Develop a love for Christ's Church

Remember that your denomination is not the whole of Zion; that, although you do well to look carefully to the quarter in which your house is situated, yet there are other houses of God’s servants in other parts of the city, and you should take a survey of those regions, as well as those in which you immediately dwell. See how your brethren fare, and take their pledge and report. Let it never be a joy to a Baptist if he hears that some Congregational Church does not prosper. Let it always be a joy to a Presbyterian when he hears that a Wesleyan is doing good. Let it be a great joy to us if any part of the Church of God prosper, and if in any place there be decay or decline, let us bear in our prayers that particular portion of the Church of God, and pray him to strengthen that part of the city wall against the foe.

Let your survey of the Church be as complete as you can make it. “Go round about her.” Let it also be frequent. I am afraid that some persons think very little indeed of the Church of God. I mean that, while they know how the shop, and the State, and the world generally are getting on, they could scarcely tell how many members were added to the one Church to which they belong. Certainly they know little about other sections of the church, and, perhaps care as little as they know. It should not be so with the citizens of Zion; the time to favor Zion will come when God’s servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof, when the very least thing that concerns the Church of God shall be important to the citizens of Zion.

Frequently, my dear friends, look not on your own things only, but also on the things of others. Does not the text say first, “Walk about Zion”? Then it adds, “Go round about her,” as if, after having done it once you were to do it again, and yet again, and again, so caring always for the Church, and making constantly an earnest, enthusiastic inspection as to the prosperity of the great cause of Christ in the land.

From a sermon entitled, "Beholding God's Church," delivered July 14, 1870.

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