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Again, the sorrow of Bereavement: Is it selfishness, or tenderness? Is it anguish, or is it love? Does it centre on the outward and worldly change, and the personal loss? Is it the rebellion, or the devotion of the heart? Is it too feeble and earthly to be constant, in all outward change, and to draw living emotions and support from an unseen being? Or, does it contemplate the spiritual facts, and fill the lonely heart with the images of Heaven, and breathe its air? In the one case, it is the Sorrow of the World that leaves "the dead to bury their dead"; -in the other, it is a divine Affection, drawn from the Source of Love and Goodness who has given us the earnest of His spirit, and sanctified by the faith "that there are no dead, for that all live unto God."

And the signs of a Sorrow derived from a sense of our true relations to God are, that it is a Sorrow that has Fruits; it is not remorse, but Repentance, - not despair and dull death, but new Life; it belongs to a changed heart abjuring its former self, and working carefulness, fear, struggle, vehement desire, unsparing self-punishment, and retribution."

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And whoever would awaken these saving emotions in a lapsed Nature, must treat it with the Apostle's reverence, and approach it with the generous Trust that inspires the sense of Power. To some of us there may appear a tone of exaggeration in St. Paul's address to these unconfirmed penitents: "I rejoice that I have now confidence in you in all things"; but this is the spirit that reaches a heart that has any thing noble in it, and produces new effort and watchfulness, rather than unjustifiable SelfReliance.

And there can be no spiritual healing without some Self-Reliance; and the best part of Salvation has regard not so much to the height of our attainments as to the soundness of the Heart, the trust we can now repose in our honest desire for Reformation.

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And thus, not spiritual healing, but corruption dark and stern, may be occasioned even by the Truth, if unaccompanied by the Love that awakens some saving emotions in the Heart. And thus a man may sin, most deeply, in uttering even merited rebukes; he may administer moral lessons of unquestionable Truth with a poisonous effect; and, by the rudeness and hardness of his touch, turn even the germs of new life in the soul into deadly roots of bitAnd thus, in all parts of Character, Christianity requires us to act with the presence of all our forces, with a union of contrasted qualities. And to be equal to the divine work of moral healing upon Earth, one must be in the spirit of the Master, full of grace as of truth, -with something of the blended Goodness and Severity of God himself, so as to speak the Truth in Love, to yield no Principle, yet lose no Sympathy, to "corrupt no man," by Speech or Silence, and yet stir no emotion less sanctifying and gentle than "the godly Sorrow that leadeth to Repentance.".

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PART II.

(CHAPS. VIII. - IX.)

ST. PAUL URGES THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH TO DISCHARGE THE FULL DUTIES OF BROTHERLY LOVE TOWARDS THEIR AFFLICT

ED BRETHREN OF JERUSALEM.

THE LAW OF GIVING.

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PART II.

ST. PAUL URGES THE CORINTHIAN CHURCH TO DISCHARGE THE FULL DUTIES OF BROTHERLY LOVE TOWARDS THEIR AFFLICTED BRETHREN OF JERUSALEM. THE LAW OF GIVING.

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CHAPS. VIII., IX.

VIII. 1. Now, brethren, we make known to you the grace 2 of God given in the Churches of Macedonia, - that in a great trial of affliction the overflowing of their joy, and from its depth their poverty, abounded in the riches of 3 their single-mindedness. For according to their power, I bear witness, and beyond their power, they were willing of 4 themselves, praying us with much entreaty for this 5 favor and fellowship in the assistance of the saints; and not according as we expected, but first they gave them6 selves to God, and to us by the will of God. So that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so also he would 7 finish among you, this work of grace also. And as ye abound in all things, in faith, in word, in knowledge, and in all zeal, and in your love towards us, that so also ye 8 may abound in this grace. I speak not by commandment,

but on account of the zeal of others, and to prove the 9 genuineness of your love. For ye know the grace of

our Lord Jesus Christ, how for your sakes he became

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