We are justified saints. God "beholds not iniquity in Jacob, neither sees He perverseness in Israel." We are all fair in his sight, having no spot or wrinkle whilst he "beholds our shield, and looks upon us in the face of his anointed." "The Lord is our righteousness," and we are accepted in him the Beloved.

We are adopted sons, born again of the Holy Ghost; we are possessed of the nature, and, being one by marriage bonds of faith with Christ, we have now the dignity of children, and in the spirit of adoption, cry Abba, Father.

We are recognized heirs to "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us."

We are heavenly pilgrims, citizens of, and journeying to, a better country. Our life's effort is to keep ourselves free from the evil of the world, to be in it and not of it; and so to live and grow in grace that we may be made meet for the society of those who are faultless and complete, before the presence of him in whose sight even the heavens are unclean, and the angels are charged with folly.

We are commissioned servants sent into the vineyard to "work whilst it is called to-day, for the night cometh wherein no man can work." With more or less of talent, "every man according to his several ability," has a life's service to perform for Christ, and is intrusted with the means needed by him in order to fulfil the duty of the day in the day.

We are all living members of one mystic body. Our head, Christ Jesus, is the bond of union to us all, and partakers of his nature, we feel that, because he lives, we shall live also.

We need to keep all these facts in connection with our own individual state and condition, ever before us. To forget one will be an evil, and unduly to exalt any will surely work us mischief. The remembrance of my once fallen state, checks my pride and keeps me humble. The thought of my complete justification through the imputed righteousness of Christ, casts out my fears and constrains me to "live for him who loved me and gave himself for me." My sonship, as realized by the testimony of the Spirit within, ennobles me, and thus helps me to "walk worthy of the high vocation wherewith I am called," being raised above the slavish spirit which once debased my soul. My "treasure in heaven," draws my "heart there also," and lifts me above the allurements and trials of this world; whilst the fact of being in the world as a pilgrim, preserves me from making it my rest or conforming to its maxims and ways, and tends to keep me on my guard against that earthliness and sin, which are the characteristics of those who make this world their home.

To forget that I am a servant, would be to ruin my peace and purity and to miss that blessing which flows from "doing the will of him that has sent me," for it is written, "in keeping his commandments there is great reward." My union to Christ must be a matter of every day influence, or I shall speedily find myself like a withered branch, for "without him we can do nothing."

We are all too prone to regard some one part of our Christian life to the neglect of the rest, and thus to develope ourselves irregularly, and present a maimed and distorted appearance to the eye of our fellow men. Here, perhaps, a swelling of pride is seen, and there a broken bone or a tender part where a dark doubt about our safety has wounded us sore.

One man labours for a father as if he were a task-master; and another seems to forsake the truth, having loved the present evil world, and being conformed to its ways; few of us are, in all things, imitating Christ. Let it be our aim to live under the influence of a comprehensive and accurate view of our nature and standing in Christ Jesus, that we may be "perfect and entire, wanting nothing,'

II. Take a comprehensive view of Divine Truth. Truth is manysided, though but one, and unchangeable. The finest white light of the sun is made up of mingled rays-it has heat, motion, chemical action, and we know not what beside; so also is it with that light which giveth life, and comes from the Sun of Righteousness. We at best can know only in part and prophesy in part, and gather our views of truth mainly from their shadows, as seen in a glass darkly.

We have, all of us, a secret leaning or taste, which will lead us to lay hold of, and to express most forcibly some part of the truth as it is in Jesus. Men's spiritual constitutions and powers differ as widely as their bodily appearances and mental capacities. We may safely say from experience, and prove it from Scripture, that the Spirit has divided not uniformly but diversely, "as it hath pleased him," the measure of grace to us all. We are strongest at some one point, and this peculiarity enables us to comprehend and exhibit some one part of truth in the clearest and most effective manner. So be it, but I must see that this does not lead me to despise or neglect the rest. Our personal idiosyncracies must never be the standard of our creed. Yet, how often this is the case. The man of action lays hold of precepts, and urges men by all consistent motives to obey them, and to live lives of obedience and usefulness; but in so doing, have you not seen that, not of necessity, but yet surely, he has eclipsed the truths which speak of an inner life of silent communion with God. He has gradually elevated the one, and as insensibly lowered the other class of truths. Whilst, on the other hand, the man of retired and chastened spirit who dwells alone and communes with his own heart upon his bed and is still, is apt to select the experimental parts of holy writ, and compose his creed almost without a command to regulate and guide. We have known men whose preaching was mainly what they had felt, and tasted, and handled of the good word of life, and who always seemed to conclude with the remark, "I was there," whatever the subject may have been. Again, a third class of men whose minds are apt to intermeddle with all knowledge, take exclusively the doctrines, and prophecies, the abstract truths, and direct revelations of the Bible, and furnish their creed with the teachings of certain dogmas. Now our religion combines all three classes. The Bible is a book of rules for a life of active service, and supplies all healthy motives, exciting us to keep them even unto death; it is also as food for an inner life, which is hid with Christ in God, and furnishes to us a meat and drink which the world knoweth not of; and still further, it has an illuminating power, its entrance giveth light which shineth more and more until that perfect day when we shall know, even as we are known.

