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ON THE PERFECT WORSHIP, ETC.

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pious, every spiritual labour, is bent against the bringing forth of this body: every Protestant missionary, every Bible society, every tract society, even school societies, all plans for the amelioration of mankind, all with the best possible intentions, and thinking to promote the glory of God and the welfare of mankind, are all parts of this leviathan, and do, nevertheless, his work. No man, no preacher, no zeal, shall ever prevail against him: it is the Personal appearance of God which can effect his destruction; of God in the Person of the Holy Ghost in the body of Christ the Church ; and subsequently of God in the Person of Jesus Christ, as the head of His body.

LECTURE VI.

ON UNITY AND CONTROVERSY.

THERE is amongst Roman Catholics not only a well-founded belief that unity is to be found in the communion of their Church, but an earnest desire to admit others to that unity also; and there has lately been manifested a great softening down of all those hindrances which have proved hitherto the most effectual bars to its attainment. The justification of this last remark will be found in the Catechism of the present Archbishop of Paris. In all other sects likewise there is a call for unity, but beyond the sound of that call, and an agreement in the word, there seems no nearer approximation to the thing itself than there has ever been, save that the cry shews that a want of it is beginning to be felt in every quarter.

In the early Church we are told that Christians were all united in the Apostles' doctrine and fellow

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ship: that the Apostles themselves were all united, no one has ever called in question; and certainly no twelve men were ever more of one mind respecting anything which they had to do, better instructed in the way in which they were to effect it, or more determined to stake their existence on the issue of accomplishing it. In the writings, however, of two of them, there is as plain a contradiction upon the same subject as words can express-a contradiction which has served all persons who are indifferent to the truth of such questions with an excuse for remaining so; and which all others have found it necessary to reconcile in some way or other, either by supplying a middle term, or by supposing that, though the subject were the same, they were treating of it under two different aspects.

Laxity of morals, errors in doctrine, spiritual wickedness of all kinds, subsequently prevailed in the Churches; and although we read of particular offenders being sometimes, but rarely, cast out of the Church, no hint is given of its unity ever being endangered, either by the differences on justification between St. Paul and St. James, or on Christian liberty and Jewish observances between St. Paul and St. Peter.

The tyranny of the civil powers, which has effected a unity in the Church of Rome in past ages, aped so far as it can be by all other sects,

has produced a unity in the same way that the bed of Procrustes was found to assimilate together all who were laid on it: uniformity has been mistaken for unity; and in all other parts of the Christian Church its very semblance is unknown.

It is the diversity of the multifarious parts in the material creation which constitutes one of the strongest proofs of the wisdom and power of the Creator. If the trees were all oaks, if the flowers were all roses, if but one kind of animal inhabited the earth and the water, the means of exhibiting the wisdom of God would have been diminished; and if all mankind were alike in form, opinion, and desire, society would have been monotonous, and the world a place far less full of enjoyment and felicity than it is. If diversity of form in the material creation, variety in trees, flowers, and fruits, and in every leaf on the same tree; if the multiplication of species and families of animals which teem on the surface of the earth, fill the seas and rivers, and float in the air, constitute the means of appreciating some of the wisdom and power of God, how much more must variety be essential amongst individuals of the Church, and how much would the real glory of Christ be contracted if all the members of His body thought and expressed themselves precisely in the same terms!

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And as in the material and animal creation the division into orders, families, and species tends to harmony of arrangement without inducing sameness, so must mankind in the Church have their national and tropical peculiarities preserved. The capacities of Italians are for the containing of some measure of fulness which the Scotch cannot contain so well, and vice versa and so of all the national distinctions amongst mankind. The rays of pure light when separated into the prismatic colours do not war with each other. The prudence of a commander is shewn chiefly when his army is composed of various nations and tribes, as was that of the Duke of Wellington whilst commanding the allied armies in France; so that under every aspect and figure by which our Lord, the Head of His Church, is proclaimed—whether as King, as Guide, as Shepherd, or any other-His glory is increased by the Church containing in it, and exhibiting in all their broadness and fulness, without suppression or concealment, many members, with their most exaggerated characteristics and peculiarities. Many causes combine to prevent the display of these diversities tending to the glory of God or the good of mankind, in the actual condition of the Church; but there must be a mode of exhibiting them in harmony. It is not probable that the capacities of men in a future state will be different in kind from what they are now: