Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

BS 1192 08

57246

CAMBRIDGE:

ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

ONE loves to trace the stream upward to its fountain. Christianity was first preached in Paradise. Adam and Eve were the first believers. Abel was the first Christian martyr. They lived and loved, and prayed and praised, in the grey and misty dawn. They looked forward and upward to the rising of the Sun of righteousness, and rejoiced in the increasing light. In their faith and hope, the "woman's seed" was all and in all. By faith Enoch and Noah walked with God. These ancient saints did not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God.

-

The Church I ever regard, not as an ecclesiastical hierarchy - Episcopate or Presbyterate — however useful these features may be in their place, but as the company of faithful Christians, the congregation of all believers. On earth it has been sometimes hidden, often few, occasionally visited

with exterminating persecution, yet never extinguished. "Lo, I am with you always to the end of the world," is her inherited promise. "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," is her experience. "I give unto them eternal life, and none shall pluck them out of my hand," is her safety. All our visible churches are merely provisional or temporary arrangements, till that which is perfect comes; that is, till "the manifestation of the sons of God." Then that which is provisional shall be done away, and that which is perfect will alone

remain.

It is in vain that we belong to the outer and visible, if we be strangers to the inner and true church. May we feel it personally important to edify the latter, and less and less our interest or duty to quarrel about the former.

The author hopes to present in another volume The Church of the Patriarchs, as soon as he can spare time to arrange it.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« НазадПродовжити »