from one common source: it is built upon the same foundation, and after one uniform model: it is subject to the same form of government, administered by persons to whom the commission, by which they act, has been regularly handed down from the Apostles: it addresses its prayers to the same God and Father of all, relying upon the merits and mediation of one Saviour, the God incarnate, for their acceptance: it professes therefore one common faith, it is solaced by one common hope, and participates in those sacraments, which bind all its members by the same conditions, and under the same penalties, to holiness of life and conversation; to love God with all their hearts, and their neighbour as themselves.

If we consider the effect, which the Christian Church, framed upon such principles, and adhering steadfastly to its own constitution, must have produced upon the conduct and affections of mankind, wherever it was established; it will be easily perceived, that when our Saviour prayed, that his Disciples might be one,

he neglected nothing which could be devised, consistently with the freedom of human will, to secure the object of his petition.

For what can be a conceived more like

ly to promote peace on earth, than a spiritual association, which, at once independent of all human institutions, and interwoven with them, should by degrees pervade every region of the globe; and offer to persons of all nations, characters, and habits, the same objects of faith and hope, the same motives to moral action ?—an association which, while it acknowledged its dependence upon one supreme head, its origin from one common fountain, its obligation to obey the same code of laws, should be connected by an external system of discipline essentially one; and ruled by governors, deriving their authority from the same source, and responsible for their administration of it to the same Lord ?

What could tend more forcibly to cherish sentiments of good-will among men,

a See Note XII. Appendix.

than a common bond of union, by which all Christians, of every country, should be taught to consider each other as brethren, and to love each other as themselves? How could men have despised those, whom they knew to be partakers in the same spiritual privileges in which they gloried, to be walking by the same rule, bound by the same duties, animated by the same hopes, worshipping the same God? How could any Christian have vexed or persecuted those, for whose sakes, as well as for his own, he acknowledged that his Saviour had died; those whom he expected hereafter to meet at the tribunal of an impartial judge; and with whom, if they both adhered with equal steadiness to their common engagements, he hoped to live for ever in heaven?

To the mind of a reflecting person, who has embraced Christianity, not as a nominal distinction only, or as a mere speculative system of doctrine, but as his religion; as the rule by which he is to walk in this life, and be judged in the next; any one of these considerations would appear

sufficient to induce him to cultivate that b. 66 peace of God," which the external ties of Christian unity were intended to preserve, and which is indeed the very spirit of unity itself. Still, though the obligation to maintain this c❝ unity of the Spirit in "the bond of peace" is thus undoubted, all those inducements have not yet proved strong enough to effect its accomplishment.

Where the Lord of the vineyard has sowed wheat, the enemy has contrived to scatter tares; and so artfully has the work of disorder and destruction been carried on, that every motive to charity has been made an occasion of dissension; the gracious plan, which was intended to secure the interchange of brotherly love and kindness between every individual, and every congregation of Christians throughout the world, has become itself the subject of controversy, and the cause of division; and the fiercest contentions have arisen out of the discussion of those very essentials of unity, which were ordained to be the ties of mutual harmony and peace. So far has the c Eph. iv. 3.

b Phil. iv, 7.

evil proceeded, that the true nature of Christian unity has been lost sight of; men have disputed about the different component parts of the common bond of Christians, till its character, as a whole, has been forgotten; and the subject itself has been deemed rather matter of speculation, than of practical utility. The golden chain, by which the great Author and Finisher of our faith intended to connect every individual who bore his name with each other, and with himself, has been removed, link by link, until what remains of it is wholly incompetent to the purpose, for which it was framed; while the very persons, who, with fretful impatience, have cast away the bonds of their Master and Lord, as if conscious of the necessity and importance of the union thus rashly dissolved, have endeavoured ineffectually to supply its place inventions of their own.

The miserable inefficiency of these ef'forts fully proves the vanity and the danger of interfering with the ordinances of God: they have hitherto produced nothing, but a mixture without concord; a