They know and confess that He has wrought a Divine change in them, and that they owe it wholly to His grace, and to no works or deservings of theirs, that they have been turned from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God. They are not ashamed to confess their obligations to the exceeding grace of God. They marvel at His patience and forbearance, and loving mercy towards them, and desire to glorify God more and more, by giving up themselves to His happy service, and by walking before Him in holiness and righteousness all their days. And when they are successful in their efforts, and labour more abundantly than others, instead of boasting, they remember who alone has made them to differ, that they have nothing which they did not receive, and freely confess that it was not they themselves, but the grace of God which was with them. My brethren, how far is this your character and language? Have you at once a very low opinion of yourselves, and a very exalted opinion of the grace of God? It is the union of these two feelings, honestly entertained and acted upon, which proves a man, beyond most other things, to be indeed taught of God, and ripening for heaven. SERMON III. 1 COR. XV. 12-15. "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. "Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not." THE most perfect harmony existed between St. Paul and the other apostles as to the death and resurrection of Christ. That He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again accord ing to the Scriptures (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4);-these were fundamental truths of Christianity, concerning which the Apostle Paul could, without fear of contradiction, say, "Whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed." (Ver. 11.) Their testimony had been one and the same. They preached these truths from the first, and they still continued to preach them; and these were the truths which the Christians at Corinth had heard and embraced. But some among them had learned a new language, and now said that there was no resurrection of the dead. It does not appear that they denied that Christ had risen. This they might think was in virtue of the union of His human nature with the Divine; but they denied the general resurrection of the dead. They do not seem to have been Sadducees, for those went much further in error; nor yet of the school of Hymenæus and Philetus, who held that the resurrection was past already (2 Tim. ii. 17, 18); that the only resurrection to be looked for was a spiritual resurrection — a being raised from the death of sin to a life of holiness. They were, probably, Gentile Christians, who still retained some of their Gentile prejudices-men of an inquiring and philosophical turn of mind—who were disposed to reject everything which they could not fully explain. They wanted to know how the dead would be raised up, and with what body they would come. (Ver. 35.) And because their reason was not able to grasp the whole subject, and they could not understand it, therefore they rejected it. Now, as soon as the Apostle heard that such a dangerous and destructive error was making its appearance in the Corinthian Church, like a faithful apostle, he set himself at once to banish and drive it away. And we are indebted to that rising heresy at Corinth, or, rather, to that Gracious Being who thus brings good out of evil, for this deeply interesting and instructive chapter. In the verses I have selected from it for our present consideration, the Apostle shows some of the ill effects which would flow from a denial of the resurrection. He says, If Christ be preached by me and my brother apostles that He has been raised from the dead-if this be |