Word of Life," to arrest the attention, to embody, so to speak, unseen realities, and raise the thoughts upward towards GOD, and therefore when "He ascended up on high," the SAVIOUR of the world sent down in visible form "gifts" of grace to men,-the gifts of His HOLY SPIRIT,-that we might be "no more like children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive us," "but speaking the truth in love, might grow up into HIM Which is the Head, even CHRIST."

Assured,

with the Apostle, that it is of GOD's Own appointment, a part of that "mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in HIM," of that eternal purpose which He purposed in CHRIST JESUS," that "unto principalities and powers," unto Angels in Heaven and men upon earth," the manifold wisdom of GOD" should be henceforth "known" through the instrumentality of His visible Church.

"The visible Church of CHRIST," then, as constituted of GOD on earth, is the ordained visible link which shall cement the union upon which our hopes depend: in her, therefore, the tender anxiety of parents and teachers, who are, during our state of tutelage, as it were, in GoD's stead to us, doth engraft us in our infant years. At the Holy Font of Baptism chosen Sponsors do declare in our name, that we will renounce our servitude to Satan, and turn unto God, that we will be faithful to God's Ordinances, and obedient to God's Will; which promises, then made for us, we take openly upon ourselves when we come to the rite of Confirmation in maturer years; and if we be sincere

in this profession of our faith, we are thence led (by the Church,) to seek fresh supplies of Divine Grace in that most sacred of our privileges,-the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Blessed LORD. And thus, under the fostering hand of our good Mother, we are not suffered for a moment to forget the round of duties and responsibilities which lie upon us. She is to us, as it were, a blessed instrument ordained of GOD, to excite in us holy affections, which shall draw us heavenward. Our "day's-man," or umpire, as holy Job hath it, standing between us and CHRIST, "laying Her hand upon us both," the "ladder," so to speak, upon which, intent to do their MASTER's bidding, "Angels of God ascend and descend upon the sons of

Now all this is beautifully set before us by the Apostle Paul, both in other of His Epistles, and more particularly in his Epistle to the Christians at Ephesus, in which is written the passage of the text. This Epistle was directed against some who would disturb the Churches of Asia, teaching that Justification was still, as under the Old Covenant, by "the works of the Law." The Apostle, however, exhorts the Ephesians not to suffer themselves to be deceived by any such vain words: the dispensation of GoD's Grace, he assures them, is now changed. The New Covenant is not a Covenant of "Works" but of "Faith," and Grace is now given in the communication of the HOLY GHOST from the FATHER and the SoN, to His beloved Church. And this the Apostle declareth to be a portion of that great "Mystery which from the beginning of the world indeed hath been hid in GOD, but is now 2 Gen. xxviii. 12. 3 St. John i. 51.

1 Job ix. 33.
Ephes. ii. 8, 9, et seq.

made manifest to the intent that (as he himself continueth,) unto principalities and powers" (not only on earth, but) “in heavenly places, might be known by the Church, the manifold Wisdom of God.""

The Church, then, in Her ministrations and teaching, is the ordained visible channel whereby the manifold Wisdom of GOD is to be made known to man. Hence the Apostle elsewhere says, "I would have you know, brethren, that the Head of CHRIST is GOD"; but again, "CHRIST is the Head of the Body-the Church,” of which "Body we are members"; for as God hath set the members, each one of them, in the natural body, so also in the mystical, and we (that is, all baptized Christians,) are "members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones"; as then, in the natural man, the life, and strength, and nourishment which floweth from the head is supplied to the hands and feet, and the rest of the members, only through the channels of the natural body, the veins and arteries which maintain the circulation healthy and equable: so is it in like manner in the spiritual; so, verily, through the Sacraments and Ordinances of His visible Church, which are, as it were, the veins and arteries of His Mystical Body, doth the Head of the Body," our LORD and SAVIOUR JEsus CHRIST, diffuse His Gifts of Grace, our spiritual life's blood, to all her faithful members; and thus are we said to be "GOD's husbandry," "GOD's building," "rooted and built up in HIM," "stablished in the Faith," "lively stones of that spiritual edifice" whereof CHRIST "lay in Sion the Chief Corner Stone," "in

Whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth into one holy Temple in the LORD.""

But though it be indeed true, according to the voice of Scripture, that the only revealed way whereby we may be in union with CHRIST upon earth, is through His Body-the Church, yet may we never forget that the same unerring voice doth as positively declare that it is very possible to be in the Church, and yet not of the Church, that "all are not Israel" who profess to be "of Israel," " that there are many persons whose membership is a mere outward membership, whose faith is only a thing to talk about, not an active Christian principle, who are indeed nominally engrafted into the true Vine, but not being rightly united thereto can bring forth no fruit,—these, verily, are as "tares,' which, though "sown among the wheat, shall in the end be separated, and men "gather them," and "bind them in bundles to burn": as "grass' they are which withereth before it be grown up, whereof the mower filleth not his hands, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom." GOD is not the GoD "the living,-the

of the dead but of the living," living," O! GOD they alone can "praise THEE," they that live in CHRIST can alone wait upon His service with joy, and who verily can be said to "live in CHRIST" except "the SPIRIT of CHRIST dwelleth in him," none can be of "CHRIST'S building " whose bodies are not "temples," fit for the indwelling of the HOLY GHOST: " for what man," (speaketh the Apostle) "knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of GOD

knoweth no man but the SPIRIT of GOD." In Holy Baptism is that SPIRIT of GOD first given; over those sacramental waters first sanctified by the Baptism of CHRIST in the river Jordan to the mystical washing away of man's sin; over those sacramental waters, as upon the face of the waters of the primeval world, doth the Third Person of the Gophead descend from on high with saving wings, to command light to shine out of darkness, to summon the chaotic mass of original corruption and sin, into obedience to the laws of Divine grace; to set, as it were, the spiritual seal to the covenant there ratified; to knit in one holy band man and GOD; and at the Table of our Blessed LORD in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood are those gifts of GOD'S SPIRIT daily renewed to those who come believing; we may indeed, through the infirmity of our nature, "fall from grace given," but then we may "return unto God and amend our lives," for GOD is ever "waiting" to be gracious. may "grieve the SPIRIT" of GOD by withstanding His inspirations and despising His gifts, and whenever we do so we doubtless are in a condition of extreme danger, but we may also on the other hand "stir up" the spirit of GOD which is in us, by a more increased practice of Godliness, a more devout fervour in our endeavours to obey His Will, and a more frequent manifestation of gratitude for past mercies. True indeed, and very sad that it should be so, that though God giveth His grace to all who are brought to HIM according to His commands and so places all baptized Christians in the way of salvation; yet in stubborn perversity do many still cling to the ways of sin, and thus not only is the spirit "grieved," but often

We

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