HERE on earth a temple stands,
Temple never built with hands ;
There the Lord doth fill the place
With the glory of His grace.
Cleansed by Christ's atoning Blood,
Thou art this fair House of God.
Thoughts, desires, that enter there,
Should they not be pure and fair?
Meet for holy courts and blest
Courts of stillness and of rest,
Where the soul, a priest in white,
Singeth praises day and night ;
Glory of the love divine
Filling all this heart of thine.
—G. TERSTEEGEN.
THUS, believing as he did the great truths of the gospel owned and confessed in the Reformed Church, it was not on account of any difference in doctrine that he, as the Labadists had done before him, stood apart from that, and from all Established Churches.
It was, as we have seen, a common custom amongst the Pietists, who were also separatists, to speak of all the Established Churches together as Babylon, and of themselves as " stormers of Babylon." Tersteegen did neither. He said he had more important work to do than to storm and to attack ; nor would he consent to call the Churches Babylon whilst the Spirit of God was working in them.
But from the year 1726 he steadfastly refused to join in the communion of the Reformed or of the Lutheran Church. " That which is holy," he said, "is given to the dogs ; and by the reception of so many who are known to be unworthy, the indignation of God is aroused against the country and the professing Church."
As to those, who being themselves children of God, could yet join with the world at the table of the Lord, he thought it right, later on, to leave them to their own consciences. For himself, he remained apart.
"I do not believe," he said, "that either baptism or the Lord's Supper are necessary to salvation. I would not desire to attach such a prerogative to anything except to the work of my Saviour Jesus Christ. Were I not baptized, then, I think I should be baptized, out of respect and obedience to the command of Jesus ; but not from any idea that I should thereby be justified, or gain peace of conscience.
"On the contrary, I would not allow myself to be baptized by any person, or in any community, who would imagine that my salvation depended upon it.
" In the same way I regard the Lord's Supper, and the assembly of God's people. I have the desire to take part in both, when I have the opportunity for doing so rightly. But as far as I know, one cannot in these days join oneself to any assembly, or take the Lord's Supper anywhere, without joining oneself, not to pious people, for they are rarely to be found in any of these congregations, but to the whole mass of worldly-minded people, who could only be a hindrance to blessing.
"And it is therefore the question, whether it is not better to cease to communicate altogether, than to do it in a manner which leads to no good.
"I will not now go into another question, namely, that if we join ourselves to this mixed multitude in any sect or denomination, we are separating ourselves, (often unconsciously and unintentionally) from the love and fellowship of many pious people who do not belong to this sect or denomination.
"I have made this sad experience on many occasions, finding those standing apart from one another who once were walking in love. What should hinder us, beloved, from meeting together as Christians ? Two or three make a complete assembly, in the midst of which the Lord has promised to be present."
"You," he writes to a friend, "are of one mind with your wife, desiring to follow the Lord, and live to Him. Is not your house then an assembly ? Oftentimes you have other friends with you, who are fully of one mind with you in following the Lord. Is not that an assembly, even if you have but little preaching and teaching ?
"I assure you, I would rather meet with you than in any other place I know, where thousands might be assembled. And if we two or three, who are all one in the Lord, were to meet together, and eat the bread with the good intention of remembering the death of Jesus, and stirring one another up to love Him and one another, desiring to be wholly for Him and for one another with all we have, even to the last morsel of bread, would not that, in your eyes, be the Lord's Supper ? What would there be wanting to make it so ?
"I cannot believe that it would be the less pleasing to the Lord because it was not in a great church, with I know not how many ceremonies attached to it. Meet thus, dear brother, and meet often, and gladly will I in spirit sit down with you."
" At the same time," writes Goebel, " he gave a very high place to the holy supper, in fact, a place of the extremest importance ; but all the less did he regard it as being according to apostolic order that 'the preachers of these days make so little distinction between worthy and unworthy communicants, and receive, not only concealed hypocrites, but openly unconverted, ungodly, worldly people.' 'One may have patience,' he wrote, ' with honest preachers, who would gladly see a better state of things, but know not how to attain to it ; but they, on the other hand, ought to exercise equal patience with honest souls, whose consciences will not allow them to break bread with those whom they cannot own as members of the one Body, and who therefore stand apart, from the fear of displeasing God.'"