Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/254

50 exhort the people to the revival of it, if circumstances will possibly permit; and alarm them against a mistake, to which they are all exposed, from a fanatical prejudice of baneful influence, namely, that they come to Church only to hear preaching; and hence they are indifferent, even on a Sunday, to the prayers of the Church, unless there is a sermon.

The Church, in its nature, always was what it now is, a society comprehending the souls as well as the bodies of men; and, therefore, consisting of two parts, the one spiritual, answering to the soul, and other outward, answering to the body. Hence, some have written much upon a visible Church and an invisible, as if they were two things; but they are more properly one, as the soul and body make a single person.

In the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apostle gives such a description of that society, into which Christians are admitted, as will show us the nature of it. "Ye are come," says he, "unto Mount Zion," &c..... The terms here used give us a true prospect of the Church..... This is that Zion of the Holy One of Israel, to which the forces of the Gentiles were to flow from all parts of the world .... the city of the living, distinguished from the cities of the world, as Jerusalem was from the cities of the heathens, who dedicated their cities not to the living , but to the names of their dead idols...... This, being the city of the living , must be an immortal society, for the living does not preside over dead citizens; He is not the  of the dead, but the  of the living, and all the members of this society live unto Him...... It is, therefore, called the Heavenly Jerusalem, because it is of a heavenly nature; and it is called the Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and is the mother of us all... Its spiritual nature is further declared, in that it is said to comprehend an innumerable company of angels..... In the communion of the Church the spirits of just men made perfect are also included. It is a society which admits only the spirits of the living, and as such cannot exclude the spirits of the dead; and this confirms what we said