THE history of man upon earth, as given to us by God, in the Bible, is the history of man's entire failure. I might say more; for the Book tells us that, looked at merely as a creature set in responsibility, man has done nothing but fail. " There is none righteous; no, not one.
The admission of this by a soul is one of the first results of its reception of the revelation to it by God of that great salvation which, in His mercy and compassion towards us, He has provided in Christ Jesus. The grace, mercy, and peace of God, which are by Christ Jesus, are felt and confessed by the believer to suit himself entirely; and he rejoices to find, that that which suits God, in all the height, of His Holiness, suits himself, a lost, undone sinner-even free grace and mercy; forgiveness of sins and acceptance; all freely provided by God in Christ-all made ours through faith, and by the alone power of God the Holy Ghost. This draws the heart, too, as with the cords of love, into the path of implicit subjection and surrender of self. But I do not think that present obedience in us will be intelligent, or the power of the soul that which it should be, unless the recognition of the failure goes beyond that which was true of us, individually, when grace found us. We ought to know the points from which God set out, and the points to which He is conducting things, as to man; first, as a creature; second, as connected with Providence and government; and, thirdly, as to the entirely new position in which the household of faith was placed, at Pentecost, as the Church. If, indeed, we are to be intelligent, and to be able to count upon God for the power and help of which we stand in need in our present path of obedience, we must know His grace as superabounding over all man's failure in these three positions.
The garden of Eden on the one hand, behind us-and the. great white throne, on the other hand, before us-are the termini of man's course as a creature. If a man will know himself as a creature, let him study these bournes, and where is he?
The rainbow, and the covenant with Noah, after he came out of the Ark, in favor of rebel man, was the starting-point of God's dealings with man, in Providence, under the present heavens and on the present earth. The millennial earth, under Christ, with its awful winding-up, will be at the close.
Providence and government both find their full expression therein.
As set in grace, and a part of the Church which is for heaven, I look back to the day of Pentecost as the commencement of the revelation of that grace wherein I stand; and I look forward to the city on high—the Bride, the Lamb's Wife-as that which is at the close. But how awfully do the many Antichrists of John, and Babylon as a city, and the whore, find their places centrally, between these boundaries or termini. It is not merely that these termini (as I have called them) mark the limits of the topic under consideration, and so give the full scope of each position; there are other things also connected with them; they give, first of all, the scope of the actions of the living God; and, further, it will be found that, whereas everything which God has entrusted to man, man has failed in, these trusts to man will in the end be made good, in and by Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us; and where sin has abounded, there grace will superabound, through the Son.
An innocent creation will be superseded by a new creation, wherein dwelleth righteousness, the patient goodness of God in providence and government, be superseded by the reign of Christ, and the trust of the
truth formative (through the Spirit present) of a house of God on earth, and the assembly of the living God (in which man has failed so signally since Pentecost) be superseded by the New Jerusalem: by the Bride-the Lamb's Wife. How many the deposits which God has, at sundry times, entrusted to man. But man has in every case, without any one single exception, failed. Yet, if these deposits pointed on to things in and for Christ, in Him they will not fail, but all, all shall stand. Adam and Eve turned out of Eden, when they had lost their innocency, and the paradise of God given to the overcomer in Him-God caring for Noah through the deluge, and giving the rainbow, and becoming King of Israel-and the Son of Man, Jehovah, caring for Israel and ruling over the earth-Pentecost and the Church at Ephesus behind, and the Golden City, which is the Bride, before us; these couplets must be known and acknowledged, if the creature, who is on his way from failure and ruin to redemption and glory, under the care of a sure and living Guardian, is to know aright whereabouts He is, and what resources are his, and for what ends he is to live, here below. And it is just this blending of the knowledge of entire failure in man with certain and complete victory by God in Christ, which alone gives to us the obedience of faith. Man, as a fallen, sinful creature, has no desire to render to God the tribute of His being; when converted, he finds he cannot live as an unfallen creature in Paradise should have lived; yet he seeks to render present obedience, and by faith he finds the how; with Israel in its worst state, scattered and peeled over the whole earth (Lev. 26:40-4640If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; 41And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: 42Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. 43The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 44And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God. 45But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord. 46These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses. (Leviticus 26:40‑46); Deut. 30), it will be the same faith, when they have it, which will lead them to, and show them the how of, an obedience which their circumstances will seem to make impossible; just so for us, however deep the failure may have been of man in his betrayal of the truth and his practical denial of the Spirit, and of the unity, holiness, heavenly character, etc., of that house and body, which the Holy Ghost came
down to form and dwell in at Pentecost, Faith will give the desire to obey; and faith spews a path too-,a path that the vulture's eye could not have traced. God is faithful to Himself, and has made provision for His people's walk under all circumstances; and in each circumstance it will be found that a soul which has failed and owned it, can yet walk upon the principles primitively given, if there be but obedience and faith-the obedience of faith.
