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THE CHURCH IN EARNEST.

CHAPTER I.

THE DESIGNS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE CHURCH AS REGARDS THE PRESENT WORLD.

 

How much of history, as well as of religion; how much that is momentous to man as a pilgrim to immortality, as well as interesting to him as a sojourner upon earth, is associated with that most familiar, yet most significant word, The Church: what moral power, what high destiny, what divine operations and exalted purposes, are comprehended within its legitimate meaning! Yet no term has been more misunderstood, none more abused. What mistakes have been made about it; what controversies has it occasioned; what usurpation, and tyranny, and bloodshed, has it been made to sanction! and yet, if men would drop their prejudices and study the subject in that only volume which can decide every question relating to it and involved in it, how easily would it be understood, and how simply and correctly might it be stated!

 

The church, according to Scripture testimony, was a phrase in use before either Rome or England was known in connection with Christianity; and must mean something which would have existed had these places never received the gospel; and which would still exist, if they were the next hour sunk to the bottom of the ocean. To appropriate this appellation, therefore, to either of the ecclesiastical organizations bearing these names, and to call the Romish or the English communions "The church," is as great an impropriety as it would be to apply it to designate the Methodist, the Independent, or the Baptist body. There is a wider signification of the term, which enters into all systems of polity, gathering out of them those who "through grace have believed," and contemplating them apart from their sectional distinctions, associates them together by no other bond than the "like precious faith," and views them as possessing the common salvation - there is "The church."

 

It is in this sense the word is to be understood in this volume: as meaning that part of the mighty aggregate of God's redeemed people, who are still on earth, "working out their salvation with fear and trembling," and who are "the pillar and ground of truth." Beneath the thin covering of denominational distinctions, there, in all the true believers in Christ which they contain, lies the true church. These sects comprise the reality, contain the divine idea, but they are not identical with it. The fundamental creed of the true church is held by them all alike: and that faith which is essential to the church's existence is also in them all alike. There is much in each that is not of the church, and there is much in each that is. The true link of membership and union is nothing sacerdotal[1], or ceremonial, or political, but something moral and spiritual. Other things may be necessary to regulate the social relations of the various bodies of its professed members, and to direct their intercourse and operations - hence forms of polity and ceremonial observances - but the church itself consists of all "who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

 

What a community! A something divine amidst what is human - a heavenly citizenship on earth - an eternal production of Omnipotent love, surrounded by the ever perishing vanities of what is seen and temporal.

 

Such is  the church, - a kingdom, not of this world, chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost; and set up to be to the praise of his glory, "who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will," as "an habitation of God through the Spirit." None but God himself can adequately understand, much less fully comprehend, the vast importance, the intrinsic worth, the real glory, of this community: divested of all those foreign, impure, and disfiguring accretions which ignorance and superstition, fraud and ambition, have gathered around it, it is a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty in the hand of our God. How has this venerable and sacred name been abused and prostituted to sanction the principles, and abet the designs, of ecclesiastical tyranny; to inflame the darkest passions and perpetrate the foulest deeds; to subvert the liberties of mankind, and arrest the progress of social improvement; till "the church" has become the reproach of religion, the scoff of infidelity, and the deepest blot of history! But this is not the church, and the organizations which have called themselves such have but usurped an honor which does not belong to them.

 

It is quite time for all professing Christians to begin to think more of the church, as recognized by its divine Head, and less of their church, as limited by their peculiarities. They can never answer the end and purpose for which this community is set up in the world, till they better understand its nature. As long as they lose what is universal in what is partial; what is catholic in what is denominational; what is essential in what is circumstantial -  in short, as long as forms of polity, however important in their place, rather than fundamental truths, constitute, in their view, the basis of the church, the grand designs of God in reference to his kingdom upon earth cannot be fully carried out, and the end of its existence must be in some measure lost.

 

            What, then, is the design which God intends the church to accomplish in this world, and with relation to the world?

