order. The educated man, in proportion tion, sees the number of laws diminished. the manifold appearances of nature the ex few laws, by degrees fewer, till at last it sible to his conception that they are all one, and that that which lies beneath the phenomena of nature is the One Spirit, 2. All living unity is spiritual, not form ness, but manifoldness. You may have a in identity of form; but it is a lifeless uni a sameness on the sea-beach,- that unit ocean waves have produced by curling destroying the angularities of individual every stone presents the same monotony o you must fracture each again in order to whether you hold in your hand a mass of ment of basalt. There is no life in unity But, as soon as you arrive at a unity that form becomes more complex, and you sear uniformity. In the parts, it must be found all, in the sameness of the pervading life. tration given by the apostle is that of the - a higher unity, he says, by being compo members, than if every member were but of a single type. It is conceivable that have moulded such a form for human conceivable that every cause, instead of in different nerves a variety of sensati have affected every one in a mode pre lar; that instead of producing a sensation sensation of color, a sensation of taste, th causes of nature, be they what they may, s given but one unvaried feeling to every sense, and that the whole universe should have been light or sound. That would have been unity, if sameness be unity; but, says the apostle, if the whole body were seeing, where were the hearing? That uniformity would have been irreparable loss, the loss of every part that was merged into the one. What is the body's unity? Is it not this? The unity of a living consciousness which marvellously animates every separate atom of the frame, and reduces each to the performance of a func tion fitted to the welfare of the whole, its own, not another's; so that the inner spirit can say of the remotest and in form most unlike member, "That, too, is myself." 3. None but a spiritual unity can preserve the rights both of the individual and the Church. All other systems of unity, except the apostolic, either sacrifice the Church to the individual, or the individual to the Church. Some have claimed the right of private judgment in such a way that every individual opinion becomes truth, and every utterance of private conscience right; thus the Church is sacrificed to the individual, and the universal conscience, the common faith, becomes as nothing; the spirits of the prophets are not subject to the prophets. Again, there are others, who, like the Church of Rome, would surrender the conscience of each man to the conscience of the Church, and coërce the particulars of faith into exact coïncidence with a formal creed. Spiritual unity saves the right of both in God's system. The Church exists for the individual, just as truly as the individual for the Church. The Church is, then, most perfect when all its powers con verge, and are concentrated on the for tection of individual character; and tl then most complete - that is, most a Ci he has practically learned that his life i but owed to others,-"that no man li and no man dieth to himself." Now, respects the sanctity of the individu How reverently the Apostle Paul consid and how tenderly! When once it beca conscience, this was his principle laid d of dispute: "Let every man be fully p own mind." The belief of the whole make that thing true to me which to m The conscience of the whole world a thing right to me, if I in my he wrong. You may coërce the conscie control men's belief, and you may prod so doing; but it is the unity of pebble shore, a lifeless identity of outward cohesion between the parts, a dead which nothing grows, and where the dies. - Lastly, it respected the sanctity of in acter. Out of eight hundred millions of th a few features diversify themselves into of countenance, that scarcely two could be each other. There are no two leaves on like; nor two sides of the same leaf, un and kill it. There is a sacredness in ind character; each one born into this world soul intended by his Maker to develop him fresh way. We are what we are; we can other than ourselves. We reach perfection ing, much less by aiming at originality; but by consist ently and steadily working out the life which is common to us all, according to the character which God has given us. And thus will the Church of God be one, at last, will present a unity like that of heaven. There is one universe in which each separate star differs from another in glory; one Church in which a single Spirit, the life of God, pervades each separate soul; and, just in proportion as that life becomes exalted, does it enable every one to shine forth in the distinctness of his own separate individuality, like the stars of heaven. IV. [Preached May 26, 1850.] THE TRINITY. 1 THESS. V. 23.-" And the very God of peace sanctify I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." THE knowledge of God is the blesse To know God, and to be known by II God, and to be loved by Him-is the m treasure which this life has to give; pr ing, the only treasure; properly speak knowledge; for all knowledge is valuabl as it converges towards and ends in the l God, and enables us to acquaint ourselv and be at peace with Him. The doctrine ity is the sum of all that knowledge wh been gained by man. I say gained as presume not to maintain that, in the ages come hereafter, our knowledge shall not b by a higher knowledge; we presume not in a state of existence future yea, ever this earth, at that period which is 1 referred to in Scripture as "the com Son of Man" there shall not be given an intellectual conception of the Almighty |