his apostles, and they received the Holy Ghost, but this was not the promise of the Holy Ghost, for after this (Acts i. 4, 5), he desires them to wait in Jerusalem till they should receive it. The baptism with the Holy Ghost was on the day of Pentecost; and this was the beginning of Christ's action and office as the baptist with the Holy Ghost: then was the first act of regeneration: then did members first begin to be joined to the body of Christ; then did sons of God first begin to be born through a regenerating act of the second Adam (for under the law it was the highest treason for any one to call himself "Son of God"); then was fulfilled to both Jew and Gentile that word which is written (John i. 12, 13 :) "But as many as received Him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Any one carefully reading the text, and the verses following, to 50, will see that the passage cannot be interpreted of Christ's nativity of the virgin and his earthly humility, but of his nativity from the tomb and his heavenly glory. The discourse is concerning the first and the second Adam, and is introduced as an illustration and confirmation of the doctrine of the resurrection, and of the nature of the body with which we are to rise. After mentioning several other contrasts between the body of death and the body of life, Paul adds (ver. 44), "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." And to confirm this he quotes from the first chapter of Genesis, "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;" and then he adds, "The last Adam was made a quickening [life-giving] spirit."

It is,

obviously, in respect to the resurrection and the spiritual body that he makes this observation. If it has respect to Christ's incarnation, it has nothing to do with the subject in hand, which is the resurrection. Besides, the very form of the expression teaches us that it is not His generation that is spoken of, for it is not "He was generated a living spirit," but," He was generated unto a living spirit." Compare it with John i. 14: The word was generated flesh;" not unto flesh; for flesh and blood, which cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, was the very form in which he was generated; but not the end or ultimate thing unto which he was to come. The meaning of the passage is, that Adam's creation went no higher than to become a living soul, which we all are, but that the second Adam went into the height of becoming a life-giving spirit, and to this intent had received a spiritual body, whose property it is to beget a living spirit, as it was the property of Adam's to beget a living soul. In a word, that creation is only one degree, regeneration a higher degree; that the one stood complete in the first Adam when he was created; and being come into death, he has a second spring and shooting forth into the glory of a living spirit, which stood complete in the second Adam when He was risen from the dead, and had received the spiritual body.*

*See Irving, "Human Nature of Christ," pp. 138, 139.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE
CORINTHIANS.

CHAPTER V.

"If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked."Ver. 3.

BOOTHROYD has well explained this verse from the next, where "to put off this," or to be "unclothed," as in our version, signifies to die, or to be in the state of the dead. So to be naked is to be in the state of the dead. The passage connects thus: "For in this body we groan, earnestly desiring to put on our habitation which is from heaven; (since having put on this, we shall not be found naked)."

CHAPTER XI.

"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."-Ver. 3.

Ir is probable that the apostle means to refer to much more here than to the fact of the serpent'sthat is, the devil's-subtilty in the tempting of Eve; namely, to the rudiments of thought, so to speak, imbibed in the temptation, and which form, separately or combined, the rudiments of false philosophy (Col. ii. 7, 8), in every age-what is called modern thought" in our own. They are thus enumerated and applied in an excellent discourse.*

66

"(1.) That there is no real distinction between

By the Rev. S. Garnett, "True and False Philosophy."

6

right and wrong: Why not eat of every tree of the garden' alike? (2.) That good and evil are essentially one, since the knowledge of each is alike good; or that there is good to be got out of all evil: 'In the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened.' (3.) That man is capable of elevating himself into God: 'Ye shall be as gods," and may then worship yourselves. (4.) That what seems expedient is to be the ultimate rule of men's actions: "good for food, pleasant to the eye, and a thing to be desired to make one wise," therefore to be taken. (5.) That men may judge what God has spoken Hath God said? Perhaps so. 'But God doth know' otherwise. (6.) That God has not really revealed Himself: 'Hath God said 'hath He spoken? (7.) That everything goes on according to fixed laws, independent of God's will: 'God doth know that your eyes shall be opened,' whether He will or not. (8.) That God will not punish sin Ye shall not surely die.'

"These eight rudiments of the temptation in Eden have come down, and form the rudiments of the world's philosophy in every age. Every one of these rudiments has its advocates, and there are those who embrace all of them. The first and fourth are at the bottom of all the indifference to moral and religious principle which is the boast of the day, and which assumes that right and wrong are only conventional expressions, and that whatever is expedient must certainly be right. The second underlies the widely-expressed conviction, that truth may be extracted from all error, and good out of all evil, which assumes that the essence of evil is good. The third is what is called Pantheism, removing the distinction between what is divine and what is human,

and appears unchanged and unveiled: Ye shall be as gods. The fifth is only altered from a claim to examine the rightfulness of one unwritten command to a claim to examine that of a written volume. The sixth is still the question, Yea, hath God spoken? The seventh has expanded itself into various theories with high-sounding names, but which all mean that while man can do what he pleases, God cannot. And the last we know too well. We know too well how in a hundred forms philosophy, so called, repeats the ancient formula, Ye shall not surely die.'

"Philosophy such as that which now opposes God's truth was first heard in Eden, and was heard there rudimentally, but complete in all its parts. The woman listened to it, and was by it persuaded to taste of the fruit of the garden. And both in Corinth and in Galatia, Paul feared the result of the same temptation in a different guise. 'I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ.' 'Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.'