we be indifferent to your faith-to what you believe, or how you believe it? Were it to be that heresies and false doctrine existed among youwere it to be that you did despite to the Spirit of Grace, accounted the blood of the covenant a common thing, denied the Lord who bought you, or displaced the commandments of God with the traditions of men, your state would excite our sincerest grief; for we should know that it would have been better for you not to have known the way of truth than afterwards to turn aside from the holy commandment delivered to you.

But let the reverse of this description be true of you. Continue to receive the truth in the love of it; adhere to sound doctrine, which cannot be condemned; feed on the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby; be not speculatists, but believers, and grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Live in the Spirit and walk in the Spirit; hold fast the beginning of your confidence; let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, and be not spoiled by philosophy or vain deceit, nor tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine; but, speaking the truth in love, grow up unto Him in all things which is the head, even Christ; and then herein we rejoice-yea, and will rejoice.

II. ANOTHER CIRCUMSTANCE OF OUR JOY IS YOUR MAINTENANCE OF CHRISTIAN UNIty and love.—Believers on Jesus Christ are described in the New Testament as being one in him. And they are so not merely in the sense of being partakers of equal privileges and common blessings, or a sameness of character, but also in the sense of being joined together through him in one spirit. The union is a living, sympathetic one. We are called into one body; and thus, though there are many members, we are yet sustained by the same heart, and governed by the same head. If we are Christian believers, the communion of saints must be an article of our creed. There is one faith, one hope, one Lord, one baptism or purification, one God and Father of us all, who is in us all and through us all. In Christ all believers are fitly framed together, and grow up a holy temple in the Lord; in him also they are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The natural and proper state of the Church at large, and especially of any of its particular societies, therefore, is unity, and peace, and love. There must be no schism in the body, no falling out by the way, no shutting up of the bowels toward our Christian brethren. While tyranny and insubordination are alike unknown, all must harmoniously blend and co-operate. The members must have the same care one of another, so that if one member suffer all the members will suffer with it; and if one member rejoice all the members will rejoice with it. Sympathy towards those who are of the household of faith is an essential attribute of the Christian life. 66 By this," says cur Lord, "shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." What a blessed community! what a heaven upon earth is a Christian society designed to be! Did it conform to the archetypal idea of its founder, truly the tabernacle of God would be with men! But, ah! to this garden of the Lord the Wicked One has access, and often does he sow in it his tares. Roots of bitterness spring up among believers and trouble them; and they have divisions, and contentions, and bitter envyings among themselves. Ah, what a sad spectacle does the Christian Church then present! Could angels weep, such a sight would not

fail to call forth their tears; and it does thus affect those whom the Holy Ghost has made overseers of the Church. They are moved by it to the deepest anguish of spirit.

Brethren, our hope and prayer are that you may never be such a source of sorrow to those who watch for your souls. Among you let brotherly love continue. Keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Be not respectors of persons, neither flatter the rich nor despise the poor; but honour all men. In your mutual intercourse evince a sympathetic and generous disposition. Say not that the things you possess are your own, but use hospitality without grudging. Love the brotherhood, not in word or in tongue merely, but in deed and in truth. Towards a suffering member manifest particular kindness. Visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction; and if a brother or sister have need—

Soft be your heart their pains to feel,

And swift your hand to aid.

As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Be also clothed with humility. Let there be no strife among you which shall be greatest, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Bear yourselves towards each other kindly and courteously, and put the best construction on each others' motives and conduct. Likewise deal mildly with each others' faults and failings. In cases of transgression and offence, exemplify the laws of love, and not the laws of retaliation; or, in the words of an apostle, "If any man among you be overtaken in a fault, restore him in the spirit of meekness, considering yourselves, lest ye also be tempted." Thus with you let the strong help the weak, and bear ye one another's burdens; then will you fulfil the royal law of Christ and also our joy, in that you are likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

III. AN ELEMENT OF OUR JOY IS YOUR CONTINUANCE IN A FERVENT DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. Well has Dr. Watts said

Religion, without life and love,
Is but an empty name.

