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Luke xiii. 36.

I cannot doubt that much of the moral truth on which the following considerations depend, has been realized in the minds of many Believers, who have sought into the divine word; but I have felt in the little communion, though great intercourse, which such have ordinarily with each other, that the expression of these thoughts might, by the blessing of God, direct the attention of Believers, and from the divine word more explicitly manifest to the Church its just objects; and consequently, by their reception, determine its character and conduct; ensuring, under God’s blessing, more consistency of operation; stablish, strengthen, settle it, in its own hopes, and make it exhibit, with more clearness and power, the grace of God to the world; lead Believers to more explicit reliance on the operations of the divine Spirit, to look less to the plans of men and human co-operation, or what will be found, in the end, to be human interests. While the aims and purposes of Believers are very mixed in their nature, and fall far below the standard for which God has gathered them, and which he proposes as the influential object of their faith, and consequently motive of their conduct, division and sectarianism are, even in the mercy of God’s providence, the necessary result, whether it assume the character of Establishment or Dissent. I am supposing here, of course, that the great truths of the gospel are the professed faith of the Churches, as they are in all the genuine Protestant Churches. For the just consequence of the reception of gospel facts by faith, and its end in man, is the purification of the desires in love, a life to Him, who died for us, and rose again, a life of hope in His glory. To suppose therefore, unity where the Church falls entirely short of the just consequences of its faith, is to suppose that the Spirit of God would acquiesce in the moral inconsistency of degenerate man, and