The thoughts of many, at the present moment, about the testimony of God, appear to me to savor rather of the personal considerations, as to where they have been, and what they have been doing, than to present a fair expression of what is true as to God and His present testimony.
The grace of God, in the last of these days, found us all, whom indeed it has found, dwelling in a moral Babylon; and there the cry was heard, "Come out of her, my people!" And who, that has replied to the call, " I come, Lord," has not found both the inextricable character of the labyrinth, out of which, through grace, he desired to escape, and his own complicity, alas! with the evil of the place?
To move from one street to another in that mystic city is readily allowed; and it is comparatively easy, if expensive, so to do. But none, except He who is stronger than the lord of that city, can bring clean out of it any of those who have been born there, and have thus become "dwellers upon the earth":- "dwellers upon the earth" in avowed obedience to the name of Christ, and holders of citizenship "where Satan's seat is," professedly in the fear of the Lord.
Speaking as a man, I might say, the Roman circus-the Grecian quadrangle-the Seven-dials of Protestantism—the colleges, schools, and triangle of Non-conformity -the model buildings of Separatism—the All-Saints Hall of the Evangelical Alliance, which goes not beyond " a Pandect;" present not one of them a "Pella," or a " Zoar," in regard to Babylon. What outward place does? True: and yet, if a man has heard a cry, " Come out of her, my people"; and that by a voice whose call is never in vain; he must be cautious, and get out, lest he be lost in the confusions of the place. And the more caution will be needed, with minds like ours, so prone to self-deception in the things of God. Alas! when one has been roused to action, how frequently does the heart confound the thought, " I have done something," with " I have done thy will, O God." But who needs be told that these are often far from being equivalent?
I do not press the applicability of the doctrine of the Babylon of "Revelation;" yet I note the fact, that the Spirit of God has commonly used it on consciences, when he has been leading His people to reform themselves. See, for example, in the days of Luther, and of the Nonconformists, and the movement of to-day.
But a word as to the so-called present testimony. I will state in simplicity, for myself individually, what I mean by the present testimony, in which, and of which, I desire grace to be found; and, at the same time I must say, I deeply deplore that many beloved children of God either do not see its existence, or make light of it altogether.
No better introduction of my subject occurs to me than the well-known but much abused catechismal term -"THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH."
While God was teaching earthly truths and government, the Jew was His subject: but, when heavenly truth became the theme, Christ and His grace in the church became the subject.
God established upon earth the counterpart and witness of what was in his counsel for the heavens-a church; and the word of God's grace was about that church; see Paul's conversion. In connection with the church, the individual believer found his position, his privileges, and his responsibilities. It was to be on earth as a widow, Christ-expectant, and serving the living and true God until the Savior and Lord came back.
I do not go into the question, what is the church? All I assert is, God did establish one; and I ask, Where is it?
Chef d'ouvre of God's workmanship, it came out to light when the Son of man, rejected by all from earth, had found His seat at the right hand of the Father. His God and Father has not changed His truth, nor recalled it yet to give it another form; nor has He changed the place of the Son of man upon the Father's throne.
The "chaste virgin" on earth, espoused to a Heavenly Lord, as a widow waiting-where is she? Nay; all is changed here, in her appearance, from what once it was; and because of man's utter unfaithfulness we were found, if found by grace at all, in Babylon. But found by whom, except by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who retains Him still as Son of man upon the Father's throne. The position and revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are not changed; nor will change (blessed be God) to please us and our narrow thoughts. Divine and heavenly truth about the Son and His church, is still the standing form of God's present display of Himself.
Now what I want is, to be broken clown in myself, and in all that I have and am, by this divine and fatherly love, and to be made to realize, and to exhibit, in the midst of the ruin and wreck of the church here below; that the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is still acting down here upon earth as the God and Father of the Son of man, who is at His right hand in the glory which He had with Him before the world was, and who has a body down here. The claims of God, and the blessing of my own soul, require this.
It is clear I cannot, if I would, break up the truth given to me as one here below;-I cannot, because I cannot change God's revelation of Himself, nor the position which His Christ holds, until the church is all gathered at the Father's right hand.
The discovery of this truth tells me where I am not, and what I am not. It tells of man's utter failure, and of circumstances so changed down here, partly the effects of our wickedness, and partly the effects of the moral judgment of God thereon,-that one finds it is God alone can soften one down to the platform of His grace;—a platform where all the heavenly divine light of the Son of man, upon the Father's throne, meets the conscience of a member of His body in a place where all is confusion and sin.
"The obedience of faith" how precious in such a position! The knowledge of which involves that God and His truth are not changed; and if the circumstances down here proper to it are changed, God will accept the integrity which seeks to find and to do His will, and He will give guidance to such; though He may leave to their own wisdom those who, because they have failed themselves want to make out, either that He is also changed; or that, if not changed in Himself or in His truth, He is not, as the living God, acting upon that truth now. No measure short of Christ and the church is our gospel; and God is acting upon that truth, and I do most simply, therefore, ask that I may find grace in his sight, not only to know Himself and His truth, but to know myself livingly associated with Him as the living God in His present action. Blessed also is the truth to such a one of the Lordship of Jesus: i.e. that He is not Savior only, but Lord of All also.
I believe it to be a very great sin, and a grief and a dishonor to the Holy Ghost, to deny the church of the living God, and a corrupting of the gospel. To make little of what God is doing, as the living God, is a sin too; and this is what they are guilty of who make little of present association with Him as the God so acting. Who would turn back from "the Father," and " the Son of man upon the Father's throne;" the Father acting for the members of the body of that Son-to grace and mercy as fitted for a soul itself in its dangers and needs? Blessed is the gospel which calls a sinner, and the grace which suits a saint; but I am speaking of the responsibility of unexampled infinite grace.
I believe it to be horrid dishonor put upon oneself to be thinking merely of one's own soul, or even of the souls of poor sinners and saints around one, if it be to the forgetting of the central truth; GOD'S central truth-of His delight in Christ and His church.
I need hardly say, I do not sanction any disparagement of any babe's attainment in thus speaking. I speak not of such; but I speak of those who, professing to be "somewhat," and to be making progress into a fuller light and liberty, would set the gospel as their more excellent employment; or who would put aside the thought of a " present testimony" for the gospel's sake.
Now my assertion is clear-the man of God, who has to do individually with the living God in His gospel, knows that gospel to be about Christ and the church; and that, much as man has failed, God, as the living God, holds to that gospel; and holds men of God to see their failure; and if walking with Him as the living God, to own the scope of the truth first given, and to seek from God power to live out, amid all the wreck and ruin, as integral parts of that body, the Head of which is in heaven, and so to be associated, and consistently associated, with God's present testimony for Himself. And all I would say is, that if God is ready to vindicate Himself against man and Satan in upholding a few individuals after that sort-may I be one!