Secondly: He qualifies them for its discharge. "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (1) He inspires them with the Divine spirit. Rightly to carry out a new enterprise a man must be put into possession of a new spirit equal to it, and to discharge this new enterprise of preaching the Gospel through the world, nothing less than the Divine Spirit was required. Christ now gives this, gives a new inspiration. (2) With this new inspiration they became invested with the highest authority. 'Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." It is noteworthy that this authority was not given to Peter, or to any one of the disciples, but to all alike.*

CONCLUSION.-How transcendent the privileges of the genuine disciples of Christ! He grants them His presence and imparts to them peace; He dispels their fears and establishes their faith; He gives them a commission and qualifies them for its discharge. LONDON. DAVID THOMAS, D.D.

THE DAWN AND NOONTIDE OF REVELATION.

"Do not let any perplexities about the dawn of revelation hide from you its daylight sun. This earth itself was once a chaos of fiery elements, but it became the glorious and wondrous globe we dwell on, with its infinite harmonies and beauties in sky, and earth, and sea. Even man himself may once have risen from lower forms, and at any rate from savage life; but now intellect and conscience and love stamp him as divine, as made in the image of God; and we rank him as he is, not as he was in a by-gone age. In like manner judge of revelation by its end, not its beginning. To Christ it all pointed, and in Him it culminated, and from Him still flows a power that shall mould the world."-Rev. J. M. Wilson.

* See my

"Genius of the Gospel" on Matt. xvi. 18, 19.

SKETCHES ON II.

CORINTHIANS,

BY DAVID THOMAS, D.D.

Man Talking about Himself and the Limitation of Apostolic Inspiration.

"I SAY AGAIN, LET NO MAN THINK ME A FOOL; IF OTHERWISE, YET AS A FOOL RECEIVE ME, THAT I MAY BOAST MYSELF A LITTLE. THAT WHICH I SPEAK, I SPEAK IT NOT AFTER THE LORD, BUT AS IT WERE FOOLISHLY, IN THIS CONFIDENCE OF BOASTING. SEEING THAT MANY GLORY AFTER THE FLESH, I WILL GLORY ALSO. FOR YE SUFFER FOOLS GLADLY, SEEING YE YOURSELVES ARE WISE."—2 Cor. xi. 16-19.

OBSERVE here- I.-MAN TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF. Paul had said a good many things about himself. Here again he takes up the subject, and his language suggests, First: That the world is disposed to regard such talk as foolish. "Let no man think me a fool" (or foolish). In this he recognises the tendency of men to regard such self-reference and selftalk as weak and unwise. So in truth unsophisticated men do. When they hear a man talking about himself he impresses them with a sense of his folly. Inwardly they say, "What a fool that man is to be talking about himself." It must be confessed that generally it is a very foolish thing, few things are more foolish. It is suggested here, Secondly: That such conduct may become a duty. Paul felt it such an urgent obligation at this time that he begs them to bear with him. "Yet as a fool receive me that I may boast myself a little." He was on his defence, and he felt that such self-references as he made he owed to himself, to the Christians at Corinth, and to the cause of his Master. Hence he seems to say, "Though you regard me as a fool whilst I thus talk about myself, yet do hear me." It is suggested here, Thirdly: That attention to such talk about himself the apostle had a special claim. "Seeing that many glory after the flesh I will glory also." "For suffer fools gladly seeing ye yourselves are wise." As if he had said, "the false apostles amongst you talk about themselves, they boast of their merits and achievements, and you listen to them. I have a special claim to your attention because of the proofs of my apostleship amongst you." Observe here- II.-THE LIMITATION OF APOSTOLIC INSPIRATION. "That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting." As if he had said, I do not talk of myself by "commandment"; I have no

ye

special commission from Christ. How frequently does the apostle, in his communications to the Church at Corinth, guard against the impression that everything he wrote was Divinely inspired. Indeed in one case he indicates an imperfection of memory. "I baptised also the household of Stephanus besides, I know not whether I baptised any other" (1 Cor. i. 14-16). "I know not." What, an inspired apostle not knowing what he had done, forgetting the religious ordinances he had celebrated! In his letter to Timothy he himself says, "Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching," implying that all Scripture is not inspired. It is for us to find out which the inspired ones are, to separate the human from the Divine. Whatever agrees with the character and the teaching of the spirit of Christ we may rest assured is inspired of God. Who but God Himself can tell the enormous amount of injury that has been done to sacred truth by the dogma of verbal inspiration, regarding all the imprecations of David, all the reasonings of Job's three friends, and even the utterances of Satan himself as inspired by heaven? The Scriptures contain the word of God, but they are not the word of God: the casket is not the jewel, the shell is not the kernel. This by a devout and earnest study we must find out for ourselves. CONCLUSION. The subject teaches, First That we must not shrink from the discharge of a duty however painful. Paul, as a humble and modest man, felt it a very painful thing to talk about himself. His native modesty shrank from it, yet though he would be considered a "fool" he did it. Learn, Secondly: That we must study the Scriptures with a discriminating judgment. We must penetrate through the "letter" that is human, and reach the "spirit" that is Divine. "Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law."

