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as the gospel commands, a walk of self-emptiness, and poverty of spirit, and self-distrust, and self-renunciation, and prayerful reliance on God. They were strangers to meekness, and did not allow, or even dream that the forgiveness and love of enemies was a virtue. Such virtues as these, are peculiarly Christian virtues, and Christian by way of distinction and eminence, and of these it is, that I ask, if you hold them in special esteem, for your Saviour's sake, and because they are fraught with his spirit? If you are essentially distinguished and different in your spirit from the mere moralist, or the heathen sage or philosopher, you will have a spirit of special esteem for and delight in these virtues that do especially belong to the gospel.

Fifth, Do you hunger and thirst after a holy practice? Do you long to live a holy life, to be conformed to God, to have your conduct, day by day, better regulated, and more spiritual, more to God's glory, and more such as becometh a Christian? Is this what you love, and pray for, and long for, and live for? This is mentioned by Christ, as belonging to the character of true Christians, that

they "hunger and thirst after righteousness.' Does this trait belong to you?

Sixth, Do you make a business of endeavor ing to live holily, and as God would have you, in all respects? Not only can you be said to endeavor after holiness, but do you make a business of endeavoring after it? Is it a matter that lies with weight upon your mind. A true and faithful Christian does not make holy living a mere incidental thing, but it is his great concern. As the buisness of the soldier is to fight, so the business of the Christian is to be like Christ, to be holy as he is holy. Christian practice is the great work that he is engaged in, just as the race was the great work of the racers. Is this so with you? And is it your great aim and love to keep all God's commandments, and so far as known to neglect none? "Then," says the Psalmist, "I shall not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy commandments." Is this your serious, constant, and prayerful aim, that you may be faithful in every known duty? And once more,

Seventh, Do you greatly desire that you may know all that is your duty? And do you desire to know it that you may do it?

With

the patriarch Job, can you, and do you pray to the Almighty, "That which I see not, teach thou me," adding, as he added, to the great searcher of hearts, "If I have done iniquity, I will do no more?"

If you can honestly meet these tests, then you have the evidence that your grace is of the kind that tends to holy practice, and to growth in it. And though you may fall, through God's mercy you shall rise again. He that hath begun a good work in you, will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ. Though you may be, at times, faint, yet if pursuing, you shall be borne on from strength to strength, and kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation.

LECTURE XII.

CHARITY OR A CHRISTIAN SPIRIT WILLING TO UNDERGO ALL SUFFERINGS IN THE WAY OF DUTY.

"Beareth all things."-1 Cor. xiii. 7.

HAVING in the previous verses declared those fruits of charity that consist in doing, the Apostle now proceeds to speak of those that have reference to suffering; and here he declares that charity, or the spirit of Christian love, tends to dispose men, and make them willing to undergo all sufferings for Christ's sake, and in the way of duty. This I suppose to be the meaning of the expression, "Beareth all things." Some, I know, would understand these words as referring only to the meek bearing of injuries from our fellowmen. But it seems to me that they are rather to be understood in the sense here given, of

suffering in the cause of Christ and religion; and that, for the following reasons:

First, As to bearing injuries from men, that the Apostle had mentioned before, in saying that "charity suffereth long," and again, in declaring that it "is not easily provoked," or that it tends to the resisting of the passion of anger; and therefore there is no need to suppose that he would use such tautology as again to mention the same thing a third time.

Second, The Apostle seems evidently to have done with the fruits of charity of a more active nature, and to have summed them all up in the expression of the previous verse, "rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth." He had been rehearsing over the various points of good conduct toward our neighbor which charity tends to, and having summed up these in the above expression, he now seems to proceed to traits of another nature, and not to be repeating the same things over in other words.

Third, It is a frequent thing for the Apostle Paul, to mention suffering in the cause of Christ as a fruit of Christian love; and therefore it is not probable that he would omit so

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