the Church we generally mean a society to aid men in their progress
God-wards; but the Church of God is by no means co-extensive in any
age with that organized institution which we _call_ the Church;
sometimes it is nearly co-extensive--that is, nearly all on earth who
are born of God are found within its pale, nearly all who are of the
world are extraneous to it--but sometimes the born of God have been
found distinct from the Institution called the Church, opposed to
it--persecuted by it. The Institution of the Church is a blessed
ordinance of God, organized on earth for the purpose of representing
the Eternal Church and of extending its limits, but still ever
subordinate to it.

The Eternal Church is "the general assembly and church of the
first-born which are written in heaven;" the selected spirits of the
most High, who are struggling with the evil of their day; sometimes
alone, like Elijah, and like him, longing that their work was done;
sometimes conscious of their union with each other. God is for ever
raising up a succession of these--His brave, His true, His good.
Apostolical succession, as taught sometimes, means simply this--a
succession of miraculous powers flowing in a certain line. The true
apostolic succession is--not a succession in an hereditary line, or
line marked by visible signs which men can always identify, but a
succession emphatically spiritual.

The Jews looked for an hereditary succession; they thought that
because they were Abraham's seed, the spiritual succession was
preserved; the Redeemer told them that "God was able of those stones
to raise up children unto Abraham." Therefore is this ever a spiritual
succession--in the hands of God alone; and they are here called the
God-born, coming into the world variously qualified; sometimes