Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/80

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that this should be done for the sake of setting forth His kingdom more clearly by establishing it on a basis of exclusiveness, resting on man's imperfect judgment of himself or others. Contrast the baptist conception of the Church with the wise sobriety of an Anglican divine, who wrote a few years before John Smith had called the English Baptists into being: "The Church is the multitude and number of those whom Almighty God severeth from the rest of the world by the work of His grace, and calleth to the participation of eternal happiness by the knowledge of such supernatural verities as concerning their everlasting good He hath revealed in Christ His Son, and such other precious and happy means as He hath appointed to further and set forward the work of their salvation. Some there are that profess the truth but not wholly and entirely, as heretics; some that profess the whole saving truth, but not in unity, as schismatics; some that profess the whole saving truth in unity, but not in sincerity and singleness of a good and sanctified mind, as hypocrites and wicked men, not outwardly divided from the people of God; and some that profess the whole saving truth in unity and sincerity of a good and sanctified heart All these are partakers of the heavenly calling and sanctified by the profession of the truth, and consequently are all, in some degree and sort, of that society of men whom God calleth out unto Himself, and separateth from infidels, which is rightly named the Church. For as the name Church doth distinguish men that have received the revelation of supernatural truth from infidels, and the name of Christian Church Christians