The Church was, is, and is not, and yet shall be.
The Church was in God's counsels before the world was; it was, too, as set up by God on earth, as at Pentecost, entrusted (in its principles and the revelation of the truth of the Lordship of Christ in heaven, and of the Spirit sent down here as His Vicar during His absence) to man at Pentecost, and visibly existed upon earth. It was (fuit), for it is now a ruin among men.
The Church is, in the Divine Mind, as that which God is forming now amid the confusion of man's wickedness here below; it is the delight of God, the glory of Christ, the work of the Spirit, the joy of Heaven, for eternity.
The Church is not. Man cannot show now, what he could show at Pentecost, and at Ephesus; and the church, which faith realizes as existing in the Divine Mind and as being the subject of the present actions and operations and care of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (to sense and sight) is not, though, where faith and the Spirit are in practical action, he that has them can identify that which is known and owned of God with something which he sees down here. The Church shall be the New Jerusalem-the Bride, the Lamb's wife in glory.
We have a good deal of need of wisdom and holy fear to hold James chap. 1. verses 3 and 13, as a balance by which to measure all ways of trial. God leads his people through deep waters, often brings them where they have no standing for their feet, but they are always cleansing waters. His people may themselves go to polluted waters which can neither cleanse nor be cleansed, even God' s raging waves and billows: even these become, at His bidding, "waters of cleansing." His living ones rest beside still waters; this can never be with the foul waters of the flesh. The desire of man's heart ends only in death.
How cheering to know God as a Father in the midst of all the confusion around.
. The Apostle's sorrows and trials, besides being his present honor as conformity to the sufferings of his Master as a servant now, were also the school of his own soul for eternity.