THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IMPOSSIBLE EXCEPT AS A RESULT OF PERSONAL REGENERATION.1

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there Jehovah commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."-Ps. cxxxiii.

THE conjunction of goodness and truth is one of the most pleasing, fertile and suggestive themes that can engage the attention of the sincere and intelligent member of the Church. It is a subject which embraces in its range all created and also uncreated things, beginning with Him who is the union of goodness and truth itself and running down the whole scale of creation. Heaven is the home to which all men look forward as the place where they are to realize their anticipations of happiness, and Heaven consists in the conjunction of goodness and truth. The Church is the Lord's Kingdom upon earth, and its use is to prepare men to live in perfect happiness in His Kingdom above, thus the very salvation of men depends upon the Church, and the Church consists in the union of goodness and truth. Regeneration is the end the Church has in view, and is the only means she can make use of, to accomplish that eternal salvation, and consequent eternal happiness of men, and regeneration depends upon the conjunction of goodness and truth. Marriage is the Divinely-appointed 1 A Sermon preached before the Conference at Manchester, August 10, by the Rev. J. F. Potts, B.A.

means of man's greatest and most perfect happiness in both Heaven and earth; all his dearest relationships flow from it; all his deepest and purest affections are engaged in it; and marriage owes its origin to, and depends for the realization of its happiness, upon the conjunction of goodness and truth. If we descend from the plane of spiritual to that of material things, we find a corresponding application of the same law. There is not in the whole natural world a created object the very existence of which, to say nothing of its beauty, life and use, does not depend upon the union of heat and light, which are the material representatives of goodness and truth, and the united action of which is the representative on the natural plane of the ever-fruitful, powerful and lovely conjunction of goodness and truth. Now the principles of goodness and truth are meant, in the spiritual sense, by the brethren whose dwelling together in unity, i.e., whose conjunction in the life, is said to be so good and so pleasant. This conjunction it is which is compared to the precious ointment poured on Aaron's head, which ran down over all his person, and to the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion. For, in the spiritual sense, to descend is applied to whatever passes from the Lord to men, or from Heaven to the world, or from a higher degree of the mind to a lower; thus that which descends is influx. All influx therefore is from inmost to outermost, from the head to the beard and skirts of the garments, from the dewy skies to the mountain tops, from the heart to the skin; from the pith to the bark, from the thoughts to the speech, from the feelings to the actions; from the internal man to the external. Influx never goes the other way. How mistaken therefore is the attempt to secure happiness and prosperity by the adjustment or regulation of mere external circumstances! How dangerous a guide is that treacherous illusion, which, like a will-of-the-wisp, dances perpetually before the eyes of men during their earthly journey, leading them, if they will follow it, to make the attainment of worldly advantages the great end of their lives, and deluding them with the idea that in this way their happiness can be realized, and the goodness and pleasantness of human life secured! Vain and mocking phantom! Whoever follows thee will at no distant day find himself floundering in the deep quagmire of disappointment and despair!

How different, how opposite is the course and order of true happiness as described in the Word of God! It is like the pre

cious ointment upon the head of Aaron, that is to say, it is like the good and delight of Heaven pervading the inmost life of a good man and descending thence by regular and orderly degrees through his whole scale of existence, even to the very skirts thereof. When righteousness and peace have kissed each other in a man's heart, their bright reflection shines upon all his external circumstances. For while the most perfect worldly arrangements can afford no lasting delight from their own sources, the commonest objects look beautiful and are a joy for ever in the sunshine of Heaven.

Truly this delight is like the dew of Hermon. For the dew of those snow-white peaks, visible over the whole land of Canaan, which is here poetically said to descend on the city-crowned mountains of Judea; that gentle dew is the representative of Divine Truth descending from the Lord and uniting itself in a sweet conjunction with those celestial principles of goodness in the human mind which are in men the Mount Zion that the Lord loves.

Such is the perfect picture. It is not truth without goodness, for that is dead. Nor is it goodness without truth, for that is blind. It is the conjunction of goodness and truth which is the source to man of all his happiness, both internal and external, both temporal and eternal. For here it is, and here alone, that Jehovah has commanded that blessing which indeed includes all blessings, even life for evermore.

We will now transfer the application of this Divine song from principles to persons. In this sense a brother signifies one who is in charity. And if, therefore, all the members of the Church are in charity together, they are here meant by the brethren. "One is then your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren" (Matt. xxiii. 8).

