THE CANADA LUTHERAN. 5 To this Church of Christ, and to the denomination which represents it, every member owes certain duties. They are enjoined by God's Word, and are essential to the progress of the Church, and to the spiritual growth of each member. How solemn are the vows we have assumed! God and the angels heard them, and now they are repeated and discharged in our daily life, or they are denied; we are ourselves the best confirmation of them, or their saddest perversion; in them and by them we are with Christ or against Him. Our duty here is peculiarly solemn, and we have in us the power of very great good, or very great harm. Well may we pray that God may preserve us from indifference and neglect here, and from that apostasy which follows such a course. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in Him: Rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."--Col. ii. 6, 7. DUTY I. Understand Your Relation to the Church. Much error prevails here, and the harm of it is great and manifest. Unless we have an intelligent apprehension of our relation to the Church to which we belong, it is not likely that we shall be faithful to the duties that grow out of it. Let me define it in a few words. It is an exclusive relation. In a sense it is separate from every other obligation. The duties of the Church we owe especially to God, and to our own souls. No other relation may come in and meddle unworthily with this, which puts us into God's own presence, and appoints us to do with God's own ordinances. It is sometimes the case that disturbed personal relations--friction of a social or business character--are allowed to interfere with this higher relation, and so, to bring reproach upon the cause of Christ, and harm to our own souls. We should be most careful to "let brotherly love continue," and as much as lieth in us to live peaceably with all men; but if painful difference ever should occur, our duty and relation to the Church remain the same; nothing changes these except a criminality which would render our presence in such a holy relation as great a harm as our unfaithfulness in it; and even in such a case our obligation to duty would not be less solemn, nor less binding. It is exclusive in the sense that it is higher than any other. No other may conflict with, displace or annul its claims. It puts you in covenant with God--that covenant is an everlasting covenant, and anything that is allowed to disturb it gains the preeminence over what God has ordained, and He is thereby dishonored, and harm comes to the soul. See to it that you count no sacrifice of feeling, if need be, as anything to the maintenance of this holy alliance between yourself and God. It is Therefore a Very Serious and Responsible Relation. I have referred to the vows of our Christian discipleship. When we come into the Church, how much the attitude we have assumed involves. We have entered upon a new sphere of duties and influence; the whole order of life has been changed--lifted higher. Neither to God nor man are we exactly the same we were before; God has imposed more, we have solemnly and of our own will assumed more, the world of right expects more. We are to exert an influence upon the souls and future destiny of men, and by us in the most momentous sense they are hereafter to be helped or harmed. We have made a profession; it has brought us face to face with God, and now a new life is demanded, and henceforth we are "to walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." Our example, that powerful irresistible teacher, is to accord with our profession, so we shall become living witnesses, and "those of the contrary part shall be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of us." Never are we to forget our account to God. In any event that is the most solemn destiny towards which responsible creatures are moving, but especially is it so for those who have named the name of Christ. Sad enough will it be for those who have trodden on the blood of the covenant, and done despite to the spirit of grace, in that day; but sadder still for any who have vowed and refused to pay, for such as have professed Christ and then denied Him. It is a blessed relation. What honor it confers! what dignity! what influence! What an opportunity of blessing it is to ourselves and others!