of his natural ability, gifts, graces, comforts, and hopes. He has found more need of grace to be resigned to silence, than to be in full service. The man may be much in activity; but grace alone will do in suffering. But the sufferings of ministers are profitable to the wise among their people-probatum est. 2. The strongest believers are often barked and stripped of their confidence and comforts. If I may class among believers; to myself I have been the fruitless, leafless, barkless, weather-beaten tree on a barren heath. In the spring season, what object in nature is so unsightly! It is emblematic of the malediction of Heaven. The most established in Christ have their changes, which should lead us highly to prize the all-restoring life of our dear Lord. If any are in such a case, they may sing "Barren altho' my soul remain, And no one bud of grace appear, My blooming hopes cut off I see; Yet will I in my Saviour trust, And glory that He dy'd for me." 3. The backslider who has been made bare, estranged in his mind from God; all unevenness in his walk, dark prospects as to a future world, entangled by sin and Satan, may be restored. What a deplorable object was David during his distance from God, in the matter of Uriah, in the sight of God, of angels, of believers, and in his own, when he reflected on his sin, and his loss of divine communion! But" who is a God like unto thee, pardoning iniquity!" Hear David saying after this peeling season was over, "But I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever * 4. There may be a secret decay, and an inward peeling of the soul, while the exterior may be fair. There may be the name of living, where there is no life: Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead +." We only are, in fact, what we are before God. Most of God's people have, at seasons, experienced this state, and have found the remedy for it; they have felt their inward poverty, a sense of need has excited prayer. They have found Jesus the restorer and the life. Prayer has been answered, the Sun of righteousness has arisen with healing under his wings, the Holy Spirit has blown with gracious gales on the garden of the heart; the gentle showers have fallen, the blades and buds appear, and " the Lord blesses the springing thereof." 3. Notwithstanding, the wounds and scars on the peeled bough are visible after it is healed, and the bark renewed: a sense of our former peeled state, will not be obliterated from our own minds. "Jacob went limping, and Paul had his thorn: † Rev. iii, 1. Ps, lxv. 10, Ps. ii. 9. xcii, 12—15. they fell, were grieved and humbled in their wounds; but rejoiced in the healing balm of Jesus. 6. Reviving life is seen in buds of holy desire; blooming hope, in the expectation of divine favour, through the blood of the Lamb; saving faith in greater confidence, life, love, lowliness, zeal, and purity. These fruits are brought forward and ripened by the continual agency of God the Holy Ghost, "the Lord and Giver of life." How pleasing to the sight of Jesus, augels, and saints, is such a renewed or restored character! The world itself cannot but admire, though they hate the change. 7. These fruits are pleasant to the taste of the divine Producer of them. "I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey ;” i. e. Thine outward profession and thine inward grace are pleasing to me; the production of thy farther field and thy nearer vineyard, thy wine and thy milk. Let, says Jesus, all partake of my pleasure: "Eat, O friends! drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved!" 8. They are profitable as well as pleasant to the bearer of them. To have our fruit to holiness, is to have it to personal happiness. "Great peace have they which keep thy law, and nothing shall offend them."-To the poor. They have the advantage of the spiritual exertions of the rich, in promoting the cause of religion; and the benefit of their kindness and liberality to their temporal exigencies: "He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord." The Lord's creditors will suffer no loss: there is no fear of bankruptcy in Heaven. To mankind in general, believers are charged to maintain good works: "these are good and profitable unto men." Herein is grace magnified and God glorified : "The work is of grace ; Thine, thine be the praise, And mine to adore thee And tell of thy ways." UNCONSUMED, Song v. 1. vi. 2. vii. 12. † Ps. cxix. 165. Titus iii. S. CHRISTIAN UNION: An Address delivered at the General Communion of the MISSIONARY SOCIETY. If ever there is an unusual joy among the glorified inhabitants of the celestial world, in the expectation of the church militant being increased and extended;-if ever there is an unusual trembling in Hell, under a fear of the empire of Satan being weakened and circumscribed; it is most likely to be when the ministers and disciples of Christ draw nearer to each other CHRISTIAN UNION. in affection and friendship; and cordially unite their counsels, their prayers, and their exertions, to spread the gospel, and bring the souls of lost and perishing sinners to the knowledge and experience of the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. It is in this view, that the formation and continuance of the Missionary Society is to be estimated among the most important and auspicious events of these latter times. A multitude of Christian ministers and others, have agreed, in some measure, to lose sight of the different names by which they are denominated, and the various modes of discipline by which their respective churches are regulated, and, with one heart and mind, apply all their talents and zeal to prove their love to Jesus and his gospel; and labour to snatch those who sit in darkness and the region of the shadow of death, from their truly awful and calamitous state of darkness, guilt, and misery. The enemies of Christianity have taken much praise to themselves for having weakened the influence, and retarded the progress of Christianity in the world, by the exercise of their wisdom, and the energy of their zeal. But it is not so; the greater part, if not the whole, of their boasted success has arisen from a quite different source. We scruple not to say, it has, in a great measure, arisen out of the ill-timed and the unchristian contentions and disputes of Christians themselves: - disputes which are the fruit and offspring of our depraved passions; and which are fanned into a flame, and kept alive through the influence of the god of this world, whose continual aim is, to divide the church, that he may the more easily weaken its strength, and destroy its prosperity. Many Christians, however, not only retain their ancient prejudices, and refuse all religious intercourse with other denominations, but they express themselves in an angry tone against those who do; and scruple not to charge them with being the enemies of all discipline and good order in the church of Christ; and even, sometimes, impeach the integrity of their motives with an acrimony unworthy of those, who profess to be the disciples of the meek and lowly Jesus. But to what part of either the Old or the New Testament a serious reader look, without perceiving, that both the letter and the spirit of divine revelation inculcate upon believers, that they should love one another with a pure heart, fervently; that they should be of one heart and of one mind. The charge which Joseph gave to his brethren, " See that you fall not out by the way," is still more important, in its application, to those who are Israelites in a spiritual sense. Both the beauty and the value of this Christian unity are recommended by the Psalmist, in these words: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity." The * Gen. xlv. 24, Psalm cxxxiii. 