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below, in this the infancy of our being, there are some little 
portions of light which twinkle, as it were, from the analogy 
between the inspired history of religion and the Divine work- 
manship in our planet. 
This is the subject to which, this evening, I would desire to 
direct your attention. The main scope of the argument lies in 
the compass of two words taken from one of Lord Bacom’s 
Essays. The closing words of his Thema Coeli are “Mobilem 
Constantiam,” which Dr. Whewell, in an article in the 
Edinburgh Review October, 1857, translates, “ a constancy 
that includes motion.” Mr. Leslie Ellis,* to whose critical 
acumen we are indebted for rescuing from the chronic inac- 
curacy of successive editions of Bacon J s works this word 
“Mobilem,” which blundering transcribers had written 
“ Nobilem,” renders the words simply “variable constancy.” 
With a view to brevity and the formation of a suggestive 
mnemonic, I have ventured to mould them into the modified 
form of — Unity in Variety. 
II. — A General Statement of the Argument. 
9. The more closely we examine the Creations of God — the 
remains of past ages, or the living forms of our own — the 
more clearly we shall perceive that the plan is Unity , and the 
form Variety, — the one indicating the same Almighty mind, 
the other that boundless benevolence which knows no rest till 
in every possible combination it has produced every conceivable 
form of beauty, existence, and enjoyment. When we look at 
the works of Creation around us, or read the history of Re- 
demption in the Bible, the first thing that strikes us is the 
variety of forms in the one, and the diversity of modes of 
worship in the other. But when we come to examine things 
more closely — when the eye of Science is directed to the works 
of the Creator, and the eye of Eaith to that of the Saviour — 
when we strip off the superficial covering, we find that these 
diversities are only apparent. The groundwork is simple and 
uniform throughout both. The external variations are adapted 
to the different conditions of existence in the one instance, and 
to the varying circumstances of God^s people in the other. And 
* Ellis and Spedding’s edition of Bacon’s Works. 
