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I. THE CHURCH IS A MOTHER.

1. Because it is her privilege to bring forth into the world the spiritual children of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. When these little ones are born, the Church's business is to feed them.

3. It is her endeavour to train up her children.

4. She will be always ready to nurse her children when they become sick.

II. THE CHURCH IS SOMETIMES BEREAVED.

1. Some of her nominal children she loses by spiritual death. They are not really her children at all. They looked so much like hers that she could hardly tell them.

2. She loses many by death temporal

3. Sometimes by a trying providence.

III. THE CHURCH HAS SOMETIMES TO BE CARRIED AWAY CAPTIVE. How often has this happened to the Church of God in the olden times! The Church has been carried into foreign countries. Sometimes she has been cruelly persecuted. Often, too, the Church has been compelled to seek a refuge in foreign countries. Days of slumber have come over the Church, and days of heresy too.

IV. THE CHURCH HAS HAD A MARVELLOUS INCREASE AFTER ALL HER CAPTIVITIES, and all her bereavements have hitherto always worked for her good. Never has the Church lost her children without obtaining many more.

1. The first thing which astonishes the Church when she opens her eyes after her captivity is to notice the number of her children.

2. Also their character — "these.''

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell.

WEB: The children of your bereavement shall yet say in your ears, The place is too small for me; give place to me that I may dwell.