endeavour its help and ease: in a word, all the members partake of the good and evil, one of another." And well does this kind, this pervading, sympathy become the members of Christ's mystical body. In his parting address to his disciples he presses the cultivation of mutual love with special earnestness upon them: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Again, members of a church owe to each other,

loved you that ye

2. Patient forbearance. Human nature, in its best style has still its imperfections, its roughness, which tell of "the rock whence it was hewn, and of the hole of the pit whence it was digged." We expect not to meet with an immaculate character, even among Christians. Though they have a perfect pattern before them from which to copy, yet they reach not to perfection, While in the body, they are still copyists. However much the man may be renewed in his nature,-however great the change that is wrought upon him,

orderly, and fraternal character which they should ever study to maintain as Christ's peculiar people. This he does in general yet forcible terms; his object being to inculcate upon them a supreme, a never-watchful regard to the glory of God their Saviour, by an exhibition of all moral worth and loveliness. To effect a purpose so desirable, he intimates that there are mutual obligations for united Christians to discharge. We will consider some of them. Church members, then, in order to promote the character which Christ the Head of the church requires her to sustain, owe to each other the cultivation of,

1. Brotherly love. This is the principle which drew them together at first. When brought to know and love Christ, they could no longer love a world lying in wickedness; but recognising a similitude in one another, a coalition naturally followed. If the world loves its own, so does the church of Christ: "Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him." The hearts of all believers meet in God, as in one common centre; they cannot, therefore, but love one

another. There is a mutual recognition of the Divine image wherever it meets its like, and mutual attraction is instantly felt. But this affection, existing as it does, throughout the universal church, is fed and invigorated by a closer union. The streams of catholic love gather activity and intenseness when made to converge into the focus of a separate and smaller community. We are commanded to love as brethren all that love the Saviour, and that not indifferently, but fervently; "not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth;"-yet it is obviously imposible for us to render to those who are at a distance from us, and whose persons we neither see nor know, the same tokens of christian regard which we may, and ought to, show to those who are near. It is to those certainly of our own locality that our first, our closest, our warmest attentions and sympathies must be evinced. With them we are required to "walk in love." This grace must mingle and predominate in all the intercourse of fellow-members with each other. In this capacity they form a more compact body. They are all as brothers

(and assuredly the change is great) the Christian has still to acknowledge with the apostle, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." This being the case, we are, by our common condition, strongly called to the exercise of patience and forbearance. Every Christian is bound, by the consideration of his own imperfection, to bear with that of his brother; and when his principles are in lively operation, he will do more, he will practise the apostolic injunction, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves;"-" in honour preferring one another." The members of a church are under special obligations to cultivate this patient, this lowly grace. The honour and recommendation of their religion demand it of them. We not unfrequently find the men of the world exemplify the social affections in a very pleasing and attractive There are not wanting among them many unquestionable specimens of the amiable and forbearing temper, which gives an agree

manner.

able charm to our intercourse with them. But shall a favourable peculiarity of education or of constitution alone, produce such specimens, and the religion of the meek and lowly Jesus fall short of its efficiency? No, a cloud of witnesses in favour of our Christianity answer this. It not only gives to whatever it finds of virtuous, laudable, or lovely, in the natural man a purer and more genial soil to grow up into greater strength, beauty, and fruitfulness; but it exerts a converting power on the harsh, the sour, or the bitter, in our fallen nature, and softens and sweetens the whole, so that the character becomes, at once, a trophy and an ornament of the truth. What ever evil habits may have formerly prevailed, however proud or irritable the previous elements of our constitution, all are sweetly overcome by the Spirit of Christ. Members of a christian church! the spirit of patient forbearance must dwell with you, if any where on earth. The very name you bear carries with it a sort of guarantee, that, if driven from every other society, with you it shall find a home. The example and precept of your