consider the individual peace resulting from this unity.  As we have endeavoured to explain what is meant by unity, so now, let us endeavour to understand what is meant by peace.  Peace then, is the opposite of passion, and of labour, toil, and effort.  Peace is that state in which there are no desires madly demanding an impossible gratification; that state in which there is no misery, no remorse, no sting.  And there are but three things which can break that peace.  The first is discord between the mind of man and the lot which he is called on to inherit; the second is discord between the affections and powers of the soul; and the third is doubt of the rectitude, and justice, and love, wherewith this world is ordered.  But where these things exist not, where a man is contented with his lot, where the flesh is subdued to the spirit, and where he believes and feels with all his heart that all is right, there is peace, and to this says the apostle, “ye are called,”—­the grand, peculiar call of Christianity,—­the call, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

This was the dying bequest of Christ:  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:  not as the world giveth give I unto you:”  and therein lies one of the greatest truths of the blessed and eternal character of Christianity, that it applies to, and satisfies the very deepest want and craving of our nature.  The deepest want of man is not a desire for happiness, but a craving for peace; not a wish for the gratification of every desire, but a craving for the repose of acquiescence in the will of God; and it is this which Christianity promises.  Christianity does not promise happiness, but it does promise peace.  “In the world ye shall have tribulation,” saith our Master, “but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”  Now, let us look more closely, into this peace.

The first thing we see respecting it is, that it is called God’s peace.  God is rest:  the infinite nature of God is infinite repose.  The “I am” of God is contrasted with the I am become of all other things.  Everything else is in a state of becoming, God is in a state of Being.  The acorn has become the plant, and the plant has become the oak.  The child has become the man, and the man has become good, or wise, or whatever else it may be.  God ever is; and I pray you once more to observe, that this peace of God, this eternal rest in the Almighty Being, arises out of His unity.  Not because He is an unit, but because He is an unity.  There is no discord between the powers and attributes of the mind of God; there is no discord between His justice and His love; there is no discord demanding some miserable expedient to unite them together, such as some theologians imagined when they described the sacrifice and atonement of our Redeemer by saying, it is the clever expedient whereby God reconciles His justice with His love.