superficial observer he may seem to retrograde; but upon the whole he makes progress.

After his greatest progress, however, he continues dependent -as entirely dependent on the upholding grace of God as he was in his spiritual infancy; so that, if it were possible that after many years of spiritual living he could be entirely forsaken of the Holy Spirit, he would instantly be as carnal as if he had never been spiritual, as dead to God as if he had never been alive. Neither is there any contradiction or inconsistency in this. "The life of the flesh is in the blood." The life of the spirit is in the Holy Ghost. Let the blood (the circulation of natural life) be taken from the flesh of a man of fifty years old, and from the flesh of an infant, and both are instantly and equally dead. Yet between infancy and fifty years of age a real bonâ fide increase had taken place in the amount and power of animal life. Still, after all, the holiness of the Christian in this life is (3) At the best imperfect.

This is implied in what has been already said; for if perfection were once attained, there could remain no more room for progress. But we have seen it to be the duty, the habit, the instinct of the real Christian, to aim at progress as long as he lives. "If we say we have no sin, we do indeed deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John i. 8). It is true that the member of Christ is "created anew after the image of Him that created him" (Col. iii. 10). But this lovely image is obscured by fleshy mists which rise and float around it. These are not the same in all. They vary with the prevailing sins by which each is most easily beset. And here the treachery of the heart betrays itself afresh, secretly pleading to have some favourite indulgence spared, on the ground that perfection is impossible of attainment. It is so, and will be found after every the most strenuous and persevering, effort; but to make this an excuse for wilfully relaxing the effort, is an abuse of the truth, and a deception of ourselves.

Perfection is unattainable in this life, because to whatever extent the spirit may be sanctified and assimilated to God, the flesh is still under the original curse. We are in a body of

humiliation (Taπewwσews, Phil. iii. 21), a body of sin and death. At the resurrection we shall have perfection in holiness, when this mortal shall have put on immortality, and this corruptible shall have put on incorruption; but for the present "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together; and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body."

For what is a member of the Church of God? What is a Christian indeed? The question is a simple one, but a scriptural answer to it is fraught with most excellent wisdom. A real Christian is an immortal compound being, consisting of two essential parts; first, of all that which other men consist of, body and soul, with the powers, passions, and infirmities thereunto belonging; and, secondly, of that which no other man except a real Christian possesses-viz., that which is born in him, and sustained in him by the Holy Spirit of God. And what is that? I answer in the words of the Lord: "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit."2 Hence the apostle calls the Christian a spiritual man (πveνμaτIKOs), as distinguished from all others, who are called natural or soulish men (vxiko).

3

By a true member of the true Church of God, then, I would be understood to mean, a man or woman who possesses, not only a human body with all its wants, infirmities, and lusts, and a human soul with all its capacities, but also a heaven-born spirit with all its holiness; a man or woman in whom this spirit does not acquire such an ascendancy as to resist effectually and at all times the desires and motions of the natural body and soul,—this would be perfection: and in whom the natural body and soul do not retain such an ascendancy as to overbear effectually and at all times the motions and desires of the spirit, -this would be unconverted nature: but a man or woman, in whom nature born of Adam, and spirit born of God, both live, and live contrary the one to the other, so that the Christian cannot do the things that he would do. To will is present with him-the spirit is willing; but how to perform that which is good 1 Rom. viii. 22, 23.

2 St. John iii. 6.

. 1 Cor. ii.

he finds not-the flesh is weak. With the mind he serves the law of God, with the flesh the law of sin.1 The spirit would be holy; nature cannot. Nature would be unholy; the spirit cannot. The spirit would be like God; nature cannot. Nature would be like Satan; the spirit cannot. A bird of paradise is detained in a cage of fallen humanity. The cage cannot kill the bird, the bird cannot free itself from the cage, neither can it transform the cage into its own likeness. It flutters and falls back. It sighs for liberty, and flutters again. It quiets itself in patience, and sings in hope of deliverance; and thus it must flutter and sigh, and sing and wait, till the cage is removed. "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." "To depart and be with Christ is far better;" but concerning that state of existence, little is revealed. Much has indeed been fancied. Sentiment and poetry and heresy have been busy here. Tender hearts, vivid imaginations, and guilty consciences, have all been eloquent. But the word of God, from which alone satisfactory information on such a subject could be derived, is silent; with the exception of a few general, very general intimations, quite silent. Lazarus, who was permitted to live among men after having been four days absent from the body, did not, as far as we can learn from the sacred narrative, utter one syllable upon the subject.

It is at the resurrection of the body, and not before, that the Church of God, perfected in the holiness of each member, and perfected in the then complete assembly of all the members, shall be "presented to the Lord, her Head, a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but holy and without blemish" (Eph. v. 27). As we have borne the image of the earthy (the first Adam), we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (the second Adam). But every man in his own order; Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's (oi XpioToû) at His coming; when He shall change our vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself (1 Cor. xv.; Phil. iii.). "Then shall I be

1 Gal. v. 16-18; Rom. vii. 18, 25.

satisfied," exclaims the Psalmist, "when I awake with Thy likeness" (Psalm xvii. 15).

This is "the blessed hope" to which the Church of God in all ages has looked forward as her "perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul." The language of one of her most distinguished members in ancient times was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:" so far the language might be applied to the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He stood in our nature on the earth; but what follows cannot be so applied, neither can it be fulfilled unto the resurrection of the body, for the patriarch added, " And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (Job xix. 25, 26).

Saint Paul, before Felix, said, "I have hope toward God, which they themselves (the Jews) also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." And when answering for himself before King Agrippa, he said, "I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts xxiv. 15; xxvi. 6-8). The resurrection then, including the perfected holiness of the Church, was the promise made of God unto the Jewish fathers. All who believed, having ob'ained a good report through faith, received not the promise (the thing promised). They had it in word, saw it afar off, were persuaded of it, embraced it, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims here waiting for it, but they received it not in fact (Heb. xi.). It was not God's plan to bestow this consummation upon the members of Christ's body seriatim (day by day, as He bestows spiritual renewal), but simultaneously, in the twinkling

"The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises."-Art. vii.

of an eye at the last trump. He has prepared that better thing for us who believe in these last days, as well as for them; that they should not be made perfect without us (Heb. xi. 40), but that they with us, and we with them, should be made perfect together.

. And now we ask, if what has been here written be a scriptural account of the holiness of the Church of God, where are the members of that Church to be found? What community among men can advance any scriptural claim to the name of "the Church of God"? Can the Greek, or the Roman, or the English, or the Scotch-which all call themselves churches-can any one of them, or can they all taken together, be called, with scriptural propriety, the Church of God? Will all their members, or a majority of their members, or even in the most favourable instance, will any considerable proportion of their members bear comparison for a moment with what the Word of God describes as indispensable in every member of the Church of God? It is not denied that these and other sections of those "who profess and call themselves Christians" may in a different sense be called churches; but this admission does not invalidate or weaken in the slightest degree the conclusion we are compelled to arrive at-viz., that it is an usurpation, wholly untenable on scriptural grounds, for any or all of them to assume the title of the Church of God, the Catholic Church. They all contain, and recognise, and sanction, and caress, multitudes whom the Church of God utterly repudiates. For the Church of God is holy, not as a corporation, in virtue of its office, and in defiance of the unholiness of its living members, but as a body consisting of members each of which discharges its own holy office; not as an aggregate invested with ideal holiness, though composedin the far greater part-of unholy items, but as a company of men, and women, and children, in each of whom the Holy Spirit of God really dwells, maintaining against all opposition, and gently strengthening under every pressure, faith, and hope, and love-these three; and the greatest of these is love.