The principle or duty here stated and inculcated is well and strongly put by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans (ii. 6, 7,) where he says "Who will render * * *to those that by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” Right aims and pursuits are not only to be kept before us as ends to be promoted or achieved, as stimulants to personal endeavor, but they are to command our constant effort, our unfaltering diligence and zeal. The duties we owe to God and man are to be discharged, not by fits and starts, not spasmodically, not on special occasions or at convenient seasons, but continuously, unintermittingly, without break or delay, without cessation or loss of interest, to the end of life. They are to be discharged, moreover, without feverish excitement, disquietude, overanxiety, or discouragement, in view of opposing forces, hindrances, and long-deferred achievements or results, but calmly, resolutely, perseveringly, in the full assurance that our labor is not in vain in the Lord, that no righteous act falls fruitless, that in due season we shall reap, if we faint not, that, faithful to our trust, we shall come off conquerers and more than conquerers, through Him who loved us. We are always to assume and feel that what ought to be done can be done, that truth, justice, right, love, shall triumph at the last, and that we may do something, if not in our own strength, yet in the strength of the Mighty Helper of all aspiring, struggling souls, to bring about the grand consummation. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved."

8. "They must unceasingly endeavor, by watchfulness and prayer, by constant progress in holy living, to become more and more Christlike in all respects; to be perfect in righteousness and love as God is perfect-trusting ever in divine strength and grace to supply their deficiencies, and enable them successfully "to press forward towards the mark for the prize of their high calling."

This is the crowning article of my creed, so far as it relates to Personal Righteousness, embodying the principle and duty of unceasing progress towards divine moral perfection, which is the supreme excellence and glory of the Christian life. We are never to imagine ourselves wise and good enough to pause in our efforts for selfimprovement, to become stereotyped, to fossilize, and to aspire after nothing spiritually higher than what we have attained. Christ is to be our perpetual model and guide under the Infinite One, to whom he ever points us, saying, "Be ye perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." This is not enjoining infinite moral excellence upon finite beings, but the same quality and type of character that is illustrated in God, which we are to illustrate to the utmost of our capacity. It sets before all moral agents the eternal divine goodness as the standard of duty, as the immaculate ideal which they are to strive incessantly to make real as far as possible in themselves; omitting or neglecting no virtue or grace essential to such a sublime and glorious achievement.

The article under notice avoids and precludes such. mischievous fallacies as that righteousness in God is radically different from true righteousness in men; that God is not to be regarded as our Great Exemplar; that it is impossible for men to attain a Godlike. character; that simple conversion to Christ and the determination to lead a holy life are all that is required of any soul, without growth in grace and in divine moral excellence; that the church is not a progressive institution or one of moral and spiritual gradation, requiring continual advancement or ascent toward the more perfect and divine, but an ecclesiastical museum for the preservation and exhibition of religious fossils and petrifactions; and that it is treason to Christ to attempt or propose changes of form and administration suited to the ever-changing conditions of thought and life in the world at large. These falsities are seriously detrimental to the healthy development and orderly growth of Christian character and to the highest usefulness of the church, and are therefore to be forevermore disallowed and exiled from the realm of religion.

The Personal Righteousness delineated in this Discourse is to be exalted, honored, glorified in the church of the better dispensation. It is to be confessed, preached, illustrated, exemplified by its members clerical and lay alike-and made dominant in personal character and in all the relations and concerns of life, even to the extent of shaping ultimately the policies and multiform activities of communities, states, and nations throughout the entire world.

DISCOURSE XIV.

EXPOSITION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL

ORDER.

"Not as though I were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."-Phil. iii. 12.

"For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also in Christ." Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular." -1 Cor. xii. 12, 27.

The true church of Christ, as I apprehend it and as I have indicated to some extent in former Discourses, contemplates and requires in its practical development and administration a new and higher order of social life than that which now exists anywhere upon the face of the earth; one established upon better principles, animated more by the Spirit of the Gospel of our Lord, having greater regard for the interest and welfare of all classes and conditions of people, and more conducive to human virtue, progress, harmony, and happiness. The great fundamental: ideas, first truths, or principles which are to distinguish such a social order are definitely tabulated in Discourse VII of the present volume, and constitute the theme or themes of discussion at this time, receiving attention in the order of succession already given them.

I.

"The supreme, universal, and perfect Fatherhood of God."

I have already stated and unfolded to some extent what I regard as the true conception of God's nature, character, and relation to mankind, including or implying the idea of his divine Fatherhood, but have not elaborated this last particular with the distinctness and fulness which its importance in the reconstructive work I have undertaken demands. For it is in fact the sublimest as it is the most central of religious truths; the pre-eminent revelation of the Christ, and the chief corner-stone upon which rest the new theology of Christendom, the regenerate church, and the kingdom of a better future for mankind. In the disclosures of the New Testament concerning the Divine Being we have not only a selfexistent, omnipresent, conscious Spirit for our God, but a supreme, universal, all-perfect Father. He is not only the First Cause, Sustainer, and Governor of the whole infinitarium of being, from the minutest atom to the most massive globe and from the smallest animalcule to the loftiest archangel, but He is the Father of all spirits, including, as most concerns us in this discussion, mankind. As Jesus taught He is the Father of "the spirits of all flesh" on earth and in the unseen world; the Father of the good, bad, and indifferent; of all the children of men whatever their capability, development, religion, or moral character. He always has sustained this tender and sacred relation to them and always will, world without end; for He changeth not but is the same in the essentials of his being, "yesterday,