In the spheres of creation, Providence, and government, God looks upon me-and I, as a Christian, look upon myself as one under failure; failure in my own self. In the sphere of redemption, He looks at me, and I look at myself-as a new creature in Christ Jesus, and there all is a success. It is entirely. divine: from God, in Christ Jesus, and through the Spirit; all to the glory of God. There is no failure there.. It is, too, in and for heaven, not earth; eternal, and not temporal. How to walk down, here, according to it, now, is the question, if we would have our lives blameless, and not forget our own mercies. For the salvation which is in Christ Jesus is not only past deliverance from under the curse which sin brought in, it is now a present life to God, through the whole of our course here below (in spite of Satan, the world, and the flesh), even as it has also a full manifestation, here-, after, in glory. Ruin around him, behind, and within, man cannot prevent the Hiring God in grace from carrying on souls to the glory which He has set before Him- self for them in Christ, nor prevent the present effect of His carrying them on being, at this present time, a testimony to all around of what He the unchangeable God is. Man held his place in Eden by subjection to a word spoken of God, and lost it when He ceased to be subject thereto (Gen. 2:77And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7), etc.). Cast out of Eden, his innocence lost forever, he had a word spoken of God (chap. 3. 15), which he carried with him; which if he held to and became subject to by faith, would give a present blessing. God could still be honored, His word still be owned and bowed to, though innocence was lost forever, and a world of woe was his sphere, instead of the Garden of Eden; but an endless life which lay beyond the power
that demanded energy and boldness. The promise of that life which is in Christ Jesus" (1. 2) became his banner: an individual portion truly. But, as we see throughout the epistle, it girded him up to break right through all that might oppose. He saw no possibility of getting rid of the failure which had set, in, and of the deepening of which he had to write; he would keep himself clean from it, cost what the effort to do so might. His heart yearned, too, after companions-a Timothy, or even a Mark, how belonged to have them. He speaks not of replanting churches, but of being alone when none would stand by him, and witnessing for the Lord as to the evil all round about him; and the Lord, who had delivered him, would deliver-this was his joy.
Who now is practically as he was as to life, wholly devoted to Christ in Heaven? Who among us knows what the standing and principles of the Church of God were, from having spent a life in maintaining and teaching them? I may fairly say this, as now putting forth a few thoughts to those who inquire " What as to the house of God, the assembly of the living God?" Surely this consideration is an important one at such a moment: Is mine eye single; is there entire devotedness to Christ in Heaven, through the Spirit and the truth; is there full purpose of heart individually to cleave to the Lord? For of what value is knowledge, when the heart is not ready to obey? If needful, yet is it a humbling thing for nominal Christians to have to inquire in eighteen hundred and sixty-three: IN hat as to the Church and our connection with it?
But, to proceed: When I look back to the day of Pentecost, I do see a deposit of truth and power committed to man's faith, which formed on earth an entirely new habitation. for God through the Spirit, and an assembly, the members of which were in blessed possession of life. Between that and the so-called reformation, what a change had taken, place on earth! What entire failure on man's part to hold the truth, to be faithful to the deposit, to walk in the Spirit, to live for Heaven only. All the leading thoughts of the Church at Pentecost had been taken up by Satan, in order corruptly to form a house and an assembly for himself on the earth. Satan and the world; and the flesh, developed in worldliness on earth, and Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for eternity and Heaven, clean lost sight of as to any practical manifestation among men, and thus among professing Christians. Man's failure in responsibility was patent; and it has not been judged by God yet-nay, it has not its fullest form of evil yet. I confess the evil, own my being in the place where it has been. done, and so I bear the responsibility and the shame; but I have no thought of displaying myself and my energy in attempting the setting up either of a house, or of an assembly afresh. God formed that which was at Pentecost. Man, as a creature and as in responsibility, has utterly failed in this trust 'again; and, if I see many houses and many assemblies, each differing from the other in its principles, I see no where that of which I can say, this is that which was 'the house and the assembly at Pentecost. But, if that, which was a type of something better to come is now a failure, through man's sins, there is still the living God; and He has not failed, nor has He who said on another occasion, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." Oh that our hearts were Christful and heavenly enough to take in and act upon these solemn realities! This brings me to my real position and the duties of it, duties 'according to the new nature.
