another without grudging," or to "minister one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God," or "to speak as the oracles of God," or to "minister as of the ability which God giveth," it is still for this unchangeable purpose, "that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever."

2

The glory of God through Christ in his church ever has been, and still is, the central point, the final purpose, to which all the dispensations of God in time are tending; and if there be any truth in the prophecy of old, if any faithfulness in the Gospel, if any meaning in the faith once delivered unto the saints, to be a Christian, means, to live according to God's purpose, to the glory of God in Christ, as a member of his body the church, or, in other words, Christianity is inseparable from the body of the church. As there is "none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," except the name of Jesus Christ, so there is none other call for us, except " unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven,' to that church whose future perfection and glory is described as that of "a bride Acts iv. 12. b Heb. xii. 22, 23.

1 Pet. iv. 7-11.

a

C

adorned for her husband," in the day "when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."d

How little, alas! is this high and heavenly truth felt and acted upon among us! How prone are we, on the one hand, to work out an earthly ́church-union among ourselves, for earthly ends and by earthly means, by the untempered mortar of carnal ordinances and human traditions; how apt, on the other hand, to indulge our individual waywardness by dealing with the essential unity of the body of Christ, as if it were a hopeless, intangible chimera, for realizing which in another world, we are supposed best to prepare ourselves in the present world by acquiescence in the most undisguised and systematic divisions upon every point of truth which the ingenuity of man can wrest into a subject of contention. If we may measure, as who will question that we most justly may, the degree of the Holy Spirit's influence upon our hearts, the extent of our approach unto the stature of the fulness of Christ, by the degree to which our hearts have been expanded from the assurance of individual grace and salvation, which is the alpha of our redemption, to the sense of our absorption in that great scheme, the purpose and final result of which is "glory unto

God in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end," "-how much reason have we to take a lowly view of our own condition as the church of Christ, and as members of the same, how much reason to reckon ourselves among those who indeed come short of the glory of God! May not the Lord rebuke us, as he rebuked his church of old: "As the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; but they would not hear." May not we shortly fall, perhaps already have fallen, under the same curse which He laid upon his church of old: "If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings ; yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart."s Oh, that it were given us to lay it to heart, and in the midst of the dangers of every kind with which as a church we are beset, to hearken to the solemn advice which Jehovah gave to his ancient people through the mouth of his holy prophet: "Hear

Eph. iii. 21.

fJer. xiii. 11.

* Mal. ii. 2.

ye and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord's flock is carried away captive." Is there not reason to fear that this shadow of death, this gross darkness, this captivity of the Lord's flock is fast coming upon us, when we find that those who first raised their voices to complain, and that with too much reason, that the confession of a "holy, catholic, and apostolic church," had become an unmeaning phrase amongst us,-instead of turning our minds and hearts heaven-ward, where he dwelleth who is our glory, and who built us up together for his own glory, are busily occupied in burrowing among the rubbish-heaps of antiquity, and have their eyes so filled with the dust which their own researches have raised, that instead of that divine guide whom Christ vouchsafed to his church to be her teacher into all truth, they set up the phantom idol of catho

h Jer. xiii. 15-17.

lic tradition' for the interpreter of Scripture, for the witness who is to give us "an understanding, that we may know him that is true;" when we find that among the remedies proposed against the looseness and slipperiness of doctrine and discipline, which a low view of our privileges as members of Christ's body, and an unthinking system of concession to schism in all its forms, had undoubtedly produced among us, there is a revival of the mummeries of a superstitious age,

i Nothing can be more distressing than the perusal of passages such as the following, in which highly seasonable truths are mixed up with errors calculated to obscure all truth :-"Against such a notion especially," (viz. that the Reformers were the founders of a new faith,) "the subject of the present selection of testimonies is expressly directed; in which it is maintained that no individuals, since the Apostles, are by themselves expositors of the will of Christ; that the unanimous witness of Christendom is the only, and the fully sufficient, and the really existing guarantee of the whole revealed faith; that Catholicity is the only test of truth. Considering the copiousness and value of the following extracts, the doctrine maintained in them need not here be discussed. With relation to the supreme authority of inspired Scripture, it stands thus:-Catholic tradition teaches revealed truth, Scripture proves it; Scripture is the document of faith, tradition the witness of it; the true creed is the catholic interpretation of Scripture, or scripturally proved tradition. Scripture by itself teaches mediately, and proves decisively; tradition by itself proves negatively, and teaches positively. Scripture and tradition together are the joint rule of faith." Prefatory Remarks to the Catena Patrum, No. 78, of Tracts for the Times, The italics are our own.

p. 2.

1 John v. 20.