soms. Geologists dwell at
great length on the varied conditions through which our planet has
passed, and the wonderfully diversified forms of vegetable and animal
life corresponding to these several conditions. Yet in this endless
diversity of outward form they recognize from first to last a deep
underlying unity of plan. We might, then, reasonably infer beforehand
that if God should make a revelation of himself to men, it would have
not only unity but _diversity of outward form_, especially _diversity of
progress_. The fact that the revelation contained in the Bible has such
diversity is one of the seals of its genuineness.

3. We may consider this unity in diversity in respect to the _form of
God's kingdom_. From Adam to Abraham God administered the affairs of the
human family as a whole, without any visible organization of a church as
distinct from the world at large. From Abraham to Moses his
church--using the term church in a general sense--existed in a
_patriarchal_ form. With the beginning of the Mosaic dispensation he put
it into the form of a _state_, of which he was the supreme head and
lawgiver, while its earthly rulers exercised under him all the functions
of civil offices, the bearing of the sword included. When Christ came,
he separated the church from the state, and gave it its present
spiritual and universal organization. In all this diversity of outward
form we recognize the progress of one grand self-consistent plan.

4. We may now go back again to the beginning, and consider the diversity
in the _forms of public worship_--the simple offering of Abel, who
"brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof," the
altars of the patriarchs, the gorgeous ceremonial of the Mosaic economy
with its priesthood and sacrifices, "the service of song in the house of
the Lord" added by David, the synagogue service of later times, and,
finally, the spiritual priesthood of believers under the New Testament,
whose office is "to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5); and show that through all this variety of
outward form the essence of God's service has ever remained unchanged,
so that the example of primitive believers is a model for our imitation.
Heb. chap. 11.

5. We may show, again, that the same manifoldness belongs to _the forms
of labor_ devolved on God's servants in different ages. The work
assigned to Noah was not that of Abraham; nor was Abraham's work th