Some minds are so organized as to be peculiarly open to those impressions which the local and circumstantial produce on thought and feeling. If these become excessive, they are almost sure to trench on principles. Such persons are devotees of sectionality; their prudence is shrewd, but not sagacious; intelligence is narrowed down to time, place, and immediate results; and expediency is with them "the previous question." St. Paul was not one of these men. Other minds, fond of abstractions and habituated to cloistered thinking, lose the helps of the senses and especially that very important culture, derived from contact with the open world, which teaches us to adjust principles to measures and measures to occasions. Expediency is seldom in their view. St. Paul was not one of these men. A marked fact about his conversion to Christianity was that he ceased to be an intellectual extremist; not only his opinions and convictions were radically changed, but likewise his method of looking at all things. We see in this chapter a man who adheres firmly to his ideal of the Christian Church, and, at the same time, a man who is thoroughly sensible of the uses of expediency. With him, nothing that Christ had settled could be unsettled. Nothing wrong could be expedient, and, in every case, expediency was to render homage to fundamental principles, so that the Spirit of Christ should manifest its purity and beauty. Such an expediency is always morally safe, because it rests, not on self gratification, but on self denial. This is the temper of his argument in the paragraph now under notice. "No commandment of the Lord;" and yet "my judgment" as an apostle is entitled to respect and confidence; the truth none the less a truth, and worthy of this consideration because the utterance of one who had "obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful." That great transparency was not then glowing as in special hours with the resplendency behind it; but the same Divine illumination was there, and every line, touched by the almighty hand, faithfully represented the original. "Mercy to be faithful;" fidelity to truth just as much in advice and counsel as in direct and authoritative command; ay, this is "mercy" indeed, since it shows the dignity of spiritual intellect, and what importance men should attach to its daily offices in life. "The time is shortened:" here is his starting point; and this abridged time is applied instantly to a certain state of mind, which St. Paul would have his converts to cultivate with regard to the world and its relations. Future time is not ordinary future time. It has been narrowed, in order that you Corinthians and all other believers may have an intenser conception of opportunity, a deeper sense of Christ in time, and so learn to look upon human existence under this aspect of its solemnity. First of all, the domestic relation; this most beautiful, tender, and noble of all earthly relationships, whose spirit refuses to be limited by what its loving arms embrace, and is ever reaching towards a loftier ideal, and even when its arms are paralyzed still symbolizes alike in memory and hope the immortality of affection,—this holy relation must be made holier by the fact, the time is shortened. If true of this, it is true of all else. Sorrow may be, to some extent, pure and noble, and yet, unawares to ourselves, it may contain a selfish element, and, in the degree this is present, we mourn over ourselves as losers rather than over the object lost. A sorrow truly pure and noble hides its tears from the world, takes up the cross of daily work, feels its loneliness and bears it silently, and toils on with serene patience. To be a Divine discipline—the most purifying and exalting of which we are capable—it must loosen us from earthly things and raise our hearts to God. The death of others, even of our dearest friends, is thus overruled by Providence, as the death in some measure of our pleasure loving nature. "Perfect through suffering" was said of Christ, and in so far as we realize perfection, it is only attained in this way. Our joy must not engross us so as to impair our lively sense of things spiritual. Business must leave us free for meditation and devout exercises. And in whatever way we use the world, whether the world of home, of culture, of trade and commerce, or of professional activity, it must be used in moderation and with due regard to its moral significance. "The earth hath he given to the children of men," that they may be more than earthly. "All things are yours." that ye may thereby be richer in Christ Jesus. Viewed in this light, it may not be proper to say that these things are "means of grace," but they are helpers and auxiliaries to goodness, and give us no small furtherance in the life Divine. Much, very much, in this worm is capable of a most blessed utility. Much of it will live forever, not in itself, but taken into us and assimilated and glorified. Bodily, how much that is bodily, is ever becoming eternally mental and spiritual! It is the immortal soul, born of God, redeemed by Christ, sanctified by the Holy Ghost, that saves material nature from being a picturesque show and a deceptions sham. Plentifully, indeed, she meets our physical wants, quite as lavishly our wishes, generously too our tastes, and yet, while guaranteeing her economic and intellectual uses with a royal magnificence, she is looking beyond and a far, and her thought is of the blessings that are imperishable. "The body is... for the Lord," and through the pathways of the body, the gates of the senses, the "vaults," the galleries," and passage ways that physiology assures us exist beneath the grey matter of the upper brain;—through