SERMON X.

The Different Methods of Preachers.

1 CORINTHIANS iii. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved, yet so, as by fire.

HAD rules of preaching sermons no connection

with those of hearing them, we would not have treated of this text in this place. Satisfied with meditating on it in the study, we would have chosen a subject in which you would have been more directly interested. But what doctrine can we preach to you, which doth not engage you to some dispositions, that cannot be neglected without hazarding the great salvation, for the sake of which you assemble in this holy place? Are we such enemies to truth, or do we so ill understand it, as to teach you a doctrine con

trary to that, which the Holy Spirit hath laid down in scripture? If so, you should remember the saying of an apostle, and, animated with a holy indignation, should exclaim, Though you or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto us than that which we have received, let him be accursed! Gal. i. 8, 9. Do we always keep in sight while we are working in the building of the church, the pattern shewed to us in the mount, Heb. viii. 5. you ought to be attentive, diligent and teachable. Do we make an odious mixture of truth and error, Christ and Belial, light and darkness; you ought to exercise your senses to discern good from evil. It is this inseparable connection of your duty with ours, which determined me to explain the text. It directly regards the various methods of the preachers of the gospel: but as the terms are metaphorical and obscure, it will be necessary to develope the meaning of the apostle in the following manner.

First we will examine what gave occasion for the words-next we will observe the design of the apostle in writing them-in the third place we will explain the several figures made use of and lastly, we will apply the subject to practice.

I. The occasion of the text will appear by a little attention to the connection in which it stands. St. Paul had been endeavouring to put an end to the divisions of the church at Corinth, and to destroy the party spirit of the Corinthians. Ought we to be astonished, that churches are so little unanimous now, when we see diversity often among apostles and primitive Christians? If peace, left by Jesus

Christ as an inheritance to his apostles, could not be maintained in churches gathered by these blessed men, where must we look for it? Perhaps, division was partly owing to the imprudence of some preachers in their primitive churches: but certainly their hearers had a chief hand in fomenting them. The teachers had different gifts, and their hearers divided into parties under their ministry. It is always allowable to distinguish men, who have received great talents from God, from such as have received abilities not so great; but these Corinthian Christians affected to exalt those of their ministers, who they thought were men of the most eminent abilities, to the depression and discouragement of the rest, and under pretence of paying homage to God the giver of these talents, they very indiscreetly idolized the men who had received them. Moreover, they made as many different religions, as God had given different commissions, and different abilities to ministers to execute them. Each party at Corinth chose out of these pretended religions, that which appeared most conformable to its prejudices. The converted pagans were for St. Paul, to whom the conversion of the Gentiles had been committed, and who had brought them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and they said, for our parts, we are of Paul. Such as had a taste for eloquence were for Apollos, who was an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, and they said, we are of Apollos. The converted Jews were for Peter, who discovered a great deal of moderation toward their ceremonies, and who had even compelled the Gentiles to live as the Jews did, that is to

mix the simple worship of the New Testament with the ceremonial observances of the law, and they said, as for us, we are of Cephas. And those Jews, who obstinately continued the ceremony of circumcision, pretended that they had no need of the authority either of Paul or of Apollos, or of Cephas, for the example of Jesus Christ, who had himself been circumcised, was sufficient for them, and for their parts, they were of Christ.

St. Paul tells these Corinthians, that, as long as they should continue in this disposition, he should consider them as novices in the Christian religion, able at most only to understand the first principles, not to comprehend the whole design. He tells them, that there were in this religion treasures of wisdom and knowledge, but into which men could never enter, who mixed their passions with truths intended to mortify them; and that this defect in them prevented him from attempting to lay before them these riches. "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envying and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men," 1 Cor. iii. 1-3. that is, as men of the world?

Having reproved the folly, and repeated the descriptive censure, he leads them to the true motive that should induce them to avoid it. Although, as if he had said, the talents of your ministers are not all equal, yet they all received them from the same

source, that is, from the grace of God; and how am ply soever any of them may be endowed with abilities, they can have no success, except the same grace bestows it. "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, as the Lord gave to every man," ver. 5. that is, as the blessing of God accompanied their ministry! "I have planted, Apollos watered: but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase," ver. 8. A great lesson for those to whom God hath given gifts to preach the gospel! A fine example of humility, which they ought always to have before their eyes! And what were the gifts, with which God enriched the first heralds of the gospel? What is a little vivacity of imagination, a little grace of elocution, a little reading, a little justness of reasoning? What are these talents in comparison with the gifts of men, who spoke several foreign languages, who understood all mysteries, who altered the laws of nature, who were dispensers of the divine power, who raised the dead, who slew the wicked with the breath of their lips, who struck dead at their feet Ananias and Sapphira, and to say more still, who were immediately conducted by the Spirit of God in their ministry? Yet behold the man, who was first in this class of extraordinary men, behold this chosen vessel, behold the man who could say, I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles, 2 Cor. xi. 5. behold him doing homage for all his own talents, and all those of his colleagues to that grace, from which they came, and which blessed the administration of them.