I. A PRIDE GENERATING KNOWLEDGE. "Knowledge puffeth up." One that is —

1. Merely intellectual. A stock of mental conceptions, concerning objects material or spiritual, referring to the creature or to the Creator. Now such knowledge tends to self-conceit.

2. Essentially superficial. The more superficial mere intellectual knowledge the stronger its tendency. The men who go farthest into the essence of things, take the widest view of the domain of knowledge, will be the least disposed to self-elation.

II. A MAN-EDIFYING KNOWLEDGE.

1. "Charity," or love to God, is the true knowledge. Love is the life and soul of all true science. Love is the root of the universe, and you must have love rightly to interpret love.

2. This true knowledge builds up the soul; not as a house is built up, by putting dead stones and timber together, but as the oak is built up, by the appropriating force of its own life, compelling nature to deepen its roots, extend its bulk, multiply its branches, and push it higher towards the heavens.

3. This true knowledge insures the approval of God (ver. 3). In the last day, Christ will say to those who have not this love, "I never knew" — i.e., approved of — "you." This love for God in the heart converts the tree of intellectual knowledge into the tree of life.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

A great controversy is going on in the matter of education. One partly extols the value of instruction, the other insists that secular education without religion is worse than useless: Paul spoke of both as secular and worthless without love. That knowledge which he treated so slightingly was —

I. KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT HUMILITY. It is not so much what is known as the spirit in which it is acquired which makes the difference between secular and Christian knowledge (ver. 2). The greatest of modern philosophers and historians, Humboldt and Niebuhr, were both eminently humble men. So, too, you will find that real talent among mechanics is generally united to great humility. Whereas those puffed up by knowledge are those who have a few religious maxims and shallow doctrines. There are two ways therefore of knowing. One is that of the man who loves to calculate how far he is advanced beyond others; the other, that of the man who feels how infinite knowledge is, and how little he knows.

II. LIBERTY WITHOUT REVERENCE. The men whom the apostle rebukes were free from many superstitions. An idol, they said, was nothing in the world. But it is not merely freedom from superstition which is worship of God, but loving dependence on Him; the surrender of self. "If any man love God, the same is known of Him," i.e., God acknowledges the likeness of spirit. There is much of the spirit of these Corinthians now. Men throw off what they call the trammels of superstitions, and then call themselves free: they think it grand thing to reverence nothing. This is not high knowledge. It is a great thing to be free from mental slavery, but suppose you are still a slave to your passions? From bonds of the spirit Christianity has freed us, but it has bound us to God (vers. 5, 6). The true freedom from superstition is free service to religion: the real emancipation from false gods is reverence for the true God. And not merely is this the only real knowledge, but no other knowledge "buildeth up" the soul. "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Separate from love, the more we know, the profounder the mystery of life, and the more dreary existence becomes. I can conceive no dying hour more awful than that of one who has aspired to know instead of to love, and finds himself at last amidst a world of barren facts and lifeless theories.

III. COMPREHENSION WITHOUT LOVE TO MAN. These Corinthians had got a most clear conception of what Christianity was (vers. 4-6). "Well," said the apostle, "and what signifies your profession of that, if you look down with supreme contempt on your ignorant brothers, who cannot reach to these sublime contemplations?" Knowledge such as this is not advance, but retrogression. How immeasurably superior in the sight of God is some benighted Romanist who has gone about doing good, or some ignorant, narrow religionist who has sacrificed time and property to Christ, to the most correct theologian in whose heart there is no love for his fellow-men. Breadth of view is not breadth of heart; the substance of Christianity is love to God and man. Hence it is a precious fact that St. Paul, the apostle of liberty, whose burning intellect expounded the whole philosophy of Christianity, should have been the one to say that knowledge is nothing compared to charity, nay, worse than nothing without it: should have been the one to declare that "knowledge shall vanish away, but love never faileth."

(F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

No person ever entertained a higher idea of true wisdom than St. Paul, but he saw that learning makes not the man of God perfect, and that the complete scholar may fall short at last of the kingdom of heaven. He saw that spiritual, like bodily wealth, unless used for the benefit of others, would prove no blessing to its owner. And therefore, that the wise man might not glory in his wisdom, the apostle determines that, not only human learning, but the knowledge of all prophecies and mysteries, will profit nothing if charity be not superadded.

I. KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT CHARITY ENDETH IN PRIDE.

1. It produces an inflation in the mind, which, like a tumour in the body, carries the appearance of solidity, but has in reality nothing within, and only indicates a distempered habit. And, indeed, knowledge, as well as faith, if it be alone, is vain — it is dead. For all knowledge is given as a means to some end. The means, abstracted from their end, cease to be means, and answer no purpose whatsoever. The end of knowledge is action (John 13:17). Every article of the creed involves in it a correspondent duty, and it is practice alone that gives life to faith and realises knowledge. "The manifestation of the Spirit (as that Spirit Himself testifies) is given to every man to profit withal." Otherwise it is of no effect, and the man becomes "a cloud without water"; raised aloft it sails before the wind, proudly swelling in the sufficiency of its own emptiness, instead of dropping plenty on the lands over which it passes.

2. Consider the instances of this truth.(1) Ascend into heaven and there view the glories that once encircled Lucifer (cf. Ezekiel 28:12). He saw, he knew; but he loved not, and through pride he fell. A proof, to the learned of all ages, that knowledge without charity will turn a good angel into an evil one.(2) Yet this has all along been the fatal mistake, and the tree of knowledge still proved the occasion of a fall. Knowledge wrought destruction by pride. "The serpent," says Eve, "beguiled me"; lit., elated, puffed me up. All the fruits of error and vice have sprung from the same root of bitterness.(3) Take the case of the Gentiles (Romans 1:21). Lack of knowledge was not their original fault; "they knew God." But knowledge in the understanding for want of charity in the heart did not operate to a holy obedience. "When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful."(4) Turn to the Jew. "Having the form of knowledge, and of the truth in the law." Yet knowledge puffed him up; his privileges became an occasion of boasting himself against his brethren, and envy ate out his charity. "Going about to establish his own righteousness" upon the strength of his own wisdom, he rejected the Lord his righteousness, and nailed Him, who is the source of wisdom, to the Cross.(5) When the distinction of Jew and Gentile ceased, and one Church comprehended all believers, knowledge puffed men up into heretics and schismatics. Pride made them rather choose to see themselves exalted at the head of a faction, than the Church edified by their labours in an inferior station. This was the case in the Church of Corinth, and has been the cause of every heresy and schism since.

II. CHARITY DIRECTETH KNOWLEDGE TO ITS RIGHT END — the edification of the Church. This will be seen in some instances the reverse of the foregoing.

1. If we ascend a second time into heaven, we shall find that the principle which triumphed over the proud knowledge of Lucifer was the wisdom of God actuated by love. In our redemption, wisdom contrived, power executed, but love set all to work, and perfected and crowned the whole.

2. To reverse the sad effects of a vain thirst after knowledge in our first parent, Divine love became incarnate. All that He did and suffered was because He loved us. Because man, by the temptation of knowledge, was seduced to infidelity and disobedience, He encountered and overcame the tempter by the Word of God, and by love keeping the commandments. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Him were not suffered to rust and canker, locked up from the public by a supercilious reservedness, but out of them He continually dispersed abroad, and gave to the poor in spirit. On the Cross love regained what pride had lost, and the wound made in our nature by the fruit of the tree of knowledge was healed by the leaves of the tree of life.

3. To combat the vain wisdom of the Greek, and the self-justifying arrogance of the Jew, the apostles were sent forth. The strongholds of false knowledge could not stand before the gospel. Blasted by the lightning of inspired eloquence, the arm of false philosophy withered and lost all its holds on the minds of men. "The Roman empire wondered to see itself Christian; to see the Cross exalted in triumph over the globe, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. But what was it that gained this victory over the pride of earth and hell? What, but the same all-suffering, and, therefore, all-subduing charity which taught the disciples of a crucified Jesus, after His example, to endure all things for the salvation of their brethren?