these as highways what vast processions are daily moving heavenwards! Beauty and sublimity have not terminated their offices when they have flashed to the canvas of the painter or breathed themselves into the marble of the sculptor. Poetry has not finished her task when she has found a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Milton. Music has not been exhausted in the act of creating Mozart and Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Every one of these influences is what it is in itself, because of man's immortality. The training we get in the body and through the body, such as the subjugation of the material organization to the organism of the man, the clear common sense won by experience from toil and enterprise, the swift energy, the mastering will of achievement, the patience of endeavour, the heroism that works and waits, and the discipline of the social and rational man,—all this complicated training, which suffers no constituent of manhood to evade its grasp, has a reference distinctly providential to the future man. The idea of a Christian probation as altogether different from other conceivable probations, and as standing specifically by itself in the dispensations of the universe, runs through all the economic arrangements of our world. And hence the words of St. Paul, "Use this world as not abusing it," using it not to the full of the senses and the intellect and the sensibilities as if it were all, but using it as a world even now moving from beneath your feet, and which has no permanency except in the moral and spiritual impressions left by it upon your souls. "The fashion of this world passeth away;" the whole structure, the modes of existence, the relations of existence in their variety and multiplicity, all present objects, the totality which no mind can compute,—all this is in motion, the duration has been shortened, and the end is near at hand. Reviewing this argument of the apostle, may we not claim that it presents time in a light altogether new, that its estimate of duration is something intrinsically different from that measured by the time keeper of the heavens, and that it inspires our sense of successional moments in a way peculiar to itself? Nothing in us is more closely connected with the external framework of the universe than our sensibility to time. Yet, while this natural capacity is subjected to an outward machinery, it is also dominant over that machinery, so that an instant may be expanded into an hour or an hour into days. In this respect, moods assert a mastering force, emotions are well nigh omnipotent, and the heavenly orbs take their motions from our pulses. If Christianity took no knowledge of this phenomenon of experience, it would be strangely exceptional to its method of operating on man, which allows no recess of his being to remain unvisited by its light and warmth. Its teaching is, "The time is shortened," and it makes its doctrine available to practise us in the highest moral wisdom, using the world without abusing its relations. Now, it is worthy of notice that the civilization of our century has advanced in no direction more remarkably than in victory over time. The era opened with the steam engine, and has progressed with the telegraph and telephone, and, in each case, the triumph has been in a fuller control of time. Time has been shortened and yet lengthened, so that we do in weeks what our grandfathers required years to accomplish. Time has been intensified. Today in Europe is today in the backwoods of America, and the yesterday of China and Egypt is a part of the breakfast table talk of this morning. Obviously, sensuous life, in its connections and sympathies, gets the most, at present, of this stimulation. One, however, who takes a broad view of providence, cannot think that the tendency of this increased sensuousness is necessarily downwards into sensualism. For, indeed, Christianity is often most active where we least suspect its presence, since the "kingdom of God," in civilization as in all else, "cometh not with observation." This enhanced sensuousness, if we read aright the signs of the times, is gathering together a vast fund of raw materials for transformation into a more capacious and robust Christian manhood. Within the realm of natural law, Christianity is signalizing its power more and more, and the day is not distant when "uniformity," "evolution," "homologies," will have a wider and profounder interpretation than they have now. "The earth helped the woman;" it still helps the woman; and age by age the apocalyptic wonder reveals fresh wonders. Silently, unobserved by the multitude, hidden even front scientific thinkers, God is reclaiming nature for his Son; and he who, eighteen hundred years age, multiplied bread for the hungry, healed diseases, and established his claim as the Lord of nature, is making ready to reaffirm that sovereignty in a manner more resplendent than by miracles. And as to this matter of shortened and intensified time, who but the Lord Jesus as Son of man was the first sublime instance of ascendancy over the limitations of time? Thirty years of seclusion, three years of work, young manhood cut short in its prime, and yet those three years giving birth to centuries which, amid manifold evils, have yet steadily progressed in the direction of a regenerated humanity. For him, indeed, time was shortened, and his is the perfect example of using the world without the slightest abuse. And just in the proportion we have his Spirit, shall we feel that the soul has a calendar of days unknown in the chronometry of the material universe.—L.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
1 Corinthians 7:2
Christianity and marriage.