Positive error is not so dangerous as partial truth. Poison is seldom taken pure and unadulterated, it is hidden in wholesome meat and drink, and consumed unawares. You may so preach a truth as to make

it do the work of a lie: it may be held in unrighteousness, and wrested to a man's destruction. Brethren, we must start from the cross, and look all around upon the system of truths which revolve about it; but mind, you must not stand upon your own human reason as upon your feet, for then you will turn your back upon some truths and never see them. Rise upon faith's wings, and view them from above, as God over all sees them, and has revealed them to us; and then you will see that " every dark and bending line meets in the centre of his love"-the circle will be viewed complete at once, all truths resting where God has grouped them, round the cross of him, who is THE truth, the first and last, the sum and substance of them all.

III. Our third suggestion is, to take a comprehensive view of your work in the world.

No man liveth unto himself; no man dieth unto himself. We are, and must be, links in the chain of being, and on us will hang events which tell for good or ill far down the ages which are yet unborn. We speak to those whose spirits hold a spark which may kindle a flame world-wide, and deathless as the source from whence it came. "I work for eternity," said the ancient artist, and the words should be emblazoned on the beam of our closet, to meet our eye; and be written upon the fleshy tablet of our hearts, so that we may live and labour as those who, though they perish themselves, being dead, shall nevertheless speak by their works which follow them, even while they rest from their labours, having entered into their reward.

There is danger of marking off our corner of the vineyard, and limiting our aims to the cultivating of some one plot of ground. There is good and ill in that deed. Our duty no man shall do for us. We will see that no man take our crown. Let every man bear his own burden; but we have an interest in all work and service done in our common cause, for the one Master, whom we all serve. There be many fields, but they all whiten to one harvest, and shall send multitudes of sheaves amidst the shoutings of the same song, to be gathered into one garner. "The world is my parish," said the prince of evangelists; not less so is it ours, and clearly our duty is to preach the gospel to every creature. Shall our thoughts confine themselves to the four walls of an edifice, or the boundary of a village or town, and say, here I begin and end my work for Christ? No! Wherever breathes, a son of man, a lost and helpless sinner, I see my neighbour, and into his wounds, as God gives me power, will I seek to pour the oil and wine, which alone can heal. We will "do good to all men," though "especially to the household of faith." Wherever we know of a brother speaking the truth in love, and telling to sinners round what a dear Saviour he has found, we salute him as a fellow-labourer in a common work, as a fellow-soldier in the same good fight of faith. We have no divided interest; we cannot clash; we are one, so far as our work is for the Lord. We are, it is true, like the insect in the coral-reef-we each build our own piece; but we like another view of the case. We must turn the world upside down, and there is but one common lever; we must all then give united momentum to effect the deed. The high places of the god of this world are to fall, and his strongholds are to be overthrown; as a grain of gunpowder, each Christian unites with his brother to form the one.

charge, and adds his mite of expansive power to make the grand accumulated force by which the castle of evil shall totter to its fall, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

IV. Our fourth thought is, that we need to take comprehensive views of the Church of Christ.

We believe in the Holy Catholic Church, which is one universal brotherhood, and in the sight of the Eternal Father, a complete and undivided family. Our hearts leap for joy at the thought that out of every kindred, nation, tribe, tongue, and people, God is preparing a seed to serve him, and call the Redeemer blessed. Now, the flock is divided, and we have party folds, but eventually it will be seen that there is " one fold and one shepherd," common to us all. We cherish this idea, it is redolent of heaven, and dawns on our mind as a beam of that perfect day when the Lord God and the Lamb shall be our light, and all our darkness and errors will for ever have fled away.

