men in one guild or corporation for protecting the common persons in that corporation from oppression.  In modern times identity of political creed or opinion has bound men together in one league, in order to establish those political principles which appeared to them of importance.  Similarity of taste has united men together in what is called an association, or a society, in order by this means to attain more completely the ends of that science to which they had devoted themselves.  But as these have been raised artificially, so their end is inevitably, dissolution.  Society passes on, and guilds and corporations die; principles are established, and leagues become dissolved; tastes change, and then the association or society breaks up and comes to nothing.

It is upon another principle altogether that that which we call a family, or true society, is formed.  It is not built upon similarity of taste, nor identity 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.