 

There is a subjective design which refers to itself, - this is obviously its own salvation. God, in the exuberance of his love, and in the riches of his mercy, has determined to save, through the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ, all those who repent and believe. These he will redeem by the blood of the cross, and the grace of the Spirit, from the guilt, power, and love of sin, from death and hell, and bring into a state of favor and holiness here, and to the felicities and honors of heaven hereafter: and all this to the praise of the glory of his own grace, wisdom, truth and justice.

 

But we now speak of the objective purpose of the church, so far as this purpose applies to our world. This is two-fold - it is designed to be a witnessing and a proselyting church- to be, in other words, the depository and the herald of truth.

 

The first part of its mission is to receive the truth, and bear testimony for God in, and to, our world. The universe is full of witnesses for its divine Creator. "There is one important respect in which all its objects, from the atom to the arch-angel, unite - all are witnesses for God." "The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth forth his handy-work." Everything on our earth, by silent yet expressive testimony, speaks of God, and for him. Science, the great prophet and expounder of nature, and all her sons, bear constant, though in some instances reluctant, testimony for him who created all things by his power. Chemistry bears witness to his wisdom, astronomy to his immensity, and geology to his eternity. On every leaf, every blade, and every pebble, He has written his name and impressed his character, so that while the solitary voice and gloomy lie of the atheist are saying there is no God, the million voices around him contradict him, and even the pulses of his own heart, and every atom of that organ, contradict him and say, "There is, and He is thy Maker."

 

But there are other witnesses for God, who give forth a fuller and more impressive testimony than the material universe, viewed as a whole, or contemplated in its separate parts. To the question, "What is God as to his moral character, and his disposition towards the sinful inhabitants of our globe," this oracle is dumb: to the inquiry, "How shall a man be just with God," no response is given forth. The sun with all his glory, the moon with all her beauty, and the earth with all its various contents, deliver no testimony of mercy for fallen, guilty man. For this high purpose is the church raised up; this is her momentous vocation, her solemn duty, her blessed privilege. "She is first a focus in which all light from heaven should meet, and all the sanctified excellence of heart be collected and combined; that it might next be a center whence the light of truth might radiate and pour forth in all directions over the face of the earth."

           

First of all, there is the divine Head of the church himself. Of him it was predicted, "He shall be for a witness to the people." He claimed this prerogative; he asserted this to be his mission, when standing at the bar of Pilate. "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." The same mission is claimed for him by the beloved apostle, where he calls him "the faithful and true witness." He is personally the true tabernacle of witness, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He came from the bosom of the Father to reveal the nature, plans, purposes, and the work of God. He is "the Word," the great prophet, the "true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." In the mysterious constitution of his person, and in the accomplishment of his mediatorial work by his death, resurrection and intercession, he stands before the universe as an embodiment of truth. The mingled glories of the divine nature and the full revelation of the divine plans, stream forth from his cross, as a comprehensive and sublime testimony to all that is necessary for man to know and believe in order to obtain salvation.

 

Next to him, comes the goodly company of the apostles, to repeat in echo the testimony of Christ; and not only by their living voice, but by their inspired and immortal writings, to send to the uttermost ends of the earth, and down to the latest posterity, the witness of the Son of God.

 

But neither the Lord Jesus, nor his apostles, are the church, and it is the whole church to whom God says, "Ye are my witnesses." It is the whole body of the faithful, "the general assembly and church of the firstborn," to whom this momentous commission is entrusted, on whom this solemn duty is devolved. We must ever think of the truths to which the witness of the church is to be borne. The unity, spirituality, attributes, and works of the Eternal Father - the divinity and mediation of Christ - the personality, divinity, and operations of the Spirit - the doctrines of regeneration and justification - the greatness and attainableness of salvation - the necessity of holy obedience - the reality and glory of eternal life for the righteous - and the certainty of eternal death for the wicked. Such is in substance the truth to which the company of the redeemed are to depose before a dark and wicked world. Such are the verities in support of which the voice of the church is to be lifted up on our earth. Viewing man as a moral agent, a sinful creature, a ruined immortal, what to him are all the facts and wonders of science, compared with these things, but as the trifle of a moment, the small dust of the balance?

