therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. 32.  Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:  33.  Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.’—­1 COR. x. 23-33.

This passage strikingly illustrates Paul’s constant habit of solving questions as to conduct by the largest principles.  He did not keep his ‘theology’ and his ethics in separate water-tight compartments, having no communication with each other.  The greatest truths were used to regulate the smallest duties.  Like the star that guided the Magi, they burned high in the heavens, but yet directed to the house in Bethlehem.

The question here in hand was one that pressed on the Corinthian Christians, and is very far away from our experience.  Idolatry had so inextricably intertwined itself with daily life that it was hard to keep up any intercourse with non-Christians without falling into constructive idolatry; and one very constantly obtruding difficulty was that much of the animal food served on private tables had been slaughtered as sacrifices or with certain sacrificial rites.  What was a Christian to do in such a case?  To eat or not to eat?  Both views had their vehement supporters in the Corinthian church, and the importance of the question is manifest from the large space devoted to it in this letter.

In chapter viii. we have a weighty paragraph, in which one phase of the difficulty is dealt with—­the question whether a Christian ought to attend a feast in an idol temple, where, of course, the viands had been offered as sacrifices.  But in chapter x.  Paul deals with the case in which the meat had been bought in the flesh-market, and so was not necessarily sacrificial.  Paul’s manner of handling the point is very instructive.  He envelops, as it were, the practical solution in a wrapping of large principles; verses 23, 24 precede the specific answer, and are general principles; verses 25-30 contain the practical answer; verses 31-33 and verse 1 of the next chapter are again general principles, wide and imperative enough to mould all conduct, as well as to settle the matter immediately in hand, which, important as it was at Corinth, has become entirely uninteresting to us.

We need not spend time in elucidating the specific directions given as to the particular question in hand further than to note the immense gift of saving common-sense which Paul had, and how sanely and moderately he dealt with his problem.  His advice was—­’Don’t ask where the joint set before you came from.  If you do not know that it was offered, your eating of it does not commit you to idol worship.’  No doubt there were Corinthian Christians with inflamed consciences who did ask such questions, and rather prided themselves on their strictness and rigidity; but Paul would have them let sleeping dogs lie.  If, however, the meat is known to have been offered