can be the characteristics of the human spirit unless God Himself create within us the new life by His Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the dispensation of the exalted Christ. The new germ of life in our humanity is planted there by the risen Jesus. The new vision of God is the work of Him who is the life of our life, the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever.

SERMON III.

UNITY IN DIVERSITY.

GALATIANS III. 28.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

THE word 'unity' is ambiguous and difficult to define. It may mean merely the numerical basis of calculation; the contrast between one thing and two or more things of the same kind. But if used in the sense of a unit, it is clear that every one thing is made up of many parts, possesses many qualities, stands in various relations, and though in itself only one thing, is also a part of many other things. By unity is often meant more than the antithesis of many. Though the unity of God means that there is only one God, in opposition to the claims of lords many and gods many, yet the phrase implies that whatever internal distinctions there may be in the essence of the Most High, that essence is one essence—a whole, a unity in itself. Unity is individuality in spite of the recognition of the multiplicity of elements of which it is compounded. Thus a crystal of quartz of any magnitude is a unity

distinct from all other crystals. It is one thing, as distinct from the hand that holds it, or the sun that shines upon it. It possesses a multitude of curious properties as long as it remains that one thing, pure and simple, undivided, and unanalyzed. But let me dash it on a rock and break it into a thousand pieces, large or small, and it might soon be proved that every fragment, even to the minutest dust of quartz adhering to each one of the particles, was preserving the same peculiar shape as the original unbroken crystal, and possessed in its measure all its properties. Yet these fragments, though many, previously formed one whole. Consider, again, a tree or plant; its root and stem, its branches and leaves, and flowers and seed form one whole of mysterious beauty; and though each twig and leaflet is a perfect creation, having an independent life in itself, yet the many parts do not fail to form a well-appreciated and comprehended unity. Further, playing in the branches of this tree there is a world of more mysterious life. Every leaf has its colony of insects, every bough its parasitical growth; the bees are humming in its fragrant flowers, and the birds are building their nests in its branches. But each lichen and moss, each insect and animalcule, each bee and bird, is as wonderful in its mysterious combination of many opposites, and subordinate and dependent structures, and wondrous balancing of powers, as was the forest tree itself. But while I am considering crystal and tree, and insect and

bird, I find that I myself am just such a combination of many parts, faculties, passions, and relations, each of which is sufficiently individual, and yet the whole of which seem all but indispensable to constitute my 'self-conscious unity. I am a strange combination of body, soul, and spirit; and yet I am reckoned as one man in this world of ours. My senses, reflections, and passions, my body, understanding, and will, seem at times capable of individualization, and to be unities in themselves; but it is the mutual relation and dependence of the parts that constitute the unity of the whole.

With this self-consciousness of multiplicity in unity to help me, the revelation that the blessed God has made of His threefold nature is less perplexing than it otherwise would be. The unity of the Divine nature, like the unity of all other things, is a unity consistent with the self-inclusion of various constituent elements. In the case of the Divine Being, the unity and the multiplicity are more expressly intimated and maintained than in any other unity, so that we actually use words which seem almost self-contradictory in order adequately to express that wondrous "unity in Trinity" which "neither divides the substance nor confounds the persons" of the adorable Godhead. But it is not only true that human nature, and that the nature of the blessed God are alike both "Trinities in unity, and unities in Trinity;" but it is revealed as a grand possibility, that man's will may become one with God's will. It

is certain that the Son of God, when also son of man did cry from the depths of His human nature, "Thy will be done;" and He has by His Spirit taught us that we may attain such conformity to His own image, that, whatsoever we ask; He is prepared to do it even for us. The great work of Christ is to reconcile the world to God; to open up the way of access unto the Father; to make manifest the way into the holiest of all; to teach the poor trembling spirit of man to cry, "Not my will, but Thine be done." The redeemed are one with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The life of the Christian is a manifestation of the mind of God. It would be impossible to say where the life of the individual ends and the life of God commences. "He worketh within us both to will and to do," and we are "filled with all the fulness of God."

If it be true that there are many souls, a multitude whom no man can number brought into living harmony and unity with God, who are " partakers of the Divine nature," sons and heirs of God through Jesus Christ, it is reasonable to suppose that they would also be, in some true and comprehensible sense, one with each other. This is, at least, their profession. This was the prayer of the Divine Son; "that they all might be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also might be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." This is a grand and sublime conception which some hope to realize in a distinct, visible, exclusive corpo