of opinion, but upon affinities of nature. You do
not _choose_ who shall be your brother; you cannot exclude your mother
or your sister; it does not depend upon choice or arbitrary opinion at
all, but is founded upon the eternal nature of things. And precisely
in the same way is the Christian Church formed--upon natural affinity,
and not upon artificial combination. "The family, the whole family in
heaven and earth;" not made up of those who _call_ themselves
brethren, but of those who _are_ brethren; not founded merely upon the
principles of combination, but upon the principles of affinity. That
is not a church, or a family, or a society which is made up by men's
choice, as when in the upper classes of life, men of fashion unite
together, selecting their associates from their own _class_, and form
what is technically called a society; it is a combination if you will,
but a society it is not--a family it is not--a Church of Christ it
cannot be.

And, again, when the Baptists or the Independents, or any other
sectarians, unite themselves with men holding the same faith and
entertaining the same opinions, there may be a _sect_, a
_combination_, a _persuasion_, but a _Church_ there cannot be. And so
again, when the Jew in time past linked himself with the Jew, with
those of the same nation, there you have what in ancient times was
called Judaism, and in modern times is called Hebraicism--a system, a
combination, but not a Church. The Church rises ever out of the
family. First of all in the good providence of God, there is the
family, then the tribe, then the nation; and then the nation merges
itself into Humanity. And the nation which refuses to merge its
nationality in Humanity, to lose itself in the general interests of
mankind, is left behind, and loses almost its religious
nationality--like the Jewish people.

Such is the first principle. A man is born of the same family, and is
not made such by an appointment, or by arbitrary choice.

2. Another thing which is taught by this definition is this, that the
Church of Christ is a whole made up of manifold diversities. We are
told here it is "the _whole_ family," taking into it the great and
good of ages past, now in heaven; and also the struggling, the
humble, and the weak now existing upon earth. Here again, the analogy
holds good between the Church and the family. Never more than in the
family is the true entirety of our nature see