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 function 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 coerce the particulars of faith into exact coincidence 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 converge, and are concentrated on the formation and protection of individual character; and the individual is then most complete—that is, most a Christian-when he has practically learned that his life is not his own, but owed to others" that no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.”

Now, spiritual unity respects the sanctity of the individual conscience. How reverently the Apostle Paul considered its claims, and how tenderly! When once it became a matter of conscience, this was his principle laid down in matters of dispute: "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." The belief of the whole world can not make that thing true to me which to me seems false. The conscience of the whole world can not make a thing right to me, if I in my heart believe it wrong. You may coerce the conscience, you may control men's belief, and you may produce a unity by so doing; but it is the unity of pebbles on the sea-shore -a lifeless identity of outward form with no cohesion between the parts-a dead sea-beach on which nothing grows, and where the very sea-weed dies.

Lastly, it respected the sanctity of individual character. Out of eight hundred millions of the human race, a few features diversify themselves into so many forms of counte

nance, that scarcely two could be mistaken for each other. There are no two leaves on the same tree alike; nor two sides of the same leaf, unless you cut and kill it. There is a sacredness in individuality of character; each one born into this world is a fresh new soul intended by his Maker to develop himself in a new fresh way; we are what we are; we can not be truly other than ourselves. We reach perfection. not by copying, much less by aiming at originality; but by consistently 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 an 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.

THE TRINITY.

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."-1 Thess. v. 23.

To

THE knowledge of God is the blessedness of man. know God, and to be known by him-to love God, and to be loved by Him-is the most precious treasure which this life has to give; properly speaking, the only treasure; properly speaking, the only knowledge; for all knowledge is valuable only so far as it converges towards and ends in the knowledge of God, and enables us to acquaint ourselves with God, and be at peace with Him. The doctrine of the Trinity is the sum of all that knowledge which has as yet been gained by man. I say gained as yet. For we presume not to maintain that in the ages which are to come hereafter, our knowledge shall not be superseded by a higher knowledge; we presume not to say that in a state of existence future-yea even here upon this earth, at that period which is mysteriously referred to in Scripture as "the coming of the Son of Man”—there shall not be given to the soul an intellectual conception of the Almighty, a vision of the Eternal, in com

parison with whose brightness and clearness our present knowledge of the Trinity shall be as rudimentary and as childlike as the knowledge of the Jew was in comparison with the knowledge of the Christian.

Now the passage which I have undertaken to expound today is one in which the doctrine of the Trinity is brought into connection practically with the doctrine of our humanity. Before entering into it, brethren, let us lay down these two observations and duties for ourselves. In the first place, let us examine the doctrine of the Trinity ever in the spirit of charity.

A clear statement of the deepest doctrine that man can know, and the intellectual conception of that doctrine, are by no means easy. We are puzzled and perplexed by words; we fight respecting words. Quarrels are nearly always verbal quarrels. Words lose their meaning in the course of time; nay, the very words of the Athanasian creed which we read to-day mean not in this age the same thing which they meant in ages past. Therefore it is possible that men, externally Trinitarians, may differ from each other though using the same words, as greatly as a Unitarian differs from a Trinitarian. There may be found, in the same Church and in the same congregation, men holding all possible shades of opinion, though agreeing externally and in

words.

I speak within the limit of my own experience when I say that persons have been known and heard to express the language of bitter condemnation respecting Unitarianism, who when examined and calmly required to draw out verbally the meaning of their own conceptions, have been proved to be holding all the time, unconsciously, the very doctrine of Sabellianism. And this doctrine is condemned by the Church as distinctly as that of Unitarianism. Therefore let us learn from all this a large and catholic charity. There are in almost every congregation, themselves not knowing it, Trinitarians who are practically Tri-theists, worshipping three Gods; and Sabellians, or worshippers of one person under three different manifestations. To know God so that we may be said intellectually to appreciate Him, is blessed: to be unable to do so is a misfortune. Be content with your own blessedness, in comparison with others' misfortunes. Do not give to that misfortune the additional sting of illiberal and unchristian vituperation.

The next observation we have to lay down for ourselves is; that we should examine this doctrine in the spirit of modesty. There are those who are inclined to sneer at the Trin

itarian; those to whom the doctrine appears merely a contradiction-a puzzle-an entangled, labyrinthine enigma, in which there is no meaning whatever. But let all such remember, that though the doctrine may appear to them absurd, because they have not the proper conception of it, some of the profoundest thinkers, and some of the holiest spirits among mankind, have believed in this doctrine-have clung to it as a matter of life or death. Let them be assured of this, that whether the doctrine be true or false, it is not necessarily a doctrine self-contradictory. Let them be assured of this, in all modesty, that such men never could have held it unless there was latent in the doctrine a deep truth-perchance the truth of God.

We pass on now to the consideration of this verse under the following divisions. In the first place, we shall view it as a triad in discord: "I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless;" in the second place, as a Trinity in unity: "the God of peace sanctify you wholly." We take then, first of all, for our consideration the triad in discord: "I pray God your whole body and soul and spirit be preserved blameless."

The apostle here divides human nature into a threefold division; and here we have to observe again the difficulty often experienced in understanding words. Thus words in the Athanasian creed have become obsolete, or lost their meaning: so that in the present day the words "person," "substance," "procession," procession," "generation," to an ordinary person, mean almost nothing. So this language of the apostle, when rendered into English, shows no difference whatever between "soul" and "spirit." We say, for instance, that the soul of a man has departed from him. We also say that the spirit of a man has departed from him. There is no distinct difference between the two; but in the original two very different kinds of thoughts-two very different modes of conception-are represented by the two English words soul" and "spirit.'

It is our business, therefore, in the first place, to understand what is meant by this threefold division. When the apostle speaks of the body, what he means is the animal life

that which we share in common with beasts, birds, and reptiles; for our life, my Christian brethren—our sensational existence-differs but little from that of the lower animals. There is the same external form, the same material in the blood-vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay, more than that, our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower pleasures like their lower pleasures, our lower pain like

their lower pain, our life is supported by the same means, and our animal functions are almost indistinguishably the same.

But, once more, the apostle speaks of what he calls the "soul." What the apostle meant by what is translated soul," is the immortal part of man-the immaterial as distinguished from the material: those powers, in fact, which man has by nature-powers natural, which are yet to survive the grave. There is a distinction made in Scripture by our Lord between these two things. "Fear not," says He, "them who can kill the body; but rather fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell."

We have again to observe respecting this, that what the apostle called the "soul," is not simply distinguishable from the body, but also from the spirit; and on that distinction L have already touched. By the soul the apostle means our powers natural-the powers which we have by nature. Herein is the soul distinguishable from the spirit. In the Epistle to the Corinthians we read-" But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things." Observe, there is a distinction drawn between the natural man and the spiritual. What is there translated "natural" is derived from precisely the same word as that which is here translated “soul.” So that we may read just as correctly: "The man under the dominion of the soul receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things." And again, the apostle, in the same Epistle to the Corinthians, writes: "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural:" that is, the endowments of the soul precede the endowments of the spirit. You have the same truth in other places. The powers that belong to the spirit were not the first developed; but the powers which belong to the soul-that is, the powers of nature. Again in the same chapter, reference is made to the natural and spiritual body. "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." Literally, there is a body governed by the soul-that is, powers natural: and there is a body governed by the spirit-that is, higher nature,

Let then this be borne in mind, that what the apostle calls "soul" is the same as that which he calls, in another place, the "natural man." These powers are divisible into two branches-the intellectual powers and the moral sense. The intellectual powers man has by nature. Man need not