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was the besetting sin of the Roman world. Except by miracle it was impossible that the new converts could be at once and wholly freed from it. It lingered in the flesh when the spirit had cast it off. It had interwoven itself in the pagan religions, and was ever reappearing on the confines of the Church in the earliest heresies. Even within the Church it might assume the form of a mystic Christianity. The very ecstasy of conversion would often lead to a reaction. Nothing is more natural than that in a licentious city, like Corinth or Ephesus, those who were impressed by St. Paul's teaching should have gone their way and returned to their former life. In this case it would seldom happen that they apostatized into the ranks of the heathen; the same impulse which led them to the gospel would lead them also to bridge the gulf which separated them from its purer morality. Many may have sinned and repented again and again, unable to stand themselves in the general corruption, yet unable to cast aside utterly the image of innocence and goodness which the apostle had set before them. There were those, again, who consciously sought to lead the double life, and imagined themselves to have found in licentiousness the true freedom of the gospel. The tone which the apostle adopts respecting sins of the flesh differs in many ways from the manner of speaking of them among modern moralists. He says nothing of the poison which they infuse into society, or the consequences to the individual himself. Neither does he appeal to public opinion as condemning, or dwell on the ruin they inflict on one half of the race. True and forcible as these aspects of such sins are, they are the result of modern reflection, not the first instincts of reason and conscience. They strengthen the moral principles of mankind, but are not of a kind to touch the individual soul. They are a good defence for the existing order of society, but they will not purify the nature of man or extinguish the flames of lust. Moral evils in the New Testament are always spoken of as spiritual. They corrupt the soul, defile the temple of the Holy Ghost, and cut men off from the body of Christ. Of morality, as distinct from religion, there is hardly a trace in the Epistles of St. Paul. What he seeks to penetrate is the inward nature of sin, not its outward effects. Even in its consequences in another state of being are but slightly touched upon, in comparison with that living death which itself is. It is not merely a vice or crime, or even an offence against the law of God, to be punished here and hereafter. It is more than this. It is what men feel within, not what they observe without them; not what shall be, but what is; a terrible consciousness, a mystery of iniquity, a communion with unseen powers of evil. All sin is spoken of in St. Paul's Epistles as rooted in human nature, and quickened by the consciousness of law; but especially is this the case with the sin which is more than any other the type of sin in general — fornication. It is, in a peculiar sense, the sin of the flesh, with which the very idea of the corruption of the flesh is closely connected, just as in ver. 3, the idea of holiness is regarded as almost equivalent to abstinence from it. It is a sin against a man's own body, distinguished from all other sins by its personal and individual nature. No other is at the same time so gross and insidious; no other partakes so much of the slavery of sin. As marriage is the type of the communion of Christ and His Church, as the body is the member of Christ, so the sin of fornication is a strange and mysterious communion with evil. But although such is the tone of the apostle, there is no violence to human nature in his commands respecting it. He knew how easily extremes meet, how hard it is for asceticism to make clean that which is within, how quickly it might itself pass into its opposite. Nothing can be more different from the spirit of early ecclesiastical history on this subject than the moderation of St. Paul. The remedy for sin is not celibacy, but marriage. Even second marriages are, for the prevention of sin, to be encouraged. Even the incestuous person at Corinth was to be forgiven on repentance. Above all other things, the apostle insisted on purity as the first note of the Christian character; and yet the very earnestness and frequency of his warnings show that he is speaking, not of a sin hardly named among saints, but one the victory over which was the greatest and most difficult triumph of the Cross of Christ.

(Prof. Jowett.)

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KJV: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;

WEB: that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor,