the open and trusting soul. If we arc known of God, taken into his special regard, and favour; if he "lilts upon us the light of his countenance,"-then we can be said to know him. But the knowledge comes alwaya by Divine condescension to us, not by the unaided efforts of our intellect. Our Lord put this truth under another figure when he said," No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." '£hose whom God knows, in the seuse of" approves," "reveals himself to," are those alone who, in any high, proper, spiritual sense, can be said to "know God." II. WHEREON BOTH THESE A.RE BASED. "If any man love God." Our best know- ledge comes by love, not by intellect. '!'he mutual knowledge of husband and wife, of mother and child, come not by mental study of each other, but by the relations and revealings of love. And so alone can we know our heavenly Father. Let him come near to us in gracious communions, and our hearts will surely find out how precious •he is. " We shall see him as he is." Bodily vision will 11ot be needed, for souls can see. Intellect may stand back, for love can see and feel and know. It will be observed that the love of which St. Paul here speaks is seen, not on its sentimental but on its practical side. It is the charity which takes due account of the frailties of others, and acts with the desire to help them. Charity is the varied expression of the love cherished in the heart; somewhat as obedience is the expression of faith. Faith is seen in good works, and love is seen in charity. John 'l'auler, the mystic, suggestively says, '' Rightly is God called the 'Master of love,' for he rewards love; he rewards with love; and he rewards out of love." See the Revised Version on Luke ii. 14, "On earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased," or "men of good will "-of love, or charity. Impress how earnestly we should seek that disposition and character which will bring God near to us, and so give to us the saving apprehension of him. "We love him because he first loved us." And we can judge of our love to God by crur feel- ing concerning our brother; for" If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar;" "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth Go<l love his brother also."-R. T. Vers. 5, 6.-Not gods, but God. Two primary and foundation truths of religion were committed to the keeping of the Jews as a nation. They were revealed to, and fully apprehended by, Abraham, and were the reason for his separation from his poly- theistic surroundings in the country of the Chaldees, and for the subsequent remark- able isolation of his descendants in the small, compact, yet central country of Palestine. Those two truths were-the unity and the spirituality of Goel. "God is one;" "God is a Spirit." It is the first of these truths which St. Paul here reaffirms, in view of the pagan conception of many deities and divinities; and there can be no doubt concern- ing the clear-cut testimony which Christianity makes to the truth of the Divine unity. '£here is only one God, whose favour and reconciliation we have to seek, and whose claim to obedience and service we must meet. It is true that l\lohammcdanism also affirms the unity of God, but it adds the questionable statement, "and Mahomet is his l)rophet." Christianity does indeed declare that there arc " three persons in one God;" and that" Jesus Christ is the Son of God;" but both these truths are to be held, and can be held, consistently with our faith in the Divine unity. Vve havo to avoid the perils of tritheism, and of conceptions of the divinity of Christ which fall short of his .essential Deity; for "the Word was God;" "God manifest in the flesh." In the verses before us we have- I. THE COMMON NOTION OF GODS AND LORDS. "As there be gods many, and lords many." Paganism peopled earth and sea and sky with clifTercnt orders of divinities, -and imagined gods presiding over mountains, streams, and flowers; over flood and pestilence and fire; over virtue and over vice; over families and nations. lllustrato by the impressions made upon St. Paul when he first entered Athrns. The placo seemed to him crowded with idols," given over to idolatry." There was a. regular hierarchy; and probably a dim notion of one supreme god to whom the rest were subordinate, but as these lesser 0"Ods and iords stood in direct and close relations with men, it was inevitable that tliey should get all the worship. Illustrate from what is observed in heathen lands now; especially where heathenism is associated with iearning and civilization, as in India.. Show what complicated social questions arise in that coun.try out of the conflicting chums of the multitudinous gods and lords; and the 284 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. vm. 1-13.
painful uncertainty which men in idolatrous countries must feel as to whether they ha,·e propitiated the ri_qht god, or left an offended one still to executo his vengeance. In cont,.ast with elaborate heathenism, the worship and service of the one God is simple- and sati fyin~. Fear God, and there is no one else to fear, II. ·~·HE CHRISTIAN NOTION OF "GoD" AND "LORD." The two words may be taken to include the Divine Being as an Object of WOl'ship, and as our practical Ruler. Our God is at once the highest Being we can ccnceive, who ri"htly claims our reverence• and the Yery centre of all authority, to whose will we ~ust wholly bow. But tb; two terms may be used to indicate the oneness, yet distinction, of the Father and the Son. The term "lord" suggests the immediacy of Christ's relations to us, So the word "God" may stand for the essential being; and the word "Lord" for the mediatorial being. 1. The essential being-God. Four points are here noticed by St. Paul. (1) God_ is one. (2) He !s ~he Father-that rela!ion being t~e most suitable for repre- senting him, because 1t includes the personal interest of his love for each one of his. creatures, which such words as" King,"" Ruler,"" Judge,"" Moral Governor," do not. (3) All things are of him. He is the one and only Creator of thincrs and of nien. And ( 4) we are witnesses for him, who are bound to hold firmly, and sho~ forth fully, this first truth of the one Father-God. 2. His mtdiatorial being. Under this term we appre- hend the one God as the Lord Jesus Christ, and wo are to see that he is practically (1) our present Lord and Huler; (2) our only Mediator in his manifestation of himself in our flesh and upon our earth; and (3) our Christian standin~ and Christian hope are only in him and by him. Fully embracing this truth of the Divine unity, wo shall be wholly delivered from the fear of offending the" gods many or lords many," whether they be fellow-men or imagined divinities.-R. T.