THE WITNESS OF THE BELIEVERS.- "The Spirit in the prophets was His first witness, and His Spirit by miracles was His second, and the Spirit by renovation, sanctification, illumination, and consolidation, assimilating the soul to Christ and Heaven, is the continued witness to all believers."-Baxter.

NOTES ON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES.

"Good Gifts from Above."

James i. 16-18.-"DO NOT ERR, MY BELOVED BRETHREN. EVERY GOOD GIFT AND EVERY PERFECT GIFT IS FROM ABOVE, AND COMETH DOWN FROM THE FATHER OF LIGHTS, WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING. OF HIS OWN WILL BEGAT HE US WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH, THAT WE SHOULD BE A KIND OF FIRSTFRUITS OF HIS CREATURES."

It is very easy to err in things spiritual and it is very dangerous, but we do not believe it to be dangerous, and so make it the easier still. What we really believe to be dangerous, what we are thoroughly convinced will entail ruin and disaster, we carefully avoid, we keep away from as far as we possibly can. If we believed that error in religious belief, erroneous views of God or of ourselves were pernicious, should we not be as careful to keep as far away from these? The common highway, dusty and Safety on the stony though it be, is the only safe way; it is only Highway. by keeping to it we shall arrive at the city which hath foundations. But if we are not deeply convinced of this, if we do not thoughtfully believe it, we shall very likely cross over into Bye Path Meadow, where, as far as we can see, the soft, green, easily-footed path runs parallel with the Highway itself. 'It does not matter what a man believes so long as his life is in the right, or so long as he is sincere, or so long as he is honest and honourable. What does it matter what a man's views are about the being of God, or the origin of man, or the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, so long as he holds what he does hold sincerely? He cannot be wrong whose life is in the right!" Have not we been hearing a good deal of that kind of thing of late? Have not most of us been doing something more than hearing about it, not to our advantage?

And yet is there anything more unphilosophical, more opposed to common sense, more contradictory of everything else that in

Does it not matter what we believe?

every other sphere but the spiritual we are most careful to do? We do not say about our physical well-being, it does not matter what kind of air we breathe, or what kind of food we eat so long as the body thrives; or of the upbringing of the children, that it does not matter what opinions they have of their parents so long as they are dutiful and obedient; or of the social and political views men may entertain so long as the life of the community is pure and noble, and the life of the nation sound and vigorous and true. Yes, fresh air and nourishing food for the body, filial affection for the child, profound moral convictions for society, the righteousness which exalteth a nation for the state; but when it comes to the growth, the progress, the well-being of the immortal soul, the air it breathes and the food it lives by, the affections by which alone it can lay hold of the heavenly Father's heart, the moral and spiritual convictions in which it has its being, the righteousness it must possess if it is to stand accepted in God's sight,— when it comes to these it does not much matter what the opinions are. The laws which rule so rigorously elsewhere have little or no dominion here. "He cannot be wrong whose life is in the right!" Elsewhere if you touch pitch you will be defiled. Yes, and if you touch pitch here you will be defiled more deeply still. Pitch, with which you merely defile your hands, may be washed off, but when "evil communications have corrupted your good morals," what will cleanse you? "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "Be not deceived, God is not mocked," neither is His law. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," and so is his life; so shall his life be. Be not deceived where. deception would be fatal; do not err, where to err is to go further and further from God, till your feet stumble upon the dark mountains. "Do not err, my beloved brethren."

Of all errors in religious opinion those are the most fatal which lead the soul away from right views of God; which lead to light thoughts of God's judgment of, or upon sin; which lead to imputing sin to God, as if He could have a hand in tempting to sin, in creating opportunities or facilities for sin. Error here is fatal; for to think thus of

The most fatal of all

errors.