As to my real position, and the duties connected with it: I judge that the second Epistle of Paul to Timothy is our letter of instructions. If they have been hitherto as a sealed letter to us, may we open, and study them now. They do not enjoin us to bring a clean thing out of an unclean; nor do they give us hope of the current of evil being stopped here on earth ere the Lord come: they give no hint of our being called to set up a new house or to gather a new assembly; but they do call for us to do three things: In well-girdedness of loin and fullness of courage, first, to purge ourselves individually from all the evil that is round about; secondly to witness a good confession for the Lord; and, thirdly, in yearning Christ-like affection, to have an open bosom and a ready welcome for all that purify themselves. Oh for more purpose of heart for Christ and Heaven, that we might be Nazarites indeed! As to the principles of our standing and association with any such two or three who meet in the Lord's name, there is nothing new in them from what was true at Pentecost, at Ephesus. Failure in man has not changed God's faithfulness to the Son of His love. God has still the thought before Him, according to His own purpose and counsel, of a habitation for Himself,-of associates with Him in glory,-the new Jerusalem, the Bride the Lamb's wife is for the Son's glory;. it cannot fail, come what may. Creation, providence, government have failed in man's day; so has man failed as to the Pentecostal deposit of truth and the Spirit;- but God still will have a habitation and associates in glory.
I have to act, as best I can (God being my light and my guide) upon. all the standing and all the principles of the Church of God as revealed at Pentecost. If there be evil in the place of profession, or in any who are associated with it, 1 must keep myself clean, purge myself from it; and, if worldliness, fleshliness and present plans for self or human energy, mark the day we live in-such things stand in contrast with the heavenliness, the spirituality, the love of Christ, which, through faith and the Holy Ghost, marked the early Christian. The Lest way of being clean of the evil is, and surely for us would be,-to be full of God and Christ and Heaven and the Holy Ghost, as were the early Christians; and, by the light, to put the darkness to shame. Where this cannot be,. I must still keep myself clean, confess and protest. And, under all circumstances, seek to witness for the Lord-in patience and hope.
In a house that is defiled by leprosy, I may find living inmates who have the faith and spirit of Jesus Christ.- I must own all such, and each of such as part of that which God called His house-His assembly; and, as individuals, they will each and all form part of the new Jerusalem. But, are they individually walking as men, or are they walking as the Son of God walked: is earth or is heaven the present dwelling-place of their souls? Paul longed for any that would run the gauntlet, as he felt he had to do. I do not find that the churches, so called, have their communion and association in the commemoration of the broken body and shed blood of the Lord of glory, with the truth before them, that assimilation to His dying is all they have from here below, -until He come. It is not enough to be part of God's house and assembly, so set forth at Pentecost, or to know that we shall individually. form part of the new Jerusalem. At Pentecost it was no scattered flock. If we come together, and we are bound to do so, is it in the name- of Him who was a pilgrim and a stranger here below-a servant because a Son: is it as those who have avowed, plainly, that we are not of the world, but seek a city yet to come. Is it as those who know what God is now doing,, and who openly and practically avow what we know, and' act upon it. So shall two or three who meet. together in His name be able to say, that they are and that they know-they are, in His mind, "of" His house, and " of." His assembly, and the world and the professing world alb. around them will know it too. The presence of God is a very real thing, even with two or three who are in the power of His name; and they get tokens of His presence.. Such never could say, "We are His house, and His. assembly" without arrogance and pride. If we assume. it, we are in Babel in spirit and mind. We are laying. claim to the judgment due to the house and -assembly as failed in man's hand.- We are walking upon earth, and minding things of our own;. yet, on the other hand,. two or three so met together in His name, could not (without ignorance of the Lord's grace and of their own responsibility under its blessing) deny they are " of " that which he counts and acts towards, in a., peculiar sense, as His own; prospectively as His house, His assembly. If the form of two or three meeting occupy the mind, self and worldliness will be found in a new form. and that is all. But, if the purged people get together in the fear of the Lord, they will find the power of the Spirit, heaven and joy unspeakable.
