gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication; and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration (Rev. xvii. 3-6). And upon the other hand the jealousies, bitterness, strife, and fierce contentions of rival sects or churches, have filled our libraries with volumes that breathe anything and everything but the meekness and gentleness of Christ. It is clear, then, that we cannot look to any visible community for the wonderful thing, the mystery hidden from past ages, but revealed in apostolic times, as the peculiar first-fruits' reward of the rejected Lord. No ecclesiastical corporation, Papal or Protestant, and no brotherhood of professed disciples of Jesus, has the shadow of a right to appropriate to itself the high and honourable designation of "The Church." By whomsoever advanced, this assumption must be regarded, not as evidence of apostolic truth, but of fellowship with the apostasy of Christendom foreshadowed in our Lord's parables, predicted by the apostles, and signified by the letters to the seven symbolic churches in the Book of Revelation.

It is no pleasant task to dwell upon the dark side of a great subject, but when duty calls choice must retire; and unquestionably it is better for us to know the truth, though it may disturb our fond notions, than to be deluded by an agreeable fiction, the hollowness of which must be revealed some day, however long covered by ecclesiastical artifice. To search the Scriptures for the truth, and to believe and proclaim that truth when found, is certainly the duty of all who have received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. To maintain a theory simply because it has grown up in an ecclesiastical community, and been associated with it as part of its general belief, is unworthy of any one who would stand in the light, strong in the faith of revelation, and ready to abandon every shred of thought which was merely of human origin.

There is a church of God and of Christ in the world, but assuredly it is not of it. There is a holy community, inhabited by the Holy Spirit, whose members are scattered among the several nominal churches; but all that renders it peculiarly sacred is heavenly in source and character, and invisible to the human eye. This peculiar temple of God is the pledge to the Heir of all things that His reserved rights shall be publicly bestowed at the proper time. Like its Head, it does not strive, nor cry, neither does any man hear its voice in the streets; that is to say, expressions of contention, assertions of supremacy, warlike shouts, come not from it. "Behold what manner of love," gratefully says one of its members, "the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore "-What? Some distinguish

ing mark of Divine favour, visible to every eye, and commanding the admiration of society? No!" therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not" (1 John iii. 1). The Lord of glory tabernacled among men; but who or what He was the world neither knew nor cared. It turned away its face from Him as unworthy of a moment's attention; so His Church, though a partaker of the Divine nature, and therefore immortal, is unknown in her real character, and despised by the world as a poor foolish thing, the victim of a diseased imagination. She has no right to expect favours from a world that gave frowns to Him whom her soul loveth. He told her what she was to experience during His absence preparing a mansion for her. "If the world hate you," He said, "ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therethe world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that sent Me" (John xv. 18-21). Do not forget these things; keep in mind especially your relationship to Me, and look not for ease where I have had hatred and persecution. The world knows not Him that sent Me, knows not Me, knows not you. "There standeth one among you whom ye know not" (John i. 26), said John Baptist to the deputation from Jerusalem, respecting Jesus. So of the Church may it be said to the world, Ye are altogether ignorant of whence it is, what it is, and whither it is going.

It is a stranger and a pilgrim here. This is not its rest. Its Divine Head, its Lord, its life, its all, had not where to lay His head, when, with veiled glory He sojourned among men in pursuance of the wondrous undertaking which led Him from the regions of uncreated glory, to this sin-smitten earth; and it would ill become His Church to set her affections on things seen and temporal, and to love a world which refused Him a lodging. A rest remaineth, and an inheritance is reserved for her-a better rest than softest couch or gilded palace, and a richer inheritance than ever legacy bequeathed to mortal-but she must wait for both until the Lord of her heart comes into possession of His royal rights. She lives by faith, not by sight. All the graces that adorn her, the fruits of the Holy Spirit who has sealed her to the day of redemption, must be tested by the heats and colds, the biting storms and still more dangerous calms of time, and tried by the discipline, often severe, but always loving, of a Father's invisible hand. The end in view-the purpose to be served by this education in the wilderness-is so exceedingly important, both as it relates to God's ultimate design, and her own qualification for the destiny that awaits her, that counsels to patience are found to be

the very voice of Fatherly love. "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (James i. 2-4). When the mind of the Christian is in full sympathy with that of his Lord, he sees in such an admonition a depth of most blessed meaning. "I reckon," said one who was privileged to have an extraordinary insight into the mystery of the Church--"I reckon,"--I have come to this certain conclusion-"that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Rom. viii. 18). And again, "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. iv. 15-18).