4. If we view the unity of a primitive church, as opposed to the sad divisions and distractions since produced by heresy and schism, it will appear that charity built up that solid and durable edifice. As at its formation, the Spirit descended upon the disciples, when "they were all with one accord in one place," so, in like manner, after more were added to them, it is remarked that "the multitude of the believers were of one heart and one mind." The spirit of unity knit all the members together, insomuch that if one member suffered the rest sympathised with it, And thus they "grew up into Him in all things, even Christ... made increase of the body to the edifying itself in love."

(Bp. Horne.)

I. KNOWLEDGE PUFFETH UP.

1. This applies to all knowledge, whether human or Divine, when unaccompanied with love to God.

2. Its effect is —(1) To inflate men's notions of the powers of human reason and the importance of human knowledge.(2) To encourage self-confidence and conceit.

3. The reason —(1) Knowledge without faith acts upon the intellect, but leaves the heart untouched.

II. LOVE EDIFIETH.

1. Love —

(1)Depends on faith.

(2)Implies confidence, submission, obedience, sacrifice.

2. Its effect. It edifies —

(1)By strengthening the understanding and the will.

(2)By building up the moral character.

(3)By elevating the spirit.

(4)By bringing man into direct communion with God.

(J. Lyth, D. D.)

This knowledge is not secular as distinguished from Divine and theological, but knowledge of Divine things without love — knowledge by itself as distinguished from the knowledge of Divine things with love. The same contrast is drawn out more at length in chap. 1 Corinthians 13.; but as there he is led to speak of it chiefly by insisting on the superiority of active usefulness to spiritual ecstasies, so here he is led to speak of it by insisting on the superiority of that love which shows a regard for the consciences of others, over that knowledge which rests satisfied in its own enlightened insight into the folly of human superstition. Knowledge such as this may indeed expand the mind, but it is a mere inflation, as of a bubble, which bursts and vanishes away. Love alone succeeds in building up an edifice tier above tier, solid alike in superstructure and in basis, so as to last for ever.

(Dean Stanley.)

I. THEY ARE BOTH EXCELLENT.

1. The pupil of Gamaliel would have been the last to speak slightingly of real knowledge. How much has knowledge accomplished in the world! Ignorance is a fool's paradise; knowledge is power.

2. And how excellent is love. How dull and sad and more prolific in crime the world would be without it! One's only regret is that there is so little of it. Herein heaven and earth contrast. The triumphs of knowledge are great, but greater are the victories of love.

II. THEY ARE COMPLEMENTARY.

1. Knowledge without love leads to —

(1)Pride.

(2)Intolerance.

(3)Selfishness.

(4)Injury to others.

(5)Many blunders in thought, feeling, and action.

2. Love without knowledge leads to moral catastrophe. Knowledge is necessary to determine within what limits we may rightly act; love determines what within the limits of the" lawful "we should choose.

3. Knowledge and love united lead to that more perfect, penetrating, true practical knowledge, the opposite of that described in ver. 2. E.g., a man may know God as God — have some conception of the Divine attributes, &c., but when he loves God his knowledge makes incalculable strides.

(W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)

