1 "Rabbi" Duncan, in Memoir of John Duncan, 425.
2 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 8 W. A. Gray.
For the Feast.
«7S
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), The Highway of Holiness, 220.
Beeching (H. C), The Bible Doctrine of the Sacraments, 86.
Burrell (D. J.), The Gospel of Gladness, 255.
Davies (J. LI.), The Work of Christ, 85.
Dods (M.), Footsteps in the Path of Life, 97, 100.
Green (T. H.), The Witness of God, and Faith, 1.
Grubb (G. C), The Light of His Countenance, f».
Gurney (T. A.), The Living Lord and the Opened Grave, 57.
Hepher (C), The Revelation of Love, 157.
Jerdan (C), For the Lord's Table, 62.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year : Easter— Ascension, 1.
Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, New Ser., ii. 256.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 83.
Maurice (F. D.), Lincoln's Inn Sermons, iii. 245.
Morgan (R. C.), The Cross in the Old Testament, 81.
Moule (H. C. G.), The Pledges of His Love, 97.
Pope (R. M.), The Poetry of the Upward Way, 29.
Smith (D.), The Pilgrim's Hospice, 37.
Spurgeon (C. H.), New Park Street Pulpit, ii. (1856) No. 54.
„ Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvi. (1870) No. 965.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xxiii. (1883) No. 1244. Waterston (R.), Thoughts on the Lord's Supper, 153.
Watt (L. M.), The Communion Table, 223.
Wiseman (N.), Children's Sermons, 72.
Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 121 (Aveling).
Church of England Pulpit, lxiii. 237 (Sandham).
Churchman's Pulpit : Easter Day and Season : vii. 195 (Keble).
Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xv. 300 (Gurney).
Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., ix. 161 (Barry).
Humiletic Review, xliii. 333 (Dieterich),
*74
For the Feast.
Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ : wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.— i. Cor. v. 7, 8.
There had been hideous immorality in the Corinthian Church. St. Paul had struck at it with heat and force, sternly commanding the exclusion of the sinner. He did so on the ground of the diabolical power of infection possessed by evil, and illustrated that by the very obvious metaphor of leaven, a morsel of which, as he says, " leaveneth the whole lump," or, as we say, " batch." But the word " leaven " drew up from the depths of his memory a host of sacred associations connected with the Jewish Passover. He remembered the sedulous hunting in every Jewish house for every scrap of leavened matter ; the slaying of the paschal lamb, and the following feast. Carried away by these associations, he forgot the sin in the Corinthian Church for a moment, and turned to set forth, in the words of the text, a very deep and penetrating view of what the Christian life is, how it is sustained, and what it demands. "Wherefore let us keep the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
In the text three events are commemorated, (1) the search which the Israelites made for leaven immediately before the Passover; (2) the slaying of the Passover lamb; and (3) the Passover feast. That is also the order in which the thoughts occur to the Apostle. So we have —
L The Old Leaven.
"Purge out the old leaven."
175
i76 FOR THE FEAST
II. Our Passover.
"Our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ."
III. The Feast.
"Wherefore let us keep the feast."
L
The Old Leaven. "Purge out the old leaven."
1. The appointed preparation for the Jews, on the point of keeping their Passover, was putting away leaven out of their houses. For seven whole days they were to eat only unleavened bread. In the first instance this was meant to remind them of the haste with which God brought them out of Egypt, when they took their dough before it was leavened. But it had also this other meaning, that men should labour and strive and pray to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. For that is the old leaven of which the Apostle here makes mention ; the corrupt nature and bad habits of men, filling them full of malice and wickedness.
In consequence of the command that they should purge out the leaven at the Passover, the head of the household among the Jews, especially when they grew more strict in their ritual, would go through the whole of the house on a certain day to search for every particle of leavened bread. It was generally done in the evening with a candle, and the servants and others would accompany the goodman of the house to search for every crumb. Clothes were shaken, cupboards were emptied, drawers were opened, and if a mouse ran across the room and might be supposed to carry a crumb of bread into its hole, they trembled lest a curse should rest on the home. So strict did they become that our Saviour might have rebuked them as straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel. We, however, have no need to fear excessive strictness in getting rid of sin. With as scrupulous a care as the Israelite purged out the leaven from his house we are to purge out all sin from ourselves, our conduct, and our conversation.