Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/114

4 clearer instance cannot well be imagined of that system of forgetting things invisible in things visible, which it must be the most strenuous wish of the Power of evil to maintain.

The Church, in itself, is a divine institution; and as a visible community and body in the state, it is also, in one sense, a political institution. The worldly speculator—he who limits his views to the tangible objects of sense,—will, therefore, regard it as a political institution alone. Its Ministers have spiritual powers, those, for instance, of administering the Sacraments; as possessors of property and privileges, they also, in this country, possess temporal powers. The worldly eye will therefore regard their temporal powers alone. As Ministers of, they prepare man for a happy immortality in the next world, and in so doing, incidentally make him a better member of society and improve his condition in this.—The latter effect of their teaching is all which strikes the worldly eye. As dispensers of religious knowledge, they incidentally promote the general education of mankind; and this latter comes to be considered by the world as their principal business. And lastly, while they derive their primary commission from the, and their secondary character—if I may so call it—from the constitution of the country, the eye of the world can see in them but the servants of the latter; forgetful that their true Master, that He to whom alone they are responsible for the discharge of the most important functions entrusted to them, the functions of their ministerial stewardship, is the Almighty Head of the Church who ever watches over it in Heaven.

To entertain views like these, thus habitually to forget the connection which in truth exists between the and His own Holy Institution, is, in the most emphatic sense, to live without  in the world. And the line of conduct to which such views, if consistently acted upon, necessarily lead, cannot be contemplated by the serious mind without feelings of the most awful apprehension. The has told us that He is, in truth, ever about us; that He, even while seated in glory, feels, as though He were Himself the object of them, alike each act of kindness done to, and each injury inflicted upon, the humblest of His disciples. And if this be so, if the interests of