" What as to the House of God which is the assembly of the living God?" Study the word, and see what it was at Pentecost with the Divine presence in it, and the full savor of heaven and eternity in and upon it. The faith and the Spirit of Christ go together. See what man has done since, and see, too, most especially, the every contrast or want of agreement between your own character and that of Christ Jesus; or, that of a Peter, a Stephen, or a Paul,: and be ashamed before the Lord at the worldliness and carnality, the self-sufficiency and ignorance, and careless self complacency which have marked you. See the down-hill road of everything in man's hand, to infidelity and superstition; but, mark too, above it all, the faithfulness of God, and His purpose of carrying into the new Jerusalem His own. If you find you are now, while it is called to-day, one with Him in that purpose, stand forth for Him a vessel purged from evil in every way.. They that walk by sense and live on earth will find that their connection with the church is connection with a ruined house and a corrupt assembly, about, when the evil is fully ripe, to be judged; but, they who walk by faith and in the Holy Ghost, and live in heaven, will find that their connection with the church, is connection with the living God and the word of His grace in His own eternity-and the counsel of the Lord as to the new Jerusalem-the Bride-it shall stand.
God give us more simplicity and purpose of heart to carry out, at all cost, His principles-first as individuals, and that will secure to the twos and threes their full blessing.
If, as I believe, the whole blessing of the soul and of each of us, and of us all who are believers, purged: believers, turns upon the reality of our having to do, consciously and intelligently, according to the faith and by the Spirit, with the living God who has taken us up, while it is called to-day, in His grace,-let us beware, then, as to our thoughts and conduct in relation to the query-" What as to the House of God, which is the assembly of the living God?"
" Where two or three are gathered together in My name,. there am I in the midst of them"-was the Lord's first declaration and promise,-and that before. the Day of Pentecost; it was His new principle of association for His disciples. The temple in the land had been the rallying point of the people of Israel. His own person, though in heaven, seen by faith, would be the attracting center of union to the disciples of Him who died that He might gather together in one the children of God that were scattered Abroad. On the Day of Pentecost this was acted upon, and by the Holy Ghost, an associate company and habitation formed on earth to which the responsibility was 'committed of the heavenly-mindedness, the. grace, the holiness, and the unity of God's house and assembly. It was a real thing, and the living God and His power were there. But man failed; and where 'now, on earth, is there that which we can turn to and say: " See the house of God, the assembly of the living God" as they could have done at Jerusalem, without. fear of contradiction, or shame. It was a manifest reality. It bore the stamp upon it of God and of heaven; of His character and ways. But it is not a manifest reality now, that which is in man's hands. And, because men feel the want of the reality, they that think they can still say " Come and see in us the house and the assembly"-are obliged to falsify the truth of God. They are obliged either to change the elements of what was the house and assembly, as Rome has done, from heavenly to worldly, from spiritual to sensual; or they are obliged to make what was visible and tangible to sense invisible and spiritual; but an invisible light and an invisible house for men in bodies upon earth is literally nonsense. When Christ was upon earth, as God's witness there, he was not invisible, but visible, as 1 John 1:11That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (1 John 1:1), says, " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen, etc;" and when He went into heaven and
had sent the Holy. Ghost down from heaven, the Church was not invisible, but visible enough, whether at Jerusalem or at Ephesus, and it made its light and power known, for the Holy Ghost was there, and an absent Lord was loved and served. One house and one assembly of God upon earth; one truth and one Spirit; one set of principles; one origin; one power; one end and one portion marked it every where the house and assembly visible upon earth-witness for an absent and, to the world invisible, Lord and Savior. To change either the principles of the Church, or its visible manifestation, is the work of the Adversary-who thus seeks to destroy the responsibility of the saved people. Rome did the former; Protestantism does the latter. Surely there is neither reality nor the presence of the living God, therefore, with either the one or the other.