 

Such is the vocation of every single Christian, however young, or poor, or uneducated, to hold up these realities before the minds of men, and attest their divine truth, their power, and excellence. Hence the descriptions given by the apostle of the design  and business of the church, where he calls her, the pillar and ground of the truth. Not that the church either originates or accredits the truth, - not that it constitutes the obligation of obeying it, or infallibly and authoritatively expounds its meaning, - but that it is merely the depository of it for the world, and holds it up to be seen and known upon the earth. She is the Pharos of the moral world, the lighthouse of this dark region, exhibiting to public notice, and for general observation, all those subjects which stand connected with man's highest obligations, dearest interests, and immortal hopes. This high vocation, this holy mission, she is to fulfill by sustaining the Christian ministry; by keeping safely her creeds, catechisms, and other formularies; by looking well to the education of her children; by taking care for the instruction of her members in Christian doctrine and duty; by holding fast the form of sound words, and attaching importance to right sentiments; by giving encouragement to orthodox literature; by "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints;" in short, by every way in which an intelligent and firm yet catholic spirited and tolerant zeal for truth can be maintained and diffused. Every Christian man and woman must consider that it is by the truth the world is to be converted to Christ, and all the purposes of divine grace fulfilled, and that they are called to be the conservators of that truth. "He that believeth hath the witness [or testimony] in himself." He has it as a sacred deposit laid up in his mind, to be ever carried about with him wherever he goes, and is to watch it with the same care as he would if he were individually the last light of the world, and the only remaining witness for God upon the face of the earth.

 

How high and honorable a vocation! but withal how awful and responsible its duty - to bear witness for God! To be called to the work of perpetually bearing testimony, before an ignorant and careless world, on such topics! To lift up, amidst the din of politics, the bustle of commerce, the pretensions of science, and the shouts of folly, a voice which shall remind the busy and eager throng, that there are other and more important matters than these, which deserve and demand their attention! To exhibit truths that relate to another world, and which appeal exclusively to faith, to the men who are wholly absorbed in objects of sense! To obtrude the solemn verities of heaven, hell, and eternity, upon the attention of those who mind earthly things! To add the living voice, the acting power of a truthful and consistent example, to the silent testimony for God and religion which is borne by the churches and chapels that are planted in our streets, to scatter the beams of divine truth over the darkness of the surrounding scenes; while, at the same time, they open their doors to welcome the inquirers after the reality and repose of a better world. This, this is the church's mission and vocation: for this she is kept upon earth to be a witness for God, where God is so much forgotten, and to be so far his representative amidst his too thoughtless and disobedient creatures.

 

Already, then, does the need of earnestness commend itself to our judgment, and come home to our heart and conscience. With what state of mind should the church apply herself to such a commission? Is this a work to be touched with careless hands, or pursued with listless steps! If, in ordinary and unimportant matters, matters which affect the character and the temporal interests of a fellow-creature, witness-bearing is esteemed of importance, and should be entered upon with seriousness, care, and caution, how much more so when we are to bear witness for God, and deliver a testimony that must inevitably affect the eternal welfare of immortal souls! If false witnessing be branded with such infamy, when it is offered in cases that relate to the character and the wellbeing of a fellow creature, what degree of criminality must be attached to the act of bearing false witness for God!

 

Such a view is indeed most impressive, and has not yet perhaps received all the attention due to it from professing Christians. The mission and obligation of the church are the mission and obligation of the individual members of which it is composed, for it can in this case no otherwise act than by its individual members. To every reader of this work, these considerations are now addressed. You, yes, you, personally and individually, are intended to be a witness for God: have you thought of this, and are you habitually thinking of it? This is the end and purpose of your conversion: for this you are kept upon earth, instead of being immediately taken to heaven. You are asked, yea, implored, seriously to consider and accurately to understand your position, your duties, your responsibility. God detains you here to be a light to the world, and you can do this only by your personal religion. Think what kind of religion that ought to be which is to teach men, by what is seen in you, the nature of God, the work of Christ, the certainty of immortality, the value of salvation. Think how you ought to act if you would have it said of you, "His conduct is a true witness to all these matters." Will a lukewarm, careless, worldly, inconsistent piety answer such ends? Are you a true or a false witness? Tremble, as you well may, at the idea of giving to the world a lying testimony for God. Do, do ask whether you are giving out, and living out, the truth concerning him and his word in your habitual character and conduct?

