Now let us look, in the simplest possible way, at these three clauses, and the promises that are in them; keeping in mind that, like all the divine promises, they are conditional.

The first is this:—­

I.  ‘I will be a wall of fire round about her.’

I need not dwell on the vividness and beauty of that metaphor.  These encircling flames will consume all antagonism, and defy all approach.  But let me remind you that the conditional promise was intended for Judaea and Jerusalem, and was fulfilled in literal fact.  So long as the city obeyed and trusted God it was impregnable, though all the nations stood round about it, like dogs round a sheep.  The fulfilment of the promise has passed over, with all the rest that characterised Israel’s position, to the Christian Church, and to-day, in the midst of all the agitations of opinion, and all the vauntings of men about an effete Christianity, and dead churches, it is as true as ever it was that the living Church of God is eternal.  If it had not been that there was a God as a wall of fire round about the Church, it would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago.  If nothing else had killed it the faults of its members would have done so.  The continuance of the Church is a perpetual miracle, when you take into account the weakness, and the errors, and the follies, and the stupidities, and the narrownesses, and the sins, of the people who in any given day represent it.  That it should stand at all, and that it should conquer, seems to me to be as plain a demonstration of the present working of God, as is the existence still, as a separate individuality amongst the peoples of the earth, of His ancient people, the Jews.  Who was it who said, when somebody asked him for the best proof of the truth of Christianity, ‘The Jews’? and so we may say, if you want a demonstration that God is working in the world, ‘Look at the continuance of the Christian Church.’

In spite of all the vauntings of people that have already discounted its fall, and are talking as if it needed no more to be reckoned with, that calm confidence is the spirit in which we are to look around and forward.  It does not become any Christian ever to have the smallest scintillation of a fear that the ship that bears Jesus Christ can fail to come to land, or can sink in the midst of the waters.  There was once a timid would-be helper who put out his hand to hold up the Ark of God.  He need not have been afraid.  The oxen might stumble, and the cart roll about, but the Ark was safe and stable.  A great deal may go, but the wall of fire will be around the Church.  In regard to its existence, as in regard to the immortal being of each of its members, the great word remains for ever true:  ‘Because I live ye shall live also.’