all true growth and ultimate attainment of the ideal perfection must spring, and so, would have to be transcended or set aside as of no intrinsic, immutable, imperishable value. But being truly divine in certain regards and as truly human in others, a living faith in and use of the former must, beyond all doubt or peradventure, eventuate in the complete renovation and purification of the latter, so that the great head of the church may at length, as the Apostle says, "present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it be holy and without blemish.”

In bringing this discourse to a close I am impressed to remark that the ecclesiastics of whatever age who overlooked the distinction of divine and human in the church and regarded it as wholly divine committed an error resulting in most mischievous consequences. Out of it arose naturally the assumption of the infallibility of the church in both its legislative and judicial capacity, and the decrees and verdicts of popes, councils, and other officials became engines of tyranny and persecution, while creeds and dogmas bearing the stamp of authority were invested with such sacredness and claims upon the human conscience that criticism and dissent became deadly heresy and schismatism, to be suppressed and crushed out by force if necessary in order to save the sanctity of the church. Under such circumstances, reform was well nigh impossible, and abuses and corruptions to a fearful extent came in to degrade the church and parallyze its influence as a redemptive agency in the life of mankind.

On the other hand, scarcely less mischief has been done by those who at any period of Christian history have maintained that the church is in all respects and has ever been only human, with no divine element in it whatsoever. This view of it removes the chief reason for its claims to the respect, confidence, and veneration of men, as it also sets at naught the chief source of its uplifting, regenerating power. If wholly human it must of necessity partake of the folly, imperfection, idiosyncrasy, unreason, and impiety ever found in human nature, and must be at every point and at all times. open not simply to criticism and correction but to suspicion and distrust. Under such conditions it could win to its membership and support but few, if any, intelligent, conscientious, devout adherents, and do but little to raise the world to a higher level and bring the better kingdom in.

But in regarding the church as both human and divine, as I have defined and applied those terms, we have not only a rational view of the matter and one justified by a reference to fundamental principles and the facts of the case, but one that gives us a working theory upon which to base all efforts to serve God and man in this department of moral responsibility. The divine gives sanctity, unity, permanence, authority to the church. The human, while accounting for its errors, mistakes, absurdities, abuses, outrages, affords likewise ample scope for variety of opinions and conduct, for flexibility of method, for adaption to constantly changing circumstances and needs, and allows the fullest.

exercise of wholesome, individual liberty.

The

divine furnishes a standard by which the human is to be tried-a test to which all incongruities, mistakes, immoralities, are to be brought and condemned, and also provides the means, the motives, the principles, the spirit, which are inherently capable of working out a reformation and unfolding into something better, and ultimately into the very best; bringing all things at length into complete subordination to and harmony with itself. Thus has the church in itself the promise and potency of its own purification and perfection. Thus shall its falsities, its crudities, its absurdities, its deformities, its corruptions, be sometime swept away, and it shall stand forth undefiled and transcendently glorious; a handmaid of God clothed in the immaculate and beautiful garments of Christlikeness.

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DISCOURSE III.

THE MORAL PLANE OF THE TRUE CHURCH.

"Ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world."-John xv. 19.

"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”. I Peter ii. 9.

"Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”—Titus ii. 14.

These texts indicate the specific theme of the present discourse, which in my last was stated. thus, viz:

2. "Its proper, God-designed plane of being and action (that of the church) is morally above, separate from, and independent of all other human. associations whatsoever; yet hostile to no truth or good in any of them and contending against their follies, errors, evils, by no other than beneficent and uninjurious forces, without wrong or harm to any human being. In the case of worldly, sword. sustained governments, claiming supreme authority and exercising arrogant power over its members, peaceable submission is enjoined upon all concerned, even to the extent of personal suffering and martyrdom, under the concession that such

governments are, in some rightful sense, ordained of God for the general good of communities, states, and nations, and, in their aggregate, of all mankind."

Christianity recognizes the existence of two worlds-two distinct states of being;- the material, sensuous, tangible, transitory world-the sphere of time and flesh and sense; and the immaterial, super-sensuous, intangible, immortal worldthe sphere of eternal and ever-enduring realities. It teaches that the laws, interests, and concerns of the latter are supreme in the divine economy of the universe, and to be so regarded by its disciples, and that all that pertains to the former are strictly subordinate and to be held subject thereto; the kingdom of God being first and all-important, all beside being secondary and subservient. It insists that what is true, right, and good for man as a denizen of the immortal world is best for him in the mortal sphere as well, and that he should govern himself accordingly. Upon the doctrine thus inculcated Christ founded his church. He declared that his kingdom was not of this world, that he himself was not and that his true disciples likewise were not. "They are not of the world," he said, “even as I am not of the world."

Now what are we to understand by these attestations? What did the Master design to teach by them? Not certainly that his kingdom was not in this present material, mortal sphere, incipiently, at least; not that he was not in it, nor that his disciples were not in it. Of course not. But though