ide with it, a tendency to admire
the spurious form of charity, which is a sentiment and not a virtue;
which can sympathize with crime, but not with law; which can be tender
to savages, but has no respect, no care for national honour. And
therefore, does this principle of the Apostle Paul call upon us to
esteem also another form or type of character, and the opposite one;
that which is remarkable for--in which predominates--not so much
charity as _justice_; that which was seen in the warriors and prophets
of old; who perchance, had a more strong recoil from vice than
sympathy with virtue; whose indignation towards that which is wrong
and hypocritical was more intense than their love for that which is
good: the material, the character, out of which the reformer and the
prophet, those who are called to do great works on earth, are made.

The Church of Christ takes not in one individual form of goodness
merely, but every form of excellence that can adorn Humanity. Nor is
this wonderful when we remember Who He was from whom this Church was
named. It was He in whom centred all excellence--a righteousness
which was entire and perfect. But when we speak of the perfection of
righteousness, let us remember that it is made not of one exaggerated
character, but of a true harmony, a due proportion of all virtues
united. In Him were found therefore, that tenderness towards sinners
which had no sympathy with sin; that humility which could be
dignified, and was yet united with self-respect; that simplicity which
is ever to be met with, side by side with true majesty; that love
which could weep over Jerusalem at the very moment when He was
pronouncing its doom, that truth and justice which appeared to stand
as a protection to those who had been oppressed, at the same time that
He scathed with indignant invective the Pharisees of the then existing
Jews.

There are two, only two, _perfect_ Humanities. One has existed already
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the other is to be found only
in the collective Church. Once, only once, has God given a perfect
representation of Himself, "the brightness of the Father's glory, and
the express image of His person." And if we ask again for a perfect
Humanity, the answer is, it is not in this Church or in that Church,
or in this man or in that man, in this age or in that age, but in the
collective blended graces and beauties, and humanities, which are
fou