A mere knowledge of, or a "vain," that is an inoperative belief in the great truths of Christianity, will not invest us with its blessings-will not make us to participate in its salvation. Equally valueless to this end is a pharisaical morality and observance of ordinances. True, saving religion is the life of God in the soul of man-it is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the human heart. This is the power of godliness! This the kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy! He that believeth hath the witness in himself. The Spirit of God bears witness with his spirit that he is a child of God and an heir of heaven. The metaphysical nature of the Holy Spirit's influence on the heart of the believer is beyond human comprehension; it is a part of the incontrovertible mystery of godliness, one of the deep things of God which we have no sounding-line to fathom. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; it is high, we cannot attain to it. Nor is there any necessity that we

should attain to it. Ignorance on such subject cannot be to us any misfortune or loss. We should gain nothing but the gratification of a vain curiosity, by understanding how the divine can operate on the human, or in what way the infinite can come in contact with the finite. With our Lord's illustration, then, we may be well content: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." But the birth of the Spirit itself is no equivocal fact, though the manner of it may be mysterious. Where it has taken place its signs and evidences are most decisive and clear. When born from above, the heart becomes truly the temple of God, in which are offered to him continually the sacrifice of holy affections, sincere gratitude, and fervent praise. Then we worship Him who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth, and then only are we acceptable worshippers.

On this particular, beloved friends, suffer the word of exhortation. Guard, carefully guard, against the mistake of resolving the Christian life into the holding of correct doctrinal views, and supposing that intellectual light may be a substitute for gracious dispositions. You may understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and yet not be wise to salvation. In theory you may be faultless, and yet lack the one thing that would give to your knowledge a vital, a sanctifying, and a saving energy. Not that we wish to disconnect religion and intellect, piety and knowledge; nothing can be further from our intention. Ignorance we do not hold to be the mother of devotion, but of superstition. God's service is a reasonable or rational service; and the more intelligence we infuse into our performance of it, the more do we honour the Being to whom it is rendered. Keep your devotion, then, as free from rhapsody as possible, and cultivate your understandings as assiduously as opportunity will allow. Never forget that you are gifted with the attribute of reason, and that God has made you to be wiser than the fowls of heaven, and to know more than the beasts of the field; but at the same time let your religion be characterized by feeling as well as intelligence-let it have a heart, be a warm, living thing, capable of deep, strong, powerful emotion, and not a mere picture, a statue, or a corpse!

Your principal difficulty in the maintenance of a fervent piety, we apprehend, you will find to arise from intercourse with the world. The things of time and sense, the affairs of business, association with promiscuous society, and the concerns of domestic life even, have all a tendency to indurate and deaden the heart to spiritual objects and exercises. In this way those who once run well have been hindered; they begun in the spirit but ended in the flesh, because the cares and engagements of life choked the word, and prevented it growing and bearing fruit to perfection. And what befals an individual in this respect may befal a Church. The Church at Laodicea is an illustrative instance. It was neither cold nor hot, neither truly faithful nor thoroughly apostate; it had sunk into a lukewarm, indifferent state of feeling, retaining the form of godliness though the power was lost. We wish there were no Laodicean Christians-we wish there were no Laodicean Churches at the present day. Our fear is that most are of this character; or why in so many instances are the means of grace and ordinances of divine service so lightly esteemed? What a meagre attendance is there in many Churches to what there ought to be at the social prayermeeting, the class, or the fellowship-meeting-yea, and at the public

ministry of the word on the Lord's-day? And as to the attendance given-how is it given? In what terms may we truly characterize it? As punctual, cheerful, devout? Are Christians glad with a holy gladness when they can say to each other, Come, let us go up to the House of the Lord? What, then, are we to make of their late coming to the sanctuary and their early departure from it? If the moments spent there were precious moments, would there be this contrivance to make them as few as possible? And then what are we to make of their listlessness, and inattention, and drowsiness, while there? If their feelings and conduct are rightly construed, do they not say, "Oh, what a weariness! When will all this preaching, and singing, and praying, come to an end !"

