our love is obedience. He himself would spurn any offers or professions of love, without this. 66 Why call ye me Lord, and do not the things which I say?" Where, then, is the proof of your love to the Saviour, while you even justify and defend your wilful disobedience to his last commands? I say, in such a case, the evidences of your salvation are not to be so soon and so complacently determined as you appear willing to conclude.

3. The peace and comfort of your souls and consciences require your connexion with a church of Christ. You will never have any settled, growing, healthful peace in your own souls; you will be strangers to a clear, a good, and quiet conscience, while you live in the neglect of this duty. Such persons are always harassed with doubts, and fears, and darkness about their spiritual state, depressed and dejected, and that with just reason, at their spiritual leanness and barrenness, as those who refuse their ordinary and necessary food. Rest assured, my friends, that you never will have solid any and comfort in your peace present undecided state. You may, probably, sink down into Antinomianism; and then you will be wonderfully happy in the neglect of every spiritual duty and exercise, and in the absence of every grace of the Christian character: but there are few Christians, indeed, who would sympathise with you in such a state; or suppose that your self-complacency added a whit to the safety of your spiritual condition. Such a state of feeling would rather indicate the hopelessness of your case; that you had sunk so low, as to be insensible alike to duty and to danger; and even to flatter yourselves in a state, out of which scarcely one in a thousand is ever rescued and saved.

4. Your usefulness as Christians, obliges you to join a Christian church. To object that you can be saved without joining a church, argues a selfish and degraded state of mind, altogether at variance with the spirit of a Christian and the claims of the Gospel of Christ; and indicates, that you are concerned only about yourselves, and have little or no concern to live unto him, who loved you and who gave himself for you. But this is, evidently, the great end of our existence, and especially of our conver sion; and our connexion with a Christian church furnishes the needful stimulus, gives the necessary sanction, opens the varied, and numerous, and be

nevolent channels of usefulness, in which our energies may be properly and beneficially directed. There are many offices, and those of the most important character, such as the Christian ministry, and very many others, from which all persons are of necessity excluded, who are not in connexion with some Christian church. There are comparatively few ways in which persons, unconnected with a church, may be useful; and in these they would be incalculably more useful if they were known as members of the church. It would give a sanction and a confidence in their efforts to do good; and it would awaken a confidence in those for whose good they are labouring. But we are bound to put forth our whole energies in the cause of the Redeemer, and in every way in which they may be most efficiently and successfully employed in his service. "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples." Reflect upon this, that there are very few persons indeed, who are useful as Christians, out of the pale of our churches, and these are useful to a very limited degree; not because they have not the time, the ta lents, the opportunities of being useful; but because they refuse to put them selves in the way of being useful, and to permit their time and their talents to be directed and employed for the public good. Such must be very greatly and grievously sinning against their own souls, and against Christ. Excuses and refusals do not meet such cases, and do not become such persons who will shortly be called to give in their account unto him who has intrusted to them the talents they have received, not to be hidden, or wasted, but to be employed with the utmost diligence to his glory in the world. There is another consideration.

III. You are laid under obligation to others, to join a Christian church. Have you no relative obligations upon this subject ? Without doubt you have very

many and very great.

1. You are under obligation to your minister, by whom, probably, you were led to the knowledge of the truth. You can scarcely avoid the reflection, that be who has been instrumental in the hands of God, in bringing you to the knowledge of the Gospel, has great and lasting claims upon your gratitude, service, and love. Having derived permanent and saving benefit from his ministrations, is it not exceedingly ungrateful and un

kind that you do not let him know this, when, perhaps, his heart is fainting, and his hands hang down for the want of that encouraging information which you have it in your power to afford? Shall the news of your conversion give joy to the angels of heaven, who are very indirectly employed in effecting it, and can you suppose that it will give none to your own pastor's heart, which has often been well-nigh broken in sighs and groans and sorrows, on account of your spiritual state? Are you not laid under the strongest moral obligation to take, without delay, the means which your public profession so readily and easily affords, of recommending the ministry of a man whom God has rendered such a blessing to your soul; especially when there may be many sitting under his ministry who are disposed to think very lightly of his services; but upon whose sentiments and conduct, in this respect, the account of your experience might have the most beneficial influence? Are you not obliged, now that you have the means, to cheer your pastor's heart, to strengthen his hands; that he may labour with fresh life and courage, and be induced, yet more and more, to spend and be spent for the glory of Christ amongst the people of his charge? It is my most settled conviction, that you are not only defective in moral obligation, but in moral honesty too, if you do not do this. You are, positively, not honest, if you hide from the minister, the church, and the world, the good that the Lord has conferred on you, by means of your spiritual instructor. Why, you would do no less by a quack, the application of whose loudly reported nostrum had been effectual in the removal of disease. How would you emblazon the cure upon the wings of fame, and commission a hundred tongues to tell the benefit received! how would you invite investigation, and recommend the hand and medicine that healed you! And will you hide the cure of your soul, and conceal the knowledge of the balm, or the hand that led you into a state of safety and salvation; and all this, when souls around are dying, under the same disease as that from the deadly influence of which your own has been delivered ? Surely, I need not say another word on that subject to persuade you.

