(Eph. 4:3.)

The blessed truth of God, as broad and catholic as it is spiritual and holy, is being constantly narrowed and stiffened into formality of some kind by the narrowness of our own hearts. We interpret the Word so much out of our hearts,-we see it so much in reference to our own circumstances merely,-the things that are before us are so apt to engross and prepossess us, that we are often little able to realize at all the mind of the Spirit in it. The narrowing of the application becomes a real perversion often thus. Sectarianism is natural to us; and sectarianism means but self,- " our own things," whether in a smaller or a larger circle, and "not the things of Jesus Christ."

We have also to remember that we may be easily ensnared into the identification of these contrasted things with one another. " Our own things " readily become for us the " things of Jesus Christ." Scripture contracted by our selfishness becomes then also the enforcement of our selfishness in the name of the Lord. The idol we have fashioned begins fashioning us; and by this process of action and reaction, how soon and how far may we be led astray! What cause have we to pray for the grace of self-judgment when we take God's Word into our hands, lest we bring our own thoughts into it, instead of receiving divine truth from it!

Has not the blessed truth of the unity of the Spirit suffered this sort of contraction at our hands ? Has it not been often made to serve the purpose of a rigid and narrow ecclesiasticism, and pressed into the very opposite of that which the apostle so earnestly here enjoins? Has it been always used so as to foster the spirit of " all lowliness and meekness, forbearing one another in love"? Has it been sought even to be kept "in the bond of peace"?

But my purpose is not to pursue this at all just now, but to put and answer, as the Lord may enable me, the question, What is the " unity of the Spirit" we are to keep? and how then are we to keep it?- questions in the present day of very great importance surely, amid the strife of parties and opinions ever increasing, and when also there is danger of a mere liberalism which is not of God, effectually aided, with many, by the weariness of the strife itself.

These questions are not really difficult to answer, however, nor are the answers in any way them-selves difficult or questionable. The apostle, in his next sentence, has given us the first of these. As old Matthew Henry would have said, the key hangs very near the door. " There is one body and one Spirit!' Here are two unities, which are plainly to be distinguished, while as plainly related, and that unity of which the apostle speaks proceeds from this relation of one to the other. The "unity of the Spirit" is the unity produced by the one Spirit as animating and controlling the " one body."

The unity of the body, it has been truly said, is not ours to keep. God has taken care for that. Whether we are practically acknowledging it or not, the body of Christ is one, and we are members one of another. But that which practically unites the body together is the living Spirit which puts the members in real and practical relation to one another. They are thus kept in communion with and true subjection to the Head, Christ Jesus. It is not a mere formal, but a true spiritual and intelligent oneness, owned and carried out in mutual sympathy and service,-a service which is duty no less than privilege-and to the full extent of our . ability, within a sphere not less than that of the whole body of Christ.

This is the answer to the first question, and there is surely no need to enlarge upon it, nor to enforce the truth of it. Its truth is manifest:the duty to one another flowing from our place together in the body of Christ will be owned by every true and loyal-hearted Christian wherever found.

But the question of greater difficulty, and therefore of greater interest at the present moment, is as to what is involved in the endeavor to keep the unity-to carry out this principle so easily recognized. The body is no longer manifestly one:the members are separated from one another, variously and widely. Each one of numberless divisions is united by and earnest to maintain the differences by which its adherents are sundered from the rest. Hence discordant views create discordant interests. Collision and conflict are the inevitable results.

More than this:in this strife of party interests, aid is welcome, and one must not too nicely investigate from whence it comes. Impoverished and distracted by internal feuds, the Church of God accepts, if it does not invite, the help of the world, perhaps loosely Christianized, sometimes not that, and sometimes even antichristian. How is a way to be found and held with God through this bewildering, shifting, maze of difficulties? How shall we take a step into this stream without being whirled from our feet by these eddying currents of human passion, emulation, and party zeal? How are we to be large enough yet discriminating enough?-"wise concerning that which is good, and simple concerning evil"?

And yet we are to "endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." As the duty remains, so do the way and means of fulfilling the duty. Isolation from whatever affects our brethren is not God's thought for us, who has joined the body together, and would have no schism in it. Whether we will or not, from this interdependence of one upon another we cannot "escape. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." And while there may be and are great difficulties,
these are but the means of testing and drawing out faith, never of confounding it.

How, then, are we to keep the unity of the Spirit? The answer may be given in a few words:by uniting ourselves in heart to every thing in which the Spirit's work is manifest, while turning from and refusing all (though it may be mixed up with this) in which, as tested by Scripture, the character of that work cannot be found.

This is but to apply to the matter before us the principles of the apostle John's last two epistles. Love must be in the truth, is the motto of the second ; The truth must be in love, is that of the third. And these are the two sides of the divine nature, "God is love" and "God is light," made to test our practical conduct. As "grace and truth," they together " came " to us " by Jesus Christ." We cannot sunder them :to sunder is to destroy. Without love, there is no truth in us:love is itself the first and fundamental truth. Without truth, love cannot be.

