1 Cor. ii. 12,13. Now loe have received, not the spirit of the world, hut the Spirit which is of God; that we might knoto the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also tve speak, not in the words which mans ivisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
NO man was ever better qualified to please men with the charms of oratory than the Apostle Paul : for, in point of talent, few perhaps have ever exceeded him ; and, in point of knowledge, no uninspired man ever came near him. In the great subject of his ministrations there is a sublimity, in comparison of which all other subjects are but as a star before the meridian sun. Yet, in setting forth that subject, he was particularly careful to " use all plainness ol speech," lest he should obscure, rather than illustrate, its excellency by any vain attempts to embellish and adorn it. This he repeatedly mentions, as the stated rule prescribed to him by God, and followed by him. " Christ," says he, " sent me to preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effects" In conformity with this commission, he says, " I came to you not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring the tes- timony of God :" and again, " My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wis- dom :" and so also in the words of my text, " Which things we speak, not with words which man's wisdom teacheth\" As, in receiving the Gospel, he had been taught it by the Spirit of God ; so in communicating the knowledge of it to others, he would make use of no other language than that which the Spirit himself had provided.
The declarations of the Apostle in my text will lead me to shew,
I. Whence a minister must receive his choicest quali- fications—
Of course, if he would instruct others, he himself must be instructed in " the things which are freel) given to us of God" —
[God has given us salvation in the Son of his love
He has also made known to us this salvation in the
fullest manner And this is the subject which every
servant of his has it in commission to unfold to a benighted world ]
a 1 Cor. i. 17. ^ ver. 1, 4, 13.