who by her ministrations are brought under the obligations of the
Christian covenant, are not thereby absolutely but conditionally
sealed to eternal life, which is suspended on their faithful
adhesion to Christ, and final perseverance in his holy ways.

In exact accordance with this statement, our Lord describes the
kingdom of heaven, or the Christian Church, as a field in which the
_wheat_ and the _tares_ grow up together until the harvest; and as a
net cast into the sea and gathering of _all kinds_ of fishes, bad
and good, which are afterwards to be separated.

Not a syllable occurs in the New Testament, not a single fact
transpires in the history of the apostolical Churches, to justify
the persuasion, that such only as were decreed to eventual
salvation, were received as members of the Christian community. Such
an order of fellowship, had it really existed, would have amounted
to a pre-judgment of characters, anticipating and superseding the
judicial sentence of the last day. In that case, to obtain an
entrance into the communion of the Church was virtually to be
proclaimed a member, not only of the visible, but also of the
invisible society of the redeemed, rendering needless all
exhortations to perseverance, and impossible all danger of apostasy.
But such an exclusive and select and judicial order of fellowship
never did and never can exist under the present dispensation, which
is essentially a mixed state, and one of probation, supplying the
means of _working out our own salvation_, and of _making our calling
and election sure_, but not requiring evidence of our effectual
calling and of our certain election to life previous to our
introduction to the worship and sacraments of the Church.

From the earliest records we have of the administration of
ecclesiastical affairs, as well as from all later history, we may
learn that the Catholic Church never aimed at the senseless project
of a pure communion, which, by excluding all but the finally elect,
should rival in sanctity the fellowship of the saints above.

The _worship_ of the Christian Church has always been open,
unrestricted, unconfined by classical distinctions, such as those of
the elect and the reprobate. The gates of the temple are closed
against none who would join in the celebration of its holy rites.
God is the Father of all; Christ the Saviour of all; the
manifestation of the Spirit was given for the profit of all; the
Gospel is to be preached to al