the theological sphere, and turning it to any account, places it quite apart from the religious sphere. The one belongs to the common life of humanity, the other to the school of the prophets. The one is for you and for me, and for all human beings; the other is for the expert the theologian-who has weighed difficulties and who understands them, if he has not solved them.

III. But again, religion differs from theology in the comparative uniformity of its results. The ideal of religion is almost everywhere the same " To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God."* "Pure religion" (or pure religious service) "and undefiled, before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Where is it not always the true, even if not the prevalent type of religion, to be good and pure, and to approve the things that are excellent? "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there * Micah, vi. 8. + James, i. 27.

be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" and do them, says the apostle," "and the God of peace shall be with you." Christians differ like others in intellect, disposition, and temperament. They differ also so far, but never in the same degree, in spiritual condition and character. To be a Christian is in all cases to be saved from guilt, to be sustained by faith, to be cleansed by divine inspiration, to depart from iniquity. There may be, and must be, very varying degrees of faith, hope, and charity; but no Christian can be hard in heart, or impure in mind, or selfish in character. With much to make us humble in the history of the Christian Church, and many faults to deplore in the most conspicuous Christian men, the same types of divine excellences yet meet us everywhere as we look along the line of the Christian centuries -the heroism of a St Paul, an Ignatius, an Origen, an Athanasius, a Bernard, a Luther, a Calvin, a Chalmers, a Livingstone; the tender and devout affectionateness of a Mary, a Perpetua, a Monica; the enduring patience and self-denial of an Elizabeth of Hungary, a Mrs Hutchinson, a Mrs Fry; the beautiful holiness *Philippians, iv. 8, 9.

of a St John, a St Francis, a Fénélon, a Herbert, a Leighton. Under the most various influences, and the most diverse types of doctrine, the same fruits of the Spirit constantly appear"Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.'

All this sameness in diversity disappears when we turn to theology. The differences in this case are radical. They are not diversities of gifts with the same spirit, but fundamental antagonisms of thought. As some men are said to be born Platonists, and some Aristotelians, so some are born Augustinians, and some Pelagians or Arminians. These names have been strangely identified with true or false views of Christianity. What they really denote is diverse modes of Christian thinking, diverse tendencies of the Christian intellect, which repeat themselves by a law of nature. It is no more possible to make men think alike in theology than in anything else where the facts are complicated and the conclusions necessarily fallible. The history of theology is a history of "variations; not indeed, as some have maintained, without an inner principle of advance, but with a constant repetition of oppositions underlying

* Galatians, v. 22, 23.

its necessary development. The same contrasts continually appear throughout its course, and seem never to wear themselves out. From the beginning there has always been the broader and the narrower type of thought—a St Paul and St John, as well as a St Peter and St James; the doctrine which leans to the works, and the doctrine which leans to grace; the milder and the severer interpretations of human nature and of the divine dealings with it—a Clement of Alexandria, an Origen, and a Chrysostom, as well as a Tertullian, an Augustine, and a Cyril of Alexandria; an Erasmus no less than a Luther, a Castalio as well as a Calvin, a Frederick Robertson as well as a John Newman. Look at these men and many others equally significant on the spiritual side as they look to God, or as they work for men, how much do they resemble one another! The same divine life stirs in them all. Who will undertake to settle which is the truer Christian? But look at them on the intellectual side and they are hopelessly disunited. They lead rival forces in the march of Christian thought-forces which may yet find a point of conciliation, and which may not be so widely opposed as they seem, but whose present attitude is one of obvious hos

tility. Men may meet in common worship and in common work, and find themselves at one. The same faith may breathe in their prayers, and the same love fire their hearts. But men who think can never be at one in their thoughts on the great subjects of the Christian revelation. They may own the same Lord, and recognise and reverence the same types of Christian character, but they will differ so soon as they begin to define their notions of the Divine, and draw conclusions from the researches either of ancient or of modern theology. Of all the false dreams that have ever haunted humanity, none is more false than the dream of catholic unity in this sense. It vanishes in the very effort to grasp it, and the old fissures appear within the most carefully compacted structures of dogma.

Religion, therefore, is not to be confounded with theology, with schemes of Christian thought -nor, for that part of the matter, with schemes of Christian order. It is not to be found in any set of opinions or in any special ritual of worship. The difficulties of modern theology, the theories of modern science (when they are really scientific and do not go beyond ascertained facts and