I. THE IMl'ULBE OF BAmTLY EXAMPLES; or, expressed in simple terms, of recornized goodness in our fellow-men. Distinguish between the life-missions of talented men and of good men. The "talented" may seem to be out of our range, the "good" never are. The weakest, poorest, humblest among us may be "good." Goel has taken care to provide the saintly ones in every age. He sets some such in every sphere of life. We all know of men and women better than ourselves who act on and inspire us. They exert these influences; they persuade us that (1) goodness is beautiful; (2) that goodness is attninable. Then it is the bounden duty of all men and women who fear G0d and love the Lord Jesus Christ to culture personal character, become saintly, and gain the power to witness for Christ by a holy example. II. THE DIPERFECTION OF ALL SAINTLY EXAMPLES. None of them are perfect and complete. It is human to err. All the saintly ones fall short of the full standard of humanity as shown to us in Christ. This point is suggestive of abundant illustration taken: 1. From Scripture. There is only one man mentioned in Seri pture who even seems to have been perfect. It is Enoch; and we cannot be sure concerning him, seeing that the records of his life are gathered up into only one or two brief sentences. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Elijah, David, etc., are all frail, fallible men, whose very sides of goodness and strength are at times exaggerated so as to become evil. 2. From experience and observation. We know that those who seem to us most heroic and saintly are deeply sensible of their own failings and shortcomings, and we cannot have to do with them long before finding occasion for the exercise of our charity in relation to their conduct. Even the Apostle Paul could not permit us to make himself our standard. He knew too well what hastiness of temper sometimes overcame him, and how greatly he had to struggle with the body of sin. We can be followers of no man, if he stands alone. We can only follow a fellow-man as he may be in some point a reflection of and suggestion of Christ, the manifested God. Consequently only Christ can be our absolute Exempler. We can be followers of him; we may put the whole force of our natures into followiug him; we may let no follow-man stand before him. Show that the enemies of Christ could have easily gained their end if they could have found a stain upon his moral character, a word spoken or a thing done which the conscience of mankind could dis- tinctly recognize as unworthy of ideal manhood. None such have ever been founJ during the nearly nineteen centuries of Christianity. The things usually made into moral charges are abundantly capable of explanations that redound to Christ's honour, or belong to the mystery of his Divine birth and mission. But, while we admit that no man can be to us a full exernpler, we may recognize that good men do catch measures of the goodness of the Christ whom they serve, and are examples for us so far as they are Christ-like. It is possible for us to go a little further even than this, and admit a certain special and peculiar power upon us exerted by purely human examples, which, by reason of their very frailty, tone and temper and shadow for us, and in adaptation to our weukness, the over-splendour of the Cbristly and Divine. It is most practically helpful to us that we may be followers of such a brother man as St. Paul, so far as he follows Christ and reAects the full Christlinoss with a human tempering suited to our feeble sight. Then it follows that what St. Paul thus is to us we may be to others.-R. 'f.
Ver. 2.-The Christly traditions. "Keep the ordinances," or, as given in the margin, "the traditions." St. Paul had given in bis ministry "ordinances" of three kinds. 1. Regulations for the government of the Church. 2. Statements concerning doctriuo. 3. Statements concerning historical . facts. Illustrate the use and misuse of the term "traditions." Show that the traditions of Christ, in the sense of the rccortls preserved, in memory or in writing, of his life, ministry, rnirncles, death, and resurrection, are tho basis on which the Church is built. Christianity is not a revealed religious system, as Mosaism was. It is the revelation, in an individual man, of that divinely human life which was God's thought when God made man in his imago, but which man spoiled by the assertion of his rights of self-will,.and consequent separation of the Divine from the human. All Christian doctrine rests on the ideal humanity which Christ exhibited. All Christian duty is the effort to reach and express that ideal. So Christianity is strictly an historical religion; and yet the historical is only the body which manifests to us, and sets in relation with us, and permanently prP.servcs for us, the spiritual and the mystical. Then we ought to be anxious abvut the adequate remembrance of and 392 THE FIRST EPISTLE TO 'l'HE CORINTHIANS. [oa. x1. 1-34.
knowledge of the traditions of Christ. Show how these are attacked e.nd defended. 1. They are the walls that keep the city. 2. They are the body which manifests the life. 3. They are the material through which alone the spiritual can be apprehended. Notice and duly impress two points. (1) 'l'he fourfold care with which the Chrlstly traditions have been preserved for us. (2) The elaborate and precise way in which the apostolic teachings support the traditions.-R. T.