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If edification was to be the rule of conduct in everything, it is plain that the prophets must govern themselves. No matter how sincere and truthful their zeal, or how honest and excellent their purpose, feelings, and even the best feelings, must be held under firm restraint. They had this power, and it was from God; for he is "not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all Churches of the saints." St. Paul directs further that "women keep silence in the Churches." If the Corinthians objected to this injunction, what right had they so to do? Usage in the Christian community as a whole was to be observed; local peculiarities offensive to the spirit and tastes of the body of Christ were not to be indulged. How could they claim exemption from a rule recognized everywhere? Were they the original Church? or did their position warrant any exclusive customs at variance with established custom? To enforce this view and the argument in the chapter, he asserts in the strongest manner that he spoke from Divine inspiration. "No more direct assertion of inspiration can be uttered than this" (Alford). If any one deny this inspiration, no controversy must be had with him. "Let him be ignorant," and, perchance, he may be self convicted of his error. Then the idea which has been so prominent in his mind is introduced again in the words, "covet to prophesy." Had he not made good its claim to a pre-eminent excellence? By the concurrent "Amen" of approval and sympathy, by his own special delight in this gift, by the manliness connected with its exercise, by the effect on spectators, by the capacity of self government which accompanied its activity and the culture given to volition and feeling, he exhorts his brethren to desire fervently this means of usefulness. What a momentum has the argument acquired before it comes to a close! Vapours rise from large tracts of territory, float in the air, run together, condense in clouds, and then descend in fruitful blessing to the fields. Far inland a stream begins its flow, gathers rivulets and creeks into its channel, and, before it reaches the ocean, has drained half a continent. St. Paul omits nothing essential to the greatness of his argument. From the Hebrew Scriptures, from musical instruments, from the "many kinds of voices in the world," from the laws of the human mind in respect to the difference between "spirit" and "understanding," he has drawn materials to enlarge and vivify the presentation of his doctrine. In other connections (Romans 12.; Ephesians 4.) we find him urging substantially the same view, pressing on the conscience and heart of the Church the individuality of gifts, and, at the same time, showing their worthlessness unless blended in unity. The most truly gifted, the most nobly endowed man, is portrayed in this chapter with singular distinctness, and this man is the prophet. Yet, he adds, "forbid not to speak with tongues;" let them be regulated, not discarded - a lesson widely applicable in the management of Church affairs. A genuine orthodoxy is always tolerant, charitable, and heartily disposed to make much allowance for idiosyncrasies in others. Many persons are content with love in their hearts. Intellect is left to itself. But the really orthodox man is a Christian in his method of thinking, and in many a thing not to his liking, ay, repellent to his tastes and sensibilities he makes a special point to remember the "forbid not." The last constituent of a man to feel the thoroughly subduing grace of God is the intellect. Often when the animal nature has been conquered, often when the coarser struggles of life are all over, this besetment of dogmatic and tryannical intellect remains as the final entrenchment of evil. Orthodoxy is an admirable thing. It is beautiful and even glorious to feel the oneness of our beliefs with the greatest and best thinkers of the Church; but if truth of thought be exaggerated at the expense of truth of feeling and truth in external relations, it is truth despoiled of its supreme charm, and therefore the wisdom of the "forbid not." One who knows that be shall live for ever must needs feel, if he is a cultivated man, that a long past is not simply at his back, but is a part of himself, and that the parentage of much of the wisest and best in his soul lies in ancient years. Sympathy with the past is a foremost element in a charitable intellect. And he has also a keen fellow-feeling with forms of belief current in his own times. The sense of immortality widens his embrace of the present, and the "forbid not" is a welcomed dissuasive when he is tempted to the most disagreeable and pernicious form of vanity, viz. self insistence. Only one thing remains for the apostle to say on the topic that has elicited so much wisdom and fervour from his soul: "Let all things be done decently and in order." And, doubtless, it commended him to the trim minded among the Corinthians as it has done ever since, that he should be so considerate of behaviour. There is an art of Christian behaviour, and St. Paul would have us make a conscience of it, and not leave it to mere taste and sentiment. It is net a distant and impracticable ideal. It is not the possibility of a few. But it is simply a cultivated sense of decency and order, and as such within the reach of all. - L.

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KJV: For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

WEB: for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the assemblies of the saints,