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Catholick Church is the Society of Saints, the Communion or Fellowship of Saints. S. Paul writing to the Corinthians (1 Cor. i. 2) addresses them as the Church, called to be Saints, and (after referring to the distribution of various duties amongst the members by the Holy Spirit) he says (xii. 25-27) that there should be no schism in the body, but all the members should care for one another, suffer with one another, and rejoice with one another: indeed his argument is that the Church is a body, and that this sharing of joy and sorrow is an existing fact. So in 2 Cor. i. his whole argument turns upon this thought of a society, wherein the comfort of one is the comforting of the rest, and the prayers of the rest a help to the one, the gift bestowed upon one, a cause of the others' thankfulness; and all stablished together by God. In Heb. xii. 22 mount Zion is taken as the symbol of Christ's Church; and the readers are addressed as members thereof, together with the spirits of just men made perfect, who are enrolled in heaven as the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Thus the {113} Church, or Society of Saints includes the imperfect, and those who are made perfect; those who are alive there, and those who are alive here. The condition of membership is briefly described in Acts ii. 38, 42 Repentant, Baptized, having the Gift of the Holy Ghost, Apostolic Doctrine and Fellowship, Communicant, Stedfast in Prayers. Since then, Repentance and Baptism, Acts ii. 38: iii. 19 "for the Remission of sins," "that our sins may be blotted out," are thus associated with the gift of the Holy Ghost--see also S. John xx. 22, 23--this second great privilege of Christians is stated in the Creed; we believe in the Forgiveness of Sins. It is preached unto us through Christ, Acts xiii. 38: it is granted to us for His Name's sake, 1 S. John ii. 12: the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, S. Mark ii. 10: it is especially associated with the Presence of Christ in the assembly of the Church, S. Matth. xviii. 17-20: 1 Cor. v. 4: S. John xx. 22, 23. The union of the Faithful with Him in whom they have Faith brings, through Jesus, Rom. iii. 25, remission of their sins, through the forbearance of God. The third great privilege, which comes to members of Christ through the Holy Ghost, is the Resurrection of the Body, a most prominent doctrine of the Gospel: as in the case of other articles of the Creeds, so here, we only gi
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