The relation of the church to the family
forbids this. The church pervades all the forms of society. It includes the
home and the state. It gives to each proper vitality, legitimate
principles, proper direction, and a true destiny.
But home is not only a preparation for the church, but completes itself in
the church,--never out of the church. By the "mystery" of marriage and the
sacrament of holy baptism, home and the church are bound up into each other
by indissoluble bonds. The one receives the mark and superscription of the
other; the one is the type or emblem of the other.
The church, through her ordinances, ministry and means of grace, is brought
directly "into the house," and operates there constantly as a spiritual
leaven. It is the purpose of God that our homes be entrenched within the
sacred enclosures of His church. The former, in its relation to the latter,
is like "a wheel within a wheel,"--one of the parts which make up the great
machinery of the kingdom of grace, operating harmoniously and in its place
with all the rest, and for the same end. The former is built upon the
latter,--receives her dedication and sanctity from it. They are
correlatives. The one demands the other. Hence they cannot be divorced. The
individual passes over to the church through the Christian home. The one is
the step to the other. They have the same foundation. Home is not erected
upon a quicksand, but reared upon the same rock upon which the church is
built.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60