Men who speak thus, declare plainly that they are on a journey; that the roughness of the road, though it pains and incommodes them, only strengthens the purpose to press forward; that their lofty aspirations soar beyond the highest heights of human ambition; that their hearts are set on a prize which will retain its lustre and value when the grandeur and glory of earth's glittering coronets and crowns shall be forgotten for ever, or remembered only as the meteoric flashes of a hollow dream; that though the tempest sweep, and the lightning flash, and the thunder roll, they cannot, will not, shall not turn back; and thus animated by a voice heard, and sustained by an arm felt, only by themselves, they will continue their marvellous, God-ward pilgrimage with girded loins, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto them at the Revelation of Jesus Christ. What a sublime thing is this rising of the heart to God! Where, throughout all the regions of human thought, is there anything to compare with it? Talk of the evidences of religion! Can you, with the eye of faith-for this region is not visible to that of sense-look upon this wonderful fact and ask for evidence? Here is the spirit of the saint, rising in adoring confidence and filial love to the very presence of God and the Lamb; realising its birthright's bliss in holy communion with the Father and the Son. This is no imaginary picture of possible privilege at rare intervals; it is the actual experience of the children of God, the saints who constitute the Church of the firstborn. And a wonderfully blessed fact connected with this is, that in ascending thus to the place where Jesus is, so far from feeling like strangers in a strange place, the idea of home happiness is there realised in the sweetness of a holy peace. "Whom, having not

seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Pet. i. 8).

This brings us to another characteristic of the Church: it is a citizen of heaven. This does not mean that the place called heaven is the end or local goal of its earthly sojourn; but that the citizenship, community, or commonwealth of Christ's people is now in heaven. "For our conversation," that is to say, citizenship, "is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. iii. 20, 21). "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace; wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. i. 3-6). "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ-by grace ye are saved-and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. ii. 4-6).

These Scriptures, and those of which they are specimens, point to an association with Jesus, too close, too sacred, to mean merely something which shall be in the future. They describe a present privilege of the most hallowed kind. They can teach nothing short of this, that there is a union, nay, a oneness, between the Saviour and His people, which results in their being virtually wherever He is actually present. The high priest of Judaism had the names of the tribes of Israel upon the precious stones of His breastplate when he appeared before the Lord in the Holy of Holies; but our Lord Jesus Christ, the High Priest of our profession, appears in the presence of God, not only as our forerunner and representative, but as embodying His people in Himself. The arrangement of the eternal purpose, in respect to this, is truly wonderful. He is there, not for Himself merely, but for His Church. Hence Paul writes, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Why? "For ye are dead,"-ye died-crucified with Christ, "and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 1, 2). This last position is uncommonly beautiful and suggestive. Where are saints, that is the reality of them, their life, themselves, not their earthly shadows? In heaven, "hid with Christ in God," until the time of their Lord's appearing. The life of the Church is in the keeping of the ascended Saviour, and He is able to keep it until the day of

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His return, when both He and His saints will for the first time, always excepting the typical glance on the mount of transfiguration, become visible in unveiled glory. Nay, further, as if to show the impossibility of any church-life apart from Christ, it is immediately added that He Himself is our life: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4). In this line of thought, indeed, we cannot speak of Christ and His Church as separate. He is the Head, they are the members; He is the Life, they are the body He animates. Hence such glowing gems of speech as these: "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John i. 4). I am the resurrection and the life" (John xi. 25). "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John xiv. 6). "The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us" (1 John i. 2). "God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son (1 John v. 11). "The Church which is His Body" (Eph. i. 22, 23). "He is the head of the body, the Church" (Col. i. 18).

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From all this then it is clear that the union of the saints with their ascended Lord is in His life. Virtually where He is there are they; for their life is with Christ, nay, Christ is their life. For any members of this celestial community, therefore, this body of the heavenly calling, to pass their days amidst the surging billows of doubt, or under the dark cloud of unbelief, is a wrong done to Christ, and a heavy affliction brought upon themselves. Let us feel that we have no sin that He has not expiated, no sorrow in which He does not sympathize, no discipline that He does not conduct for our welfare, and no future that is not completely under His control, and the animation of a Divine faith and a joyous hope will sustain us to the end, whether that end be our unclothing or our being clothed upon. Let us understand clearly that we have no life apart from Him, no interests which are not His, and no work to do in the world but to bear witness for Him, and the cloud-shadows of the wilderness will not be interpreted as interruptions of our communion with the Father and the Son, far less as omens that our salvation is in peril, and that the work of the Anointed of God is a failure so far as we are concerned. These black bewildering thoughts have no justification in the record, and we should not grieve the Spirit of Christ and rob ourselves of joy by cherishing them.

The Church is the temple of the Holy Spirit. This precious truth meets a difficulty which otherwise would press heavily upon us. That difficulty may be thus stated. Admitting all that you have said respecting the heavenly citizenship of the saints, their oneness with Christ their life, and their consequent privileges and safety, it must be allowed, upon the other hand, that the individuals composing this chosen family dwell in mortal bodies, are exposed to trials and temptations from the flesh, the world, and the devil, and are confessedly insufficient of themselves to fight the battle which