There is an ambiguity in the persons, who are animated with this love. The love of Christ constraineth us; St. Paul means either the ministers of the gospel, of whom he speaks in the preceding and following verses; or all believers, to the instruction of whom he consecrated all his writings.

There is also an ambiguity in the effects, which the apostle attributes to this love. He says, The love of Christ constraineth us, the love of Christ uniteth, or presseth us. The love of Christ constraineth us, may either signify, our love to Jesus Christ uniteth us to one another, because it collects and unites all our desires in one point, that is, in Jesus Christ the centre. In this sense St. Paul says, Love is the bond of perfectness, Col. iii. 14. that is to say, the most perfect friendships, that can be formed, are those, which have love for their principle. Thus if my text were rendered love uniteth us together, it would express a sentiment very conformable to the scope of St. Paul in this epistle. He proposeth in this epistle in general, and in this chapter in particular, to discourage those scandalous divisions which tore out the vitals of the church at Corinth, where party was against party, one part of the congregation against another part of the congregation, and one pastor was against another pastor.

The love of Christ constraineth us may also signify, the love of Christ transporteth us, and carries us, as it were, out of ourselves. In this case, the apostle must be supposed to allude to those inspirations, which the Pagan priests pretended to receive from their gods, with which, they said, they were filled, and to those, with which the prophets of the true God were really animated. The original word is used in this sense in Acts, where it is said, Paul was pressed in spirit, and

testified to the Jews, that Jesus was Christ, chap. xviii. 5. This explication approaches still nearer to the scope of St. Paul, and to the circumstances of the apostles. They had ecstacies. St. Peter in the city of Joppa was in an ecstacy. St. Paul also was caught up to the third heaven, chap. x. 10. not knowing whether he was in the body or out of the body, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3. These ectacies, these transports, these close communions with God, with which the inspired men were honored, made them sometimes pass for idiots. This is the sense which some give to these words, We are fools for Christ's sake, 1 Cor. iv. 10. This meaning of our text well comports with the words which immediately precede, Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober it is for your cause ; that is to say, If we be sometimes at such an immense distance from all sensible objects, if our minds be sometimes so absent from all the things, that occupy and agitate the minds of other men, that we seem to be entirely beside ourselves, it is because we are all concentred in God; it is because our capacity, all absorbed in this great object, cannot attend to any thing, that is not divine, or which doth not proceed immediately from God.

The love of Christ constraineth us. pression may mean,.

This ex

(my brethren, it is not my usual method to fill my sermons with an enumeration of the different senses, that interpreters have given of passages of scripture: but all these explications, which I repeat, and with which perhaps I may overcharge my discourse to-day, appear to me so just and beautiful, that I cannot reconcile myself to the passing of them over in silence. When I adopt one, I seem to myself to regret the loss of another.) This, I say, may also signify,

that the love of Jesus Christ to us surrounds us on every side; or that our love to him pervades and possesses all the powers of our souls.

The first sense of the original term is found in this saying of Jesus Christ concerning Jerusalem, The day shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, Luke xix. 43. The latter is a still more beautiful sense of the term, and perfectly agrees with the preceding words, already quoted, If we be beside ourselves, it is to God. A prevalent passion deprives us at times of the liberty of reasoning justly, and of conversing accurately. Some take these famous words of St. Paul in this sense, I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, Rom. ix. 3. and these of Moses, Forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, Exod. xxxii. 32. Not that a believer in Christ can ever coolly consent to be separated from Christ, or blotted out of the catalogue of those blessed souls, for whom God reserves eternal happiness : but these expressions flow from transports of love in holy men. They were beside themselves, transported beyond their judgment. It is the state of a soul occupied with one great interest, animated with only one great passion.

Finally, these words also are equivocal, If one died for all, that is to say, if Jesus Christ hath satisfied divine justice by his death for all men, then, all they, who have recourse to it, are accounted to have satisfied it in his person. Or rather, If one died for all, if no man can arrive at salvation but by the grace, which the death of Christ obtained for him, then are all dead, then all ought to take his death for a model by dying themselves to sin. Agreeably to this idea, St. Paul says, We are bu

ried with him by baptism into death, Rom. vi. 4. that is the ceremony of wholly immersing us in water, when we were baptized, signified, that we died to sin, and that of raising us again from our immersion, signified, that we would no more return to those disorderly practices, in which we lived before our conversion to christianity. Knowing this, adds our apostle, in that Christ died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God, ver. 10. Thus in my text, If one died for all, then were all dead, that is, agreeably to the following words, He died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves: but unto him, which died for them, and rose again.

Such is the diversity of interpretations, of which the words of my text are susceptible. Nothing can be further from my design, nothing would less comport with the holiness of this day, than to put each of these in an even balance, and to examine with scrupulosity which merited the preference. I would wish to unite them all, as far as it is practicable, and as far as the time allotted for this exercise will allow. They, who have written on eloquence, should have remarked one figure of speech, which, I think, has not been observed, I mean, a sublime ambiguity. I understand by this, the artifice of a man, who, not being able to express his rich ideas by simple terms, of determinate meaning, makes use of others, which excite a multitude of ideas like those war-machines, that strike several ways at once. I could shew you many examples of these traits of eloquence in both sacred and profane writers but such discussions would be improper here.

In general, we are fully persuaded, that the design of St. Paul in my text is to express the power of those impressions, which the love of Jesus Christ to mankind makes on the hearts of real chris

tians. This is an idea, that reigns in all the writings of this apostle; and it especially prevails in this epistle, from which our text is taken. We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, 2 Cor. iii. 18. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body, chap. iv. 10. Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen, but at things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal, ver. 16—18. He, that hath wrought us for the self-same thing,is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit, chap. v. 5. We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord, ver. 8. Again in the text, The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. This is the language of a soul, on which the love of Christ makes lively and deep impressions.

Let us follow this idea, and, in order to unite, as far as an union is practicable, all the different explications I have mentioned, let us consider these impressions,

I. In regard to the vehement desires and sentiments they excite in our hearts. This love constraineth, it possesseth, it transporteth us.