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THINGS: NOW THEY DO IT TO OBTAIN

A CORRUPTIBLE CROWN, BUT WE AN
INCORRUPTIBLE.

THE

HE design of this passage is plainly to recommend the great Christian duty of being "temperate in all things;" that is, of obtaining an entire command over our pas sions; or, as it is expressed a few verses after, of "keeping under our bodies, and bringing "them into subjection." This self-government is indispensably necessary, both to the real enjoyment of the present life, and to the possession of everlasting happiness in the next. But then, like every thing else that is valuable, T 3.

it

it is as difficult to acquire, as it is useful and excellent; and it stands in need of the most powerful arguments to recommend and enforce it. One of the strongest is here urged by St. Paul. To raise the courage and invigorate the resolution of the Corinthians, to whom the Epistle is addressed, and of all others engaged in the same state of warfare with their corrupt inclinations, he reminds them of the immortal prize they are contending for, that crown of glory which is to recompense their virtuous conflict. And to give this still greater weight, he compares their rewards with those proposed to the competitors in the well-known games or sports which were celebrated near Corinth. In these, all that was contended for, was nothing more than "a corruptible crown," a wreath composed of perishable leaves whereas, the prize of the Christian is an incorruptible one, a crown of glory that fadeth not away, an eternity of real and substantial happiness in Heaven. And yet, poor and contemptible as the reward was in those games, they who strove for the mastery in them, were temperate in all things, were content to exercise the strictest discipline and

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abstemiousness, to abridge themselves both in the quantity and the quality of their diet, to renounce every pleasure and every indulgence that tended to weaken the body, and voluntarily to undergo many hardships in order to prepare themselves for the contest, and "to

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run so that they might obtain." How is it possible, then, after this, for the Christian to complain of the difficulties he has to encounter in this his state of probation, and when celestial rewards are held up to his view, to shrink from the severities through which he must arrive at them? If he has any honest ambition in his nature, will he not emulate the ardour and activity of these Grecian combatants? Will he not cheerfully go through a similar course of preparatory discipline? Will he not impose upon himself a little moderation in his pleasures, a little self-government and self-denial? Will he not contentedly give up a few trivial indulgences, and transient gratifications, in order to secure a prize infinitely more glorious than theirs; a crown incorruptible, felicity eternal, commensurate to the existence, and suited to the capacity of an immortal soul?

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To this irresistible strength of argument St. Paul subjoins, as an additional motive, his own example. "I therefore," says he, 66 SO

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run, not as uncertainly," not heedlessly and ignorantly, but with a perfect knowledge of the course I am to pursue, the rules I am to observe, the prize I am to aim at, and the conditions on which it is to be attained. I do not act at random, but upon sure grounds. My views are steadily fixed on the grand point, and I press forwards in the way marked out with unwearied vigour and perseverance. "So fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” In this Christian combat I do not mispend my activity, and exert my powers to no purpose; I do not fight with my own shadow, or with an imaginary antagonist *, wasting my strength on the empty air; but I strive for the mastery in good earnest; I consider myself as having real enemies to combat, the world, the flesh, and the devil; I know that my life, my salvation, my all, is at stake; and therefore, in imitation of the competitors in the Isthmian game, I exercise a strict government over myself; I subdue

* See the commentators.

my

my rebellious passions, by continual acts of self-denial; "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any

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means when I have preached to others, "I myself should be a castaway."

Such is the reasoning of this eloquent apostle at large; and it behoves us all to pay due attention to it; for, though in one circumstance we do not all resemble him, are not all appointed to preach to others; yet are we all, like him, engaged in the Christian conflict with passion and temptation; and must, like him, either come off victorious in it, and gain the prize, or be shamefully subdued, and lose our own souls.

Ever since the unhappy fall of our first parents, and the confusion introduced by it into our moral frame, the passions have acquired so much strength and boldness, that they aspire to nothing less than an absolute sovereignty over the soul; and we are reduced to the necessity of either governing them, or being governed by them. This is literally the choice proposed to us at our first entrance into life; and it concerns us to weigh and consider it well; for we can never decide on a question of

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