I rejoice with thankfulness when I am allowed to review each of you + before the Lord. I have had a fear, and it is simply this, I think you will allow me to be candid with you, lest you should not make the Spirit's first thought (in accordance with the heart of Christ and the purpose of God) your leading thought.
I do not deny that it has a place in your minds, as well as in your affections, but more in the latter than in the former; that is, while your affections entertain it, you are not so ruled by it that your minds would be coloured by it, and all your work in purpose bearing on it. You may say that you are by gift evangelists, so was Paul. You may say -- we hope to get to it. Now in divine things there is no possibility of making that straight which is already crooked; there is no such thing as growing out of a deformity, or an impaired constitution, save and except by renouncing that which caused the damage, and starting anew, one by one, according to the light now vouchsafed. I mean for instance that no amount of teaching can raise a Baptist congregation into the truth of the assembly of God. To be in the truth of the assembly of God you must gather with God, and by Him, apart from conventionalism. You know very well that it is the aim which gives a character and a colour to all one's energies and ways in seeking to attain to it. Is the filling up of Christ's body -- the true aim of the Holy Ghost according to the heart of Christ and the purpose of God, your aim -- your simple aim -- as simple that it is your commanding aim? I do not for the moment ask you to see, if there is any one else on the road with you (though Timothy was told to look out for those who had preceded him on the road), because I know that
+A group of evangelists at ---- .
if this is your aim, and if through grace it is my aim we cannot be separated, but we must ere long be in the power and unity of the one and selfsame Spirit; and otherwise, God so helping me, I should not desire it. If it be your aim, and if you start faithful to Christ to reach it, as a Nehemiah, I know well that you must in the end meet and join with me, if Ezra-like I have long since preceded you on the road from Babylon.
The temple of Jerusalem was aforetime the centre of God's interests on earth. Haggai shews how all other blessings lost their proper good and value, because the house of the Lord lay waste. The widow in Luke 21 manifested the true spirit, devoting all she had (regardless of her own destitution) for the restoration of the temple, the only spot on earth dear to God. If His present circle and centre be the definite aim of our service and devotedness, we may be assured, oh how much! that 'From this day I will bless you'; but if not, though we may appear to do much, we shall from want of instruction from the wise master builder, build wood, hay, stubble, sow much sorrow for ourselves, and reproach to that name which we really desire to honour. Yours affectionately in Him, whose we are and whom we desire to serve.
The body is formed by the Holy Ghost, each member being baptised by Him into one body. The Spirit's work and therefore the servant's business is to see that each member knows what he is called to. I cannot see how any one could drink of the selfsame Spirit and not have instincts for membership; but the servant does not put them there. Do you understand the body as one held together by the Holy Ghost? Not by any set of privileges or blessings or even by Christ as Lord. He is Head of the body, but He is not the bond of union. We are bound to Christ as Head by the Holy Ghost, and baptised by Him into one body; so that when I come to understand
the body I am not careful merely as to what suits the members; I must take into account what suits that which binds us together -- to Christ and to one another. It is the Spirit who incorporates a member into the body; no putting them in a room together with the most spiritual or breaking bread with them would do so. In this day of confusion we have had to learn what the body is, and we have had to learn the holiness of the house of God; we have had to purge ourselves from the vessels to dishonour in the systems, not merely by withdrawing from that which would immediately affect the members, as far as we could see, but from what would grieve and hinder the Spirit. Could any reprobation or separation be deemed too much? This is really the question; we see from the word of God that a simple usual act of courtesy couched in "farewell" involves us in the evil deeds of the utterer of a heresy. See 2 John 10, 11. A saint may not hold it, but if he be indifferent about it, he disrespects the feelings of Christ, and the holiness of God's Spirit, and grieves and hinders Him in himself and in the body. We charge this indifference on B-------- Street. We do not charge it with heresy, but with indifference; and I see that in not one of that way is there power or knowledge of the truth which we have lately been enjoying together. I am confident before the Lord that if I were not exclusive, seeking (and it cuts home I know) to maintain what becomes the house of God here, the habitation of God through the Spirit, I should lose, as so many of my brethren have lost, those truths which are nearest to the heart of Christ. Can any true-hearted soul hesitate as to on which side he would be, on the side of indifference, or that of faithfulness to maintain the honour of Christ and that the Spirit should be unhindered? It is a very narrow issue, and alas! for the servant of Christ who cannot at once make his election. But you are, thank God, in the hands and heart of our Lord, and I trust in Him to lead you, as He has hitherto so distinctly done, as His witness in this evil day.
In unfeigned love your brother in Christ.
It is not God's way, I say it without hesitation, to allow any one to step down to a lower standing than the one he assumed to take, in order to escape the consequence of failure in the higher standing. I never encourage any one to take the standing that we have assumed to take; though I know that it is most blessed, and the only one for the witness. Yet, I tremble, and, if I dare, would dissuade some who essay to join with us. We seek to be overcomers, taking the van against all comers, desiring to gather all the saints out of the present confusion; but if they come, they must do as we ought to do, -- with lusty sinews buffet the waves which are running high against us. Any one who takes the standing will be judged according to it. Lot takes the standing of Canaan, and is judged, not as if he were still in Mesopotamia, but as in Canaan. I treat Independents as Independents, but Brethren I do not treat as Independents, even when, in conduct and mind, they have degenerated to that. It is simply not God's way to treat them as such. They themselves deny that they are independents, and it is only by force of an unwise amiability that you reduce them to the level of Independents, in order that you may be able to mete out to them a milder judgment. The trials and difficulties which in unbelief we try to avoid, we may be sure, are the very ones we shall fall into, and some day or other you will find that you must deal in discipline, on the ground of the assembly; and the difficulties which now you think you escape from, by reducing a company of saints avowedly on the ground of the assembly, to that of Independents, will not serve you at another time which your present laxity is sowing the seed of in your own borders nearer home. For if we would be faithful, and yet seek, and embrace a compromise where there is a demand on us to be faithful, God in His righteousness must make a much severer demand on us next time; for if He does not, we sink down into the ruins around us. It would be a much
more difficult thing for B-------- Street to act faithfully now than at first, like a Christian coquetting with the world, it is more difficult for him to renounce each day that he has not renounced it. You are bound to treat and deal with B-------- Street on the ground on which it was formed. Israel is always dealt with on the ground of being Israel; and having taken true ground, it is plain I have no right to reduce them to the lower ground, which in moral declension they have sunk to, in order that I may exempt them from the discipline applicable to the ground on which they originally started. That would be virtually rewarding them for their declension.... Do not be afraid to be a porter in God's house to see that no unclean person should enter.
I think it is not too much to say that souls are saved here with reference to the church; "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved" (Acts 2:47). They are not only saved for heaven, but are destined for a position on earth for Christ. The weakest member is necessary. I should quote that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places may be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. I can suppose that this theology would be very objectionable to a mere revivalist; 'Conversion of souls everything, and the church nothing' is the evil we have especially to contend against in this day. In God's sovereign grace and wisdom souls are often saved on death beds; but even so, they are of the church now, and nothing else; and if they were continued here they ought to be found acting and living here as of it -- members of Christ's body. I do not believe that an evangelist has done his true work unless he has so presented Christ to a soul, that that soul may in the power of the Spirit through faith know itself as of Christ; and if of Christ it is of His body on earth, though it may not yet have intelligence as to this. Without doubt God
saves a soul now for the church. If not for the church, for what else?
Is there a separate or distinct class of converted ones now irrespective of the church? Nothing of the sort. Every one converted now is in God's mind a member of the body of Christ, and the true evangelist will see to it that he is "planted", and in the building.
Paul says, I planted -- Apollos watered. It is, I think, one of the most trying anomalies of the present day that many souls are known to be converted who are never heard of again, and though they are netted, and surely preserved by God in His unfailing mercy, yet they are not known here as belonging to Christ; and they have not here either a "father" or a "nurse", see 1 Thessalonians 2. The duty of the evangelist is to hand the stone into the hands of the pastor, as a hodsman would pass on a stone to a mason.
There is no evangelist among the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, because it is the body which is there presented, but when the Head is before us the evangelist is one of the gifts for the perfecting of the saints (Ephesians 4:11, 12).
The path is narrow, but daily I am more satisfied and assured that if we would know the presence and mind of our absent Lord we must be on the martyr line. The evangelical line may lead to this; the 'no system' line may lead to it, but it is not it!
... If it were a matter of ignorance or of weakness we could well bear with it. Nay, what is more, the ignorant and weak, when they love, are generally carried away by their affections, and controlled by them, like Mary Magdalene surpassing Peter and John; so that, if there were simple affection for Christ, that which is due to Him would be earnestly adopted and pursued. For my part I cannot understand (except by looking at my own nature) how any one loving Christ could for a moment hesitate to do anything
which would disconnect him from association with that which is abhorrent to the Holy Ghost, who is here uniting the members in one body to the Head -- Christ in heaven. It is not the Lord who holds the assemblies together, it is the Holy Ghost. He is the Head in heaven; the Holy Ghost is here, which -------- and -------- have each in a different way denied. How could they have Him when they are not careful to dissociate from that which is abhorrent to Him? If it were not by the Holy Ghost how could the suffering of one member affect all the other members? In deference to the Holy Ghost for Christ's sake we are seeking to disconnect ourselves from all association with heresy.
If you were reasoning for ever you could never convince any one how saying farewell to a heretic made one a partaker of his evil deeds. Where to reason is the vis consequentia? None whatever. It is faith alone, in the sensibility of the Spirit as to what is due to Christ, that can understand the weight and force of that injunction. The unity spoken of in John 17 is unity in mind and judgment, not unity of the body. Christ as Lord, which is His true dignity, is never brought before the saint as claiming allegiance, except when the saint is where he might fail in it. The Head holds him (Ephesians 4) and he holds the Head for nourishment and growth. If he be called to remember the dignity of Christ as Lord, and His claims on him, it is evident that there is need for it; but subject unto Christ is our normal place, and it is in knowing Him as Head that we are so. Well, I know that if the Lord were felt to be present, Mr. -------- would readily gather up his garments tight enough from any association with the indifferent.
If the sovereign were present, all our thoughts would be directed as to how to do everything suited to the royal mind and pleasure. How much more when God dwells
among us must we consider what we admit in our company! Nay, how careful must we be not to admit anything unsuited to Him! Yet while your own connection with the evil is over, and for such momentous reasons, you can suffer another's connection to continue; and not only this, but you can suffer him to form a link of connection with you. Thus in two ways you by this course deny the unity of the Spirit. In the first place, what is right for you is right for every other member of the body held together by the one Spirit. May I allow one finger to be burnt while I do everything to preserve another? Secondly, if you admit the burnt finger, you consent to its position; you are not clear of the association, you are again connected with that with which you say your connection is over. If we received on such conditions we should be connecting ourselves with B-------- St., which I trust we are daily strengthened of God (as learning what suits His habitation) to dissociate from entirely as proving ourselves in His sight in all things clear in this matter. Can you be a faithful instructor if you sanction the babes doing what you avow you would think wrong to do yourself? Ponder it over again, dear brother. Let the truth have its rule and sway in your soul, and the Lord will help you so distinctly that the consequences you fear will be but as the waters of the Red Sea to your faith.
Your letter was a great cheer to me, not so much the fact, grateful in itself, that we are more likeminded, more perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, but rather the way in which you have learned the truth. I feel I ought to be even more grateful than I am at the grace conferred on you, that even at the very meeting where there was more good than at any of the others, there your conscience was not sheltering itself under the increased good, but enabled to follow the leading of the Spirit of God, and to judge that no amount of good
could neutralise the smallest amount of bad in principle (Haggai 2:12, 13). Where and how the Lord led you is without question the only true path. You have begun with God, and not with man. Why should not God's principles always govern us? or at least indicate to us our course? Is it not an admission that the Lord is not with us if we overlook the bad because of the good? With God I start, as you truly say, with truth and holiness; and though I may not be able to check every contrary rising, I cannot admit, even under protest, that it may continue. If the Lord is with us, I start from the opposite point that man does. I start from the fountain of all good; and I cannot suffer anything contrary to Him. If I start from man's side, it is one that is evil continually.
With the Lord it is the natural flow of His own nature, welling out without check until it encounters some of man's evil. Am I to suffer this evil to remain? Whom am I compromising? It is evident that I have little idea of the power of God in His goodness, if I am afraid to check the evil because of the amount of human support which I may forfeit by so doing.
I am rejoiced for another reason that you have been led by a path that you knew not; because you will start on the basis which you have been taught for yourself, and therefore you will not be discouraged or driven back when you see many who, though professedly on the same principles, are not practically maintaining them.
I feel I need often to say to myself -- If all were to desert the principles which I have learned from God, could I remain in a solitary path and adhere to them? I encourage my heart to reply in the affirmative.... What saints in general require to learn is, that it is from Christ, the new Man, that we start. It is good overcoming and exterminating the bad -- not the bad gradually yielding to or gaining the good. We begin with good, and in the good we resist and refuse the bad. The bad is not acknowledged as in possession.
The porter was the lowest official in the temple service, and if he were enjoined not to allow any unclean thing to enter, how much more the higher officials! Phinehas properly had no right to a sword, an ephod was his official
power, but the necessity of the time sanctioned his adopting a more vigorous line.
I am very thankful for the mercy vouchsafed to you in your discussion with ------. I love him much, and because I do so, the more distinctly do I show him my reserve, on account of his opposition to the truth. The greater the love, the greater the reserve, if the love be offended for the truth's sake. A brother offended is like a strong city. The love is maudlin if the reserve because of offence is easy and vacillating. I am daily more convinced that though we cannot be too gentle in instructing those who oppose themselves, we fail much in proving to them that the offence is momentous. They are opposing the truth that ought to be everything to us. "For this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37). HE is the truth. The one I love best is the one who best knows how devoted I am to the truth, if I am devoted; and the more I love any brother, the more do I impress on him my appreciation through grace of the truth. The more truly I love him, the more he ought to feel from my attitude towards him, that because I so love him I could not in any way compromise what is of such essential blessing to himself. I could not meet him socially, my heart could not accept him on low ground, when I could not accord to him his true place, because it is in Christ that I love him. Believe me, if it were more felt (and it never can be felt by others until we feel it ourselves), that we were contending for truth, momentous truth, our testimony would have much more weight with souls. Saints often think that we are only contending for points. Leaven works strangely, but fearfully. Phinehas is the man, or kind of man, we want. Barnabas would patch up matters; nice, easy fellow, takes John Mark and goes to Cyprus, his native place -- all in nature. Gracious Lord! surely we know that Thou dost trust even uncertain
servants, and Thou dost restore them, as Mark was restored in the end, but we who know how weak we are in ourselves, ought never to elect to run in harness with stumbling steeds. On the other hand, you may be in the Lord's hand the fit instrument to extricate others. The one who is delivered himself may be able to deliver others. The principle is -- "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32).
... I would fain be in company with you on a higher and more blessed subject. I have been much interested in the subject of worship. In heaven there will be nothing to distract us from full concentration of heart and mind on God, as manifested to us in Christ Jesus and by Him. As merely a recipient, however inconceivable and unaccountable the favour bestowed on me, I am not necessarily a worshipper, I am a receiver; and my thanksgiving truly ought to be in keeping therewith; but when I worship, the Object of my worship detains my heart because it controls it. God in His own distinct blessedness, as known to me, engages and rivets my heart and mind. This is, I think, very uncommon in meetings nowadays, though we through His grace may often, as we walk along, be so attracted by His own essential blessedness that we stop, and in deep reverence of soul exclaim, 'Glory be to God'. This, so far, is worship, but I feel it cannot be truly said unless by one who feels himself adoringly absorbed with Him, as One from whom he is not expecting to receive, because he has received everything. Oh, how we should worship if our hearts were simply engaged with Him. While oneself is one's object, even for the highest blessing, one is not free to make Another -- the Blesser -- one's Object. Surely you and I may feel that it is very happy work to seek to understand this worship for ourselves, and as we know it, to convey our knowledge, as He permits us, to others of His dear people. We all here remember you in true affection.
Who is ready to strip himself and call on all to cast away their ornaments and wait in contrition before the Lord? I believe, unless each there judges himself, and takes the beam out of his own eye, there will be no healthy action or restoration. With us, if I may so say, the assembly very much makes the minister, and the minister makes the assembly; that is, if the assembly be really true and devoted, God gives suited care. The Lord gives the gift according as it is valued, and the care and the gift give a character and a colour to the assembly. I often feel when people in a place complain of the ministry they have, that the fact is, they have only just what they deserve, for there is righteous government in the church, as we know even individually. Christ is with them who are with Christ. He gives an open door.
I am thankful for your account of the work at --------, 'a work of smaller dimensions on a firmer and sounder basis,' sounds like something truly Philadelphian. I believe that sentence uttered and written by you possibly without any preparation, comprises the principles of a present true position, and because it is so true, there is always an effort (I believe of the flesh) to be connected with a work of large dimensions on an uncertain and loose basis. We are only a remnant, but we seek to be true to our original constitution. It is not that we surrender our constitution, but as a remnant, we are set, I trust, to maintain our constitution -- to be, notwithstanding the ruin, in the truth of the church -- the body of Christ, in the place where He has been rejected. The remnant in every age especially contended for and maintained the
constitution of that order of things of which it was the remnant. 'No surrender' was the cry and testimony to the last.
I suppose the first remnant was Noah, then Joseph, then Caleb and Joshua, and so on, down to Simeon and Anna in our Lord's day, and the widow with the two mites when His day here had closed. One and all, however, weak and single-handed, by their faithfulness, rose superior to the difficulties and perplexities of their times; for God especially succours those who stand for Him in an evil day. Nay, He distinguishes them pre-eminently: "Them that honour me I will honour" (1 Samuel 2:30); so that the remnant is always helped and cheered, and that in a higher and greater way than were their fellows, in the brightest days of their dispensation; that is, the Lord is more known to them in nearness of interest and thought about them, than when His power was more manifestly with them. No saint can meet with or receive higher favour than a Philadelphian.
And here I may allude to another subject in your letter, namely, how to reach the saints outside. There is nothing more deeply interesting to me than this question; and the more I think of it, the more assured I am that it is not so much instruction that is needed, as faith. You may retort, "Faith cometh by hearing" (Romans 10:17); I admit it; but the truth cannot be presented in power but as there is faith in him who presents it; and what I increasingly feel is, that the power to reach those outside must spring from inside. If the truth we know and admit has so little power on those who hold it, how can you expect it to have greater power on those who as yet do not see it? You do not want to make dissenters of the saints; you wish to lead them into the spot where Christ can meet them, and walk with them, in this day. Now, if we who hold the truth which leads to and provides this spot do not reach to and maintain this spot, it appears to me that we are beginning at the wrong end in seeking to lead others into truth which as yet has not had its true effect on ourselves.
In a word (do not let me surprise you), I think all outside meetings incongruous and inconsistent. I do not say that we should not seek for and minister to individual saints; but the display of seeking those outside while we
are so feeble inside is to me incongruous and like the legs of the lame which are not equal!
Both at Thessalonica and at Corinth it was faith that "sounded out" from inside, and not instruction merely. I do not see power in any place to lead on souls, but as there is power in those led out, and where there is devotedness (the true character of the remnant) in those who seek to be the remnant, there is always an attraction, a real, vital attraction, for the godly ones outside. The only chance of recovering from paralysis is by strengthening the constitution. It is little use for paralytic members to call on paralytic members to be in tone and up to their true place. Do not suppose I plead for inaction; no such thing. The mouse in the fable nibbled the knots of the net, and what the lion could not break as a whole, the patient toil of the little mouse accomplished; work, work, work, nibble, nibble, nibble; but let us not assume the place of apostles, but simply that of a remnant true to the original. My greatest grief, I may honestly say, is the little sense there is among us "in assembly" of the presence of Christ. Thank God, I am daily more assured of the principle, but principles are nothing if not maintained in power, and I feel we are feeble and inadequate in reaching our brethren outside because of our lack of personal devotedness (the only trait of beauty left to the once beautiful but now paralysed "wife", if I may so say). Hence we work in the shade. Charity must begin at home. "Having hope, your faith increasing, to be enlarged amongst you" (2 Corinthians 10:15). I feel we cannot be too unpretending on the one hand, and on the other too uncompromising or too exclusive, or too earnest in seeking to deliver souls -- able to offer the best of fare, but poor accommodation, and not always the best of company. I never should have a placard for any meeting, however extreme this may be thought; we are a feeble folk, "spiders", if you will, but they reach to "high places".
