SERMON V.

GOD THE AUTHOR AND GIVER OF ALL GOOD THINGS.

I. COR. iv. 7.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

HOLY Scripture is filled, almost to overflow, with precepts and exhortations, which, though of course especially and peculiarly applicable to persons and circumstances of the time, yet will lose little of their life and vigour, if being as it were transplanted from their native soil, they are applied to times and occasions similar to those which first gave them birth. What at first was special and particular, frequently thus becomes general or universal; and the instruction or rebuke intended to be conveyed to some few in one age, may thus be instrumental in leading many of all ages and countries to the adoption of a holy and righteous course of life, or to the rejection of wide-spreading and dangerous error. Thus the rebuke conveyed by the question

in our text, though on the face of it capable of a much more general reference, was first applied by the Apostle to those ministers of Christ, who being at that time especially favoured by the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, that they might be enabled to preach the gospel of Christ with greater power and success, seem to have been inflated by this preference, which they imagined was shown them for some especial merit of their own, and to have falsely prided themselves on their worthiness to receive those distinguishing gifts, of which they were thus in fact taking all possible pains to prove themselves unworthy. It seems strange that persons thus endowed with miraculous gifts, and whom we, from some indistinct notion of their possessing some very superior advantages to what we ourselves do, are accustomed to look upon as distinguished by the title of saints, forgetting that in Scripture that title is applied to all the early Christians, it seems strange, I say, at first sight, that these persons should have so borne themselves as to incur the Apostle's'severe rebuke for their misconduct and the censure in the text for their proud and arrogant display, as it would seem, of those very miraculous endowments. Why no selection was made in the bestowal of these gifts, it may be idle, and perhaps presumptuous, curiously to inquire; but as the

fact has afforded a handle to the scoffer, the pious mind may rest satisfied with the conclusion that God's dealings in this case were strictly similar to what we see is his usual course of proceeding with respect to many other of his gifts, such as wealth and honours and power and intellectual endowments, which we plainly find very often are not confined to such as He foresees would make a proper use of them. For we must recollect that these gifts were not spiritual gifts, conducing to the salvation of those on whom they were bestowed. The gift of tongues, for instance, or of healing, or of prophecy, evidently could possess no such power. Nay, we find St. Paul himself in this very epistle expressing his fears lest, when he had preached to others, he himself should be a castaway. But this error, which we ourselves perhaps from incaution are liable to run into, of supposing, namely, some peculiar merit in persons thus distinguished by peculiar gifts, seems to have been the very mistake produced in their minds. They found themselves in possession of extraordinary endowments, and wielding a power far beyond human; and instead of humbly recollecting that they were merely instruments in the hands of the Most High, they became puffed up by the conceit that something more than the mere will of the potter had thus chosen them to be

vessels of honour, that they had of themselves wherein to boast, and then by a vain and ostentatious display of their gifts, they seem to have given but too strong grounds for the reproof in our text,―a reproof, alas! which many of you must have already anticipated will come home to our own bosoms, being so often forgetful, as we are, in the midst of all our enjoyments and advantages, that not unto us, not unto us, but unto God's holy name should be ascribed the glory and the praise.

The error thus committed by these first ministers of Christ may not improperly be turned into matter for our own edification; for though our circumstances can never approach more nearly to theirs than in mere similarity, yet the same principle, which in them broke out into so reprehensible a form, is at work within our bosoms too: we also glory as though we had not received; and without even professing to thank God that we are not as other men are, we are either puffed up with pride in the possession of our own superiority, or at best, perhaps, pass our lives in a reckless indifference to the Author and Giver of all good things.

In our own experience, the most distressing instance of persons liable to the rebuke in our text is also the most similar to that which here meets the strong animadversion of the Apostle. I speak

of the supposed possession of religious or spiritual superiority. The acquisition indeed of worldly advantages has a strong power in puffing up the spirit and inflating the pride of the foolish and vain; but this effect is as nothing in comparison with that which is produced when a weak and self-centred mind, removed by circumstances from the temptations in which others may be involved, institutes a complacent comparison in its own favour, the only species of self-examination it ever makes, and looking with horrour, not so much upon sin, as upon the sinner, withdraws into its own shrine of self-sanctity and shrinks from even the thought of contact with those whom Christ mercifully lived and died on earth to save. Now if there is one assumption more foolish and selfdestructive than another, it is this; and our Lord himself has shown his opinion on the subject most clearly.

But it is not only as individuals that we are tempted to arrogate to ourselves this spiritual superiority. However self-satisfied and proud in the imaginations of our hearts we may be, we still love to find our own opinion supported by that of others, and claim a fancied superiority from belonging to a class. The Pharisee prides himself not more as an individual than as one of a sect. And this is the most dangerous form which spiri