order. The educated man, in proportion to his educa tion, sees the number of laws diminished, beholds in the manifold appearances of nature the expression of a few laws, by degrees fewer, till at last it becomes pos sible to his conception that they are all reducible to one and that that which lies beneath the innumerable phenomena of nature is the One Spirit, God. 92. All living unity is spiritual, not formal; not sameness, but manifoldness. You may have a unity shown in identity of form; but it is a lifeless unity. There is a sameness on the sea-beach, that unity which the ocean waves have produced by curling and forcibly destroying the angularities of individual form, so that every stone presents the same monotony of aspect, and you must fracture each again in order to distinguish whether you hold in your hand a mass of flint or frag ment of basalt. There is no life in unity such as this. But, as soon as you arrive at a unity that is living, the form becomes more complex, and you search in vain for uniformity. In the parts, it must be found, if found at all, in the sameness of the pervading life. The illus tration given by the apostle is that of the human body, a higher unity, he says, by being composed of many members, than if every member were but a repetition of a single type. It is conceivable that God might have moulded such a form for human life; it is conceivable that every cause, instead of producing in different nerves a variety of sensations, should have affected every one in a mode precisely simi lar; that instead of producing a sensation of sound, a sensation of color, a sensation of taste, the outward causes of nature, be they what they may, should have 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; hut; 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 wnich 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. ૐ 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 vergey and are concentrated on the formation and pro tection of individual character; and the individual is then most complete that is, most a Christian when he Iras 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 cannot make that thing true to me which to me seems false. The conscience of the whole world cannot make athing right to me, if I in my heart believe it wrong. You may coërce 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 seashore, 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 diest : Lastly, it respected the sanctity of individual character. Out of eight hundred millions of the human racej a few features diversify themselves into so many forms of countenance, that scarcely two could be mistaken for each other. There are no two leaves on the same tree ilike; 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 cannot be truly other than ourselves. We reach perfection not by copy 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 you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” THE knowledge of God is the blessedness of man. To 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 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 |