2. You are laid under obligation to the church with which you worship, and which has probably invited you into its

communion. Who invited the minister, by whom, and who provided the means by which, your soul has derived so much real good? Has not the church? Who have taught you in the Sabbath-school; interceded for you in the house of prayer; spoken to you in the family circle, or admonished you, perhaps, by the way; who have allured you by the consistency of their own example, and have said to you, as they saw you seeking the way to Zion, "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good?" Have not the members of the church done so? Would not your union with them, and the account of what God has done for your souls, be to them a matter of unfeigned and exulting pleasure, that another soul was rescued from the dominion of Satan and brought into the kingdom of God's dear Son? They have often sung, and with deepest, holiest, tenderest feelings, while sitting around the table of their Lord,

"We long to see thy churches full,
That all the chosen race

May with one heart, and voice, and soul,
Sing thy redeeming grace."

Have you not often heard them, on those occasions; how their voices rose with the theme; and have you not seen how their faces glowed with animation, while the big tear rolled down the cheek of many a communicant, as they so sung and prayed, and felt for you, with their eyes, and thoughts, and hearts, and desires, perhaps, all directed towards you? Have you not, among that number, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a husband, a wife? In such a breast, on such a subject, and in such a place, there were feelings, in regard to you, far too lofty, too mighty, too tender, for expression. Oh! if you knew and felt the desire of the church towards you, the claims of the church upon you, you would, immediately, give yourselves "to the church according to the will of God."

3. You are laid under obligations to those hopeful persons who are out of the church, and who have been, probably, kept out by the influence of your example. They are prepared to come forward, and would, in all probability, do so, if you would lead the way. They conclude, that your qualifications for membership are fully equal to their own, and that your obligations are equal too; and that, as you do not see the need of uniting yourselves to the church, there is no necessity why they should do so.

So that your sin and neglect become a stumbling-block and a sin, and great injury to the souls of others, as well as to your own. You appear, by the hesitancy and indecision of your conduct, as though you had placed yourselves in the very doorway of the church; and you neither go forward yourselves nor permit those who would enter, did not you stand in the way to hinder them.

Now, if you have no regard for your own credit, comfort, or consistency, why do you not, for the sake of others you are so injuring, by the dubious position you have taken, either go forward into the church, or even back again into the world? By adopting the latter distressing alternative, you would be more consistent, less injurious to the souls of others, and you would bring less reproach upon the Saviour and his cause, than you do by abiding where you are. "I would thou wert cold or hot." Think of the fearful import of these words, and their special application to your case and conduct. How you reflect upon all that is good! You appear to say by the position you have chosen, between the church and the world, grace and sin, the Saviour and Satan, heaven and hell, that, having taken up an intermediate station, and looking forward, into the church and heaven, and backward, to the world and perdition, you are at a loss which to prefer; and whether it would be more to your pleasure and advantage to advance, or to recede. The Redeemer cannot be indifferent to such a reproach which you cast upon his Gospel and its benefits; but, I say, consider the injury you are doing to other hopeful persons, whom your hesitation is plunging into the same most unenviable state. You are responsible at the bar of God for any influence your conduct has over

4. You are laid under obligation to the world to join yourselves to a church; that you may instruct the world around you in the way of salvation; and that you may influence sinners, by your example, to seck to the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God, that their souls may live. Ought you not to have compassion upon sinners, as the Lord and his people had pity upon you, when you were living without hope and without God in the world? Your separation from the sinners around you, and your union to a church of Christ, will be a most important and a divinely appointed means of grace for the benefit of souls. "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink of this cup, ye proclaim," or publish, or preach, in a very impressive, and affecting, and efficient way, "the Lord's death till he come."

