Although we have already dwelt upon the more remarkable forms in which the grace of Christ has displayed itself in the way of gift,—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers,—we have not yet touched upon the object that our Lord had in view, that is, the general aim of ministry. This is said in verse 12, to be “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Now you will observe, in the very first expression of the Spirit of God, that which corrects one of the most prevalent fallacies of Christendom at this moment: and not merely of Christendom in its darkest forms, (for I am not speaking so much of Latins or Greeks,) but where there is the orthodox light of Protestantism and even strong evangelical sentiments. No one who is acquainted with the state of feeling, that is now so general, will doubt but that, even among Christians, the prominent notion of ministry is the bare calling in of souls to the knowledge of their own salvation in Christ.
But this is not the Lord’s ultimate design in ministry. The winning of sinners to the Saviour is a necessary part, but is only a part of the blessing. Evangelists, like the rest, are given for “the perfecting of the saints,” (vs. 12) which goes much farther. It is clear that they must first become saints; but that which the Holy Spirit makes to be the proper end in view is the forming the saints according to Christ; adjusting them according to the Lord’s call and sovereign will touching them; the bringing them out adequately and rightly and freely, so as to find their proper action toward God and one another. This seems what is implied in the perfecting of the saints. Then we have rather the mediate forms which this great end assumes, “unto the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the body of Christ.”
God always makes of prime moment His saints individually considered—their right condition before Him, their being thoroughly fashioned according to His standard. Their being gathered together and working as an assembly, important as it is, comes after. Thus, the subject of the body, the Church, does not appear till the close of chapter 1. What is the early part of that chapter filled with? That which is necessary for the perfecting of the saints. God Himself reveals His truth precisely in the same order, and to the same primary end. Here again the gifts of Christ are found to be just after the pattern of His own dealings. The perfecting of the saints is the nearest object to His heart; and then follows the means used to bring into the knowledge of common privileges, and the working of the Spirit in the assembly, which is bound up with His glory in the earth. Thus, whatever may be the condition of the Church, whatever the blessed ways of God in dealing with the Church, whatever the affections of Christ towards His body, after all God makes His saints of most immediate account, makes their perfecting to be the first and most prominent object. And this He always holds to. Whatever the fluctuations of the work, whatever the character of His testimony at any given moment upon the earth may be, the perfecting of the saints is the unceasing object before Him.
There is something exceedingly sweet in this. Come what may, God will accomplish the perfecting of His saints, and turn even the things that are sorrowful and afflicting into a means of blessing for them, if not always to their credit. Where we need humbling, it is plain we are not humble; where we are not low in our own eyes, God must Himself make us so. The process does not give room for our importance; but God keeps His own blessed end in view, and never fails to accomplish it. So that we may always adore Him for His goodness; though it may be in that which is distressing for the time, still God never fails; He is bent upon the perfecting of the saints; He is faithful and will do it. He puts this forward before His saints as the practical object of Christ. There we have ministry taking these different forms according to His own sovereign disposition.
But the Lord has to do with ministry, directly and immediately without the intervention of the assembly. There is no such thing in Scripture as a ministry flowing from the Church, though there is ministry directed to the Church. Paul speaks of himself as a minister of the Church: that is, not as derived from that as serving it: for the Church is formed by ministry instead of ministry flowing out of the Church. The gifts are for the perfecting of the saints. The ministry may fail, but the Lord never fails in accomplishing His end. It may be in a slower way, and there may be that which is utterly weak and even afflicting, but He accomplishes His purposes. He gives these gifts “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (vs. 12). These two later clauses come in as subordinate to the first. It is most blessed to see the saints acting together; but however the work of the ministry may fail or be impaired in man’s hands, the great end to which the Lord commits Himself, and for which He has given these gifts, is carried through spite of all. And more, this is true, “till we all come the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (vs. 13). The “perfect man” here does not refer to resurrection, but to our being thoroughly grown up into the knowledge of Christ.
This is observable in Paul. Although his great work was unfolding the redemption of Christ and the counsels of God’s glory founded on redemption, yet he cannot but bring in this full growth of the saints in connection with the deepening knowledge of the Son of God. It is the person of Christ that rises up before the soul; and this is very much more a test of spirituality than any acquaintance with His work. It is with Himself as a divine person that we become more and more intimate through the truth that God ministers to our souls. This is what He puts before us—“Till we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at a perfect man.” Knowledge of the past ways of God would not do now. The Old Testament saints did look to the Messiah in the way of hope; but the present form in which the Spirit of God presents the object to us is the knowledge of His person, as the Son now revealed for our joy, and praise and worship. So that we have here the great Christian object and form of knowledge that God has in view with all His saints now. The comparison with verse 14, gives the force of the expression “a perfect man;” it is in contrast with being children, “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we henceforth be no more babes, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” What God designs for us is that we should be full-grown, and this “in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” It is in contrast with this condition of weakness and exposure to all the craft of men and their changing, scheming tactics of error.
Then we have the opposite, practical way in which our growth is carried on. “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (vs. 15). The expression seems deeper than what we have here. It is “being truthful in love,” not merely “speaking the truth in love,” (vs. 15) though, of course, this is a very important part of being truthful, but it is not everything; and we all know that it is very possible not to be truthful in thought and feeling, where the words are quite correct. “Being truthful in love,” implies truth in the inward parts.
We find here the two essential features of godliness of course were found in Christ in infinite perfection. He was the light. Whatever He might say, He exactly reflected the full truth from God Himself; nay, He was it. We find a remarkable expression when our Lord was dealing with the Jews and bringing Himself out as the light of the world, in John 8. They asked Him what He was, and He says, (according to the English Version,) “Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning” (John 8:25). But the true meaning is, “Absolutely what I speak unto you.” There should be neither “at the beginning,” (ch. 3:9) but “absolutely,” nor “what I said,” but “what I am speaking.” If these words are weighed you will find the force of them. Our Lord is exactly and absolutely what He utters; His words convey with infallible certainty what He is. He certainly was truthful in love. Our Lord’s words so completely gave out the inner man, He was so perfectly transparent, that not one thing in Him deflected from the truth; nothing seemed to be but exactly what He was. And this because there was no sin in Him, neither was guile found in His mouth. There was no object but God before His soul, as He says Himself: “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). And you may rely upon it, that it is having Christ before us as the object of our souls in everything practically, which alone gives us power of truth. The moment we have anything of our own as an object, so far we slip aside, and there is that which is not the full truth, for Christ alone is the truth, and He alone gives us the truth in perfect love; and it is only in proportion as we are filled with Him, and have Him to the exclusion of all our own evil, that we ourselves walk in the truth. Let us have our hearts fixed on any one thing or person save Christ, evil slips out, and it is good for us to know and own this. It was never so with our Lord. He could say, “I have set the Lord always before me” (Psa. 16:8). And He has given us Himself always to set before us.
Our Lord’s meat and His drink was to do the will of His Father; still there was the meeting God about our sins in a manner that we are not called upon to do. We start upon a redemption accomplished by Christ, which has brought us into the presence of God, and which calls upon us to walk according to the grace which has brought us there, and which keeps us there. We may not all realize it, but we have done with ourselves by virtue of the work of Christ; we are brought near to God, brought to be at home with God, and from that place we are called upon to take up everything that becomes us here below; and here we have to judge what is the will of God, for we are absolute weakness if we are not doing His will distinctly. It is not only that God will have us conformed to Christ by and by, but that is what He has in view now. And in spite of all, wherever the heart is true and Christ is before the soul, though there may be immense differences, yet this is God’s delight with His children. The child does not remain always a child, but becomes a man: and so should it be with the family of God. He would have them grow.
This then is the object in the gifts of Christ. He is bent upon blessing souls even now in the world, and that is the object of all ministry. It is not something left for our thoughts and arrangements, but it is all in the hands of the Lord. It is He who loves His saints, who will bless them, and who makes His individual servants, that have to do with the saints, to be immediately connected with Himself, and to have His objects before their eyes in that which they have to discharge to Him and not to them. For directly the Church becomes the great object before the soul, the blessing is of a lower character altogether, inferior in all its spiritual lineaments. There may be right feelings toward one another, but there is that which is much higher than loving one’s brethren, divine though it be; and if you know nothing above brotherly love as the object, you will not walk in love. God is higher than love, and that is precisely the point of difference so much needed for this moment. One of the main things that we have to guard against is, Satan’s endeavoring to persuade people that, because God is love, therefore love is God. But it is not so. If I say that, God is love, I bring out what He is in the active energy of His holy nature. But this is not all that God is. He is light as much as He is love; and I must own His love without the denial of His light. What prevails among many now, is the deifying of love in order to strip God of His light. But where we have it clearly before us, not that love “is God,” but that “God is love,” love will not be the less, but in fact more true and pure. While it will be the active spring of our own hearts, it will not be found at issue with His character, but will leave room for God to display Himself according to all that He is. God is truthful in love. Take it in the case of His dealings with my soul when He is converting me. Is faith the only thing produced by the Holy Spirit? What is the first effect of His breaking in upon a sinner? It is making nothing of him. Is not this love? Yes; but it is God’s love that deals with me in the truth of what He is, and of what the sinner’s awful condition is. So the effect produced on the heart of him that is renewed is not merely faith in Christ, but repentance toward God; it is the judgment of his whole moral condition in His sight. And as you find it connected with God’s dealings with a soul from the first, and in the moral answer produced in the soul of the saint, so it is true all through. Where there is the healthful action of a saint in the presence of God, the room will not be less full for divine love, yet there will be the maintenance of the holiness and majesty of God. We would not wish to be spared pain for the purpose of slipping through at God’s expense. There never has been one trial of heart gone through with God, but we have been blessed by it. We might have the blessing in a still fuller way without so much failure or letting out of what we are. But supposing we do not so lay hold of Christ as to be lifted above ourselves, then we must learn painfully what we are. But God turns it all for blessing. This is the great thought of the chapter. He has brought us into this blessed place. First of all, we are in Christ before God, and, next, God is dwelling in us: the one is our great privilege, the other is our solemn responsibility, which flows from the fact that God has made us His dwelling-place.
At once all contracted ecclesiastical notions are shut out by the truth of His dwelling-place. If we merely meet as a Church, such a connection with God disappears. But if it were only two or three, I must meet on the ground of the Church or it has no truth in it before God; and two or three Christians thus gathered would be with God and would have God dwelling in them. There Christ is, and there God dwells in a special way. God can bless where He does not sanction; He can bless in Popery. The grace of God is so rich and free, and above all the wicked ways of men, that He can use the name of Christ in the most untoward circumstances; but that is very different from God’s putting His seal to what we are about. In order that He may Himself be associated in it, we must be in the truth of things, and acting according to the divine mind. I believe that only in our own days has this great truth been brought out by the Holy Spirit so as to bear upon souls according to God. I am not aware of any adequate testimony to it since the ruin of Christendom. There were in abundance efforts of men to improve the present and imitate the past; but either is a very different thing from God’s provision in the Word for saints in a fallen state. If you see a man who is striving simply and ever so earnestly to get better, you say justly, he is under law, and does not understand the gospel. Just so, when a number of Christians are trying to ameliorate Christendom by new plans and efforts, I should say that if they understood the nature of the Church of God, and the Holy Spirit’s relation to it, they would feel that mere union is a poor substitute for unity; they would humble themselves in the sight of God because of the state of the Church, and would fall back upon the word of God to see whether there is not a real and lowly but divine direction for the actual state of things in the Church. May God deliver His saints from the unholy as well as unbelieving but very general notion, that we are obliged on account of present circumstances to go on in sin! To men of spiritual discernment, the thought is just making God such a one as us. If I give up His holiness in one thing, how can I stand up for it or trust Him in another? Contrariwise, let us maintain that there is no emergency as to which God can lower His holiness, or sanction the lack of it in us; and if His will be perfect in other things, is it less in that which so deeply and nearly concerns the glory and name of Christ as the Church? People argue from the fact that things are not in order and beauty now; they go so far as to deny the responsibility of saints, as if Christians were not in one way or another connected with these public departures from God. Will it be urged that they are to be adhered to because they themselves or their fathers have been brought up in them? Surely the one question for us is this: Do we desire to learn and do the will of God? Is that our great object? Or is it merely, Where can I get enough comfort or blessing to keep my head above water? Of this, too, I am fully assured that if you are found doing the will of God, you will get the most and best blessing; but it is not the true Christian motive, and it is an unsafe one. We may go here and get a little blessing, and then go there hoping to get a little more. But, as it is said here, growth is “that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (vs. 14). He would guard us from all the cunning craftiness of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
Is there, then, no means of having certainty in the midst of the confusion that reigns? Assuredly there is; and where the soul is sufficiently broken down to feel what is due to God, He will make all plain. We never ought to join in a single thing that we know to be wrong, whether privately or publicly. Of course, there may be everywhere things done or said that one may not be able to approve of, but this individual failure is different from joining in public acts of worship, the order of which is known beforehand to be systematically unscriptural. There I am identified with the guilt of what is done contrary to the word of God and so fixed by human authority. But this shows us the importance of nothing being done in the assembly but what will carry the weight of the whole assembly along with it. Hence, too, the evident desirableness of keeping out of the assembly all debatable questions. We may speak of them to a servant of God or a brother; but even that which I may individually enjoy is not a thing that I am entitled to involve the assembly of God in, unless I believe God would have me say it, especially when I know there is room for a just doubt on the mind of the simplest believer there. Minor matters of discipline never ought to be brought into the assembly. When there is anything of fundamental false doctrine or of a grossly immoral character, let it be what it may, there it is plain that all saints must be assumed to have the very same judgment. All would feel that they could have no fellowship with blasphemy or drunkenness, or any fatal manifestation of evil of one kind or another. Then we have cases which claim the united judgment of the whole assembly. Supposing a saint were what is called a Churchman, or a Dissenter, and little versed in Scriptural thought or action ecclesiastically, still, if he were really born of God, there could be no material difference of judgment about such matters. The power of the Spirit is mighty; the Lord knows how to work; and the common spiritual instincts of all the children of God, guided by His word as to such matters, find their expression in the renouncing and judgment of all such evil. But public discipline in the Church is so serious a matter, that it ought never to be resorted to till the evil rises up to such a height that all unbiased believers would be united about it. There is a tendency among righteous and active minds to make, out of every matter of difference, questions for the Church to decide on and deal with. This is a grave mistake, fraught with ill for all concerned, and to be resisted with all possible earnestness. Even saints are apt to be prejudiced or prepossessed in what concerns one another, especially in small things which can at all admit of party-feeling. Besides it would become an instrument of torture for many souls, if every private matter were liable to be brought into public. Thanks be to God, He has made His own landmarks for our guidance, and has shown us clearly that to bring anything into the open arena of Church discipline, ought never to be till every means has been taken to hinder it. The desire of our hearts ought to be the glory of the Lord in the blessing of one another’s souls; and we all know that needless publicity must add largely to the shame, pain, and difficulty. But when it is needful, let it be done, so that it be to the Lord, with the utmost gravity and real love. The destroying the true notion of the Church, and of its action, has tended to reduce it to the level of a mere club.
But when we lay hold of the truth that the Lord has that on earth with which He links His name, although only two or three souls may have gathered unto that name, renouncing their connection with what is of the world and of man; when we have come to learn from God that He who saved our souls is the only One competent to form and keep and guide the Church—if we know that He has made us members of His own Church, all we have to do is to act upon the ground of the Church that God has made. If we now belong to God at all, we belong to His assembly, and we are bound to follow it out practically. If I know ever so few that act upon the word of God which applies to this, I am free, yea, bound in the liberty of Christ to meet with them. Of course, it would be matter of thankfulness, if there were hundreds of thousands meeting thus, though this might in other ways entail more sorrow and trial; but the trial will not be mere trouble of flesh; it will be, if we walk with God, the exercise of grace and patience; it will call out the real love to Christ that seeks the good of others, and that is always drawn out into intercession by the pressure of evil on all sides.
Supposing then, two or three come to this point:—that they cannot acknowledge a human church, any more than a human salvation; are they to sit still, dishonoring God and ruining their conscience by persisting in known evil; or are they not in faith to meet in the Lord’s name? By all means let them come together, following the word and trusting the Spirit of God. They will find trial, but true liberty and the Holy Spirit working in their midst. He is given to abide with them forever; let them believe it and not fail to count upon it. They may be very weak, but the Holy Spirit is not weak. On coming together, perhaps there is no one to speak at length, with profit, to them; but the assembly of God does not come together for sermons. Much or little speaking, their object is to do the will of God, to remember Christ, to act scripturally on the faith of God’s objects in His own Church. If there were twenty thousand Christians round about them, meeting on human principles, what believer can maintain that these two or three would not have the special presence of God among them in a way the others would not? The more we have the sense of the ruin of the Church, the fuller our confidence that God’s principles always remain intact and as obligatory now as on the day of Pentecost; the more happy the soul in the Lord, the more it will be drawn out in love to all saints. May it be ours thus by grace to “grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ!” (vs. 15). This does not depend on the number of communicants, nor on the form and means of ministerial power, but far more on our own souls being with God, and doing His will, not only in individual service and life, but also as His assembly, which ought to come together according to His word.
There are, then, these three things:—first and prominently, the perfecting of the saints individually; next, subordinately, the work of the ministry, where other persons act upon me; and, lastly, the building up of the body of Christ. The full aim and desired result of it all is the growing up into a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; “that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (vss. 14-15). Allow me to show a practical proof of it. You are aware that at an early date, false doctrines and heresies of all kinds came in. What was the resource of good men in those days? They invented creeds and confessions by which they endeavored to try suspected persons. But where was the authority for this course? Was it found that these bulwarks kept the evil out? In no wise, time or place. There is only one power of maintaining truth and love—even Christ; and where Christ is really held up and to, without the devices of men, there may be weakness, and ignorance at first, but the result will be that Christ’s strength will be made perfect in their weakness. The power of Christ will rest upon those who, feeling their own weakness, cleave to Him alone. On the other hand, while you often stumble weak consciences, in good men, by imposing creeds, you can rarely, if ever, thereby shut out bad men; nor would spiritual men, alive to the honor of God’s word, and aroused to see their unscriptural character, if ever so correct, deem it right to own them. Thus you hamper the weak and you exclude the strong among the children of God. You have a crowd of thoughtless or bigoted subscribers; and as to dangerous men, what thief or robber cannot leap over a creed? Human restraints are able to dishonor the work of God, but avail not to hinder the evil of man or Satan. What you find in Scripture is the saints led on, and the body knit together by the different joints and bands, and thus having nourishment ministered. This is the exercise and fruit of ministry exercised in all its extent; but there may be the Spirit of God giving a word by one who has not a permanent gift. God ordinarily makes a man an evangelist or a teacher; so that a stated ministry is a truth of God.
But exclusive ministry, I am bold to say, is an interference with the rights of Christ, and with the action of the Holy Spirit. God has caused to be felt in these last days the ruin of the Church more than at any epoch known to me in its past history; but He has also made souls learn and feel that no ruin of the Church destroys a divine principle. What was the truth for the Church is the truth for the Church. The original principle of ministry ever abides the only principle which He sanctions or we ought to follow. If there was nothing like modern practice in apostolic times, it is a human thing (and why should a saint bold to or justify it?) in our days. It is absolutely due to the Lord, that the Church should not interfere with those who are scripturally doing His work; and also, that all should leave room for Him to raise up others as He pleases. No workman, skilled or blessed as he may be, has all gifts in his person. There might be some member of Christ in the congregation qualified of God to edify by a word of wisdom occasionally, or able to preach the gospel, to exhort, or to minister in some mode and measure, according to the word of God. What we find in Scripture is the door kept open in principle and practice for all that God gives. Surely this is not to disparage ministry; it is, on the contrary, to assert it, and the rights of the Lord in it. But the ground on which ministry is exercised at the present time is so wholly, certainly, and transparently human, that the effect is inevitably to accredit a number of persons as ministers who are not even Christians, and to discredit all real ministers, who for the Lord’s sake refuse their unscriptural forms. This is an evil that no godly saint, who desires to be obedient, ought to tolerate, or even make light of, for an instant. For my own part, it is one reason why it is wrong to become a minister of any denomination that follows (as all do) these baseless traditions. If you are a minister at all, you are a minister of Christ, and of no body else. This the word of God makes as plain as light. The action of the assembly, as such, is entirely distinct. While the minister is of course a part or member of the assembly, yet must he act, if he act rightly, from Christ, and from Christ alone. He may seek to edify believers by discourses, exhortations and so forth, addressed to them; he may seek earnestly the conversion of unbelievers; but ministry or no ministry, (in which last case there would, of course, be loss, yet) the assembly goes on, competent and bound to perform its own functions in subjection to the Lord. Again, not ministry but the presence and operation of the Spirit constitute the power of the assembly. This is as important for the assembly to bear in mind, as it is for the servants to remember that they have immediately to do with Christ as their Lord. Of course, abuse of ministry, like any other sin, necessarily brings him who is guilty under the judgment of the assembly. No man can ever be beyond the Church’s judgment, where he gives occasion for it by the allowance of evil in his conduct. But the Church’s interference never ought to appear, save in the case of known evil doctrine or practice.
This may help to show the practical bearing of the passage. What God does and Christ gives, the mutual service of the various members of the body, joints and bands,—all is that we should “grow up into Christ in all things; from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” There we have the theory of the Church, because God, in laying down these blessed principles, does not bring in the mere accidents of evil. There is no such thought as a screw being loose here, or something else being wrong there. All is supposed to be moving on harmoniously for the great end for which the Lord has established it.
There is a difficulty that people often bring forward—that you cannot have a perfect church on earth. What do they mean? If it be a church where there will not be a soul ever doing or saying anything but what is quite according to God, they are asserting, doubtless, a mere truism, if it be not rather, mere foolishness. But what is insinuated is, that you cannot, on earth, get any association of saints according to the will of God. I deny this, believing that you can readily find the path of His will, and that every believer ought to find that path. You are responsible to learn the will of God about His Church if you are a member of it, and to be doing nothing else. If I know two or three Christians in a place, seeking to walk according to the Scriptures, there should be my lot. One may be a forward man naturally, another might have strange notions and ways. There might be something faulty in each of the individuals. All this is not to deter me for an instant, because my owning them as being that part of the Church which is acting where they are according to God, does not depend upon an immaculate ideal in this or that. The question is—are they doing the will of God according to His word? God’s will at least is perfect, and he who does it, abides forever. Is not His will about His Church as absolute as about anything else? If this be allowed, there, I say, is the ground of action. Must we not be about our Father’s business as to this? So that the one question for all who desire to please God is, what is His will? Not surely to meet as the flock of Mr. So-and-so, (for where do we read anything of the sort in Scripture?) but to meet as Christians who are simply cleaving to Christ, and counting on the Holy Spirit to teach all the will of God? Is not this, and this alone, the true basis on which Christians should corporately act? Where, then, shall I find believers so meeting? Are there any who have had the faith to come out of that which is merely human, so as to stand on the ground laid down in God’s word? The same Scripture that tells me how I am to be saved, tells me how to walk in His house, the Church of God. Neither the assembly nor ministry is left to human wit or caprice; as to both, we must search, and be subject to, the word of God. God’s system (for He has one, as revealed in Scripture,) is what we have to find out and act upon; and though we may have very great trial and difficulty, and find ourselves in the same straits the early saints experienced, yet, even this confirms the truth to us, and we shall have joy and strength if simply dependent and obedient to the Lord. The very trials will become a means of fresh blessing; and we shall prove how truly God will give us to use for His own glory much of His word which was once practically useless to us, and which we supposed merely referred to apostolic times. We thus begin to find a present application of the word of God in our corporate position, just as much as in meeting the wants of our souls day by day. If this be so, may we have the happiness, not only of knowing these things but of doing them steadfastly unto the end!