 

To bear witness for the truth, however, is not the only purpose which God intends should be accomplished by his church, but also to propagate it.  It is not only to receive the treasure, but to diffuse it; not only to be a stationary oracle, giving out its responses to those who come to it for guidance, but to be a messenger carrying the proclamation into all lands. The Jewish church was a witness, and a glorious one too, for God. Its temple, with its altar, its sacrifices, and its worship; its kings, its prophets, and its priests; its sabbaths, and, above all, its lively oracles, bore witness for Jehovah. Its very locality, situated as it was in almost the very center of the civilized world, and surrounded as it was by none but idolatrous nations, was admirably suited to this purpose. There stood the tabernacle of witness, there was the oracle of testimony, ever speaking, not only to the Jews, but to the multitudes of idol-worshiping people that dwelt in their immediate vicinity. The light of that heaven-kindled splendor might have been seen from afar, even by those who dwelt in the realms of darkness, and the valley of the shadow of death. The worshipers of Baal and Moloch, of Ashtaroth and of Tammuz, had only to turn towards Judea to see a light which revealed the atrocity of their conduct, and to hear a voice which rebuked their iniquity. Still this witness was stationary; it gleamed like a beacon from afar, but it did not revolve like the sun; it commissioned its priests and its prophets to receive all that came for instruction, but it did not bid them carry the glad tidings to distant realms. It opened a quiet haven into which the tempest-tossed ships might sail for refuge, but it did not send out the life-boat to fetch the sailors from the wreck; it opened its fold to the returning sheep, but did not send out its shepherd to seek after him in the wilderness, to bring him back; it welcomed the prodigal on his return, but did not, like the father in the parable, go out to look for him; all this belongs to the wider comprehension, and the richer mercy of the Christian system. True it is that Judaism enjoined the same neighbor-love as does the Christian dispensation, and made it the duty of a Jew, if his brother erred, to restore him; and if he sinned, to rebuke him for his recovery; but the law enjoined no mission to the Gentiles; it contented itself with summoning the surrounding nations to come and receive instruction from its prophets and its priests; it sent them no message of life; no word of salvation.[2]

 

But now turn to the dispensation, the brightest and the richest ever granted to man, under which it is our mercy to live. Christianity has nothing local in its institutions, nothing limited in its provisions, nothing exclusive in its spirit. When the Sun of Righteousness rose upon our world, it was not to stand still on the hills and valleys of Judea, but with the mild aspect of universal benevolence, to pursue a course round the whole earth. Jesus Christ, by the power of his cross, threw down the middle wall of partition, and, standing upon its ruins, gathered his apostles around him, and said unto them, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Begin at Jerusalem, and let those that struck the rock be the first to drink of its healing streams; but stay not there; let repentance and remission of sins be preached to all nations. Content not yourselves, as did the priests and the prophets of the law, with inviting the perishing outcasts to come and be saved, but go to them. Mine is a richer grace, the very fullness of mercy; go, therefore, and carry to every perishing child of Adam the offer of love, the means of salvation; and neither rest nor stop till not an individual shall have to say, 'No man careth for my soul.'"

 

Such is the nature, the spirit, and the design of Christianity, and such its difference from Judaism: its doctrines, its duties, its institutions, have no peculiarities that fit them only for one place, or one people, but are like the light of the sun, and the air we breathe, adapted to every age and every people, whether burning under the line, or shivering at the poles; whether enlightened by science and polished by learning, or whether wrapt in the gloom of barbarism and degraded to the brutal habits of savage life. And as it is adapted to all, so it is intended for all: no one nation can claim a deeper interest than another in the love of the Saviour, or the blessings of salvation. He is the Redeemer of the world. And the gospel being intended for all, it is the duty of those who possess it to extend it to those who have it not. Christianity explains the glowing language and splendid imagery in which the ancient seers had predicted the times of the Messiah; and has revealed secrets which came not within the horizon of their far-seeing eye; it has cleared up every perplexity, the solution of which eluded their inquiries, often as they employed themselves in "searching what and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." They perceived, through the clouds of their own dispensation, and amidst the haze of futurity, a dim splendor, which they could not comprehend. Those clouds have rolled off; that haze has cleared up, and though still future and distant, the glory of the millennial age is seen by us spreading over all lands. From the mount of vision we behold the beauties of holiness covering every region, and hear the song of salvation rising from every land. To our believing and enraptured eye, no less an object presents itself than the whole earth reposing in peace beneath the scepter of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

