Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/130

4 who dwell on it exclusively, even in the wrong sense just mentioned, will always, of course, appear to have a great deal of Scripture to plead for themselves. But yet the same Scripture, with a very little humble attention, will show where the mistake lies. Take, for example, such a verse as this, the conclusion of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: "If any man love not the, let him be Anathema, Maranatha:" let him be excluded from the communion of the Faithful, in the most awful form of any, by which the wilful sinner was pronounced accursed, when the Lord comes to judgment. What more easy than for a Commentator, so inclined, to fasten on such a verse as this, and assume that one only thing, by the laws of the Gospel, should exclude a man from Communion, and expose him to the highest of Church censures, viz. want of sincere zeal, want of love to our blessed ? How plausibly might it be contended, that where such zeal and love is, we are not nicely to inquire into a man's creed; that we may kneel by his side, and worship with him, though our notions directly contradict his concerning the nature of the, the whom we worship, if only both agree to own  as a Saviour. One might go on for ever applying the text, and others like it, in that way; but, as if on purpose to bar for ever all such bold speculations, see how St. Paul has enabled us to check, as it were, this verse, by comparison of others, which show in what sense its terms are really to be understood.

First, as to the love of our, the same phrase occurs again at the end of another Epistle, in a form of blessing, parallel, as it were, to the curse we are now considering. "Grace be with all those who love our in sincerity." What is the "sincerity," the qualification here introduced? In order to serve the purpose of that system which is now becoming so very prevalent, the word ought to mean, simply, "well-meaning;" "freedom from all guile and hypocrisy;" the same, in short, as "being in earnest." But the true import of the word is, in all probability, something very different from this. It occurs but once in the New Testament, at least at all in a kindred sense: viz. in Titus ii. 7. where St. Paul exhorts a newly ordained Bishop, first "to shew forth himself in all things a pattern of good works," and afterwards, "to shew forth in doctrine uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, and sound speech, that