These beautiful words are introduced into a discussion which has long ceased to have any practical interest. In pagan Corinth the banquet and the sacrifice were part of the same proceeding. The animal was slain and offered to the gods. Then the priest claimed his part, and the rest was taken home and used in providing a feast. To these feasts the pagans invited their friends, and some of these friends might be Christians. The question was, Could they conscientiously go? Some, the most simple, honest, earnest souls, said, No. It was recognising idolatry, it was disloyalty to Christ; or, to say the best of it that could be said, it was going into evil associations and temptation. Others who prided themselves on their superior knowledge laughed at these scruples. We know, they said, that there are no gods except One. The offering of the sacrifice to them is an empty farce. The meat has not been polluted at all. We have discernment enough to share in the feast without recognising the occasion of it. We can rejoice with these pagans, and at the same time smile at their superstitions. It is only weak, ignorant natures that will hold aloof from these harmless enjoyments through the fear of being drawn into sin. The pride of knowledge and its accompanying disdain and want of consideration towards their less-instructed brethren were their distinguishing features. Knowledge puffeth up, charity edifieth. Knowledge passeth away, charity abides for ever. Knowledge sees through coloured glass darkly, love sees face to face. Knowledge may be greatest in devils, love makes angels and saints. Knowledge is temporal and earthly, ever changing with the fashions of earth; love is God-like, heavenly, immortal, enduring like the mercy of the Lord for ever. Now, if any other of the apostles had written in this way about knowledge, men would have been found ready to quote against him the old fable of AEsop about the grapes. Untutored peasants and fishermen lifting up their voices in disparagement of knowledge would have furnished the intellectual scorner with a convenient sarcasm. Ah, yes, these men were ignorant! Knowledge was beyond their reach, and therefore they depreciated it. Singularly enough, however, it is St. Paul, the one learned man in the apostolic band, who talks in this way. Never once did those unlearned fishermen, Peter, James, and John, write slightingly of knowledge. That was left to Paul, the scholarly man. Had not his own learning made him a hard, haughty, cruel Pharisee, shutting out the vision of God, hiding from him the beauty of Jesus Christ, filling him with violent prejudice and hatred against all men save those of his own class? With all his knowledge, he had been blind to whatsoever things were lovely, and just, and reverent, and Divine. He had reason, indeed, to write, Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. Knowledge puffeth up. Yes, from the raw schoolgirl to the man of greatest literary attainments, this is the effect of knowledge when it is found without the warm and generous and tender emotions of the heart. There is the young man with his smattering of literary attainments, with little more than an outward daub of culture. He has little reason to be proud; not a bit of that knowledge of which he makes his boast has been his own discovering. It has been drilled into him by patient, painstaking teachers. There is no more reason to be proud of knowledge received from another person than there is for a beggar to be proud of receiving alms. How wise he thinks himself in dealing with religious things, in measuring the preacher, in criticising the Bible, in disposing of questions of faith, in setting down the old-fashioned people who in their simple ignorance have been content to believe all that has been taught them! You see it in literary circles, and in the utterances of the scientist. How conspicuous by its absence is the grace of humility! Because they know something more about letters, and words, and cells, and germs, and rocks, and chemical elements than other people, they write and talk as if their judgments on all subjects were to be received ex cathedra as authoritative and unquestionable. Their word on all the great subjects of morality, faith, inspiration, the Bible, God, is to be deemed final and conclusive. They write as if all men were fools who dare to dispute their conclusions. Yet there is more genius, insight, and real vision in one of David's psalms than there is in all the books they have written. An artist or a poet who has none of their knowledge will see more of beauty and glory and reality in a moment than they would see in a thousand years. We are always boasting that knowledge is power, that knowledge has enriched the world, that knowledge has done wonderful things for humanity. It is the idlest of delusions. Knowledge by itself has done very little. Even the greatest material inventions have come through men who had rather the swift insight of genius than the lore of the schools. They were not knowing men who gave us the railway, the steam-engine, the telegraph. Still less were they knowing men who enriched the world with the sweetest poems, with the noblest pictures, with the most charming stories. Titian, and Raphael, and Shakespeare, and Bunyan, and Burns, and Thomas a Kempis, not to speak of Homer, and David, and Isaiah, and the evangelists, and the fishermen, Peter and John — from these men, who had less knowledge on most things than any undergraduate of the present day, we have inherited the wisdom and the immortal thoughts and words which are beyond all wealth. They were men with great hearts, seeing things with the keen, clear eyes of love, rather than men whose heads had gathered a large stock of culture. Heart rather than head has given to humanity its noble inheritance; love rather than knowledge. Think of the martyrs, the reformers, the defenders of liberty, the philanthropists, the missionaries. And who are doing the best work in the world now? — its purifying, saving, uplifting work? Not the men who call themselves the cultured class. No; knowledge for the most part sits in judgment on the work of others, criticises, and sneers; while love goes on its way, its loins girded for service with quenchless faith in God, and hope which nothing can discourage. It is love, not knowledge, that carries light and sweetness and health into the dark, foul places of city life; it is love, not knowledge, that generates all the power of sweet activities. In the highest kind of knowledge what the world calls knowledge breaks down utterly. What can mere intellect know about God ? His greatness infinitely transcends the grasp of the most cultured mind. Before His wisdom the profoundest reaches of the human intellect are folly. Yes, it is to the pure, gentle, tender heart that God tells His secrets. You can hardly prove the simple fact of God's existence, still less the supremely good, loving, and tender character of God, except to those whose hearts by their very likeness to Him beget their own witness of Him. His own love helps him to grasp the love Divine. So with immortality. All the knowledge of Butler and Plato could not prove it. Men who are only wise in the things of nature never find it there. But when the heart of man has found by experience the measureless power of its own love, found out what a human soul is capable of in long-suffering, patience, self-forgetfulness — how great, how even infinite the soul is in the power of loving — then the proof comes. God could not have made the soul thus and not made it immortal. And the loving heart, too, understands the mystery of sorrow and pain as the head does not and never can. The heart which loves God, and feels His love, knows that beyond all the sorrows and the darkness there is brightness and joy. So give me love and not know. ledge, for knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

