cavils and dialectics, to bring his own soul into the light divine? If not, then let them all give way, and instead of dismembering Christ by pretensions of their own, accept with united hearts the salvation of his incarnate Truth. When all these had failed to reveal religious truth, and to sanctify the soul, then God sent his Son. When the world in its own wisdom knew not God with any approach to His wisdom, then it pleased Him, by the preaching of this which the scribe and the sophist deem foolishness, to save them that believe. The Jew requires an overwhelming exhibition of outward power,and the Greek seeks an intellectual display of subtle wisdom, but we preach a moral power and a moral wisdom; even Christ the Lord, who by his doctrine and his life hath given to his true disciples the spiritual knowledge of his Father, and practical power to become the sons of God."* And since the Gospel is the gift of God to a world that knew it not, how can Greek or Jew presume now to fasten his own individuality on that universal spirit, or to make a party within the bosom of that heavenly Truth to which neither the cold speculations of the one, nor the law-wisdom and outward righteousness of the other, was able to attain,—but which God by his Son revealed to the poor in spirit, and opened as a spring of living water in the hearts of the meek? Who can claim as his own, or find a source of divisions in the Gospel of God, the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness, and the new life after the image of

* Verses 19-24.

the obedience of Christ? The glory is God's, for the gift is His, and all are His children who by union with his Christ are formed into one spiritual family, sanctified in heart and life. This is St. Paul's idea of Christian unity; this the inward bond of the Church-universal. To partake of the spirit of Christ is to be of the communion of the saints:* and to set up any other pretensions, to speak of any other qualifications, is the only heresy.†

I need not point out how healing would be the application of these catholic principles to our own times and our own hearts. How unavailingly has Paul written and preached! His writings are turned against himself;-his purposes frustrated by perversions of his own words. He is quoted in support of principles which he would have deemed destructive of the universality of the Gospel,—for he knew but of one Gospel—the union of the soul with God through the love of Christ. How can men read this chapter, and break the Christian unity by demanding other terms of Church-fellowship than some love and reverence in each heart for one common Lord some reflections on each spirit from him, the image of God! But we must be willing to include those in the Church-universal who would

exclude us. In whatever soul we see breathings of the goodness of God, of the love of Christ, we

"In the strictest sense of essential, this alone is essential in Christianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us, which was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus."Coleridge.

"Schism and Separation."

must recognise the closest bond of Christian brotherhood, and see one of the spiritual family of the invisible Father, of the Church of God in Heaven;for there can be no eternal separation between souls that love a common master-that revere a common image of the Father of spirits-and whose desires, affections, and moral longings, are the same.

SECTION II.

DISSENSIONS FROM SPECULATIVE SOURCES.- UNITY CANNOT BE BROKEN IN THINGS THAT ARE ONLY SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED WITH WHICH THE SPECULATIVE FACULTIES ARE NOT VITALLY CONCERNED.

CHAP. II. 1-16.

1 So I, brethren, when I came to you, came not in the prominency of speech [Argument] or wisdom, de2 claring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to regard any thing among you, except 3 Jesus Christ, even him crucified. And I was with you 4 in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my doctrine, and my preaching, was not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and 5 of power; that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

6

Yet we speak wisdom in the estimation of those who are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor 7 of the rulers of this world, that come to nought: but we speak the wisdom of God in his mystery, that hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages 8 unto our glory; which none of the rulers of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have 9 crucified the Lord of Glory,-but, as it is written, "Eye did not see, and ear did not hear, neither en

tered into the heart of man, the things which God 10 prepared for them that love Him."* But God has revealed them to us through his† spirit; for the Spirit 11 searcheth all things, even the deeps of God. For what

man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him? even so the things of God 12 none knoweth, save the spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is of God, that we might know the things that have 13 have been graciously given to us by God: which things we publish, not in words [discourse] taught by human wisdom, but in words [discourse] taught by the spirit, 14 explaining the spiritual by the spiritual. But the animal man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to know them, because spiritually are they dis15 cerned. But he who is spiritual discerneth all things, yet himself is discerned by no one. For, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct 16 Him"?|| But we have the mind of Christ.

WHAT is Christianity? It is a practical power, a living energy, for the purpose of drawing the soul of man into connection with the spirit of God. And this it does, by awakening the spiritual affections of the mind through the impulse of sympathy with that heavenly model of humanity, who exhibited all the mixed elements of our nature in a state of

* Isaiah lxiv. 4. † Or more probably, "through the spirit."- Griesbach. Or," to those who are spiritual." || Isaiah xl. 13, 14.