The Church of Christ Considered Author:George Payne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION IV. THE OBJECTS WHICH THE CHURCH AIMS TO ACCOMPLISH. One general description, the description already given, characterises the whole of them ; the... more »y are entirely spiritual in their nature. I speak not now, of course, of the actual objects which certain individuals have sought to secure by joining the Christian body; but those which they ought to have proposed to themselves. There have doubtless been instances in which worldly-minded men have desired and obtained fellowship with a church of Christ, and have even gone to the table of the Lord, (thus eating and drinking to themselves damnation,) to secure what they deemed important political privileges. Others have adopted the same unholy measures in the hope of escaping the reproach which, in certain circumstances, invariably overtakes (this is often the case in Scotland) an habitual neglecter, as well as an open contemner, of the ordinances of religion. Some, again, have followed in this course to advance their worldly interests. But all these men abuse the institution of Christian fellowship as he abuses wine who takes it to produce intoxication, and not, as we may lawfully do, to refresh and stimulate. The object of Christian fellowship is not political, not literary, not commercial. It has no direct bearing upon any thing worldly and temporal; its immediate relation is to spiritual and eternal concerns. The proximate object sought to be secured by Christian fellowship is, the personal edification, and comfort, and protection of itsmembers. Superior means of spiritualgrowth, and security, are enjoyed in connexion with an associated hody of Christians, than can be possessed hy one who stands in an isolated condition. A member of the spiritual community has access to all the ordinances which are observed by the ass...« less