How much is to be realized in that wondrous scene of grace and glory, to which, notwithstanding its present aspect of crime, and curse, and misery; notwithstanding its present attitude of revolt, hostility, and enmity against God; its present bondage to idolatry, tyranny, and barbarism; our groaning earth, our weeping, bleeding, miserable world, is destined by a God of love! And how, but by the instrumentality of those who proclaim themselves his children by breathing his own Spirit, is this glorious regeneration of the nations to be accomplished! Yes, here is the vocation, the business, and the triumphs of the church. All this is to be done, not by the intervention of angels, but by the agency of man. The treasure of Christ's immeasurable riches is deposited, not in vessels of gold, cast and burnished in heaven, but in vessels of earthly mold, and evincing the weakness, the coarseness, and the brittleness of their original. To the church, Jehovah is ever saying, "for this purpose have I raised thee up, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Behold I send thee far hence to the Gentiles." In fulfilling this commission, the church is not to take her stand upon Calvary, and lifting up the blood-sprinkled sign, to summon the gods of the heathen to come and yield up their usurpations at her feet: no, but she is to carry that blessed symbol into the very Pantheon of idolatry, and by the power of God to drive out the rabble of divinities, and take possession of their desolate abode for him. She is to commence an invasion of the territory of Satan, rescue vassal nations from his yoke, overturn the altars of paganism on her march, and win the world for Him whose right it is to reign.

 

Here, we repeat, here is the purpose of God in continuing his church upon earth - to extend herself by her own sanctified energies, till by holding forth the fact and doctrine of the cross, she shall draw all men unto him that hung upon it. It is not for us to speculate upon the question whether the world's conversion could have been accomplished in any other way. It is enough for us to know that this is the way God has chosen, and ordained for this purpose. The weakness of the instrument magnifies the power of him by whom it is made efficient, and at the same time humbles the pride of that great adversary, who is to be utterly vanquished in the contest. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8.

 

Let the church well consider what her divine Head has thus entrusted to her hands, and is ever expecting from her exertions. Her own improvement, of course, is one part of her duty, as we shall afterwards show: for what must her own internal condition be to fit her for such an occupation; but this is only a part of her duty; the other part is - to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord.

 

Satan, when expelled from heaven, chose this earth as the place where he would raise the standard of revolt against Christ, as he had done in heaven, where he would fix the scene of his hostility, and the seat and center of his empire of darkness. Hither has the Lord followed him, to bruise his head, and wrest the scepter from his hands. For a while, and even yet to a considerable extent, the victory seems on the side of the god of this world. The conflict is, however, still going on: the battle still rages: and Jesus Christ summons his church to his standard. For this purpose, to secure his ultimate victory over Satan, he is "head over all things to his church," and holds the government of the universe in his hands. He has one line of policy, and one plan of action, in all he does; and that is the destruction of Satan's kingdom, and the establishment of his own. For this the wheels of nature roll on, and the cycles of time are ever revolving. He is bending everything to his purpose, and gathering up everything into his scheme. The revolutions of empires, the issues of battles, the ambition of heroes, and the rise and fall of monarchs: the progress of civilization, the efflux of emigration, and the formation of colonies; the discoveries of science, and the inventions of arts; the course of the traveler, and the speculations of the philosopher; the decrees of councils, the edicts of monarchs, and the debates of senates: - all, all, are within the sphere of his dominion, subject to the control of his power, and tributary to the advancement of his cause.

