I. The duty enjoined.—1. It may apply to a weight of labour or bodily toil. 2. To a weight of personal affliction. 3. To a weight of providential losses and embarrassments. 4. To a weight of guilt. 5. Of temptation. 6. Of infirmities.

II. The enforcing motive.—1. The apostle’s requirement is worthy of the character of Christ, as it is a law of equity. 2. It is congenial with the Spirit of Christ. 3. It is agreeable to the example of Christ. 4. It is deducible from the precepts of Christ. 5. It has the approbation of Christ.—Sketches.

Bearing One Another’s Burdens.—The metaphor is taken from travellers who used to ease one another by carrying one another’s burdens, wholly or in part, so that they may more cheerfully and speedily go on in their journey. As in architecture all stones are not fit to be laid in every place of the building, but some below and others above the wall, so that the whole building may be firm and compact in itself; so, in the Church those who are strong must support the weak. The Italians have a proverb—Hard with hard never makes a good wall, by which is signified that stones cobbled up one upon another without mortar to combine them make but a tottering wall that may be easily shaken; but if there be mortar betwixt them yielding to the hardness of the stones, it makes the whole like a solid continued body, strong and stable, able to endure the shock of the ram or the shot of the cannon. So that society, where all are as stiff as stones which will not yield a hair one to another, cannot be firm and durable. But where men are of a yielding nature society is compact, because one bears the infirmities of another. Therefore the strong are to support the weak, and the weak the strong; as in the arch of a building one stone bears mutually, though not equally, the burden of the rest; or as harts swimming over a great water do ease one another in laying their heads one upon the back of another—the foremost, having none to support him, changing his place and resting his head upon the hindermost. Thus in God’s providence. Luther and Melancthon were happily joined together. Melancthon tempered the heat and zeal of Luther with his mildness, being as oil to his vinegar; and Luther, on the other side, did warm his coldness, being as fire to his frozenness.—Ralph Cudworth.

Association (A Benefit Club Sermon).—1. This plan of bearing one another’s burdens is not only good in benefit clubs—it is good in families, in parishes, in nations, in the Church of God. What is there bearing on this matter of prudence that makes one of the greatest differences between a man and a brute beast? Many beasts have forethought: the sleep-mouse hoards up acorns against the winter, the fox will hide the game he cannot eat. The difference between man and beast is, that the beast has forethought only for himself, but the man has forethought for others also. 2. Just the same with nations. If the king and nobles give their whole minds to making good laws, and seeing justice done to all, and workmen fairly paid, and if the poor in their turn are loyal and ready to fight and work for their king and their nobles, then will not that country be a happy and a great country? 3. Just the same way with Christ’s Church, the company of true Christian men. If the people love and help each other, and obey their ministers and pray for them, and if the ministers labour earnestly after the souls and bodies of their people, and Christ in heaven helps both minister and people with His Spirit and His providence and protection, if all in the whole Church bear each other’s burdens, then Christ’s Church will stand, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.—Charles Kingsley.

Burden-bearing.

I. Different kinds of burdens.—1. Those that are necessary. 2. Those that are superfluous. 3. Those that are imaginary.

II. What shall we do with them?—1. Reduce their number to the limits of necessity. 2. Some of these we are expected to carry ourselves. 3. Some we may expect our friends to help us to carry. 4. We may take them all to the Lord that He may either remove them or sustain us under them.

Lessons.—1. With grace burdens are removed or lightened. 2. In what way can we best help others with their burdens? “Thou lightenest thy load by lightening his.” 3. Let our burdens be reduced to light running order.—Homiletic Monthly.

Practical Christian Sympathy.

I. Consider the burdens you can bear for others.—All have to bear burdens. Some man can only bear for himself. Others he can be helped to bear, such as the burden of carnal tendency, persecution, anxiety over loved ones, affliction that is not punishment.