May we, dear brother, so rejoice in the Lord and so find our portion in Him, that devotedness -- this only trait of beauty left us, may be largely ours.
I quite agree with you that we suffered much at the -------- meetings, because, as you say, there was not simple dependence on the Lord; but, as you know, liberty of speech and freedom of utterance can be in the flesh as much as dogged silence, and it is certainly much more mischievous. The one who, in the flesh, will be doggedly silent because cowed or repressed by fear or self-occupation, will be audacious and forward when that which overawes his flesh is removed. One may be in fear, and in weakness, and in much trembling because of man, and at the same time one may be at one's ease before the Lord, and acting for Him.
The prospect of your prosperity through the Lord's favour is a joy to me; and I do trust that the time may be used, under His guidance, to supply to souls the truth suited to their state. It is not always that the happiest and most buoyant meetings are the most profitable. The word from the Lord reaching the conscience, and sending each back to his place, to turn over a new leaf, is the time of real blessing. I dread the 'making merry with my friends'; that is socialism, and man can never go higher than that; but what a contrast is making merry with God -- "they began to be merry".
I trust the Lord will enable me to remember you during the meetings.
I am glad you go with me in any measure as to evangelising. I think your individual exertion is within the province of the Holy Ghost, and useable by Him, but any appropriated agency is not. "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew 26:52), applies I believe to the use of
all human force or parade, not merely to soldiers to whom it is too commonly confined. As to Paul's disputing, the word used is dialegw from which dialect comes, and was not necessarily very public; and his doing this with those that met with him makes it very individual, as I see it. I do not of course object to preaching, or having people collected in a room, but I think if you see the calling of an evangelist you will not place confidence in any of the accompaniments or auxiliaries of it, but in the mission entrusted to him; and this the Holy Ghost blesses. An imperfect and untrue idea has been given of Christianity by the fact that a preacher can be of the world, and yet can proclaim the gospel. This is Christendom. Now the evangelist proper must renounce all position, all positive or continuous employment; he is an angel on earth, as the angels have tidings to convey from heaven; he may work with his hands where he serves, but he must be free to be the messenger of glad tidings.
I have thought over your move, and my impression is that a little camp-life would be very happy for you. I think if you were with other generals for a while it would be for the benefit of the whole army. You have been a good officer at the depot; a time at headquarters would enable you to see what others were made of, and also to see whether you had any corners which need rounding. We are poor judges of what is good for others. I merely tell you my wishes for you.
I am thankful that you are cheered in the work in -------- and I am glad that you are often before me in connection with it. There are many interesting units in --------, but very few understand the bond of the Spirit of God. With great intelligence as to the doctrine of the unity of the body, they practically little understand membership. They go in cliques or sets; but the fact of being united to
one another by the Spirit of God very little possesses them. The national social element is a hindrance to the spiritual bond, and they cannot understand an unseen link where they have no outward link. The tendency therefore is that the rich preserves his own position, and the poor longs for the same. If they knew the spiritual bond, the spiritual would cluster together, glad to know and recognise one another in this new bond, and not careful or wishing, either the one to maintain, or the other to advance his natural status. When people are really spiritual the rich man does not think of or wish to maintain his grade, or the poor man to advance his, they both have a better one; and the one who seeks either to maintain or to encroach, has departed from the new and better status. Thank God! I had rather be with the lowest socially if he were spiritual than with the most accomplished who is not so. I think in -------- much is thought of position, and hence on the other side they think you cannot be intimate without being familiar. If I have no position to maintain I can allow every one else to retain his. If I have none there is none to encroach on, and no spiritual soul wants what I reject. He must be poor indeed who picks up one's cast away clothes! The real difficulty is to measure every one by one standard. The Lord is our only standard. I do not say that we are to disregard our acquaintances, they are our "neighbours", those providentially near us, but we should prove in ourselves that everything of human status is overlooked for the Lord, and that we really seek the 300 devoted ones (see Gideon) irrespective of rank or social quality, one thing alone really commanding any one to us, and that is simple devotedness to the Lord. Thus our acquaintances or neighbours would have a double gain if they were of the number. The servant who would maintain and cultivate a real spiritual bond would impart a vigour to the meetings in -------- hitherto unknown. The attempt to be a family was too levelling, and necessarily was a levelling up, but in the spiritual bond there is an ignoring of the social status on every side. It is even worse for the one who encroaches, than for the one who maintains.
I heard of dear G--------'s serious illness. How it emboldens
our hearts to tell the Lord what a use he was to us and to all His people, and then to plead for his life.
May every blessing surround you both. One word only I say -- the servant must not consider what he can afford, or what he is used to, but what he can surrender, so as to be an example to the lowest grade.
How blessed to enter on every step here either of sorrow or of joy as preordained by Him, and with Himself as the manna -- the provision for it. How much more sorrow was known to Him in His path here than gleams of sunshine. His joys were chiefly above. Paul could say: "I know how to be abased and how to abound" (Philippians 4:12). The grace of Christ is as necessary for the latter as for the former. I write this line to assure you of my constant remembrance of you before the Lord.
"Holding the Head" must be practically lost when the unity of the Spirit is overlooked, because it is from Him all the body, by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and united together, maketh increase unto God.
What grieves me is, that you should appear to disregard or ignore divine principles, in order to effect what you deem a good service to the flock, as if it were not possible to effect this in any other way. Could anything be urged more condemnatory of the principles we have been advocating at all cost for so many years than that such as you should openly and persistently avow, that in order to provide relief for the Lord's people in circumstances of great difficulty you must abandon principle? This is as much as saying your principles will do very well for a prosperous day, but in a day of difficulty they are specious and impracticable. I should have thought that the principles of God were the very reverse; that man's contrivance might do in prosperous times, but that God's principles alone could meet the day of trial. Surely God can defend
His own. My conviction, thank the Lord, is, that the more disorganised everything is, the more strictly must I adhere to principle. "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee" (Acts 27:24). I am safe if I sail with Paul. I only use this as an illustration to show that if I adhere to God's principles, I must through this be safe. Surely under no circumstance would you approve the act of King Saul? When, disappointed that Samuel had not come at the time appointed, he overlooked all principle and precept in order to secure the countenance of Jehovah. Samuel says, "Thou hast done foolishly" -- he should have waited for Samuel. We must wait for the Lord, He has His own time and manner of deliverance. Like the disciples, we may be toiling in rowing, and Jesus had not come to them, though it was already dark.
I have still to say to my soul, "He that believeth shall not make haste" (Isaiah 28:16).... My distress is that you should give countenance by your act to the leaven which is everywhere working -- even that the end justifies the means, and that the unity of the Spirit cannot be kept -- that there is not as much unity between the members of Christ's body as there is between the members of our natural body, but that any one or more of the members of Christ's body may act independently of the rest when there is any project they think right to accomplish. No one should act independently unless his brethren were committed to independent principles. No slowness, no timidity, no ignorance, warrants one to act independently.
Beloved brother, do comfort us by retracing your steps.... You have trespassed against the church of God -- the dearest object of the heart of Christ -- you have touched grievously the apple of His eye. Thank God, there is a way for you to retrieve yourself, one both honourable to you and for the glory of Christ. I beseech you, for the Lord's sake, to accept truly and graciously the rebuke you deserve. Defeat the enemy, and delight your brethren.... by repudiating and retracing the step you have taken, and the Lord will help you. 1881
I am very thankful that you have entered your protest against placarding, and the human efforts put forth to gain publicity. I feel that there is a misapprehension of the Lord's mind as to our calling as His servants at this time when efforts of the kind are resorted to. I am sure that if a servant had any true sense of the Lord in judgment in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, he would not seek to be publicly acknowledged, when he knew that the church had forfeited its proper calling of candlestick to the world because it has left its first love to Himself. It is, in my mind, an attempt to regain by human means a position once ours by the power of the Lord -- as if, when a king had refused to give a military escort to his son because he was discreditable in public, that the son then should hire a company of roughs to proclaim him. Before the decline of the church there was always power for the work of the Lord in public. See Paul at Philippi (Acts 16). I see that if the church were up to its true position the Lord would support us by His own power, so that human means would not be required. To use human means for the Lord's service in this world where He was rejected by man, is either a monstrous inconsistency or an attempt to deny His rejection. This would apply even in the brightest days of the church, how much more so now when we know that the church to man's eye is in ruins. Our calling is to trim our lamps and go forth to meet the Bridegroom. There is light according to our devotedness to the Lord personally. We have failed in public testimony, now we are called to look out for the morning Star; and the more thoroughly our hearts are eager to see Him, the more we detach ourselves from everything unsuited to Him, the more are we a light for Him. The Spirit and the bride say, "Come", and it is still the day of grace -- "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17). As far as I see, I think that there should be no publicity now but the publicity which personal
devotedness to Christ would entail. Love does not seek to be seen by others, though others cannot fail to see the self-sacrificing interest with which it devotes itself to Christ and His things; and He, though He be rejected here, is the coming King, and when He opens no man can shut. He is the one object of interest, and hence every service is carefully attended to, because it is His, and this I believe is our testimony in this the closing day.
... You will tell the dear saints at -------- how much I prize their love. It is very pleasant to be in their debt, for they belong to Him to whom I owe everything.
I am glad of your prosperity at -------- and that you enjoyed being on the Inspection line. I am sure you will enjoy it the more you are given to it. To present every man "Perfect in Christ Jesus" -- fit for His inspection in the day when He will walk down the lines and review your corps, as I might say. Do you think it would make you less energetic and useful in the gospel were your paramount labour to be to present the church as a chaste virgin to Christ? To think of having even one saint bright and fit for Christ is an immense joy to the heart. I am sure that in your heart, while retaining a true love for souls, you would regard this service the most wonderful, and the happiest ever entrusted to a servant of God. I think if I were with you we should agree on this point, because in your heart you own and delight in it; though your service has been, I cheerfully admit, most graciously blessed to the unconverted, still I think you value the ornaments which would please the eye of your Master. Both are necessary, that I know you will admit, and this is all I contend for, only that I add there ought to be more positive attention to that which answers to the heart of Christ than that which is merely for the good of souls, and this I am sure you feel yourself. The Lord has been very gracious to you and I really only desire to see you more and more
in His counsels and friendship. I feel, however feebly, yet truly, that I long for the progress of the saints, that they should be made ready for Christ, and therefore I rejoice in your turning your attention more to the equipment of your corps. I should like to spend a longer time with you whenever the Lord may permit. The Lord keep us simply seeking and following His will. His own presence the joy of our hearts, and Himself personally our compensation and resource in the loss of anything here.
I am very glad and thankful to hear that the Lord has found for you a suited help-meet, and I do trust that this favour from His hand may not in any way tend to divert you from His service who has so favoured you. He delights in favouring us and it is sad indeed when because of some special favour we requite Him with less devotedness than before we received it. You will find it an entirely new path, and everything will depend on the way in which you enter on it. May the Lord assure your heart that He is enough to sustain you in His own grace -- the manna, in every step of the way. Gather it in faith before the day begins. The Lord has shown much interest in dear --------'s children. I trust that you both may draw largely and confidingly upon it.
I am glad you and dear -------- enjoyed the lectures on the Lord's presence in the midst of those gathered to His name. It is a deeply interesting subject, and the more you meditate on it, the fuller and plainer it opens out to you.
It is so in everything. It was a saying of J.N.D.'s, that he did not preach well on any subject until he had preached forty times on it!
I am thankful the Lord is leading you to give lectures. Well, there are only two things that I should venture to suggest to you. The first -- that you ascertain by prayer and waiting on Him the subject He would have brought before the saints. This at times may cost you much exercise and patience, but you will be very thankful for the result when you are sure of His pleasure. It will give you wonderful confidence. You may not have much eloquence, but the deep assurance that you are doing His pleasure will give you great holy boldness, and however it comes out, you know that His will has come out, though there be no honour to you as to the way it has come out. I have my Master's message, though I am maybe only a Paddy in delivering it. When I had to send a message by poor Paddy I used to be obliged to make him repeat to me the words in which he would give my message; so assured was I that he would attempt to give my mind in the forcible way in which he would interpret it. The first thing then is to be assured of His mind. The other is -- that you express it as He means it, or in other words in the terms in which it is in scripture. This is doubtless the "outline" in 2 Timothy 1:13, "Have an outline of sound words"; the words he had received from Paul, but the outline was the form in which he presented them. Now one great help to this accuracy is this -- never present anything, however clearly you may see it, if you have not reached it for yourself. I have found that many a thing which I had presented in an extreme way because I was sure of it, I put forth in a simpler and a more real way when I had touched it in my own experience.
The first mark of a minister of God is "much patience" -- a continual dropping, and this "weareth the stone". I
feel while I condemn servants for looking for success to buoy them up in their service, still that I am often discouraged because I do not see results; but that proves that I am working for hire in one sense, and not simply for my Master, doing His will. There is something very fine in Christ's path as a Servant in this respect. He could thank God when He saw no success, and that where He had toiled the most. This is the "yoke" He tells us to take on us; and we shall find "rest" (a home) for our souls.
There may be two classes of wilfulness in a servant; the first is dictating for himself, and this plunges one at last into an inextricable deep; the second is dictating to God what He is to do; and to cure one of this there must be a withering here, so that God only may be the resource of the heart. Christ, of course, never touched on the first, the second, one might have supposed Him entitled to, but on the contrary He had no will but God's; and He thanks that it is "even so". This entire and cheerful acceptance of God's will is what imparts divine rest, and one thinks not of one's disappointment, but of His will, and when it is so there is no flagging of the energy, or no depression. I am sure there is much to discourage you in --------, but the greater the force of the adversary the more we are sure to find, if we wait on the Lord, that He will raise up a standard against it. I am very glad you are there. The more I go on, the more do I see the profundity of Christianity, and the tendency through the power against us to divert us from its simplicity, as the serpent beguiled Eve; and I feel it a great mercy to be sent anything, however painful, by which we are nipped in the bud in any incipient departure from the truth. The buds of the crab tree must be kept down; happy for us when we accept it cheerfully, and only go on the more vigorously.
It is necessarily a time of trial every way to every faithful one. But for every truly godly one there must be
persecution in this day. Dear -------- seems to feel very much the indifference with which he is treated. He has been a popular man. I have not been one; and I can feel when I am slighted, not myself personally, but the truth which I seek to present, for something which I know has not the same worth in it. To see people preferring milk and water, while you are through mercy offering them pure milk, is very depressing; but the way you ought to feel it is for the Lord's sake; for it is really He who is slighted, and not you. I rather rejoice now unless I have by anything of nature, or any imperfect way of putting the truth, raised a true cause of objection to it.
We had -------- here, and he, in the most eloquent way, described the superiority of these days to any but the Pentecostal. 'The truth flying over the earth reaching to China, meetings in the name of the Lord springing up everywhere,' etc. I had to warn him against Laodicea, and he retorted he 'disliked croaking'. The fact is, his standard came out as being just assured of heaven, and final perseverance. To live Christ on earth, and to know Him as our life where we have walked in death, to live like Him who has delivered us from death and judgment, does not enter into his mind. Christ to bring me to heaven, he is clear enough about; but Christ my life and object where I had walked in the flesh, and in enmity to God, is quite another thing. He died for me to bring me out of death and judgment, but in Him I live His life where I am dead in myself. His death sets me free from death and safe for heaven; but His life sets me as He was here, while I know Him as He is in heaven; so that I live Christ. There are the two parts; Christ died for me and saved me, and in His life I now live Him here. The thief sets forth one side -- safe for heaven. -------- goes no further than this. Paul has a living Saviour in heaven, and he lives Christ before he goes to heaven. To be assured of heaven is not everything with Paul. Living Christ is everything, and this on earth.
I do trust that the quiet will be of great profit to you. But the only place of real safety for a servant in this world is being like Joseph, a bondman, and nothing but bondmen. The moment he is anything but a bondman of Jesus Christ, the door is opened to the stranger that flattereth with her lips; he is ministered unto, and not ministering, and that from things here. I believe rest and retirement are both most useful, but when required by a servant, it can be viewed in no other light than that of a prison. I think it is anomalous when a servant seeks recreation. Our blessed Lord took from the night His praying time, that He might not curtail His working hours. Of course, no one can come up to this, but it is important to keep the one only true standard before us. There is an old saying, that the Israelites were more earnest and zealous in getting clear of Pharaoh than they were in exploring and enriching themselves with the goodly things of Canaan; that is, that they grew inactive and indolent as their blessings increased; as they were more within their reach they valued them less. This is my fear now for you. The tendency is, and this with the most energetic, like the hare in the race, to think oneself entitled to go, as they say in the army, into 'winter quarters', fighting being suspended for the rest of the year. I believe for every conscious possession of things above there is an increased power required, in order to keep all our members tributary, rendering homage unto the Lord. The more your heavenly possessions increase, the more must all in you be under the control of the Spirit, in order that all may yield tribute to the Lord. The more a saint consciously possesses of the Lord, the more untiring and laborious must he be in His service, for the more you have the more demand there is on you. A high position imposes increased labours on the servant, and he must dread more than ever the fly in the apothecary's ointment. To him to whom much is given, more will be expected, and it is only in the increased keeping under the body, and bringing it into
subjection, that one proves that one is qualified for the post to which one has been appointed. If when I am promoted, I do my work more indifferently it proves that I am resting in the greatness of my position, and not seeking to commend it by sedulous attention to it, feeling that the higher I am set the more devolves on me, so that instead of reaching a spot where I might claim a respite, the very advance conferred on me obliges me to deny myself all round and in many little ways, which I had not felt necessary before. All I want to press is this, that the more we appropriate our portion in Christ, the more must we be practically displaced, and refuse everything that is merely pleasing to ourselves. I believe the man who appropriates most is the man most careful that nothing should be allowed that would hinder, but that every door should be protected from the inroads of the flesh in true and faithful allegiance to Christ. I believe such a man never feels he is right before the Lord unless he is increasingly impressed with the sense of the need of His help, and that far more so than in his first cries to Him out of the depths. It will be a sad day when those who have accepted and who teach our heavenly calling are found in any posture but on their knees; on the one hand in complete dependence on God, and on the other in armour, protecting themselves against the enemy in solid squares. The greater your possessions the more must you be here in the armour of God, seeing you are encompassed with a relentless foe.
I must give myself the pleasure of writing a greeting to you on you coming to --------. To my mind, as I think of it, it will be the seventh month to you. The first month is the Passover, and with it the feast of unleavened bread, that is, how I am set free before God, and what characterises me in consequence. This is the only true start; but when you come to the seventh month, you have great heights and great depths. You have the day of atonement,
when if a man afflict not his soul, that soul shall be cut off; and then the jubilee commenced, and during it was the feast of the ingathering -- great contrasts in that month, and thus I think it will be with you; the day of prosperity is set against the day of adversity that man may find nothing after him, and the contrasts test one more than sameness. To rise suddenly into prosperity from adversity has overpowered many a mind. To fall from prosperity to adversity has embittered many a lifetime. To be ready for either -- for the seventh month -- is the great problem of grace. The greatest feast on this earth now, the real feast of ingathering, is the society of hearts devoted to Christ -- virgins going forth to the meeting of the Bridegroom. This feast you will have. But if you enjoy this feast really and divinely, you will be ready, like our blessed Lord, to encounter the very next hour the most painful exhibition of what Satan makes of man. When He came down from the mount of transfiguration where God was glorifying Him as a Man on earth, the first thing He meets is one from a child sorely vexed of the devil, distorted and disorganised. Will you be as ready for the one as for the other? If it be by grace that you enjoy the good, so by grace will you resist and rebuke evil; or will you be elated unduly by the one, and be peevish and irritable with the other? The loss of grace may not appear so much at the feast as in the day of atonement. There is no judgment if you do not enjoy yourself fully, but there is judgment if you do not afflict your soul; that is, your grace will be tested and disclosed more in the way that you deal with the evil which tries you greatly than with the good which delights you. There is more enjoyment in the latter case, but there is not more grace. I believe the real measure of grace comes out in the time of trying more than in the feast. In the good time you acquire, but in the evil time you prove how much you have acquired. The length and the severity of the winter tests the measure and the extent of the ant's store. It was acquired in summer, but drawn upon in winter; hence the latter tells the amount of gain you have acquired from the former; and if you have long and fine summers, you must expect long and severe winters. Come to -------- then, not only expecting
the finest summers, but with purpose of heart to use them in providing for the dreariest winters. The brighter I am with the Lord, the more dreary is everything with man, but I have gained nothing from being with Him if I am not better fitted for being His messenger and witness in the midst of all that is contrary to Him. The gain of happy hours with Him is to be spent and seen in sad hours of contention with evil here. The one who is in most repose in the glory is the most ready and skilful antagonist of Satan here, and is in his own person fasting and praying, and thus cutting off standing ground from the adversary. If a gun be charged it is that it may be fired off, but it is in the firing that its mettle is tested.
