can any punishment short of that denounced in the text, be adequate to such impiety.]
Application —
[Let us seriously examine into the evidences of our love to Christ ; that if he should ask us, as he did Peter, " Lovest thou me?" we may be able to reply with him, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." Let us tremble at the thought of subjecting ourselves to the judg- ments here denounced, and instead of presuming to speak against them as too severe, let us make it our constant endea- vour to escape them. So shall death and judgment be divested of all their terrors ; and Christ, whom we love, be the eternal portion of our souls.]
THE TRIALS AND CONSOLATIONS OF MINISTERS USEFUL TO THEIR PEOPLE.
2 Cor. i. 3, 4. Blessed he God, eveti the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all com- fort ; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may he able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort, wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
THE former Epistle to the Corinthians abounded with reproofs, for which indeed there was in that Church but too much occasion. This epistle is altogether of a different kind, and contains a rich fund of paternal and most affectionate instruction. In the opening of it, St. Paul quite forgets all the pain and sorrow which they had occasioned him, and blesses God for the consolations he enjoyed, especially in the view of those blessed effects which had been produced upon their minds by his former letter ^ How *'full of comfort" he was, we may judge from the frequent repetition of the word " comfort ;" he knew not how to leave the subject, or to vary his expression : his whole soul appears to have been swallowed up in the contemplation of the comfort which he had received from God, and which he hoped to be the means of communicating to them also.
That we may enter into the spirit of his words, let us notice —
" 1 Cor. vii. 4 — 7.