striking. If we were ever allowed to despise any one, it should be those alone who did not improve their gifts, or who, while neglecting what they had, foolishly aspired after such as were denied them. But the world of providence, that is, the society of men, and the world of grace, that is, the Church or society of Christians, are alike formed out of various elements, and would alike be spoiled by uniformity. It is a well-known fable, that gold itself, the most precious of things, when made by its foolish possessor the only thing around him, punished his folly with death. He was starved, because he would fain have every thing gold. So would society perish, if there were no gifts of God but such as are accounted most precious; if there were no faculties but the rarest and loftiest, no tastes but the most refined. Let any of us who is inclined to value himself most, consider the gifts which he has not, the things which he cannot do, the services to society which he cannot render. Would that all persons, that all classes, and all divisions of men of whatsoever sort, would remember this practically. It is not a dream of fantastic equality, which would pretend that all gifts are equal, that all services should be honoured alike; that is not so; in the natural body we may value our sight above all our senses; we would gladly sacrifice other members rather than lose our eyes. This is well; but it is true, also, that the eye cannot supply

the place of a limb, or of the smallest part of a limb; it cannot do the work of the limb, any more than the limb can do its work; and by the loss of that limb there is a loss to the body which not its noblest faculties can repair. Even so common sense has spoken in the social body, that there are some faculties more precious than others, less to be spared, and more highly to be honoured. Yet there is that which these most precious faculties cannot do; there are benefits to society which the loftiest mind may be unable to render, and which may be done by the stronger body of the rudest.

So beautifully is this our social body knit together; so variously are we gifted that we may supply each other's wants. But the same Apostle who has used this comparison, and who has compared the society of Christians to the natural body of a single man, has also carried it further, and added one point more which we may not omit to notice. He calls us a body, of which Christ is the Head. We have relations to one another, we may render services to one another, but there is a yet higher relation in which we all stand to Him; and it is only when this relation is acknowledged and acted upon that the body goes on healthfully. He is the Head of us all, of the greatest and of the humblest. Have we a high station, great influence, great powers?-yet what are we to that perfect Man who is our Head? What are our

faculties, what the value of our best services, when we think of His infinity? Can we do but little, are our powers very humble, our means very small, our opportunities of doing good next to nothing; are we very young or very old, very sick or very poor; are we such as society would scarcely miss, whose place a thousand seem ready to fill? yet we are no less members of the body of Him who filleth all in all; and He values us and loves us with an infinite love; and prizes our souls so deeply, that He gave His own life to save them. So in Him we each shall find according to our need; humiliation, if we are exalted in our own strength; exaltation, if we are humbled in our own weakness.

The state of union with one another, and with Christ, of feeling ourselves to be, in St. Paul's words, the body of Christ, and severally members one of another, is the perfection of a Christian life; it is that perfect communion of which the outward sign is the act of communion at the Lord's table. For that body of Christ of which they who worthily communicate at that table become partakers, is and can be only His spiritual body, that body of which He is the Head, redeemed by the offering of His natural body once for all, and now so united to Him, that whoso is a partaker of it partakes of Him, and truly belongs to Him. It were then to separate what He hath made one, to look upon the communion of the Lord's Supper as a mere act between

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Christ and our single selves, as if we alone were or could be His body. Rather is it our communion with Christ in all His fulness; the being joined heart and soul into the fellowship of His body, and so as he himself expresses, the being one in Him and in His Father. Therefore we go thither to increase our love to one another as well as to Him. We go thither to learn the feelings that become His members sympathy and kindness towards each other, a desire to minister to each other's good and to His glory, by the use of all the gifts which He has given us. So indeed would there be no division in His body, no unkindness, no neglect, no pride; but all would care for one another, and value one another; and all, whilst improving to the utmost their own gifts, and honouring those of their neighbours, would have found out also that more excellent way of which St. Paul speaks; the way of love towards God and man; the way, in short, to express it in the highest possible language, of communion with Christ's body.

RUGBY CHAPEL,

September 27th, 1835.

X

SERMON XXIX.

EXCITEMENT.

EPHESIANS V. 18, 19.

Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit: speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

On the first reading of these words, it may not be evident to every one what is the connexion between the first part of them and the second, between the command not to be drunken with wine, and the bidding them to be filled with the Spirit. When we begin to think, however, about it, we shall recollect that when the Spirit first descended on the day of Pentecost, some of those who saw its effects, said mockingly, "These men are full of new wine;" and when we consider it a little more, we shall see that the direction of the Apostle in the text relates to that which in this generation is even more familiar