what St. Paul understood by this so-called natural man, to mention that it is the same conception, and the same word, as the Psyche of the Greeks. From the utterly indefensible and misleading use which polemics make of the expression, "natural man, in our translation, no one could suppose that it related to those parts of Man- the passions, loves, thoughts, and sensibilities of the earthly mind which correspond with this impersonation of Mythology. By confounding the "natural man" with the "carnal man," and by representing that the "spiritual man" is not an original element in our nature, but a distinct endowment, like a new sense, of supernatural Grace acting arbitrarily, our orthodox theologians have removed St. Paul's conceptions of Man and Christianity, and substituted their own System. Our last chapter was occupied with the divisions which arise from the speculative tendencies, presuming to lay foundations and prescribe essentials in Christianity;— the present chapter is chiefly occupied with the meaner strife of personal pretensions, with the vulgar ambition of Leadership in the Church, which has its main roots in the animal man, in the carnal envies and passions.

In Religion we may distinguish the End, which is the filial relation of the soul to God, from the Means, which are the agencies, of every kind, moral, intellectual, liturgical, ceremonial, rhetorical, or imaginative and artistical, by which the Church, sought to address and

for religious purposes, has

influence the nature of Man. Now here, as in all

the other concerns of man, a livelier interest may improperly attach to the means than to the end; so that the Church, the outward instrumentality and appliances, may really attract to itself all the sympathies and feelings which ought to be devoted, and indeed are supposed to be devoted, to the religious relations of the soul. There is hardly any thing connected with himself, which a man, SO disposed, cannot make a source of personal importance. It is in this way that the carnal element defiles Religion. The rank and standing of a congregation, the numbers and even the wealth of its members, the fulness and solemnity, or the poverty and bareness, of its outward worship, the comparative gifts of its minister, nay, the rival claims of the very Building, are all matters on which keen feelings can be excited, and partisanship exist, whilst Religion is made the mere occasion of these low interests. Of this nature are the pretensions of a sacred order, the claims of superiority on the part of Establishments, the emasculated character of the spiritual leaders of what calls itself the religious world by privilege of official rank, and, what perhaps is more offensive still, the official importance of the ruling members in some dissenting communities, who sit in conclave on the rights of church-membership and issue permission to their fellow-Christians to attend the Lord's Supper. It is instructive to observe, and a warning that will be despised by none who know the human heart, over what an extent of foreign objects such men can swell their individuality, appropriating to themselves the genius of a

preacher, the splendors of an edifice, the prosperity of a Church, converting all these into sources of self-importance, whilst Religion is the mask under which these low passions find their gratification, and can exist without detection. The Roman Catholics and the Methodists recognized these carnalities, and acutely turned them to account. They made a place for the gratification of individual importance, they used it to build up a Church, -as the Prophet complains, "calling in the Syrians to serve the Lord."

The only way to destroy the roots of Party spirit in religion is to regard the great end the relation of the soul to God-as alone essential, and the instruments as utterly indifferent, provided only they are effectual; for then would the interests and the efforts of each mind fasten upon that which is universal in Christianity, and all the diversities of administration be but the special means best fitted to the individual, conducting the free mind to the same God. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. And there are differences of administration, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." At the same time we ought to be aware that freedom from Party spirit in Religion is not an easy virtue, and that nothing but the purest and most earnest interest in the spiritual reality can save us from attaching a lower class of interests to the instruments and the accessories. "I was not able," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, "to speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto mi

nors in Christ." The spiritual interest, the relation to God revealed in Christ, was not supreme and exclusive of every other; the passions were not stilled in the intense life of the soul; the communion with Heaven did not preclude all earthly altercatíons; even within the sphere of Religion, the carnal nature could not contest with the spiritual the occupation of the heart, and find food for its gratification and occasions for its exercise. Those whose humble and supreme desire it was to feel the presence of God in the Temple of the spirit, and to find in Christ a divine light and guidance for the soul, could not merge these spiritual affections in the vulgar strife of Leadership, in the rival pretensions of distinguished Teachers. It is only among minds not engaged with the highest and purest sources of life and peace, not lifted above the lower faculties, that Dissensions can arise, or Party spirit find a place. Those who truly seek to be one with God and with his Christ, do not breathe in the element

of partisanship. "Whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? do ye not walk with a view to man's glory and pretensions, instead of centring all in God? For while one saith, I am of Paul,' and

6

Is

another, 'I am of Apollos,' are ye not carnal?" not this to have worldly contentions on holy ground, -to call the commonest passions a zeal for Religion,

and to forget, through the hot interest arising out of enlisted passions, that the whole Church has but one spiritual aim, and seeks, through the guidance of Christ, to be of God alone?

There were at Corinth- and until Christianity effectually realizes in the world the reign of God, there must always be-men belonging to a Church, and even passionately pledged to some of its interests, who yet do not find their chief attraction to it to be connected with the quiet nourishment of the inward life, with the improvement and exercise of the spiritual nature. In such cases, when the true bond does not exist, when the soul does not seek, in the simplicity of its affections, subjection and discipleship to Christ, the branch must either drop off from the vine, or some outward ligament supply the place of the living and organic connection; and the flame of zeal, if it burns at all, must derive its heat from some other source than the "baptism by fire." Such men are the worldly leaven of the Church, its tempters and corrupters. They are worse than all external enemies, for they introduce the poison and agitation of low passions within its own bosom. They live upon coarse excitements,they fasten with a carnal eagerness on some merely outward and instrumental interest, they stir in other hearts the party spirit always too ready to be excited, that yet might have slept if the more elevated soul had not been rudely called away from deeper thoughts. Their element is external and superficial; they require stimulants addressed to the carnal and the natural man, and they foster whatever in the administration of Religion may be connected with the importance of individuals, or with the vanity and ambition of Churches. The unspiritual Corinthians fed their zeal by disputing the rival