I hear that dear -------- has begun lectures at --------. I could wish that he was not indebted to any human means for making known his spiritual mission. Surely the Lord is able to lead souls to the well which He has made and filled in the valley of Baca. It is a day I feel when every one and every thing has to be challenged. "Art thou for us or for our adversaries?" (Joshua 5:13). How true what Mr. D. says with reference to the woman at Philippi (Acts 16), who gave testimony to Paul's work, 'The devil wanted to have a finger in the pie'. When the devil cannot prevent the Lord's work, he seeks to spoil it by apparently supporting it. I do not believe that the gold will be separated from the quartz by any human means. Be assured that when divine work is about to be done in a place, as the Lord is working, Satan will be at work.
If -------- thinks I have said too much; he will, I trust, write to me. I wish him too well to be content to see him less than the Lord would have him to be. Many own the grace of God, but how comparatively seldom do we see the surrender of prospects and position in order to follow Christ fully.
I was glad to get your letter about your time in --------. It is very slow work practically to prefer Christ to Adam, notwithstanding all our sincere profession of love and admiration for Him. I have learned for myself that until one is true in heart to communion with His blood, one has not started on the path in which He walked here -- the path of life. It is not merely surrendering worldly position, but that fellowship with His death has cast its shadow over everything here, as Jacob felt when Rachel was dead; and as far as I see, no one is happy in Christ's present things who has not begun with Him at our own side of things.
The aim and attempt of every sect or denomination is to be the acknowledged light bearer of the place, instead of being a remnant with the brightest trait of the first days, that is -- fidelity to Christ, personally going forth to meet the Bridegroom.
A new path now lies before you. You must come out in quite new colours, not assumed ones, but the expression of power and feeling within. You will be now very much in the pastoral position, and that also of the overseer. You will have to bear the burden of your own house as well as that of the house of God before Him. You should be the man of weight, not because you demand respect, but because you feel your load, and look to the Lord to guide you under it. You should have the sense of responsibility before the Lord, and not demand acknowledgment from men of your own position. It should be the steady, unpretentious pull of the great draught horse, who thinks only of his duty, and not of what the spectators think or do. God's house is not to be neglected for your own
house, nor is your own house to be neglected for God's house. Like Solomon, you have built your own house, but you have to give your attention as he did to God's house. Wherever you fail in your own house, either in your ways or in any way, you are sure to carry the leaven of that dereliction into the house of God, so that your own house is your training ground, and the church the field-day.
Your prosperity will be a great joy to me.
May the Lord give you in your prison to learn much of His mind for His servants in this day. I feel that saints generally, do not believe that what they are saved for by Christ who gave Himself for our sins is that He might deliver us from this evil age; and, secondly, that they are sent by Him into the world (the system of things here). They in general are not so assured of the first, which is present salvation, that they can embrace and be true to the second.
No Christian is sent into this world to be merely a business man, or a domestic man. Many a one makes a better servant through the pressure of business and duties, as a horse is more dependable with a good harness than without it. But surely harness is not the end, but the means to the end.
It is amazing the effect it has on one when he realises that he has received a mission from the Lord. It is not a question of how useful he is or how he commends himself to others, but his one desire is to be commended of the Lord, for the Lord is paramount with him. How great and blessed would be the testimony if each one of us were fulfilling his mission, or the ministry which he had received of the Lord! The Lord said, "The scriptures ... testify of me" (John 5:39), and He also said of the Spirit of truth, "He shall testify of me" (John 15:26). Now many Christians have learned the testimony of the scriptures, who know little
of the testimony of the Holy Ghost to Christ in heaven. To this latter I need not say we are called.
The Lord comfort you much, and enable you to be more for Himself, not so much in word as in power. I am learning that no servant can lead another beyond the measure of his own grace -- the measure in which he has learned grace. The Spirit honours the word spoken where it has been effectual in the speaker. All such service draws one very near to the Lord, and this is, I might say, the best part of it.
The "candlestick" is not before us when Christ is walking through the churches in a judicial character; -------- is all wrong. The gospel was to be preached to all -- to gather out a people for His name, but all was properly to flow from the assembly (see John 20); and as I understand John 15 the eleven come out from being inside with the Lord to be disciples, fruit-bearing, but their centre is in keeping with Christ's commandment, "Love one another". Here true service begins, as I judge; evangelists go out as missionaries from the assembly, sent by Christ, to draw to the assembly. J.N.D. used to say, 'The twelve had not fulfilled the great commission. Paul did.'
What an idea -------- has of election that one chosen before the foundation of the world can be lost because the light of God's grace has not reached him through an evangelist! Who converted the thief on the cross, or Saul of Tarsus? The gospel is the testimony of God -- a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death.
I see that the evangelist's great work is to proclaim the gospel. See 2 Corinthians 2:16. The angel evangelised, "I
bring you good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10). Paul was an evangelist to the Philippian jailor. The great power of the evangelist is the light. The light found out the silver piece (Luke 15). I think that the general idea is that the evangelist converts. God converts, and it is God's work; He has spoken. I think a soul can be turned to God without knowing any particular verse which was blessed to him, and many are in a state of fear until they hear the gospel. I see that it is of the greatest importance the terms in which the gospel is presented; the first effect is momentous! It is the One who has done the work that is to be presented, 'he evangelised to him Jesus'. It is a special gift, and not necessarily given at conversion. A gift is the impression of the Lord revealed in some special way to the soul, as at the burning bush to Moses. I need not write more to you; you will at once see that I am trying to disabuse minds of the prevailing idea of an evangelist. I am afraid many so-called converts are the fruit of an address to their feelings, so that they are induced, as they say, to 'accept Christ'. I hope you will agree with me, and that the result will be that you will send me a good paper on the evangelist. I do not think Timothy was an evangelist. He was to do the work of one.
I was glad to get your comments on evangelising. There is a difference between preaching and evangelising. The verb 'to preach' is kerusso, which is derived from the noun kerux, this latter is only used three times in scripture. The title Paul gives himself in 1 Timothy -- 'I am ordained a preacher'; and in 2 Timothy -- 'I am appointed a preacher'; and in keeping with this distinction he tells Timothy to preach the word, and then adds, "Do the work of an evangelist" ( 2 Timothy 4:5
'waterer' (see 1 Corinthians 2:6), and not an evangelist. The Greek word evangelised only occurs in Matthew 11:5, and not at all in Mark. It occurs frequently in Luke. I think the one gifted to be an evangelist may be a preacher, but one could be an evangelist and not a preacher. It is said to the apostles, "Preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). I find they who went everywhere were evangelising, and yet that Philip preached Christ in Samaria. I think this is a warrant for preaching in Christendom. But what I feel is, that it is the preaching department that the evangelists in the present day turn their attention, and devote their chief energies to. As a proclaimer there would be less need of guidance, but as an evangelist you would surely admit that one is led of God to speak to souls, and to seek souls individually. I think the confusion has arisen from confounding the herald, or preacher, with the evangelist. In Old Testament times there were the former, never the latter. Lastly, a proclaimer makes himself more or less public; but I still think that the evangelist would not begin with that branch of his office, though, as I have said, he would not shrink from it, as Paul at Athens and at the Roman tribunal. An evangelist might not be able to string a dozen sentences together. -------- in the present day, as -------- in a former day, give me more the idea of real evangelists though not preachers. Where in the present day are the evangelists dropping into the cottages and seeking the stray lambs in the lanes and alleys? Preaching the gospel involves less personal sacrifice than any other service. A man may hold any worldly position, and enjoy any circle of taste and fashion, and yet be a preacher. A preacher by that very fact takes the place of eminence in a pulpit nowadays, and awes and electrifies the multitude. I do not say that blessing does not supervene, but I say that the evangelist to be true to his calling makes himself less than the least, he waits on the needy soul. In prison and in chains Paul is ready and at hand for the suppliant jailor. To be true to his office the evangelist must be the smallest man going. He exposes himself in the front rank to die or to win. The teacher has his own company and he can reside with them. I do not see how an evangelist can have any calling
except one like Paul's -- tent-making, that can be taken up anywhere; he has no certain dwelling-place. I have gone over the subject again, and I trust you will see with me, or if not, that you will let me hear again.
I must apologise for leaving your letter so long unanswered. I am thankful that you have raised your voice against the carnal way in which some preach the gospel.
They say in the country that they who drive fat cattle should be fat, in order to drive them slowly; and surely if I propound grave things -- the gravest -- and am not deeply, the most deeply affected myself, I cannot expect my word to produce in my hearers a greater effect than it has produced on myself. But I am persuaded that we must look beyond the surface, or the expressed intention, for the root and source of this levity.
I hope at the next conference our reading may be devoted to the work of the evangelist. I believe that there are two great misconceptions: one, that while it is insisted on that man is a sinner (commits sins), yet it is not really apprehended that death as a judgment rests on every man in his sins. If it were in any measure apprehended that death -- God's judgment -- is resting on the unconverted, there would be no levity, but the deepest solemnity. The other misconception is, that the sinner is not seen in his true state in the eye of God, even that he is totally unable to do anything to retrieve his condition, or to accept any relief: that if the man in the state of innocency set up his own will in opposition to God's will, the man, in a fallen state, and under the judgment of death, could not retrace his steps; all he can do when convicted by the light of God (God must begin), is to cry -- 'Unclean! unclean! undone!' his only hope, the mercy of God.
The Salvation Army is a caricature. There it is openly avowed that it is by human means souls are converted;
that is, that man's feelings are wrought on. You are asked to accept the gospel, and if you have accepted it, to hold up your hands. God must begin with every soul. See the thief on the cross, or the jailor -- God begins, and it is by the light from God, namely, the evangelist, that the silver piece is found and picked up. It is very sad and very prevalent the approbation accorded to the enticing words of man's wisdom. How ready we are to suppose that human eloquence can effect a divine work! May we all seek more and more "that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:5). I need not say more at present. I hope, the Lord willing, to see you the week after next.
I can understand your fear that the strings would relax. The tendency is to lose dependence when we are enjoying the results of dependence. Thus we may begin well and end feebly.
I am sure your word on the knowledge of God was a word for the time. I have no doubt that if we knew Him better we should know the word better, and the order of things which suits Him. I like the remark that the nous (the thinking faculty) is needed to understand the logos. I learn much from Jacob's words, "How dreadful is this place". No one could have described the holiness of it to him; once he was near God he knew it. There is a distinction between fruit as the effect of the gospel, and the fruit which the full knowledge of the will of God would lead to. I believe that most among us are no farther than the Colossians, and that they do not see their need of more.
More and more each day I am awakening, I trust truly, to see the greatness and responsibility of the church as the body of Christ and the house of God. Can any one comprehend the nature and closeness of the relationship of the church to Christ? And as we enter into this relationship, how great will be our sense of duty to Him, attention to His interests.
The tendency to relapse into independency and to reduce each little company to consider for itself, independently of all others, is very marked, and this is a practical denial that we are of the body of Christ on the earth, and that what is done for His honour in one place, is done everywhere.
It is little apprehended the greatness and fellowship of the house of God. As the cloud of glory rested on the tabernacle as God's dwelling in the midst of His people, so now we are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
I quite agree with you as to our weak state, but as the dispensation began with Simeon -- willing to be the setting sun, because Jesus was the rising Sun; and Anna, 84 years old, who departed not from the temple -- the relics of God's property on earth; so are we now to be found in this double action; like Simeon surrendering all of the feeble old man, with Christ in our arms, and like Anna adhering with increasing devotedness to all that remains for God; continuing in supplication and prayer night and day; testifying of Christ to all who look for Him. Surely
the end of this great period ought not to be less than the beginning of it.
You must feel very much the gradual diminishing of your numbers, though this should lead to increased brightness. As the appearance to man's eye wanes, the manifestation to God should be the more brilliant. This is the true characteristic of the remnant. The Lord is more to you as man is less. Yet one does not like to see the testimony die out of a place. There is no real testimony to the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. "He shall testify of me"; and any one led by the Holy Ghost must be against the world; not only abandoning the world, as the monk does; but as in fellowship of the Spirit the world is "reproved". See John 16. The Spirit works one way, the opposite way to the world. By being with the Spirit you get the Father's things, for "He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine" (John 16:14, 15).
I fear that the saints are rather advancing in the world instead of retiring from it. Surely there never has been real advance but as there has been renunciation, and the "manifold more" is with reference to the surrender.
I am glad to hear that you are kept in dependence -- the true place for the Christian, but at the same time I trust that you are without any anxiety. I had heard of --------'s illness -- doubtless part of the discipline to which every "son" is subjected. I hope he may be able to receive it in this light.
I have. been meditating on the past, present and future with respect to the Lord. The past embraces His finished
work, which we can never lose sight of, but the present is in connection with the Holy Ghost come down from Him glorified. So that we not only know Him as He was but it is the great delight of His love that we should know Him as He is. In fact, the desire of His heart is, that we should be as united to Him sharing in His present interests, He dwelling in our hearts by faith. Therefore everything in the future as it relates to Him is a matter of deep interest to us, whether it be the decline of the church, or the course of the apostasy. We can be so in heart in concert with Him that with the Spirit (the Spirit and the bride), we say, Come!
At all times His interests must be the paramount interest of our hearts. He takes care of the smallest detail about us, but His heart desires that His interests might be the commanding object with us.
I thank you for your kind wish that I should be present at the meetings at -------- next week. I do trust the Lord will keep you all much on my heart before Him during the meetings. I desire much love to each of you, many long known and esteemed for the Lord's sake. May each derive much blessing from conferring one with another before Him. The Lord grant that you may be taught of Him to do solid work. There are three things: "Open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God" (Acts 26:18). I believe that in conversion it is a great thing to have a good beginning; a good beginning is always marked with deep repentance. If repentance does not mark the beginning, there is not depth in the conversion. Saul of Tarsus was three days without sight, neither did he eat nor drink. You must keep together "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). The sense of relief is always in proportion to the sense of danger and judgment. Man is not only a sinner but he is under the judgment of God -- Death,
"the wages of sin". "He was delivered for our offences", that was often typified, but no victim ever rose until "Jesus our Lord" was "raised for our justification" (Romans 4:24, 25). I suppose justification is the finish of the evangelist. I believe if the convert can see by faith that all that oppressed him, all that was against him in relation to God, has been cleared away by Christ (as clearly as Jonathan saw that Goliath was gone), that he would not only be at peace with God, but that the Lord Jesus Christ would be the object and delight of his heart, as was David to Jonathan, and as the Lord to the woman in Luke 7. I must not add more, excuse me for saying so much; but I am sure once the soul is personally attached to the Lord His coming again is its paramount hope, and when this is the case, to find Him in the assembly, and to do His pleasure here, become, as I might say, a necessary consequence. The Lord bless each of you much.
I am glad to answer your letter. I cannot see that you, as an evangelist, should look for the co-operation of the saints in the preaching of the gospel by their being listeners. Some evangelists openly request the saints not to come, lest they should occupy the seats intended for the unconverted. I consider the saints ought to co-operate in every way, but it does not appear to me that they should be required to attend as listeners. I feel they ought to do everything that the Lord leads them to do to get hearers, especially when the gospel is preached in a place by an evangelist who feels called of the Lord to preach there. I distinguish between the ordinary preaching of the gospel at the room, which is more commonly teaching, and the occasional preaching of an evangelist, on whose heart it has been laid to preach the gospel in that place. I believe at times there is a special call to preach the gospel in a
place, and if the Lord has opened the door, the audience will be of His gathering, and the presence of the saints would often hinder the evangelist, because he would be induced to make his utterance in some measure suited to them; and while doing so, he would not be as simple and fitting for the unconverted.
If I felt that the Lord called me to preach in a place, I should comfort myself that His work was done, if I had done His bidding. Paul endured a great deal at Philippi, but he succeeded. What I remember remarking to you was that hearers to the gospel may be found out by the sisters who have opportunities for visiting, as retrievers do birds. Sisters are the best visitors. There was a sister in -------- who knew almost every case of sorrow and distress in that city. What a retriever she was! You will be happy and blessed too in doing whatever the Lord tells you to do, and you must do it though no one co-operates with you, and you must set about it with courage.
I do not think you understand me and the view I take of your present position. You went to -------- as the Lord's servant, led, I trust, of Him. It is quite possible that you were as truly set on serving Him as Moses was when he essayed to deliver his people out of the hand of the Egyptians (Exodus 2:11, 12; Acts 7: 25); but purpose is not execution. Moses was true in purpose, but he failed in execution, and you may have been true in purpose, but you have failed in execution. I take nothing into account -- the causes, etc. -- I merely state the fact -- you have failed in execution.
Now this being the case, what is the servant of God to do? Is he to retire from service? No! but he is to be ready for the smallest service, like Moses, who though not able to deliver a nation, will yet help the women who went to water the flocks. We read (Exodus 2:17), "Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock;"
he is a servant still every inch! The real servant, if checked or hindered on one side, is ready for whatever opportunity offers, however small and insignificant it may seem; he does not take into account how this person or that person has treated him. If he does, he only excuses himself on the plea that he is not able for the post which he undertook, and he proves that he is not of strong material, that he is one who is not fit for the rough day but can only serve when everything smiles on him. The Lord wants servants who can begin with much patience (see 2 Corinthians 6), and end with "having nothing, but possessing all things". No servant of God ever proved himself fit for service but according as he was able to act under pressure. Joseph is most unrighteously cast into prison, and most ungratefully detained there, before he is fit for the position which God had designed for him. David had to endure at Ziklag a combination of the greatest sorrows and distress before he was fit for the throne of Israel. I believe the Lord has allowed a great pressure to come upon you, and instead of reefing your topsails and making all snug until the storm is over, you fall to, and abuse the wind. The wind may be unsympathetic, but that is only for the pleasure-boat to say. The sturdy man-of-war puts out to sea, assured that he will outlive the storm, and be ready for service again when required. David was greatly distressed at Ziklag, but he "encouraged himself in the Lord his God" (1 Samuel 31:6). I am grieved that you should lose this fine opportunity for proving yourself qualified by patience and lowliness to serve. I am not going to tell you what I condemn in others, nor do I intend to tell others what I condemn in you. A wise physician does not talk to his patients about his other patients' maladies. My desire as to you is that you should forget yourself and consider wholly for the Lord. Those nearest and dearest to us naturally can do us the greatest mischief spiritually, because they consider too much for us and too little for the Lord.
I wish I could have a talk with you. I think that we may learn much from David's mighty men in the day of his rejection. They were characterised by unswerving devotedness to David. The nation gained from their services, but they were for David. I feel that with your light and gift you are bound to be more pronounced for Christ and His chief interest in this world. Every other interest is subordinate to the church. Do we believe that Christ's treasure is on the earth? Do we labour that 'all men might see' it? My impression is, and I am sure that you will not think me dictating or assuming too much, when I say, that you are called of the Lord to be here for His chief interest. You may reply, that the gospel is part of His interest. I quite admit it. Paul was the chief of evangelists, but he was pre-eminently for the church. The question is, which is paramount? I know as to myself (sadly I say it), that the aim of my ministry was lowered when I was not near enough to the Lord to be, as I may say, in the Cabinet. I mean, so near to the Lord as to be in His confidence, and thus to act from Him. All I ask of you is, to "take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord that thou fulfil it" (Colossians 4:17). I have seen all along from Plymouth days, that when trouble arises in the assembly, the tendency is to confine the ministry to man's benefit, and to overlook testimony for Christ.