But the principles acted upon at Pentecost by God and Christ, and the Holy Ghost, might have been owned fully at the reformation. They were not; nor was man's failure ever seen clearly. If it had, we should not have had on earth that which we had at Pentecost exactly, any more than the temple, when once destroyed, could ever be the same when rebuilt. The Urim and the Thummim, and the Shechinah, were never restored to the temple when rebuilt; moreover, the ten and the two tribes were ever distinct from the days of the kingdom being rent in twain. Still there was, from the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, that upon earth in Israel, which God could own, and did own as His temple and His people,-bear as they did the awful traces of man's past failure. Was there. such an apprehension of what the Church had been, and of the impossibility of man to restore it at the time of the Reformation? I trow, not any where. Nay, for the most part, instead of the Pentecostal Church for model, the temple and kingdom of Israel was taken for model, and Protestant non-conformity, with all its piety and good works, never appears to me to have got hold even of the principles of the Church at Pentecost clearly.., Therefore one spirit and one faith, and a fellowship based upon the holiness, and truth, and grace of Pentecost, were not even sought. after. Had they been sought after, God might, and doubtless would, have marked both man's failure and His own grace in that which He would have allowed to be set up, though that which corresponded to the Urim and Thummim, and Shechinah might not have been given, nor would the rent of Greek and Roman churches ever have been mended. But, in truth, there was nowhere the children of God who had been scattered abroad, gathered, as such, together, according to the promise: " Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.' It was not sought, and it was not found. I need not here say what the Protestant churches, as such, appear to me to have been,-still I may say that their basis was the seat of government in this world,-so far as I know, in every case. And, if non-conformity went a step further, it never, that I know, apprehended the original unity and visibility of the one habitation of God through the Spirit, of the one assembly of the living God.
When the days came that the return of the Lord was to be brought forth and preached again, the Lord did throw much light upon the minds of the people, that received it; and both the original unity of the Church, and the personal presence of the Holy Ghost with it, as under the Lordship of Christ, at first, and remaining as He did, to witness, for the Lord Jesus Christ, became a commonly known and commonly owned truth. The presence of the Spirit had been seen by a Huss, and by, perhaps, Luther, as also other truths, but were not acted upon by them; and though found. in their writings, in such expressions as the Holy Ghost, and not the Pope, Christ's Vicar upon earth, did not long survive, as truth known to the mass. But now, many in England, and on the continent, saw clearly, in the light of the doctrine Of the Lord's return, the Holy Ghost as the Comforter; who, however dishonored by man, had remained to witness for the Lord, and to spew of His Father's blessedness in heaven to them that believe.
Many, too,' then. pinched and conscience-vexed by man's world-churches, and by the inadequacies of Nonconformity, did find a haven of rest to their troubled consciences in the promise and the meeting upon it, " Where two or three arc gathered together in. my name; there am I in the midst of them.' They may have attained, too, to taste of the communion of saints as such-may have met upon a basis large enough for all the children of God that were scattered abroad, and yet practically vital enough to give no attraction to those who obviously sought not the Lord out of a pure heart. It may be, too, that their position was such (however despicable in itself, like the Cave of Adullam, which housed God's king and God's priest) as to be owned of the Lord with an, " I am with them to bless them," and, again (Hag. 1:1313Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. (Haggai 1:13)), " I am with you, saith the Lord," and that He may have said of them, as thus together, " Of my habitation, of my assembly," pointing them onward and upward to the glory. Before man they never could pretend to be the house or to be the assembly-much less could they pretend to do that which even the primitive church did not pretend to; viz., to gather to themselves, and not to Jesus. Still there was reality in the movement, and God was with it then and there. If any, now, in the present day, wanted me to go back to those days, I should see no reality in so doing, nor do I think God would be with me in the attempt. That movement was not the model, nor the starting point of action by which to judge ourselves; but Pentecost was both model and starting point. Those times are bygone. The state of things is changed now, and the time; but the living God of then is the living God of now, and knows how to apply the promise to our need to-day as much as to our need yesterday.'
The mass who are awake now pass not through the same trouble of conscience to-day as some did forty years ago. But the promise that met us then, meets us now, and the living God is still with us. As God still remembers He is Creator and Provider, and Governor, though man has forgotten it, and denied his allegiance to God, so does the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ remember his title and place as to the Church. He has acted, and is acting upon his own right to give the blessings of these titles to a failed people. Babylon itself cannot hinder His free grace to the people who have failed. If humbled under His hand, they will get it.