(J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

Think of love —

I. AS THE ESSENTIAL SPIRIT OF ALL OTHER GRACES. It is the life, beauty, strength, very soul of them all. Consider its position in the circle of the Divine attributes. Truth, justice, purity, &c., are perfections of the Divine character; but "God is love." A similar position does love occupy in the ideal character of His true children.

II. AS THE BOND OF CHRISTIAN UNITY. Keenness of spiritual insight, zeal for truth, fidelity to conscience, may of themselves have a separating effect; but love draws and cements men together in a real fellowship. Differences in opinion, &c., become of comparatively small account.

III. AS AN INCENTIVE TO CHRISTIAN ACTIVITY. "Love is the fulfilling of the law," the end of the commandment. Get your soul filled with love, and you will never want for an effectual motive to all noble living. As the materials of the building arrange themselves and rise into their finished form in obedience to the thought and will of the architect; as the notes fall, as if by an instinct of their own, into their due place according to the inspiration of the musician; as the words flow in rhythmic cadence in answer to the mood of the poet's genius; as the grass, flowers, and corn grow by the spontaneous energy of the creative and formative mind that animates them all — so will you rear for yourself the structure of a beautiful and useful Christian life, if your heart is filled with love.

IV. AS THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL INSTRUMENTS OF BLESSING TO OTHERS. By the sweet constraint of His love Christ wins the heart of those for whom He died. By the almightiness of His love He will ultimately conquer the world and build up that glorious temple to His praise — a redeemed humanity. Let His love be the inspiration of our life, and we wield a moral force akin to His and share His triumph.

(J. Waits, B. A.)

Corinthians, PaulCorinthTRUE, Arrogant, Buildeth, Builds, Charity, Conceited, Edifies, Edifieth, Gives, However, Idols, Images, Love, Makes, Offered, Ourselves, Possess, Pride, Puffeth, Puffs, Sacrificed, Seem, Strength, Subject, Tends, Touching, Understand1. To abstain from food offered to idols.
8. We must not abuse our Christian liberty, to the offense of our brothers;
11. but must bridle our knowledge with charity.

1 Corinthians 8:1

     5028   knowledge, God source of human
     8413   edification

1 Corinthians 8:1-2

     5894   intelligence
     8351   teachableness

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

     4404   food
     5775   abuse
     6662   freedom, abuse
     8026   faith, growth in

December the Fourteenth the Sacred Use of Liberty
"Take heed lest this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling-block." --1 CORINTHIANS viii. 8-13. That is a very solemn warning. My liberty may trip someone into bondage. If life were an affair of one my liberty might be wholesome; but it is an affair of many, and my liberty may be destructive to my fellows. I am not only responsible for my life, but for its influence. When a thing has been lived there is still the example to deal with. If orange peel be thrown upon the pavement, that is not the end …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

'Love Buildeth Up'
'Now, as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. 2. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 3. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. 4. As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. 5. For though there be that are called gods, …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Law of Christian Conscience.
Preached January 25, 1852. THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE. "Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for some, with conscience of the idol, unto this hour, eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is denied. But meat commendeth us not to God: for neither if we eat are we the better; neither if we eat not are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak. For if any man see thee which hast …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

How those are to be Admonished who do Bad Things Secretly and Good Things Openly, and those who do Contrariwise.
(Admonition 36.) Differently to be admonished are those who do bad things in secret and good things publicly, and those who hide the good things they do, and yet in some things done publicly allow ill to be thought of them. For those who do bad things in secret and good things publicly are to be admonished to consider with what swiftness human judgments flee away, but with what immobility divine judgments endure. They are to be admonished to fix the eyes of their mind on the end of things; since, …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

