neutral ground, open alike to either party, and to be occupied or not by each, as they see fit. What the fundamentals are, may, it is true, be differently stated : but, if Christianity be viewed in its true light as a remedy, and we agree in the depth of the malady it is proposed to cure ; the means of healing, through the atoning blood of Christ, and the influences of his Spirit ; and the duty of those who are healed, to devote them- selves unreservedly to the service of their God; if, I say, Christianity be viewed in this light, there will be very little difference of sentiment between those who have ever felt its efficacy. It is by going beyond these plainer truths ; by laying an undue stress on some obvious doctrines, without suffering them to be tempered with those which are of an opposite aspect; by wresting from their plain import those passages which we cannot reconcile with our favourite systems; and, in a word, by exercising a dogmatical spirit on points which are beyond our comprehension, and forming them into the shibboleth of a party; it is by these things that the Church of Christ is divided : and never till we return to the simplicity of the day of Pentecost, shall we regain its unity. But when we return to the docility of little children, we shall, to all prac- tical purposes, " see eye to eye."]
On the attainment of this object his heart was set, as appears from,
II. The urgency of his request —
The first consideration which he urges is, the hap- piness which such a union would confer on him —
[He had rejoiced in their first conversion to God ; as a mother does over her new-born infant : but his joy was blended with much anxiety for their future welfare. That welfare was now endangered by the efforts which were made to separate them from each other, and to turn them from the faith. No- thing but their steadfastness could comfort him : but, if he should see them cordially united together in sentiment and affection, it would complete his joy. Hence he says to them, " Fulfil ye my joy." His very life seemed to be bound up, as it were, in the prosperity of their souls ; so that in effect he says to them, as he does to the Thessalonian Church, " Now I live, if ye stand fast in the Lord." If therefore they felt in any degree their obligations to him, they could not but labour to carry into effect the object which would so conduce to his happiness.]
To this he adds all the- most powerful pleas that could operate upon the human mind —
[" Is there any consolation in Christ?" As believers, they could not but know that there was in him a fund of