is peculiarity of relation among the
perfections of man is no result of his fall or sinfulness, but an
evidence of his greater nobility, and of the goodness of God towards
him. For the individuals of each race of lower animals, being not
intended to hold among each other those relations of charity which are
the privilege of humanity, are not adapted to each other's assistance,
admiration, or support, by differences of power and function. But the
love of the human race is increased by their individual differences, and
the unity of the creature, as before we saw of all unity, made perfect
by each having something to bestow and to receive, bound to the rest by
a thousand various necessities and various gratitudes, humility in each
rejoicing to admire in his fellow that which he finds not in himself,
and each being in some respect the complement of his race. Therefore, in
investigating the signs of the ideal or perfect type of humanity, we
must not presume on the singleness of that type, and yet, on the other
hand, we must cautiously distinguish between differences conceivably
existing in a perfect state, and differences resulting from immediate
and present operation of the Adamite curse. Of which the former are
differences that bind, and the latter that separate. For although we can
suppose the ideal or perfect human heart, and the perfect human
intelligence, equally adapted to receive every right sensation and
pursue every order of truth, yet as it is appointed for some to be in
authority and others in obedience, some in solitary functions and others
in relative ones, some to receive and others to give, some to teach and
some to discover; and as all these varieties of office are not only
conceivable as existing in a perfect state of man, but seem almost to be
implied by it, and at any rate cannot be done away with but by a total
change of his constitution and dependencies, of which the imagination
can take no hold; so there are habits and capacities of expression
induced by these various offices, which admit of many separate ideals of
equal perfection, according to the functions of the creatures, so that
there is an ideal of authority, of judgment, of affection, of reason,
and of faith; neither can any combination of these ideals be attained,
not that the just judge is to be supposed incapable of affection, nor
the king incapable of obedience, but as it is impossible that any
essence short of the Divine should at the same i