brotherly kindness in the Church. It is the dove that was made e. symbol of the Spiri1. of God; and that ie a bird which fleos away from noise and tempest. So it is in the quiet heart, and in those Churches where the brethren are at peace with one anothe:r, that the Spirit of the Gm! of peace, the Comforter, will dwell. III. DEFEAT OF TUE Fl,ESII AND THE DEVIL. I. Hatred is a work of thd fle.s1,, Lovo is part of the fruit of Lhe Spirit; and he who is born of the Spirit ou;(ht to smile nt provocation and forgive injury and even love bis enemies, because the God whom be serves is love, the Father of whom be is begotten is merciful. 2. Diswrd is a worlc of the devil, And in breathing a spirit of mutual con~i<leration and concord <,ver his people, the God of peace bruises Satan under their feet (Rom. xvi. 20). He brings order out of confusion, aod crushes the hissing serpents of dissension and malignity under the feet of his saints.-F. Ver. 4.-" Orucijied through wealcness." This is a very characteristic vie\f of the cruclfixion of our Lord. St. Paul never dwelt upon it complacently, as we do. There is no trace of his having ever elaborately described it, or enrlea.voured to move the feelings of his hearers or readers by the persuasions of his Lord's dying distresses. The Crucifixion was a painful subject to him. It was Christ's time of weakness. The apostle always seems to hasten away from that theme to what he can glory in, even Christ, the risen One, the living One, who now can save. Dea.n Plumptre explains the expression taken as our text thus: "For even he was crucified. St. Paul seems to see in Christ the highest representative instance of the axiomatic law by which be himself had been comforted, that strength is perfected in infirmities. For be too lived encom- passed with the infirmities of man's nature, and the possibility of the Crucifixion flowed from that fact as a natural sequel." Professor Lias says, "Our Lord assumed our human nature with all its infirmities (Heh. ii. 10-18; iv. 15; v. 2, 3), and although they were the result of sin. He bore all those infirmities, death itself included. And then be shook them all off for ever when he rose again ' by the power of God.'" I. CIIllIST WAB BODILY WEAK. We may fairly assume that our Lord had a healthy body ; but it was subject to ordinary human infirmities. He felt fatigue, hunger, thirst, need of sleep; and spiritual work exhausted his nervous system as it does ours. '\Ve may even assume that his must have been a nervously sensitive body, since this is found to be the characteristic of all highly intellectual and all highly spiritual men and women. It will be easy to show how St. Paul would feel a special sympathy with the Lord Jesus in all this, since his too was a frail, sensitively organized body. Those who are easily depressed, readily affected by outward circumstances, and conscious of physical frailty, seldom realize how near to them in sympathetic experience comes the Lord Jesus Christ, and, after him, the great apostle of the Gentiles. II. CHRIST WAB SOUL-STRONG. And therefore he could go through all the lot which God appointed for him, even though that included the bitter and terrible experiences of the Crucifixion. '!.'he soul-strength St. Paul thought of as Christ living in the very midst of his weakness and suffering. His idea may be thus expressed: " We too are weak ; we have our share in infirmities and sufferings, which are ennobled by the thought that they are ours because they are his; but we know that we shall live in the highest sense, in the activities of the spiritual life, which also we share with him, and which comes to us by the power of God; and this life will be manifested in the exercise of our spiritual power towards you and for your good." Reference is to the present mi-nistry and not to the hereafter-time. If Christ's weakness was, like St. Paul's, frailty or body, be might rejoice that Christ's strength was soul-strength, and, like his, the strength of God nu.de perfect in weakness.-R. 'I.',
Ver. 5.-Self-examination. "Examine yourselves, whether ye b6 in the faith; prove your own selves." This is without question a necessary aud practically important Christian duty. But tho forms it takos and the estimates of its value differ accordir.g to the tones and peculiarities of Christian life and feeling in each age. When promi- nence is given to doctrine, and conflicts rage round precisions in the expression of opinion, self-examination is neglected, and, as II rebound, is unduly culti~ated by the pietistic few. When feeling rnthcr tlrnn trnth is cultivated, and reli~ion 1s conceiveu as a mood of mind rather than as a body of doctrines, self-examination is set forth 330 'l'IlE SECOND EPJS'l'LE 'l'O 'l'BE CORINTHIANS. [on. xm. 1-14.