Part 5
In the Reformation (as the word implies) there was no such a thing as a regaining of the divine position and principles of the Church of God—lost since apostolic days as a practical truth. There was but a re-formation of the existing bodies, which the Reformers supposed were the Church, into the National Establishments, and Reformed Churches.
It was a marvelous work, in that day of darkness most surely; a work for which we have ever to bless our God. Still it was far from perfect. The distinct personal presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth, constituting Christ’s body, the Church, was never seen. His personality and deity, etc., all Christians own, most surely; but I speak of His distinct personal presence on earth, as dwelling in the Church, and constituting her unity, in contrast to His working in various ways before He came to dwell. I might also mention other great truths which were not then known, but this is sufficient for my present purpose. Consequently, until the last one hundred years there were no saints gathered together “in assembly,” to the Name of the Lord, recognizing and acting upon the never-failing principle of the Church’s existence— “One body, and one Spirit.”
To seek to misapply the principle or type of the returning remnant in Ezra and Nehemiah to the day of the Reformation, is but to mislead and deceive. These remnants did return to a divine position. This no body of saints ever did at the Reformation. They were then on the platform on which all Israel could be with them, and the only one. This did not make them “Israel:” still none but they were on Israel’s ground.
When this remnant is described in Malachi—sad and humbling as is their state, they were still on that divine platform, the City of Jehovah. “The remnant within the remnant,” as I have described them, did not withdraw from that divine platform—that were fatal to their own faithfulness. But they were the more encouraged to earnest faithfulness in strengthening the things that remained.
The lessons we gather from these Scriptures teach the very reverse from what some have sought to draw from them. Such is the effect, first of slipping away from, and then resisting the truth of God.
The faithfulness of the few was the channel of sustainment to the others from a faithful God. We trace them further, till we find them in Luke 2, represented by old Simeon and Anna, who knew “all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” The same faith that could keep them waiting for the Lord’s Christ, could keep them alive till He came. The old prophetess, too, who could fast and pray, and live for, and in that spot which still was owned of God, found her fastings and prayers ended in praise, when the Lord she had looked for, came.
The last link in the history of this returned remnant which we find in the Gospels, we have in the solitary widow of Luke 21. A few verses further on in this chapter the Lord pronounces the final judgment on that temple at Jerusalem. It was still, however, in a certain sense, owned of God. This widowed heart had but one object now on earth she could do but little, for all she possessed was a farthing! “Two mites,” as the Spirit of God lets us know. Devotedness, in the estimate of man, would have been great indeed if she had appropriated half of what she possessed to the interests of God which engrossed her. But self was forgotten with this widowed heart, and she cast into the offerings of the Lord her two mites. The Lord’s eye saw the motive from which this offering sprang, read the action as He alone could read it:
“Of a truth,” said He, “I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all. For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”
He judged aright—but He did not judge by what she gave, but by what she kept; and that was nothing.
It is humbling to trace this decay of the mass, yet touching to contemplate the increased and increasing devotedness and purpose of those true hearts; but it is useful to face the dangers from which we are never free. Worldliness, self-seeking, and forgetfulness of the things of the Lord, all are among us, and are signs and sources of weakness. The Lord grant us to be warned, and to distrust ourselves the more. The Lord encourage the hearts of those who love His. Name and testimony, to be increasingly faithful. To keep the eye filled with Christ, and thus to be still more the channel of the Lord’s sustaining grace to the rest, till that bright and longed-for day arrives, when He will come and gladden our hearts forever.
It is easy to remark how in all those times of failure and ruin, the hearts of others were stirred up by some faithful one, in self-sacrificing energy, who would pray and work—and sigh and cry—who could spend and be spent on the Lord’s interests at the time. Through such the Lord wrought and delivered, and led and blessed His people. It might be by some lone widow who could agonize in prayers and fastings night and day. The answer came, and the blessing was poured out, and none knew what the occasion was through which the blessing came. But in the day when “every man shall have praise of God” it will be known; for His eye marked it and answered it, and that heart was, perhaps, unwittingly, in communion with His—the vessel for the intercession of the Spirit for the saints according to the will of God!
(Concluded)