are in it? This man, because he knew that he had
submitted himself to the often painful, searching, crucifying,
self-restraining and stimulating influences of the Gospel and Spirit
of Christ, could say, 'God's grace has made me what I am, and I
helped Him to make me.' And can you say anything like that?

Take your life. In how many of its deeds has there been present the
consciousness of God and His love? Take your character. How much of
it has been shot through and through, so to speak, by the fiery darts
of that cleansing, warming, consuming grace of God? Are you daily
being baptized in that Spirit, searched by that Spirit, condemned by
that grace? Is it the grace of God, or nature and self and the world
and the flesh that have made you what you are?

Oh, brethren I let us cultivate the sense of our need of this divine
help, for it does not come where men do not know how weak they are,
and how much they want it. The mountain tops are high,--yes! and they
are dry; there is no water there. The rivers run in the green valleys
deep down. 'God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.'
Let us see that we open our hearts to the reception of these
quickening and cleansing influences, for it is possible for us to
cover ourselves over with such an impenetrable covering that that
grace cannot pass through it. Let us see to it that we keep ourselves
in close contact with the foundation of all this grace, even Jesus
Christ Himself, by desire, by faith, by love, by communion, by
meditation, by approximation, by sympathy, by service. And let us see
that we use the grace that we possess. 'For to him that hath shall be
given, and from him that hath not'--not possessing in any real sense
because not utilising for its appointed purpose--'shall be taken away
even that he hath.' Wherefore, brethren, I 'beseech you that ye
receive not the grace of God in vain.'

THE UNITY OF APOSTOLIC TEACHING

'Whether it were I or they, so we preach,
and so ye believed.'--1 COR. xv. 11.

Party spirit and faction were the curses of Greek civic life, and
they had crept into at least one of the Greek churches--that in the
luxurious and powerful city of Corinth. We know that there was a very
considerable body of antagonists to Paul, who ranked themselves under
the banner of Apollos or of Cephas _i.e._ Peter. Therefore, Paul,
keenly conscious that he was speaking to some unfriendly critics,
hastens in the context to remove the