forgive your trespasses." Matt. vi. 14, 15. Listen, also, to his address to the servant who exercised not the for

giveness he had received; "Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me : shouldest not thou, also, have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had compassion on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." Matt. xviii. 33-35. "Be ye kind," said Paul, one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Eph. iv. 32. "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Col. iii. 12, 13. Think, Christian brethren, of the thrilling motive by which the duty is enforced; God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us-forgiven us trespasses far more numerous and aggravated than any we can ever be called upon to pardon-trespasses, which went not merely to the injury of an individual, or a family, or even a nation, or a system, but to the overthrow of the moral order of the universe. Yet Christ has forgiven them; and our Father who is in heaven has forgiven them— forgiven them freely, fully, finally. He retains no remembrance of them. Isaiah xliii. 25. He has blotted them out as a cloud, of which no trace whatever remains. He has cast them into the depths of the sea. I need say no more, surely, than that men of implacability cannot be the sons of such a Father.

It was stated, that forgiveness should be invariably extended when there exists satisfactory evidence of repentance. Without such evidence it cannot be exercised, because, in true Christian forgiveness there is included not merely refraining from punishment, or re

taliation, or subsequent allusion in conversation to the offence, (it does not say, with the world, I shall forgive and say no more about it, but I shall not forget,) but the restoration of the offender to the place he had formerly occupied in our esteem and regard. In short, we do not forgive until to us the offence is as if it had never been. If God remembers not our sins, surely the trespasses of our brethren, when followed by repentance, should be forgotten as well as forgiven.

No rule can be laid down by which to measure the degree of penitence which should be held to be satisfactory. This will depend upon circumstances, too varied and too minute to be specified; and further, upon the state of mind, the degree of placability, and of spiritual attainment, in the case of the offended party. The latter is thrown upon the influence of the great principle from which forgiveness should flow, and his conduct becomes, of course, a more sure and accurate index of the energy of its operation upon him. He who has an humbling sense of the enormity of the transgressions which have been forgiven to him, and fervent admiration of the grace which prompted to that forgiveness, will be propense to the exercise of this grace. He will not be exacting and excessive in his demands of penitence and confession, insisting, as some do, upon the full pound of flesh. He will welcome and encourage the appearance of contriand be far more careful to avoid requiring too much, than being satisfied with too little.

tion;

Finally. Forgiveness should, on satisfactory evidence of repentance, be prompt and cheerful, as well as complete. There may occasionally be observed a kind of reluctant surrender of displeasure when the trespass has been frankly acknowledged; pardon appears rather to be extorted than bestowed; it does not gush, but it is forced from the spring out of which it should spontaneously flow. Now, in every case of this kind, it loses all the grace, and loveliness, and moral efficiency of pardon. It is the obvious existence of placability in the offended

party, his manifest readiness to throw away his displeasure, and to meet the offender, with all his former confidence and affection, as soon as the justice of the case will possibly admit-which cannot appear without prompt forgiveness-that arms it with power to reach and melt the heart, and augment the flood of penitence that had already begun to flow. The father, in the Gospel, did not wait the arrival of his prodigal, but repentant and returning son; "but when he was yet a great way off, he saw him and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.' Luke xv. 20. To every member of our churches, the example of our Father in heaven says, "Go, and do thou likewise."

Fifthly. They owe to one another Christian forbearance. "I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called. With all lowliness, and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love." Eph. iv. 2; vide also Col. iii. 13. And again, Romans xiv., and xv. 1. Amongst those who are united with us in church-fellowship, (or who desire to join us,) there may be individuals whose knowledge of Divine truth is very imperfect, whose faith is weak, who display certain constitutional failings, certain infirmities of temper, &c., which are to us the sources of great annoyance, if not of positive spiritual injury. The question is, are we to relinquish and to refuse all visible Christian fellowship with them? The inspired rule answers the question in the negative, provided we can and do regard them as real Christians. There does not appear to exist any scriptural ground of exclusion from Christian fellowship, but some error in sentiment, or ungodliness of spirit or conduct, which bespeaks the absence of real religion. Christian churches are the habitations of the Lord's people; and who shall repel any whom the Lord has received? My limits will not allow me fully to illustrate the great subject of forbearance, which, considered in relation to diversities of opinion on religious subjects, frailties of temper,

constitutional defects, &c., would require a volume, rather than a page or two, the utmost space that I can allot to it. But I cannot forbear expressing the opinion, that if we refuse to act on this point, under the guidance of the great general principle, that converted men, willing to walk with us, and to submit to the discipline of the Church, though not free from mistakes, and prejudice, and infirmity, are eligible for church fellowship, we shall find no other rule of direction than that of per-, fect identity of sentiment, and feeling, and practice; and then, as such identity cannot be found, every Christian must be shut up in a watch-box by himself. Many diversities of opinion there are, some frailties of temper, and some constitutional defects, which are not totally incompatible with real religion; and with these Christians and Christian churches must forbear. They must not, of course, either admit falsehood to be truth, or prejudice candour, or that petulance, irascibility, pertinacity, are Christian virtues, or treat them as such; nor, further, must they neglect to lift up their testimony against error, and to reprove the failings to which I have referred. The practice of passing them over as mere constitutional defects confirms the offenders in their evil practices, and inflicts great injury upon the Church; but, as long as they retain their confidence in the personal religion of such individuals, they should allow them to remain in fellowship. I mean, further, that they should endeavour, as much as possible, to avert their eyes from these failings-should not suffer them to dwell in their recollections, lest the sacred bond of affection be weakened or snapped asunder; for when charity ceases to exist in a church, it has become "like sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal."

Finally. They owe to one another a cordiality of bearing, and of general conduct, indicative of a sense of the spiritual relation which exists between them.

Let it not be forgotten, that the connexion into which

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the members of Christian churches have been brought by the faith of the Gospel, is one which will exist throughout eternity. Spiritual relations endure for ever; all others terminate with time. Distinctions which result from rank, and station, and wealth, are but the distinctions of a day; soon will they perish, and be for ever forgotten. Even the tenderest of those ties which bind the human family together will speedily be broken, and the husband and the wife, the parent and the child, the brother and the sister, remain the subjects of those delightful relations no longer. But the members of a Christian church, if indeed they are what they profess to be, are brethren and sisters for eternity! Can it, then, be right that they should ever meet without any sign of recognition? Is it congruous with the sacred and enduring relation which the Gospel has established amongst them, that the more respectable and wealthy of their number should sit, on the Sabbath, in immediate contact with a brother, it may be of low degree, but with whom they expect to join in eternal acts of worship to God and the Lamb, and yet refrain from any friendly salutation, lest they should forfeit their dignity? Ought we not to be suspicious of such dignity? I confess I would infinitely rather peril mine than run the risk of being ashamed of Jesus, even in the least of his disciples. While it would be a great mistake to seek to destroy, or practically to overlook, those worldly distinctions which answer important purposes in the present life, it is a yet more preposterous anomaly to withhold from the relations which reach into eternity, all visible and friendly signs of recognition. My observations and experience compel me to think that the latter practice proves, in the case of our churches, the source of extensive injury. It prevents the amalgamation of the body. It obstructs the flow of sympathy through the body. It holds a part of its members in distant inactive solitariness, lest they should lose their dignity. It represses activity, in the case of another part, lest they should be presuming, and