Macgilvray (W.), The Ministry of the Word, 83.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 30.
Menzies (G.), Pictorial Sermons in Industries, 48, 110.
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 140.
Percival (J.), Sermons at Rugby, 189.
„ Some Helps for School Life, 216.
Selby (T. G.), The Lesson of a Dilemma, 365. Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 341.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), No. 1602. Stalker (J.), The New Song, 38. Vaughan (C. J.), Memorials of Harrow Sundays, 437. Wells (J.), Bible Images, 239. Wilson (S. L.), Helpful Words for Daily Life, 362.
British Congregationalist, Sept. 15, 1910, p. 208 (Cadman).
Christian Age, xxxiv. 258 (Diggle).
Christian World Pulpit, vi. 255 (Marling) ; viii. 329 (Beecher) ; xix. 104 (Woodford); xxix. 132 (Beecher); li. 364 (Armitage) ; liv. 70 (Snell) ; lx. 257 (Hunter).
Church of England Magazine, x. 417 (Holland).
Church of England Pulpit, xxxii. 28 (Reed).
Church Family Newspaper, Dec. 31, 1909, p. 1071 (James).
Examiner, Dec. 22, 1904, p. 600 (Jowett).
God's Fellow-workers.
We are God's fellow- workers.— i Cor. iii. 9.
1. The characteristic Greek tendency to factions was threaten- ing to rend the Corinthian Church, and each faction was swearing by a favourite teacher. St. Paul uses the words of the text to emphasize the truth that in the process of teaching and saving men God's work links itself with man's, and God's work is so much mightier and more wonderful than man's that it is idle to weigh the work of one human labourer against that of another, after the fashion of these Corinthian sectaries. We might just as well pick out tiny shells in the cement binding the stones of a minster and divide ourselves into factions to champion the architectural honour due to the several tenants of each particular primeval shell, or select striking portions of oak carving and divide ourselves into factions to champion the artistic possibilities of the several acorns that evolved such magnificent material. A rational being has not time to think of these infinitesimal questions. He wishes to save up his tribute of honour for the genius who planned arch and spire, and dreamt out flowered screen and stall, and guided the whole to its many-sided per- fection. God's true labourers will be rewarded, not by the reckless praise and short-sighted judgments of men, but by Him who counts them allies, and in the strength of whose gift all right work must be done.
2. Startled by the boldness of the expression of the text, as if it verged on profanity, interpreters have been found to give it a different meaning — "fellow-labourers under God," "fellow- workers in God's field." But this is not justified by the language
used. The meaning of St. Paul's words is " We are at work with
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God Himself." And to the bold idea of joint labour with God there is added the idea of dependence. "We are God's day- labourers, working with Him." It is His to pay the workmen, and to value their labour. For is it not His Church, His field, His house ? It is to a Divine possession that the workers put their hand. What gravity attaches to such labour! To cultivate a field the harvest of which is God's \ To build the house which God Himself is to inhabit ! God alone can estimate such labour, and He will not fail to do so. These are the ideas in the Apostle's mind when he says : " We are God's fellow- workers."
3. The principle embodied is a very wide one, and it applies in all regions of life and activity, intellectual, scholastic, philan- thropic, social. Wherever men are thinking God's thoughts and trying to carry into effect any phase or side of God's manifold purposes of good and blessing to the world, there it is true. Every man who is trying to make men understand God's thought, whether it is expressed in creation, or whether it is written in history, or whether it is graven in half-obliterated letters on the constitution of human nature, — every man who, in any region of society or life, is seeking to effect the great designs of the universal loving Father — can take to himself, in the measure and according to the manner of his special activity, the great encouragement of the text, and feel that he, too, is a fellow-helper to the truth and a fellow-worker with God.
^| The apse of Amiens is the first virgin perfect work — Parthenon also in that sense — of Gothic Architecture. Who built it, shall we ask? God, and Man — is the first and most true answer. The stars in their courses built it, and the nations. Greek Athena labours here — and Eoman Father Jove, and Guardian Mars. The Gaul labours here, and the Frank : knightly Norman — mighty Ostrogoth — and wasted anchorite of Idumea. The actual Man who built it scarcely cared to tell you he did so ; nor do the historians brag of him. Any quantity of heraldries of knaves and faineants you may find in what they call their "history": but this is probably the first time you; ever read the name of Kobert of Luzarches. I say he "scarcely cared" — we are not sure that he cared at all. He signed his name nowhere that I can hear of. You may perhaps find some recent initials cut by English remarkable visitors, desirous of immortality, here