It is very plain that there is grace for the prodigal up to the fulness of God's love, but you must not overlook that there is grace also (immense in its character) and power for Christ here. I am sure the more one is in the Lord's confidence, the more the ministry will be in keeping with Christ's heart. I do not object to your preaching the gospel, although your gift is not that of an evangelist; but I think you should avoid association which would compromise your service.
I think I may venture to say that no brother cares more for your welfare and profit, or prays more for you than I do.
I thank you much for your kind and interesting letter. If you knew how much your spiritual progress would rejoice me, you would understand me when I say that I desire to see you not only a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ but also a witness. The Spirit is given (John 14:26) in order that we should be here for Christ, as He was here, opening out the heart of God to man as recorded in the gospels -- a wonderful service, while in John 15:26 the Holy Ghost is sent from Himself in glory to testify of Him, "He shall testify of me"; that is, that we, here for Christ, should be descriptive of Him as the exalted Man in heavenly glory. I am convinced that any servant who is in spiritual power does not confine himself to John 14:26, where properly he is prepared for John 15:26. So that he is not only a disciple but he is a "friend" and a "witness". I see many converted souls, but I do not see many witnesses. I see that the purpose of the blessed God is that the church should be here descriptive of Christ; and as J.N.D. has said of John 17 -- 'He first sets us as Himself in the presence of the Father, and then sets us as Himself in the presence of the world.' I feel that one man in a place, standing fully for Christ, like Anna the prophetess, would be a greater testimony than many conversions. Every place is coloured and characterised by the highest spiritual element there, be it either in man or in woman. I see that from Abraham down God had an object; and as His object for the time became the object of any man on earth, that man was specially helped of God. God's object now is the church -- the body of Christ -- the mystery; and in my judgment no one has His present mind in power, who is not paramountly set for God's object. No one else can meet in divine efficacy the difficult times. I hope I have not said too much, but I wish I could prove to you how much I desire for you the highest spiritual blessing. I may add that I believe the nature of the distance between God and the sinner is not preached, and if the distance is not fully gone, nearness cannot be
known. The One who measured our distance is Himself the measure of our nearness.
If I misjudge any one, you can send me the paper or the tract, wherein the nature of the distance has been fully set forth.
I am glad you have written to me about your present search for a house. I believe that as a servant of the Lord the true way is to learn directly from the Lord the locality He would have you to be in. He has a particular spot for you. He searched out a place in the wilderness for Israel. The world go here and there till they find what suits them. You have to find what suits Him, and you can consult the Urim and the Thummim, and though at first you might not find the suited house, you would be assured of the right locality. I have felt that you were laid open to a wrong move, because your eye was so much on a house instead of a locality. The Lord might lead you to a locality where at first you would be much tried for room, etc.; but then you would be in the spot He had selected for you, which would be infinitely better than the best suited house in a locality which had not His approval. More depends than I could write on your being in the locality which He would choose for you. Where there is faith it is often tried at first, but if you are true to it and make His service and interests primary, eventually suitable accommodation would be provided for you in the spot He has chosen for you. You must determine absolutely whether your move is for His service, or for your own advantage. If it be the latter, you may secure it, but you will find yourself ere long like an officer unattached; whereas in the former case He will employ you, and before very long provide everything that your family really requires in every detail. I feel that this is a critical step for you, and I trust I may have you still more in remembrance before the Lord.
In answer to your question, 'Should our sins be spoken of in prayer at assembly meetings?' I would ask you, Do you know that you are in the presence of Christ risen from the dead? If you do not believe in His resurrection and that He was raised for your justification, you could not be in His presence risen from the dead. If you do there is not a disturbing element between God and you. The mention of sins in the assembly arises from confounding our practical state with our place in the mind of God. The blessed God never alters nor diverges from the acceptance in which He has received us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alas! we diverge from the state in which God can be ever toward us as recorded in Romans 5:1 - 11. Many suppose that because they are conscious of sins, that hence they must renew their acceptance with God. The truth is that God has not altered. His eye rests on the work accomplished by Christ for the believer. When you are not walking in the Spirit you are in the flesh: you have returned to the old man which was crucified on the cross. You have to be restored, and when you are, you find your acceptance with God unchanged and unchangeable. When sins are introduced there is a fear that God has changed. He has not changed but you have; when you sin you have changed. You are not walking in the Spirit, but in the flesh. You have to judge yourself in order to be restored. Matthew 26:28 states the purpose of His death. The fact that He died for us makes His death more intensely affecting to us. But if all our sins were not met there, where can they be met? In Hebrews 10:18 we read, "Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin". God has effected the reconciliation; He always remains true to the efficacy of Christ's work. You and I do not remain true to it, alas! We diverge from it; and the tendency is to suppose that the blessed God has altered towards us. He certainly will judge the flesh if we do not, but He never departs from the love which He has expressed to the
prodigal, and we find that when the cloud, which walking in the flesh produced has passed away, that His love, blessed be His name, had never changed. If you agree with me you will see the unsuitability of the passages you have named being read at the Lord's supper.
In reply to your letter on the subject of the assembly or church, you must first admit that the church is not now in any place, town, or country, as it was in Corinth, to which you refer. If you admit that the church as God's house has lost its first estate, that it is now in disorder -- a "great house", where there are vessels to honour and to dishonour, you will see that you cannot speak of the church in any place as including all the professing Christians in that place. This is just what Rome aims at, and the parochial system fosters, because they do not allow that the church is morally a ruin. All the sects in Christendom originated with the express purpose of improving the state of things. Their mistake has arisen from thinking that they could reform. The only course open to you or to any one true to the Lord, is first to purge himself from the vessels to dishonour, and then to follow with them who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Timothy 2:22). When you are awakened to the corruption which you are mixed up with in the "great house", you will separate yourself from the persons or vessels to dishonour. You do not seek to reform; you begin at the beginning; you go back to the Lord's intention at the beginning. We learn from Matthew 14 - 16 how the Lord educated His disciples for the assembly. You start there; you seek to be of the remnant in a day when all around professing to be God's house is in ruin and disorder. A remnant is characterised by fidelity to the Lord, which is the brightest trait of the original. The true remnant has a "little power", has kept My word, and has not denied My name;
it is for His eye and heart. It seeks no place among men, "as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves" (Isaiah 6:13). No leaves, nothing for the human eye to acknowledge.
Thus drawn to the Lord, we enjoy Him in our midst, and as we do, we become a help and an attraction to every one truly seeking Him. The more separate we are the more the Lord is with us. We should really be a moral lifeboat in all the wreck around us. We are looking for nothing. Our hearts are on the Lord, and on all His, waiting for His coming. I hope you will understand all this. The Lord bless you.
The first thing is to ascertain the responsibility of an assembly. Each assembly has its own individual responsibility. Each assembly is responsible for those whom they receive and those whom they refuse. I at -------- am not responsible for those received at --------, nor am I responsible for the evil in the assembly there. I do not say that I do not suffer from it or on account of their indifference or laxity; I do suffer, and in that sense we are all responsible; but though I might if I could (like the apostle to Corinth) expose their lack of zeal for God's house, my business is not to coerce but to exercise their consciences. Now this was the course adopted by the apostle where there was a very wicked case, a terrible evil patent to all. Corinth was responsible for putting this man away, and for receiving him back again. It would be preposterous and irregular to the utmost for that man to propose that other brothers from another assembly should come to Corinth, or that they should volunteer to come to Corinth, to aid the assembly at Corinth in receiving back this man. If Corinth or -------- had asked for the help of any brother or brothers to help them in their judgment, it would be quite different.
You cannot give a verdict in the church as you would
if the assembly were a jury, by a majority, or even by unanimity. The decision in the assembly is the Lord's decision, whether given by only two out of 200, and if it is the Lord's decision, the 198 will be silent! It is not by pleading but by moral influence in life and manners which can sway, or ought to sway, the consciences of the assembly to restore. It would be a very serious thing to put away unless by an act of the conscience, and it would be very serious to restore but by an act of the conscience.
Local responsibility refers to the assembly to which you are attached. There were the churches or assemblies of Galatia. For the assembly to which you are attached you have a responsibility which you have not for the assembly to which you are not locally attached. No doubt you have a responsibility with regard to the whole church, but this is quite different from your responsibility to the assembly to which you are attached. You are responsible for the holiness of the assembly with which you are locally connected. I do not sanction or overlook unholiness anywhere, but I am personally responsible for the holiness of God's house where I am dwelling. In that sense, in a special way 'Charity begins at home'. I have to build the wall opposite my own house. See Nehemiah. I am responsible for the purity of the assembly with which I am connected, and therefore I should not receive from an assembly where there was unjudged leaven until that assembly had cleared itself. I am not involved in it unless I sanction it or receive from the assembly where it is. My responsibility is to be faithful in condemning the leaven, in order that the assembly where the leaven exists should be as clear of it as the assembly to which I am attached. What is good and proper for one assembly is good and proper for every assembly.
I feel that in a question like the present, where the teaching at -------- is unsound and mischievous, that every assembly should declare their utter refusal of it. If it were merely a question of moral wrong, the judgment arrived at in another place would become binding on you on receiving or commending to the assembly where the judgment was declared. But where it is a doctrine which has leavened many, each assembly is bound to record their repudiation of it. I remark that no one is spiritually vigorous who has not been exercised before the Lord as to this. I may not be able to define what the grace of God has given me, but if I am enjoying it, I can surely make others feel that I am enjoying it. A man not in possession of a truth may, with a certain verbal accuracy, define it, but he gives no impression of it unless he really knows it. If I am warm I can convince others that I am warm, though I may not be able to define warmth! The danger of the hour is the attempt to define what one does not enjoy. The true way is to enjoy first, and next to tell others what you enjoy. Hence the youngest Christian who is near the Lord will surpass in spiritual judgment the most learned brother who is not near Him, as is very apparent in this day.
The trial in L-------- is very solemn. It is the exposure of a carnal system which tended to reduce brethren to a mere sect. The promoters of it may have had no plan in their heads, but when people systematise they must sink into a plan.
A new order prevailed, I could see everywhere. I could retire, for I was happy in what I knew to be true. Everything amongst us was assuming a carnal type. The teaching was more intellectual than spiritual; talent and erudition
approved of and commended. Tact and human wisdom resorted to and sanctioned in matters of the assembly, so that there was a laxity in reception as well as in discipline. Methodism leavened the meetings -- human feelings were addressed or expressed. In society it was more socialism than love and fellowship in the Spirit; consequently there was radicalism or levelling to imitate the union of love which the Spirit ordains.
Ordinances unduly prominent to shelter and relieve the conscience of the reproach of admitted worldliness on all sides.
Revivalism in preaching, and every human means accepted and sought as auxiliary. I hope this system has been really checked by the present exposure.
I hold it to be very demoralising to sanction a minister because of his gift, while there is not confidence in himself personally.
As to using and circulating the writings of 'those who have not gone on in the separate path' I see grave moral objections to it; I do not think that everything depends on the words used, but on the intent with which they are used. I believe the Lord judges, and therefore blesses according to the intent of the heart. The words used might not be objectionable, and yet the intent might be evil....
I very much fear that often with perfectly unobjectionable statements, there may be underneath an evil intent -- an intent to propagate the doctrine which sways oneself. The words may not betray the bias of one's mind, and yet the bias, like the atom of infection, is in the words, and will, unless counteracted by the truth which is the specific or antidote for it, surely be the scorpion's egg, and become at length a poisoned sting.
It is impossible for a person either to write or to speak without imparting in intent that which has weight with
himself. Be he as guarded as he may, he imparts it, and thus, in my mind, he is the agent for good or for evil.
I feel it a great mercy that the Lord regards the intent, and blesses accordingly; and though the same words may be uttered by two, yet if one had a deeper and more spiritual intent in them than the other, though the Lord may in a measure bless both, that the deeper and fuller blessing will be where the deepest and most spiritual intent is. The spirit, not the letter of the statement, is the essence of it. If the spirit or essence be evil, no amount of sweetness or dilution in the vehicle will counteract the effects of the poison; but, thank God, if the essence be of the mind of God, though the vehicle be unattractive and even insufficient, it will speak for itself. My judgment is that no amount of useful or orthodox statements should warrant me to circulate the writings of one who at the time is under an evil bias, for though he may indite such apparently good things, yet there must be a poison in his mind which sooner or later will betray itself.
The only way to settle or determine the questions which have been raised as to the responsibility of the assembly in connection with lectures or preaching the gospel, is to insist on and maintain the constitution of the assembly. The room belongs to the assembly, they are responsible for the purposes for which they lend their room. They arrogate to themselves a power which they do not possess, when they attach to their room, by board or otherwise, that the gospel will be preached here, or lectures delivered here on certain evenings of the week.
When they meet as the assembly, all the gifts are theirs, and subject one to another for the profit of all. But the gift has his own responsibilities, and when he acts on them, he is at liberty to announce, according to his faith and purpose, that he will, the Lord willing, do so and so.
The assembly may refuse him the room, or not, as they think proper, or they may offer it to him. They are really responsible, or those who act for them, as to the soundness in the faith and morals of the one to whom they lend their room.
I consider that the brothers who meet together weekly for oversight ought in some degree to be entitled to the office of either bishop or deacon. I cannot see what business any brother has at the brother's meeting, as it is called, who does not oversee or look after either the souls or the bodies of the saints. In the present broken state, the officials are not easily or openly marked out. It is not expected that an army will go through proper evolutions without officers; the officers have really according to God disappeared from before men, and the wonder is, how the Lord can, without visibly responsible officers, carry on His people in godly order, and yet in mercy He does, as we wait on Him. The gifts continue because He remaineth. The assembly is really represented by those who, without titles, do the duty of officials, and they certainly would fail in their duty, were they not careful as to the character, etc., of the gifted man to whom they would lend the room.
On the other hand, I do not think they ought to undertake to provide for the preaching of the gospel or for lectures. It is, in my judgment, beyond their province, though they should be ready to promote it by duly qualified persons.
It is very clear that discipline is connected with the house of God, and that each one in the local assembly is responsible for any disorder there. See Numbers 5:2. Every one is responsible for preserving the dwelling-place of the Lord fit for Him. There can be no doubt about this. But while the responsibility to preserve is definite, I do not see that one brother or more, though most faithful to their responsibility, can cut off those who are not faithful or
alive to their responsibility, until every effort has been used to awaken them to it. I think a brother is justified in abstaining from breaking of bread, because the dishonour done to the Lord in the assembly has not been avenged; but I do not see that he has any right to conclude that his brethren, who are still insensible to the dishonour, are beyond recovery, and that the Lord has left them, and that, so to speak, the ark of the covenant is with him, and that he is warranted to break bread. Every one is responsible for every dishonour known to him. I cannot give up my responsibility because others do not see it, but I am not to disown that assembly until, after the most patient expostulation, they persist in their indifference to the Lord. I do not agree with you as to the statement in the note. I think any brother caring for the Lord's interest is at liberty to take part in a discipline case in any place. Woe betide him if he be an Uzzah! Woe betide him if the Lord has not sent him! But I do not question his right -- not as a member of the body, but as one of the guardians (as each Israelite was) of the dwelling-place of the Lord. If I were privy to a case of leaven, and if I could not awaken the responsibility of the brethren to it, I feel I might be led to stand aside, though I should not break away from fellowship or from any opportunity to work on their consciences. I must give space to repent.
I agree in the general tenor of your paper, but the difficulty in agreeing with a paper of this kind is, that it is too much like an opinion of counsel, given with reference to a certain case.
My feeling on hearing your Bochim read aloud was, that it was premature. If an act of insubordination to the Spirit of God has been committed, there can be no expectation of help from God until it has been repudiated. The first essential in prayer is "holy hands". "I will
wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar" (Psalm 26:6). If there be manifested weakness, as we see in the days of Joshua, when there was unjudged evil in the camp, the crying to God is discountenanced by the Lord until the evil has been cleared away. The Lord says, "Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? ... Up, sanctify the people" (Joshua 7:10 - 13). "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me" (Psalm 66:18). Before we draw nigh to God we have to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. I am certain that prayer is often proposed, and especially public humiliation, as a plea of postponement, or a cloak to the conscience to escape a surrender or a self-judgment, which practical righteousness would insist on. I think in any case of discipline that the name of the Lord should be first vindicated, and the one in error subjected to the proper treatment, before the assembly can be in a condition for prayer and humiliation. They cannot appear before the Lord before the first, and they certainly have not sought or pursued the true services of love toward the erring one until the second has been done. The right and true aim of discipline is cure; the question is what will promote cure. Will a hasty glossing over or indifference effect a cure? I desire to secure the honour of the Lord in His house, and the good of my brother. I cannot obtain the one or the other by indifference; nay, on the contrary, the course of action which secures the one procures the other. If I have true love, it is not to postpone divine treatment or discipline, but to adopt it in order to effect the restoration of my brother. Having first subjected him to divine treatment, then let there be united confession and prayer. You can recall when a grievous case of sin occurred amongst us, that the sinning one was first put away, and then there was a general meeting of humiliation and prayer, and eventually he was restored. Surely restoration is most blessed, but how can you restore unless you first admit the failure, and then, if the restoration be true, it is in proportion to the gravity of the failure -- a great restoration where there has been a great failure. Surely the good of our brother we seek, and thus let us join heart and hand to seek to promote it in the only way in which God will help us.
My statement was, that if a godly clergyman presented himself for communion I should receive him, and though he returned to system, yet I should receive him again as I had received him before, not as if he were in fellowship, but as one desiring to break bread; but I added, he is now subject to discipline, and if he did anything in doctrine or practice to compromise the holiness of God's house, he would be dealt with accordingly and publicly. Now this is very different from the mode of action of those who assume open ground. They receive every Christian who is sound in faith and morals; that is their avowed terms of communion. They take no notice of where (as to association) they come from. They make no difference between saints in the Establishment or sects, and brethren. They do not see that Newton's heresy sprung up in the midst of brethren who assume to be on the ground of the church of God intelligently; hence there is a great difference as to moral standing between a saint in the Establishment or the sects and one from any company which is under discipline. All we ask for is jealousy for Christ in His own house. We receive a believer from the Establishment or the sects when assured that such an one is sound in faith and morals, while we do not receive one from 'Brethren' (so called) unless he has absolutely cleared himself of all association with the defiled company.
... But the moment a Christian is received in the fellowship of the Lord's supper, he is identified with all the privileges and responsibilities of the assembly, and therefore he is amenable to discipline. If a clergyman were received this Sunday, and returned to his church the following Sunday, the assembly could take no notice, but if he in any way in doctrine or by practice dishonours the Lord, even though he may have withdrawn from fellowship, yet as he was once in the fellowship he must now be put away as unfit for it.
I believe your case is no uncommon one, and I believe further it is the result of our failure. When the church began there was a very marked line between it and everything else. "The Lord added". When the truth of the church was revived or recovered, there was not a continued and zealous care as to the state or faith of those who joined with us. Evangelists among us desired to see their converts at the table. They came in, in most cases, perfectly ignorant of the responsibility of the step they were taking, and without either faith or exercise respecting it. Are you surprised then when a question arises in which the claims of Christ in His house have to be insisted on, that these spiritual tadpoles should manifest that they have no legs, and that they could not act beyond their light and power. If Lot will come with Abram, Abram must not turn away from him. But if Lot will separate from Abram, Abram will be in increased blessing. I do not think that separation from such should begin with you; but you are to blame for having those with you who have not faith for the ground which they profess to occupy. If you resign the advantages of the world to them, as Abram did to Lot, they will soon either distance themselves from you, or they will be led through grace to see what is due to the Lord. Brethren are only reaping what they have sown, and therefore until the Lots avow false principles, and morally separate from us, we must go on with them and suffer from them like a man with a paralysed foot.
I should approve of the brothers writing a joint letter to -------- and declaring that they have no confidence in him as to service, or in his choosing or inviting preachers, and even requiring him to surrender the responsibility of the room. If he persist in receiving from -------- you would have no option but to walk out, and then he and those with him would be outside, but not in my judgment for his mere threats.
If you are occupied with serving man, you have begun at the outer circle, and you will never work from thence to the inner. If I am serving Christ I work from the inner circle. I am near Him, and the one nearest to Him occupies me most and first. That is love; it begins at the inner, and reaches to the outer -- to whatever is of Christ on the earth.
