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CHAP. VI.

THE DISINTERESTEDNESS OF SAINT PAUL.

THE perfection of the Christian cha

racter does not so much consist in this excellence, or that talent, or the other virtue; in the performance of some right action, or the abstinence from some wrong one, as in the determination of the whole soul for God. This generous surrender of self, whether of the sensual or of the intellectual self, is the unequivocal test of a heart consecrated by man to his Maker. He has no by-ends, no secret reserves. His intention is single, his way is straight forward; he keeps his end in view without deflection, and he pursues it without weariness.

Saint Paul and his associates were the first moral instructors who preached not themselves. Perhaps there is scarcely a more striking proof of the grandeur of his spirit, than his indifference to popularity. This is an elevation of charaeter, which not only no Pagan sage has reached, but which not every Christian teacher has been found to attain.

This successful apostle was so far from placing himself at the head of a sect, that he took pains to avoid it. In some subsequent instructors, this vanity was probably the first seed of heresy; the sound of Ebionites and Marcionites would as much gratify the ear of the founders, as bringing over proselytes to their opinions would delight their feelings. Saint Paul would have rejected with horror any such distinction. He who earnestly sought to glorify his Master, would naturally abase himself. With a holy indignation he asks, “What

"then is Paul, and what is Apollos, but "ministers by whom ye believed?" He points out to them the littleness of such exclusive fondness in men, who had such great objects in view" overvalue not "Paul or Apollos as yours, for all things "are yours."

It is impossible not to stop a moment, in order to notice the fine structure of the period to which these words are an introduction. It would be difficult to find a more finished climax: "Let no "man glory in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or

Cephas; or the world, or life, or death; or things present, or things to come; "all are yours, and you are Christ's, and "Christ is God's." *

Knowing the proneness of human nature to this party spirit, he takes pains

*1 Corinth. iii. 22.

to prevent excessive individual attachments. There is no instance of a man so distinguished, so little distinguishing himself. He chooses to merge himself in the general cause, to sink himself in the mass of faithful ministers. This is particularly evident in the beginning of many of his Epistles, by his humility in attaching to his own, some name of far inferior note, as his associate in the work; "Paul and Sosthenes" "Paul "and Sylvanus" "ther;" and in writing to the Thessalonians, he connects both the latter names with his own,

"Timotheus our bro

He laboured to make the people bear in mind that the apostles were the disseminators, not the authors, of the faith which they preached. Miraculous as his conversion had been, superior as were his endowments, favoured as he was by Divine inspiration, he not only did not assume, but he rejected, any dis

tinction, and only included himself among the teachers of their common Christianity. Thus he bequeathed to his successors a standing pattern of humility, and of the duty of ascribing their talents, their application, and their success, to Him, from whom, whatever advantages they possess, are derived.

Saint Paul did not rank, on the one hand, with those liberal modern philosophers, who assert that virtue is its own reward; nor, on the other, with those abstracted mystics, who profess an unnatural disinterestedness, and a superhuman disdain of any recompence but that which they find in the pure love of God. He was not above accepting heaven, not for any works of righteousness which he had done, but as the free gift of God through the righteousness that had been wrought for him. He was not too proud and independent to confess, that the

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