The human mind is influenced by the law of action and reaction, and hence human opinion tends to extremes. Corinth was a city famous, or rather infamous, for its licentiousness; not only was society corrupt; religion sanctioned and spread the prevalent moral corruption. No place was more remarkable for the union between splendour and impurity. When a Christian community was formed at Corinth, it was natural enough that some of the old leaven of sensuality should appear and threaten to corrupt the mass. Hence the tolerance of fornication and, in one case, even of adultery and incest. But what is remarkable is that in the very same society there should be a faction or a tendency of thought and sentiment in the direction of asceticism. There were those who represented all sexual intercourse as impure, and beneath the dignity and unworldliness of spiritual men. Paul himself, though his language was afterwards coloured by sectarian transcribers of his Epistle, was evidently somewhat inclined to severity in his judgment upon the relations between man and woman. Yet in this verse he honours and authorizes the estate of marriage.
I. MARRIAGE IS AN INSTITUTION AND RELATIONSHIP BASED UPON THE DIVINE COMMAND. This cannot be questioned by those who accept the Scriptures as credible and authoritative. The primeval commandment stands upon record, and witnesses both against the unrestrained and licentious intercourse which some have defended as natural, but which is really unnatural and debasing, and also against the ascetic doctrine, to which now and again religious societies have inclined, that all sexual feeling is sinful. It is noticeable that our Lord Jesus himself repeats and sanctions the original commandment as to the lawfulness and inviolability of marriage.
II. THE EXPRESS COMMAND IS IN HARMONY WITH THE CONSTITUTION AND NATURAL ADAPTATION OF THE SEXES. There is nothing arbitrary and meaningless in the provisions of the moral law. That law is written upon the heart and conscience, upon the very bodily frame of man, and is not simply uttered in the voice of the Divine Lawgiver. Whoever studies the human constitution in body and in mind cannot fail to recognize and admire the adaptation which is embodied in the sacred ordinance of matrimony.
III. MARRIAGE IS PROMOTIVE OF SOME OF THE BEST AND PUREST AFFECTIONS OF HUMAN NATURE IN THOSE WHOM IT UNITES. There is no institution which so emphatically strikes at the very root of selfishness. The man is weaned away from the too common practice of self gratification; the woman has called forth all the latent affection and devotion of her being; and the family becomes the sphere of self denial and self sacrifice, of mutual forbearance and helpfulness. That such is always the case is not asserted; but such is the proper, and to a very large extent the actual, tendency of this institution. True, there are those among the unmarried who cherish love which animates them to many labours; but there is no room for comparison between the virtues of the married and the unmarried, inasmuch as, amongst men, those who shrink from marriage usually do so avowedly to escape serious obligations and to indulge unbridled desires.
IV. MARRIAGE IS THE BEST PRESERVATIVE AGAINST VICE AND THE BEST AID TO VIRTUE. Paul seems to have admitted the contention of his Corinthian correspondents, that in some cases it was expedient to avoid marriage, and that such a course might be admirable in the passionless and peculiarly spiritual. But what in modern English is called "common sense" was very strong in the apostle, and he gives a very plain reason for a very plain precept. In the presence of the voluptuousness of Corinth there could be little need for many words; Paul's words are few and pungent. And whilst human nature is what it is, his counsels will hold good, and those of superfine and ascetic moralists will be discredited by the facts of human life.
