d therefore their life and their love, and the grace of it, will
last as long as Christ's life and Christ's love, and Christ's grace last-
-and that will be for ever and ever.

SERMON XXI. FATHER AND CHILD

Eversley. 1861.

1 Cor. i. 4, 5, 7. "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace
of God which is given you by Jesus Christ. That in every thing ye are
enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge . . . So that ye
come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the
day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This text is a very important one. It ought to teach me how I should
treat you. It ought to teach you how you should treat your children. It
ought to teach you how God, your heavenly Father, treats you. You see at
the first glance how cheerful and hopeful St Paul is about these
Corinthians. He is always thanking God, he says, about them, for the
grace of God which was given them by Jesus Christ, that in everything
they were enriched by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge. And he
has good hope for them. Nay, he seems to be certain about them, that
they will persevere, and conquer, and be saved; for Christ Himself will
confirm them (that is strengthen them) to the end, that they may be
blameless in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If we knew no more of these Corinthians than what these words tell us, we
should suppose that they were very great saints, leading holy and
irreproachable lives before God and man. But we know that it was not so.
That they were going on very ill. That this is the beginning of an
epistle in which St Paul is going to rebuke them very severely; and to
tell them, that unless they mend, they will surely become reprobates, and
be lost after all. He is going to rebuke them for having heresies among
them, that is religious parties and religious quarrels--very much as we
have now; for being puffed up with spiritual self-conceit; for despising
and disparaging him; for loose lives, allowing (in one case) such a crime
among them as even the heathen did not allow; for profaning the Lord's
Supper, to such an extent that some seem even to have got drunk at it;
for want of charity to each other; for indulging in fanatical excitement;
for denying, some of them, the resurrection of the dead; on the whole,
for being in so unwholesome a state o