Our Saviour says, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own." The apostle says, "Be not conformed to this world;" and to the Gentiles he writes, "In time past ye walked according to the course of this world, the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience." In these verses, a tone, a temper, a spirit is spoken of. There are two things--the Church and the World--two spirits pervading different bodies of men, brought before us in these verses--those called the Spirit-born, and those called the World, which is to be overcome by the Spirit-born, as in the text, "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." Let us understand what is meant by the Church of God. When we speak of 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.