V. BY MARRIAGE ARE SECURED THE WELFARE OF SOCIETY AND THE PROSPERITY OF THE CHURCH. The family is the true unit in human society, and the enemy of marriage is the enemy of humanity. It is in the family that virtuous and honourable citizens are bred and reared, and there principles are instilled which are at the foundation of national stability. And the old saying is equally true, that by marriage heaven itself is replenished. It is hence that the Church draws its members and its officers; it is here that the natural life anti the eternal life are alike commenced and nurtured.—T.
1 Corinthians 7:7
Distinct gifts.
Paul had peculiar natural powers, adapting him for a life of consecration and a life of service. But it was a beautiful feature in his character that he did not expect or wish all Christians to resemble himself in all things; such resemblance might be naturally pleasing to him, but his was too noble a nature to constrain him to see and judge all through his own medium. In fellow labourers he recognized adaptation for usefulness, and was evidently convinced that the distribution of Divine gifts was appointed by the wisdom and beneficence of the great Head over all things to the Church.
I. HUMAN ENDOWMENTS ARE DIVINE GIFTS. It is characteristic of a religious and devout mind to look up to the Source and Author of all. If to God we are to attribute the providential favours we enjoy, shall we suppose that even higher gifts are to be traced to an inferior source? Inspiration enabled our great teachers to see the Giver in the gift. The word here used is indeed often used to denote those special supernatural powers, such as healing, tongues, prophecy, which were bestowed upon members of the primitive Church for a season and for a purpose. But the context shows that those gifts which are ordinary are as justly to be traced to the favour and bounty of Heaven as those which are extraordinary. Indeed, it may asked of every Christian, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?"
II. DIVINE GIFTS ARE BESTOWED UPON MEN IN GREAT DIVERSITY AND VARIETY. "Every man hath his proper gift of God." It is so in bodily constitution—one has muscular strength, another constitutional endurance, a third manual dexterity, etc. It is so in temperament—one is calm and. wise, another is tender and sympathetic, a third is impulsive and commanding. It is so in intellectual character—one reasons with force, another persuades with fervour, a third speaks with eloquence. Where are two leaves of the forest alike, or two faces indistinguishable? So in the Church of Christ—one has the gift to rule, another the gift to teach, another the gift to console. One is fitted for a pastor, another for an evangelist. One is called to a public position, another is adapted to the service of the one Redeemer in private life.
III. THESE GIFTS ARE COMPLEMENTARY TO ONE ANOTHER, AND IN THEIR EXERCISE COOPERATE TO THE GENERAL GOOD, None can be spared. There is generosity, but no lavish waste, in the liberality of the Divine Giver. On the other hand, there is no deficiency, no grudging and withholding. Pray for the qualified workman, and the work shall not be left undone for want of the necessary helper, Because all things are Christ's, all things are ours. One supplies another's lack, and mutual sympathy and common ministrations subserve the general good.
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. Gratitude should be cultivated as due to him who is Giver of all.
2. Pride should be repressed; for if one has his gift he has to remember that it is a gift bestowed in grace.
3. Forbearance and toleration are requisite. It is vain to expect all gifts to centre in the same person, to look for what God has not bestowed, to complain because a man has "his proper gift" and only that.—T.
1 Corinthians 7:16
Earthly relationships sanctified to heavenly uses.
There were several obvious and powerful reasons why a Christian husband or wife should not leave a partner who was married in days when both were unbelievers, and who had not experienced conversion from heathenism or Judaism to Christianity. And to some extent the same reasons hold good when one has passed from merely nominal to real and spiritual Christianity.
1. An obligation has been undertaken from which only flagrant immorality can liberate either party.
2. Children may have been born during the union, whose welfare depends upon its continuance.
3. Affection may have sprung up which it would be a cruel outrage to suspend or check. And then, in addition, there is the reason given in the text.
