information, a cultivated mind, incontrovertible learning. Men called by the beauty of their talents, to exercise an influence over the church of God.

Amongst those who weaken, or rather in reality abolish the ministry, we do not find, it is true, ordinarily the same learning and the same light, but we meet with simple, practical, and living christians, who understand the full importance of this word, "it is the Spirit that giveth life."

Happy the church of Christ which contains so rich a variety of gifts, of minds, of characters. Why should men by forcing, by exaggerating these multiplied gifts, which after the purpose of God, were to ornament the church with so rich, useful, and agreeable a variety, make them serve on the contrary to introduce opposition, schism, quarrels, and contrariety.

Whilst we hold fast what is essential-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-we are one. But as soon as we abound indiscreetly in what is secondary -questions of Churches-we divide and disperse.

The strength of the Reformation, Gentlemen, lay here, it equally avoided these two extremes, it was content with raising very high the standard of THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

First it was very far from blotting out the ministry; from denying the words of St. Peter, that there are elders to whom the flock of God has been committed, who "ought to feed it, taking the oversight thereof." 1 Peter v. 2.

'God," says Calvin, "speaks to us by his ambassadors, after the manner of men. Though his power and virtue are not bound to outward means, he has nevertheless chosen to bind us to this common mode

of teaching, which we cannot reject, as many fanatics do, without enveloping ourselves in many dangerous fatal bands. For as they loosen or break as much as in them lies, the bond of unity, which according to the will of God should be inviolable, it is very just that they should bear the penalty of this impious rupture, bewitching themselves with errors and pernicious and fatal heresies." But if the reformers have been opposed to religious radicalism, they have not been less so to hierarchism.

There are in the church two things, as St. Paul says to the Corinthians: 1st. A treasure, the knowledge of God in Christ, and 2ndly. earthen vessels in which this treasure is found-these are the ministers of the church. Now to wish to obtain unity by means of the earthen vessels, not of the treasure; to place in any manner whatever, the earthen vessels above the treasure; is what we designate hierarchism, and it is one of the greatest heresies which can exist in the church.

It is the great heresy of Rome, and the mother of all her errors. To unite these things external, to unite through union with her priests, her bishops, her pope, sacrificing the truth of Christ, here is her unity.

But this error has its foundations too deep in human nature, not frequently to be spontaneously represented in the bosom of our renewed churches. The enemy at this very hour is sowing it in the world, and we have lately had an example of it which has filled us with surprise and grief. A minister whose teaching overthrows, it is said, this foundation of faith, was imposed on a flock by ecclesiastical authority. The flock, placed between the word of God and the injunctions of human authority, refused to

receive him who brought an erroneous doctrine. Then a voice, which should have been a christian voice, was raised, and declared that it was necessary to receive the spiritual guide given by ecclesiastical authority, even when his religious convictions were not what they ought to be."

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Here is, Gentlemen, a great fault in the church of God. We do not believe that a college of men has ever even in the papacy itself been thus openly placed above the rights of truth. Never to our knowledge, has it been said at Rome.-" You must receive this spiritual guide even if he is a heretic."

No, gentlemen, the unity of the church is not an affair of human administration. We reject with our reformers this fatal error, which now increases in the midst of us. "If we consider," says Calvin, “in their office, both the prophets and priests of the Old Testament, and the apostles and disciples of the New, we shall find that no power has ever been given them, to command or teach, except in the name of the Lord and according to his word. God never commands that they should be heard, before having ordained what they should be; that they may say nothing, but what he has himself prescribed." Never gentlemen, have our reformers thought, that it was necessary to maintain the unity of the church by sacrificing truth, and even without a sacrifice so grievous, by external means, by a clergy, a consistory, an ecclesiastical administration. "Whenever," says Calvin, "the unity of the church is recommended to us, let us remember, that by this is to be understood only, that as we are of one mind in Christ Jesus with regard to doctrine, our affections. should be united in him by mutual charity. To keep

ourselves in this unity of the church, it is no way necessary, that we should see a church with our eyes, or that we should touch it with our hands; but since we are to believe it is rather hereby signified to us, that we must recognise it no less, when it does not appear to us than when it is clearly and distinctly exposed to our view."

Such are, dear brethren, the two principal errors, now found on the subject of the church in the bosom even of revival. How then must the unity of the church be obtained and maintained?

We repeat it, by the internal and not by the external. Christians must now direct all their attention to two things: 1st. to avoid division on account of matters of secondary importance, 2nd. to grow in all the essential things which they possess in common and which ought to unite them. This is what St. Paul requires in the epistle to the Ephesians.

But here, dear friends, I must remind you, that, to contribute to the formation of this unity in the church, we must have it first among ourselves. Our school should be a school of truth, it should be a school of life, but also a school of unity.

There are many means of reformation for the church of God. That which I propose to-day is unity, and it is a means of great power. We cannot be one at Geneva, at Berlin, at London, at Edinburgh, at the Hague, at Paris, at New York, at Calcutta, at Otaheite, and even at Moscow and Rome, without being all at the feet of Jesus Christ, and this is the legitimate position, the normal state of the church. The Reformation of the sixteenth century has inevitably introduced many divisions even in its bosom.

That of the nineteenth should engender unity-unity out of Rome, but in Jesus Christ.

Let each of the words of the Apostle be felt by all as a truth, and the church of this day will experience the most powerful, the most intimate, the most glorious reformation. What are then these different unities to which God calls us? St. Paul enumerates them :

The body of

First, Unity.-There is one body. whom? Of Christ. He is the head of the church, which is his body-his spiritual body. Since it is a spiritual body, it must be united by spiritual means, and since Christ calls all those who are sanctified his body, it would be a monstrous thing for a christian to refuse communion with one of those, whom Christ has united to himself and declared to be of his flesh and his bones. Is it not enough that the actual body of Christ has been torn on the cross by the impious, must our pride, our want of love now tear his spiritual body?

Second, Unity.-There is one Spirit. That is the Holy Spirit, who is the life of the body. The Apostle does not say there is one pope or one primate: or there is one general synod, or there is one company, or one class, or there is one prince, one state. He says, there is one Spirit. The Spirit that dwells in all your brethren, is the Spirit that dwells in you. You are temples of the same Spirit.

Third, Unity.-There is one hope. Little signifies it, in what part of the world you were born, of what nation you form a part, the form of your countenance, the color of your skin, under what government you live. One and the same heaven will eternally include you all. There is one hope.