Give yourself to the things that belong to Christ, seeking that they should have the very form and shape that His heart would have them. It is within the power of the feeblest and humblest to take such an interest in one another as to give the sense of Christ's love. Nothing gives such an expression of love as the way the truly devoted one will enter into everything that concerns one. But then to serve one another truly, we must get rid of self. What is allowed with men must get no allowance when we come to act for Christ. Our power in enforcing or repressing anything in another is only in proportion as we have enforced or repressed it in ourselves. I cannot touch a point in another, that I have not repressed in myself; but real love having put off what is unsuited to Christ in oneself is able to say to another, 'See what grace has done in me: I want it to do the same in you.'
Do not be discouraged because you may not carry out your purpose at once; God will carry it out, but you must keep in the place where you will be preserved, in the circle of Christ's interests. Moses had to wait forty years to carry out his purpose, which was a right one, though in the first flush the flesh sought to carry it out; but in the end, how fully every purpose of his heart was met!
(John 20)
My impression is that you would distort the divine order if you make John 20 universal, or extend it beyond the
church. You will bear in mind that the Lord is rejected in John, so that the Jews are called "the world" in John 15. Now are fulfilled the words -- "And will glorify it again" (John 12:28). The Lord is risen. Hence what relates specially to Himself is the beginning of the new order. The first creation finished with a man -- Adam; Adam fell, and all that creation was made subject to vanity. Now the new has come, and it begins with the "second man out of heaven". Hence I repeat, the circle of interest to His heart is the bride, which we find here in its two-fold aspect -- heart and hands -- Mary Magdalene represents the one, and the eleven the other. The finest trait of the heart is there in perfection. She gathers, as has been said, the disciples; all are there except Thomas (who represents the Jew, who looks for the Messiah as visible to the natural eye), but he is at length in this hallowed circle (verse 26) which is administration for Christ here on the earth; indeed, as in one sense, it will be during the millennium. There is no administration, as far as I see, connected with the kingdom save through the new Jerusalem. When Lazarus was raised you might say there was then the opening for universal display on the earth, and as to fact, our Lord's entry as King took place the next day.
J.N.D. makes John 21 a millennial scene. Peter was out of the current of the Lord's mind when he proposed to go a-fishing.
In conclusion, I may add that it is deeply interesting to apprehend from the word of God the portion of and promises to each company of His saints, if it were only to open out to us the peculiar distinctiveness of our own portion. It helps one to have the subject raised.
I have never used the expression 'positional circumcision'. My impression is that it has been used to set aside the subjective side, and I think you are right to raise
the question if you think that any one means by the statement to make subjective circumcision unnecessary. It is in this way the expression -- 'the judicial end of man' has been used, and it is most pernicious.
I see that our old man is crucified with Christ. That is ever true for me, though not true to me but as I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin. The assurance that the old man has been judicially set aside in the cross is the true scope and measure of my faith. I have nothing less to accept, and the more simply I do so, the more am I subjectively bearing about in my body the dying of Jesus. If the old man had not been judicially set aside in the cross, and if it were only true of me as I reckon myself to be dead, then there would be no standard, no measure to which I was bound to come, as that already true of me, and this would necessarily sink to self-occupation and admit of greater laxity. In the same way I should say that Colossians 2:11 is 'positional circumcision', if by that is meant a work done absolutely for me; but the very fact of its being done for me makes it obligatory on me (for I am called to have Christ in me) to be in the truth of it practically, and I think if you had insisted on the subjective side in Colossians 3 you would have been quite right. I am sure that the tendency has been to make the circumcision effected for me sufficient, without any sense of the realisation of it. Now this realisation of being circumcised cannot be but as we are over Jordan, done (as you say) with this world. There is no circumcision in the wilderness. The objection to practical circumcision is that you must be in an out-of-the-world condition of things; and every one risen with Christ is on the ground where the old man has no more place, but where you are apart from it, as Peter walking on the water (as illustration). If there were only 'positional circumcision', then there would be no knowledge of acquaintance with the new order of things into which you are introduced by the resurrection of Christ. You cannot be with Christ at the other side of death and retain the man for whom He died. But on the other hand, if you were to say that there is no 'positional circumcision', that is, that circumcision had not been effected for me, then you would reduce
circumcision to the measure in which you are practically dead, not to sins merely, but to the old man as to its lusts and habits; in short, you would reduce it to mere practice, instead of owning that the body of the flesh had been absolutely cut off in the cross, and that if you are raised up with Christ, which baptism points to (when there is faith), you must adopt in faith the circumcision which has been effected for you, and you, in fellowship with Christ in His life, realise that you have put off the old man and have put on the new, in very deed that you are "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Colossians 3:10).
In fine, if I make circumcision merely positional, I am practically antinomian, and if I make circumcision only subjective, I am legal and self-occupied, and my conscience is my standard and not Christ. The truth is, I believe that the circumcision has been effected for me in the cross, but that I am only in the benefit of it as I in faith accept it as really as it has been effected for me, so that I can stand apart from all of the old man, having put off the old and put on the new.
Having heard that you have not been very well lately I send you a line. I have been much interested within the last few days in seeing the way the Lord reveals His heart to us. His heart is the greatest favour He could give us. His heart is beyond His hand. It is when His hand is apparently against us that He makes known His heart, which is far beyond anything His hand could do for us. Joseph's brethren had lost their father, a very dark hour, and that was the moment when they were to learn the heart of Joseph. Peter passed through much anguish when he fell at Jesus' knees, and yet that was the moment in which he learned the heart of Jesus.
The horror of great darkness is the gateway into the most blessed unfoldings of His love. It has very much interested me to see that He does not propose to give us relief, but He would have us to find in Himself not only a
resource, but abundant compensation for all loss. It is Himself and not anything He could give. It magnifies to my heart much the love that would make me know that He Himself is the greatest thing He could give me, and to make up for any loss, however great....
Our history has two parts. The first part God's grace to ourselves. The second His grace to us in our service to Christ. I think I have often confounded the latter with the former, but I am beginning to see that they are quite distinct. The Lord bless you in your service for Him. It is a cheer to me to remember you before Him.
I enjoyed my visit among you. I think there is more settled purpose to stand for the Lord. There is more compactness -- that which every joint supplieth. I feel as if you all were more launched, and standing out to sea, aware that you must do seaman's duty, and to my mind all depends on this. The loss of dear -------- I conclude has had this effect -- of binding you all together, and like a solid square, to stand against the common foe. It is a blessed result, but there must be service; I mean as the Lord leads; and there can be no service without sacrifice. In one form or another, when one chooses to suffer affliction with the people of God, the advantages of Egypt must be surrendered. The first act of Elisha on entering or beginning service was to lay hold of his own clothes and rend them in two pieces. The old order of things was at an end. The need of the saints must provoke you to service, as it did Moses in another day. I do not mean to press you into very laborious service. I feel the weight must come on some one, and the taller any one is in carrying a weight in company with others the more falls on him; and in the Lord's service it is an honour to be that one. If you are called to ministry in the word you must wait on it. I feel (it is time for me to say so) that Christ's interests must be our paramount concern, and for a minister in the word it must be especially so.
I do not for a moment intimate that secular business would militate against a good, sound, useful ministry in the word; but then the latter must always keep the lead in the mind of the servant as well as in his heart; just as a man's affections for his family are paramount with him, although he be a good business man.
... I am strongly impressed that the remnant (a remnant must be a part of the original) must be vigorous in its own circle before it can be a testimony in the world. The church was to be the candlestick; she lost her first love, and eventually lost her testimony. Then in Thyatira the promise of "the morning star" was given. It is for the Lord's return the remnant looks, not for the restoration of the church. "I come quickly: ... that no man take thy crown" (Revelation 3:11). The remnant is not seeking to recover the position on the earth which the church has lost, but to be ready in heart and ways for Christ, so that the cry "Come" is the one desire of the bride. Her desire for the Lord's return is not because of sorrows here, but because nothing less can satisfy the heart of the bride, who, as to testimony, has gone forth with trimmed lamps to meet Him, in answer to "Behold the bridegroom" (Matthew 25:6).
I mean that the ministry now is more to get the saints ready for Christ than to regain the position of testimony in the world. Of course as there is devotedness to Christ there will be a shining forth of light in this dark place, but I think that the object of the Spirit now is to so draw our hearts to Christ that everything unsuited to Him would be renounced, and the better we know Him the more suited to Him we shall be. Our business is not merely evangelising now, nor any measure of usefulness. The one commanding thought is, "The bright and morning star". I hope you see my thought. I feel that it provokes one to a greater zeal for Christ in the assembly, for if we do not reach the greatness of our association with Christ in the assembly, we
cannot be in the mind and feelings of the bride, or qualified to say to Him, "Come".
The antitype of the holiest is Christ in glory, and you are never in His presence but as the glorified One. As the hymn puts it, 'His presence is our home.' (Hymn 12) Individually we enter the holiest, or the presence of Christ in glory, but we only know it fully in the assembly. We all can behold the Lord with unveiled face, but where it is individual the effect is limited to the individual, and is seen in his course of action. I mean that if I were in His presence, as the Queen of Sheba was in Solomon's presence, I should be transformed into moral correspondence to Him in my individual path. But if I were in His presence in the assembly, where He is Son over God's house -- a great Priest over the house of God, I should be led, in concert with Himself, into His circle of interest.
In either case I must be fit for His presence. I consider that the washing of the feet in John 13 answers to the preparation for the holiest. You cannot be with Christ -- have "part" with Him, unless every shade of defilement be removed. This must always be the case in order to be with Him. When you fail you turn to Him as the Advocate, but the conscience may be at rest, and yet the heart may not be free with Him. It is very plain that individually you are not enjoying company with Him, if there be any reserve between Him and you. Peter was in his conscience relieved in John 20, but his heart was not relieved until chapter 21. If you admit that you are not in company with Him individually until your feet are washed, you can at once see that you could not be with Him otherwise in the assembly -- in the house of God.
Our individual failures we confess in our own room when we believe in the advocacy of Christ, but that must be over before we come into the assembly. In the assembly we seek for grace and wisdom to correct anything unworthy
of His assembly. It is not so much confessing failure as seeking to remove it. Under the law, the clean person was to sprinkle on the unclean.
In the Lord's supper it is Christ's death which is before us, and the fact that He died for us only intensifies our remembrance of Him in death; we are in the full efficacy of His work.
Beholding the Lamb in Revelation is, as far as I see, more with relation to the earth than the assembly. The company there are associated with Christ as about to reign; at any rate, they are not the assembly. The more you love Him, and the better you know all He went through on your account, the more will you seek to be kept from any return to the flesh for which He suffered; and though His sufferings for you draw out your heart to Him, the real satisfaction of your heart is that you are united to Him in glory. Entrance into the holiest is a blessing peculiar to Christians. We do not read that the earthly saints are ever thus blessed. I hope I have made the subject clear to you. It has been said no one understands a divine truth until he is in it. The Lord lead you into it.
Though I have a line in hand for you with reference to Abram and Lot, I think I had better comment first on the enclosed. It is evident that your aim is right, but, as far as I see, it cannot be said that you come from His side to remember Him in His death. J.N.D. says, and I believe it to be true, that it is on the earth, where He is not, that you remember His death. The true remembrance of His death was to close this scene completely to us. Israel were idolaters because they could in the absence of Moses eat and drink and rise up to play. The Corinthians had no sense of the absence of Christ -- no true acceptation of His death, and that in eating the supper they were identified with His death. To my mind it is this -- I see Him at the altar as having died, and with this fresh on my heart I join
Him as one of the consecrated company at the door of the tabernacle where He is in glory, and go in with Him, and there I am associated with Him in His own blessedness in the presence of God in the holiest of all. It is as His brethren we accompany Him, and there could be no remembrance of sin there, for we are as He is. The sense of this is very feebly apprehended by us. I remember Him as He was here, I join Him as He is, a great Priest over the house of God.
Many thanks for your letter. Your remark about the tabernacle is very interesting. I have been lately (in connection with John 17 and the new Jerusalem) impressed with the idea that the church, as the complement of Christ, would, in its glory, cover the earth "as the waters cover the sea" -- in fact, God's dwelling-place. How do you distinguish between the tabernacle and the temple? I think it is easy to see that there is a glory, which is, so to speak, common to the Father and the Son. Connecting the ram of consecration with John 13:31 I greatly like, for thus you can understand your fitness to behold the Lord's glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). I am sure we must learn approach first. A Man has glorified God; through Him we can approach, we behold the glory of the Lord; and following on this there is the untold greatness -- the Son glorifying the Father. I do not see that we reach the Father until we come to Ephesians 2:18 "Through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father". I see that we are in company first with Christ, and we enter with Him into the Holiest; that is approach; and then we behold His glory, we are in the efficacy of the ram of consecration; but the worshipping of the Father cannot be until we are with the Son in the presence of the Father. I have been studying this subject with reference to the names we use in addressing
God, and it appears to me there is very little intelligence as to the name Father. I like the thought that 'the Shekinah was more than the Holiest'. I feel it is opening out to me.
As to the manna. I quite agree that it is not for approach. I believe that if Christ is not living in me outside of all here, I shall not be able to walk in the details of daily life as He walked. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). It is most wonderful. He never learned anything from man. He was a Man fully according to God's mind -- perfection in the midst of imperfection.
I am more and more confirmed in the accuracy of your remark that the questions of the propounders of the new theories show that they are not clear of the old man as judicially terminated in the cross. I fear many are stranded there.
I was thankful for your letter, but I deferred to reply to it until I could say something. I find a subject of the kind comes to one only by degrees, here a little, and there a little. I accept your distinction between the tabernacle and the temple. Do you see nothing more in the tabernacle of God than in the tabernacle of testimony? My impression is, that there is something besides the new Jerusalem in Paul's words, "an holy temple in the Lord". I do not say that it is in the millennium, but could it be fulfilled in the statement, "The tabernacle of God is with men"? Christ here was the temple of God, and it is in keeping with this that I think there must be hereafter more than the city. I do not mean the temple which will be set up on the earth during the millennium.
I agree with you that there is a present analogy to the assembly as the house of God, only we are more of the tabernacle character, for we have the heavenly Priest over the house of God -- and the ark contains not only the law, what God required of man, but there was the pot of manna -- a life suited to God, and Aaron's rod -- God's chosen One.
Your comments on Mark 8 are very interesting, that Christ is the "one loaf", and that there must be two operations on the blind before there is divine sight. I had seen the necessity for the latter, but I had never taken the "one loaf" to signify Christ. I had remarked that He did not give them any bread. The whole scene of the chapter depicts the moral state of believers in this day. They would welcome any addition of Christ to Adam, but they refuse to discard Adam for Christ only. I find almost everywhere that Galatians 2:20 is regarded as "standing", and that it is not appropriated as the true experimental state of the Christian.
The enclosed is from --------. I have written in reply that the aspirations are beautiful, but that he cannot realise them except by the Spirit by whom we mortify the deeds of the body. It is faith which lays hold of God's side and estimate of the cross, but it is the Spirit that makes good to me that which is true of me in the sight of God. Christians in general would say that faith makes it good, hence it is ours without the practical efficacy of the Spirit's work in us, so that we should not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.
You are quite welcome to anything I have written or any part of it, only that in this latter case you should give the whole paragraph, and if it would not be troublesome to you I should like to see the proof when it is on any important subject. If we are always learning we must be prepared for seeing divine things clearer every day.
The Lord give you a really prosperous time in America. In 2 Timothy 3 we see that Paul's teaching and the knowledge of the scriptures combined is the only remedy in the difficult times, and yet in Christendom there is no subject so little known or studied as Paul's teaching. Take up any book you like or periodical; neither the gospel according to Paul nor the church as the mystery is treated of. You will be the pioneer of a great work in America if you seek
to bring Paul's teaching before the saints there. You begin with Paul's gospel -- Christ in glory, and you will soon lead on to the church. The mystery and the scriptures will then come in new and living power to you, assuring your heart that God always had a chief object -- from the call of Abram to this day; and that as any one was set for His object he was supported in a very marked way.
I am thankful that --------,has decided for the Lord. I do not see that it is possible for any one to apprehend the Lord's mind who is not in some measure in His confidence. It is very encouraging to know that as we are attached to Him, like Mary Magdalene, He opens His mind to us. But surely no one understands any of His mind clearly who is not interested in His chief interest.
As to Ephesians 5, my impression is that the apostle is there looking at the church on the earth and the Lord coming to present her to Himself. If you accept this, it is easy to understand it. He gave Himself for it. He is sanctifying, separating it from everything that is not of Himself, in order that if He walked in He could present it to Himself a glorious church. Already in the epistle we are taught that we are united to Him by the Holy Ghost. It is not union but presentation. In the type God brought Eve unto Adam. The difference is that the union takes place with us before the presentation. For conscious union now, each of us has to be brought to Christ where He is by the Spirit. In none of the types is there any ceremony. The marriage ceremony is the declaration of the union after the destruction of the rival Babylon. We are coming to reign with Christ; we pass the judgment-seat. The fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints. Every right thing we have done here is recalled; and according to the quality of the
things so will be our position in the kingdom. I hope I am sufficiently clear.
John 14:17 is very plain in the original; the reading literally is that the Spirit "abides with you" (the company), "and shall be in you" -- remaining with you, in contrast to Christ's going away; "He shall be in you" is the way He would be here. I quite see the importance of maintaining the distinction between the presence of the Spirit of God in the individual and in the assembly of the living God.
The assembly is God's habitation by the Spirit. This cannot be denied. The question is -- could the Spirit be there apart from the vessel, which, in my judgment, you rightly deny. I see that the Holy Ghost is quite distinct in His operation in the individual and in the assembly. I believe that if the Spirit has been occupying you with your own state up to your entering the meeting, that He would then and there occupy you with your privileges and responsibilities in the assembly. In John's gospel the operation of the Spirit in the individual (chapters 4 and 7) is distinct from the operation of the Spirit in the company; chapters 14: 26 and 15: 26. It has helped me that in chapter 15: 26 the Lord says, "The Comforter ... whom I will send unto you" -- the eleven; He is not sent to the world, and hence I see that any one who had been in the assembly, as in 1 Corinthians 14, and had been where the Holy Ghost was, whether with two or a million, would be a "companion of the Holy Ghost", and an apostate if he ever returned to Judaism.
The first step is to admit that there is a distinct addition from the dictation of the Head. Every one sealed by the
Spirit is helped and energised by the Spirit as he walks with a single eye (his eye on Christ), therefore the help and energy of the Spirit is in keeping with the progress of each. Even with gifts, I do not see that the Spirit helps any one beyond his measure, or the Spirit's work in him. I am sure the Spirit helps the gift to make the word of God effectual, even in system, where there is very little light; but I do not see that He carries the gifted man beyond his own measure -- I mean his spiritual measure. Now if I am right as to the help of the Spirit even to the gifted man, it is easy to see the great addition the dictation of the Head would be. The dictation of Christ as Head would be according to Christ's pleasure, and His mind for His own at the moment. Hence, if the servant consciously waited on Him as Head, He would dictate to him the line of truth which He desired for the moment, even though the servant might know but little of it as yet for himself. It is evident that the servant has advanced much, when he consciously knows Christ as Head. Then he receives direction from Him, and doubtless as he obeys, the Spirit greatly helps him, and all the more, because he may know so little of the line of truth which he propounds; and he himself is generally the one most edified, for when he is truly under the dictation of the Head, he is ready for any communications from Him.
As far as I see, I judge a servant may be useful in his ministry although he does not consciously know the Head, and the more he waits on the Lord the clearer is his spiritual judgment, and blessing in proportion is vouchsafed; but this, though better understood, is evidently a long way from the blessedness of being directed by the Head; and, of course, you cannot be directed by Christ as Head if you do not know Him as such.