On the Words of the Gospel, Matt. viii. 8, "I am not Worthy that Thou Shouldest Come under My Roof," Etc. , and of the Words Of
1. We have heard, as the Gospel was being read, the praise of our faith as manifested in humility. For when the Lord Jesus promised that He would go to the Centurion's house to heal His servant, He answered, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and he shall be healed." [2163] By calling himself unworthy, he showed himself worthy for Christ to come not into his house, but into his heart. Nor would he have said this with so great faith and humility, had …
Saint Augustine—sermons on selected lessons of the new testament

The Manifestation of Holy Love.
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us." --1 John iv. 16. The question which now presents itself is: In what way is the divine, majestic act of making man a partaker of true love accomplished? We answer that this is-- 1. Prepared by the Father in Creation. 2. Made possible by the Son in Redemption. 3. Effectually accomplished by the Holy Spirit in Sanctification. There is in this respect, first a work of the Father, which the Heidelberg Catechism designates, "Of God the Father …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Work of the Holy Spirit Distinguished.
"And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."--Gen. i. 2. What, in general, is the work of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from that of the Father and of the Son? Not that every believer needs to know these distinctions in all particulars. The existence of faith does not depend upon intellectual distinctions. The main question is not whether we can distinguish the work of the Father from that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but whether we have experienced their gracious operations. …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

The Monk Nilus.
Nilus was born at Rossano, in Calabria, in the year 910, of an old Greek family. His pious parents, to whom only one child, a daughter, had been given, besought the Lord that he would give them a son. This prayer was heard, and that son was Nilus. They carried the child to the church, and consecrated him to the service of God. On that account, also, they gave him the name of Nilus, after a venerated monk of the fifth century, distinguished by his spirit of vital Christianity, and to whose example …
Augustus Neander—Light in the Dark Places

On the Opinion of Dionysius.
Letter of Athanasius concerning Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, shewing that he too was against the Arian heresy, like the Synod of Nicæa, and that the Arians in vain libel him in claiming him as on their side. 1. The Arian appeal to Dionysius a slander against him. You have been tardy in informing me of the present argument between yourself and the enemies of Christ; for even before your courtesy wrote to me, I had made diligent enquiry, and learnt about the matter, of which I heard with …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract. …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Sunday Before Lent
Text: First Corinthians 13. 1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

"And Hereby we do Know that we Know Him, if we Keep his Commandments. "
1 John ii. 3.--"And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." This age pretends to much knowledge beyond former ages, knowledge, I say, not only in other natural arts and sciences, but especially in religion. Whether there be any great advancement in other knowledge, and improvement of that which was, to a further extent and clearness, I cannot judge, but I believe there is not much of it in this nation, nor do we so much pretend to it. But, we talk of the enlargements of …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Excursus on the Present Teaching of the Latin and Greek Churches on the Subject.
To set forth the present teaching of the Latin Church upon the subject of images and the cultus which is due them, I cite the decree of the Council of Trent and a passage from the Catechism set forth by the authority of the same synod. (Conc. Trid., Sess. xxv. December 3d and 4th, 1563. [Buckley's Trans.]) The holy synod enjoins on all bishops, and others sustaining the office and charge of teaching that, according to the usage of the Catholic and Apostolic Church received from the primitive times …
Philip Schaff—The Seven Ecumenical Councils

A Plain Description of the Essence and Attributes of God, Out of the Holy Scripture, So Far as Every Christian must Competently Know, and Necessarily Believe, that Will be Saves.
Although no creature can define what God is, because he is incomprehensible (Psal. cxliii. 3) and dwelling in inaccessible light (1 Tim. vi. 16); yet it has pleased his majesty to reveal himself to us in his word, so far as our weak capacity can best conceive him. Thus: God is that one spiritual and infinitely perfect essence, whose being is of himself eternally (Deut. i. 4; iv. 35; xxxii. 39; vi. 4; Isa. xlv. 5-8; 1 Cor. viii. 4; Eph. iv. 5, 6; 1 Tim. ii. 5; John iv. 24; 2 Cor. iii. 17; 1 Kings …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The First Commandment
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' Exod 20: 3. Why is the commandment in the second person singular, Thou? Why does not God say, You shall have no other gods? Because the commandment concerns every one, and God would have each one take it as spoken to him by name. Though we are forward to take privileges to ourselves, yet we are apt to shift off duties from ourselves to others; therefore the commandment is in the second person, Thou and Thou, that every one may know that it is spoken to him, …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