 

"As the world," says an American preacher, "was wholly intended for the scene of redemption, all the good which it contains belongs to the plan of grace that was laid in Christ. His kingdom comprises every valuable object which God proposed to himself in creating, preserving, and governing the world; the whole amount of his glory upon earth, and the immortal blessedness of millions of men. It is the only cause on earth that deserves an anxious thought: it is the only interest which God pursues or values. For this sole object were men created, and placed in this world, with social affections adapted to their present state. No one interest distinct from the kingdom of Christ are they required to pursue. No laws but such as directly or indirectly, proximately or ultimately, appertain to this kingdom, were ever enacted by heaven to direct their concerns. Their secular employments, their social duties, are enjoined in subordination to this kingdom. Their private and social propensities they are not indeed required to extinguish, but with these about them to march with a strong and steady step towards this great object, with their eye filled with its magnitude, and with hearts glowing with desires for its promotion. It is required that whether they eat, or drink, or whatever they do, they should do all with reference to this object. As then we can rely on the decisions of infinite wisdom, expressed both in the precepts and example of God, we are assured that this kingdom ought to engross the supreme cares of men, and exert a commanding influence over all their actions. The bosom of the child should be taught to beat with delight at the name of Jesus, before it is capable of comprehending the nature of his kingdom. The youth ought to regulate all his pleasures, his actions, and his hopes, with an eye fixed on this kingdom. The man ought to respect it in every important undertaking, in all his common concerns, in the government of his passions, and in the thoughts of his heart. Instead of pursuing with headlong zeal their own separate interests, all men should join in promoting this kingdom as the common interest of mankind - the great concern for which they were sent into the world.

 

"In applying this subject, I would summon, if I were able, all the kingdoms of the earth to arise in one mass to urge forward the cause of the Redeemer. Assemble, ye people, from the four quarters of the globe; awake, ye nations, from your sleepy pillows - combine in this grand object of your existence, this common interest of the world. Ye husbands and wives, why are ye searching for happiness out of this kingdom, and overlooking the cause of Christ, as though he had no right to hold an interest on earth? Know ye, that no man is licensed to set up another on this ground, which is sacred to the Redeemer. What have ye to do in this world, if ye will not serve the Lord's anointed? If ye will not submit to his dominion, and join to advance his cause; go, go, to some other world - this world was made for Christ. But whither can ye go from his presence? All worlds are under his dominion. Ah! then return and let your bosoms swell with the noble desire to be fellow-workers with the inhabitants of other worlds in serving this glorious kingdom.

 

"My brethren, my brethren! while all the agents in the universe are employed, some with fervent desire, and others by involuntary instrumentality, to advance the cause of Christ, will an individual of you refuse it your cordial support? Can you in the center of universal action consent to remain in a torpid state, absorbed in private cares, and contracted into a littleness for which you were never designed? Awake, and generously expand your desires to encircle this benevolent and, holy kingdom."

 

This is as true as it is eloquent, and lays before us in a most impressive manner our duty, our business, and our honor, as professing Christians. How little is this practically considered by the great bulk of professing Christians - yea, how little is it understood, or even admitted! How deeply are they sunk in the love and pursuits of the world, and how almost entirely occupied by its cares or its enjoyments! How few of them indulge and cherish such reflections as these: "I live in no ordinary age, either as respects the world or the church; and I must therefore be a man of the age, and for it ! I cannot flatter myself into the belief that I am one of those extraordinary individuals who are before their age; but then I need not be one of those mean and creeping ones who are behind it. I learn clearly from the Scriptures that Christ's church is a missionary church, and that the spirit of Christianity is essentially a proselyting one. I am not to consider myself as sent into the world merely to get wealth, and enjoy myself. I am the servant of Christ, and must do my Master's work. I am bought with a price, and am not my own, and must yield myself up to my divine Proprietor. I am a soldier, and I am put in requisition by him to whom I belong. I am called out to service. The trumpet bids me to take my station round the standard, and join my comrades in arms to fight the battles of my Lord. The world is in rebellion and hostility against Christ, and I must take the field, and endeavor to bring it into subjection to him. I am but one - but I am one. I cannot do much, but I can do something: and all I can do, I ought to do; and by God's grace will do."