Very slowly we accept the great fact that every one in Christ is a new creation; no saint who is not a member of
Christ's body will be in this wondrous nearness, old things passed away, all become new, and all of God. God does not acknowledge, in the place where Christ is rejected, any one but Christ, that is, you must be a part of Him, "all of one". "Why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9:4). This accounts for the unique and peculiar position of the church. The blessed God would not countenance a Moses or a David on the earth where Christ is rejected; if man rejects the greatest, God could not allow a lesser to take His place; none of us could be here for God, if we were not part of Christ, and the moment Christ rises from the Father's throne to take His true place, the church, His body is left here no longer, and though there will be saints on the earth after the removal of the church, there will be none with the Holy Ghost dwelling in them, and thus altogether apart from man after the earthly order. I say all this because no one will understand discipline, the end of which is to be made partakers of God's holiness (a word only used once in scripture) except he apprehends that the believer, now the member of Christ's body, must be divested of everything which is in any way in common with the man on the earth who refused Christ, whether of the Jew or of the Gentile. Hence there is no true sanctification now, but as we are severed from everything here, as Christ is. "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified" (John 17:19). There will be no saint on the earth of the order of John 17 after Christ rises from the Father's throne; the rejection then will be over, and He assumes His rightful place here, and His people are made willing in the day of his power. I believe wonderful light breaks in on one when one apprehends that it is the purpose and pleasure of the blessed God to surround with the fullest and highest blessing every one given to His Son in the day of His rejection. Varied indeed are the families, earthly and heavenly, but they are not in any particular in equality with the body of Christ. With sincere desire for your true happiness and service I venture to say all this to you, because I am assured of the deep blessing you will receive in seeing the unique calling and nature of the church.
The way to obtain the blessing of the Lord is to do the thing that He wishes you to do. It is not a question of gift merely, but to please Him who hath chosen us.
The number of young men among you in the assembly is to my mind a great responsibility. I do not know how much gift there may be there, but there is often more gift than is manifested. Many are gifted who are not as yet so free from human dependence that they can enter on prominent service.
Moses had the desire to serve 40 years before he was fit to enter on the service. So also with others. I conclude Paul was two years in Arabia. All I desire to bring before you ... is the responsibility as to so many possible servants of the Lord.
... Paul's word to Timothy, you can take or apply to yourselves. "The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2).
The elder ones generally are better taught, that is, they have studied the truth more earnestly and laboured more to understand it than the younger ones. The elder ones have been like the first settlers in a new country; they had all the rough work to do before they reached the good of the soil. Those who succeed them have not so much labour to reach the soil as their predecessors, but surely the first who had more labour had also the best of the soil.
As to associations, I am quite sure your principle is right, I mean, as you say, that scripture associated the children with the parents. Hence: any association spiritually
damaging to the parents, is not good nor right for the children. You are called to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; how then can you sanction for them a looser rein than is good for yourself? "If a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?" (1 Timothy 3:5) Nothing tests one's faith and power more than the control of one's children, and in no line of service are we so manifestly rewarded. I know the difficulty of it well, and how easily one fails, but, on the other hand, in a very marked way, the Lord will honour you if you honour Him.
It is not necessary to explain to your children why you make a certain rule. But, be assured, however they may object and even chafe under a holy rule now, they will, when they are enlightened, own the great good of it.
As to relations I feel you should be ready to act a kinsman's part always, and therefore to be kind and gracious to them; but when their ecclesiastical position is contrary to the truth, I do not think that you can receive them socially, saving, as you say, in hospitality.
Can anything be more dangerous, because so infectious, than false worship? It is either false or true. Alas, I know how easy it is to fall from this holy line where the Lord only supports you. You cannot be too separate; there is no power apart from separation. "Touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (2 Corinthians 6:17). If you are separate in the tent -- your own house -- you are suited to God in His house.
I believe, beloved brother, it is a question of deepest importance. You are like a diver in a diving bell; if you do not keep out the water -- the surrounding element -- the world all around will swamp you.... The growing weakness everywhere is lack of separation, and contact with man is the worst. See Leviticus 5:3. It is the snare of Balaam. Shelter your children under the wing of holy separation and then surely you will be near the Lord for yourself, and He will shew Himself strong in your behalf, in blessing your children.
I return dear --------'s letter. I quite go with his feelings, that it is very desirable that brethren should be awakened to the responsibility which rests on us, to share with others the light and truth which in God's goodness have been given to us. This is as far as I can go. I do not think you can get up a prayer meeting. For real prayer there must be agreement. I cannot propose a meeting to pray for things, even the most desired, unless there be a real sense in the heart of those who join in it -- first, of the pressing importance of them, and secondly, that God only can help; like the man going to his friend at midnight for bread. But, having said this much, I feel that it is our bounden duty to press our responsibility on one another, and therefore I should, the Lord leading me, pray that there might be more waiting on God, that each one may, like the bee, work for the hive -- the common good. Though I may not feel free to ask the company to come together to pray, yet I should feel it my duty to seek their co-operation in prayer, by praying for the things which -------- proposes, as they were laid on my heart; and as hearts were really moved, they would not only join, but they would be impressed before the Lord with the importance of the things they had joined in praying for. In a word, I should pray as the Lord led me, and thus I should expect to promote it in a true way in others....
The Lord increase in many the feelings for His glory which have led dear -------- to write.
... What one never had, one never misses! There is a great principle in this; you cannot miss anything until you possess it, or at least until you have tasted of it. The great end of ministry is to lead souls to taste of the "things
above", and then the things below will not only be surpassed, but there will be a sense of dissatisfaction with them. Sometimes one does not know why one is so dissatisfied, but the reason is, one is not in the element that suits one's divine taste.
Cases of discipline are always sad, but unless they have been unseen and undiscovered by the spiritual, they do not cast a cloud on the gathering.... There is manifest decline in souls before a smash. The spiritual, when really taking charge of God's heritage, will notice it, and will seek to wash the feet of the erring one.
As to the person who dropped off from the fellowship of the Lord's supper because she had not peace, I think you should exercise patience. It is a matter of conscience, and if she be converted, a lack of faith. If not, she will soon show it, and connect herself with some sect, and then I feel you would be called on to announce publicly that she is not in fellowship. In fact, you would close the door on her.
As numbers increase, I find everywhere that the subject of discipline becomes the test of the assembly's state, and of the spiritual power there. Discipline does not consist in getting rid of the offender, as one would a bone in one's throat, though even in that simile every member would be interested and anxious for the removal of the bone. The apostle writes fifteen chapters to the church of God at Corinth, to awaken them to the fact that there was leaven in their midst, and this leaven was most palpable and incontrovertible. The patience of grace to get the assembly so to feel the leaven, was beautiful, and hence the assembly was wonderfully benefited when it was awakened to its evil state. "Yea, what clearing of yourselves, ... in all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter" (2 Corinthians 7:11). The apostle's point was to awaken them to feel the leaven, and, with godly zeal, to clear themselves of it. Getting rid of an evil is not enough. It is the sense the assembly has of the
damage from it, and hence practical renunciation of it. It is the same in the case of an individual. The stopping of an evil is not enough; this might be effected in many ways, but in true repentance there is the sense of how it is in the sight of God, and therefore there is taking God's side against oneself. An assembly ought to throw off an evil, as a constitution would throw off a poison. There is a tax on the vitality, but there is an energy of life which succeeds. It is a great thing in ministry and in everything to lead on the assembly. It is the highest favour and greatest privilege on earth to be enabled to care for and serve the flock of God.
... I see that it is not my place to inquire what I can afford, but what I can dispense with; and I find the study of this and the practice of it, in any little way, preserves me from care as to temporal things. As to stewardship, as to fact, your property is the Lord's, as you see in Luke 16. The Jew was the steward, and he proved unfaithful. The Gentile, in that sense, was never a steward, and as to title to property, he has none. No one could set up a divine title to property. The Jew had title, but through unfaithfulness he is reduced to the level of a Gentile. As to the legal fact, the property is the Lord's, and hence to the converted one it becomes a gift to him: Peter says, "As every man has received the gift...." It is given to him, and faithfulness in the use of it, as with any other gift, is required. The grace of the Lord is especially connected with this gift, for, though the property be the Lord's, as you see in Luke 16, yet if you so spend it as to make friends by it (cheering and succouring others through the means of it), you gain through means of a property which is not really yours, but the Lord's. All the gain is yours, though the property, as to title, belongs to the Lord; and hence it is added, "If ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" The spiritual gift is that which is our own. The temporal gift is given in
the providence of God, and the proper exercise of it determines whether the one who receives it would be faithful in the greater gifts; I believe in one sense there is no gift more difficult to use rightly than money. To be a donor requires close and careful acquaintance with the person and ways of the one to whom I give. If I promote worldliness, or afford him ability to have things which he could do without, by my gift I injure him. I feel it necessary and good discipline, to be just as restricted when I have much as when I have little, and though I am not given to be a donor, yet unknown, the Lord allows me to help if a case of pressure comes before me.
But I think it is a great thing for a donor not to give to another in a measure and way that would take him out of faith and dependence.
God sends rain and fruitful seasons, but, though they come, they never come in the same way in any one year; and I find that, as a rule, when I may need anything, that it comes from a quarter that I never expected; and that from the quarter where it had come from before, it does not now. Thus God keeps the eye on Himself, and not on the donor.
I think the servant has a claim, but it is unhappy for the servant to build on or remember his claim; and on the other hand it is not good for those taught in the word not to "communicate". The servant's happy place is not to be chargeable, the giver's happy place is not to be "weary in well doing". "To do good and to communicate forget not" (Hebrews 13:16). I know for my own part, I try to deny myself in little things, such as books, etc., which I did not when I was not a receiver, and what I do receive I feel it is my duty to pass on if I do not really require it.
I have been greatly interested in seeing in scripture, how God cares for and helps His people on the lowest platform of truth, be it ever so little; but while He does so, because His tender mercy is over all His works, no one rises
superior to the power of evil raging at the time but the saint who is on the highest platform, or in scriptural language, in the testimony.
I rejoice that you are encouraged, but you must be prepared to go alone; indeed you know something of this already. I find that every Christian accepts, and even admires the beginning of every grace; but the test to every one is the finish. Every one can find out where he is historically in Hebrews 11. If you have not acceptance you have not begun. Some are not even as far as Abel. Many are as far as Noah -- safe from judgment and in the favour of God, who are not pilgrims, that is -- as far as Abraham. You are in the land when like Moses you have overcome all the power of the world. I find that there are three great stages in the christian history. First, The greatness of my salvation -- "They began to be merry". Second, The attractiveness and blessedness of Christ Himself. He is my life. I count all things but rubbish that He might be my gain. Very few come to this stage, but those who do, are in the third -- here for Him; they could not be anything else. I should think that in your course of service you do not meet with many who are "going on to perfection". As far as I know the mass do not seem to seek anything beyond No. 1, that is Abel....
This if true must make your labours in seeking to lead them on more arduous. The Lord bless you much.
As to the leaflet you enclosed I had seen it before. Many mistake their own state for their true state. Our true state is the Spirit in us. As He is ungrieved He occupies us with Christ. All real ministry leads to Christ, and when you are
led by the Spirit you pray that you may apprehend that for which also you are apprehended. Much damage has been done to souls by after insisting on the sovereign grace of God, then passing on to walk and conduct. The teaching is that all is done for me; that is right; but then conduct and behaviour are pressed without seeing that there is a divine state. This leads to a certain self approbation, and while assured of God's absolute grace, there is neither knowing nor seeking personal intercourse and communion with Him; satisfied so long as outward conduct is commendable. All is ours, but then I enter on what is mine in peace and in the knowledge of His love, and as I do, I am near Him, and in intimacy with Him, and thus I am led on in nearness to Him to do His pleasure. It is not watching my conduct, but watching Him, as the moon's measure of light is as she catches the sun. There is a divine standing and a divine state, and divine practice; the second is not without the first, and the last is never without the second. The second is very little known.
To any godly soul there must be a great difference between one continually failing but heartbroken because of his intemperate failure, and one continually erring in the same line, but, at every recurrence with more careful cleverness to baffle discovery, and when discovered, a greater adroitness in excusing it. If the church were a club, I could understand that there should be a reluctance to lose one man more than another; but the assembly is God's assembly, and what we have to consider is the "leaven". If leaven be glossed over, it leavens all. A godly care for the assembly leads one to say, "Not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you ..". (2 Corinthians 7:12).
We belong to the greatest firm that ever was on the earth, and we must, in duty bound, look after our partners. The
awfulness of leaven is that it does not produce in others the same kind of open evil that it began with.
The Corinthians were leavened by gross immorality, and they were disgraceful in their mutual relations with one another. See 1 Corinthians 6. We must guard against two evils -- a laxity on the one hand, and a rigid severity on the other. What the church is in the mind of God, only known as Christ is known, has been from the beginning too little thought of -- lost, as we know, among Christians in the very first century. In God's goodness it, that is, the truth of it, has been in this present century (as I might say), disentombed. The whole force of the enemy is directed against it, in order to bury it again. Conversion for the lost, and good conduct for the saved is the scope or range of the truth held and propounded by the mass of Christians. Among us, directly, or indirectly, every division arose from not understanding what the church or assembly is to God; and the contention and difficulty connected with every case of discipline can be traced to the same. Nine-tenths of the teaching abroad does not touch on the church. It is connected with only the gospel and walk, as if there were no church at all.
I quite agree with you that the consummation for the heart is to see the Lord Himself. Nothing can surpass, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself" (John 14:3). Before there was any revelation of the rapture, the saints were waiting for His Son from heaven. Now, there are two lines of teaching fraught with much damage to souls: one is that there is no rapture at all, that the church has to pass through the tribulation, and that the King is coming. Here many of the devoted in system are.
The other is, that the rapture is everything, which view a section of the Church of England has adopted, and they have a paper called 'The Morning Star'. Now neither of these is correct. I do not comment on the first, it is so
palpably erroneous. But, as to the latter, the rapture has been put out of its place: that is to say, a part has been taken for the whole. The morning star is before the dawn. It is the harbinger of the day -- the moment of unbounded delight for every true heart. We shall see Him, but though that is the first thought, it is not all. Hence, in Revelation 22:16 you will find that the Lord does not present Himself as simply "the bright and morning star", but also as "the root and offspring of David" -- the coming King; and sure I am, that if the bride longs to see Him for her own joy, the more she is in concert with Him the more will she long for Him to have His rights and rejoice that the Lord reigneth. I believe that to the true heart the rapture -- the morning star, would not be enough, any more than to any one out at night, the natural morning star would be enough if the day were not to follow. Scripture is plain that the Lord thinks of those who wait for Him and watch for Him, who love His appearing. If we suffer with Him we shall reign with Him.
I am through the Lord's goodness very much interested here. The subject I have before me is the formation and calling of the bride. As far as I see, no one can truly say, "Come", that is, that Christ should come and reign, not the rapture merely, who is not in heart the bride. The value of the church -- the bride -- to Christ, as you see from all the types of her in the Old Testament is, that she is a comfort to Him, and His helpmeet now, in this -- the time of His rejection. No one can understand Christ's interests now who is not in conscious union with Him. There is an immense deal of service which is not in concert with His mind at the moment. This concert cannot be known but as He is known as Head, and He cannot be known as Head but as we are dead to the world....
I must make one more remark. We know Christ, whether as High Priest with relation to ourselves, as risen from the dead outside of man, or in the assembly with
relation to Himself, as risen from the dead outside of man; but when you come to Him as Head you must be dead to the world; then you enter on His circle, the christian circle, and thus you begin to be in His tastes and His motives, for He is your life. He not merely gives you life, but Christ is your life, so His tastes and motives must be yours.
It is a much greater grace that He liveth in you, that He is your life, than that He gives you life; and you can at once see that if He is your life, you are, as a consequence in His circle of things, not only outside of man, but outside of the world.
I heartily desire that you may enjoy this blessed concert with the Lord. What I desire for myself I desire for you. I am not discouraged because I know so little of it, for I see that I am called to it by the grace of God. The Lord bless you much.
I do trust that much profit may accrue from the readings. It seemed to me to be generally accepted that not only are we saved sinners, but that for any advance in grace there must be a change from Adam to Christ. Once this step is known in the power of the Spirit, the path shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Another point of great value came out, which must be apprehended in order to be here for Christ. I mean the difference between the acting of the Holy Ghost in each of us individually, for our own endless benefit, and His acting in us in the assembly, and in the body for Christ. The former we find in Romans 5:1 - 11 and chapter 8, and the latter in 1 Corinthians 12.
I believe that there is no progress in Christ's things until there is simple, unswerving faith that in the eye of God for every believer, the man under His judgment has gone in judgment in the cross; and that He now can receive the returning prodigal in the fullest affection and favour, in the acceptance of Him who has glorified God.
Next, that He has given to us the Holy Spirit, so that each can say, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). Now our side is in moral correspondence with God's side, and until this is established in the soul, there cannot be liberty of heart to attend to His interests. It is then the assembly, in its divine greatness, opens out to us. I am afraid that the place and work of the Holy Ghost are not sufficiently realised. Faith for God's side, because it is unalterable. The Spirit for my side, because I am not free but by and in the Spirit.
I hope that the little trouble at -------- may lead to much blessing. The oil for the lamp is beaten oil.
I believe the root of the present defection is the theory, that the acceptance of our standing through grace, to the exclusion of state, or any moral effect, is the whole truth of God. The effect of this teaching has been most disastrous. The greatness of the position in which grace has set the believer has been set forth intelligently without demand for it to be entered on in moral power. It is almost incredible the laxity which this theory tolerated. Surely, nothing can be plainer in scripture than that there is a divine state conferred by God, even a moral correspondence to the position in which He in His grace sets us. When you are justified by faith you have peace with God. You are in justification before God, while peace is your state with God. Both are given of God. Again, "Raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6) is our place; but Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith is the state conferred by God in correspondence with it. If the state is ignored personal intercourse with the Lord is ignored. Communion is said to be only over the word. Transformation only by the word and that it is not only common to all, but known to all. Self-judgment is
said to be introspection. Guidance is by a text. You are through grace seated in the heavenlies in Christ, and this is to be your 'through ticket', without any exercise of soul as to the way by which in grace you have been "compelled" to come from the "highways and hedges" up to the top. In fact, no experimental journey from earth to heaven, no deliverance, no liberty, no approach, no Jordan, no knowledge of eternal life beyond that the scripture says you have it on believing. I admit the 'through ticket', but you cannot travel from earth to heaven (except you die, or the Lord comes) unless you pass through all the stations I have named. There is no other line, and God must have reality.
The first epistle of John was written that you should have "conscious knowledge of eternal life", and there are three witnesses -- the Spirit, the water, and the blood -- to prove to yourself that you know -- have the consciousness of it, and I am afraid that not one out of ten could explain the second witness, much less have the testimony of it in his or her soul. There has been a wilful determination for years to refuse any teaching which sets forth the Spirit's formative work in the believer, which is really state. I fully admit that occupation with state without faith in the standing is most pernicious. But on the other hand, God has not in His grace given me any standing without giving me the state morally corresponding to it, and having the state is the proof that I have in faith entered on the standing.
The greater the position God has set me in, the greater morally am I according to grace in every detail of my duties here. There is nothing about family duties in Romans. In Colossians where you are over Jordan, you are enabled to come out in your home circle in a new light; and in Ephesians, where you are seated in heaven, still more so. Nay, so much so, that I have rarely seen any one who was up to the Ephesian measure in his home circle.
I need not add more except that I see the leaven of Laodicea in the theory that 'standing is everything'. A boastfulness of one's acquisitions, but Christ outside. The highest truths taught and accepted, but only insisted on as "standing", so that souls have become satisfied with an intelligent acceptation of the truths without any sense of
the state morally corresponding to them, which is Christ dwelling in my heart by faith, imparting to me His own feelings, tastes and ways; in short, all that He is morally. The marvel of divine grace is that not only has everything according to the heart of God been secured for me through the death and resurrection of Christ, but that I, a child of Adam, should be, not only in peace with God, where I was under His judgment, but that I am transferred from Adam to Christ, and I am to have Christ formed in me now, and the life that I now live in the flesh I am to live "by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). I am born of God -- of new and divine origin -- a new vessel to hold the new wine, and to be here on the earth now where I was a child of Adam, in the grace and beauty of Christ, led by His own power to stand for Him, "and having done all to stand"; daily more and more transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
In my opinion the opposition in a great degree arises from ignorance, soul ignorance. What is called "standing" has been clearly and fully set forth as God's grace, and entirely outside of us. This is blessedly true, and if we were in heaven it would be fully enjoyed, but as we are still here where we have been prodigals, and alienated from God, the work of the Holy Ghost in us is to lead us to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, and this after we have learned and known that through Christ's death we are freed from all that was against us, that we have passed from death into life. The
practical effect of the grace in which we stand is left out and unknown, hence there is no real enjoyment; full deliverance is not realised. There is no power. The interpretation of passages of scripture is not in itself power. Power is that I live Christ, Christ is magnified in my body, while I am still in flesh and blood, and this cannot be apart from the work of the Spirit in me.