"Boast not Thyself of To-Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. "
Prov. xxvii. 1.--"Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." There are some peculiar gifts that God hath given to man in his first creation, and endued his nature with, beyond other living creatures, which being rightly ordered and improved towards the right objects, do advance the soul of man to a wonderful height of happiness, that no other sublunary creature is capable of. But by reason of man's fall into sin, these are quite disordered and turned out of …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Unity of God
Q-5: ARE THERE MORE GODS THAN ONE? A: There is but one only, the living and true God. That there is a God has been proved; and those that will not believe the verity of his essence, shall feel the severity of his wrath. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' Deut 6:6. He is the only God.' Deut 4:49. Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, there is none else.' A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Corinth
Christianity had been profoundly changed by its passage from Galilee to Jerusalem. Whereas the teaching of Jesus had been the announcement of the kingdom of God, the illustration of its character, and the insistent call to men to repent, the central teaching of the disciples in Jerusalem became the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. But the passage from Jerusalem to Antioch had produced still greater changes. After all, the teaching of the disciples in Jerusalem contained no elements foreign to …
Kirsopp Lake—Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity

First Sunday in Lent
Text: Second Corinthians 6, 1-10. 1 And working together with him we entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain 2 (for he saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation): 3 giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our ministration be not blamed; 4 but in everything commending ourselves, as ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

How to Make Use of Christ as the Truth, for Growth in Knowledge.
It is a commanded duty, that we grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. iii. 18; and the knowledge of him being life eternal, John xvii. 3, and our measure of knowledge of him here being but imperfect, for we know but in part, it cannot but be an useful duty, and a desirable thing, to be growing in this knowledge. This is to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, to be increasing in the knowledge of God, Col. i. 10. Knowledge must be added to virtue; and it layeth a ground for other Christian …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

I May Briefly Reduce the Chief Persuading Motive to this So Needful and So Much...
I may briefly reduce the chief persuading motive to this so needful and so much desiderated grace into some three or four heads. All things within and without persuade to it, but especially the right consideration of the love of God in Christ, the wise and the impartial reflection on ourselves, the consideration of our brethren whom we are commanded to love, and the thorough inspection into the nature and use of the grace itself. In consideration of the First, a soul might argue itself into a complacency …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

John Bunyan on the Terms of Communion and Fellowship of Christians at the Table of the Lord;
COMPRISING I. HIS CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND REASON OF HIS PRACTICE; II. DIFFERENCES ABOUT WATER BAPTISM NO BAR TO COMMUNION; AND III. PEACEABLE PRINCIPLES AND TRUE[1] ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Reader, these are extraordinary productions that will well repay an attentive perusal. It is the confession of faith of a Christian who had suffered nearly twelve years' imprisonment, under persecution for conscience sake. Shut up with his Bible, you have here the result of a prayerful study of those holy …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

On the Symbols of the Essence' and Coessential. '
We must look at the sense not the wording. The offence excited is at the sense; meaning of the Symbols; the question of their not being in Scripture. Those who hesitate only at coessential,' not to be considered Arians. Reasons why coessential' is better than like-in-essence,' yet the latter may be interpreted in a good sense. Explanation of the rejection of coessential' by the Council which condemned the Samosatene; use of the word by Dionysius of Alexandria; parallel variation in the use of Unoriginate; …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Christ's Humiliation in his Incarnation
'Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.' I Tim 3:16. Q-xxvii: WHEREIN DID CHRIST'S HUMILIATION CONSIST? A: In his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross. Christ's humiliation consisted in his incarnation, his taking flesh, and being born. It was real flesh that Christ took; not the image of a body (as the Manichees erroneously held), but a true body; therefore he …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

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