3. Divisions in the Church sometimes become inveterate, and it is a work of extreme difficulty to heal them. It is easy to divide, but not so easy to unite. A child may break or take to pieces an instrument which it will baffle the most skilful to put together and repair. If Rehoboam had listened to the advice of "the old men that stood before Solomon his father," he might have preserved his kingdom entire, but all their wisdom and authority could not cure the schism which had been caused by his following the rash and foolish counsel of "the young men who were grown up with him."

Attempts to reunite must encounter the resistance of those corrupt principles and passions which led to division. The force of these is sometimes greatly increased by indulgence, and parties become more and more alienated from one another by mutual injuries and recriminations; for the beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water *." If time has served to allay the heat and fierceness of controversy, and to smooth down the harshness and asperities of personal animosity, it has perhaps contributed to widen the breach in another way. It has added to the original grounds of difference and separation. Parties at variance are inclined to remove to a distance from each other. They are apt not only to magnify the real point in dispute, but also to create or discover new ones, with the view of vindicating their separation, and enlarging the charges which they bring against their

*Prov. xvii. 14.

opponents. The adoption, too, of one error, and the defence of one sinful practice, leads to the adoption and defence of another, and that of a third; so that when an individual or a society has turned from the right way, every step they take carries them farther astray, and removes them to a greater distance from those who have been enabled to keep the path of truth and duty. The consequence is, on either of these suppositions, that, when proposals of accommodation come to be made, and a treaty of re-union is set on foot, the original cause of the breach forms perhaps the smallest matter of difference between the parties, and instead of one point twenty may require to be disposed of and adjusted in the progress of the negociations. This was strikingly verified in the attempts made in the seventeenth century to reconcile the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches. If the law of Patronage had been abrogated soon after its imposition, the peace of the Church of Scotland might have been preserved, and many of those dissensions and separations which have since occurred would have been prevented; but who that knows any thing of the state of matters will say, that the adoption of such a measure at this late period, however desirable on many accounts, and whatever good results it would lead to in the issue, would put an end to our present divisions, or even unite all those who are the friends of evangelical doctrine and presbyterian principles ? -Sometimes, indeed, matters take a different direction. Two parties, after separating and pur

suing for sometime opposite courses, receive a new direction from the common impulse of the spirit of the age, and the prevailing current of religious sentiment and feeling, by means of which they are made gradually to approximate, and at last to meet at a point very remote from that from which both of them set out. In this case, if they were right before they parted, they must now be wrong. When defection from the purity of religion has become general, and indifference about truth abounds, such coalescences are easily brought about. If political considerations had not intervened, it would have been no difficult matter to have joined Judah and Israel in religious fellowship during the reign of Ahaz. It is upon a principle of the same kind, I am afraid, that we must account for the union which has lately been effected in some parts of the Continent between the two great bodies of Protest

ants.

It is particularly difficult to heal the divisions which subsist among those who are intermingled and live together in the same country and vicinity. If distance of place, by preventing intercourse, keeps Christians in ignorance of one another's sentiments and characters, and fosters misapprehensions and groundless prejudices, neighbourhood gives rise to other and greater evils. It is a species of intestine warfare which is carried on between religious parties who reside together. The irritation produced by the frequent opportunities which individuals find for agitating their disputes is an evil which ordinarily cures

itself in process of time. But their interests as separate societies, founded on opposite principles, necessarily interfere and clash. A spirit of proselytism is engendered. They draw disciples from one another; mutual reprisals are made; advantages are oftentimes taken which would be held not the most honourable in political warfare; and each may be said to flourish and grow by the decay and decrease of the rest.

The subject of litigation among Christians, and even the relation which they stand in to one another as such, render the adjustment of their differences more delicate and embarrassing. It is always a work of difficulty to reconcile hostile parties, whatever the matter of strife may happen to be. Once involved in litigation about civil rights and property, men, not of the most contentious or obstinate tempers, have been known to persevere until they had ruined themselves and their families. When unhappily discord and contention arise between those who are allied by blood, or who were united by the bonds of close friendship, their variance is of all others the most inveterate and deadly, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle *." If" love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave." Of all the ties which bind man to man, religion is the most powerful, and when once loosened or burst asunder, it is the hardest to restore. Religious differences engage and call

*Prov. xviii. 19.

into action the strongest powers of the human mind. Conscience comes to the aid of convictions of right, and zeal for the glory of God combines with that jealousy with which we watch over every thing that is connected with our own reputation. It has often been remarked, that religious disputes are managed with uncommon warmth and acrimony; and this has been urged as an argument against all controversies of the kind, and even as an argument against religion itself. It cannot be denied, that, amid the din of disputation, that important truth, “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God," has often been forgotten by the contending parties; and the personal altercations, the railing accusations, the uncharitable judgments, the rash censures, the wilful misrepresentations, the injurious calumnies, which have too often infused their malignant and poisonous virus into these debates, have, it must be confessed, contributed to bring great scandal on religion; though this sacred cause can never justly be made responsible in any degree for excesses so inconsistent with its spirit and its precepts. But let us not be unjust in seeking to be liberal. Genuine moder

Religion is of

ation and candour are not to be confounded with indifference and lukewarmness. paramount importance, and we ought not to wonder that those who are in earnest about it should display a warm and fervent zeal in the cause. They do not feel themselves at liberty to make the same sacrifices to peace in the “matters of the Lord," which they may be warranted and