The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 87

an exaHod mission 11s tho preaching of the cross." We may to some extent realize at how great a cost Christian ministers master bodily infirmity in order to do us service for Christ's sake; but few can know how much intenser is the struggle with inward. fear anc! he~itation, and with the overwhelming sense of unworthiness and unfitness. Only in the strength and grace of God are these diffidences antl inward fears overcome. III. 'l'HE GL0nI0UB RESULTS REACHED BY ST. PAUL'S WORK. These are implied in his appeal to the Corinthians that his work had been "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.'' Those results were of two kinds-(1) conversions; (2) edifications. Men received Christ as St. Paul unfolded his claims and his love. The Church was built up in the faith through the Pauline instructions. Subsidiary results, such as over- throw of idolatry, and change of daily moral life and relations, may be further con- ~idered. The Corinthians were themselves among the most interesting results of his <iivinely inspired labours. IV. THE SECRET 01' HIS SUCCESS IN HIS 0PEN~ESS TO Drvnm LEAD. Men would have found it in his "accent of conviction," his intensity, his natural gift of leadership, the newness of his subject, the preparedness of the times, or the appeal to men's feelings; but none of these would have satisfied St. Paul. He would have said, when all had passed by," You have not found out my secret." None of these explanations could satisfy any of us who carefully judged the phenomena. St. Paul was an endowed man. He was open to the Divine leadings. He was inspired by the Divine Spirit. God wrought with him, and these were the signs following. True spiritual work has still no other explanation. Men are mighty in the measure of their openness to the Divine leacl. And the maintenance of this openness is the supreme anxiety of all earnest Christian workers. There must be, for all noble and lasting issues, the "demonstration of the Spirit.'' Impress the mysterious power which some men have in conversation and in preach- ing; yet how often they are men or women of frail bodies, sensitive nerves, and wearying disease! They are under all kinds of disabilities; but these seem only to culture the higher spiritual power. Illustrate, e.g., McCheyne, Henry Martyn, F. Ridley Havergal, etc. This openness to the agency of the Holy Ghost is to be won. Our Lord taught us how. Such power comes through prayer and fasting : prayer, or closeness and intimacy of communion with God; fasting, or watchfulness, self-denial, and mastery of bodily passion. We may win the joy of being "co-workers together with God." -R.T. Ver. 6.- Wno are the perfect, The word is used in various senses in the New Testament. Our Lord applied it to God, saying, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." It is used to express what a Christian ought to be, and is pledged to be, and is striving to be, very much as the term" saints" is used in the Old Testament. Perfection, as presented by the apostles, is the idea, the aim, to be kept in the soul of the Christian, there to work as a perpetual inspiration to the seeking of perfection in the life. St. Paul presents the distinction between full-grown men and little children. The full-grown men are the perfect; they have reached the fulness, the standard of Christian manhood. St. John bas a similar kind of expression; he addresses several classes-the fathers, the young men, the little children; viewing these as different stages on the way to the perfect, that " perfect" being kept as the thought and aim in the soul of each. In one passage we read, " That ye may be perfect and entire." The idea of" perfect" comes out more plainly when it is set beside another word. A man "entire" is one who has preserved or regained a lost complete- ness, or one in whom no grace is wanting that ought to be found in a Christian man; but a man really "perfect" is one who has attained his moral end, the standard according to which he was made; or one in whom no grace that ought to be found in a Christian is lacking, none a.re imperfect or weak, but ail have reached a certain ripe- ness and maturity. St. Paul's idea. of the "perfect," to whom he could speak freely the " wisdom," the higher spiritual mysteries of the gospel, may be considered under three figures-they are the whole, the sound, and the full-grown. It was not likely that the young Church at Corinth could furnish very many answering to this descrip· tion; for most of them tho simpler instruction in the commonplaces of gospel truth was still needful.  THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. u. 1-16.