Christ's image on their souls, and neglect or despise, or, with a sensitive and proud reserve, withdraw from the fellowship of all the rest? Such a man can scarcely be said to "love the brethren."

3. Nor is it enough that we love, however cordially, all Christians of our own Church or sect. We are to love "the brethren ;" and we are to bear in mind, that not all errors in discipline, nor all errors in doctrine, exclude men from the fold of Christ. The man that is a heretic after the first or second admonition reject; but on some have compassion, making a difference between heresy and schism. Men may forsake our communion; but until they deny the faith, they cannot exclude themselves from our Christian regard and love. Nay, they may oppose and revile us,—and this is the spirit of an angry partisanship, rather than of such kind remonstrance as it becomes Christians to employ to one another; but still we are "to love the brethren." St. Paul rejoiced that "Christ was preached even of strife and of contention," when the design of that strife was to decry his own apostleship, and to defame his character; and we should learn to do so too. Of our opponents it must first be inquired, Do they seek salvation through a merciful Saviour? Do they worship God in Christ? Do they profess to rely only on the aid, and to ask for the sanctification of the Spirit of God, acknowledging the entire corruption of human nature? This is the true foundation; and whatever faults we see amongst them, and however a Christian may deplore those faults, they are the "brethren," whom we are still to love."

4. I must remark, once more, that the "love" to the brethren, which is so sure a proof of our own safety, is not merely a universal love to the Church of Christ, but to the Church of Christ in its spiritual character. Imagine a philanthropist, but yet a stranger to the Gospel he desires (it is a favourite dream with some who are ignorant of Christ, and with them it is no better than a dream)he desires the production of universal happiness; and he observes that happiness follows in the track where the Gospel has been. The Gospel reclaims the drunkard; it subdues the churl; it promotes industry, and, with it, good order and contentment. Abroad, it raises the savage to the condition of the man-clothes him--subdues his ferocitybreaks his spear and his sword—and burneth his war-chariot in the fire; and then follow the blessings of civilised and social life. The philanthropist perceives all this, and is charmed with what he sees: and, perhaps, he becomes the friend of missions, and learns to reverence and to love the very name of a

Christian. But has he "passed from death unto life" meanwhile? Does he love God? Does he adore the Saviour? No. He still looks upon all this as the mysticism of religion. He does not value-in truth, he does not comprehend it! And yet it may be said he loves the brethren." True, in one sense he loves them :-as a body of philanthropists, not as the Church of the living God. He loves them for the temporal advantages they confer upon society, not for the sake of Christ, and of him alone. He loves their conduct, but not their principles.

The love to the brethren, then, which assures us of our own safety, is universal, not partial; it is love of the character, not of the individual; it is the love of Christians, as they are the children of God, and not on account of the benefits they render to society. -So much was necessary to explain the subject.

II. 1. Let us now, secondly, consider how the love in question becomes the pledge of our own salvation. I answer, it is so, as, first, it is, perhaps, the strongest of all proofs that we love God; and it affords a sort of demonstration that we do so, which, when considered, is conclusive to the weakest mind, or to the most hesitating faith. For why do we love the brethren? because in some feeble measure they resemble Christ their Lord. They bear his image. They are enlightened by his Spirit; nay, they are his body, who— their exalted Head-filleth all in all: and this, as we have seen, is the sole bond between us. And yet it is a bond sufficient to connect our warmest sympathies with every Christian under heaven. Take away this mystic bond, and the Church becomes a rope of sand. It has this in common, that each member of it does, in some greater or some less degree, share in the moral likeness of his Lord; and it has nothing else in common. There is no other tie, -no other cement than this; for if there be, what is it? Party spirit? Alas! it divides the very family of Christ: so far from being the cause of our love, it is the source of all our disquiet. Similarity of taste and disposition? Yes, upon religion; but infinite diversity upon every thing besides: and the cause of this agreement is now the question before us. The heart of every Christian feels that the cause is this: their fellow-Christians, in some faint degree, resemble Christ the Lord and the love we bear to him is naturally, and at once, transferred to them who belong to him.

Now, this is surely, brethren, no slight evidence that we love God; nay, in its very nature, it is an evidence of the strongest kind. If the most valued friend that you possess on earth were to introduce you to an almost

endless round of his associates, and command you to share with each and with every one of them the regard which he himself enjoyed; and if, on further knowledge, you should find this a motley company, containing men of every rank and character on earth, but having this one point in common, that they did each of them sincerely venerate the man who was your first medium of communication with them,-should you not perceive at once that he put your friendship to himself to a strong test, and that loving this mixed multitude for his sake alone (if that were possible), you gave the strongest evidence of your love to him?

