s,
take heed lest He also spare not thee.'

Now let us look, in the simplest possible way, at these three clauses,
and the promises that are in them; keeping in mind that, like all the
divine promises, they are conditional.

The first is this:--

I. 'I will be a wall of fire round about her.'

I need not dwell on the vividness and beauty of that metaphor. These
encircling flames will consume all antagonism, and defy all approach.
But let me remind you that the conditional promise was intended for
Judaea and Jerusalem, and was fulfilled in literal fact. So long as the
city obeyed and trusted God it was impregnable, though all the nations
stood round about it, like dogs round a sheep. The fulfilment of the
promise has passed over, with all the rest that characterised Israel's
position, to the Christian Church, and to-day, in the midst of all the
agitations of opinion, and all the vauntings of men about an effete
Christianity, and dead churches, it is as true as ever it was that the
living Church of God is eternal. If it had not been that there was a God
as a wall of fire round about the Church, it would have been wiped off
the face of the earth long ago. If nothing else had killed it the faults
of its members would have done so. The continuance of the Church is a
perpetual miracle, when you take into account the weakness, and the
errors, and the follies, and the stupidities, and the narrownesses, and
the sins, of the people who in any given day represent it. That it
should stand at all, and that it should conquer, seems to me to be as
plain a demonstration of the present working of God, as is the existence
still, as a separate individuality amongst the peoples of the earth, of
His ancient people, the Jews. Who was it who said, when somebody asked
him for the best proof of the truth of Christianity, 'The Jews'? and so
we may say, if you want a demonstration that God is working in the
world, 'Look at the continuance of the Christian Church.'

In spite of all the vauntings of people that have already discounted its
fall, and are talking as if it needed no more to be reckoned with, that
calm confidence is the spirit in which we are to look around and
forward. It does not become any Christian ever to have the smallest
scintillation of a fear that the ship that bears Jesus Christ can fail
to come to land, or can sink in the midst of the waters. There was once
a timid would-be helper who put out his hand to hold up the Ark