of glory; and I cannot truly fall down and worship Him unless I love and adore Him also in His creature." For as there is an invisible union of the saints with God, by which God hath joined to Himself and made one, as it were, His church in His Son by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, so is there, also, an union of the saints amongst themselves, consisting in a sweet and brotherly uniting of their souls together, which is the cementing of God's holy temple, the constituting and building of Christ's church. Now this union, though the eye of flesh cannot behold it, yet it must appear and shine and be resplendent in those duties and offices which must attend it. As the head infuseth life and vigour into the whole body, so must the members also anoint each other with this oil of gladness. Each member must be busy and industrious to express that virtue without which it cannot be so. Thy charity must be active in thy hands, in "Casting thy bread upon the waters;" (Eccles. xi., 1;) vocal in thy tongue, in ministering a word of comfort in due season; compassionate in thy heart, leading thee to the house of mourning, and making thee mourn with them that mourn, and lament with them that lament. It must be like the sun, which casts its beams and influence on every man. Semper debeo charitatem, quæ cum impenditur debetur, saith Augustine, "Love is a debt we owe one to another, that we may be one; a debt every man to every man ; a debt which, though I always pay, I always owe; and even when I pay it I remain still a debtor."

Owes

If we observe that form of prayer which Christ hath taught us, our prayer is not then private when we pray in private. "Our Father" takes in "One another," even the whole church. We cannot pray for ourselves unless we pray for others also. Nay, "He prays not well," saith Calvin, "That begins not with the church." The church prays for every man, and every man for the whole church. Quod est omnium est singulorum, "That which is all men's is every man's, and that which is every man's belongs unto the whole."

And thus much we have found in the object, in

"One another," even enough to draw on the act; for on these three-our common condition, our relation as men, and our relation as Christians as on a sure foundation, doth our Saviour and His blessed apostles build us up in our holy love, build us up as so many parts mutually upholding one another, and growing up into a temple of the Lord.

These are the principles and the premises; and from these they draw this conclusion-that being thus linked and united and built together, we should uphold and "Comfort one another;" which is my second part, the act itself, to "Comfort," and offers itself next to your Christian consideration, Consolamini alii alios, “ Comfort one another."

To "Comfort" is a word of a large and much-extended sense and signification, spreading itself equally with all the army of sorrows, and with all the evils in the world, and opposing itself to all. To comfort may be to be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, and to put the hand to uphold that which is failing. Sustentanda domus jam ruitura, saith Tully, "It is as the underpropping of a house ready to sink." "Comfort you, comfort you, my people, saith God. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem." Loquimini ad cor, "Speak to the heart of them." (Isaiah xl., 1, 2.) Speak, and do something which may heal a wounded heart, rouse a drooping spirit, give it a kind of resurrection, and restore it to its former estate; which may work light out of darkness, content in poverty, joy in persecution, and life in death itself. To renew, restore, quicken, lift up, refresh, encourage, sustain-all those are in this one word Παρακαλεῖτε, Comfort ye." For, "Alas, my brother!" or, "Ah, his glory!" (Jer. xxii., 18,) are but words, Verba sine penu et pecunia, as he in Plautus speaks, "Words without help," prescripts without medicine, most unactive and unsignificant words. To a man naked and destitute of food, "Depart in peace, be warmed, be filled," (James ii., 16,) are but words, but faint and lifeless wishes, especially if they proceed from him who can do more, and yet will do no more, than speak

