SERMON VI.

THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING.

FOR after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe.-1 Corinthians i. 21.

CORINTH was a city of great trade and ориlence; which, by too natural a consequence, led the inhabitants into luxury and all kinds of vice. Their sin, like that of Sodom, was "pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness." Philosophy, falsely so called, found easy access to such a people. It always begins with the rich,-with those who have much leisure; and the poor follow, after some time. Religion proceeds in a totally opposite direction. It always begins with the poor; and the rich, who believe after some hesitation, follow. The Lord informed his Apostle, that he had "much people in that city,” and encouraged him to labour there, notwithstanding the unpromising appearance. The Gospel had to struggle, not only against the idolatry of the

inhabitants, but against a more than ordinary degree of "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life;" yet it gained a victory in many, who learned from it to prefer the "simple life divine," the happiness of God, "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

There were, however, some who seemed not to have this "wisdom from above," and they infected others. It had pleased the Lord to "enrich them in all utterance, and in all knowledge, so that they came behind in no gift;" and by this a glory was given to the faith, which operated against the high philosophical pretension. The generality, however, came deplorably short of the great design of the Gospel, viz. "love out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned." The Apostle was embarrassed among them, and was constrained to inform them, in this Epistle, of the cause of his embarrassment. " I could not," says he, "speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not able to bear it; neither yet now are ye able." The Lord, after much long-suffering, smote them with the hammer of his word: "Awake," says his Apostle, " to righteousness, and sin not: For some have not the knowledge of God; I speak this to your shame."

Yet, according to ancient pretension, and a pretension which, as belonging to fallen man, has come down to us, they might have known God. If it be true, that we may look through nature up to nature's God," the Corinthians might have thus gloried. But I am afraid that there is much of Atheism in that popular sentiment. If God be indeed "a part of the universe," or as the Heathen said, the anima mundi, then indeed, "by searching we might find out God." But if it be true, as the Scriptures teach, that even those glorious spirits, who compass his throne rejoicing, can only know Him as he is pleased to "reveal himself;" how much less can man, a guilty and polluted creature, know Him, without such a revelation?"No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." And, blessed be God, "all" may thus "know him, from the least to the greatest," as a pardoning God, as being "merciful to their unrighteousness, and remembering their sins no more." (Hebrews viii.)

To bring the Corinthians to that poverty of spirit, that consciousness of their true character before God, without which the "unsearchable riches of Christ" would have been preached in vain, seems to have been the Apostle's design in writing this Epistle, and especially the first four chapters, in which he beats down all glorying in

the flesh. He had thus a call to demonstrate that "the weapons of his warfare were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; destroying reasonings, and every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."

In the text, First, a great fact is brought before us, on the authority of the Holy Ghost: "The world by wisdom knew not God:" Secondly, we learn, that the wisdom of God was concerned in the demonstration of this fact: Thirdly, it is affirmed, that "it pleased God" to give men the knowledge of himself, "by the foolishness of preaching," and thus to "save those who believe."

In the

I. "The world by wisdom knew not God." Those who consider the state of the heathen world in the present day, are easily convinced, that the knowledge of God is not manifest in it. We have abundant information on this point. Our Missionary exertions have fully demonstrated the real condition of the natural man. East and West Indies, in Africa, and in the Islands of the South Sea, how disgusting, how deplorable is the picture of man; disgusting even to those who know that they themselves also are sinners, and that there is no essential difference. Here, at least, the advocates for the dignity of man will abate their praise. They will allow what