hing come upon us. Let us
aim at learning these two great truths:--that we can do nothing good
without God's grace, yet that we can sin against that grace; and thus
that the great gift may be made the cause, on the one hand, of our
gaining eternal life, and the occasion to us, on the other, of eternal
misery.

[1] Isa. liv. 13.

[2] John iii. 6.

[3] Mark x. 14.

[4] 1 Cor. vii. 14. Acts xvi. 15, 33.

SERMON XVII.

The Unity of the Church.

"_And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it._"--Matt. xvi. 18.

Too many persons at this day,--in spite of what they see before them,
in spite of what they read in history,--too many persons forget, or
deny, or do not know, that Christ has set up a kingdom in the world.
In spite of the prophecies, in spite of the Gospels and Epistles, in
spite of their eyes and their ears,--whether it be their sin or their
misfortune, so it is,--they do not obey Him in that way in which it is
His will that He should be obeyed. They do not obey Him in His
Kingdom; they think to be His people, without being His subjects. They
determine to serve Him in their own way, and though He has formed His
chosen into one body, they think to separate from that body, yet to
remain in the number of the chosen.

Far different is the doctrine suggested to us by the text. In St.
Peter, who is there made the rock on which the Church is founded, we
see, as in a type, its unity, stability, and permanence. It is set up
in one name, not in many, to show that it is one; and that name is
Peter, to show that it will last, or, as the Divine Speaker proceeds,
that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." In like manner,
St. Paul calls it "the pillar and ground of the truth[1]."

This is a subject especially brought before us at this time of year[2],
and it may be well now to enlarge upon it.

Now that all Christians are, in some sense or other, one, in our Lord's
eyes, is plain, from various parts of the New Testament. In His
mediatorial prayer for them to the Almighty Father, before His passion,
He expressed His purpose that they should be _one_. St. Paul, in like
manner, writing to the Corinthians, says, "As the body is one, and hath
many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one
body, _so also_ is Christ. . . . . Now ye are _the Body_ of Christ,
and members