tual by the peculiar power of God) has ever degenerated in all ages and nations into image-worship and idolatry. Nor, indeed, has even the true church been free from this fault in any commendable degree. On the contrary, in the church, as in the world, imagination has ever tended to supersede reason and conscience, and to usurp the supremacy of the mind. The visible church, just like the heathen, instead of piercing to the spirit and the truth of the matter, has even tended to rest in symbols; instead of sustaining the adoration of the invisible God, has even tended to degenerate into image-worship and idolatry. Of this melancholy fact, history supplies continually renewed illustrations. Thus, though Moses divinely guided, suited his instructions to the impression which Egypt had made on the posterity of Abraham, and to the intellectual and moral infancy into which long years of abject slavery among idolaters had plunged them; though he gave them a ritual beautifully calculated to engage in the worship of the true God, their imagination, as well as what reason and conscience they had; and though he forbade with peculiar emphasis all divination, and the making and worshipping of images, still the people fell again and again into idolatry, and went about consulting those who had familiar spirits! And though our Saviour and the apostles, addressing the church in an after age, when it had arrived at manhood, called upon all true worshippers to part henceforth with a symbolic ritual, "which stood only in meats and drinks, and diverse washings and carnal ordinances, imposed on them till the time of reformation, and was intended only as a necessary bondage under the elements of the world" for those "who were as yet only children" and "heirs under age ;" and though, instead thereof, he required them to practise and enjoy the direct worship of the God who is a spirit in spirit and in truth, still the church obeyed its

calling for a few years only. The simplicity and spirituality of primitive Christianity was soon lost.

The simple worship, the prayer, the discourse, the psalm, the hymn were soon buried in a mass of gorgeous symbolism, partly borrowed from the old dispensation, partly from the surrounding idolatry; and, strange to say, this is the state of things which predominates in Christendom even to the present day.

Such is the inveterate determination of the human mind towards substituting the material for the mental, the carnal for the spiritual, the visible for the invisible, the form for the power. In reference to the point to be proved, then, are we not to expect generally that men, conscious that there ought to be unity in the church, should ever tend to substitute an outward unity instead of an inner unity, an unity of forms instead of an unity in power, in one word, uniformity instead of unity in spirit.

THE PREPOSSESSION.

But while this general tendency to materialize every thing accounts for the substitution of the idea of uniformity instead of unity, another feature in our intellectual constitution also prompts to that prepossession in favour of an universal uniformity, which we are now inquiring into. Not only after having learned that there ought to be unity, do we naturally substitute the uniform for the united, but there is, in our intellectual constitution, a principle which engages us in the love of the uniform, and prompts us to desire it, previously to all inquiry whether it ought to be or not. The long neglected, but much to be admired Vico, gives it as one of the axioms of the philosophy of history, that the human

mind naturally loves the uniform. And no wonder that universal history exemplifies this truth. In fact, the love of the uniform springs from the very form, or rather forms the very spring, of our intellectual constitution. For uniformity is order; the love of uniformity is the love of order; and there is no principle in the human mind so strong, as the love of order. At first, perhaps, the reader may not admit this, feeling, as every one must, that, of all the creatures of God, man is the most disorderly. But the love of order is one thing; the realization of it is another. And notwithstanding man's being so disorderly, yet his intellectual love of order is extreme. This is certain, and is easily proved.

A love of order presides over all our mental processes, and determines all our intellectual proceedings. Thus, when any thing is placed before our minds which we do not understand, what urges us to understand it, but, on the one hand, the pain we feel in having to look upon that which appears to us at present to be disorder, and on the other, the pleasure we anticipate when the disorder shall vanish from it? And that delightful moment when light arises, and the inquirer can say, "Now I understand it," what has he discovered in it? Order; and nothing else. And the pleasure he enjoys at the moment of discovery, and for some time after, whence does it arise? Simply from this, that the mind, hitherto impeded in its activity by the confusion which obstructed it, begins now, on the moment of the discovery of order, to develope itself, arranging and adjusting, as it expands, all its ideas, in harmony with the order it has discovered. All pain is caused by disorder. And all such happiness as is wholly pure and disinterested, consists either in the development of order out of confusion, or in the discovery or contemplation of order pre-existing. And this is one of the many features in the frame of the human mind, which

points so significantly to its divine original, and its high calling. For the mind of God is infinite order. He is the fountain of all order in his creatures; and all sin is but disorder. Our inherent love of order, therefore, is one of our noblest intellectual powers.

But it is true of all these powers, that, at present, they work but badly, in consequence of the defective and disordered state of our moral principles. And this same love of order, so noble, so divine in its origin and in its intellectual functions, is, in actual life, but too apt to increase the disorder which it hates and is trying to do away. This unhappy result arises from the fact, that this love of order often comes into play, neither in its intellectual purity, nor associated, as it ever ought to be, with a love of its object, but only as a sturdy demand for order, associated with an overbearing self-love. Both in the church and in the world, this unhappy state of things is constantly occurring. In fact, every language bears an impress of the melancholy truth. For, when we say that any one was ordered to do such or such a thing, do we not mean the same as if we said that he was commanded. It is this tendency to connect order with force, which is the ruin of unity in many a sphere, and most of all in the Church of Christ. Thus it is, that a man, because he is convinced on his own part, that his own creed, ritual, and church polity, are of God, tends to insist upon it as essential to order, that all others should agree with him, tends to look upon all who continue to differ from him as contumacious, and required to be excommunicated or parted from, according as the power lies with him or them. The higher esteem and love which he has for himself than for others, induce him at once to arrogate to himself the right to judge other men's consciences, and to give a judgment against them. But the judgment given being resisted, the same self-esteem is natu

rally wounded, and, since love for the objects who thus vex him, and disorder his feelings, does not restrain him (there being little or no love in the case), he naturally tends to gratify his injured sensibilities, by proceeding against those who refuse to adopt his views or commands, in hard words or deeds, according as his power extends.

But, meantime, where, it may be asked, are reason and conscience? This is a most interesting question, for here is the strange answer. Reason and conscience, meanwhile testifying (as they ever inherently and unavoidably must), in favour of order, make their appearance on this occasion by the side of the injured feelings; and participating in the excitement and disorder of the mind, as, in virtue of its unity, all its powers must when any one is troubled, they are easily engaged so, as it were, to consecrate the injured feelings, being deceived into the belief at the same time, that they are only testifying in favour of order. And thus it comes to pass, that the man in whom the love of order is strongest, if only he be defective in the elements of humility, or of brotherly love, is apt to become the most violent persecutor, the most determined schismatic ;-such havoc of our moral nature do even the best principles make when love is wanting. And, as men of this stamp are not confined to any one church, or any one sect, but are too common everywhere, and over all, there thus tends to be generated on all hands, and not out of the worst elements neither, a spirit of schism and intolerance; and thus on the plea and spring of a sincere love of order, the greatest conceivable disorder is apt to result. Nor this only in the church. From a similar state of things, a parent or a prince, animated by no worse principle than a love of order operating too sharply for the love he has for his children or his subjects, often builds himself up into a tyrant, and his family or kingdom is constituted according to the prin