lling on the details, let me just point you to three
directions in which this general notion of sanctity is applied. There
is that of our context here 'Know ye not that ye are the temple of
God? If any man _destroy_ the temple of God, him shall God
destroy, for the temple of God is holy, and such ye are.'

He is thinking here mainly, I suppose, about the devastation and
destruction of this temple of God, which was caused by schismatical
and heretical teaching, and by the habit of forming parties, 'one of
Paul, one of Apollos, one of Cephas, one of Christ,' which was
rending that Corinthian Church into pieces. But we may apply it more
widely than that, and say that anything which corrupts and defiles
the Christian life and the Christian character assumes a darker tint
of evil when we think that it is sacrilege--the profanation of the
temple, the pollution of that which ought to be pure as He who dwells
in it.

Christian men and women, how that thought darkens the blackness of
all sin! How solemnly there peals out the warning, 'If any man
destroy or impair the temple,' by any form of pollution, 'him' with
retribution in kind, 'him shall God destroy.' Keep the temple clear;
keep it clean. Let Him come with His scourge of small cords and His
merciful rebuke. You Manchester men know what it is to let the
money-changers into the sanctuary. Beware lest, beginning with making
your hearts 'houses of merchandise,' you should end by making them
'dens of thieves.'

And then, still further, there is another application of this same
principle, in the second of these Epistles. 'What agreement hath the
temple of God with idols?' 'Ye are the temple of the living God.'

Christianity is intolerant. There is to be one image in the shrine.
One of the old Roman Stoic Emperors had a pantheon in his palace with
Jesus Christ upon one pedestal and Plato on the one beside Him. And
some of us are trying the same kind of thing. Christ there, and
somebody else here. Remember, Christ must be everything or nothing!
Stars may be sown by millions, but for the earth there is one sun.
And you and I are to shrine one dear Guest, and one only, in the
inmost recesses of our hearts.

And there is another application of this metaphor also in our
letter.'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
which is in you?' Christianity despises 'the flesh'; Christianity
reverences the body; and would teach us all that, being robed in that
most won