1. New Testament abounds, still more than the Old, with various and appropriate passages on this subject. Jesus Christ, who knew what was in man, and who knew what individual Christians must of necessity sacrifice to the attainment of this most desirable and essential part of religion, has repeatedly and strongly enforced this doctrine upon his disciples. The apostles rightly understood the doctrine and the spirit of their Master, and copied him in earnestly pressing the doctrine of unity upon all who were called by his name, professed faith in the gospel of peace, and the hope of that glory in which the church shall finally make but one general assembly, and in which the most cordial and perfect harmony shall eternally reign. So strongly did the apostle Paul feel the necessity of Christian unity among the churches, that every epistle of his recommends it in the most affectionate manner, and by the most suitable and cogent arguments. In his time, as in our own, the Christians were disposed to lay an undue stress upon non-essential things; to separate from, and maintain a warfare against, each other on the account of difference upon topics, on which they were bound to bear with, and exercise the greatest tenderness and charity toward, each other. They were inclined to break communion with each other upon such subjects as these: Meats and drinks, and the observation of days. How is the holy man affected by the disputes and dissentions of the early churches? He laments over these evils; he censures all the parties concerned in them; but takes no side, espouses no party; but rather gives the most tender and healing advice: Him that is weak in the faith receive ye; but not to doubtful disputations *." Read the whole passage, and admire the conduct of this amiable, this liberal, this devoted servant of Christ. He had an opinion upon these disputed questions; and his authority would give weight to it, and, perhaps, even silence those of a contrary opinion. But no; he does not disclose his own thoughts upon these subjects; he thinks them of too little importance to give a precise law concerning them he is only grieved that Christians should make them the matter of dispute, and occupies himself chiefly in censuring and condemning the bigotry and intolerance of those, who would violate the bonds of Christian charity, dictate laws to other mens' consciences, and destroy the principles of Christian liberty, by not allow ing that freedom to others which they take for themselves. To whatever part of ecclesiastical history I turn my eyes, I see the sad effects of the want of Christian unity. There I see different classes of Christians, not only abusing, but persecuting one another to prison and to death, because they cannot pronounce their Shibboleth; whilst their unsanctified contentions weakened the general interests of their Master's kingdom, and tended to scatter the lambs of his little flock, the common Rom. xiv. 1-6. enemy of both are exulting and crying, "Aha! aha! so would we have it." On the contrary, when friendship and unity obtain among the ministers and churches of the Reemer, tho' they are known under different names, and worship statedly in different communities, yet are they mutually helpers of each other's faith and joy; the general edification of the body of Christ is promoted; the enemies of Christ and his church are abashed and confounded, and ery, with amazement," See how these Christians love!" yea, when the churches thus walk in anity, they approach so much nearer to the state of the church above, where all is love, harmony, and friendship. From the state of the heavenly world, we may draw a very natural and powerful inference in favour of unity and friendship among the ministers and churches of Christ upon earth. That immense, but united and harmonious multitude, constituted of gracious souls drawn from among all nations, and from a great variety of denominations, dwell together, and worship before the throne of God and the Lamb, without one jarring note. Yes; there Whitefield and Erskine, Toplady and Wesley, Romaine. and Gill, Jonathan Edwards, and Latrobe, can all unite in one song of praise to that triune God, to whose sovereign grace and almighty influence they cheerfully own themselves indebted for their complete salvation. Allowing they are now the spirits of just men made perfect, and are freed from all the passious and prejudices with which those in the body are still exercised, and hence the cases are not altogether parallel, yet why should we not aim to have these dispositions which hinder Christian union, suppressed and laid aside? Why should we not aspire to resemble more perfectly whilst here, that general assembly and church of the first born, which we (whether we are Disseuters or Churchmen, Presbyterians or Independents, Baptists or Methodists) are destined to join, provided we be real Christians. To recommend and enforce the lovely doctrine of Christian union, it might be urged, that the whole church of Christ is but one body; consequently all the real disciples of Christ, though of different denominations, approximate much nearer to each other than most of them are willing to allow : they are all members of Christ; they must therefore be related to each other, and must be interested in each other's safety and prospe rity. But this point is more beautifully and more powerfully urged by the apostle, than by any thing I can offer. In one place he says," We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones*." In another," For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles; whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit: for the body is not one member, but many +." It is then manifest, that though the names by which we are called are various; though the walls which separate our parti |