 

It is to be known and recollected, I repeat, that what is the business or vocation of the church, is the business or vocation of everyone of its members. This is not the work of apostles, or of reformers, or of ministers, or of missionaries only, it is your work by whomsoever these pages are read. In the movements and actions of the body, there is the movement and action of each limb, organ, and sense, and all animated by the one vitalizing, guiding, and impulsive soul; and each contributes its measure of service in accomplishing whatever is achieved. There was no more and no other obligation to convert sinners resting on the conscience of the apostle Paul, viewed simply as a Christian, than rests now upon the conscience of each member of the Christian church. If you ask, then, by whom is the high destiny of the church to be fulfilled, the answer comes directly back, by you. You, each one of you, are the church, at least in part; and in part the church's business lies with you. Ask not for any special. command that is to bind you; we may rather inquire for the special release that exempts you. You cannot be freed from the duty, the personal duty, of seeking the world's conversion, without a fresh revelation from heaven. You must have a new Bible if you would be freed from this obligation,and a new order of things set up; for the old Bible and the old order clearly lay this obligation upon you. Would you wish to be freed from this obligation? What, so insensible to the honor of being a witness for God, and his instrument in converting the world, as to wish to devolve it upon another! Is this the life that comes from Christ the vine, into the branches grafted into him? Is this the vital power which proceeds from the head into everyone of the members?

 

Do ask what you are doing and how you are living. Do the men of the world see clearly that while you are as diligent in business, as careful of your families, as good citizens as they are, you have another errand upon earth, another object of pursuit, another engrossing interest, than anything to be found among things seen and temporal? Are you carrying out the noble assertion of the apostle, made on behalf of the whole church, "Our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven"? Does the spiritual patriotism of the kingdom of Christ glow in your bosom, as the love of his country did in that of the Roman citizen in the purest age of the Republic? Or are you taken up in getting and enjoying wealth, grandeur, and worldly ease? Citizens of the New Jerusalem, inhabitants of the holy city that cometh down out of heaven, I call upon you to rouse from your lethargy, to throw off your indolence, your worldliness, and to gird yourselves for the great work of bearing testimony for God to a dark, infatuated, and miserable world. Leave it not to ministers and missionaries; it is yours also to lift high the heaven-lighted torch which is to illumine the earth. But then, for such a purpose, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness! What an honor, and what an arduous one too, would you deem it, to have a commission to carry a specific to a country where the plague was sweeping its inhabitants by millions to the grave! Or to be the herald of· emancipation to a nation of slaves! Or to convoy a fleet of vessels laden with food to a starving people! But infinitely higher than this is your commission, for you are put in trust with the gospel for curing the diseases, achieving the liberty, and providing the food, of countless millions of immortal souls. God has called you first of all to obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory, for yourself; and being thus qualified for the work, then, as far as in you lies, to extend that salvation to the ends of the earth. Christians, there is your vocation: understand it, value it, pursue it :

 

            "'Tis what might fill an angel's heart,

            And filled a Saviour's hands."

 

Now a proselyting church must of course be an earnest one. He must have formed very inadequate ideas of what is necessary for the conversion of a world from sin and Satan, to Christ and holiness, who imagines this will ever be done without the most intense earnestness, and a degree of self-devotement which has never been witnessed, except in a comparatively few instances, since the days of the apostles. It was this that made even the heroic Paul exclaim, in an agonizing consciousness of inability, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Let any one imagine what a triumph over all the selfishness, the cupidity[3], the worldliness, the indolence, the luxuriousness, which are to be found among professors, must take place; and what a predominance of the holy, heavenly, spiritual, self-denying, generous virtues must come on - what a general breaking down of all the barriers of prejudice between different denominations of Christians must be effected - what a fair and open field for the operations of Christian zeal must be presented - what a mighty growth of spiritual power from all sections of the one church must be exhibited - before ever these realms of darkness and wickedness are evangelized. What a great work it must be to overtake the population of even this country with the means of religious instruction, and to reclaim from sterility and desolation the vast and neglected wastes which are found here; and to drain and cultivate these pestilent bogs of ignorance, crime, and misery! And this is only but as the homestead, and the garden, compared with the wilderness of Paganism and Mohammedanism which lies beyond. Let any man cast his eye over a map of our globe, with a geographical and historical knowledge of the tyrannical governments, the idolatrous religions, the savage barbarism, the multifarious languages, the unapproachable suspicion, which are comprehended under the names and within the lines that are before him; and then think of winning all this to Christ, and covering all these dark domains of sin and Satan with the beauties of holiness, the joys of hope, and the blessings of salvation - and yet this is the business of the church, its labor, and its hope. Will these valleys be filled up, these mountains be leveled? Will these crooked things be made straight, and these rough places be made plain, without an earnestness we have never yet witnessed? Is there not an agonizing effort, such as we know nothing about, yet to be called forth, by which all this is to be achieved? We have even yet to learn what kind of work we have undertaken, in setting our hands to the world's conversion; and must be made to learn, perhaps, more painfully, more impressively, than we have yet done, the nature of the difficulties that are to be overcome, that we may see what kind of men, and what kind of efforts, are required for the accomplishment of the marvelous and glorious consummation.

