The next thing we observe as influencing Corinthian society is, that it was the seat of a Roman provincial government. There was there a deputy, that is, a proconsul. "Gallio was deputy of Achaia." Let it surprise no one if I say that this was an influence favorable to Christianity. The doctrine of Christ had not as yet come into direct antagonism with Heathenism. It is true that throughout the Acts we read of persecution coming from the Greeks, but at the same time we invariably find that it was the Jews who had " stirred up the Greeks.' The persecution always arose first on the part of the Jews; and, indeed, until it became evident that in Christianity there was a Power before which all the principalities of evil, all tyranny and wrong, must perish, the Roman magistrates generally defended it, and interposed their authority between the Christians and their fierce enemies. A signal instance of this is related in this chapter. Gallio, the Roman proconsul, dismisses the charge brought against the Christians. "And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: But if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look it; for I will be no judge of such matters."

ye to

And his judgment was followed by a similar verdict from the people; for Sosthenes, the ringleader of the accusation, was beaten by the mob before the judgment seat. And "Gallio cared for none of these things,' that is, he took no notice of them, he would not interfere; he was, perhaps, even glad that a kind of wild, irregular justice was administered to one who had been foremost in bringing an unjust charge. So that instead of Gallio being, as the commentators make him, a sort of type of religious lukewarmness, he is really a specimen of an upright Roman magistrate. But what principally concerns us in the story now is, that it is an example of the way in which the existence of the Roman Government at Corinth was, on the whole, an advantage for the spread of the Gospel.

The last element in this complex community was the Jews. Every city, Greek or Roman, at this time was rife with them. Then, as now, they had that national peculiarity which scatters them among all nations, while it prevents them from amalgamating with any, which makes them worshippers of Mammon, and yet withal, ready to suffer all things, and even to die for their faith. In their way they were religious; but it was a blind and bigoted adherence to the sensuous side of religion. They had almost ceased to believe in a living God, but they were strenuous believers in the virtue of ordinances. God to them only existed for the benefit of the Jewish nation. To them a Messiah must be a World-Prince. To them a new revelation could only be substantiated by marvels and miracles. To them it could have no self-evident spiritual light; and St. Paul, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, describes the difficulty which this tendency put in the way of the progress of the Gospel among them thus: "The Jews require a sign."

II. Respecting the Apostle Paul.

To this society, so constituted, so complex, so manifold, St. Paul came, assured that he was in possession of a truth which was adapted and addressed to all," the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile."

Now, for this work he was peculiarly assisted and prepared.

1. By the fellowship of Aquila and Priscilla. We read that when he came to Corinth he found a certain Jew named Aquila, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because that Claudius had commanded. all the Jews to depart from Rome; and that he came to them.

St. Paul had a peculiar gift from God, the power of doing without those solaces which ordinary men require. But we should greatly mistake that noble heart and rare nature, if we conceived of it as hard, stern, and incapable of tender human sympathies. Remem

ber how, when anxious about these very Corinthians, "he felt no rest when he found not Titus his brother, at Troas." Recollect his gentle yearnings after the recovery of Epaphroditus. Such an one thrown alone upon a teeming, busy, commercial population, as he was at Corinth, would have felt crushed. Alone he had been left, for he had sent back his usual companions on several missions. His spirit had been pressed within him at Athens when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. But that was not so oppressive as the sight of human masses, crowding, hurrying, driving together, all engaged in the mere business of getting rich, or in the more degrading work of seeking mere sensual enjoyment. Nothing so depresses as that. In this crisis, Providential arrangements had prepared for him the assistance of Priscilla and Aquila. In their house he found a home in their society, companionship. Altogether with them, he gained that refreshment for his spirit, without which it would have been perilous for him to have entered on his work in Corinth.

2. He was sustained by manual work. He wrought with his friends as a tent-maker. That was his "craft.' For by the rabbinical law, all Jews were taught a trade. One rabbi had said, that he who did not teach his son a trade, instructed him to steal. Another had declared that the study of theology along with a trade was good for the soul, and without it a temptation from the devil. So, too, it was the custom of the monastic institutions to compel every brother to work, not only for the purpose of supporting the monastery, but also to prevent the entrance of evil thoughts. A wise lesson! For in a life like that of Corinth, in gaiety, or the merely thoughtful existence, in that state of leisure to which so many minds are exposed, woe and trial to the spirit that has nothing for the hands to do! Misery to him or her who emancipates himself or herself from the universal law, "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." Evil thoughts, despondency, sensual feelings, sin in every shape is before him, to beset and madden, often to ruin him.

3. By the rich experience he had gained in Athens. There the Apostle had met the philosophers on their own ground. He had shown them that there was a want in Human Nature to which the Gospel was adapted; he had spoken of their cravings after the Unknown; he had declared that he had to preach to them that which they, unconsciously, desired: he had stripped their worship of its anthropomorphism, and had manifested to them that the residuum was the germ of Christianity. And his speech was triumphant as oratory, as logic, and as a specimen of philosophic thought; but in its bearing on conversion, it was unsuccessful. His work at Athens was a failure; Dionysius and a few women are all we read of as converted. There was no church at Athens.

Richly taught by this, he came to Corinth and preached no longer to the wise, the learned, or the rich. "Ye see your calling, brethren," he said, "how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." God had chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith. He no longer confronted the philosopher on his own ground, or tried to accommodate the Gospel to his tastes and then that memorable resolve is recorded, "I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Not the crucifixion of Christ; but Christ, and that Christ crucified. He preached Christ, though crucified; Christ crucified, though the Greeks might mock and the Jews reject Him with scorn Christ as Christianity; Christ His own evidence. We know the result; the Church of Corinth, the largest and noblest harvest ever given to ministerial toil.

LECTURE II.

JUNE 8, 1851.

1 CORINTHIANS, i. 1-3.- " Paul called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. and Sosthenes our brother,- Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.'

OUR discourse last Sunday put us in possession of the state of Corinth when the Apostle entered it. We know what Corinth was intellectually, politically, morally, and socially. We learned that it contained a democratic population. We found it commercial, rich, and immoral from its being a trading seaport. We spoke of its Roman government, which on the whole acted fairly at that time toward Christianity; of its Greek inhabitants, of whom the richer were sceptics who had lost their religion, and the poorer still full of superstitions, as we discover from the notices of heathen sacrifices which pervade these Epistles. And the last element was the Jewish population, who were devoted to a religion of signs and ordinances.

Our subject for to-day comprises the first three verses of this chapter. From these we take three points for investigation

I. The designation of the writers. II. The description of the

III. The benediction.

persons

addressed.

I. The designation of the writers. Paul "an Apostle"-Sosthenes " our brother."

An apostle means "one sent," a missionary to teach the truth committed