The true Church is not a moody, melancholy, assemblage, speaking in sepulchral tones, and singing doleful dirges, it is the brightest and most jubilant fellowship on earth. "Those words nave I spoken unto you, that your joy may be full." "Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice." The verses lead us to look at the true Church

II. In its EXTERNAL RELATION TO THE UNGODLY. First There is a connection with ungodly men that it must avoid. They must not be admitted to its "feasts." "Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." As the Jews put away leaven at the celebration of the Passover, so all corrupt men must be excluded from the Church feasts. Christ is its Passover, its Feast.

It is suggested that the presence of corrupt men at the feast would be contagious. It would be likely to act as "leaven" through the community. As leaven put into a lump of dough, spreads from particle to particle ferments in its process, spreads through the whole and assimilates all to its own character, so may work a bad man's spirit through the community of the good. Therefore, because it is so contagious and pernicious, exclude it. "Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

lump?" Be grave, be serious, look well to the moral character of your members. Secondly: There is a connection with ungodly men that it cannot avoid. "I wrote unto you in an Epistle not to company with fornicators, yet, not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters: for then must ye needs go out of the world." You cannot avoid contact and some kind of intercourse with the ungodly men outside. You cannot attend to the temporal affairs of your life without them. Nor can you discharge your spiritual obligations without going amongst them. Christian you are bound to go amongst them, to correct their mistakes, to enlighten their darkness, to reprove their wrongs, and to endeavour

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to "turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God." Over such you have no legal control, you can exercise no jurisdiction, they are without. You have no power to exclude them from your neighbourhood, or your country, they are to be left alone in that respect. "Them that are without God judgeth." But if you find such characters inside the Church, ycu are to deal with them. "But now I have written unto you, not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one no, not to eat." Observe here:-(1) Sin in man takes various forms. Paul adds to the incestuous man, the "fornicator," the "covetous' man, the "idolater," the "railer," the "drunkard,"

God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind," &c. Sin, which may be defined as self-gratification, is here presented in a variety of forms, "fornication," idolatry, avarice, intemperance, &c. All these manifestations are hideous manifestations of the same ungodly principle, self-gratification. The principle of sin, like holiness, is one and simple, but the forms are multifarious. Now these morally corrupt classes we are here told were changed, they were "washed," and "sanctified," and "justified,” which stripped of figure means: they were changed in the very root and fountain of their character. They were, to use Scripture phraseology, converted, regenerated, created anew in Christ Jesus to good works. The

reformation was not doctrinal ecclesiastic, or institutional, but moral. The reformation is

II. A reformation INDISPENSABLE TO A HAPPY DESTINY. What is the only happy destiny for man? To "inherit the kingdom of God." What is the "Kingdom of God?" Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost. It is the reign of truth, purity, light, harmony, and blessedness. To" inheriť” that empire, to be in it not as occasional visitors, but as permanent citizens, holding fellowship with its Sovereign, and mingling with the great and the good of all worlds-this is our high destiny. For this we were made, and for nothing lower. Hence Christ urges us to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness,' which means, come under the Divine reign of truth and right. Now there is no getting into this