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engaged for life and death in the service of two most opposite masters. On the other hand, every Christian ought to feel that between himself and a man who is also a Christian, there is a natural connexion of the closest kind. How often do we see that similarity of tastes in some worldly matters, brings two persons together, in spite of every difference of station, of manners, and even of general character. The agreement in one favourite point to which both are especially devoted, outweighs all the points in which they are unlike. How much more then should this be the case, when the point of agreement is that one thing needful, in comparison with which every thing else fades into nothing! Nor is it true by any means, that Christians are so numerous that they cannot feel so particularly drawn together as those persons do who happen to agree in their fondness for some particular study or pursuit. When I speak of Christians, I mean those only who are Christians in reality; those only who are living by faith in the Son of God and are renewed after the image of Him who created them. Surely it cannot be said, that these are every where so common as to excite no particular interest or regard. If it were so, indeed, the world would be a very different

sort of place from what it is. These true Christians are confined, it is true, to no one sect or party, or outward communion: nor can any thing be more opposite than a party or sectarian spirit, and a strong sense of that difference which subsists between Christ's servants and those who disobey and disregard him. But taking all that we could collect, the number in each one's own neighbourhood is surely not so great as to weaken the peculiar regard which we should feel towards them; or to hinder us from looking upon them as on men who are fellow-soldiers together with ourselves amidst a multitude of careless spectators, or of open enemies.

Still, however, we must ever be more closely attached to some particular Christians than to others; and the number of every man's dear and intimate friends must of necessity be small. Yet it is to these that the words of the text especially apply: "They that feared the Lord spake often one to another;" this should be true of the society of Christians in general: but it is, and ought to be, much more so of those who take sweet counsel together, and are bound to one another by the closest ties of personal friendship. It can hardly be told how great is their loss, who know not the

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comfort of Christian friends; in youth more particularly, he who is without them loses the most powerful earthly instrument by which he is saved from temptation, and encouraged to good. Parents or teachers can do little in comparison: because the difference of age deprives what they say of much of its weight and destroys at the same time that equality, which makes the influence of a friend so much less suspected, and listened to, therefore, so much more readily. Equality of age, and similarity in outward circumstances draw men most closely to one another; and, therefore, give them additional opportunities for becoming fully acquainted with each other's characters. Friends are sharers together in their amusements and pleasures; they are together in those hours of free and careless mirth, which the presence of persons of a different age would instantly check.

At such times every one's experience can inform him how easily mirth may be turned into sin; how easily the heart may be hardened, and the conscience dulled by the conversation and example of unchristian associates. Whereas Christian friends gain strength, and impart it to one another in the very midst of their temptations, and even of their falls. Growth in grace is ever gradual and Christians in their youth

are somewhat like the good men who lived in the earlier ages, or in what may be called the youth of the world; that is, their consciences are less enlightened than they become at a more advanced age; they are less exalted in their notions of what they should not do, and of what Christ would love to find in them. There is much, therefore, in their lives that requires amendment: but, if they are Christians in earnest, they gradually lead one another on to higher views; a knowledge of their mutual faults makes them unreserved to each other; they are not afraid of saying all that is in their hearts; they make known to each other their particular difficulties and temptations; they feel that they are engaged in the same struggle and each is often able to give assistance to the other on one point, whilst in others he may himself require to be aided in his turn. So they go on from strength to strength, till they come together in maturer years to a more advanced state of Christian obedience: with natural faults repressed or subdued, with more enlarged views of the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus, and a more enlightened sense of the claims which God has upon the entire devotion of their hearts to his service. "Then they who feared the Lord spake often one to an

other;" for friendships such as I have described are not lightly broken; and though in after life men may be far removed from one another, yet they either see each other from time to time, or have at least sufficient intercourse with one another, to preserve in full force their old feelings of union, to be ready to ask or to afford comfort and counsel in the concerns of each other's souls; or to strengthen each other in their onward course by the mere interchange of Christian sentiments, and dwelling upon the things concerning the kingdom of God. And the last thing I have named, shows how important it is to our eternal interests that we should be provided with such Christian friends. hold it to be most certain, that few men, if any, can keep their hearts fixed as they ought to do on God and on Christ; they cannot encourage as they should do the workings of the Holy Spirit within them, without sometimes speaking out of the abundance of their heart, and pouring forth to others the thoughts which most engross them. But such thoughts and such. subjects form no part of the world's common intercourse; they cannot be addressed to every ear, nor will they meet with answering feelings in every bosom. Compelled as we so often are to become to them who are without the law,

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