pating with the feelings and situations of those around us, in order to barter an ample store of benevolent dispositions for grateful returns, and it is this constant exchange of the small sweet courtesies of life, which, by friction against the asperities of human infirmity, "Smooths not another's rugged path alone, The apostle Paul expresses this with forcible elegance when he analyses the life of a Christian: and Paul, when he wrote these qualifications, was but the penman to their divine author. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think of these things." Phil. iv. 8. A child of God in his outward walk, is not only to be true, honest, and just, but there is to be a loveliness in his demeanour; a good report due to all his actions, the acknowledgment of the world not sought, but its testimony claimed; for this is to show forth the praise of God. D There is some peculiarity in the apostle's manner of wording his injunctions, we are to think on these things. Sin lies in ambush in the heart, whence proceed evil thoughts. "Keep your heart with all diligence;" and by cautious investigation we shall best learn our daily duties and our hourly breach of them. When the mind is thus pre-occupied, there is no vacancy for guilt to fill up, and it is the method of the Lord when he would prepare us to glorify him in our bodies and in our spirits, he does not commission us to the performance of virtue, until he woos us to its love; for it is he who worketh in us both to will, and by grace having won our will to his wisdom, we are fitted to do his good pleasure. Had a volume been accumulated on the evidences of a godly character, it could not have contained any effects beyond the recital which the Holy Ghost has left with us; its proportions are so exact and so noble, that the most careless spectator must acknowledge the workmanship to be divine. Under one or other of the heads herein enumerated, we may class all that suavity of demeanour, rectitude of conduct, and justness of principle which the mere moralist spends his time in advocating and his abilities in describing; but which the greatest doctrinalist who ever bore a commission to instruct, has arranged with striking simplicity within one paragraph, as the inseparable and known result of those truths which he declares. The doctrines which Paul delivers, are not themselves to be tried by their fruits. Jehovah's proclamations can be brought to no inferior arbitrement; they stand on an immutable foundation, they are built on the rock Christ; but those who profess to have received these doctrines become amenable to the scrutiny of their associates; and believers are authorized to examine into the walk and conversation of such as confess the same views, because it is only by corresponding effects that we can trace the cause to its source. Though we can offer nothing to God to indemnify for sin, and dare not dilute his law by our own imperfect obedience and sincere repentance; though our gospel righteousness considered in itself is as condemnatory as our legal, still, towards our fellow creatures there is an apparent gradation in virtue, a progressive apology in our life and sentiments for former evil; and as far as man is concerned, we may become the active philanthropist among those very fellow sinners who could once number us in their idle assemblies eagerly uniting our testimomy to their own in every guilty thought and word and deed. On this subject of the analogy of grace, grace in fact, detailed in the life of the regenerate child of God, there appears a link to be wanting, or at least, a rivet, by which the consequences of faith shall be clasped to that chain of mercies which are so symmetrically entertwined; and I conceive that a clear perception on this point would relieve the Christian community from that mist of mutual distrust and misapprehension which now hangs between its members, and not only chills their affections but darkens their view of each other. I seek not to amalgamate nominal with spiritual Christianity, to confound the religion of external form, and customary, or historical assent with the religion of the heart and of the scriptures. Let the world have their own; but I do earnestly enter into those causes of difference which sever the family of Zion; and, methinks, when these divisions multiply upon slight circumstances, we ought to be sufficient ly versed in the enemy's wiles, to detect his agency endeavouring to stir up strife among those whom he can only separate by deception and guile. If the contention arises about a nail, or a stone, in the temple of God let that nail or stone be exactly adjusted before our earnestness shall remit; for no compartment of the heavenly building is unworthy the most anxious preservation. The completeness of the church as a whole, makes every minute portion needful; but when we part away from each other in sorrow, or in anger, because of the definition of a word, or the formulary of an ordinance, whose unity of scope is mutually acknowledged, may we not suspect that while we slept an enemy hath done this? Is it not time to examine the temper of our zeal, when its application lights a flame of dissension? A quiescent spirit surveying the gospel field, where tares grow together with the wheat, will refrain from turning up the earth to sever its produce, feeling his own incapacity for the work; and remembering that One who cannot be mistaken, will finally separate the precious from the vile.' The sovereignty of God is a doctrine to be contem |