4. The continuance of the union may make the Christian husband or wife the minister of spiritual blessing to the "unconverted" consort.
I. AN ATTRACTIVE REPRESENTATION MAY RE FURNISHED OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. The standard of moral excellence presented in the Word of God is indeed singularly high and admirable. But morality in a book is one thing, morality embodied in the life is quite another thing, Morality proclaimed from a pulpit is far less impressive than morality speaking from the domestic hearth. There are such virtues as truth, meekness, pity, patience, and charity, which are peculiarly Christian; and the exhibition of these is likely to lead to the inquiry—Whence come these traits of character? What is the secret of a life so different from the life of the selfish and the ungoverned? How many a husband has been won to Christ, beholding in his Christian wife a "a chaste conversation coupled with fear"!
II. AN UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE IN FAVOUR OF TRUE RELIGION MAY BE EXERCISED BY ONE PRAYERFULLY SOLICITOUS FOR THE SALVATION OF A SPOUSE. Who can know, unmoved, that a dear consort is seeking his spiritual welfare? There is a tone imparted to the intercourse of daily life by the habit of intercessory prayer. And there is a dignity, a gentleness, a spirituality, of manner and of language, which cannot escape the observation of such as are associated in the tenderest intimacies of life. There is no desire and prayer so all penetrating and all influential, as the desire and prayer for the spiritual and eternal welfare of those who are nearest and dearest, united by the most sacred and endearing of earthly ties.
III. AN OPPORTUNITY IS GIVEN IN THESE RELATIONSHIPS FOR EXPRESS INSTRUCTION AND PERSUASION WHICH MAY ISSUE IN SPIRITUAL GOOD. In many instances it may be unwise to make a special and formal effort to convince and to persuade; it may be better to leave religion to tell its own tale and do its own work. But cases do occur in which Providence makes an opening for an effort. Stanley's remark upon this verse is well worth quoting: "The verse so understood has probably conduced to the frequent instances of the conversion of unbelieving husbands by believing wives. Even the stern severity of Chrysostom relaxes in its presence into the declaration, 'that no teacher has such an effect in conversion as a wife,' and this passage, thus interpreted, probably had a direct influence on the marriage of Clotilde with Clovis, and Bertha with Ethelbert, and consequently on the subsequent conversion of the two great kingdoms of France and England to the Christian faith." There are few Christian ministers who from their own observation could not tell of similar instances in lowlier life, where God has blessed the influence of wife to husband, or of husband to wife, so that they have become heirs together of the grace of life. Whilst, on the one hand, the mere hope of exercising such influence should never lead a man or a woman to marry an unbeliever, on the other hand, when unequal unions have been formed, the possibility opened up in this verse should lead to wise and affectionate effort, and to earnest and unwearying prayer.—T.
1 Corinthians 7:19
Obedience is everything.
One great result of the introduction of Christianity into the world was to diminish the importance of trifles and to elevate great things into their due prominence. True religion thus acts by restoring to all things their due proportions, by putting all things in their due perspective. In religions of human device the greatest stress is laid upon what is valueless and things of supreme moment are ignored, in nothing is the religion of Christ more signally in contrast with and in advance of the religions of the heathen than in this vital point.
I. THE INDIFFERENCE OF OUTWARD POSITION AND OBSERVANCE. The great distinction in the time of the apostles and in the society in which they moved was the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, or, as it was the custom to express it, between the circumcision and the uncircumcision. But this distinction stands before us as representative of all external lines of demarcation, of all parties sundered by associations and observances amongst men. When the apostle says that circumcision and uncircumcision are "nothing," he uses very strong language, but he thus sets forth the insignificance of a man's birth, religious associations, reputation in this world, compared with his personal character. A lesson this which we find also in his Epistle to the Galatians, who, like the Corinthians, were assailed by false teachers who nought to substitute formality for spirituality. The inference is valid from this instance to all instances embraced in the general principle. It is to be observed that this apostolic teaching has two applications.