Alas! there is no increase of separation, and little or no sense that we are called to be descriptive of the exalted Man here in the scene of His rejection. Our heavenly calling seems to be almost ignored, and this lack of separation is the real difficulty as to the true apprehension of eternal life, which is outside this scene altogether. I am sure that some in this day do not see any more than those who opposed J.N.D. for saying that the blessed Lord gave up the life to which sin attached. If He had not a life to give up, where would the "testament" be? "Of no force at all" (Hebrews 9:16, 17). I deplore the controversy. Better have prayer meetings.
I rejoice to hear of blessing amongst you. My heart has some of you often in remembrance before the Lord. I sometimes hope that much of the contention of late has arisen from not seeing the difference between possessing a property and using that property in turning it to account. The property is mine through God's grace, however I use it, but it is as I use it that I know the good of it. A youth owns a horse (his father's gift), but does he turn the gift to good account? I am sure many have contented themselves with the assurance that they have divine property as the gift of God's grace, without being exercised as to the use and benefit of the property. And as we all know, it is in the use of a thing that originality comes out, like another leaf of the one and self-same tree (no two leaves of any tree are alike), and on comparing notes, the new leaves as well as the old ones are found to come from the one and same
tree, though the new leaves were first thought to be innovation.
I believe all the contention arises from the natural unwillingness to leave our own side for Christ's side; we like to have Him at our side of things, but He is not there now, and this is an immense difficulty to some, for if He is not there (though He sympathises with me there, for He was there), I must, like Peter, if He has drawn my heart to Himself, leave the ship, and in divine power join Him where He is.
I feel assured that much of the opposition arises, too, from accepting truth without practical acquaintance with it; that is, it is accepted in the mind and not in faith, which is counting on God to make it effectual.
The moral earthquake which has exposed all the earthliness of brethren has extended also to you. How truly we learn, however distant, that if we are on the same meridian line we suffer alike. To me it is very evident that brethren had declined from the church, the circle of Christ's interest, and were confining their service exclusively to the gospel, or, I might say, to our own interest in God's grace. The gospel, as is plain from Romans, sets a man up in peace with God on the earth, where he had been under His judgment. For the believer it is not now death, the wages of sin, but eternal life, the gift of God. Thus the gospel introduces you into a large field of blessing, so that you have here joy unspeakable and full of glory. But the moment you receive light as to the church (your relation to Christ) an entirely new world opens out to you. You find that you belong to Christ in heaven. It is not now merely all He had done for you on the earth, which is the known joy of your heart, but you are a member of the body of the blessed One, who in Himself wrought out your salvation. To be in any sense of this great union you must be in His life outside your
senses, in an out-of-the-world condition of things. No one realises the gospel of God who is not on the other side of the Red Sea, and no one except over Jordan can enjoy union with Christ; and assuredly no one who does not know Him as Head (holding the Head) can enter into His mind and interests. I have no doubt that if brethren were occupied with their relation to Christ, as the members of the exalted Man in heaven, they would not have suffered as they have in the late sifting. The gospel without the church has been the aim of the enemy for many years. Moody and Sankey gave much impetus to it -- the gospel without separation; while Pearsal Smith's doctrine was holiness without separation.
I hear that you have been tried by the contention in L--------.
I am persuaded that in order to seize the root of it, we must first ascertain the truth of our calling -- God's calling. If I have learned from God's word His calling for the church -- the present testimony -- I can very easily decide what teaching helps it.
There are three great lines of truth in the New Testament: 1st, what Christ was on the earth; 2nd, what He is now in heaven; and, 3rd, what He will be when He comes.
Now of the first, every believer knows something, and according to his devotedness it is his daily food. The second -- as He is and where He is -- I apprehend is little known. The third is studied often when the second is practically unknown. Now many think that they know the second (Christ as He is) because they have accepted "heavenly truth" (as it is called), but surely so great a favour could not be accepted in faith without being paramount to the soul; you must be under the power of it. The first is for our salvation and for our pilgrim life here -- the wonderful display of God in man; and the gospels chiefly,
with a great part of the epistles are taken up with it -- what Christ was on the earth, the great and perfect blessedness which He has obtained for the believer where he was ruined, and how He gilded with His grace every detail of man's life down here. We are not only reconciled to God by the death of His Son, but He never leaves us nor forsakes us; all the need on our side He fully supplies, and, as a rule, souls do not seek any more. But there is more. The first, most blessed and necessary, only leads to the second -- Christ as He is. You may say, Souls are not ready for the second. That I could readily admit. Look through the epistles. You will see a reference to it in 1 Corinthians 2:9, and in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (you remember your own vision of the glory, that was the second), also in 2 Corinthians 12. None that I know of in Peter or James or Jude. In Hebrews you are led into the second -- you have "boldness to enter". In Ephesians and Colossians it -- the second -- Christ where He is -- is fully opened out; and in 1 John; and in 2 Timothy it is set forth in the words "my doctrine" -- the one great truth in the day of difficulty. I need not add more. I wish I could talk to you, but I am sure that if the second (Christ as He is and where He is) were known to the soul, that it would be the paramount subject before it, as it was with you the morning after your vision.
The first (Christ as He was) could not be overlooked, it would be enhanced in the light of as He is, andwill be for ever.
We used to feel long ago, if you accept that truth you must be an altered man. Now the idea is growing that if you see the objective side, you are all right. It is to me untruthful and discreditable to be one thing and to act quite the contrary. The more I know the position in which God has set me in Christ, the more my heart, as led by the Spirit, longs to be in practical accordance with
it. I am empowered to be what I am, but that is death to my selfishness. The song is lovely, but I cannot dance to it. The most learned church lost its first love. Love is never satisfied unless it answers to the heart of the loved one. He has made us everything to suit Himself (Ephesians 1), but down here, if we are true to Him we walk worthy of our vocation. I (as I learn His purpose which is future as to fulfilment) long to know (verse 19) the power of Christ towards us, and I do not know union until then; though I am united I do not intelligently realise what is really true of me. It is not when I know it that it is true. The power to join the Lord was not given to Peter (Matthew 14) until he walked on the water. The power is in us before we join the Lord above, but we have not Peter's affection to leave all here for Him. I can honestly say I shrink from attempting to expound any truth unless I could say that I have tasted of its virtue. It is "out of the belly" that the rivers must flow. Could any one expound the corn of the land if he was never in the land to eat it? The manna will cease one day. No one could ever tell the difference if he did not know Christ in glory. Paul longs to know Him. I am persuaded that the increase of knowledge has not helped souls.
The Lord grant that you may be the loving Mary Magdalene, and though the two great disciples go "to their own home", yet your joy and compensation may be in finding Him where He is. Manna is where He was; the corn of the land is where He is. Who can tell anything of His present mind but as he is in concert with Him where He is? Love values much the manna where He was, but love is never satisfied but in knowing its object where it is, and how it is at the moment; and this is communion. The Lord grant that you may be fully to His pleasure.
I believe this storm has revealed where souls are. -------- is now contending with -------- that we are only 'materially' in the wilderness. Thus Romans, Hebrews, Peter and James are of no use to us. It is true that the Red Sea and Jordan coalesce in the cross, but many a one has learned the first who as yet has not learned the second. The fact is, light is beyond growth; an old head on young shoulders is a deformity. Those who are not valiant for the truth when the opportunity is given them will not stand when another opportunity is given.
The Lord give us grace to be true to Him. It was beaten oil for the lamps. I dread the Calvinism which is satisfied with -- 'I am elected to everything', though that is quite true; but is there to be no faith, no growth, no growing up into Christ, no formative work of the Spirit? The Lord give us to be patient as well as faithful. "Feed my sheep". "Feed my lambs". There are no people so hard to teach as those who imagine that they are more advanced than they are. The Lord give us to be much in prayer. I believe that He is doing a great work.
I have been much interested in seeing how the grace of God gives us a position, and how He endows us in the position for Himself. If you are not in the position which grace gives you, you cannot have the grace or endowment which is attached to the position. You could not have Ephesians 3 until you have accepted in faith chapter 1. You must realise union before you can have the advantages, privileges, and power proper to union.
I thank you much for your letter. I think the points in dispute are in a way insignificant only for the effort to
reduce everything to the present scene, and thus to divert us from 'that out-of-the-world condition' to which we are called. Christ as He was on earth is the chief subject of the New Testament, but if I understand the scriptures this is only to prepare us for God's calling, and that is, as He is, and where He is. I have been looking over the epistles in this connection. You get none of the second in Romans; you get a reference to it in 1 Corinthians 2, and in 2 Corinthians 3, 4 and 5 and 12; an allusion to it in Galatians 6; you are led to it in Hebrews; none in Peter or James. In 1 John, it is where He is. Colossians and Ephesians lead us fully into it. I do trust souls may get helped.
The Lord will appear for His own truth, and the more He does the more our place surely is to retire. It is thus I have taken my illness from Him. Am I ready to be a dissolving view as He comes forth in His brightness and power?
It is plain that those who oppose are opposed to the out-of-the-world condition of things which cannot be reached but through death. Death is entered as one would enter a tunnel -- a great dark room to all here, only to emerge into the light of life, where life is.
I am thankful that the Lord has given you grace to bear all patiently. You will have "a table" yet in "the presence of your enemies". See Psalm 23. I think we must address ourselves more to foundation truths. I believe that the death of Christ and all that was effected there is very partially apprehended. There is such a poor sense of the perfection of His work, and where it has placed us with the Father, that a "promise" has been resorted to to give the soul assurance. I admit that the promise is a gift, but it is really put in the place of redemption. What is relied on is not redemption, but a gift which God says
He has given me, and that is said to be enough, though I may have no sense of the good of it. I should not found my right to it on my gain from it, but I seek to know, and am bound to know the gain accruing to me from His gift. The work is more connected with the guilty man, the gift with the lost man. The word "perish" is the same as lost. There must be death and resurrection before life. Christ glorified is the positive gain. I am very conscious, and daily more and more thankful to the Lord for the immense gain which has accrued to myself and to many others from being exercised about these truths. No one would have been disturbed if he had learned from the Lord the mere outline of the truth contended for, and until the truth is learned, there will be disturbance, simply because there has not been the exercise of faith. I should wish that you would not answer any letters written in a controversial spirit, but simply go on patiently serving the saints as the Lord opens the door to you.
I was glad to get your letter this morning. I can quite understand that you should feel wearied, but I am sure that there is much to be thankful for.... I think that our course is plain. First, to insist clearly and fully that we belong to heaven, and not to earth. God has given us all things richly to enjoy, it does not say to possess on earth; the other, and it is my great comfort -- prayer; we are in the days of Samuel. Samson by main force failed to drive out the Philistines. Samuel succeeded by prayer.... I think that the great point in the word "heavenlies" is that it is a place apart from the earth. Canaan was the type of it -- possession, but with conflict. By-and-by, it will be possession without conflict. Satan can follow us as long as we are in the body to any place. I am afraid that with all the assumption of having full
deliverance through Christ that the mass are not morally apart from the old man, and until we are, we cannot in full heart count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I say this with reference-to not apprehending the difference between forgiveness in Christ and inheritance in Him. I must pass from my own side before I can be at home in His side.
I thank you for your letter, because it gladdens my heart to hear of your rightful exercises before the Lord. If you read Joshua in the last edition of the Synopsis you will see how dear Mr. D. viewed Jordan. The root of the present trouble is that, while the standing and calling are accepted as God's grace, there is an absolute refusal of the state which He gives in connection with the standing and the calling. By state I do not mean practice, but what God confers. He gives the dignity, but He gives the mind, means, and manners, suited to the dignity. Christ did not take the place of the last Adam until He rose from the dead. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, and it is as we are dead with Him that He is our life. He died for us, and has placed us before God to His infinite satisfaction, but it is only as we by faith accept our death with Him that we are either dead to sin, or dead to the world. The latter is crossing Jordan; there is no water there, no judgment there, but everything that detained us here according to the tastes of a man, are left, like Peter leaving the ship to go to Jesus.
As to your difficulties. (1) There is wrath abiding on every sinner, and it is not removed except for the believer. Every one "born again" is sure to be a believer, but the work begins with God. There is no sense of grace until there is faith. Man failed in Eden by departing from faith, and there is no sense of grace until he has faith.
As to your second difficulty, Christ, as a Babe, was of His own kind, "that holy thing". His flesh could not see
corruption, but He did not take the place of the last Adam until He rose from the dead. See John 17. It was thus given to Him to have "authority over all flesh", and He gives eternal life. He asks to be glorified. By man came death, by man came resurrection from the dead. We could not share in the new creation except old things had passed away, behold all things are become new. The saint in the kingdom will be an altered man, born again: the saint now is a new order of man.
I hope this will be satisfactory to you.
Your letter reached me here. If I were to say that I quite understand Mr.-------- it would not help you much. The first and main thing for you and every saint to do in the present trouble as to the question of eternal life is to ascertain what it is according to the word of God. A pious churchman would tell you one thing, a Methodist would tell you another, and it is sad to say some who once walked with us as brethren now separate from us because they do not see eternal life as we see it as set forth in scripture. The Lord had risen from the dead when He breathed on His disciples. It is a life, then, at the other side of death, and we have it in Him. We have died with Him, and "our life is hid with Christ in God". See Colossians 3. Christ is our life, and we enjoy Him, our life, as we reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God in Jesus Christ. No one can enjoy eternal life but at the other side of death. I cannot be raised up with Christ unless I have died with Him. It is here all the difficulty lies as to the understanding of eternal life. Therefore Paul says to Timothy, "Lay hold on eternal life" (1 Timothy 6:19). I do not think that I need add any more now. When you have waited on the Lord as to it and looked to Him to show you the nature of eternal life, which is as Mr. D-------- has said, is
'an out-of-the-world condition of things', you will then begin to learn the wonderful calling of a Christian -- not only saved from eternal judgment, but raised up with Christ, to share in His life, and to enjoy the things which He enjoys.
May you be thus richly blessed.
I have the feeling that I cannot be of much help to any one in the present contention who does not understand the truth as revealed in the scripture. I do not think any book can help you if you do not learn it from the word of God, and once you know it as of God no book can disturb you, though it may grieve you. Death is on the first man. Death the judgment of God because of sin -- death is first annulled, and then life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel. It is at the other side of death that I enjoy the life of Him who bore death for me, so that you pass out of death into life (John 5:24). The clearer you are that He has in His death set aside all in you under the judgment of death, the easier it will be for you to know that you are in His life. Hence there are three witnesses to prove to you that you have eternal life, "the Spirit, the water, and the blood". (1) The Spirit dwelling in you; (2) the water -- Christ's death where you are cleared away, or purification through His death; (3) the blood -- expiation by death. You must eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, not merely believe that He died for you, but feed on His death, and thus you are freed from the death on you -- the wages of sin, and you receive of His life. He was raised from the dead before He breathed on His disciples. Eternal life is (as Mr. D-------- says) 'outside the senses', an 'out-of-the-world condition of things'. It is given to every believer, but no one enjoys it but as Christ liveth in him. The pious in Christendom regard eternal life as the assurance that your immortal soul will be happy in heaven. The Puritans and Calvinists consider it to be final perseverance. Many who are supposed to be well-taught Christians build their
happiness on God's promise of a perpetuity of life! In no case is the idea of Christ being our life apprehended; and the acceptance of eternal life as it is revealed involves an entirely new order of being and relationship. It is the unwillingness to accept the new and heavenly order, which is at the bottom of the opposition.
John 3 is a plain refutation of the doctrine that new birth and relationship are one and the same thing. If it were so, the saints in the kingdom would be the same as the Christian. There is special pleading in the statement that the new birth took its character from the testimony. This is true; but though it be true, the eternal life is not connected with the new birth, but with faith in the Son of man lifted up, which is the testimony now. There can be new birth, which is "the earthly thing", without the "heavenly thing", though there cannot be the heavenly apart from new birth. The testimony necessarily enhances God's grace at the time. If new birth carried everything there would be no difference between the earthly and the heavenly family. Cornelius was born again before he had faith in Christ, or had received the Holy Ghost.
I contended that Christ as man had a life to give up, and that as to the manifestation of eternal life when He was here, that it was limited to those whose eyes God had opened -- to His own, though I fully admitted that God was manifested in every act of His life. Everything He did, He did from God. Though truly a Man, He was not from man but from God. All His springs were in God.
Evidently if you are born of the Spirit that is an eternal work. It is a wholly new and divine sense which will last for ever. The danger is in making it more than God
intends, and thus sinking into the leaven in Christendom that new birth is enough, and the nature of the judgment on man is ignored. There is death in one man, and life in another Man; you must be severed by death from the first man, in order to enjoy life in the second Man.
As to -------- it is very sad. It is simply preposterous to say that weariness is an expression of eternal life! Is our blessed Lord weary now? Was He ever weary before He became a Man? In everything He did, and was here as a Man, whether in weariness, which was new to Him, or in Almighty power, which was natural to Him, He was ever God manifest in flesh. Everything was in divine beauty and according to the life of God, all derived from God. There is no redemption, no atonement, if Christ was not a real Man, and that He gave up 'the life to which sin attached'. "He died unto sin once" (Romans 6:10). It is the 1866 controversy revived. -------- attacked J.N.D. for saying that our blessed Lord gave up the life to which sin attached. If our Lord was not a real Man, who has removed the judgment which lay on man? -------- writes, 'He entered into the circumstances of men.' This is unsound to a degree. He was a real Man. An angel could not enter into circumstances of men. I do not know where this will end! The effort to reduce eternal life to the details of human life I have seen for some time. Instead of seeing that eternal life is in an out-of-the-world condition, the effect is to reduce it to an order of life within the compass of the senses, and not as J.N.D. says of it, 'outside the senses'. Be assured -- and I say this confidently before the Lord -- that the root of this controversy is not seen by many. The root is the reluctance to be heavenly. Souls are glad to be relieved of the burden of their sins by the work of Christ, and there is also a certain pleasure in hearing of the exaltation to which we are raised in Christ; but to live here as those who have in conscience accepted that the end of all flesh has come before God, and this in this place, "The earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10). (see Genesis 6 in type) -- is repugnant and intolerable to every natural feeling. No wonder that "all in Asia" turned away from Paul. No wonder that faith or a creed can be held now without conscience; that is, without a sense of God's claim on me because of what He has made me, and of the resources He has given to me in His grace....
I have read --------'s paper, and it does not strike me what the object of the writer is. It is plain enough 'life is not an attainment', but in life I attain to much. I do not think that he sees the difference between the life manifested in the limits of humanity when Christ was here, and that same life in divine infinity where Christ is now. Many do not go beyond His resurrection; they do not extend to His ascension. They do not know Christ in glory. They are occupied with Christ in relation to their own side. He was at my side and glorified God there, in His walk here, and in death; but He is now at His own side, and it is there I intelligently realise the vastness of my life, for He is my life. His death and resurrection translated the believer from his own side to Christ's side; so that, "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17). And as we are at full rest about ourselves, we are occupied with Him who set us free. Many do not even apprehend the old corn of the land, much less feed on it. They simply and solely seek for divine support in things temporal; not that they would lose this support if they were feeding on the old corn of the land, but on the contrary they would know much more of it, and would have the judgment and sensibilities of the heavenly Man in the smallest details of life, and not according to their own judgments and sensibilities. I am assured that I can have no idea of Christ's present mind but as I am in spirit near Him. I might know all the Bible and have been helped over many a trial, but it is only as I behold Him in glory that I am transformed into the same image. There is no knowing of the Urim and Thummim but in the sanctuary, and that was a present communication.
