III.] AND ITS TRUE ORDER PRESERVED.

97

while pre

paring for

ization of

life.

Lord said, 'neither marriage nor giving in marriage'); yet, he says, there will be subordination in ranks hereafter, powers within powers, orders above orders, in various distinctions analogous to the organthe present, and the man' is, in Christ, the head of the future 'the woman,' and the woman subject to the man; a parallel to which, he says, already is found among Cp. 1 Cor. 'the angels-(fulfilling Christ's words, that the 3. Luke xx. 'children of the Resurrection' shall be as the 36. Angels.') There is no greater invasion of the beautiful order of creation as God designs it, whether old or new, (for in the former there are types of the latter,) than in the forgetfulness or disparagement of the internal order of society now.

The tempter of human souls never whispered a more malignant falsehood to man or woman than 'ye shall be as gods.' To mistake the place and order of manhood or womanhood, in any of its degrees, is a fearful confusion.' It has cost man his Paradise once; and it would surely extinguish the fairest hopes of human nature, in its exile here, if ever the subordination which belongs to its ranks be so fatally confounded by the sophistries of the vain, that the young should be persuaded to forsake reverence, and say we will be 'independent,' and the women to forsake their grace, and say we will be as men,' or men forget their fear, and say we care not for God,' we will even 'be as gods.'

Various and sacred are the gifts bestowed by God on man,-powers' from Him, which if rightly used here will shine in their true lustre hereafter.

H

xi. 10, and

IV.

Origin of the second

letter to Corinth.

Some change in

Theories of self-will and impurity they are, which would change the nature of the fair, the strong and the pure, or aim to reverse their relation for any essential alteration, were it possible, would be the extinction of some glory whereby one star differeth from another' in the firmament of God.

IV. Such, in some detail, is the Renewal of man in Christ which S. Paul taught the Corinthians amidst the difficulties which arose some years after their conversion. He earnestly wished, however, to visit his friends and teach them somewhat more, and promised, if possible, to do so. But his stay among them was a short one, after all.

The case was this. After writing his first letter to them previous to leaving Ephesus, he went to Macedonia intending to proceed soon to Corinth. Timothy whom he had left in charge at Ephesus, and to whom he wrote from Macedonia, hastened at once to the Apostle to induce him to return to Ephesus before taking his intended journey to Jerusalem. Upon this the Apostle wrote his Second Epistle to the Corinthians to tell them to prepare for a brief and somewhat hasty visit. This letter was taken from Macedonia to Corinth by Titus. Its first object was to reconcile the Church there to this alteration in the Apostle's plans, and gently remonstrate again with some opponents.

But we may notice in it a change of tone in one the tone of or two respects, on the part of S. Paul. First, he appears to contemplate, more than he had yet done, the possibility of his dying before the coming of the

S. Paul.

Lord; (not perhaps more than that, because he also dwells on the thought of being changed '). Certainly, however, this Epistle seems the first place in which he expresses a wish, or preference, for death; and this gives a colour to the Apostle's remaining career.

99

opening of

things.

Immediately following on this kind of surrender, 4 further if God might so order it, of the present for a future spiritual within the veil, we may perhaps observe another tone of spirituality in some other respects, seen for instance in such passages as 'the love of Christ constraineth us,' and 'henceforth we know no man according to the flesh.' Though in this Epistle he has no directions of a precise kind to add to his previous teaching, in doctrine or practice, he just gives us certain glimpses of further truths, without unfolding them. The personal longing for the Lord, which was becoming more and more urgent, made him begin to have something yet more of the martyr's feeling, in all his work. Everything for the time was resolving itself into a kind of deliverance.

now implied

written.

He had already spoken of the New Creation,' and he here refers to it again; but chiefly morally, and not to explain the mere doctrine concerning it. He Some truths glances at the great truth of our Reconciliation to rather than God; but he speaks at the same time of our being reconciled to each other in Christ. He reminds the Corinthians that this reconciliation is wrought by the Communion between Christ and His people, the result of which is designed to be our attaining Divine Righteousness in Christ. Very wonderful r Lect. II. p. 67.

Earthly questions lost sight

of, to some extent.

S. Paul is looking for heaven.

words, surely, which he does not now enlarge. Some hints there are at the same time of his own work as an Apostle, implying a ministry of Reconciliation,' which would be a kind of priesthood:--but he does not go on. He assumes more than he explains.

Notwithstanding the numerous questions distinctly treated in his former Epistle, we almost lose sight of them all in this second. His longing for the coming of the Lord' seems nearly to have become such longing for heaven, as if he now personally entered into the hope of bearing the image of the heavenly.' It was fourteen years since he had had a rapture which no words of his could utter; whether he was in the body or out of the body he could not tell,' but now he felt that 'absence from the body' would be welcome to him, as it would surely bring him to the presence of his Lord at once. May it not be a kind of sacred advance that has now been attained?

For he no longer seems to anticipate so much immediate earthly success of his missions, the failure of which had hitherto stirred many a remonstrance. Is not the Apostle in Macedonia, at this time, moving about in his work, more like a pilgrim guided in the wilderness by the pillar of cloud and of fire, thinking of his 'tabernacle being taken down,' and a building of God in the heavens?' To say all this to the Corinthians was better far for them, than if he could have told them what he had said he once saw in the third heaven;' for this was a true

s See Lect. VII. p. 236, &c.

secret of the Paradise of the sons of God, this the germ of that hereafter which is the ultimate meaning of all our Gospel, the fulfilment of the bright promise of Him Who came from God and went to God,'-'I go to prepare a place for you!"

It may appear, perhaps, to some, that the account of the Christianity taught by S. Paul at this time has still but little completeness. It certainly has nothing so definite in writing, as many might wish, either as to the Godhead which he adored, or the Mysteries of the grace in Christ Jesus. It does not minutely explain how the Apostolate, as in Christ's stead,' was to reconcile men to God. No precise theory of Atonement, or of the intermediate state, can be found; and no anxious enquiry— which is the true Church? The remark however But his Epistle is is obvious, as has been said, that his Epistles here, not really as everywhere, assume that his own teaching had incomplete preceded his writing. We have the whole range of Christian theology implied, mixed up, indeed, with the incidental expostulations and memories of informal letters, but standing there as the subjectmatter always. It is not for us to give incongruous additions to these Epistles, to make their verbal utterances, in our judgment, more harmonious with the present. All that we can say is, these Epistles were not everything known at Corinth, or inherited by us now. The Society founded by S. Paul was there, the Church which he had instructed personally between two and three years.

If the great Apostle thought fit to leave his teach