and strongholds of a revolted city. They are like those of Babel's tower, or of the city of Jericho of old, or like the walls of far-famed Babylon, with their turrets and their defences, and the prodigious masses of their towers and battlements. Whilst the lofty

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citadel in the midst, rising up towards heaven and commanding the whole of the place, represents that high thing" which especially " exalts itself;" that intellectual pride which more eminently erects its front against the knowledge of "the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent."

St. Chrysostom observes, "that the apostle refers in the text to the pagan philosophy of his day, and the force of sophisms and syllogisms."

The case of Corinth itself, with its vast idolatrous population, its intermixed Jewish inhabitants, and its feeble Christian Church, is well known. That city in its heathen state was the seat of refinement, commerce, riches, luxury, profligacy-it was the abode of learning, the arts, eloquence, philosophy, the schools of science. Situated on the isthmus between the Peloponnesus and Achaia, and commanding the Ægean and Adriatic seas, it was, in fact, the key of Greece. There it stood erect, like Athens and Rome, with its polytheism, its religious mysteries, its false and airy philosophy, its endless disputations, its metaphysical theories, its vices, its refined corruptions, its popular fables involved in all the branches of the civil and military services, and penetrating to every detail of social and domestic life.

Especially, that loftiest of the strongholds, that "high thing"-that wμa, as the apostle calls itthe intellectual might of the leaders of the philosophic sects, the pretended sublime doctrine of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, rose above the rest of the defences, and lifted high its crest in pride and selfsatisfaction.

When, therefore, the knowledge of the one living

and true God, and the obedience to Christ, his onlybegotten Son, as incarnate, and dying a sacrifice for sin, were set before them by St. Paul, and they were summoned to surrender, they resisted the new and strange demand; it appeared "foolishness" unto them; they stood erect in proud defiance; they spurned the thought of submission; they entered on a thousand objections, and raised up new battlements of difficulty. More particularly pride, like a citadel, refused to yield for an instant, even when the other defences seemed likely to be carried.

But this was not all that the apostle had to meet with at Corinth. The Jewish zealots opposed with equal acrimony the doctrine of the gospel, and stirred up the Gentiles to resist its progress. Their superstitious ceremonies, their sects and traditions, their high notions of superiority over the Gentiles, their fond dreams of a temporal Messiah, their impatience under the Roman yoke, their indignation at any attempt to disparage their external Mosaical rites, and especially circumcision, presented a terrible front of strongholds against the entrance of Christ. Thus "the preaching of the Cross was to the Jew a stumbling-block; whilst to the Greek it was foolish

ness."

Add to this, the divisions and disorders which rent the Corinthian Churches in consequence of the infusion of Gentile and Jewish philosophy and maxims amongst them; "Satan transforming himself into an angel of light ;" " deceitful workers" creeping in; men insisting on circumcision "lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ;" litigious brethren going to law with brethren, even before the unjust; vicious and false Christians committing such sins as were not so much as heard of amongst the Gentiles;"-these, though few in number, troubled the unstable and infant Church, and raised up

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bulwarks and lofty towers within the Christian inclosure itself, against the obedience of Christ.

Such was the case at Corinth; and such is the situation of the world around us now. Names are changed, but things remain substantially the same. There is nothing new in Christianity having to go out against the mighty power of sin, Satan, and the human heart, concealed behind the fortresses of idolatry, imposture, heresy, divisions, and speculations of a thousand forms. The various imaginations, sophisms, and reasonings differ only in degree. The fallen nature of man is the same; the pride of intellectual might the same; the vain reasonings and objections against truth the same; the reliance on ceremonies, superstitions, and traditions the same; the lofty citadel of pride rising erect above all the rest, the same. The two main divisions also of error are the same. The one respects natural, the other revealed religion. The one resists knowledge of the only living and true God;" the other," the obedience of Christ." The first appears chiefly in Heathen and Mohammedan countries; the second, in the nations of Christendom. There is, in short, nothing in the polytheism of Asia now, different in substance from that of Greece and Rome two thousand years since. There is nothing in the fierceness, bigotry, and hatred of the name of Christ, in Mohammedanism at the present day, essentially different from the fierceness and intolerance, and bitter resistance to the Messiah of the Jewish zealots of old. There is nothing in the heresies and divisions and party-spirit and false teachers now, materially different from those of the Corinthian Churches.

"the

For all these strongholds are built, erected from the same materials-the corruption and pride of the fallen heart of man. Let each one look into himself, and he will trace the opposition to Christ and holiness which lurks there. The understanding of each of us

by nature is full of darkness; the imagination and fancy, vagrant and presumptuous; the reasonings, false in their premises as well as conclusions. There stands the sinner like a revolted city; there are the towers and bulwarks; there the citadel frowning over the rest of the works.

The knowledge of God indeed and the obedience of Christ are acknowledged in Christian countries as parts of a national creed; but the real bearings of these great articles of faith are misunderstood, or, if understood, resisted. The Scriptural knowledge of God in his being, attributes, sovereignty, moral government, holiness, law, are unwelcome. The obedience of Christ in his deity, atonement, grace, kingdom, example, authority are unwelcome. Repentance for sin and renunciation of Satan, the world, and the flesh are unwelcome. Faith in the merits of a divine Savior dying in our stead, is unwelcome. Submission to the illumination and renewal of the Holy Ghost, is unwelcome. A holy, retired, spiritual, unworldly life of watchfulness and prayer, is unwelcome All these topics, that is, all the things in which real Christianity consists, are unwelcome; and if they are pressed upon the sinner's conscience, become the object of resistance. The peculiar sophisms which each one frames, his evasions of the fair force of argument, his refusals to submit to truth, the objections, misrepresentations, and dishonest artifices which he employs, resemble the fortresses of a revolted city. Whilst the powers of the intellect, inflated with pride, raise aloft its summit, like a citadel, and resent with scorn the very proposal of a surrender.

Let us proceed, then, to consider,

II. The weapons employed against these spiritual fortresses. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God"-a brief, but

war

emphatical declaration, which touches on the very spirit of the gospel of Christ. The apostle "walked" indeed, as we have already observed, "in the flesh," as a human being dwelling in the body, and living in the world like others; but he did not “ after the flesh,” as his opponents insinuated; he had no petty, personal, earthly ends; he relied not on "an arm of flesh," as the prophet expresses it; he did not go forth trusting to reasoning, moral suasion, the fitness of things, intellectual effort, eloquence, artificial address, as the philosophers of the age, the Jewish zealots, and the false apostles did. No. The weapons of his warfare" were of another temper. They were, on the one hand, "not carnal" or fleshly either in themselves, or in the manner in which he used them; but, on the other, they were "mighty through God," deriving their power and success from heaven, and endued with a force not their own.

1. His weapons were not carnal or earthly in themselves. The execution of Christ's Commission in the catechetical and gentle manner we have before described, was no carnal weapon; the putting young and old in training for an intelligent dedication of themselves in Baptism to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, was no carnal weapon; the subsequent course of instruction was no carnal weapon; these methods were not accommodated to the taste, nor formed after the opinions of men; they were not such as the carnal wisdom of heathen philosophers, Jewish zealots, or false apostles would dictate or approve.

The weapons in that first age, as in every subsequent one, were holy preaching, holy living, holy suffering.

We preach the unity, perfections, and glory of God; his infinite wisdom, power, and holiness; his dominion and righteous sovereignty; his law; his future judgment of the world; his right over man.

1 Sermon XIX