“If you do not ask me for food and raiment, I will care for you as my own child.”—Ib.
Equally admirable is that comparison of Paul in which he likens the Church to the human body and shows the folly of jealousy and schism: “If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?”
Very pleasantly, but very effectually, does he remind those who professed to “speak with tongues” a sort of supernatural language, in the early Christian assemblies, that it was “better to speak five words with the understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” An illustration serves his purpose. “Even things without life, giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in sound, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.”
Paul maintains the right of those who establish and teach churches, to be supported by those churches. It was a right upon which he did not always insist in his own case; but he fought for it as a great principle. “Mine answer to them that do examine me is this: Have we not the power (the right) to eat and drink?” The objector would admit this. Very well! “Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? * * * If we have sown unto you in spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap of your carnal things? * * * Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? They which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.” There is no gainsaying this argument. The “analogy” is unanswerable.
Already once or twice in this chapter, reference has been made to Socrates and his method. Much of the following passage would apply equally well to Jesus or James or Paul: “He generally begins with some question, apparently so simple, so stupidly simple, and at such a distance from the field of discussion, that his opponent often hesitates whether most to admire the docility or wonder at the stupidity of the querist, and with a complacent smile, half of pity, half of contempt, promptly replies. Other questions succeed faster and faster, more and more difficult, and gradually approaching, in one long spiral of interrogations, the central position in which the unhappy sophist’s argument stands. He now finds it impossible to escape, and confounded, perplexed and irritated, discovers that he is compelled to admit some palpable contradiction to his original assertions, and this too by means of those simple and innocent premises which he had so unsuspectingly granted. He feels himself within the coils of a great logical boa-constrictor who binds his folds together tighter and tighter till the poor sophist is absolutely strangled.”
VIII. THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
“Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? And the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof!”—Solomon.