that all shall know the Lord, from the least to the greatest. our instructor, We get our lessons in his school.

He himself is

Other views bring the subject down from its proper eminence. What if the incarnate Son of God should descend from Heaven, and take up his abode once more among men, would this be better for a dying world than the ministration of the Spirit? His bodily presence could only be in one place at a time. If one nation had him with them, another could not. While in this land he could not be in Europe, or on the isles of the sea. But his presence, by the Spirit, in the word and ordinances of his house, can be enjoyed at one and the same moment, wherever men lift up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. Ah! this is what we want; and having this, we may well be content never to see the Son of Man, until he comes to be glorified in his saints, and admired in them that believe. To be looking, really and speedily, for his personal coming, is to forget where we stand in the history of the church, and under what dispensation we live.

To say nothing of the objections to this scheme, which arise from the fact, that it tends to dry up the fountain of Christian benevolence, and to leave the heathen to perish in their sins, there are other serious difficulties connected with it. In my mind, it is nothing less than ending in the fiesh, after having begun in the Spirit. It takes me back too far towards the carnal expectations of those Jews, who rejected the Messiah, because his reputed father was a carpenter, and his birth place might be traced to an inn in Bethlehem.

Far be it from me to dictate to the Master; I am perfectly willing he should pursue his own plan for regenerating and sanctifying the nations; but I can never be unmindful of the divinely attested fact, that we have already a gift, which is far more valuable than the personal presence of the Saviour could possibly be. I would not have him take back his own words, when he says, "It is expedient for you that I go away." For the world I would not turn off the eyes of men from the ministration of the Spirit, to any theory more palpable, or visible, or externally impressive. Living, as we do, in the very midst of the Spirit reign-that Spirit that was to come in the Redeemer's stead-that Spirit who is the author of all our precious revivals -that Spirit who takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto menwhat can we wish or wait for more? It is altogether a retrogade movement to be talking now of a revisible throne, and an imposing ritual. These things belong to another economy. They are part of a dispensation which long ago, waxed old and vanished away.

For myself, I am free to say, I anticipate no such scenes. It is enough for me to have the sceptre of the blessed Jesus swayed over my affections. It is enough for me to share in the joys of his extended and applied Gospel. It is enough for me to be favored with the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit. I am willing to wait for a sight of the Son of Man, until he sits on his great white throne, I never expect to hear his voice until he says, Come ye blessed of my Father, I look for no other dominion than that which he exercises at the right hand of power.

Finally---In these days, we are encouraged to expect great things for the church of God.

What followed the Saviour's ascension at first was only a prelude to further displays of mercy. God signalized the enthronement of his Son, in the eyes of the universe, by sending down the Spirit, within fifty days, in a measure never before equalled; and this was not more wonderful in itself, than happy in its promise, as the first fruits of a harvest still yet to be fully and gloriously gathered in. The hearing of Christ's first prayer for the gift of the Comforter, was but an antepast to the continued prevalency of his further intercession.

Tell me not that the prospect is dark, and often seems to be growing still darker. I remember what was done in Jerusalem, before the blood of atonement had hardly dried away from Calvary. 1 remember what has taken

NATIONAL PREACHER

No. 2. VOL. XIX.] FEBRUARY, 1845. WHOLE NO. 218.

SERMON CCCXC.

BY REV. ALBERT BARNES,

PHILADELPHIA.

THE DUTIES WHICH THE MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OWE TO EACH OTHER.

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been made to drink into one spirit. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13, 26.

THE subject which, from these words, I propose to illustrate, is the duties which the members of the church owe to each other.

There are duties which every society owes to itself, as there are duties which every individual owes to himself. Those duties arise from the nature and objects of the association. They are such as pertain to its own strength and respectability; to the conduct and welfare of its members; and to mutual help and counsel in relation to the purpose for which the society has been formed. A society may be of such a nature that a large part of its duties will relate only to its internal affairs; or it may be of a kind designed to act extensively on those around it, and yet its whole efficiency will depend on its vigilance over its own members.

