, as a more cogent motive for its performance. It was this which made the humble Apostle, preaching Jesus and the resurrection, more powerful to the moral regeneration of the world, than all the schools of the philosophers, with all their learning, refinement and eloquence.

But the doctrine of the resurrection, it seems, had

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