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I. OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. It was already built upon Him as its historical foundation. He was the reason and account of its existence, so that if He had not lived and died, its existence, as Paul found it, would have been inexplicable. Some hold that Paul, not Christ, was the founder of Christendom — a theory he by anticipation contradicted. "Was Paul crucified for you?" &c. If the Church is built on she labours of apostles, apostles themselves rested on the Chief Corner Stone.

II. OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT AND LIFE.

1. Christ Himself is the only foundation on which the soul can build, and not merely —

(1) Doctrines abort Him. Not that Scripture texts, or the creeds are to be disparaged. We prize both for His sake. but not Him for theirs, and to rest upon them as distinct from Him would be like building on a measuring rule instead of on the granite of which it has given us the dimensions.

(2) Feelings about or towards Him. These are great aids to devotion; yet what so fugitive and unreliable. And after all they only point to Christ; their root is in ourselves, and we cannot supply the foundation stone out of the exhausted quarries of unrenewed human nature.

(3) His work. For this can only be appreciated in the light of His person. His death is at best heroic self-devotion, if it be so much as that, unless His person is superhuman; and no more reliance can be placed upon it than upon the death of Socrates.

(4) His teaching. For the persistent drift of this is to centre thought, love, adoration on Himself. Relatively to Himself, it is part of the superstructure. His disciples learnt devotion to His person through listening to His words; we believe His words because we know whose words they are.

(5) His sacraments. These are only picturesque unrealities, unless He who warrants them lives and is mighty. Apart from Him they have no more validity than our armorial bearing or a rosette.

(6) His example. Take only the pattern of humility (Philippians 2.). If He is only the Son of Mary His condescension is but one acceptance of natural circumstances. His example in this and in other respects is only a power on Paul's hypothesis.

2. In modern times an effort has been made to put His power in the shade, as if it did not affect the essence of the gospel. What Christ was, or is, men say cannot matter if we profit by His teaching and example. And that is true, if Christ was merely man. And a high-minded, disinterested man, after doing his best for his fellow-creatures, will withdraw as far as possible from their notice, But we know that Christ imposed His person, and not merely His maxims upon the thought and heart of the world, and this departure from the ordinary instinct of high human goodness must have depended on the fact that such a course was necessary. It implies that Christ's person was in His own deliberate estimate of more importance than His teaching or philanthropy. But all is sufficiently explained, if we believe with Paul that Christ is God. Otherwise to make Him the foundation of the soul's life would be to substitute a creature for the Creator. A purely human Christ might be the architect, and even the scaffolding of the spiritual temple; He could not be its own foundation.

(Canon Liddon.)

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KJV: For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

WEB: For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.