II. THIS ONENESS ALSO ADMITS OF GREAT VARIETY.--"One, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee." Now, of course, we all admit the unity of the Godhead. The first article of the Jew is also the first article of the Christian, that the Lord our God is one God, one in essence, one in purpose, one in action. The Son does nothing of Himself; the Father does nothing apart from the Son; the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son. We cannot, as yet, understand this mystery; but with reverence we accept it as the primary basis of our faith.
But though God is One, there is evidently a variety of function in the ever-blessed Trinity. The Father decrees, the Son executes. The Father sends, the Son is sent. The Father works in Creation, the Son in Redemption and Judgment. And the functions of both Father and Son differ from those of the Holy Spirit.
If, then, the unity of the Church is to resemble the unity of the Godhead, according to our Lord's request, we may expect that it will not be physical, nor mechanical, nor a uniformity; but it will be a variety in unity--a unity of Spirit and purpose, and yet a unity which admits of very diverse functions and operations. Diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. Differences of administrations, but the same Lord. Diversities of operations, but the same God which worketh all in all.
(1) _The very conception of unity involves variety._--You take me out into a piece of waste land, and pointing to a heap of bricks say, "There is a unity." I at once rebut your assertion; there is uniformity undoubtedly, but not unity. Unity requires that a variety of _different_ things should be combined to form one structure and carry out one idea. A collection of bricks is not a unity, but a house is. A pole is not a unity, but a hop-plant is. A snow atom is not a unity, but a snow crystal is. And when our Lord spoke of His disciples as one, He not only expected that there would be varieties amongst them, in character, mind, and ecclesiastical preference; but by the very choice of His words He meant us to infer that it would be so. The unity on which He set His heart was not a uniformity.
(2) _But with variety there may be the truest unity._--There is variety in the human body--from eyelash to foot, from heart to blood-disc, from brain to quivering nerve-fibre; yet, in all this variety, each one is conscious of an indivisible unity. There is variety in the tree: the giant arms that wrestle with the storm, the far-spreading roots that moor it to the soil, the myriad leaves in which the wind makes music, the cones or nuts which it flings upon the forest floor; yet for all this it is one. There is a variety in the Bible: variety of authorship--king, prophet, priest, herdsman, and fisherman, scholar, sage, and saint; variety of style--prose, poetry, psalmody, argument, appeal; variety of age--from the days of Moses to those of John, the beloved apostle, writing amid the persecutions of the empire; yet for all this there is a oneness in the Bible which no mere binding could give. So with the Church of Christ: there may be, there must be infinite varieties and shades of thought and work. Some will prefer the methods of Wesley, others the freedom of Congregationalism. Some will pray most naturally through the venerable words of a Liturgy, others in the deep silence of a Friends' Meeting. Some will thrive best beneath the crozier of the Bishop, others in the plain barracks of the Salvation Army; but, notwithstanding all this variety, there may be a deep spiritual unity. Many folds, but one flock; many regiments, but one army; many stones, but one breast-plate. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
III. THE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY IS THE UNION OF EACH BELIEVER TO CHRIST.--"I in them, that they may be made perfect in one." However much true believers in Christ differ, there are two points in which they agree.