head, which is alive forever more; its door, which no man can shut; its law, which endureth forever; its walls, salvation; and all the people of God, who compose it. Since, however, there never has been a time when God did not have a people, and since all the above-named elements are eternal, the church of God is indestructible. Its walls of salvation no man can batter down.

Only one phase of the church went into apostasy, the people, and not all of them; for three million, rather than bow down and acknowledge the ungodly doctrine of popery, sealed their testimony with their own blood. The foundation, head, door, government, unity, purity, etc., of the church never went into apostasy; and in these last days when we come out of the apostasy we simply return to these primitive elements again. We come to the same Zion that Christ established in the beginning.

The church of God is a spiritual institution. "Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” 1 Pet. 2:5. Its door of admission is a spiritual door. Jesus says, "I am the door. By me if

any man enter in, he shall be saved." John 10:9. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." 1 Cor. 12:13. Its foundation is spiritual. "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. 3:11. "That spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." 1 Cor. 10: 4.

Thus we cover every specification of the New Testament church and find it holy, divine, spiritual, and eternal; therefore it is utterly impossible for men to build an organization like it, for they can not manufacture spiritual things. This church is the finest organization the world has ever seen. It is truly worthy of God himself. It is his temple, in which he dwells; therefore there is nothing so august as the church, seeing it is the temple of God; nothing so worthy of reference, seeing God dwells in it; and nothing so solid, since Jesus only is its foundation, and it is declared to be the pillar and ground of the truth. There is nothing so closely united and indivisible, since all hearts are knit together by the perfect love of God; nothing more lofty, since it reaches higher than heaven; nothing so regular and well-proportioned, since Christ and the Holy Spirit are the archi

tects; nothing so beautiful, since it is ornamented with Christ's holiness; nothing so brilliant, since Christ is its light; nothing so strong, since Christ is its walls and bulwarks. There is no institution so spacious since it is spread over the whole world and takes in all that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; no institution so spiritual, since all its membership are living stones, animated and inhabited by the Holy Spirit; no institution so lasting, since it is destined to stand forever. In it the poor, the wretched, and the distressed of every nation find shelter. It is the place where God does his marvelous works, for there he is to be sought and found and worshiped. Such is the church of the New Testament. She is a strong tower, into which we have run and are safe.

PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH.

This feature of the church we have already gathered from the preceding chapter; for if the elements of the church are eternal-and it is indestructible in its very nature-then its perpetuity follows as a natural result. In Dan. 7:18 it is said, "But the saints of the Most

High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." This text teaches the fact that Christianity was to continue eternally. The same we have in Luke 1: 31, 33: "He [Jesus] shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." The kingdom and the church are in some respects identical. They are inclusive of each other. Christ established the everlasting kingdom of God, planted his church in the earth, and began his reign of righteousness and salvation in the beginning of this dispensation; and the above texts assert that his kingdom and his reign are to continue forever. Therefore the perpetuity of the church is assured.

In the Book of Revelation, chapter 12, the pure church of God is brought to view under the symbol of a woman clothed with the sun and having the moon under her feet, etc. That woman was the primitive church arrayed with the light of salvation, purity, and holiness, and with the authority and the power of Jesus Christ, her husband. Verse 6 says: "The

woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." Verse 14 reads, "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." This wilderness signifies the obscurity into which the true church went and in which she remained during the dark reign of apostasy. Although during the Dark Ages there were true disciples of Christ that never embraced the absurdities of the Roman church, among whom we mention the Cathri, the poor men of Lyons, the Lombards, Albigenses, Waldenses, Baudis, etc., yet "the living church retired gradually within the lonely sanctuary of a few hearts, and the external church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be of divine appointment."-D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, book I, chap. I. "There existed at that dark period, when 'all the world wondered after the beast,' a numerous body of the disciples of Christ who took the New Testament for their guidance and direction in all af