things, it is not a great thing if we should reap of you" -keeping up the figure he began with-" in temporal and secular things." Now then, first, this seems to me, though it may be in opposition to the tenets of some to prove the existence not only of the ministerial office exercised by the gifted brother, but of the ministerial office vested in persons as a permanent, and scriptural, and actual institution. The apostle here speaks clearly of two classes-the teacher and the taught; and the one so severed from the other that the taught is expected to maintain with secular things the teacher from whose lips he has learned the words of everlasting life. I cannot conceive that all the allusions to the Christian ministry scattered throughout the New Testament are descriptions merely of a function that any one and every one may exercise; it does seem they are descriptions of an office coextensive and coeval with the duration of the Christian Church, until "all shall be taught of the Lord, and they shall no more teach every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord."

Then the apostle draws a parallel between them that minister at the altar and in the temple with those that preach the Gospel. Now notice here, if the Christian ministry had been a priesthood, as some allege it to be, would Paul so describe it as he has done in the 13th

and 14th verses? He is comparing it with the Jewish priesthood: he says, "They which wait at the altar;" "they which minister about holy things;" language predicated of a priest. But when he speaks of himself and those that were to succeed him, he says, "Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel;" as a contrast to ministering in sacred things, and waiting at the altar.

You have here then incidentally brought out the idea, that in the Christian Church there is no official priest hood; because there is no altar, and there is no expiatory victim to be offered upon that altar.

The apostle then proceeds to explain the ground of all this self-denial and restraint upon his own part. He says, "Though I do all this, I have nothing to glory in." To preach the Gospel with me is not a piece of expediency, nor a ground of my seeking human praise; it is a necessity, it is a divine instinct, it is a celestial impulse; I dare not, I cannot, I will not resist it; for I feel sounding in the depths of my heart a terrible woe if I preach not the Gospel. And, therefore, in denying myself, in refusing what I have a right to, in not marrying where I might marry, in not exacting payment and stipend where I might exact it, I am not doing these things to gain human éclat; I am doing what I feel in present circumstances to be the highest and holiest expediency. And when I preach the Gospel, I do it not to gain human praise, but because of an inspiration from on high, irresistible and full of force, I can neither disclaim, doubt, nor resist.

He goes on to say, in the next place, that this great object had actuated him throughout; that he wished to make himself a servant of all, that he might gain the more. And hence, he says, "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;" that is, in things non-essential we may become all things to all men. In order to gain a brother we should give up the deepest and the dearest preference we have, and sacrifice the most inveterate prejudice we have felt;

but not to gain the whole world should we compromise essential truth, or be unfaithful to the claims, the calls, and demands of the Gospel of Christ. Here is the distinction, then, laid down by the apostle betweenwhat has been denied things that are essential and constitute the very essence of the Gospel; and things that are non-essential, which may be ornamental, beautiful, auxiliary, but are not the substance and the core of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Now, says the apostle, as things non-essential, you may prefer Episcopacy, Presbytery, or Independency; you may prefer a Liturgy, or the absence of it; you may prefer this form or that form: do what will most subserve the cause of Christ among the people by whom you are surrounded in these circumstantial and non-essential things; but never, to conciliate anybody-never, to propitiate the nearest and the dearest that you have― surrender duty, sacrifice truth, or play the traitor to the great principles of the Gospel of Christ.

He closes the chapter by showing that not only does he do all these things to conciliate others, but just as in a race, in the old athletic games, he that was to run in the foot-race-for it is of that which he speaks— had to discipline himself for months before, that every muscle might be developed in its greatest strength, and his own weight diminished to the minimum; so, says the apostle, if they thus denied themselves what appetite demanded or taste preferred, in order that they might gain the race, and be the winners of a perishable laurel crown, much more should we Christians run the race set before us, laying aside every weight, denying every appetite that stands in the way, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. And

especially, he says, should ministers do so; lest, when they have preached to others, they themselves should be, not lost, though that may be true-but such is not the idea; lest they themselves should be adókuo, disapproved, unsuccessful, pronounced unfaithful and undutiful ministers and stewards of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

The Old Testament is part of the rule of faith. St. Paul appeals to it as such.

"The stadium, or race-course, of which the apostle speaks, was not a mere resort for public amusement, but an almost sacred edifice, under the tutelage of the patron deity of the Ionian tribes, and surrounded by the most solemn recollections of Greece; its white marble seats rising like the foundation of a temple in the grassy slope, where its outline may still be traced under the shadow of the huge Corinthian citadel which guards the entrance of the Peloponnesus, and overlooking the blue waves of the Saronic gulf, with Athens glittering in the distance."

CHAPTER X.

TYPES-ONLY ONE CHURCH FROM THE BEGINNING-OLD TESTAMENT NOT SUPERSEDED SINS OF THE JEWS-IDOLATRY-ANCIENT MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD OUR SAFETY-THE EUCHARIST-IDOL OFFERINGS-GREAT RULE.

IN the summary of the contents of the chapter, prefixed to it in the common Bible, these words occur, "The sacraments of the Jews are types of ours." Such is not the fact. No sacrament celebrated by the ancient Jews is, or can be, a type of ours. Their ceremonial observances may be, and were, many of them, types of Christ; but to speak of one observance being the type of another, is to misunderstand the meaning, the nature, and the intention of the two economies altogether.

"I would wish you all to know that our fathers, the children of Israel, were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea;" baptized unto him as their leader, their legislator, and their guide; receiving the law from him, looking up to him for direction as the temporary mediator, typical of the one Mediator between God and us, the Lord Jesus Christ. "And they did all eat the same spiritual meat, and they did all drink the same spiritual drink." Then we, who have the New Testament light to direct us, and the Jews, who had the Old Testament ceremonies to guide them,