And be it observed, this is not a matter of opinion—a certain thing which we may take up or lay down at pleasure. It is a divine fact; it is a grand truth, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. The Church is an existing thing, and we, if believers, are members thereof. We cannot avoid this: we cannot ignore it. We are actually in the relationship—baptized into it by the Holy Ghost. It is as real and as positive a thing as the birth of a child into a family. The birth has taken place, the relationship is formed, and we have only to recognize it, and walk in the sense of it from day to day. The very moment in which a soul is born again—born from above, and sealed by the Holy Ghost, he is incorporated into the body of Christ. He can no longer view himself as a solitary individual, an independent person, an isolated atom; he is a member of a body, just as the hand or the foot is a member of the human body. He is a member of _the_ Church of God, and cannot, properly and truly, be a member of any thing else. How could my arm be a member of any other body? And on the same principle, we may ask, How could a member of the body of Christ be a member of any other body? What a glorious truth is this respecting the Church of God—the antitype of the camp in the desert—“the congregation in the wilderness!” What a fact to be governed by! There _is_ such a thing as the Church of God amid all the ruin and the wreck, the strife and the discord, the confusion and division, the sects and parties. This, surely, is a most precious truth. But not only is it most precious, it is also most practical and formative. We are as bound to recognize, by faith, this Church in the world, as the Israelite was bound to recognize, by sight, the camp in the desert. There _was_ one camp—one congregation, and the true Israelite belonged thereto; there _is_ one Church—one body, and the true Christian belongs to it.