remain in obscurity. This is my first attempt to appear in public. On the approaching Sabbath I hope once more to be admitted a guest to that holy feast, where I hope to ask for an especial blessing on this poor effort of reaching the hearts of those whom I hope to meet hereafter in glory, and of testifying a little of that boundless love which outruns even my iniquities.

VERSE SYSTEM.

1 Cor. i. 2. (February 1st.) "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth;" the Apostle's first visit to this famous city, and his formation of a church there, is recorded in Acts xviii. 1-11; and this first Epistle appears to have been written in answer to one they had sent him, from the expression used in chap. vii. 1, "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me," &c; and also to correct certain schisms and abuses which had crept in among them.

"With all that in every place," &c; the including in the Apostolic blessing of "grace and peace" the whole number of believers together with the Corinthian church, a method not usual with the Apostle, was probably intended to shew that there was no place for those schisms and dissensions amongst brethren which so greatly disgraced the church to which the Apostle was writing.

Verse 5. "In all utterance, and all knowledge;" knowledge being their understanding of the Gospel mysteries, and utterance the power of communicating that knowledge to others.

Verse 6, 7. "Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed," &c; as the Gospel which testifies of Christ was proved amongst you to be from God by these gifts of the Spirit, in which ye come short of no other Church.

Verse 8. "Confirm you unto the end;" strengthen you in every such grace as you have already received, and cause you to persevere therein even to the end.

Verse 9. "God is faithful," &c; and the ground of this blessed confidence in this comfortable doctrine is the faithfulness of God, or his keeping covenant and promise for ever; who is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent of the many promises he hath given in his word concerning those whom he, having called into the fellowship with Christ in the state of grace, will preserve" blameless" to the perfect fellowship with him in glory.

Verse 10. "Now I beseech you brethren;" the Apostle, as one who had obtained grace to be faithful, having declared his conviction concerning the soundness of their faith, &c., proceeds to notice, with his wonted zeal and affection, some of those painful spots and blemishes, which thus early had begun to defile the fair face of the Church of Christ.

"That ye all speak the same thing;" that you agree both in your judgments and words concerning the doctrine of the Gospel. Note-A union in judgment and word on the great fundamental truths of the Gospel, is essentially needful, and what the Church has in good measure attained to; a union in affection is the indispensable duty of all the disciples of Christ; but the breaking of union in the least matters cannot be too seriously lamented, nor too cautiously guarded against.

Verse 11." For it hath been declared to me by them that are of the house of Chloe," &c; there is a wide difference between the idle circulation even of what may in itself be true, to the prejudice of another, and the Scriptural telling of it to the Church, in the person of the Minister, in order that a due remedy may be applied.

Verse 12. "Now this I say," &c.; this is what has been told me, and what I wish to reprove you of-that as many Ministers as have preached amongst you into so many parties are you divided, each one holding to some favorite Minister; and others perhaps, seeing these dissentions, hold with none, as if they could really be for Christ whilst they despise his Ministers.

Verse 13. "Is Christ divided;" is not the whole Church one undivided body of which Christ alone is the head, though there be various Ministers and members with different stations and gifts in it? Do not Paul and Apollos preach one Christ, and exercise their gifts for one common end?

"Was Paul crucified for you," &c.; is Paul, or any other amongst us, the purchaser and redeemer of the Church by his blood, that it should go by his or any other name but that of Christ?

Verse 14. "I thank God that I baptized none of you," &c.; God had so ordered it that he who had been endued with so many and wonderful gifts, not merely or chiefly to baptize, (which any ordinary Minister could do as well, and which would not fall in so well with his calling, which was rather to break up new ground, to carry the Gospel where Christ had not been named, than to preside over Churches already formed) but to preach the Gospel; had actually baptized so few

that no room was left for any to say that he had baptized in his own name-endeavoured to make a party or sect to himself; which many in his time, and even since, have done, deceiving either themselves or others with the appearance of zeal for God.

Verse 17. "Not with wisdom of words," &c; not with discourses filled with arguments drawn from reason and the notions of the heathen philosophers, as if the end of preaching could be answered by them instead of the bare, simple preaching of Christ crucified which is the grand all in all of true preaching; and which must never be so hidden or obscured by the best words of human reasoning as not to shine forth as the sun of the whole system.

Verse 21. "In the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God;" when, according to the infinitely wise appointment of God, it was so ordered that by the powers of man's wisdom the world could never reach to any true and saving knowledge of himself (God so taking away all ground of boasting from man, and reserving to himself all the glory of man's salvation) when God, I say, had given the world the experience of 4000 years, teaching them that the way of peace and happiness was not to be found in themselves or in the wisdom of their wisest-then He unfolded to the world his own method of saving themby the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.

Verse 22. "For the Jews require a sign," &c.; it appears that all worldly men count the Gospel foolishness, since both Jews and Gentiles do so. The Jews would not believe, or rather made it an excuse for not believing that which is ever hateful to the natural mind, because Christ did not gratify their

curiosity with such miracles as they expected, (seeing they had abundant evidence already, if they had had a willing mind to have received it.) The Greeks, that is the Gentiles, believed not, because the truth of this new doctrine was not proved according to those principles of natural reason and human philosophy which a lone suited the pride of their hearts-like many in all ages who will believe nothing that cannot be squared to their own short-sighted reason, or imperfect experience.

Verse 25. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men," &c; yet to those whose eyes are opened by the Spirit of God to understand them, there will appear infinitely more wisdom in that wondrous plan of God's salvation which natural men count foolishness than in all the best contrivances of human wisdom; and more strength in the preaching of the Gospel, as God's instrument of accomplishing his purpose for the salvation and happiness of man, than in all the means which man's power has ever put in practice with a view to an attaining the same end. Wise men would be wise without God's salvation; and vain men would be happy without God's method of happiness, and fancy they can make others so too, but both will mourn at the last that they have been miserably deceived and deceiving.

Verse 30. (February 29.) " But of him are ye in Christ Jesus," &c; and that this end, "that no flesh should glory in his presence," is fully answered by this way of God's salvation, appears by this-that from the Father as the fountain-head of " every good and perfect gift," through Christ Jesus as the channel, all blessings flow down to man; through him are we made