them? Is he favouring them with his grace? If so, Shall the Spirit dwell in Does them and we frown? Shall God commune with them, and we refuse them our fellowship? the aim to glorify God lead to inconsistencies and contradictions like these? Must not some other and lower, and opposite principle prevail, to produce such strange incongruities? O what a miserable dereliction has there been of this department of glorifying God! Alas, how have even "the mighty fallen" here, from the high ground of God's glory, to pride, secularity, prejudices, bigotry, partizanship, narrow selfishness, and conventional interests! The glory of God requires that we admit Christians differing from us in unessential things, not only to a charitable esteem, a latent regard, a courteous recognition, but to the forms of our fellowship, as far as they may be willing to avail themselves of them. Shall God admit them to fellowship with himself, notwithstanding supposed errors, and shall we be wiser than God, and holier than God? Ought we not to ask, what has God made the grounds of fellowship? And shall we venture to displace these by rules of our own? Do we not act in these things to the glory of our mode, to the glory of our creed, to the glory of our church, to the glory of our order, to the glory of our denomination, rather than to the glory of God, when we reject those "whom Christ has received?" How astounding, but how happy would be the effect of the universal application of this divine principle! What forms of haughty bigotry, of stern exclusiveness, of little prejudice, of cold suspicion, would it break up and scatter! What dismay would it give to all the interested, the selfish and the uncharitable! What purity, what peace, what union, what sublimity of character, what power of doing good, what vindication in the eyes of the world, what triumph over scepticism, would it give to the universal church! Whilst in these matters "we all offend," yet I must not conceal my painful and solemn conviction that he most grievously sins against the law we speak of, at least in this application of it, who sacrifices the interests of essential truth and piety, to the interests of denominational peculiarities; who will prefer as his brethren and associates, the irreligious and unsanctified who may chance to wear his badge, to the really "godly in Christ Jesus," who, in minor things may differ from him ;-he who would rather seem to countenance "another gospel, which is not another," but "a perversion of the gospel," denounced by the apostolic and inspired anathema,* than incur the possibility of enfeebling in the slightest degree the ranks of his party ;- who will counsel his friends at the risk of injuring their souls, destroying those of their children, and misleading those of observers, to place themselves under such egregious and ruinous perversions of truth, rather than to come in contact with those, who though they "hold the Head," pro * Gal. i. 6-9. nounce not his shibboleth. Do great principles go vern in such cases? Is it the glory of God, or the glory of a name and a form? God sometimes puts our desire for his glory to the test by bringing under our eye, signal and extensive usefulness by other hands than our own, or those of our party. Can we say, "I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice?" Or do we refuse to " wish him God speed" whom God has sent ? Are we slow to believe the labour which God has owned? Dare we repine, when God has blessed? Are we cold when many hearts are made to glow with "the love of God shed abroad" therein? Are we unthankful when "one," who is not of us, "converteth a sinner from the error of his way, and thus saveth a soul from death, and hideth a multitude of sins?" When "God causeth others to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his name by them," do we sullenly refuse to join in the joyous procession? Do we refuse to unite in the symphonies of angels when they rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, because that sinner repented not at our bidding, but at some other voice not tuned to our key, or not shaped to our form of words? Have we to accuse ourselves in any measure of these godless discontents? O tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon! Genuine bigotry would rather see men sink into perdition, than consent that they should be saved by another hand. What a foe to the Gospel! Who would not wish to see it destroyed? But it is too formidable for us to meet in common warfare. We cannot talk it down. We cannot laugh it down. We cannot rail it down. This enemy, must It has entrenched principles of the This is to employ carnal weapons. They have hitherto failed, and they will still fail. be assailed with spiritual arms. and defended itself by all the carnal mind-by the sternest evils of human nature -by the deadliest corruptions of the soul-pride, selfishness, envy, worldliness, dread of truth and of the consequences of its adoption. It will yield therefore to no weapons but those drawn from the armoury of heaven. "spiritual wickednesses in high places," in our closets. We must grapple with this foe in our inner man. Deep in our inmost minds must the war be carried on; and no position shall we find so advantageous, or so promising of success and victory, as that high and guarded ground, where all is done to the glory of God. We must wrestle with these A thorough recognition of this regulation would open new sources of satisfaction and delight in reference to the church and cause of God. Surely James, Cephas, and John, experienced no ordinary pleasure when they gave the right hands of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, having "perceived the grace that was given unto them, that they should go to the heathen." And shall not we be glad when we see the grace of God, in those who differ from us? Instead of being frozen up by a cold exclusiveness, or irritated and disturbed by petty jealousies, if we feel as the honour of God requires we should feel, the heart would expand with generous sympathy, and dilate with a noble joy at the prosperity of every branch of the universal family. Such is the happiness of loving all Christians, that, were it optional,. and were there no other way of accomplishing the end, one would almost consent to peregrinate through all the divisions of the Christian church, and adopt in succession their varied modes. At any rate, if the object could be secured by such a pilgrimage, it would be far preferable to a state of heart in which all real Christians could not be embraced as objects: of esteem and affection. But happily this is no more, necessary than to travel into every nation and adopt its costume and manner, in order to taste the satisfaction of genuine philanthropy. The ordinary intercourse of christians, if conducted with greater regard to the honour of God, would be found much more fruitful of enjoyment and advantage. When christians meet it is to be feared that they too much forget their distinctive character as the disciples of Christ. It is surely not to the glory of God that there is so little reference to him, and the relation which in common they sustain to him. It is certainly no proof of regard and affection, that of all subjects he should be the last-that there should be so great a shyness, shrinking, studied and sensitive avoidance of whatever relates to his will and waysthat vanity itself is allowed to exclude the all-satisfying good. If we have cach a becoming regard for God, why should there not be an utterance of our common sympathy-an avowal of mutual objects-a reciprocation, a mingling of views, sentiments, and motives shared in common? There may in some be inaptitude for conversation; in others a notion of its undesirableness; in others timidity and self-diffidence; but certain it is that so long as that law of religion, of society, of nature, lasts-"out of the |