1. Those who insist upon forms are blamed for their narrowness.
2. Those who insist upon the neglect of forms are equally blamed for their intolerance. Neither one way nor the other is it allowable for one to dictate to another or to boast over another. The temperaments, habits, education, opinions, of Christians will probably decide whether or not they incline to express their religion in ceremonies or to dispense with such.
II. THE ALL IMPORTANCE OF AN OBEDIENT HEART AND LIFE. When it is affirmed that circumcision and uncircumcision are "nothing," it is suggested that the keeping of the Divine commandments is everything—that this is the one thing of supreme importance.
1. There is implied the evangelical motive to Christian obedience. Certainly Paul was the last to teach that the mere outward compliance and conformity were sufficient. The prohibitions of the Law may be Observed, yet the Searcher of hearts is not satisfied if the soul be not surrendered and devoted to him. And our Lord Jesus has very clearly and pointedly shown the relation between motive, and practice in his saving. "If love me, keep my commandments;" "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
2. Them is implied the supreme and righteous authority of God. It is too common, in representing the Creator as the Bestower of all gifts and as the Source of all grace, to overlook the very important and scriptural view of God as the just Governor and King of men. He has a right to command; all his ordinances and directions are in perfect harmony with the eternal and flawless moral law. It is not merely a superior power, it is a rightful authority to which we are bidden to submit, and to this our own reason and conscience unequivocally testify.
3. There is implied the universal range and sphere of the religious life. Not in an occasional act, not in an exceptional observance, lies our conformity to the Divine will. The commandments of God apply to the whole moral life of man, leave nothing untouched, unblest—they are "exceeding broad." All the activities of our nature and all the aspects of our life are contemplated and included in this comprehensive condition of true religion. The Jew and the Gentile, the young and the old, the learned and the illiterate, however they may be related to ceremonial observances, are all one in this—all can recognize the obligation to Christian obedience, and all can find in their several positions and avocations and relationships abundant opportunity for practically and cheerfully fulfilling the obligation they are alike in acknowledging.—T.
1 Corinthians 7:22, 1 Corinthians 7:23
Freedom and bondage.
To the mind of the apostle spiritual and immortal relations seemed so vast and momentous that they dwarfed those relations which are earthly and temporary. It may appear to some readers of this passage of the Epistle as if Paul did not attach enough importance to the conditions of life in which Christians may find themselves. But the fact is that the friendship of Christ and the hopes of eternity were so real and precious to him that all beside seemed insignificant; whilst the uncertainty attaching to the period of the present dispensation was so present to his mind that he could not concern himself very feelingly with what might so soon forever pass away.
I. THE BONDMAN'S FREEDOM. It is well known how very large a proportion of the Roman empire were slaves, and how pitiable was the condition of the whole class, how wretched and hopeless the condition of a large portion of the class. We cannot wonder that the gospel of Jesus Christ found so cordial and grateful a welcome from the bondmen in many cities of the empire. In many instances Christianity actually ameliorated the let of the slave; in many more it enabled the unfortunate to bear their trials with patience, and to look beyond them to the glorious liberty of the children of God. The Epistle to Philemon gives us an insight into the relations between a Christian master and a Christian slave. What was the secret of the change which began so auspiciously, and which has proceeded so surely and so beneficially with the lapse of centuries? That Christianity had from the first a tendency to put an end to such inequality, none can doubt. But deeper than the social movement was a spiritual energy which displayed itself in the individual life. Liberty of spirit compensated the yoke of bondage. The humblest slave cherished the assurance that he was the Lord's freeman. This honourable distinction, the privileges and immunities it brought, the hopes it inspired, made the heart contented and the life tranquil and bright. The same process may take place in cases very different, yet allied. There are in every state of society those whose position is lowly and whose earthly prospects are cheerless, who may nevertheless enjoy the conviction that the Lord, the Son, has made them free, so that they are free indeed, in the enjoyment of a spiritual liberty and all its privileges and anticipations.