The conjunction of goodness and truth is furnished with one of its most forcible representatives in the unity of the brethren. Moreover, there cannot be any real unity among the brethren until the brethren are themselves, each and every one, living personifications of the unity of goodness and truth. There can be no real unity among unregenerate men. To preach unity and concord to such, and to leave them in their unregenerate state, is an attempt to make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter. If it succeeds, it is a vain success, for the cup and platter are still full of abominations. It is no use to say Peace, peace, when there is no peace. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. A unity among men which is

brought about by means of mere external restraints, is like a socalled happy family of various heterogeneous creatures, which may indeed appear to live together in peace, because they are under the influence of strong fear, but as soon as that fear is removed, the once peaceful family is converted into a scene of indiscriminate massacre, Men can be trained in a similar manner. Men who hate each other can be taught to repress every external sign of their feelings, to shake by the hand with precisely the same emotion in their hearts that they would stab with the dagger, to give a kiss with the same inward feeling as they would give a cup of poison, and while they inwardly rejoice at the misfortunes of those whom they at heart regard as enemies, to drop around on the desecrated earth the hypocritical tears of the crocodile. Men can be trained to do all these things. But wherein are they the better for such a training? Hatred is not improved by having deceit and hypocrisy added to it. Such mere external training can therefore produce no unity of the brethren. The influx of love which is the cause of unity must begin in the heart, and must then flow out into external manifestation. All other manifestations of love are sickening. If, therefore, one of the brethren should have bad feelings for another of the brethren, what he must do is not to cover them up, so that no one can see them, but what he must do is to put them away, to cast them out behind him, to conquer them, to resist them, to fight against them as he would fight against hell itself. And if he succeeds in doing this, and in fairly putting those evil spirits to flight, and if his brother succeeds too in doing the same thing with his evil spirits, then those two brethren can be really brethren, and can shake each other by the hand and look each other in the eye in the unaffected love and real unity. Oh how good and pleasant it is to see it!

Unity, which is the product of love, is always delightful. It is delightful in God. The unity of God is one of His first and most essential attributes. Men inwardly long for a unity to worship. There is something in the human heart which is revolted at the bare idea of disunion or separation in the nature of that Being whom we are required to worship as the embodiment of all perfection. But here we find, if we desire it, a perfect rest for our souls. God is Unity Itself because He is Love Itself. And this not only as to His Essential Divinity, for in Him His own Divinity and our humanity are unity itself. His whole work in the world was to unite them. And He accomplished this stupendous union for the very purpose of ren

dering possible a corresponding unity among men, and as is said of Him in the Word, that He "should gather together in ONE the children of God that were scattered abroad" (John xi. 52). The Lord's prayer for His church is ever therefore the same, "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be ONE, as We are" (John xvii. 11). That they all may be ONE; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be ONE in Us, and the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be ONE, even as We are ONE: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in ONE (John xvii. 21-23).

The unity of the brethren is then the same thing as the unity of the Church, and the unity of the Church can be accomplished only by means of the unity of the brethren. We need not, therefore, look in the direction of external changes for the advent of that much desired unity. If all the Churches in the world were rolled into one, with the same doctrines, the same institutions, and the same forms of worship, there would be no more unity than there is now. There would only be more quarrelling. For the unity of the Church is not the unity of doctrines, institutions and worship, but the unity of the brethren. And the brethren are united only by mutual love and charity. If, therefore, there be an amalgamation of external institutions and of doctrines, and no more mutual love and charity than there is now, there is no more unity than there is now; but, on the other hand, if there be an increase of mutual love and charity there is also an increase of unity, whether external institutions be amalgamated or not. External institutions will take care of themselves when all men are united in the effort to become regenerate [to cease from doing whatever is a sin against God and an injury to the neighbour, and to cultivate mutual prosperity by the active performance of uses towards others from a religious principle]. Until then, we may believe it to be a wise permission of the Divine Providence that men should be separated from each other by external divisions.

But let

Let us not

If unregenerated men are, as we know they are, wild beasts in spirit, then we also know how it is best to deal with them. No wise keeper of wild beasts puts them all into one cage. It is, no doubt, our duty to promote, as far as we can, the unity of the Church. us not forget what it is that we are trying to promote. confound the unity of the Church with the amalgamation of external institutions, for if we do we shall probably find that in our misdirected zeal we have promoted, not the unity, but the quarrelling and contention of the Church, by bringing closer together elements which, from their