And is it possible for devotional feeling to be at such a low ebb in a Christian society? May those who are united together for the very purpose of keeping themselves in the love of God, notwithstanding allow that love to wax cold? Oh, then, dear brethren, take heed and beware of spiritual indifference. Let not the life and power of godliness subside among you. Be eminently fervent and devout in your spirit. Be what you profess to be-METHODISTS; that is, in other words, Be Christians after the apostolic mould and fashion. Get knowledge, get understanding; but, with all your getting, get the love of God. Seek to have that sacred passion shed powerfully abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost given to you. Aspire to know its heights and depths, its length and breadth, and to be filled with the fulness of God. Let these divine enjoyments be shown by your love to the House of God, with all its associated institutions, and let them likewise give a character to your observance of the services of the sanctuary. When Zion's doors are open for worship, be you ready to enter at the appointed hour. Let not God have to wait upon you-if I may be allowed such an expression-but do you wait for him; so that the service may be commenced by a full congregation, and not be interrupted by your subsequent entrance. And as you sing, and pray, and hear the word, be attentive, be earnest, be devout. While engaging in these hallowed and heaven-resembling exercises, let there be something better in your bosom than a heart of stone. Let the purest, strongest, warmest feelings of your nature gush forth. Rise above the benumbing influence of a frigid formality, and worship your Maker in spirit and in truth. As you sing his praises, let there be melody in your heart to him. At proper times, and in a befitting manner, give your audible sanction to the petitions offered and the truths proclaimed. As in ancient times, to the discourse, and the prayer, let all the people say, Amen; while by your glistening eye, and heaving bosom, and sunlit countenance, you make it evident that you feel how solemn is the place where God is worshipped, and that to you it is none other than the House of God, and the gate of heaven.

IV. A FURTHER CIRCUMSTANCE OF OUR JOY IS YOUR CAREFULNESS TO

EXEMPLIFY THE MORALITY OF THE GOSPEL BOTH IN YOUR INDIVIDUAL DEPORT

MENT AND SOCIAL INTERCOURSE. The gospel is emphatically the religion of sinners; that is, it is adapted to our character and state as transgressors of God's law. Its special mission, then, is to the guilty, the depraved, and the wretched; but to such it is a mission of love. It comes to save that which was lost. Its method of salvation, however, is a just and equitable one, not loosening the bonds of moral obligation, but strengthen

ing them, and making those who embrace it to walk before God in newness of life. In it grace reigns through righteousness. The Saviour it proposes for our acceptance not only delivers us from the wrath to come, he also saves his people from their sins; he gave himself for them that he might redeem them from all iniquity, and make them a peculiar people zealous of good works. Hence in the Corinthian Church there were some whose lives in their heathen state were stained with the darkest crimes; but in their Christian state they were washed, they were sanctified, they were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. Hence, too, the apostle writes, that the grace of God which bringeth salvation teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this evil world. While, then, we are saved by grace through faith, we have no dispensation from a life of holiness, but are freed from sin that we may live unto God. Our actions must sustain the character of "good works" and "well doing." We must be children of the light, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and therefore whatsoever things are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report, must be exemplified in our lives; yea, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, we must think of these things and give ourselves wholly unto them. But the inconsistency of some professing Christians, in regard to their attention to the morality of their religion, is most painful to contemplate. Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, they are not to be told of without weeping, for they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. They disgrace the profession they have assumed, and injure the cause to which they have attached themselves; they are barren fig-trees in the vineyard of the Church; or, worse, they are trees which bear poisonous fruit, and cast abroad a deleterious shade, and their end is to be burned. While, however, the sight of this inconsistency pains us to witness, a deportment becoming the gospel imparts corresponding delight. When you who are members of our spiritual charge walk in the commandments of the Lord blamelessly, then you are valid seals to our ministry, and sonls really given us for our hire. Gathering fruit unto life eternal, we receive in that fact our wages, and exult over it as the husbandman when he gathers in his harvest. Yes, brethren, let us see you adorning the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, walking in wisdom toward those who are without, blameless and harmless in all your deportment, the sons of God, to whom none can justly utter a taunt or rebuke for impropriety of conduct, and then you will indeed be our glory and our joy.

WHO IS TRULY GREAT.-Every man is great as a man, for he who possesses the power of a soul is a great being, be his place in society what it may. He may be clothed in rags, may be occupied in the lowest business, may make no show, be scarcely known to exist, but he may be more truly great than those who are commonly so called; for greatness consists of force of soul-that is, in the force of thought, in moral principle and love;

and this may be found in the humblest condition. For the greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menaces and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering.