I would add a few words to the foregoing paper. If there ever was one time more than another in which the duty and privilege of self-judgment were important, that time, as it seems to me, is now. The night far spent and the Morning Star soon to appear, how little are we, practically, like unto those that wait for their Lord!
In perusing the paper, I trust with profit to my own soul, it struck me that the subject might be looked at from two different points of view:—1st. We are pilgrims and our feet tread the earth (as in 1 Cor. and 1 Pet.). We know whose we are and whom we are called to serve; and we have the power and responsibility (in the new nature) to walk in the light, and to cease from all the unfruitful works of darkness. Examining ourselves to see whether we are consistent with our professed calling, there is no need for God to judge us, lest we be condemned with the world. Our doing so is part of our privilege (it is priestly, too), and is an expression of our individual identification of ourselves, through the Spirit, with the glory of God. But 2ndly (and this sets its seal to the other), as being in spirit in heaven and in fellowship with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ, it is impossible for any of us to feed on and enjoy the beauty and the glory of the blessed Lord, without the consciousness being produced in us of the contrasts between Himself and us. Would we wish to lower Him to what we are Never! no, never! Because He was the perfect One and very contrast to what we were, therefore He could give Himself a ransom for us. He is —how perfect now, all-glorious in light! and we see in Him the character and nature of our acceptability, and His fitness up there, to secure all for us, poor mortals as we are! whose inward weakness and whose outward circumstances need such an One on high. And we know that He will come forth soon, and then what we are in spirit now (cleared from all guilt and accepted sons of God) will be made evident. But how could a John, or a Paul, or a Peter, have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, without that fellowship producing, in him, the consciousness of the contrasts between them and that Lord.