Unity shall be fulfilled throughout, yet unity consistent with variety, and with the distinctions which constitute the relations on which the virtue and happiness of man are framed.

Such is the character and perfection of that Polity to which all Revelation points as the object of this creation, and the consummation of all things. And when we turn to the first establishment of the Church upon earth, which is its womb and germ, still the same type recurs of infinite diversity combined with one paramount law of unity. Diversity of gifts, diversity of offices, diversity of tongues, diversity of local congregations, diversity of forms, diversity of services, diversity of subordinate opinions, diversity even in the outward shape of the one universal creed; diversity in the fortunes and the character of churches; diversity and collisions between the powers of the world and the State, and the powers of the priesthood and the Spirit; and still one Spirit working all in all, one faith, one Head, closest intercommunion, inviolate attachment to one Apostolical authority; perseverance in one path of tradition, adherence to one rule of faith, asserted as the primary condition of its existence. And the history of the Church, like that of civil states, is but a lapse from this state of perfection in which it was first placed, when both the principles were maintained, of plurality as well as of unity

a lapse first into exclusive unity, which took the form of Popery, and then of exclusive plurality, which engendered all the schisms and dissensions of these latter days.

CHAPTER III.

ONE important effect will follow from viewing Political Society in this light, as a realisation upon earth of the Divine Image and Perfection in heaven. It will bring the Christian to look on it with far more reverence, more humility, more dread of tampering with or disturbing it, than the present age encourages us to feel. We have been taught by a modern Philosophy to regard it as a means, not an end -as a machinery for obtaining some other good, not as a good in itself; and consequently we have learned to despise it. We have made it a police for the preservation of life, a joint-stock company for the accumulation of wealth, a warehouse and mart for luxuries and comforts, a resting-place and fortress where we may be secured from the attack of enemies, a discipline for the development of civilisation, or, at the best, a school for checking and controlling our vices. It is, indeed, all this; but it is much more. And to forget that it is more, is to place it on a level with other conventional contrivances of man, which, having man and man's interests for their object, possess no dignity beyond humanity; and which man thinks himself entitled to alter or dispense with according to his own calculations of expediency. Hence the doctrine so commonly received, that the state was made for individuals, not individuals for the state; hence the direction of public policy, not by high views of right and wrong, but by considerations of per

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sonal interests; hence appeals to the popular voice, not as a valuable and necessary witness, which, in many things, it is, but as an adviser and a judge; hence the decision of the most solemn questions, in which, by the corruption of our nature, the many must be on the side of wrong, by the will of the many; hence the contemplation of a nation as composed of so many parties, not capable of being combined in one body and harmonised to one end, but severed by conflicting interests, in which the strong must triumph to the destruction of the weak; and hence the presumption and rashness with which the fabric of an existing constitution, and the principles of an ancient legislation, are mocked at, and torn down, and replaced from day to day by some new speculation or experiment, until the whole system, if system it can be called, becomes a mass of incongruities and contradictions; and in the very multiplicity of legislation, law itself loses all its obligation. These evils, and many like them, have arisen from the simple fact, that Philosophers, in studying society, have pursued their inquiries by Induction instead of Deduction. They have discarded the light of Revelation, and with it the thought of God. Then has fallen upon them that thick darkness in which nothing is discernible but earth and things of earth. Then man and the concerns of man became their only object. And as individual man is too little in his nature, too feeble in his powers, too short-lived in his existence, too narrow in his views, to comprehend the whole magnitude of Civil Society; as he is, and ever must be, only a part of the machine, a cog in the great wheel of political events, Society, considered in itself, could not be to him an end. He could not grasp it, realise, attain to it. There have, indeed, been patriots to whom the well-being of their country was their chief good,

their happiness, and their glory. But such an elevation of character is very rare, and too often is mixed with much that is chimerical and fantastic. The great mass of mankind can know nothing of it; and even in the wisest and best it too often becomes enthusiasm, which aims at what is not within its reach. For our own happiness may be attainable, under God, by our own properly exerted energies; the good of our country is at the mercy of others besides ourselves. And thus, as the existence of society could not be an end to man, and yet was viewed only in relation to man, it could only be considered as a means. But a means to what? Only one end was left-the good of individuals. Then came the happiness of the greater number to be regarded as the object of society. And with every new theory of happiness came a new theory of Society-plans for new constitutions and new governments; of which the greater number professed only to regard the lowest and most vulgar of worldly interests, because minds which, in any speculation, have not liked to retain God in their thoughts, must sink into debasement and sensualism.

From all this melancholy aberration, which has degraded and perplexed nearly all the political philosophy of modern days, as it has disturbed and endangered our political practice, a Christian may be saved by considering Political Society as a creation of God, as intended to represent His image upon earth, as standing in relation rather to God than to man, as being an end to God, if, indeed, any thing can be an end to a Being in whose infinite sight means and ends must be the same; but, at least, as partaking in the dignity and nature of the whole created universe, which itself, and not any part of it, was contemplated in the designs of Providence, and the whole of it pronounced good. The heavens

sons.

do, indeed, embrace the earth in their compass, and minister to its wants. The stars give it light, the sun warms it into fruitfulness, the moon sways the tides of its ocean, the orbits of the planets act as guides and warnings, and mark out times and seaYet the earth was made for the heavens, not the heavens for the earth; and Society was not made for man, but man for Society, and Society for God. And he who regards it in this light will reverence it as an awful and holy thing, which he may not lightly tamper with, or break up, or think to improve by some fanciful experiment, or degrade to an unworthy purpose, or speculate upon as if it were capable of maintaining its existence, except in that form in which its Creator framed it. He will be patient under any trials to which he may be exposed as a part of it. He will trust its well-being and its issue to the Hand which made it, and for whose glory and pleasure it was designed. He will expand his view of its destination and its vicissitudes, to embrace, not his own short life alone, nor any series of human generations, but the whole history of man. Every nation, and every fortune of every nation, will form a link in the great chain of human society, all leading on to some great end, not to be accomplished fully till the work of creation is completed, and time enters into eternity. He will not permit the interests of individuals, or of days, to affect acts which, bearing on society, bear thus upon all futurity, and not on the universe alone, but even on its Maker and its Head. And he will beware lest any act of his should mar or should hinder the development of that Divine Image which He, who cannot behold any thing greater or better than Himself, must delight to contemplate in every part, as in the whole compass of His creation, whether it be formed at once out of the dust of the earth, and perfected by a word, or evolved