ILLUSTRATION V.

THE CORINTHIAN HEART MADE THE TEMPLE
OF GOD.

"KNOW YE NOT THAT YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND THAT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DWELLETH IN YOU? IF ANY MAN DEFILE THE TEMPLE OF GOD, HIM SHALL GOD DESTROY; FOR THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY, WHICH TEMPLE YE ARE."-1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.

WHEN our first Parents sinned, and fell from their original righteousness, the image of Himself in which God created them, was marred and broken. The fruitful earth— cursed for man's sake, and bringing forth, to increase his toil, thorns and thistles-was not laid half so waste as man's curst and wilderness heart; nor were the first guilty pair-when with longing, lingering gaze they looked upon the cherub-guarded gates of Eden now closed against them-fellow-partakers of so great, so severe a loss in being deprived of those blissful scenes, as they knew at that moment when they were first conscious they had lost their innocence, and could no longer, as they had done, talk with God.

Man's heart cannot be an empty thing. It was created vast and capacious enough to contain God! Not only was God's impress there, but God's presence and when God's presence was there man's heart was a lesser heaven. But when guilt shook that heart to the centre, and crumbled the lovely fabric which was once there, God left it—it lay in ruins and desolate, but not empty-Sin's infected atmosphere poured in through every chink and cranny; it became now a lesser hell; and what had been formed by divine workmanship a temple to God, became "the habitation of devils, and the hole of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." (Rev. xviii. 2.) And man, with reference to his soul's estate, as well as in regard to his Paradisal forfeiture, had to sigh in bitterness:-"The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us that we have sinned." (Lam. v. 16.)

But God cared for his own workmanship though in ruins! He gazed upon the immaterial temple of man's soul, as His servants afterwards gazed upon the material temple raised to His name, when they "thought upon its stones, and it pitied them to see it in the dust." And His counsel was to restore the polluted sanctuary. To wrest it by the workings of his grace and power from the unhallowed vileness which desecrated it. And

once more to inscribe there by the finger of His Spirit-"HOLY TO THE LORD." And this is the end of man's Redemption-this is the great reconcilement the Atoner had to perfect-to bring man's heart back to God, and to bring God back to man's heart! This is the perfecting of His work! Let us consider it with reference to a people whose very name is synonymous with uncleanness; and show that the Gospel of Christ was powerful to make the Corinthian heart a temple to God!

Ancient Corinth was not only one of the most celebrated, but also the most opulent city of Greece. Seated upon an isthmus, between two seas, with ports commodious for traffic with the east and west, Corinth was the resort of merchantmen; and into it they brought not only the wealth, but all the luxuries of the world. All that was lavish and voluptuous was centred there. It was a city of delights-the emporium of blandishments. Its rich, unclouded sky hung over a city basking in brightness. Here stately temples and palaces— there amphitheatres and porticoes; on another side, groves and cool baths, and shades which wooed to repose; and farther still, many a harmonizing structure, with its graceful columns and its flowery Corinthian capitals. Its statues were almost numberless. It was in itself a collection of art, and

taste, and splendour. And from its wealth, and lovely site, and cultivated excess of refinement, it received the merited appellation, the eye or luminary of all Greece.

But its luxury soon sunk into lasciviousness; and its refinement to the most dissolute depravity; and the Greek word which we may translate to play the Corinthian, was used to express every act of lewdness and profligacy.

Yet here Saint Paul preached-and though opposed by the blaspheming Jews who dwelt in the city, turning to the Gentiles, he found, even in that. concentration of debauchery, listeners not a few; for we read, "many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptized." And such a desire appears to have been manifested there for the purifying truths of the Gospel, that the Apostle tarried there a year and six months; and while there, founded a most flourishing Church, and when absent, wrote to it two of his longest Epistles.

How truly was the Son of God and His Gospel manifested to destroy the works of the devil! Nothing could be more carnal, sensual, devilish than the Corinthian heart! At Corinth vice was worshipped; and of its abandoned citizens it may truly be said "their prayers were turned into sin," for their petitions were for the gratification