Taking the church of Christ at large, there is perhaps nothing more remarkable than the little interest which the members have in each other. In many cases the entire vigilance over the conduct of the members devolves on a few, or perhaps on the pastor alone; in many instances the amount of interest and sympathy extends only to a civil recognition; in others there is not even the interest which secures the most distant acquaintanceship. In numerous instances those who enter a Christian church are left to struggle with difficulties and embarrasments without sympathy, where they feel no more at liberty to call on a member of the church for counsel or aid than they would on any other person; in many cases they struggle along with their spiritual conflicts disheartened and discouraged, VOL. XIX.-No. II, 2

with no reason to suppose that a single member of the church sympathizes with them; in not a few instances members of the church are known to others to be living in the neglect of duty, or to be conformed apparently entirely to the world, and no one feels under obligation to administer the most gentle rebuke. In many instances also the members go astray, where a kind word from some one of greater age and experience would have saved them from a melancholy fall, and the church from open disgrace.

This is the more remarkable, from the condition in which many are when they become members of the church. Many of them are young and quite inexperienced. Most of them have just entered on the Christian life, and religion is with them like a grain of mustard seed. Many of them are in families where there is no religion, and where they can place no reliance on their kindred to "help them on to God." Many of them are thrown into circles where they are exposed to great temptations, or are engaged in kinds of business where there is every prospect that they will go astray. Add to this that not a few of them are poor, and need assistance; not a few are called to descend from a state of affluence through great reverses, when a sympathizing word would be to them of inestimable value; and not a few are descending into the vale of years who seem to be forgotten in the prayers and sympathies of all those who are in the bloom and vigor of the Christian life.

It has become a very serious question whether it would be possible to restore that artificial thing which we call the church, to the model contemplated in the New Testament. The circumstances of the world have so changed, and the church seems to sustain so many relations to the world not contemplated by the organization of the New Testament churches, that it is a matter of grave inquiry whether it would be possible to restore that model; perhaps with many it would be a question whether it would be even desirable it it could be done. It can be very readily seen, from the slightest acquaintance with the New Testament, that no church approximates the model that was contemplated by the Saviour and the Apostles, that it might be made a serious question with some, whether the progress of society has not suggested some valuable improvement on the original pattern, and whether it be not like some republic or democracy that, with a very imperfect and rude constitution, answered well enough for the half barbarous age in which it was founded, but in which such amendments to the constitution have been made in conformity with the demands of increasing light and civilization, that a removal of those amendments, and a return to the primitive model, would be in fact a relapse into barbarism. What, for example, would any one of our churches become, if everything adventitious and foreign were removed, and it were at once placed on the model of the New Testament?

Hopeless, however, as it may seem to bring matters back where

they were, it is useful from time to time to recur to these ancient records, and to ask what the church of the New Testament was in its internal organization; in its relation to the world; and in the relation of its members one to another. I propose to state some of those things. With the New Testament before us, and throwing ourselves into apostolic times, let us inquire what the Christian church is.

I. First, it is a community separate from other communities. It has an organization of its own, and that organization is complete It has its peculiar laws for its own internal regulation, and for the regulation of all its members in their intercourse with each other, and with those that are "without." It recognizes no dependence on any other society for the promotion of its objects, and allows no foreign influence to come in and attempt to control it. It asks no patronage from the state; no support of the civil arm or purse; and it sues for no toleration. Its right to be in the world, and to pursue its own independent movements, is original and independent of the state, and is not a tolerated right. Though surrounded by other communities, it is independent of them all; and, in a most important sense, separate from them all. There is a sense which is not merely methaphorical and constructive, in which every member of that church separates himself from the world, and regards him-. self as no longer pertaining to it. This idea in regard to the church is found in such expressions as the following: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."-John xvii. 16. "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."-John xv. 19. "The friendship of the world is enmity with God; whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."James iv. 4. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not ⚫ in him.-1 John ii. 15. "We are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness "-John v. 19. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."-Col. iii. 3. "How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein."-Rom. vi. 2. "Reckon ye yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive unto God."-Rom. vi. 11. So the church is described not only as a community unlike that which constitutes the world, but as in an important sense, separate from it, or having no fellowship with it in its peculiar aims and plans. "What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial ? And what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? Wherefore come ut from among them. and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh