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inculcated in the New Testament, we are apt either to think slightly of their character because they concur not most exactly with our favourite notions; or we regard them with a very subordinate sort of affection, even while we believe them to be the children of God. Such is undoubtedly the case at the present day; and such was, in some instances, the case in the days of St. Paul: and the great object of the passage before us is to recall the members of the Christian church to a better mind, to fix their hearts on the same leading principles, and to persuade them to the exercise of unreserved affection and of mutual love.

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It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the state of mind, thus recommended, may really be attained; that for all useful purposes, and according to the full sense of the apostle's exhortation, there may be both unity of sentiment and unity of heart; but how then is this to be accomplished?

For this purpose two things are especially required: first, a just view of the great design of Christianity; and, secondly, the cultivation of a humble spirit.

(1.) The design of Christianity was to make men holy in this life and happy in the next:

to repair the ruins of the fall; to restore to us the image which was then defaced, and to make us heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If this then its great and avowed end be answered in any instance; if we see those who were formerly under the servitude of sin now brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God; if we perceive that they possess the divine principle of love to Christ, and that they are endeavouring, in reliance upon His grace, to pursue that path of holiness which they were commanded to tread, wherefore should we not feel toward them as servants of the same Lord and fellow heirs of a common salvation? Wherefore, in the intercourse which subsists between us, should we not dwell upon those great truths of faith and practice, which involve our highest hopes and kindle our best affections, rather than upon those less obvious and less important points, upon which wise and good men have generally differed? Why, in the highest of all concerns, are we to turn aside to matters comparatively foreign and extraneous, and forget that which forms the very essence of religion, and gives to it all its importance and its worth? The plain reason is because we do not justly appreciate the nature

and end of the gospel of Christ: if we were right minded in this respect, we should have little comparative temptation to expatiate upon points of doubtful issue; and although, if catechised upon these subjects, we might differ in judgment, there would be, for all practical purposes, both in appearance and in reality, a correspondence of sentiment, which hitherto the world has rarely seen.

(2.) But then it is necessary further that we should possess the spirit of humility.

It will be found, I believe universally, that the more humble a man is, the less will he be disposed to contend for his own views on the subordinate points of religious disputation. He feels how unqualified he is to decide absolutely upon questions which have exercised to so little purpose the most enlarged and powerful minds, and he loves not argument for its own sake; he will enter into no dispute for the pleasure of victory; and whilst he probably is not without some settled opinion on those subjects, the chief view with which he ever regards them is to humble him still more in the sight of his Maker; to fill him with admiration of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and to lead him to the more devout and earnest culti

vation of those holy principles, which unite him more closely to his Redeemer, and to all the members of His mystical body. If pride and bigotry could be effectually subdued, the little discrepancies, which might still remain among the true followers of Jesus Christ, would almost vanish from the sight; we should learn to strive with one mind for the faith of the gospel; * we should learn to view each other not as arrayed under different banners, but as marshalled under the banner of Christ;. many of the distinctions which now unhappily prevail, would disappear; and by this would all men know that we are Christ's disciples because we have love one to another: † we should thus, according to the spirit of the best times of the church, and of the best examples which those days have bequeathed to us, be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

II. We proceed to the motives suggested by the apostle. It would be easy to expatiate upon the advantages which result from the spirit of unity in the church of Christ. If it be a good and pleasant thing to behold one family living in concord, how good and how pleasant + John xiii. 35.

* Phil. i. 27.

would it be to see the whole society of Christian

people living in harmony and

peace, and pursuing with undissembled love the same path to their common and everlasting home! How much would it accredit religion in the world, if those who are otherwise strangers to its moral and spiritual excellence were constrained to acknowledge its value from the uniform excellency of its effects! But the motives suggested by St. Paul are, in this passage, of a different kind. He had been encouraging the church at Philippi by many observations, intended to give elevation to their character and confidence to their hope; and he is himself so delighted with the subject, that he deduces his chief arguments from the privileges of the Christian's state. If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that be like minded. A slight examination of these several clauses will show how they bear upon the question.

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(1.) If there be any consolation in Christ.-By the use of the word if, the apostle does not mean to intimate a doubt upon the subject; on the contrary, he intends to convey with peculiar emphasis, the idea that there is consolation in

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