Imatges de pàgina
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BV

4525

.S 63.

31-3 збив

gift

Tappan rest, Ass

1-23-1932

DISCOURSE.

EPH. II. 19. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God.

Our obligations and duties depend greatly upon our relations to God and one another. We are required to love God for what he is, in himself, but we ought to love him likewise for what he is to us. His being our Maker and Preserver, our Redeemer and Saviour; the Author of our mercies and hopes, and our only expectation in death and eternity, enlarges immensely the measure of our obligation to love and serve him. We are bound too, to love our fellow creatures for what they are, in themselves; but their being of the same race, and in the same circumstances, of the same country and community, of the same fraternity and family with ourselves, greatly modifies and increases their claim upon our benevolent or affectionate regard.

It is proposed in this discourse to consider the duties of a peculiar portion of mankind, arising from their relations to that society to which the Apostle in our text tells the christians of Ephesus, they were no more strangers and foreigners. The Church, the household of God, is that society, and our subject the duties of Church members as such.

These persons may be regarded as members either of the Church universal, or of some particular and local church; belonging to one they belong to both; and as they are viewed in the one or the other of these relations, a correspondent view will present itself of the character and deportment that becomes them. Regarded as members of the universal Church, as fellow-citizens with saints of all ages and places, as of the household of God, embracing his holy family both in heaven and earth,what manner of persons ought they to be in all holy conversation and godliness-how peculiar, how different in spirit, in purpose, in pursuit, in manner of life, from the world around them, that lieth in wickedness. Am I a member of the Church and General Assembly of the first born which are written in heaven. Am I of God's household; of the same family with Abel, and Enoch, and Noah; with Abraham, and Moses, and Samuel, and Elijah, and all the prophets; with Paul, and Peter, and John, and all the Apostles, and martyrs, and saints in light-men of whom the world was not worthy?And shall I live amongst men like a citizen of the

earth, minding earthly things, walking after the flesh, and fulfilling sensual aims and desires? No more a foreigner and a stranger to this holy society, ought I not to be as a foreigner and stranger to the world.

But the better way to obtain definite and useful impressions of the character becoming members of the universal Church, is to view these persons as belonging to some distinctly organized portion of that Church, and consider particularly the requirements of that limited connexion. For as in every state-every extended and complicated association of mankind, the good of the whole is not to be promoted but by each man's taking heed to his own private ways in the sphere he is placed in, by choice or providence: so in the universal Church; those who do not worthily behave themselves in their own particular churches, are no better friends to the Church as a whole and on the other hand, they cannot but be friends of the Church as a whole, if they are useful and worthy members in their respective particular churches. Indeed, as will be shown in its proper place, no one can be a worthy member of a particular church who does not directly and by designed exertions seek the good of the Church universal-the very object next to the glory of God, and inseparable from it, for which all particular churches, were formed. The spirit of those particular churches or members of such churches, that aim principally at their own advancement, neglecting the general good of the Church catholic, is the spirit, not of Christianity but of sect, as different as the spirit of faction from the love of country. Let us then contine our view to a particular church: every purpose will in this way best be answered: our thoughts will fix upon distinct classes of duties, which otherwise would be blended and indistinguishable, and we cannot fail to obtain a juster conception of the obligations arising out of church membership, taken either in the larger or nar

rower sense.

1. One branch of the duty of every church member as such, relates to the pastor of the church. He is himself a church member, and may claim from his christain brethren, in common with themselves, whatever regard that designation gives a right to. Nor should intelligence, moral worth, and amiableness of manners be unacknowledged in him, more than in another man. But there are special reasons why the members of a church

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