1 Corinthians 15:9

Observe here, 1. The profound humility of this great apostle, and how low he was in his own thoughts: he calls himself the least of the apostles, nay, not meet or worthy to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the church of Christ with so much fury and fierceness. Elsewhere he styles himself less than the least of all saints; not that any thing can be less than the least; but the original being. double diminutive, his meaning is, that he was as little as could be.

O admirable humility! The more we know of God and ourselves, the more humble apprehensions we shall have of ourselves;. good man's thoughts are always lowest of himself; the more holiness any man has, the more humility he has. Humility is. great evidence of our holiness, it being indeed. great part of our holiness.

Observe, 2. How the apostle ascribes all that he was, wherein he differed from others, to the grace of God: By the grace of God. am what. am. As we receive our natural being from the power of God, so we derive our spiritual being from the grace of God. If. forbear what is evil, it is from restraining grace; if. follow what is spiritually good, it is from sanctifying grace: therefore not unto us,. Lord, not unto us, but to thy grace be the praise.

Observe, 3. The blessed fruit which the grace of God produced in St. Paul: it caused him to labour, (grace is an active principle,) to labour abundantly, to labour more abundantly than all the apostles; not more than all of them put together, but more than any one of them that were his fellow apostles separately considered. Such as receive most grace and favour from God, are holily ambitious to do the utmost services for God.

Observe, 4. Lest he should seem to be too assuming, and to arrogate any thing to himself, he adds, Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Behold how the holy apostle ascribes the fruit of all his endeavours to the grace of God, to the influences and assistances of the Holy Spirit of grace, exciting him, assisting him, working in and with him, and succeeding of him in all his enterprises and undertakings for the glory of God, and the good of souls. I laboured, yet not I, but divine grace that went along with me.

Observe, 5. The inference which the apostle draws from the whole: Therefore, whether it were. or they, so we preach, and so ye believed. That is, whether it were I, or any other of the apostles, who laboured most in the preaching of the gospel, the doctrine is the same; namely, that Christ died for our sins, rose again, and will raise us.

This is the doctrine which we apostles preached, and which you Corinthians believed and received; therefore why should any of you now stagger in the faith, and disbelieve the resurrection of the body? which is. blow made at the root of Christianity.

Alas! what have we to carry our spirits through all the rugged passages and cross dispensations of this life, but only our hopes in reversion, only our hopes of. glorious resurrection, and blessed immortality.