Or, again; if the friend you once revered had been removed by death, and, after years had passed, you should meet with his children, possessing his features and something of his mind, but immeasurably his inferiors in all respects-having, in short, only the likeness and the name to recommend them; and if you were to resume with them the inter course which death had long ago suspended with their parent; and if you should so ally yourself to them as to become one family, and all for their father's sake,-who does not perceive how such a step would be the strongest evidence of your love to the parent? And we may affirm, too, that our love to the Church affords a kind of demonstration to the mind that it loves God, which is always delightful, and sometimes almost the only refuge from despair. For the true Christian, if simply asked, Do you love God? would sometimes find it difficult to answer; for God is a spirit, and no man hath seen him at any time; and, perplexed with questions which concern his nature and his essence, he could scarcely venture to affirm whether he loved God or not. He would desire, but can he dare to do so? He would desire, but how difficult to love an unseen being! But now, let us ask again, Do you not love the representatives of Christ-his Church? Is not each member of it dear to your soul? Do you not rejoice in its prosperity, and sadden over its defeats? And is not this a proof of your love to God? Such inquiries have put to flight many a doubt, and dispelled many a fear.

2. Love to the brethren is a further evidence that we are born of God, because it demands a constant sacrifice, and so constantly displays the strength of that divine principle of faith which unites us to the Lord; for the love in question is not a mere sentiment of respect or admiration, but it is a bond of the closest union. If we open the New Testament, we cannot fail to perceive how deep, how strong it was in the breast of the apostles and of the early Christians. It was

the very badge of their profession, read and known of all men. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples," said our Lord, "if ye love one another." "See that

ye

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love one another," repeats St. Peter, “with a pure heart fervently;" and St. John urges the same precept with similar warmth, "Brethren, let us love one another, for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." Such was the ancient theory of Christian fellowship. But what was the ancient practice? We may trace it in the love which Paul's converts bore to their minister, when he says, I bear you record, that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me:" we may trace it in the large contributions made by them of Achaia for the poor saints at Jerusalem; so that out of their own deep poverty their liberality abounded, while they contributed to the support of those whom they had not seen in the flesh, and to whom they were only attached by the "bonds of the Gospel." And such, brethren, is Christian love at the present hour. It commands you to make the interests of the Church your own, your private interests. It teaches you to forego ease and advantage, that you may comfort them that mourn, or that you may weep with them that weep. When you hear of a brother suffering or dying, it takes you to his chamber, and there it fixes you in tender devotion to his wants. It teaches you to bear with weakness, infirmity, and ignorance; nay, to endure all things for the elect's sake, and to feel in every fellow-Christian a brother's interest. And how shall we account for this? It is a proof that our own hearts are changed, and that the love of Christ pervades them. Yes, brethren, "hereby we know that we have passed from death unto life."

3. And, yet once more, it is an evidence of our own adoption, inasmuch as it exposes us to constant suffering for the sake of Christ; at least this was the case in the apostles' days, and, in some degree, it is so still, or else "is the offence of the cross ceased." Those brethren whom, with a pure heart, the disciples were enjoined fervently to love, were men whose lives had been proscribed, whose society was shunned, whose goods had been spoiled. They were hated of all men, and persecuted of all. Now, to love such a band as this was, and to shew that love by making their fortunes ours-by defending their characters when traduced-by choosing their society whom all men shunned-by administering to their necessities, and cheering their hours of sorrow, surely this was proof enough that he who had such a preference, and who rejoiced in such companionship, was

a true disciple of Christ Jesus. Why else expose himself to derision, perhaps to persecution too? The very fact, that he saw in this persecuted band so much to love, was an unanswerable evidence that his eyes were opened; that he saw the beauty of holiness, though obscured in poverty, or buried in a dungeon; that he had "passed from death unto life."

But I hasten to a close. To a thoughtful mind, no formal application of such a subject can be necessary. But to the careless hearer let me suggest this one reflection. The verse which forms our text condemns you, while it affords consolation to the timid Christian; for if to love the brethren be a test of our discipleship, then, surely, to despise them is a proof that you are yet the servant of sin; to be ashamed of them, is to be ashamed of Christ their Master. If you will not share their reproach, you will be shut out from those mansions which the Lord is gone to prepare for them in heaven.

EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE.* THOMAS HOWNHAM, the subject of the following providence, was a very poor man, who lived in a lone house or hut upon a moor, called Barmour Moor, about a mile from Lowick, and two miles from Doddington, in the county of Northumberland. He had

no means to support a wife and two young children, save the scanty earnings obtained by keeping an ass, on which he used to carry coals from Barmour coalhill to Doddington and Wooler; or by making brooms of the heath, and selling them round the country. Yet, poor, and despised as he was in consequence of his poverty, in my forty years' acquaintance with the professing world, I have scarce met with his equal, as a man that lived near to God, or one who was favoured with more evident answers to prayer. My parents then living at a village called Hanging Hall, about one mile and a half from his hut, I had frequent interviews with him, in one of which he was very solicitous to know whether my father or mother had sent him any unexpected relief the night before. I answered him in the negative, so far as I knew; at which he seemed to be uneasy. I then pressed to know what relief he had met with, and how? After requesting secrecy, unless I should hear of it from some other quarter (and if so, he begged I would acquaint him), he proceeded to inform me, that being disappointed of receiving money for his coals the day before, he returned home in the evening, and, to his pain and distress, found that there was neither bread nor meal, nor any thing to supply their place, in his house; that his wife wept sore for the poor children, who were both crying for hunger; that they continued crying until they both fell asleep; that he got them to bed, and their mother with them, who likewise soon went to sleep, being worn out with the sufferings of the children and her own tender feelings.

Being a fine moonlight night, he went out of the house to a retired spot, at a little distance, to meditate on those remarkable expressions in Hab. iii. 17, 18: "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stail: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the From the Cottage Magazine.

God of my salvation." Here he continued, as he thought, about an hour and a half; and in a sweet, serene, and composed frame of mind he returned into his house; when, by the light of the moon through the window, he perceived something upon a stool or form (for chairs they had none) before the bed; and after viewing it with astonishment, and feeling it, he found it to be a joint of meat roasted, and a loaf of bread, about the size of our half-peck loaves. He then went to the door to look if he could see any body; and after using his voice as well as his eyes, and neither perceiving nor hearing any one, he returned in, awoke his wife, who was still asleep, asked a blessing, and then awoke the children, and gave them a comfortable repast. Such was his story; but he could give me no further account.

I related this extraordinary affair to my father and mother, who both heard it with astonishment; but ordered me to keep it a secret as requested; and such it would have ever remained, but for the following reason. A short time after this event, I left that country; but on a visit about twelve years after, at a friend's, the conversation, one evening, took a turn about one Mr. Strangeways, commonly called Stranguage, a farmer, who lived at Lowick-Highsteed, which the people named Pinch-me-near, on account of this miserly wretch that dwelt there. I asked what had become of his property, as I apprehended he had never done one generous action in his lifetime. An elderly woman in the company said I was mistaken; for she could relate one which was somewhat curious. She said that she had lived with him as a servant or housekeeper; that about twelve or thirteen years ago, one Thursday morning he ordered her to have a whole joint of meat roasted, having given her directions a day or two before to bake two large loaves of white bread. He then went to Wooler market, and took a bit of bread and cheese in his pocket as usual. He came home in the evening in a very bad humour, and went soon to bed. In about two hours after, he called up his man-servant, and ordered him to take one of the loaves, and the joint of meat, and carry them down the moor to Thomas Hownham's, and leave them there. The man did so; and finding the family asleep, he set them at their bed-side, and came away.

The next morning her master called her and the man-servant in, and seemed in great agitation of mind. He told them that he intended to have invited a Mr. John Mool, with two or three more neighbouring farmers (who were always teazing him for his nearness), to sup with him the night before; that he would not invite them in the market-place, as he purposed to have taken them by surprise near home, as two or three of them passed his house; but a smart shower of rain coming on, they rode off, and left him before he could get an opportunity; that going soon to bed, he did not rest well, fell a-dreaming, and thought he saw Hownham's wife and children dying of hunger; that he awoke and put off the impression; that he dreamed the second time, and endeavoured again to shake it off; but that he was altogether overcome with the nonsense the third time; that he believed the devil was in him; but that since he was so foolish as to send the meat and bread, he could not now help it, and charged her and the man never to speak of it, or he would turn them away directly. She added, that since he was dead long ago, she thought she might relate it, as a proof that he had done one generous action, though he was grieved for it afterwards. Surely this was a wonderful instance of God's special interposition in behalf of his own children, plainly shewing us that when he becomes the God of grace, he also be comes, in a peculiar manner, the God of providence to his people. The infidel or sceptic may sneer at the above account as incredible, and denounce it as a fiction got up by some fanatic or enthusiast; and, alas! the worldly-minded and formal professor of Christianity

sumptuous overstepping of that boundary by which God has been pleased to limit the extent of human investigation.