 

This is the burden which the Lord has laid upon us of this age, above most other ages that have preceded us, and which we dare not cast off from us; but concerning which we must set ourselves to inquire how it is to be borne, so as that his work may prosper, and the church of our day well and successfully do her part.

 

It is but too evident that the church of this age, and, perhaps, with few exceptions, the church of every age, has but very imperfectly and inadequately understood her vocation as a testifying and proselyting body. She has been too secular and too selfish. She has not allowed the wondrous truths which she professes to exert all their power, and has quenched the Divine Spirit which dwelleth in her as in his bodily temple. Christians seem to be trying the dangerous and desperate experiment of gaining just religion enough to save them from hell and take them to heaven; rather than putting forth all their desires and energies to see how much of the light, and power, and joy of true godliness they can possess. They seem as if they would be content to float into the haven of eternal rest upon any plank or fragment of the shipwrecked vessel, rather than intensely long to make a prosperous voyage, and have an "abundant entrance," with every sail set, the precious cargo all preserved, and to drop their anchor amidst the acclamations of the admiring multitudes who throng the heavenly strand.

 

We can conceive that a time will come when the heavenly and holy calling will be better understood and more perfectly exhibited. When Christians will be seen on every hand, taking up as their rule of conduct the apostle's epitome of his whole moral self, and saying in truth, "For me to live is Christ." When personal ease, domestic comfort, and the acquisition of wealth, knowledge or fame, though not neglected, will all be considered as very secondary and subordinate matters to the great business of bearing testimony for God, and converting the world to him. When they will feel that "the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself," and consider themselves as something sacred to God, formed for himself to show forth his praise. Instead of looking with envy and an imitative propensity on the men of this world, who devote themselves wholly and successfully to the acquisition of wealth, grandeur and power, they will pray to be delivered from them, as pursuing a low, sordid, and a sinful course, compared with their own, in witnessing for God, and spreading the savor of his knowledge through the world; and will feel that so that they do but fulfill their mission, they can be content to be the witnesses who prophesy in sackcloth. They will no more dream of giving themselves up to personal ease and enjoyment, as the great object of desire and pursuit, to the neglect or lukewarm accomplishment of the design of their profession, than would an ambassador sent to bear testimony for his sovereign and his nation in a foreign court, and before an antagonistic and hostile people. Up then, ye soldiers of the cross - gird you for the conflict - quit you like men. The world is all before you. The commission is in your hands. Victory awaits you. With such a Captain and such a cause, what enemy could prevent you from winning the world for Christ, and immortal honors for yourselves?

 

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[1]This was a common term in the 19th century used to describe the man-made insertion of a human priest between God and man by the Roman Catholic and high Anglican churches. The priest gave them a means of defining the 'true' church by determining who had partaken of the ordinances he offered, which, according to their teachings, alone could give entrance into the kingdom. [ed.]

[2]   See this beautifully illustrated in Dr. Harris' Sermon, entitled "The Witnessing Church," (republished in Boston, in a small volume, with       several other works of Dr. Harris, under the title of the "Active Christian.")

[3]Originally from the Latin, cupidus, meaning desire. It came into common usage in 15th century England, and was used to describe an inordinate desire, usually greed. [ed.]