n event solemn, indeed, and
painful to nature, but full of blessing and of happiness. We should see
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance; a constitution of nature as manifestly proclaiming its
author to be the God of all holiness and loving-kindness, as the
wonderful structure of our eyes or hands declares them to be the work of
the God of all wisdom and power. We should thus see in all our
fellow-men, not only as much, but far more than in the constitution of
the lower animals, or of the plants, or of the heavenly bodies, a
witness of God and of eternity. Their whole lives would be a witness;
their whole conversation would be a witness; their outward and more
peculiar acts of worship would then bear their part in harmony with all
the rest. Every day would the voices of the Church be heard in its
services of prayer and thanksgiving; every day would its members renew
their pledges of faithfulness to Christ, and to one another, upon
partaking together the memorials of his sacrifice.

What could we desire more than such a living witness as this? What sign
in the sky, what momentary appearance of a spirit from the unseen world,
could so impress us with the reality of God, as this daily worshipping
in his living temple; this daily sight, of more than the Shechinah of
old, even of his most Holy Spirit, diffusing on every side light and
blessing? And what is now become of this witness? can names, and forms,
and ordinances, supply its place? can our unfrequent worship, our most
seldom communion, impress on us an image of men living altogether in the
presence of God, and in communion with Christ? But before we dwell on
this, we may, while considering the design of the true Church of Christ,
well understand how such excellent things should be spoken of it, and
how it should have been introduced into the Creed itself, following
immediately after the mention of the Holy Ghost. That holy universal
Church was to be the abiding witness of Christ's love and of Christ's
promises; not in its outward forms only, for they by themselves are not
a living witness; they cannot meet our want--to have God and heavenly
things made real to us; but in its whole spirit, by which renewed man
was to bear as visibly the image of God, as corrupted man had lost it.
This was the sure sign that Christ had appointed to abide until his
coming again; this sign, as striking as the burning bush, would compel
us to