your eyes. Thus a firm and blessed and profitable peace was given unto you; and an insatiable desire of doing good; and a plentiful effusion of the Holy Ghost was upon all of you. And being full of good desires, ye did with a great readiness, and with a religious confidence, stretch forth your hands to God Almighty; beseeching him to be merciful unto you, if in any thing ye had unwillingly sinned against him. Ye were sincere and without offence towards each other; not mindful of injuries; all sedition and schism was abomination to you. Ye bewailed every one his neighbour's sins, esteeming their defects your own. Ye were kind one to another without grudging; being ready to every good work. And being thus adorned with a conversation altogether virtuous and religious, ye did all things in the fear of God; whose commandments were written upon the tables of your hearts "."

Now let it be considered, that about thirty years before, Paul had founded the church at

7 Clem. Ep. ad Corinth. i. s. 1. and 2.

As a pre

Corinth, which is thus described. liminary, the Corinthians were to be persuaded, that the deities which they and their ancestors had worshipped were no gods, but the fictions of poetry or dreams of ignorance. That there was one invisible Creator, who took cognizance of human actions, and would reward those who obeyed, and punish those who disobeyed him, in another state of eternal existence. That they had individually incurred his wrath and deserved his punishment; but that he had sent his Son into the world, in the human form, to redeem from that punishment as many as trust in him, and receive the mysteries belonging to his incarnation. Further, that those who do trust in him, and profess his religion, must be a holy people; pure in heart, pure in practice, renouncing all dishonesty, all impurity, all malice; devoting their lives to the service of God; and seeking his Holy Spirit by faith and prayer, that they may be enabled to effect this, and become such characters as Clement describes them.

8 Clement's Epistle, A. D. about 80. Paul's first Epistle, about 55.

This is a slight sketch of the doctrines which Paul taught, and according to which the Corinthians are said by Clement to have directed their lives. Can any thing persuade us that these persons would have confessed what they were led to confess, or have renounced what this religion bound them to renounce, or have practised what they did practise, on Paul's exhortation, unless he carried with him indisputable proofs of a divine commission? Would any common argument have induced men to model their lives anew after precepts such as these: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth; but in heaven: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." "Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth." "Look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." So "when Christ who is our life shall

appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

The

Neither is it any contradiction to the force of this fact, that it was a principle with some of the ancient philosophers to despise the honours and dignities of the world. There is a wide difference between Cynical or Stoic apathy, and Christian patience and self-denial. motive characterizes and distinguishes them. We need not be severe to mark those few, those very few, who were led by reflection on the capabilities of their nature, or on the uncertainties of life and fortune, or by any consideration derived from their own reason, to despise the vanities around them, and look into their own minds for happiness. But they acted on a calculation of which this world was the object and boundary. Contempt of the present world, arising from a confidence of future recompense, is not to be found in a single passage of heathen antiquity; much less is it the characteristic of a numerous party scattered over the remotest districts, and consisting in great measure of those classes of society which philosophy never deigned to looked upon. The Stoic refused the good things of this world (if indeed he ever did AA

refuse them) because they might be taken from him, or because they ended in dissatisfaction, or because his taste led another way: but these men were indifferent towards temporal things on higher grounds: they had not leisure for them, and could serve God better without them: they had too much to effect in too short a time, to allow any unnecessary delays or deviations. Such had been Paul's injunction: "This I say, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they purchased not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away"." In the same spirit writes the Roman Clement; "take heed, beloved, that God's many blessings be not our condemnation, unless we walk worthy of him, doing with one consent what is good and pleasing in his sight. And the Asiatic Polycarp; "I exhort all

9.1 Cor. vii. 30.

ΤΟ

10 Epist. i. s. 21.