We hate that false catholicity of spirit which delights to speak against what it calls denominationalism. We belong to the Baptist denomination, and hope never to feel ashamed of the title, or to deny the scriptural character of the ordinance which gives us the name. We venture to express no doubts where we have none-to tread firmly whenever we feel the solid rock beneath our feet-to hold fast what we know to be truth, and to hit hard at whatever loveth or maketh a lie. We are not foolish enough to say that all can be right when they contradict each other flatly, and call white black and black white. The contention is professedly for truth, and there is a truth for which we contend; and whenever we lay hold of it, we grasp it firmly, even though as yet we cannot make it square to the rule of human reason, believing that some stone may be rejected of us builders, and yet become the head stone of the corner. This is one thing, and to deny the Christianity of any who differ from us is quite another. Our denomination we may believe to be nearest the truth, but to assert that it is the boundary of it, is to imitate those who would say, "Stand by, for I am holier than thou." All true Christians are, and must be, one, in fundamental truths. I cannot believe a member to be alive who holds not the head, Christ Jesus; but every member who by faith lives on Christ, however wrapped in grave clothes of superstition, defiled with stains of error, or diseased by sin, we hail as one with us and a joint heir of glory. We may be "distinct as the billows," yet we are one as the sea," if we have been made to enter by faith into union with our risen Lord. There is scarcely anything which tends to expand the mind, to restore wasted energies both bodily and mental, so much as a travel in foreign lands. Our prejudices are removed, and we enlarge our stock of ideas. It is very healthful for the Christian to journey in spirit over the various churches and to mark the excellencies of each. That there are better men than ourselves in the world is a very happy discovery to makethat we are surpassed by multitudes in matters where we thought ourselves unrivalled-that we have peers who equal us, and princes who tower over us, and to whom we may look up with reverence-these are very humiliating but very healthful truths. We shall never be one by ignoring our differences or making them to take in words (we seldom

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do in deeds) a place in the shady background. No, let us ventilate our peculiarities and sun them in fair daylight, and we shall then know wherein we differ, and agree to hold each other in respect, as honest, conscientious men, and to work where we can in union, and where we cannot, yet still in love. Grace, mercy, and peace be with all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth: but no peace with error; and no grace of Christ do we wish to rest upon that work or dogma which is not of God.

We have yet to learn that a bold, unhesitating declaration of our opinion is inconsistent with a due love to all the brethren. We rejoice in all signs of a desire to make alliance, as Christians, with all who love and preach Christ Jesus the crucified; but this can never be genuine nor lasting, if it proceeds on any other principle than a recognition of our differences as well as our agreements. We scorn the man who, differing from us, would speak with bated breath because we were present; and certainly we shall never return the compliment, and imitate him in the deed. After all, our union is irrespective even of the points of doctrinal agreement, it lies back in our common nature and our common Lord. Doctrines will never sever us, and can never unite us more firmly, if we are already 66 one in Christ Jesus."

But to conclude the spirit of comprehensive thought and feeling is one that we need to cultivate, so as to apply it on all occasions to every subject of contemplation. If we look within, may we see our calling and our relations in all their bearings: if at truth, may we take heed that we let nothing slip. If our relation to Christian work and enterprise is before us, then may we view it in its widest bearings, and be neither straitened nor weary in well doing, as in due time we shall reap, if we faint not; and whenever the household of faith attracts our thoughts, may we believe that whosoever shall do the will of our Father which is in heaven, the same is Christ's mother, and His and our sister and brother. Amen.

I WISH that I may never grasp so much of the world as to distract my head with cares, or engage my heart in sins, and that in the rust that cleaves to my fingers in telling of money, though each peece seem clean enough, I may see the emblem of the defilement, gotten insensibly by the use even of lawful things, that therefore I may constantly afterwards wash my heart by prayers and meditations. I wish to account nothing a crosse to me, but what crosses religion in some respect, either to my own soul or others; to reckon by that rule, my losses and gains, my thrivings and goings back: and for this reason, to esteem scandall* the worst of evils; and to give, or do, or suffer any thing to prevent or take them away: and next to these the want of God's ordinances. I wish to have my heart and conversation alwaies in heaven, as counting "my treasure to be laid up there;" and though I must trade with worldly commodities, yet to reckon grace my chief stock: and that as fore-seeing losses, I may trade much in the assurance-office, and study daily the art of Christian alchymy, which can extract advantage out of losses, gold out of every thing, even dung itself; that is, grace not only out of every gracious act of God's providence within sight or hearing; but even out of afflictions and very sins.-From "Memorials of Godliness and Christianity," by Herbert Palmer.

* That is, putting a "stumbling block "in the way of others.

† Matt. vi. 21.