man from the grave, whose will respecting it has been already so clearly revealed in the words and works recorded in the gospel. And as to the objection of the philosophers, that a resurrection could not be desirable, on account of the inherent incompatibility between a spiritual nature, like the mind, with inert and perishable matter, the apostle shows that the bodies of the saved will be hereafter invested with such attributes of incorruptibleness, power, and splendour, as will render them fit companions of the sinless spirit. The believer, then fully saved, will be transformed into the likeness of the incarnate God.

Such surpassing blessedness is not only to be the portion of the holy dead, but of the faithful also who shall be alive at the advent of the Lord. In the steadfast expectation of these great realities, the Christian already triumphs over death.

This whole discourse on the certainty, the nature, and the time of the final change and glorification of the saved, is delivered with a solemn grandeur of language, possible only to a man divinely inspired.

26, 27. Directions on the contemplated bounty of the church, for the distressed Jewish Christians in Palestine. The apostle's personal movements. Counsels to fidelity, Salutations. Salutations. He who loves not

unanimity, and order.

the Saviour, is accursed.

SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

THIS was written from Macedonia, about a year after the date of the first epistle, and was sent to Corinth by the evangelist Titus. Compare 1 Cor. xvi. 8; Acts xix.; 2 Cor. i. 8; Acts xx. 1, 2.

1. The salutation of grace and peace. Devout breathings of a mind alive to the sorrows and consolations of

This, too, is

St. Paul's assur

the church. Our discipline of grief and joy is designed to be sanctified to each other's edification. an element in the communion of the saints. 2. Recent painful exercises in Asia. ance of the conviction entertained by the Corinthians of his apostolic integrity, and the godly and inviolable sincerity of his intentions regarding them.

3. He now passes to the particular case of the offender at Corinth, which had caused him and many of themselves so much anxiety, and affirms the sentence of absolution.

4. The progressive triumphs of the gospel through the agency of the apostolate. Results of its administration, -endless life, or perdition. Superhuman character of the work. The apostles spoke directly from God. Those to whom he was then writing, living witnesses of the divine energy attending their word.

5. The authority and qualifications for this work of divine origin. Its transcendent excellency set forth by a contrast with the ministry of the law.

6. Entirely devoted to their work, the apostles laboured to accomplish the charge graciously intrusted to them; in giving full manifestation to that truth whose judicial concealment leaves the soul of man in hopelessness, and that because it is the gospel only which brings the knowledge of a Saviour.

7. The true evangelist bears an inestimable treasure in an earthern vase. But the grandeur of the effects produced by the gospel, proves so much the more clearly its divine origin. The apostles, in pursuing their great career, were conscious of the presence of their Lord to sustain and render them triumphant. Their devotion to the cause of Christ universal and unending. Their wasting labours were accompanied by the presentiment and expectation of martyrdom; yet an interior life was

unfolding its supremacy within them, and uplifted them already over affliction and the grave, in enabling them to identify a personal relation to eternity and glory.

8. These anticipations of immortal life were attended also by a profound conviction of responsibility. The tribunal of Christ is before them and all men.

9. Their strenuous efforts, with these prospects, to save souls, encouraged and animated by a sense of the boundless love of Christ, as Redeemer of all men; and of love to Him who had an illimitable right to their devoted service. They no longer existed for any other end. The glorious truth of the gospel now possessed them, and the God from whom it comes had commissioned them to make it manifest.

10. The true nature of the evangelic ministry, and the substance of the good tidings it makes known, stated in terms few, but solemn and comprehensive. Exhortation to the immediate and full improvement of the day of grace and to such as were engaged in the agencies of the gospel, to a self-denying, enduring, and laborious fidelity.

11. To the church: Show that you appreciate such a ministry. Be separate from the world. Be in earnest for the better portion, the blessedness unveiled in the promises of God; and prove your interest in them by their sanctifying power in your life.

12. The apostle expresses the consolation which the proved repentance of the Corinthians had given him. Characteristics of genuine penitence. St. Paul's happiness in their full reconciliation.

13-15. Details on the contribution for the distressed saints at Jerusalem. The conduct of the Macedonians worthy of imitation; above all, the divine example of the Redeemer himself. The church at large to cultivate a cheerful and spontaneous beneficence. The brethren

accredited to the Corinthians for the accomplishment of the present work of charity. Practical suggestions for carrying it into effect.

16. St. Paul now proceeds to vindicate his apostleship against certain doubts which had been propagated against it by an adverse party at Corinth. He asserts the possession of a judicial power to demonstrate it, which he would nevertheless prefer to keep in abeyance. In this he intimates a contrast between the dispositions of himself and his antagonists. Corinth was within the limit of the continually widening sphere of his ministerial labours. His aim was the divine approval, and if he gloried he would glory in the Lord.

17. In the statements he was about to make he did violence to his own sense of Christian dignity, that they might be disabused of the prejudices excited against him by unworthy men, and which they could entertain only to their own spiritual disadvantage. Had his opponent preached the truth, and proved himself a genuine minister of the Christian dispensation, their reception of him would have been commendable; but even then Paul would have had the greater claim on their attachment. He held rank with the most eminent of the apostles, and had gratuitously preached the gospel at Corinth; not only to show his own disinterestedness, but from a principle of love to them in protecting them from the rapacity of those who would have taken advantage of the circumstance of the apostle's receiving money, to make a prey of them. Such designing deceivers are ministers of

Satan.

18. St. Paul now shows, not only his equality with these Jewish disturbers of the church, but his superiority to them; not merely in labours and sufferings, but in having received peculiar revelations, and having been made the subject of a mysterious rapture into the hea

venly world. In connexion with these events he mentions some of the dealings of divine providence and grace in the discipline of his own soul. In alleging the evidences of his apostleship, he appeals to the miraculous credentials with which he had authenticated his mission among them: for he had made the same proof of his ministry at Corinth as in other churches; dealing with them as with similar communities, with the difference that he uniformly refused to receive any thing from them.

19. In having so fully discussed this painful subject, he had laboured to create a better understanding between himself and them; so as that, when he should visit Corinth, his intercourse with them might not be afflictive. Nevertheless, were the obstacles which had militated against the peace of the church unremoved, he would then be constrained, by fidelity to his apostolical trust, to exercise those judicial prerogatives and powers, with which he had been supernaturally endowed, as an ambassador of the Lord. He fervently exhorts them to adopt and persevere in the better course, and pronounces upon them the plenary benediction of the new covenant.

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

Compare Acts xvi. 6, cir. a.d. 53; Acts xviii. 23, cir. A.D. 56. The Epistle was probably written between these two dates, (compare chap. i. 6,) and from Corinth or Ephesus.

1. The inscription indicates the true source of the apostolic authority; and the salutation, the great privilege of the church. All the faculties and blessings we have received, are to redound to the honour of the Divine Benefactor. Distress of St. Paul at the perversion of these churches to a counterfeit gospel. To tamper with the immutable truths of Christianity is to incur the divine