t are excellent?
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise, think on these things" and do them, says
the apostle,[12] "and the God of peace shall be with you." Christians
differ like others in intellect, disposition, and temperament. They
differ also so far, but never in the same degree, in spiritual
condition and character. To be a Christian is in all cases to be saved
from guilt, to be sustained by faith, to be cleansed by divine
inspiration, to depart from iniquity. There may be, and must be, very
varying degrees of faith, hope, and charity; but no Christian can be
hard in heart, or impure in mind, or selfish in character. With much
to make us humble in the history of the Christian Church, and many
faults to deplore in the most conspicuous Christian men, the same
types of divine excellences yet meet us everywhere as we look along
the line of the Christian centuries--the heroism of a St Paul, an
Ignatius, an Origen, an Athanasius, a Bernard, a Luther, a Calvin, a
Chalmers, a Livingstone; the tender and devout affectionateness of a
Mary, a Perpetua, a Monica; the enduring patience and self-denial of
an Elizabeth of Hungary, a Mrs Hutcheson, a Mrs Fry; the beautiful
holiness of a St John, a St Francis, a Fenelon, a Herbert, a Leighton.
Under the most various influences, and the most diverse types of
doctrine, the same fruits of the Spirit constantly appear--"Love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance."[13]

All this sameness in diversity disappears when we turn to theology.
The differences in this case are radical. They are not diversities of
gifts with the same spirit, but fundamental antagonisms of thought. As
some men are said to be born Platonists, and some Aristotelians, so
some are born Augustinians, and some Pelagians or Arminians. These
names have been strangely identified with true or false views of
Christianity. What they really denote is diverse modes of Christian
thinking, diverse tendencies of the Christian intellect, which repeat
themselves by a law of nature. It is no more possible to make men
think alike in theology than in anything else where the facts are
complicated and the conclusions necessarily fallible. The history of
theology is a history of "variations;" not indeed,