public service of his house, we should suppose ourselves in his immediate presence, so as to avoid every thing unsuitable to the solemnity in which we are engaged. When we hear the word, our business is not so much with the servant as with the Master, who alone can open our ears to discipline, and bow our hearts to understanding; and when any benefit is received, he alone should have the glory. When we come to the Lord's table, it is not our sitting, but his sitting there that will make the occasion pleasurable and advantageous. It is only when the Spirit, that heavenly wind, blows upon the garden of the soul, that its sweet spices will send forth a fragrant odour delightful to him, refreshing to ourselves, and grateful to all around. When, therefore, we are cold in any of the forementioned duties, when God is so forgotten that we neither place our confidence in him, nor seek communion with him; in a word, when we rest in the duties, and do not use them only as a means of drawing us nearer to him, he may justly reproach us with our folly and negligence, by saying, in the words of my text, “ What have ye to do with me?"

O may these words now bring conviction to the saints, as they will one day bring confusion to sinners! In the closet, the family, and the public assembly, before we enter upon any duty, when engaged in it, and after we have performed it, let them still sound in our ears, "Yea, and what have ye to do with me?"

SERMON XLVIII.

THE UNITY OF TRUE BELIEVERS.

GALATIANS III. 28.

Ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

THE apostle says, in the foregoing part of the verse, that there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, that is, under the gospel; and in religious things, God makes no distinction between them; for as it is expressed in another place, "Circumcision availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." The christian scheme is an uniting scheme, and all real saints are one in their glorious Head. Here it may be proper to observe,

I. There is a sense in which the saints are too much one,-I mean in that which is evil; they spring from the same depraved original, and are partakers of the same corrupt nature. Though sin does not reign in them as once it did, yet it remains in them; and being led away captive by it, they too frequently wound their own consciences, and act in a manner displeasing to God. As they are not absolutely free from the guilt of sin, so neither are they from the power of it. The patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, nay, the very martyrs who died for the cause of God and religion, had something in them which they would

not yet attained. "If I say that I am perfect," says Job, "my own lips shall prove me perverse." "O wretched man that I am," says the apostle Paul; "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Notwithstanding his great advances in the divine life, he fell short of sinless perfection.

II. There are many respects in which the saints are not one. They are not so in natural capacity. They are not so in their temper and disposition; neither are they so in external advantages. Some are immensely rich, and others miserably poor; some are of noble birth and affluent fortunes, whilst others sprang, as it were, from a dunghill, and live and die in the greatest obscurity. The same may be said of their sentiments and opinions in matters of religion. Even Paul and Peter so differed that the former charged the latter with temporizing. Such are the different capacities of God's people, and the almost insuperable prejudices of education, to which I may add the obscurity of some parts of Scripture, that the saints will never be of one mind till they get to heaven. They differ very much with respect to their acquirements, and consequently their usefulness. There is a diversity of gifts and operations, but the same Spirit; all are possessed of grace, but not in the same degree; all have that knowledge which accompanies salvation, but some are vastly more intelligent than others. Some are continually harassed with doubts and fears, whilst others live in the exercise of faith, and are filled with divine consolations; some are babes, some young men, some fathers in Christ. In some the spirit of bondage, in others the spirit of adoption, most prevails; some are able to teach, whilst others have need to be taught themselves the first principles of the oracles of God; some affect solitude and retirement, who are little noticed whilst they live, and but little missed when they die; others, again, pervade with their influence a larger sphere. Their life is esteemed as a public blessing, their death lamented as a public loss.

III. Yet they are really one in Christ Jesus. They are so by virtue of their union with him, being thereby incorporated into one body, and animated by one spirit; they are so also by virtue of their participation of him, for thus the phrase to be in Christ is frequently understood in Scripture. "There is no condemnation," says the apostle, "to them that are in Christ Jesus;" that is, who are interested in, and have communion with him, believe in him as their Saviour, and can claim him as their portion. When persons are baptized into Christ, they visibly devote themselves to him, appear in his livery, and put themselves under his protection. Now the saints thus united to Christ as their vital head, interested in the merit of his atonement, receiving out of his fulness, and openly espousing his cause, are one in him, and that in the following respects:

1. They are equally objects of the Divine love and favour. One saint may love God more than another; nay, the same saint may love God more at one time than another; but God loves his people with the same everlasting, ardent, and unalterable affection. It is true there may be more abundant manifestations of his love to one than another. Thus Daniel was distinguished among the prophets, and John among the disciples; some are kept at a greater distance, and others admitted to more intimate fellowship; but the love itself is the same, not being founded upon any excellencies observed in the saints, or returns expected from them, but on their relation to Christ. In a word, God's love is infinite, and therefore can admit of no degrees. Thomas the timorous and distrustful was as dear to him as Peter the confident and courageous, and the Old Testament saints as the New. Believers are not all alike holy, or alike happy; but they are all alike beloved.

2. The same spiritual privileges belong to them; the same gospel is preached to, and the same spirit poured out upon them; they have one Lord, one faith, one baptism; they are justified by the same blood, adopted into the same

not yet attained. "If I say that I am perfect," says Job. my own lips shall prove me perverse." "O wretched

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man that I am," says the apostle Paul; "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Notwithstanding his great advances in the divine life, he fell short of sinless perfection.

II. There are many respects in which the saints are not one. They are not so in natural capacity. They are not so in their temper and disposition; neither are they so in external advantages. Some are immensely rich, and others miserably poor; some are of noble birth and affluent fortunes, whilst others sprang, as it were, from a dunghill, and live and die in the greatest obscurity. The same may be said of their sentiments and opinions in matters of religion. Even Paul and Peter so differed that the former charged the latter with temporizing. Such are the different capacities of God's people, and the almost insuperable prejudices of education, to which I may add the obscurity of some parts of Scripture, that the saints will never be of one mind till they get to heaven. They differ very much with respect to their acquirements, and consequently their usefulness. There is a diversity of gifts and operations, but the same Spirit; all are possessed of grace, but not in the same degree; all have that knowledge which accompanies salvation, but some are vastly more intelligent than others. Some are continually harassed with doubts and fears, whilst others live in the exercise of faith, and are filled with divine consolations; some are babes, some young men, some fathers in Christ. In some the spirit of bondage, in others the spirit of adoption, most prevails; some are able to teach, whilst others have need to be taught themselves the first principles of the oracles of God; some affect solitude and retirement, who are little noticed whilst they live, and but little missed when they die; others, again, pervade with their influence a larger sphere. Their life is esteemed as a public blessing, their death lamented as a public loss.