I doubt much whether we can safely speak of them as a remnant, it would lead the mind too much back to Old Testament times, and to things of earth, and place them on the earth; yet they certainly may say, " Of His own will begat He us, with the word of truth," which cannot be said of the mass professing; and they may be, as to position also, able to say (which the children of God, who are scattered abroad, can hardly do), of that " kind of first fruits of His creatures."
"Are they a testimony, and if so of what?" Such is a question which has been put, and often. Was the pristine Church, as such, a testimony, and will the New Jerusalem Bride of the Lamb be a testimony?
Is there not a fallacy in both these questions? I think there is; and that the not perceiving this has led to sorrow. The word testimony may be used either in a passive or in an active sense. In the former sense, the church at Pentecost, house and assembly, certainly was a testimony or proof of the unsearchable grace and wisdom of God in Christ (Eph. 2 & 3.) and so, greater proof of divine grace and wisdom than the new Jerusalem, I know not-'tis the chef d' oeuvre of God-something made for Christ. But to whom will the new Jerusalem be a testimony in the active sense?- such a city, such a bride corporate cannot speak (see also Psa. 19). And was the church at Jerusalem either a preacher or a teacher? i. e. a testimony in the active sense? I think not. It was formed by the Word, and dwelt in by the Spirit:-but the gospel existed before the church; and, it had individual men in it who were teachers of it, and there were evangelists who went forth to gather out through the gospel, like Paul, without any man's leave. To receive, to be formed by, to hold the truth and to display the power of it in our ways and habits-are very. different things from preaching or teaching the truth, whether to saint or sinner. If men have found grace to be of the two or three who are purging themselves, and do not count that their being there, is of the election of grace, in their own cases and in the cases of all who have found a lair there, where two or three are gathered together, I pity them from the bottom of my heart.
What a sweetness they have lost, in not being to say" He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, for His name's sake." The existence 'of any such spots are, in their very existence, a proof of unchanging grace in God; and, I trust also, they are proofs that the night is far spent, and that the day is at hand. Nothing will make the ruin and failure of the church in man's hand, so tangibly apparent to men, I think, as such gatherings. Nothing will make so apparent to men, that the children of God have had no communion as such in Romanism, etc., as a few meeting in brokenness amid the ruin; yet, amid it all, having, through God's grace, His presence manifestedly among them, and therefore, communion as children of God. Be they two or three; or twenty or thirty; or two or three thousand, who thus meet together-there is no fear of their not having God with them; they are walking in the faith of Christ, and by the Spirit they have been blessed of God; and, if God gives Teachers and Pastors, these would not be the assembly, nor could they trace their credentials otherwise than as having addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints•' evangelists too, He might give; but they are, though of the church, outside as to their range of work, which is to the world as such.
There is another remark I would make, as to what is called Testimony in the active sense. If I were an evangelist or a teacher, I should be called to give testimony; it would be part of any obedience,. and the way I should seek, to be able to do it, is marked in the scriptures.
This would be active testimony. I pray God to give us much more of it, and to make more effectual the little which there is. But I am not called, it is not part of my obedience as a Christian, to have my soul occupied with men, good or bad men's thoughts about the effects of my communion with God. If I walk in the flesh or worldliness, that will be patent to all, and is to be guarded against surely; but if I walk with God and Christ. in Heaven, through faith and the Holy Ghost, my soul is occupied with the objects there, and it is just this absorbedness with Heaven and eternity, which gives that unselfishness, and that care for God and for Christ, which is the passive testimony. If I seek it, self comes in, and man's thoughts in time, which is worldliness. If I am occupied with that which is in Heaven and eternity, the savor of it will appear; a servant of God because a Son.
If any deny' that God has persons now-a-days who are responsible to Him, some to preach the word to the world, and others to explain it to the saints; I leave them to settle that with Him. The assembly of God in no sense ever pretended to be a pastor or a teacher, but to be, what is much higher, the habitation of God, and the assembly in association with God, a proof in its original formation, and in its very existence wherever found, of His love, and wisdom, and power; and, since man betrayed the trust, of how the counsel of the Lord stands firm, and of how the Father -works, and the Son, to form the new Jerusalem-Satan, world, and flesh, not—withstanding. Man's past failure is not to be our excuse for worldliness, or indifferentism in heart or conduct to the person and path of Christ, or for withdrawing of ourselves into corners, each one apart. Nor are we to use it as a place for seeking a quiet and comfortable nest for ourselves, or a place in which any shortcoming of devotedness and holiness will not be noticed; the common failure being the cover for present individual failure. Amid all the fretting of evil unbelieving hearts, let us in patience possess our souls. He gives more grace. May we be the free channels of it to others, in all their trouble. "We are what we are, and God is what He is; and they that walk with Him, the living God, Will soon find that they and He are well met together;" but then, let us keep to reality, to a walk with the living. God while it is called to day, and leave it to Him to settle. with those that lag behind, or that run before, or that ignorantly wander at the side. In this day, it is a great matter to let God break us down into our own places, by what means He is pleased; and sure I am, that there is no danger of His breaking any of us down into a place that is too small for us. Let Him work, and follow thou Him; and the place of work now and of glory hereafter, will tell of His greatness, little as we may be in it. The stone that slew Goliath was a little stone, and David's exertion small. It did a great work nevertheless, and won a great prize, for God was owned and thought of, and Goliath and the Philistines were not thought much about by David.
I would that my brethren-instead of being occupied with questions about what is the Church now on earth in time, and what are we as to it, which only prove, in those that so speak, that they have not done with man as a failed thing, have not ceased from man-were occupied with what the Church is in God's mind in heaven and for eternity. Let them see the failure in -man's hand; let them see their own connection with it, and let them loathe themselves, and all that man has done and been, in the presence of the love that. knows no let, but still goes on with its own purposes and plans; but let them look to it, that they individually are purged vessels fit for the master's use; not of the world, in thought, affection, conduct, even as they are -not of the world in the Spirit of Christ, which has made them partakers of the blessing. But doing and suffering God's will, are great things in this day.
Walk by sense and sight as to the Church, and you are in Babylon; walk by faith and the Spirit, and you are with God on the road to glory and Heaven. The sum and substance of all I have to say is that the Church, as the habitation of God, the assembly of the living God, seems to me to be presented in two ways in Scripture. It is part of the eternal counsel and plan of God the Father, for the Son of His love, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the eternity that lies before us. As such, 'tis the workmanship of God the spirit, through faith in us; and can never fail. But this formed the basis of a responsibility among men on earth, in time, inasmuch as the knowledge of the truth which lay at the basis of it and of the power so brought. in (viz..: the Messiah, earth rejected, displayed in Heaven as the second Adam, life-giving Spirit) was set forth at Pentecost, and entrusted to man.
Man has failed in this as in everything else; hopelessly, and irremediably failed, and judgment is at the door. On the other hand, God has not failed in any wise; and he knows how to turn even this failure also to His own glory, and to the furtherance of the blessing of any who own. it, and walk with Him amid the failure. Such become manifest as persons who purge themselves from all evil; who purify themselves even as He is pure; who walk with Him upon the principles upon which He is acting, in and for His own eternity in Heaven.
(Continued from page 37.)
A. Are the three offerings of the people, on the eighth, day, the bringing in of the children of Israel before the glory appears?
B. You get another element in the consecration of Aaron's sons, they are all connected with himself," with Him" (30). This is not the case in chap. ix; no such connection is marked. When you get Aaron alone, as High Priest, there is no blood; he is anointed with oil, as Christ was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power.
A. But still they are connected with him; and it is not so with the people?
B. No. We only are made kings and priests; and, for us to be brought in, we must have blood put on us and the anointing oil, which was never put on the people, but when Christ went in, it was with His own perfection.
A. Is there not anointing connected with abiding in Christ in the epistle of John?
B. Yes. Only it does not refer to Priesthood there. It is the same thought. It is life. In John, you always get life connected with the Spirit.
A. And with God and with Christ?
B. Then it is not merely life given us of His Spirit Though it is life, it is also spirit for union with Himself as Son. He that hath the Son, hath life; John gives us his person not priesthood. The ground was laid in His person. It is life, there; besides that it is the Holy Ghost. In Eph. always the Holy Ghost. In Col., always life. The same thing, but presented according to their condition. As life, it is as your own [new] nature coming from God.. As the Holy Ghost, it is in power. Whatever He,(Christ) is you get into; Sonship, priesthood, royalty. It is a great thing to have it as life. If it were only the Holy Ghost, I would not say, "'I;" if it were without the Holy Ghost, there would be no power. (To be continued.)