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Thirdly, the evil of it, which brings this guilt upon such, they profane that means which Christ hath ordained for the remembrance of his death.

I am, first, to set before you the peculiar case of these Corinthians as a church, and what their unworthy receiving consisted in.

It appears from this epistle, that this apostolic church was, as a church of Christ, planted by Paul, watered by Apollos, and enriched with a variety of spiritual gifts and graces. "They came behind in no gift," having all those ministers and gifts which were peculiar to the apostolic age, conferred on them. They had all sorts of church officers, viz. apostles, evangelists, prophets, teachers, helps or deacons and they had all sorts of gifts, such as the word of wisdom and knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophesy, discerning of spirits, diversities of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

Yet, with all these gifts, and Paul's eye on them, they were a church sadly out of order. Out of which disorderly

forth to us.

state, light has sprung upon and shone Hence, Dr. Owen says, The correction of their disorders con'tains the principal rule for church communion, and the administration of the Supper, that we have in the whole

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scripture; which might have been hid 'from us, but that God suffered them to fall, that through their fall, and by this epistle directed to them, he might instruct his churches in all ages of the world. In and amongst the members of this church, many great, grievous, and God-provoking sins abounded, such as contention, division, contempt of the apostle and other ministers, neglect of church discipline, want of brotherly love, which appeared in their going to law one with another, and that before 'the unbelieving magistrate; slight views ' of the sin of fornication, many of them inclining to and falling by uncleanness, ' lasciviousness, and fornication, to the 'great dishonour of Christ, the hurt of 'their own souls, and to the injury of the 'brotherhood.'

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These, and many other sins and cor

ruptions, were committed and connived at by several members of this church; which led on to an irreverent behaviour in the house of God; and issued in a contemptuous use, or rather an abuse of the Lord's Supper, for which many of them had little or no value, preferring their love-feasts to his sacred institution. For which the apostle gives them a severe and general reproof, as you may see by looking back to the 17th verse of this chapter; where he charges it home upon them, with coming irreverently together to the public assembly; that their divisions broke forth among them, which arose from heresies which some of those persons had imbibed and maintained.

I conceive from Paul's words in the 21st and 22d verses, that as they had divers ministers, so they had an administration of the Supper to divers parties of church-members, all which was contrary to the nature of the institution.

One fruit of their divisions was, their coming to the place of public worship, not so much to eat the Lord's Supper as to partake of their own supper, at

which some of them were guilty of drunkenness, and contempt of their poor brethren, as you may see, verses 21st and 22d.

To understand their case still more perfectly, let it be noticed, that these persons at Corinth, congregated into a church-state, were believing Jews and Gentiles, who had this custom among them which the Jewish believers were fond of, as it might seem to them they had Christ for an example, to have a feast, or supper,going before the Lord's Supper.

As I have never yet met with any thing respecting this so satisfactory to my own mind as what Dr. Gill has wrote thereon, I will, therefore, for your benefit transcribe it. He says, 'their view in 'coming together, was not so much to 'celebrate the Supper of the Lord, as 'to partake of their own supper, which 'was either the Paschal Supper, or something like it; which many of them ju

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daizing, observed before the Lord's

Supper, in imitation of Christ as they 'pretended, who first eat the passover, ' and then instituted the Supper.

'Now there being a good deal of luxu'rious eating and drinking in this antisupper, many of them came together 'for no other end but to partake of that;

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at least this was their chief view, and 'not the Lord's Supper: or when they did. 'meet together on this account, it was in 'such an irregular manner, and so disor'derly, that they confounded these suppers together, and behaved so ill at them, and eat the Lord's Supper so unworthily, that it could not rightly be 'called eating of it; or when they had ' eat their anti-supper in such an inde'cent way, neither staying for one another, nor keeping within the bounds of temperance and sobriety; at least having indulged their carnal appetites to such a degree, and raised themselves to such a pitch of gaiety and cheerfulness; it 'was not fit for them to eat the Lord's 'Supper, to go from such a full meal to 'the table of the Lord.'

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And yet it seems, some of them, though more fitted and disposed for carnal mirth, than in a serious manner to partake of the Lord's Supper, yet had the hellish bold

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