II. THE FREEMAN'S BONDAGE. The passage contains a twofold paradox: it presents us with a slave enfranchised, and with a freeman in bonds. If the poor slave was encouraged not to allow his chains to tie him in spirit to the earth, the freeman was reminded that, "called in the Lord," he was captive to a Divine will and consecrated to a Divine service.
1. The cause and explanation of this servitude. The Christian is reminded that he is "bought with a price." Brought into a new bondage by the purchase of a Saviour's blood, he is no more his own. Thus Christ and his sufferings are represented as the source of the new obligations which the ransomed have contracted.
2. The negative side of the change thus effected. It is a grand and stirring appeal of the apostle: "Be not ye the servants of men." Alas! what multitudes subject themselves to a base thraldom, in accepting the chains of human slavery, whilst they disdain the easy yoke of the Redeemer! But it is the prerogative of the Christian to be superior alike to human judgment and to human authority.
3. The positive side. He is "Christ's servant" who is called in the Lord, although free in a civil sense. From Paul's own biography we are able to form a judgment as to the value which he set on Roman citizenship. But his highest honour was to subject and devote his powers to his Saviour. So far from there being any degradation, any ignominy in such service, it is most honourable, most illustrious. Yet it must be something more than a name; it involves the bringing, not of the life only, but of every thought, "into captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ."—T.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
"The time is short."
There is, and there ought to be, a marked difference between the conduct of the Christian and that of the unbeliever. This difference originates primarily in the new principles with which the mind of the disciple of Christ is possessed and by which it is governed; the faith and gratitude towards the Saviour which constitute and mark the man a Christian make him a new man. Yet there is another, beside this loftiest reason, for the outward differences in this the apostle refers; the rapidly approaching end of the present dispensation, when really expected, must exercise considerable influence over the Christian's life.
I. THE TRANSITORINESS AND PERISHABLENESS OF THE PRESENT STATE AND OF ALL THAT PERTAINS TO IT IS A POWERFUL MOTIVE OVER THE CHRISTIAN'S MIND AND LIFE. The apostle puts this matter in two lights.
1. The time is short, contracted into a small compass. This must be taken in connection with the eternity of God, with whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day;" and also in connection with the mortality of man, whose days on earth are as a shadow whose life passes as the swift ships. The season, or dispensation, in which our earthly work is to be done and our earthly witness borne, is fleeting. "The day and the hour knoweth no man; yet our Lord's language is ever, "Watch!"
2. "The fashion of this world passeth away." It is like a cloud shadow on the sea, a wind wave on the corn, a meteor in the sky. Of this pathetic truth all human history is a proof, and the events of every generation an illustration that to the reflective cannot fail to be impressive. Nothing continueth in one stay. The first Christians seem sometimes to have been possessed with the conviction that the end of the age and the advent of the Lord were very near. Nearer still are they to us, who are admonished to live under the influence of the sublime expectation.
II. HUMAN LIFE ABOUNDS WITH OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXHIBITING THE PRACTICAL POWER OF THIS PRINCIPLE AND MOTIVE.
1. Human relationships are influenced by the considerations adduced. The apostle refers especially to marriage, because it was the question concerning the expediency of matrimony which occasioned the introduction of the great principle of the passage. On account of present uncertainties and the pressure of the time, Paul thought it well for some Christians not to marry, and for the married to be on their guard against absorption in family cares.
2. Human emotions should be moderated by the same considerations. There is no room for extreme joy or sorrow when the events which occasion these feelings are themselves upon the wing. The emotions are not forbidden, but excessive indulgence of them is deprecated.
3. Human business cannot be allowed to be too absorbing; for property will soon be valueless, and the worm itself will vanish and be no more seen. How obvious the duty to hold earthly possessions with a light hand, and to use the world and all it contains with a wise discretion, and to avoid misusing what is so little able to afford a lasting satisfaction!—T.
HOMILIES BY E. HURNDALL
1 Corinthians 7:1, 1 Corinthians 7:2, 1 Corinthians 7:7-9, 1 Corinthians 7:25-35
Celibacy and marriage.