The world had been in a long estrangement from God; His dealings (such seems the force of the Apostle's words) had awakened in the heart of mankind a sense of hostility and offence. Suddenly a great manifestation of Divine love was announced, which wherever the tidings were brought awakened feelings never known before. These feelings resolved themselves into two kinds: A conciousness of the complete separation of the present from the past, so complete as to be compared by the Apostle to a new creation1; and a consciousness of a return to God after long separation; and that return by the nature of the case, including, not merely the Jewish nation, but the whole world.2 And the practical effect of these feelings was, in the mind of the Apostle, a complete self-devotion to the good of others. "The love" which Christ had shown "constrained him" to live, not for himself, but for Him who died for him and rose again 3; and this in spite of hardships and difficulties of every description.*

This is the substance of Christianity, as it appeared to the Apostle. His statement of it is important in many ways. First. It explains how it was that the proclamation of the glad tidings of Christ's death fell to the lot, beyond all others, of the Apostle of the Gentiles. To us, the idea of the "atonement" or "reconciliation" of man to God, and the idea of the admission of the Gentiles, have ordinarily no connexion with each other. To St. Paul, the two ideas were inseparable. He could not imagine the death of Christ to involve less universal consequences than the reconciliation of the whole world. What the Christian poet of later times has beautifully said of it with regard to the previous generations of mankind,

"Now of thy love we deem

As of an ocean vast,

Rising in tides against the stream

Of ages gone and past :"

was to the Apostle emphatically true of all the existing, and, if he looked so far, of all the future generations of the world.

Secondly. It is remarkable, as expressing most strongly the view everywhere given in the New Testament, of Christ's death, that it was the effect and manifestation, not of the wrath, or justice, or vengeance of God, but of His love; of the love not only of Christ, but in the most emphatic sense, of God also. It was not God that was reconciled, and man that was thereby induced to love; but God that showed His love, and thereby brought back mankind from its long enmity with Him. It was not God that was to be appeased, and Christ that was to appease, but "God was in Christ," and the result was the Death of Christ for man. Humble as in the eyes of the contemporary world that solitary Death might seem, it expressed and implied nothing less than the Universal Love of the Almighty.

Thirdly. It shows how completely the Apostle regarded the death of Christ as a new epoch in the history of the human race. Had he foreseen distinctly that a new era would be dated from that time; that a new society, philosophy, literature, moral code, would grow up from it over continents of which he knew not the existence; he could not have more strongly expressed his sense of the greatness of the event than in what is here said of "old things passing away, and all things becoming new." We regard Christianity as belonging to the old age and ancient institutions; he regarded it as the seed and spring-time of a new world. His eye is fixed

1

1 v. 16. 17.

on the future. He is the Prophet of what is to come no less than the Apostle of what has been.

Fourthly. It shows more clearly then elsewhere the motive to which the Apostle ascribes his great exertions. "The love of Christ constrained him." Of the reality of that Love his own life was and is the best proof and explanation. There had appeared on the earth (so we must endeavour to conceive his feelings) an exhibition of love, such as had never before been seen, Whatever influence the force of example or the sentiment of gratitude brings to bear upon the human mind, was now in the highest degree exercised upon the mind of St. Paul. To follow where Christ had gone before, to requite His love by carrying out His work, became the Apostle's master passion. The love which Christ had shown to him became the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being. We know that in the events of the Exodus we have found the first origin of the idea of the severe Law of an Unseen God, which became henceforward the inalienable possession of the Jewish race. We know that in the teaching of Socrates we have tracked to its source the spirit of self-inquiry, since propagated through all European philosophy. So, but in a far higher sense, the Love of Christ roused in the minds of His disciples a sense of the reality and the power of love, which became the spring of a new life to them, and through them to the world; and, amidst manifold weakness and error, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, in the zeal of missionaries, in the benevolence of Sisters of Mercy, in the service of the poor and ignorant and afflicted, there have been thousands of acts and lives of self-devotion, which can be traced up to nothing lower than this self-same motive.

(4.) The Arrival of Titus: continued from II. 16.

VI. 11-VII. 16.

11 Τὸ στόμα ἡμῶν ἀνέωγεν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, Κορίνθιοι, ἡ καρδία

11. In the previous verses, the long train of digressions which had broken in upon the Apostle's argument in ii. 16., had been gradually drawing to a conclusion. The thought of the reconciliation with God, to which they were invited (v. 19-21.), awakens the thought of their reconciliation with him; and the impassioned description of his own sufferings (vi. 4-10.) naturally prepares the way for throwing himself upon their sympathy. Here, accordingly, the long-suppressed feeling finds its vent, the under-current of deep affection which had been from time to time appearing above the surface in iii. 2-3., iv. 12-15., v. 13., now bursts into sight, following almost in the same words as the similar passage in 1 Cor. iv. 14-16. on the account of his victory through sufferings. (Compare especially, "I speak to you as to children," in verse 13. with 1 Cor. iv. 14.) It is as though the veil which had hitherto hung between the Apostle and his readers, was suddenly rolled away; we see them standing face to face, his utterance, so long choked by the counter-currents of contending emotions, is now, for

the first time, clear and distinct
(Tò σтóμа ημôv ȧvewryev), and
στόμα ἡμῶν
for the only time in the two
Epistles he calls them by their
name (Κορίνθιοι). With the
loosing of his tongue his heart
opens also, that heart which
was, as Chrysostom calls it,
the
the heart of the world,
opens to receive in its large
capacities his thousand friends
(ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν πεπλάτυνται);
whatever narrowness of af-
fection, whatever check to the
yearnings of soul between them
might exist, was not on his
part, but on theirs (où σTEVO-
χωρεῖσθε ἐν ἡμῖν, στενοχωρεῖσθε
δὲ ἐν τοις σπλάγχνοις ὑμῶν),
the only reward which he
claimed for his paternal tender-

ness

was a greater openness from them, his spiritual chil dren (τὴν αὐτὴν ἀντιμισθίαν (ὡς τέκνοις λέγω) πλατύνθητε καὶ ὑμεῖς).

ἠνοίξαμεν

For the particular expressions, it is to be observed, that ȧvéwys expresses the present tense (as in 1 Cor. xvi. 9.), and is thus distinct from voltaμev τὸ στόμα ἡμῶν, " we spoke to you;" whereas TETTUVтaι expresses the perfect, and so indicates that the opening of his mouth follows upon the opening of his heart. "Whilst my words find free

ἡμῶν πεπλάτυνται· 12 οὐ στενοχωρεῖσθε ἐν ἡμῖν, στενοχωρεῖσθε δὲ ἐν τοῖς σπλάγχνοις ὑμῶν· 13 τὴν δὲ αὐτὴν ἀντιμι dè