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III.-CATHOLIC.

T was shewn, under the observation on the word

IT

ONE, that the word Church (Kupiaкn), Kirche, Kirk, signifies the Lord's portion of mankind. God's will is, that "all men should be saved, and come to a knowledge of His truth:" but, notwithstanding this declaration of God's will, the end of men following the bent of their own wills is, that, of those who are to rise at the last day, "some rise to life eternal, "and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Thus mankind are divided into two parts; those that are saved, and those who are finally seen, and declared by all who behold them, to be inevitably lost. The first portion began to be gathered by Him in Adam and Eve, and continued through Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, the Prophets, and all believing Jews up to John the Baptist: then the Son of God appeared in mortal flesh; and all who have been baptized into His Name since, and believed in Him, have continued the election, and shall go on to be separated from the rest, through other dispensations, to all eternity.

Such persons, in the largest sense of the word, constitute the Lord's portion or Church, and under this aspect of it subsists in two principal divisions—

first, those who were born into the world and have served God between Adam and the giving of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost; and, secondly, those who were born from that epoch up to the second coming of Christ. Such is the universal or Catholic ChurchUniversal, or Catholic, which is a Greek word, signifying the same, because it is as universal as man— beginning with man's creation, and never ending so long as human beings shall continue to be produced. In every generation of the human race there has been a special work which God desired to have done by that generation in the portion of time in which it lived from the days of Adam to those of the deluge there was a particular way of worshipping God, by sacrifices of innocent beasts, by offering the fruits of the earth, by the burning of sweet gums, and by the consecration to rest of the seventh day. Few men did what God required, and the remainder became so bad that He destroyed them all, and gave at the same time a warning that He would in like manner treat all other men who should not walk according to His ways. Every generation, from Noah to John the Baptist, had its own peculiar duties; and in each they who performed their duties will reap the reward due to them, and those who have not performed their duties will meet with corresponding punishment.

From the time, however, of the appearance of the Son of God in flesh the responsibilities of man were greatly enlarged. The highest attainments of which a creature is capable await the Christian who loves and serves God; whilst, on the other hand, the greatest state of misery which man is capable of enduring awaits those who have despised the salvation proclaimed by Jesus Christ. The reward offered to that portion of the one Catholic Church which is found between the giving of the Holy Ghost and the second coming of Jesus Christ in glory is, to be the Body of Christ, and inhabited by His Spirit, in virtue of which union that portion is His Bride, members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones, sitting beside Him on His throne, joining with Him in the government of the universe, and filled with the utmost amount of happiness. The punishment which is in store for those who have despised this great blessing is the blackness of darkness, anguish which never ceases, with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

We who are alive now, naturally, and properly, are more intent upon our own present duties than we are upon those of generations that are gone, or that have not yet appeared, and we are apt, unconsciously, to limit the word Catholic to that portion of God's people which have been baptized since Pen

tecost, and are partakers of the Holy Ghost, incurring all the responsibilities of that situation. The Romanists limit their ideas of the word Catholic to the members of their own sect, which is the most narrow and sectarian view which is possible to be adopted; so that their false pretensions are as flagrant in this title which they assume as in any other portion of their system. The lowest sense to which we can justly limit it is to the whole body of baptized persons now on the earth, including also the faithful who have fallen asleep in Jesus since Pentecost and in this limited application we will now consider it.

The Church, or the body of the Lord's people now on the earth, must be called Catholic because it includes some of all nations on the earth; this is considering man in his geographical position. It is also Catholic because it includes all varieties of human disposition and character; every class of society; every variety of human misery; every form of human suffering-and this is considering man in his reasoning and spiritual position. God has given it an outward constitution and form adequate to fulfil the conditions imposed upon it; but where that form is wanting the requirements cannot be met, and the end which God wishes to accomplish cannot be worked by it.

Yet even this description of the Catholic Church,

large as it is, does not express all that the word contains, if we go back to the root of the institution as it is laid in the Son of God Himself, who is the Head of the Catholic Church. For it is revealed

Father to be the

that He was set apart by the Christ, the anointed Head of all other anointed ones, the Head of this Church from all eternity; before ever the world was. This must be an unintelligible mystery to us; and it is only mentioned now in order that it may not be wholly left out of mind. Moreover, the members of this Church are also said to have been predestined to be of it, and chosen in Him also before the foundation of the world. The view, therefore, which confines the complete idea of the Church merely to all Christendom, or to all the present generation of mankind, or to all Christians from the Day of Pentecost to the Second Advent of Christ, is a narrow, sectarian, and unscriptural view of the Catholic or Universal Church.

The Catholic or Universal Church is called the House of God; and our Lord says: "In my "Father's house are many mansions;" and, without improperly stretching the figures, (for the assertion is a fact as well as a figure,) it may be remarked, further, that in each of these mansions are many rooms, and our Lord Himself prepares the place for each of His followers. He said of John the Baptist that "he was the greatest of all who had been born