ts, she will enter the latter-day glory, responsive to the
almighty call of Him who draws his people to himself, and who having
given them to enjoy on earth such a foretaste of the future, will
introduce them to the scene where the Lord himself will be their
everlasting light, and the days of their mourning shall be ended.

Thirdly. A minority in a church, or that in a nation, are bound by the
lawful public vows made by the whole body, even though the community as
a whole, may have cast them off. Though a nation, or a body professing
to be a church, after having come under obligations to duty, were to
resolve that truth is error, or that duty is sin, yet such a resolution
could not bind the community. No authority whatsoever will dissolve the
obligation of an oath. Hence, when lawful covenant engagements are
disregarded by a community, the excellence which gave it an attractive
power is gone. Then the glory is departed. And the degraded society,
like the robe which once covered the living body, but is afterwards cast
off, is faded and corrupt. The living principle embodied in some members
of such a community, behoves to become separate from it, and to show
that, indeed, that body which came under obligations that are not
exhausted, is in succeeding times to exist in a new but glorious
sphere.[362] It is not the invelopement, but the living faithful body,
that is the care of the covenant. Each member owes a debt of covenant
duty. And though apostasy may paralyze the body, so that by it as a
whole, that obligation may not be felt, let that which lives, therefore,
act in fulfilling it, even through a disruption and consequent
re-organization. Devotedness to duty will be visited with an energy
which will increase in the face of every difficulty. To flee
individually from obligation, is to shun the wholesale ruin of the whole
unfaithful mass, but in order to be taken and fall--each one personally
for his iniquity.

Fourthly. Covenanting does not implicate conscience. By this, it is
intended that the exercise does not bring under any obligation to do
what is evil, or to abstain at any future time from modifying the
engagement made, so as to render it more and more perfect. It is
admitted, nay, contended for, that the exercise brings under obligation:
but that is only to duty. The duty is not to be abandoned because it
cannot be properly performed. If it were, then, for the same reason,
every other might be disregarded. No co