The life and work of St. Paul

CONDITION OF THE CHTTECH AT CORINTH. 39?
Gkd that he was capable of this deep spiritual emotion was more liable to the impulse
of gloseolaly than any of them; 1
yet so little did he value it we may evsn
Bay so completely did he disparage it as a part of public worship that after telling
them that he had rather speak five intelligible words to teach others than ten
thousand words in " 1 a tongue," he bids them not to be little children in intelligence,
but to be babes in vice, and quotes to them, in accordance with that style of adapta-
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tion with which his Jewish converts would have been familiar, a passage of Isaiah,
in which Jehovah threatens the drunken priests of Jerusalem that since they would
not listen to the simple preaching of the prophet, he would teach them and that,
too, ineffectually by conquerors who spoke a tongue which they did not understand.
tFrom this he argues that "tongues" are not meant for the Church at all, but are a
sign to unbelievers; and that, it exercised ia the promiscuous way which was coming
into vogue at Corinth, would only awaken, even in unbelievers, the contemptuous
remark that they were a set of insane fanatics, whereas the effect of preaching might
be intense conviction, prostrate worship, and an acknowledgment of the presence of
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God among them.
16. The disorders, then, in the Corinthian Church had sprung from the selfish
struggle of each to show off his own special gift, whether tongue, or psalm, or teaching,
or revelation. If they would bear in mind that edification was the object of
werii'dp, such scenes would not occur. Only a few at a time, therefore, were to
spe :k witfc tongues, and only in case some one could interpret, otherwise they were
to suppress the impulse. Nor were two people ever to be preaching at the same time.
If the rivalry of unmeaning sounds among the glossolalists had been fostered by
eoine Syrian enthusiast, the less intolerable but still highly objectionable disorder of
rival preachers absorbed in the "egotism of oratory" was an abuse introduced by
the admirers of Apollos. In order to remedy this, he lays down the rule that if one
preacher was speaking, and another felt irresistibly impelled to say something, the
first was to cease. It was idle to plead that they could not control themselves. The
spirits which inspire the true prophet are under the prophet's due control, and God
is the author, not of confusion but of peace. Women were not to speak in church
at all and if ; they wanted any ezplanations they must ask their husbands at homo.
This was the rule of all Churches, and who were thev that they should alter these
wise and good regulations ? Were they the earliest Church ? Were they the only
Church ? A true preacher, a man truly spiritual, would at once recognise that these
were the commands of the Lord ;
and to invincible bigotry and obstinate ignorance
Paul has no more to say. The special conclusion is that preaching is to be encou-
raged, and glossolaly not forbidden, provided that it did not mtprf ero with the general
rule that everything is to be done in decency and order. It is, however, extremely
probable that the almost contemptuous language of the Apostle towards "the
tongues" a manifestation at first both sacred and impressive, but liable to easy
simulation and grave abuse, and no longer adapted to serve any useful function
tended to suppress the display of emotion which he thus disparaged. Certain it ia
that from this time forward we hear little or nothing of " the gift of tongues." It
or something which on a lower level closely resembled it has re-appeared again
and again at different places and epochs in the history of the Christiam Church. It
scorns, indeed, to be a natural consequence of fresh and overpowering religions
emotion. But it can be so easily imitated by the symptoms of hysteria, and it leads
to consequences BO disorderly and deplorable, that except as a rare and isolated
phenciiianoa it haa been generally discountenanced by that seaso o tho neccssity
1 Why does he thank God for a gift which he is rating so low a an element of worship ? Because
the highest value of it was tubJKtivt. He who was capable of it was, at any rate, not dei-l : hi
heart was not petrified ; he was not past feeling ; he could feel the direct influence of the Bpiiil o!
God upon Jiis spirit.
' "Rather half of ten of tho edifying sort than a thonaand times ten of the other" (Beeser).
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