of our Father who is in us, and in all men they are the same. Within that Holy of Holies, where the spirit alone speaks, where, beneath all the errors and mistakes of feeble reason, there flow from a divine source, in the deep wells of the soul, the living waters of Conscience, in that religious shrine of our nature, whenever they penetrate to it, there is harmony among all men. From this centre of communion with God, and from this alone, can the mind rightly discern the system which Providence has spread around it, and the attitudes of things; and the spirit that lives in communion with God cannot be judged, cannot be known, by the worldly mind.* In itself is the Holy Spirit, which no one can know, except those who have it, and they are one family in God. "Now we Christians," says St. Paul, "inasmuch as we are Christians, have this spirit, for it is the spirit that dwelt in Christ."

With regard to this divine element in Man, which is the principle to which all Religion is addressed, which is the source of immediate revelations in every holy heart unstained by sin, which recognizes God in his works, not by a logical, but by a moral or kindred perception, and which, by the divine attraction of the Image of God in Christ held before it, may be lifted to holier and diviner revelations than the unassisted spirit could have reached, - I entreat you to remember that I am not offering to you views of my own,- that if I have but rightly read him, St. Paul is their Preacher.

* ii. 15.

I entertain, indeed, a profound conviction of their truth, and that this is the only view of Man that does justice to the glorious nature that God has given us, and that appeals with fitting power to the divine affinities, to the solemn responsibilities, of children of God. One thing is obvious, in consistency with St. Paul's use of them in the maintenance of the inviolable nature of Christian unity,

that only from the rejection of these views, from substituting a speculative orthodoxy for a spiritual discernment, are still derived all the seeds of religious strife.

SECTION III.

DISSENSIONS, ARISING FROM THE PRETENSIONS AND VULGAR

PASSIONS OF INDIVIDUALS.

CHAP. III. 1-23.

AND I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual 2 men, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat, for not yet were ye 3 able, nor even now are ye able, to bear it. For still ye are carnal: for since there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, walking 4 after the fashion of men? For while one saith, “I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are ye 5 not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos? Ministers through whom ye believed, even as the 6 Lord gave to each. I have planted: Apollos watered : 7 but God gave the increase. So that neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth, but God 8 that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one; and each shall receive his 9 own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow-laborers: ye are God's husbandry, God's 10 building. According to the grace of God given unto me, as a wise master-builder I laid the foundation, and another buildeth up: but let each take heed how he 11 buildeth up. For another foundation can no man lay

12

in addition to that which is laid, which is Jesus the Christ.

Now if any one build upon this foundation, gold, 13 silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, the work of each will be made manifest, for the day [time] will declare it, because it is revealed in fire, and the fire 14 shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any one's work which he hath built up endure, he 15 shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer the loss; but he himself shall be 16 saved, yet so as through fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God 17 dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God defile for the temple of God is holy, 18 which be ye. Let no one deceive himself: If any one among you seem to be wise in this world, let him

:

19 become a fool that he may be wise.

For the wisdom for it is written,

of this world is foolishness with God, 20" He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." * And again, "The Lord knoweth the calculations of the 21 wise, that they are vain." Wherefore let no man 22 glory in men, for All Things are yours. Whether Paul,

or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or 23 things present, or things to come, All are yours; but ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

THE worst sources of Party spirit in Religion are the passions, the pride, the self-importance, of Individuals. In the peculiar language employed by St. Paul, these are connected, not with the natural

man, but with the carnal man; they have their ori gin not in the errors, insufficiencies, or arrogance of mere intellect, but in the vanities, the Jealousies, the intruding pretensions, the lowness and vulgarity, of the sensual nature. Their source is not in the Thoughts, but in the passions: they are not errors, but vices. St. Paul, as we have observed, points at the existence of a threefold nature in man; one of which is peculiarly the religious faculty, - whilst the others, whenever they presume to impress themselves on Christianity, and to mould it after their own tendencies, become the sources of divisions, intolerance, bigotry, mere human partisanship, and all the rest of the practical religious evils. In a broad and general way we may comprehend this triple nature under the heads of the Sensual or carnal man, the Intellectual or animal man, — and the Religious or spiritual man. Every man is a compound of these three, and the moral question is, Which predominates, and subordinates the rest? There is order in the individual mind, and peace in the Church, only when the spiritual faculty, the recognized oracle and vicegerent of God, is the essential leader, — and when the dictates of speculation or corporeal feeling, however innocent or serviceable, as accessories, to the Individual, are never suffered to become leading principles in the mind, or to lay foundations in the Church. In our English translation these three elements in man are distinguished, as the carnal man, the natural man, and the spiritual man. It may perhaps place many in a position to form an independent judgment as to