of the fear and favour of God should generally render a man odious to his contemporaries. Yet thus it has ever been; and hence we find the writer of this epistle thus admonishing the saints of his day: marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. Let it neither perturb your spirit, nor move your temper, nor excite your surprise, if ye should find yourselves the objects of universal derision and reproach. Of the like kind was the language of our Lord to his primitive followers-If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

There is between grace and nature as marked a contrariety as that which we observe between light and darkness; so that a man of the world feels himself utterly incapable of cultivating a real and cordial attachment to the devoted servants of Christ. He may, on some occasions, associate with persons of this character; but he can never find himself at home and at ease in their company; he may endure their conversa

tion, but he can never take delight in it; while, on the contrary, he who truly loves the brethren, loves them for all the gracious peculiarities of their character; not only acknowledging the grace of God that is in them, but making that grace the very ground and measure of all his tender regard for them, and all his affectionate fellowship with them.

Secondly-As the love of which the apostle here speaks, is a peculiar and appropriate feeling, so is it without the least mixture of dissimulation.

The scribes and pharisees of our Lord's day pretended a high degree of regard for true piety and godliness; but it was nothing more than profession and pretence. And hence their regard was altogether confined to those ancient saints who had long ago ceased from their labours. They affected to think very highly of such as had formerly suffered in the cause of God; while they despised and vilified Christ and his disciples, for those very sentiments, and that very conduct, which they professed to admire in the holy men of other times. They

erected monuments to the honour of confessors and martyrs of preceding generations, lamenting the cruel treatment they had received, and condemning their outrageous persecutors; even while they themselves were influenced by the same detestable spirit, which ́ had rejected the admonitions and shed the blood of those venerable and zealous labourers in the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts. No wonder, therefore, that the indignation of Christ was roused by the dissimulation and hypocrisy of these men to so high a pitch, as constrained him to bear a public testimony against them-Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: ye make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess: ye outwardly appear righteous, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

The same sort of dissimulation is practised in our own day. Very many are disposed to speak with admiration and reverence of

patriarchs and prophets, of apostles and evangelists, who cannot endure to see the spirit and temper of those righteous persons exemplified among christians of the present time. They will undertake to panegyrize such men as Abraham and Moses, Samuel and Daniel, merely because those extraordinary servants of the most high God lived at too great a distance of time to pass under their actual observation. They can listen with some pleasure to the reports that are come down to us concerning the happy family sometime resident at Bethany, in which our Lord was so frequent and familiar a visitant: yet, had they lived in the age and neighbourhood of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, there is too much reason to believe that they would neither have frequented their door, nor respected their character. But that brotherly love, of which we are here speaking, and which was considered by St. John as affording a solid ground of hope towards God, is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is abundant and diffusive, without respect of persons, neither limited to age nor place, but collecting within its ample embrace the

righteous of every name and nation, and ever breathing out its large desires in the manner of St. Paul-As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God, among whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Thirdly-That love of the brethren, concerning which we are here discoursing, is fixed and fervent, invariable in its operations, disinterested and fearless on all occasions, and wholly correspondent to that benign admonition of Peter-See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.

The friendships of this world are unsubstantial and inconstant, abundant in profession but deficient in sincerity; hastily formed and speedily annihilated. But this sacred love of the brethren, is a pure and holy fire lighted up in the soul by the great Father of spirits himself, who is loving unto every man, and whose mercy is over all his works. It burns bright at all times, but especially in the darkest seasons. It is unmixed with suspicion, and a stranger to