These epistles are addressed, not to the collective members of the several Churches, but to an individual, styled the angel, or messenger," and who appears to have been the chief minister or superintendent of ecclesiastical affairs. The supposition has been maintained, indeed, that, though the expression is employed in the singular number, the epistle was addressed to all who ministered in holy things, and who were thus to be the channels of communicating the Divine will and purposes to the members of the Church at large. For this mode of interpretation, however, there does not appear to be any solid ground. It is urged, indeed, for the purpose of doing away with the notion, that there was a disparity among the ministers of the early Church, and that there was no bishop or overseer who had authority over the rest. The question, in fact, involves in it, what mode of Church-government was employed in primitive times a subject of no small importance. It appears that it was, beyond all reasonable question, episcopal; and that the angel of the Church was the ecclesiastical superior, to whom, as chief minister, the letter was addressed. "Shall we maintain," says Dr. Campbell, himself a Presbyterian, in his Ecclesiastical Lectures, "with some zealous patrons of the Presbyterian model, that, in the sublime and allegorical language of prophecy, a community is here personified, and addressed as one man? Shall we affirm, that by the angel is meant the presbytery, which our Lord, the better to express the union which ought to subsist among the members, emphatically considers as one person? With this interpretation I am equally dissatisfied. Though we have instances, especially in precepts and denunciations, wherein a community is addressed by the singular thou and thee, I do not recollect such a use of an appellative as the application of the word angel here would be on the hypothesis of these interpretations." Dr. Campbell would, indeed, regard this individual, addressed as the angel, as the "president or chairman" of their ecclesiastical assemblies. But, judging from the whole tenour of the apostolical epistles, as well as the testimony of the early fathers, it would seem that the bishops of the Seven Churches were not chairmen, elected for a season, and then to resign their dignity, but bishops set apart for the spiritual government of these several bodies of professing Christians.

The remarks of Bishop Hall, in his Episcopacy by Divine Right, with reference to this very point, are too important to be omitted. "Neither can all the shifts in the world," says he, "elude that pregnant vision and charge of the blessed apostle St. John (in whose longer-lasting time the government of the Church was fully settled in this threefold imparity of the orders and degrees), who having had the special supervision of the whole Asian Church, was, by the Spirit of God, commanded to direct his seven epistles to the bishops of those seven famous churches, by the name of so many angels: To the angel of the Church of Ephesus, to the angel of the Church in Smyrna, &c. For what can be more plain, than that in every of these churches (as, for instance, that of

Ephesus), there were many presbyters, yet but one angel? If that were not in place above the rest, and higher by the head than they, how comes he to be noted in the throng? Why was not the direction to all the angels of the Church of Ephesus? All were angels in respect of their ministry-one was the angel in respect of his fixed superiority. There were thousands of stars in this firmament of the Asian churches. There were but seven of the first magnitude. Who can endure such an evasion-that one is mentioned, many are meant; as if they had said, To one-that is, to more; to one angel-that is, to more angels than one? To what purpose is it to insist upon any propriety of speech, if we may take such liberty with the construction?... But, to put this matter out of doubt, it is particularly known who some of these angels were. Holy Polycarp was known to be the angel of the Church of Smyrna, whom Ignatius, the blessed martyr, mentions as, by his episcopacy, greater than his clergy. Timothy had been, not long before, Bishop of Ephesus, yea, of the Asians; now Onesimus was."*

Nor will the Christian fail to derive hence additional proofs of the faithfulness of the Lord Jehovah. How entirely the actual state of these Churches at the present time coincides with the predictions contained in these epistles! Much light has been thrown on this subject by travellers of modern times. The researches of Mr. Chishull at the commencement, and of M. Peysonnel and Mr. Chandler in the middle of the last century, and more recently, within the last few years, of Messrs. Cockerell, M'Farlane, Arundell, Rae Wilson, Hartley, and others, have added much most interesting information to that which existed on the subject of these once-favoured districts of the vineyard of the Lord: and in the subsequent remarks on the epistles, the attempt will be made, by reference to various important documents from the personal observation of these travellers, to arrive at a correct knowledge of the actual state of these Churches at the present moment. The inquiry is, indeed, most interesting. It is one on which the Christian will meditate with feelings of deep humiliation, when he reflects on the waywardness and perverseness of the human heart, and on the folly of man in departing from the living God, closing his eyes to the light, and his ears to the message of saving truth, and thus exposing himself to the merited wrath of his Almighty Judge.

But, as already hinted, the subject will be considered in a practical point of view: not merely to instruct, but to edify-not to inform the understanding, but to impress the heart; and the design of the writer will be fully answered, if the reader of these remarks on this interesting portion of God's word shall be led, by their instrumentality, under the Spirit's teaching, to lay to heart the solemn warnings addressed to many of the apocalyptic Churches; and in this, the day of grace and merciful visitation, to attend to the momentous concerns of his soul's eternal welfare; lest, warnings being despised, and invitations unheeded, he should stand forth through eternity the wretched monument of the indignation of a righteous God-the miserable spectacle of a man spiritually diseased, who would not be healed, when God would have healed

Episcopacie by Divine Right asserted, by Jos. Hall, B. of Exon. London, 1640.