ing God, edifying the church, and saving one another thereby. These are the four excellent ways, which the apostle in this text prescribeth to reconcile controversies, to close up divisions, to reduce calmness and serenity, upon the face of a distracted and dilacerated church. We have briefly opened and analyzed the words; let us now take a short review of them again, for our further instruction and benefit. 1. We may observe a difference which the apostle makes, amongst the members of the church: some strong, some weak; some perfect, some seduced; some listening to Paul, and others to the concision. As on the same foundation, some parts of the building may be marble and cedar, other parts lath and tearing; some strong, and others ruinous. As in the heavens, so in the house of God; some stars differ from other stars in glory. (1 Cor. xv. 41) He who hath the fulness of the spirit, and a residue to give still unto him that lacketh, doth yet blow by his spirit where he listeth, (John iii. 8) and divideth to every one severally as he will; (1 Cor. xii. 11) yet always xarà μéτpov, a measure only of knowledge, of faith, of grace, of every needful gift; (Rom. xii. 3) which the apostle calleth the measure of the gift of Christ,' and the 'measure of every part;' (Eph. iv. 7, 16) unto which measure there will ever, while here we are, be something lacking. (1 Thess. iii. 10) They who have most, have not a fulness, except comparatively, and respectively to some special service; as Zacharias, Elizabeth, Stephen, Barnabas, and others are said to have been full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost." Otherwise the best must say, as our apostle here doth, "Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect; but I follow after, and reach forth, and press forward." Some have need of milk; others, of strong meat;some, babes; others, of fuller age;-some, unskilful in the word of righteousness; others, senses exercised, to discern good and evil. (Heb. v. 12, 13, 14) Some, fitches; some, cummin; some, bread-corn. (Isai. xxviii. 27, 28) Some have knowledge, and others weak consciences. (1 Cor. viii. 7) Some are first-born, and they have five talents, a double portion of the spirit, as Elisha had. (2 Kings ii. 9. Matth Luke i. 15, 41, 67. Acts ii. 4. vi. 37, 55. xi. 24. xiii. 9. Tit, iii. 6. xxv. 15) Others are younger children, and have lower abilities, who therefore have not so large a stock, nor so noble a service. Some children, by reason of their strength, do perform work; others, by reason of infancy and infirmity, do only make work; some are for the school, and others for the cradle ; some for the field, others for the couch; some for duty, and others for care; and yet all children. With such admirable wisdom hath God tempered the body, that there might be a various love amongst the members; in the strong to the weak, a love of care; in the weak to the strong, a love of reverence; that the strong may learn to restore the weak, and the weak to imitate the strong: that by those who fall, the strong may learn to fear, and by those that stand, the weak may learn to fight: that the weak by the strong may be provoked to emulation, and the strong by the weak may be provoked to edification: that they who stand, may be for the praise of Christ's power and grace; and they who fall, for the praise of his patience and mercy: and that in the variety of different supplies unto the members, the fulness of the head may be admired. Let not those, therefore, who have more eminent gifts, superciliously overlook and despise their inferior brethren: "For who hath made thee to differ, or why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" Rather thus judge :-the more thy gifts are, the greater must be thy service to the church of Christ here, and the greater thine accounts at his tribunal hereafter. And again; let not those who have not so great a measure, envy or malign the gifts of others; for it is God who hath made them to excel : and why is thine eye evil, because thy master's is good? Rather thus consider,-The head cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee. And the best way to improve and increase the gifts of God, is to employ them with humility and uprightness. The apostle hath spent one whole chapter upon this argument, to persuade Christians from unbrotherly censures of one another, upon difference of judgement in smaller things, (Rom. xiv.) pressing this duty by many reasons. 1. God who is the judge, receiveth men into his favour, notwithstanding their differences: therefore they ought not mutually to cast one another out of their own favour, ver. 3. 2. Our brother is another's b servant, and not ours; therefore, we ought not to make our will, or judgement, the rule of his ; (servants should have no will of their own, but their Lord's) since God can and will keep him in service, and from dangerous falls, as well as us, ver. 4. 3. He walketh according to the light and persuasion of his heart; so that his failing is erroneous only, but not pertinacious, so long as he doth reverence light, and resolve that his heart shall not reproach him: he is docile and reducible by any clear conviction; his heart is Godward, though he does sometimes miss his way, ver. 5, 6. 4. We must all be accountable to a common Lord, and have thereupon work enough of our own to do; and, therefore, ought not to make others accountable unto us: we have none of us dominion over ourselves, therefore not over others neither, ver. 7. We have a Lord, who dearly purchased the dominion over us, and before whose tribunal we must all give an account of ourselves, ver. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 5. By judging, despising, and offending one another, we break the rules of Christian charity, grieving and endangering the souls of our brethren, ver. 13, 15. We expose those good things, wherein we agree, unto reproach, ver. 16; and prejudice the great things of the kingdom of God, "righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost" (which are the things which render us acceptable to God, and therefore should make us approved of one another) by our uncharitable altercations in smaller things, ver. 17, 18. We hinder the peace and edification of one another, ver. 19. We minister occasion of falling, stumbling, and offence to our weak brother, ver. 20, 21. We abuse our liberty, by making it a ball of contention, when we might enjoy it within ourselves, without any such danger, ver. 22. We go about to entangle our weak brother, by inducing him to act doubtingly, and without a warrant and persuasion of the lawfulness of what he doth, ver. 22, 23. So then, whatever be the differences amongst true believers, who agree in the great things of God's kingdom, the strong ought not to despise the weak, nor the weak to judge the strong; neither ought to hurt, grieve, wound, offend the hearts of one another, inasmuch as they are all fellow-servants to one common Lord, who will b Velle non videntur, qui obsequuntur imperio patris vel domini. Digest. de Regul. juris, leg. 4. : judge us all and inasmuch as we are owned by that Lord, and accepted, the weak as well as the strong; who doth not so much value us by the degrees of our knowledge, as by the sincerity of our love; who doth not reap any benefit by the difference of our services, but is pleased and glorified by the uprightness of our hearts; yea, possibly is more pleased with the conscionable tenderness of the weak brother that errs, than with the confident and inexpedient liberty of the strong brother who doth not err. II. We may here note wherein the perfection of a Christian standeth, viz. in TOUTO Opoveïv, to think of Christ, and think of himself, as the Apostle Paul here did. : 1. To shake off all self-opinion of our own righteousness, all moral presumptions and fleshly confidence in any performances of our own, in our most zealous and blameless conversation they are good in genere viæ,' as paths to heaven; not in ' genere causæ,' as proper causes, on which we may depend for salvation. He that, living in the country, hath a rich office given him freely in the city, must travel from the country to the city, if he will enjoy it; but he must not ascribe the enjoyment of it to his own journey, but to his patron's bounty. We must be dead in ourselves, if we will be alive by the life of Christ; we must suffer the loss of all, and esteem it an excellent bargain for the gaining of him; we must not establish our own righteousness, if we will be found in his. The nearer any soul comes unto God, the more it learns to abhor itself, by his light discovering its deformities. The angels cover their feet and their faces; Moses exceedingly fears; Elias wraps his head in his mantle; the Prophet Isaiah cries out, I am undone;' and Holy Job, Mine eye seeth thee, therefore I abhor myself. The greater our approaches and acquaintance is with God, the lower our thoughts will be of ourselves. The stars disappear, when the sun riseth. Though heaven be high, yet the more there is of heaven in the soul, the more humble and low it is. Mountains must be levelled to make a way for a ⚫ Sancti viri, quo altius apud Deum virtutum dignitate proficiunt, eo subtilius indignos se esse deprehendunt; quia dum proximi luci fiunt, quicquid eos in seipsis latebat, inveniunt. Greg. Moral. 1. 32. cap. 1. b Isai. vi. 1. f Job c Heb. xii. 24. xlii. 5, 6. d 1 Kings xix. 13. e Isai. vi. 5. Christ. As the orator said of Trajan, Te ad sidera tollit humus,' that his walking on the ground raised him, in the estimation of his people, unto heaven;-we may say of a heavenly soul, Te ad humum Cœlum deprimit;' the more heavenly, the more in the dust. "Qui Deo placet, sibi de se nil relinquit ;" the more we study to please God, the more nothing we are in ourselves. 2. To rejoice in the Lord, and in his righteousness alone. I will make mention of thy righteousness; of 'thine only,' saith the psalmist. (Psalm lxxi. 16) All mine own is as a menstruous cloth. So true is that of St. Austin, "Justitia nostra potius in remissione peccatorum constat, quam in perfectione virtutum." 3. To have communion and conformity to Christ, in his death and resurrection, by inchoate holiness, by mortifying our earthly members, and glorifying God in a heavenly conversation. The love of Christ constraining us to die unto sin, because he died for it; to give ourselves' living sacrifices unto him, who was pleased to give himself a dying sacrifice for us. For our own we are not, but his that bought us" as the civil law says, that a redeemed captive is his that bought him, 'per modum mancipii,' till he can restore the price by which he was redeemed. This we can never be able to do: therefore we must ever be the servants of him that bought us. m 4. To be always so tenderly affected with the sense of our own manifold imperfections, and coming short of the glory of God; that thereby our hearts may be the more inflamed, by a heavenly ambition and noble pursuit, to press forward in the use of all holy means, unto more nearness and intimate communion with the Lord Christ. The Lord is pleased here, in the church militant, in the land of temptation, by such slow and slender progresses, to renew his servants °; "Ut sit quod petentibus largiter adjiciat, quod confitentibus clementer ignoscat," as Austin excellently speaks; that there may still be a residue of spirit and grace, wherewith abundantly • Plin. Paneg. lib. 19. c. 27. i Aug. de Civ. Dei, 1 Rom. xii. 1. h Greg. Moral. 1. 10. c. 4. k 2 Cor. v. 14. 6, 19. Deo dicata membra nulla tibi temeritate usurpes: non enim m 1 Cor. sine gravi n Digest. • Aug. de Spirit. et Vit. cap. ult. |