and wish. They are the dialect of the hypocrite, whose religion floats on his tongue, or is written in his forehead; whose heart is marble, when his words are as soft as butter; whose charity is only in picture and show, and whose very mercy is cruelty. For what greater cruelty can there be than to have a box of ointment in our hand, and not to pour it forth on him that languisheth, but leave him dying, and say we wish him well? No: to "Comfort" is to restore and set one another at rights again; the erring by counsel, the weak by assistance, the poor by supply, the sorrowful by sweet and seasonable argument and persuasion. Otherwise it is not comfort. For what comfort is that which leaves us comfortless? which leaves the ignorant in his darkness, the poor in want, the weak on the ground, and the sorrowful man in his gulf? Loquimini ad cor, "Speak to the heart." If we speak not to the heart, to lift up that, our words are wind. Comfort by counsel is very useful for those who mourn in Zion. Rei infinitatem ejicere, optima medicina, "To bound the cause of men's grief, to remove those many circumstances which increase and multiply it, and so to bring it in as it is, and show what little cause men have to grieve, is the best physic in this particular." Our present and future condition, our mortality, and our resurrection, are of force enough to wipe all tears from our eyes, and to make our grave appear as a house of rest rather than as a pit of destruction.

We must well consider from what principle this act is wrought, from what spring it moves. For we may think we do it when we do not so much as think to do it. We may give scorn and contempt for comfort, or comfort with scorn and contempt, which is panis lapidosus, "Bread made up with gravel," that will trouble us in taking it down. Our comfort may proceed from a hollow heart, and then it is but a sound, and the mercy of a bloody pharisee. It may be ministered through a trumpet, and then it is lost in that noise. Nay, it may be an act of cruelty, to make cruelty more cruel; as we read of an emperor that did never pro

nounce sentence of death, sine præfatione clementiæ, "But with a preface of clemency," a well-worded, mild prologue before a tragedy. Lastly, comfort may be the product of fear. We may be free in our comforts for fear of offence, and help one that we displease not another. And what pity is it that so free and noble a virtue as charity should be enslaved! But, indeed, charity is not bound; nor is that charity which is beat out with the hammer, and wrought out of us by force. All these are false principlespride, hypocrisy, vain-glory, fear; and charity issues from these as water through mud, and is defiled in the passage. Therefore it is best raised on the law of nature and on the royal law of grace. These are pillars that will sustain it. "Remember them that be in adversity, as being yourselves also in the body," (Heb. xiii., 3,) in a body "Mortal and corruptible," (1 Cor. xv., 53,) a body of the same mould, like to that which you cherish and uphold. And then we are to "Love and comfort one another, even as Christ loved us," saith the apostle. (Eph. v., 2.)

Christ is our pattern, our motive, the true principle of charity; and what is done, though it be but the gift of a cup of cold water, should be done in His Name. (Mark ix., 41.) Then the waters of comfort flow kindly and sweetly when they relish of a bleeding heart and the blood of a merciful Redeemer. Then this act is mightily performed when we do it as the sons of Adam and as the members of Christ, when we do it as men "Of one blood" and of one "Common faith." (Acts xvii., 26; Titus i., 4.)

Commune with your own Hearts.*

JOHN LIGHTFOOT, D.D.

IT is not every speaking in the heart that the psalmist here engageth to, for the fool speaks in heart, and saith in his heart, "There is no God;" the epicure speaks in his heart, and saith, "I shall never be moved;" the atheist speaks in his heart, and saith, "Tush, God hath forgotten, He will never see it." And these persons to whom David speaketh, if we hit the occasion of the psalm aright, were ready enough to say in their heart, "We will none of David, and nothing to do with the son of Jesse;" but the text enjoineth such a conference in the heart as that the matters betwixt a man and his own heart may be debated to the very utmost, that the heart may be so put to it in communing with it as that it might speak its very bottom. Nor shall I trouble you with the divers acceptations of the word heart when it is used to signify the spiritual part of man, or when it is taken in a spiritual sense else I might show you that sometimes it is taken for "The whole frame of the soul;" sometimes for the one faculty, "The understanding;" sometimes for the other faculty, "The will;" and sometimes for that which I may call a middle faculty, "The conscience: " but your own hearts will readily tell you, upon the reading of the text, that the word heart in it doth mean the last-mentioned, "The conscience," and that communing with a man's own heart is nothing else but "Searching and trying a man's own conscience.' And you will easily see that the words

* Sermon on Psalm iv., 4, preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their public fast, holden in Margaret's, Westminster, February 24, 1646-47.