Imatges de pàgina
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Lord, lay Thy gracious hand
Upon my youthful head;

Let angels keep, by Thy command,
Their watch around my bed.

To Thee all praise be given,
Thou, who art God alone,

Creator, Spirit sent from Heaven,
And Saviour, Three in One.

"NEVER MIND: WE ARE ALL GOING

TO THE SAME PLACE."

AND why not by the same road? If half-adozen of your neighbours were setting out together for some distant town, would you not think them very foolish if they chose six different paths? You would feel sure that five of them must, to say the least of it, be giving themselves more trouble than there was any occasion for. Would you not join with the rest of their friends. in saying, You must be very foolish; there can be but one straight road to a place: five of you must be going, more or less, out of the way ?" Would you think much the better of their wisdom, if they cry out with one voice, "Never mind we are all going to the same place."

And yet, my dear friends, is not this the very plan that you are pursuing in a matter far more important; in your journey toward the heavenly Jerusalem? The ministers placed over you by God, urge you to unite in travelling to heaven by one path and this is the answer you give them, "Never mind: we are all going to the same place." This is the very reason, the strongest of all reasons, why you should go by one road; if

we were intending to travel to different places, it would be a good reason for our choosing different paths: but what can be so contrary to all reason when our aim is to reach the same point.

You are, perhaps, ready to say to me; "Yes, yes, we see; you wish to make your own party larger; we can't trust what you say." But you can trust, fully trust to what God's Holy Word says? Looking up to Him then, reverently, for His blessing, take down your Bible, and turn to the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. There you will find our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, just as He was about to depart out of the world to His Father, offering up a prayer for His disciples, praying that when they should be left alone, God would keep them from evil. Then our Lord proceeds even to pray for us; in the twentieth verse He says, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word." And what is it that Christ asks for us? That we all may be one, one in this world; "As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." Here you see our Blessed Saviour Himself praying that all His disciples might be one. And just mark

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why He prays for this; that the world, that is, the ungodly, may know that the Father sent Him. Look about you now; here you see a body of men, professing to be disciples of Christ, contending for one thing; there another sect contending for just the opposite, while envy, and anger, and evil speaking are mixed up with their contentions. Do you really think that this is the kind of agreement our Saviour prayed for? Does it bear the mark of that "wisdom that is from above," which "is first pure, then peaceable ?" (St. James iii. 17.) Can it ever yield the fruit of that agreement which Christ asked? In other words, can it ever teach the ungodly that Christ came forth from a God of love, from the great Author of peace, and Lover of concord? Don't you think, now, honestly, that the world would see this much better, if professing Christians were but "one body," (Eph. iv. 4,) had but "one faith," (Eph. iv. 5,) and were "perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment?" (1 Cor. i. 10.) The Epistles of St. Paul shew that he always bore in mind his heavenly Master's prayer. When he heard that there were divisions among the Corinthians, although these had not reached to any thing like the length of our divisions, yet the Apostle was.

greatly concerned for them. Directed by the Spirit of God, he says to them, "It hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul ?" (1 Cor. i. 11-13.)

My dear friends, I would put these words to your consciences. Read the passages that I have named to you; compare them with these, 1 Cor. iii. 3; xii. 12, 13; Eph. iv. 1—6; Col. iii. 15. Meditate on them; pray over them. You are not afraid of the truth, surely?

Yet I cannot close here. If you have carefully read, and devoutly prayed over these passages, I must naturally expect you to ask; "Which is the way of unity? Where is the path in which we are to meet; the straight and well-beaten road along which we are to walk together?" I need hardly say to you, that this straight road, whereever it is to be found, cannot be a new road; for Christ more than 1800 years ago came to mark it out for men. It cannot then possibly be found among any of the dissenting bodies in this land.

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