Excerpt from The Church of God: In a Series of DissertationsBut how many, professing the name of Christ, have fought and won this glorious victory'! How many have even ever bethought themselves of the necessity of the struggle! Alas the natural man, in the second sense of the word, is but too common a character in the visible church of God. Indolently succumbing to his animal nature, he passively acquiesces in the results of his education and experience a series of notions on high and awful subjects have become familiar to him, and both pride and ignorance conspire to lead him to regard all familiar truths as the property of his own mind. These, according as he is content to take his place amid the crowd, or is ambitious of the character of a philosopher, he throws into the common mass of first principles and incontestible axioms, or places among the sure deductions of human rea son: hence much unconscious practical infidelity, and hence alas! Some avowed apostacy. To nature is ascribed what nature could never give, and to God are refused acknowledg ments for what God could alone bestow. On the very thresh hold, then, of addressing to any Christian body an investigation into the nature and properties of the church of God, We find it necessary to ascertain the point at which its extraordinary supply of knowledge, meeting the deficiencies of our nature, comes in aid of our ordinary information. The discovery Of this will disclose at once the special blessedness and high privi leges of which we are too apt to be unconscious. Thus we shall see the utter destitution Of the natural man, and the unbound ed wealth of the spiritual man. Thus we shall learn duly to value the waters of our unearthly Jordan, and, with the fasti dions daintiness of the Persian king, to drink of one river only, - spiritual kings from a spiritual river. Thus we shall duly appreciate the milk and honey of our holy land; and, contrasting its glorious abundance with the scanty springs, the bitter wells, and the palling food of the wilderness, in which our natural man was so long wandering, tempting and grieving God, we shall joyfully advance with his pillar of light in our front, explore still further, still more carefully, and finally find therein our everlasting habitation.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
