Abuse of the Lord S Supper at Corinth

    There can be nothing more surprising than the fact placed before us in this passage. Could it be imagined that after the apostle had been so long with them, when they had for such a period enjoyed his personal labours, they should almost immediately fall into so gross an abuse of an ordinance of Christ? It is indeed so charged, that the apostle would not deign to call it the Lord's Supper. It was converted into a supper of their own. No man on earth would have anticipated such an event. And why did the Lord suffer this to take place? Does he not rule in his churches? He did it for a most important end. He knew how much men are prone to venerate antiquity, and foresaw the rise of the Man of Sin, whose throne rests on the authority of tradition and antiquity. In this example he totally discredits all reference to the authority even of his own churches planted by the apostles, except so far as it appears they were guided by the apostles. Instead of relying on the practice of the first four centuries, we cannot with safety rely on four days, or four hours. Did church history reach up to the very days of the apostles, giving us the fullest documents, in the most authentic records, there is no reliance to be placed on the result. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the source of evidence of all things to be believed and practised by Christians. To keep us from being dashed to pieces on these breakers, Divine Providence has set up, as on a tower, the church of Corinth as a beacon. Had Scripture taken no notice of this fact, and had church history recorded it as a fact without expressing an opinion, what an example would we have had of the ancient observance of the Lord's Supper! We may bless God that his Providence shipwrecked the Corinthian on these rocks, and that we still see the spars and broken pieces of the vessel drifted by the surge. O yes, sailor, breakers ahead; bear off to the open sea.