Chapter 21

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 of mind that he has to warn them solemnly of the fearful example of the old Israelites, who perished in the wilderness for their sins--as they will perish, he hints, unless they mend.

And yet he begins by thanking God for them, by speaking of them, and to them, in this cheerful and hopeful tone.

Does that seem strange? Why should it seem strange, my friends, to us, if we are in the habit of training our children, and rebuking our children, as we ought? If we have to rebuke our children for doing wrong, do we begin by trying to break their hearts? by raking up old offences, by reproaching them with all the wrong they ever did in their lives, and giving them to understand that they are