And so the apostle insists, If you keep God's commandments, this is His commandment, "that he who loveth God love his brother also." On the other hand, if you love your brethren, the children of God, " by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous."
How necessary, in a day of mixture such as the present, to remember these words! And how it would seem often as if we did not believe that " His commandments are not grievous"! How many are the plausible suggestions now that, at least within certain limits, the end sanctifies the means; and that if the object be to serve Christ, a little conciliation of the world and the flesh may secure an immense influence in His favor! No doubt, they would not like to be thought to patronize unholiness who do this, and in truth they do not mean to violate conscience:but it is natural conscience only which they have in mind; not conscience enlightened by the word of Christ,- for in His light they do not see light.

Keeping, then, in mind the only perfect standard of what is "vile" or "precious," we have only come, after all, to the words of God to Jeremiah in a day of apostasy,-"If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth." Priceless words are these indeed, with all their simplicity. We shall do well to ponder them if as yet we have not, to recall them to remembrance if we have. For contact with an evil world, even when necessary, tends to dull our spiritual sense continually, and only by perpetual recurrence to the word of truth can our sanctification be maintained. Let us look, then, at these words to the old prophet, and see if they are not words of power for our day,–if they do not give us at least the underlying principle in the following out of which the unity of the Spirit will be most simply and surely kept.

It is true that in Jeremiah necessarily there is no mention or thought of the body of Christ. And this is now that in which (in a way unknown to the Old Testament,) the Spirit of God dwells. We will not forget that the Church, which Christ loved so as to give Himself for it, is the sphere of this unity which we have now before us. But this affects the details rather than the principles. The work of the Holy Spirit is in all ages morally the same:the work speaks of its Author, and has the impress of His own immutability.

First, then, let us notice carefully that in taking forth the precious from the vile, our occupation is with that which is precious. We do not hunt for the vile, although we cannot but recognize it when it comes before us. We judge it better by our refusal of it than by any amount of analysis and condemnation of it. Our part is, " whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," to "think on these things." This has a wonderful effect upon the heart. The occupation with evil tends to distress, discourage, and enfeeble on the one hand; on the other, to engender a spirit of controversy and harshness, closely allied with and near akin to a subtle self-righteousness. When that which is good occupies us, we are kept in rest, encouraged, and superior to the evil; love is not merely unchecked, but active, in the presence of what calls it out. If we strive, it is with the desire of rescuing what is of God and dear to Him from what injures and defiles it.

Secondly, this effort is supposed and enjoined in taking forth the precious from the vile. Every where the conflict of good with evil is going on, and divine grace is in unceasing, unwearied activity to win souls out of the darkness and corruption, to God and to the holiness which is the atmosphere in which He dwells. Of this activity we are ourselves the fruit, and in this way have become also its instruments. The world is a vast battle-ground, in which there are only two parties, essentially opposed. He that is not with Christ is against Him; he that gathereth not with Him scattereth abroad. Nor is there pause or relaxation in the continual struggle. To pause is to give way; to cease from conflict is to be overcome ; to persevere is, on the other hand, to win certain victory, and every effort gathers strength for a fresh one. But assuredly we shall not without a struggle "take forth the precious from the vile;" for sin is an armed and aggressive enemy, and the goods of the strong man can only be taken in the might of One who is stronger than he.

The main difficulty lies in this, that although there are but two parties in this strife, and the lines might seem easily enough drawn, in practice it is not so. There is an inner enemy as well as an outer one, and a battle-field in every Christian heart corresponding to that outside. Thus the power of the Spirit has to accomplish in us the work of deliverance from the evil within as well as around; and we have to be with Him, not only in winning from the world the trophies of divine grace, but also in delivering the people of God from themselves and from their fellows, as well as from the world around.

What makes the endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit so difficult, but this? Why does it require all lowliness and meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another in love? It is because the body of Christ is composed of men in whom sin is and in whom it works; and thus unity can be only maintained by conflict:here, as in the individual, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you should not do the things that you would."

Thus no mere keeping of an external or ecclesiastical unity will suffice us here. Every where, as a first necessity, we need that discernment which only he that is spiritual can have. There is implied a constant exercise, a continual need of being before God, a practiced faith, a thorough individuality of walk, which mere ecclesiasticism, far from encouraging, always represses, as hostile to unity,
instead of favoring it. It is the unity of the Spirit that is to be kept, not that of the Church. And this can never be really kept, I do not say by a violated conscience merely, but by an unexercised one. The Spirit of God ever acts, indeed, in behalf of real unity ; but in this very way it can only be attained by a close and intelligent following of His mind. Could the whole body act as one apart from this, it would only be the more completely contrary to the apostle's precept here.

(To be continued.)