But while you linger and halt between two opinions, your conduct can afford neither instruction to the world, nor pleasure to the church. You are viewed askance by both classes of society as a sort of nondescripts, concerning whom the most favourable opinion of all parties is, that they are puzzled to know what to make of you, and to which side you will eventually turn; though all agree that your present position cannot possibly be maintained; and that you must either go forward and be saved, or retreat and be lost for ever. It is for yourselves to determine which of the two it must be.

I remain,

Your affectionate friend,

W. T.

THE cultivation of affection towards the ministers of the Gospel, is a duty loudly and powerfully inculcated in the New Testament. Believers are enjoined to "Know them that labour amongst them; to hold such in reputation, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake." It requires no arguments to demonstrate that a Christian pastor has strong claims on the best and

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enduring affection of the people of his charge; and that there ought to be some most satisfactory reasons to justify either the total or partial withdrawment of that regard. It is a mournful, but too selfevident fact, that in some of our nonconformist churches, there is the evidence of disaffection on the part of the people manifested to those who are "over them in the Lord." The union

of pastor and church is a voluntary alliance, presumed to be founded on mutual affection, and involving reciprocal duties and responsibilities. This union is ratified after mature and prayerful deliberation, and an adequate term of probation, to satisfy the minister of the eligibility of the sphere, and the church of the suitability of the minister. The union, the result of Christian principle, is supposed not nominal, but real; not transient, but permanent. The candi

date becomes the pastor. He is their shepherd, they are his flock. The young minister, full of hope, and zeal, and love, enters on his new sphere of action, with fair and flattering prospects. He is respected, honoured, loved and applauded; one individual vies with another in the presentation of testimonials of regard. His friendship is sought, his company is courted, his discourses are eulogised. In the intense exuberance of first love, his friends flock around him, animate him by their cheerful countenances, sustain him by their hearty and cordial co-operation, and uphold his hands by their importunate intercessions at the throne of grace. The church, at this juncture, from its exhibition of Christian principle of zeal, and union, and prayerfulness, and love, presents an attractive aspect that commands respect and admiration, and extorts even from unwilling lips the exclamation, "Behold how these Christians love one another!" And, what is of infinitely higher moment and interest, the church at such a crisis enjoys the smiling approbation of its Divine Master, and is in a preparative state to receive an abundant supply of Heaven's best and choicest spiritual blessings. Because, to speak in the language of Christian philosophy, there are fixed laws in the world of grace, as really as in the world of nature; and the result of cause and effect is traceable in one as actually as in the other. Where there are union, and love, and activity in a Christian communion between a minister and people, there will be the smile of Jehovah, and this insures prosperity and success. Almost uniformly encouragement is given to the minister, and strength is infused into the church at such a time, by an accession of new converts to the truth. This is the fruit of ministerial labour; but it is the result of that labour, as identified and inseparably connected with those scriptural means that are vigorously and believingly

employed by the church to secure a blessing on the ministry. "And he that sows, and those that reap, rejoice together." Now it is not too much to assume, that the undeviating and untiring pursuance of this both expedient and scriptural course, would perpetuate the Divine approbation, and with it, continued and, perhaps, growing success. Whilst this propitious aspect of matters continues, a conscientious pastor, however toilsome and exhausting his services, will labour with comfort, and liberty, under the delightful persuasion, that he lives in the hearts of his people, and enjoys their confidence and attachment.

At such a season a devoted pastor, imbibing the spirit of his Master, will be prepared to make personal sacrifices. If they are poor as it regards their temporal circumstances, he will contentedly receive a salary barely adequate for his comfortable maintenance, or he will, perhaps, either derive his income partially from other resources, or diminish his own little patrimony, to maintain his standing in society amongst them. If they are involved in pecuniary difficulties, he will encourage them to some strenuous effort to throw off their incumbrance, and set them his own example, by personally contributing even more than the cold politic prudence of the calculating professor would justify. As he is prompted to leave his home, and assume the humiliating character of a ministerial mendicant, and doing violence to his modest feelings, with weary steps, a careworn brow, and an aching heart, to pace the streets of our commercial towns and cities to solicit alms, not for himself, but for the cause. And he expects that these efforts will tend to endear him to his church, and the gratitude of his people will develope itself by a stronger expression of love, and a closer bond of union. He fondly believes himself at home in their midst, and that he is still, and likely long to be, what he was at first, the pastor of their choice. He, perhaps, ere long discovers, to his astonishment and dismay, that he has only laboured for some one who should by-andby enter into his labours. There is gradually disclosed to him a change in the conduct of those on whose adherence and affection towards him he relied with the most unsuspecting and confident assurance. Not his enemies, but his familiar friends, guides, and acquaint