THE TEAOEINGS OF TEE BIBLE 265 



legal right, guaranteed by Mm, for every command of 

 God is really a promise. And he wiU. exhaust every 

 power in the universe before he allows anything to 

 prevent us from gaining our legal rights, provided 

 only that we are earnest in claiming them. 



But if I alienate my rights to my inheritance, the 

 commonwealth cannot help me. If I renounce my 

 citizenship, the government of the United States can 

 no longer protect me. And so I can alienate my 

 " right to the tree of life," and to entrance into the 

 city, and I can forfeit my heirship to all that God 

 would give me. " For I am persuaded that neither 

 death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things 

 present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, 

 nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to 

 separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 

 Jesus our Lord." But I can alienate and make void 

 every promise and title, if I will or if I do not care. 

 This is the unique glory and awfulness of the human 

 will. And we know that to them that love God all 

 things work together for good. " If God is for us 

 who is against us?" It must be so if God's laws 

 are his modes of aiding men to conform to environ- 

 ment. 



And what of the church ? Is it anything else or 

 other than a means of aiding man to conform to envi- 

 ronment ? If it fails of this, can it be any longer the 

 church of God ? The church is a means, not an end. 

 And it is a means of godlUteness in man. 



Some would make it a social club. The bond of 

 union between its members is their common grade of 

 wealth, social position, or intellectual attainments. 

 And this idea of the church has deeper root in the 



