Trait 13.

TRAIT 13.

His detestation of party spirit and divisions.

WHILE the spirit of the world is confessedly a spirit of particular interest, pride, and division, the spirit of true religion is manifested, among its sincere professors, as a spirit of concord, humility, and brotherly love. The true minister, animated in an especial manner by this Divine spirit, losing sight of his own reputation and honour, is unweariedly engaged in seeking the glory of God, and the edification of his neighbour. Perfectly satisfied with the lowest place, and distinguished as much by condescension to his brethren, as by respect to his superiors, he is ever on his guard against that spirit of party which is continually seeking to disturb the union of the Church, whether it be by too great a fondness for particular customs, by an obstinate zeal for any system of doctrines, or by too passionate an attachment to some eminent teacher.

Without persecuting those who are led by so dangerous a spirit, the good pastor employs every effort to reunite them under the great Head of the Church. Arguing against the folly of those who are ready to separate themselves from the company of their brethren, he takes up the language of St. Paul, and says, “O foolish Christians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Galatians 3:1, 3. “Ye have,” indeed, “been called unto liberty: only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, among which are these, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, and heresies: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance. If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another,” Galatians 5:13, 26. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Endeavour, therefore, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” Ephesians 4:3, 6. When the people seek to honour a true minister by placing him at the head of any party in the Church, he refuses the proffered dignity with an humble and holy indignation. His soul is constantly penetrated with those sentiments, under the influence of which the Apostle Paul thus nobly expressed himself: “I seek not my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved,” 1 Corinthians 10:33. “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind. For it hath been declared unto me that there are contentions among you: and that every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. But is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1:10, 13. “Who is Paul, but a minister by whom ye believed? Therefore, let no man glory in men, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas,” 1 Corinthians 3:5, 21, 22; but rather in “our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,” Ephesians 3:14, 15.

By such exhortations it is, and by maintaining at the same time a conduct conformable to the nature of such exhortations, that every faithful minister endeavours to engage Christians of all denominations to walk together “in love, as Christ also walked,” Ephesians 5:2. “Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord,” Ephesians 5:10, “and submitting one to another in the fear of God,” Ephesians 5:21, till the arrival of that promised period, when the whole company of the faithful shall be of one heart and of one mind.

But after all these exertions for the extirpation of a sectarian spirit from the Church they who content themselves with the exterior of Christianity, as the Pharisees were contented with the ceremonies of the Mosaic worship, will, sooner or later, accuse every evangelical pastor of attempting to form a particular sect. When modern Pharisees observe the strict union which reigns among true believers, a union which every faithful minister labours to establish among his people, as well by example as by precept; when they behold penitent sinners deeply sensible of their guilt, and frequently assembling together for the purpose of imploring the blessings of “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” they immediately take the alarm, and cry out, “These men do exceedingly trouble our city, teaching customs which are not lawful for us to receive,” and maintaining such a conduct as is most inconvenient for us to follow, Acts 16:20, 21. Happy are those cities in which the minister of Christ is able to discover a Nicodemus, a Gamaliel, or some worshippers possessed of as much candour as the Jews of Rome, who desired to hear what the persecuted Paul had to offer in behalf of that newly-risen sect, which was “every where spoken against,” Acts 27:22. Till this amiable candour shall universally prevail among the nominal members of the Church, true Christianity, even in the centre of Christendom, will always find perverse contradiction, and sometimes cruel persecution.