As to the contention about eternal life, the mistake is that the work is overlooked for the gift. It is very plain that Christ did not give eternal life until after the work was accomplished. It is as risen from the dead -- the last Adam (see John 17:2) -- that He gives eternal life. What 'feeble souls' want to accept is the work of Christ. The gift of eternal life was never used, that I know of, to establish souls. "It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace" (Hebrews 13:9). "He which stablisheth us with you ... is God" (2 Corinthians 1:21). The more I hear, the more I am assured that 'feeble souls' are damaged by presenting to them the gift -- the actual testimony to the last Adam, instead of the work of Christ by which He obtained the position. The idea is that if a question be raised as to whether any one is enjoying the result of the work, that you are thereby invalidating the work. Evidently if the work be truly known the result is known. John's great desire was that the saints might have conscious knowledge of eternal life. Did he thereby invalidate or depreciate the work? If I tell a man -- when there is good light you will see a certain object, am I calling in question that he has eyes, or am I calling his attention to the result of his having eyes? I am convinced that those who reason this way are not clear as to having died with Christ, "for if we be dead with him, we believe that we shall also live with him" (2 Timothy 2:11). "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" (John 6:53). I see that I must in ministry dwell more on the work -- the death and resurrection of Christ -- for that is what souls want to be established in. Every one who is consciously in His life knows and enjoys Him in glory.
Some say that the 'babe can delight in eternal life' before he has learnt the setting aside of the old man. This is really --------'s doctrine. He says eternal life can be given before man is set aside in the cross, and here the doctrine is that eternal life can be delighted in before the setting aside of the first man is learnt. I say that is impossible. The whole point of John 3 is that life is connected with faith in the Son of man lifted up. What is the value of the second
witness, "the water" (see 1 John 5) if the eternal life could be delighted in while purification by the death of Christ is unknown? If the setting aside of the first man has not been learnt, the sense of sin presses on me, and if it does, how can I delight in eternal life? There is a great difference in delighting in the service of the Saviour in putting away my sins, and in being in the sense of His life outside the scene of sin and death. The divine order is, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ" (Romans 6:11). The abolishing of death precedes the bringing to light life and incorruptibility by the gospel. This teaching accounts for and fosters all the earthly ways tolerated now-a-days, for in it you gain everything through Christ, and you part with nothing. Be assured that it is the other way. You must part with your own clothes before you take up the mantle of Elijah. Christ in glory is my life. How could I know a glorified Christ, the only Christ to be known now, the Christ whom "the fathers" know, but as I am, through the Spirit, apart from and outside of all of that man who dishonoured God, and is at a distance from Him. You cannot eat the old corn of the land without crossing the Jordan.
There is much to cheer, though I have been sad at heart to think of the condition of soul which could be so influenced.... If I am not very much mistaken, there underlies the teaching fundamental error. What does the 'Personality of eternal life' mean? What does it mean that our Lord 'gave up eternal life when He died'? Is conversion by my acceptance of grace, as Moody taught, or by the sovereign, absolute work of God which opens my eyes? To live as Christ lived as seen of men, is all that is accepted, without apprehending that all the time He, in unbroken communion with the Father, was living in a life which could not be seen of men. So with us. If Christ liveth in me in the detail of my life down here, He is also at the very time my life in the presence of the Father, and the moment I realise that I belong to the divine circle I am enjoying Christ's life. I want Him at every
step here, and He does not merely give me grace for my need down here, but as He is ever higher than the heavens He leads me to the height where He is, if there be no reserve between me and Him. If there is reserve, I have not "part" with Him consciously, though I may be sensibly helped, as in the Psalms, where it is not the heavenly man, but the earthly man helped down here.
A dear simple soul said to me, I prefer to share in Christ's life than to have a life given to myself. As Christ is my life, and as I am of Christ I can never lose it. Nothing of Christ could perish. It distresses me to hear discussions about so great a thing as eternal life before there has been a waiting on the Lord to apprehend the nature of the gift. People turn to some or other writings to learn what it is instead of just learning what it is on one's knees and through the light of the word.... Eternal life is not a person, but the power to enjoy what a person is. This is simple. We enjoy it in Christ, and by His Spirit. It is very cheering to be here, they are so clear and steadfast. The Lord lead you here some time -- about a hundred brothers in the meeting.
It is quite plain that I do not know that I have eternal life but by the Spirit, but I agree with you that I must not weaken what is given in sovereign grace and possessed by every believer in the Person and work of Christ. We are all children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, yet no one can say, "Abba, Father", until he receives the Holy Ghost. I do not see that the Spirit gives. He makes good to me that which is given. Eternal life is the gift of God, and though I live in the Spirit, it is not the Spirit's gift. The life is in Christ, and it is mine through grace, though I do not know it but by the Spirit. You cannot separate eternal life from Christ, though one is not in a Christian state until one has the Spirit of Christ. I see that the
Spirit originates nothing. He makes good to me the efficacy and full blessing of the work of Christ -- He glorifies Him. John in his epistle does not regard believers in any lower grade than as knowing the Father and indwelt by the Holy Ghost. We know that many in this day are not so far in the experience of their souls, yet both life and relationship are theirs through the grace of God. Scripture connects eternal life with faith in Christ, but it cannot be known except by the Holy Ghost.
It is quite evident, and cannot be denied, that eternal life was manifested here in the Person of the Son of God. The light shined in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. It was manifested to the disciples and they had seen it. The world saw no beauty or comeliness in Him. In every detail as a Man down here He was ever in full keeping with His own proper life in the Father's bosom; but He has ceased to live down here, and He is now our life. We are united to Him in His exaltation, though we need His sympathy and grace for every step of our pilgrimage here.
Nothing is more suggestive than 2 Corinthians 4:10. It is impossible and incongruous to present the objective side of truth without insisting on the subjective, if there is to be a good conscience. I have to keep the eye of faith on the objective, but the eye of God is on the subjective -- on my heart, and as I fear Him I am sensible of my responsibility. Because as my conscience is enlightened I am correspondingly responsible; and the moment I respect my responsibility, the Holy Ghost proves to me that it is not now as under the law the responsibility exposing my incapability, but my responsibility now indicates my capability. I wonder the hearts of the true amongst us are not weighed down with sadness at what C. H. M. calls 'high truth and low walk'. It is a very different thing to forget the things that are behind and to cleave to them. Thank God He never forgets our brightest day, and to it we are sure to return, though the valley of
Achor be the door of hope. The Lord bless you. The more you are blessed the more my heart will rejoice.
I return the copy of your letter. I like it very much. I have seen for some time that there was a tendency with brethren to make every movement of our Lord's here an expression of eternal life. It is a refuge to the conscience of those who do not enjoy it in its own sphere to reduce it to the details of man's life. But eternal life is outside the senses -- an out-of-the-world condition. Surely in everything, as you rightly say, we learn and derive from our Lord to act here in the smallest details in a way and in a spirit quite new and unknown to man. The manna is the beautiful divine touch in everything -- even the commonest; but it is a device of the enemy to induce me to relieve my conscience of ignorance of my birthright (communion with the Father) by substituting for it that which cannot be known but outside this scene altogether, and which is not merely my behaviour and manner of life among men. This device must be resisted, and I am glad to say that some are delivered from it. I remark that those who are seeking to advance in the world are petulant and irritated when truth is presented which they evidently are not enjoying, and in their desire for spiritual reputation they cannot afford to admit that they are not enjoying it. I do not believe that any one advancing in this world and not surrendering it can be seeking the things above.
I am very glad that you are assured that you are in the right locality. A wounded stag slinks off into a corner of the forest. This you would do, if you went into retirement in the country The Lord bless you much, and all yours.
... The first thing for a servant of the Lord is to ascertain the locality in which the Lord would have him to reside, and the less itinerate he is the more this is of importance. If he is stationary he is generally called to services which could not be rendered by one going from place to place. As Mr. Bellett used to say, 'There was the wandering Paul and the stationary James.' As you are stationary it is of all-importance that you should ascertain the locality which the ark has searched out for you. In my judgment, I do not see that you should leave the locality of --------. That there are difficulties there I do not deny. If in the world no man of ability surrenders because of the difficulties to be encountered -- be he soldier or lawyer -- how much less should the man of God surrender because of difficulties. Difficulties to faith are God's opportunities. You have in my judgment a very fine field at --------. If you were a little more of a lamp-post you would be more effective. I do not mean merely in taking a part, but in maintaining the light at all times, always a stay, and, when necessary, a check. I mean a decided moral influence which your dear -------- possessed, and this, I think, you ought to aid and extend. For my own part, I should much regret your leaving --------. I never saw a man retreat from his duty from want of faith who did not plunge eventually into the very thing he sought to avoid, Jonah-like. The Lord only can guide. You may have many exercises about it, but the obtaining His mind will compensate for all the suffering. You are often on my heart before Him, and your prosperity would be unfeigned joy to me.
As to the consternation amongst us, I believe that if there be patience and lowliness of mind, great good will come out of it. It is what a lawyer would call a complicated case. There is first an imperfect possession of a great right -- what a lawyer would call no title deeds to
prove his property, and then, on the other hand, there is not a true inclination to accept all that we are entitled to, or rather what such a possession entails on us. Now let me make this plain. There is an imperfect knowledge of the gain secured to me through Christ's death -- the title deed of all my property. This is the beginning of the trouble. If Christ's death has removed everything of the ruined man, and has placed me at Christ's side in Christ, my title deed must be very explicit and sure, and if I maintained this in faith I should be in His life outside of man, and by the Spirit I should greatly rejoice. If the death of Christ is not truly apprehended by faith there is a positive disinclination to enter on His life, which is heavenly. The fact is, and it cannot be too widely known and reprobated, that many would have adopted the gift of eternal life as deliverance, when it is evident that nothing could effect deliverance for them but the death of Christ. Thus eternal life is diverted from its true place, it is regarded as a relief from misery instead of as the new condition of the thoroughly justified soul outside this scene of sin and death. In a word, on the one hand the absoluteness of the abolition of man is refused, and on the other the heavenly condition of life in Christ is unacceptable.
The Lord bless you much and make you a blessing....
The construction you put on my words is entirely contrary to my mind. The illustration I have used for growth is that of a tree which grows, the first part increasing with every advance. In this way I have used the word displacement, setting forth that there is no progress in the new but in proportion to the displacement of the old, and this is growth. This is our side; but on the other hand I must insist that the Father does come to the prodigal in the full virtue of what Christ has accomplished. His approach is not measured by the measure of the prodigal's approach. There is nothing to hinder the blessed
God from coming to the returning sinner through the rent veil. His approach is never improved. Mine -- the work of God in me (not merely the knowledge of the grace), is from the very first, until I am divested of everything of the old, and in the glory for ever. "All things are ready" on the one side; but on the other -- "compel him to come in". I believe you have a defective gospel, if you do not see that God can come from glory and kiss the awakened Saul of Tarsus, and that Saul of Tarsus is before Him in all that suits His glory, while Saul has in deep distress to drop all of himself, and eventually, by the power of God working in him (not by mere information), to reach the light in which God receives him. The blessed God does not improve in His satisfaction about me (a believer), and at best I cannot reach higher than His satisfaction about me; but it is a divine work, and not merely a conscious possession. I am it. It is not that I see it -- I am it. But if my measure defined God's measure, then I should remain for ever the dwarf in which I died, which is not true; but if I am not full-grown now, I am not an efficient servant, in any degree, for my absent Lord. The Lord bless you in His service and in your family. Increase in soul-work, and you will be more correct in grace and truth, though not taken up with points.
I sometimes feel as if I did not apprehend His goodness sufficiently, but what do we apprehend sufficiently? I have been much interested in the words "Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (Ephesians 1:17). There is a great deal in these words, and I am sure no one can apprehend in divine certainty the counsel of God who has not received this wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
I believe -------- are surrendering every part of the truth distinctively Christian, dropping to the measure of the saints in system with no higher knowledge of God than is
given in the psalms, where it is beautifully God's help and comfort in the midst of opposition from man, but nothing about association with Christ in heaven or being of the divine circle of the Father's house. They seem to have no idea of being sustained by God as in John's gospel apart from the earth and from man, as man, by the Spirit of God sent down from heaven. I remark that any one who has been exercised before the Lord as to the truth that is being contended for has gained much. I do not see how one can acquire anything divine without exercise, and this accompanies faith. I find that when the immensity of a truth comes before me, and this immensity is sure to come before one when the Spirit presents it, that as I believe in it I pray, and the more I believe it the more am I cast on God to make it good to me, for no one else could make it good to me.
Have you seen 'A Circle of the Truth' in one volume? notes of lectures given about three years ago. It sets forth the peculiarity of our calling as Christians, saints of God, in the day of His Son's rejection from the earth. I thank the Lord that it grows on me more and more each day, that we have passed out of death in His death, into life -- His life.
May your heart enter into and enjoy more and more each day your high calling.
As to your question, new birth is the beginning of God's work in the soul. The object of preaching is that eyes might be opened. The first work of the evangelist is to "open their eyes" -- the light comes from God. New birth is by the word of God. God said, "Let there be light, and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). I do not mean that every one is able to tell of some special word, but that the new birth is by the word of God and His work. God has done it.
The thief on the cross was born again when he turned to Jesus. Saul of Tarsus was born again when he saw the light and heard the voice. If the word has been snatched away, or sown on stony ground, and immediately received with joy, or sown among thorns, there is no divine work there. I think the work of God had begun in the jailor's soul when he cried out, "What must I do to be saved?" The prodigal was born again when he left the far country.
As to John 15 the Lord takes His true place as the vine; Israel had failed as the vine; a vine belongs to earth, the disciples were the branches at that moment. It is entirely connected with fruit-bearing and not salvation. All through John the heavenly thing supersedes the earthly. Be it the pool of Bethesda (chapter 5) or the fold (chapter 10). So here with the vine. Christ was rejected, and yet they -- the disciples -- should not lose. The figure is retained only to present the superiority of the present grace. As to the figure, of course the vine could not abide in a branch, but you are to abide in Him, and He will abide in you.
It is very sad to me that there should be so much distraction in different places because of questions, while so many are really desirous to hear the word.
Some want to prove that the new birth carries everything according to the testimony with it, which is not true.
All is mine as born of God, but I do not enjoy beyond my faith. Man fell when he gave up faith, and when he is redeemed and accepted in Christ, every blessing is by faith. In heaven we shall be in unhindered blessing. We shall then apprehend whereof we are apprehended.
Evidently if you are born of the Spirit, that is an eternal work. It is a wholly new and divine sense which will last for ever. The danger is in making it more than God intends, and thus sinking into the leaven in Christendom
that new birth is enough, and the nature of the judgment on man is ignored. There is death in one man and life in another Man, you must be severed by death from the first man, in order to enjoy life in the second Man.
I quite agree with your comment. It is to me an evidence of uncertainty when J.N.D.'s writings are quoted to establish a doctrine which, if known spiritually, would have been easily proved from scripture. I have been sent a tract by J.N.D. on New Birth underlined here and there to prove that life was given at new birth. Now it is plain to me that J.N.D. is insisting that everything must be of God, and that the paper as a whole is against the notion that life (which is out of death) could be given until Christ had died. I have no doubt that J.N.D.'s writings would be read in quite a different light if the divine meaning of the word had been apprehended as he apprehended it. But truth can be laid hold of intellectually by reading his writings, and this, alas! has done much damage to many.
I feel it is a mark of the Lord's favour to His people at -------- that He has led you to reside among them, and though the scope of your service greatly increases your responsibility, yet if it draws you more to the Lord in private, you will not only be enriched yourself, but will greatly help others....
I find a great lack in souls is that so few really understand what it is to be crucified with Christ; and I can see what suffering and failure might have been saved in the early part of my course if I had fully accepted that truth.
The Lord bless you much. I think I may say that I have you daily in remembrance before Him.
The question is the gain of growth.
There is no meaning in the three classes in 1 John 2 if there be not degrees of growth. Take an illustration -- three birds: the first, occupied with its food. The second, embarrassed by surroundings. The third, able to fly unhinderedly.
The "babe" in John is quite different from the "babe" with Paul. The "babe" (a different word) in John knows the Father. Surely that is not a "feeble soul". The "babe" with Paul is an infant. It is an evident fact that there is no advance in the appropriation of the new which is, by grace ours, but as the old has been refused and abnegated. This is the stone before the wheel with all those who make the objective everything. There could be no subjective but in correspondence with the objective. Christ Himself is the model and source, but there is no apprehension of the new but as the old is refused, and this is true from the very beginning of your spiritual history. The forgiving of your sins is not apart from repentance.
The misery in Psalm 32 is simply because the confession of the sins was not co-extensive with the grace that gave a full discharge from them. The damage to souls amongst us in the present day is the confidence in rank -- divine rank -- independently of the moral and practical power to support it. A title deed may give me rank; but if I am not personally as great as my rank, I do no credit to my rank; on the contrary, I depreciate it. Alas! this is the state generally.
I am glad that you are encouraged in the Lord's work. I hope you are seeking to present the church as a chaste virgin to Christ. Almost all the servants are thinking of the good of souls, and but few are thinking of the Lord with respect to the church. The more the saints are for Him, the more they will in every way gain for themselves. May the Lord greatly bless you. The text for every teacher is, "Have ye any meat?" We have never received
any light or help as to the church from any sect, or from any who have seceded from us.
I quite agree that the best robe is Christ, but though it is ours for ever by the grace of God, and though no one can enjoy the fatted calf without it, yet many are not in their true dress. It is pure Antinomianism in a saint to say that it is his dress, though he is not walking in it nor enjoying the access to the Father's house which it secures to him. The Galatians had so departed from it that the apostle writes, "Of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Galatians 4:19); and again in Romans 13:14 we read, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof". The robe for ever belongs to every saint, but every saint is not always walking in it, and in consequence always enjoying the Father's house. The fact is that very few do enjoy the Father's house and the feast.
I have been trying to call the saints up to their privileges, and my opposers are seeking to give them a false rest.
I deprecate discussion on this momentous subject. The moment you travel outside the very words of scripture you are in danger of error. "God manifested in flesh" is scripture, but 'perfect God and perfect Man' is not scripture. Satan's direct opposition is against the Word made flesh -- the "man-child" (Revelation 12) -- from Herod's day down to this. In Christendom the pious Christians
think of Christ as God and not as Man, and they read of His miracles in the gospels to prove that He was God. They do not see that indirectly they are siding with Satan who will tolerate any measure of religion so that the Man out of heaven is not paramount. Satan, in his opposition to God, perpetrated the fall of man in the garden of Eden, but when the Son of God became a Man His first work (see Mark 1) was to drive the unclean spirit out of man.
The Son of God became a Man. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but He laid His glory by and took on Himself the form of a Servant, and was made in the likeness of men. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14), etc. He became a man, born of woman, to bear the judgment on man. He died, and in His death the man after the flesh was judicially terminated; so "henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" (2 Corinthians 5:16). There is the earthy man, and there is the heavenly man. The blessed Son of God went through the terrible sorrow of death as a man. His very greatness caused Him to suffer beyond our conception, for He bore the judgment on the first man, and He is the second Man. The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second Man is out of heaven. You must see the first man superseded by the second Man. Every believer is of the second Man. You must keep in mind that the greatness of the grace is that the Son of God, who could say, "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30), took on Himself the form of a servant or slave, and He says, "I do nothing of myself" (John 8:28). He, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, declared God while in the form of a Servant. In His grace He connects His own with all He is as a Man. From not seeing this they fell into error at Plymouth in assuming that the church was united to God. The church or the body of Christ is of His order and nature. It has come from Him and is united to Him. It is marvellous grace that the Son of God became Man -- a Man to free every one believing in Him of the man after the flesh, so that every one in
Him is a new creation. I think we have but a very feeble appreciation of the new man. We are brethren of the risen Christ. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Hebrews 2:11) -- the offspring of His resurrection, in all His divine beauty as a Man.
Again, the manna is not essentially His acts, or His obedience, but the grace in which He did everything; as Mr. Darby has said, His springs were in God: our springs naturally are in ourselves.
Finally, the better we comprehend His manhood, the more fully we see the greatness of the mystery of the church -- His complement. He would not be complete without His body. The world could not contain the books which could be written of Him, but the vastness of this blessed Man will be expressed by His body, the church, to the glory of God for ever.
I was glad to get tidings of you.... I greatly deprecate discussion on such a grave subject. I believe we all are given light as we require it; and I do not see that any one understands a particular subject until he is up to it in his soul. For instance, I do not see that any one understands the manna until he is really in the wilderness, and is therefore in need of it. Then he will learn it.
I should say to every inquirer, first learn reconciliation -- that the man after the flesh has been removed in judgment, and that you are, as is every one in Christ, a new creation. Old things have passed away, all have become new, and all is of God. Christ is the beginning of the creation of God. I am afraid that very few comprehend that the man after the flesh was judicially terminated in the cross, and that He who terminated the first man is the Man out of heaven -- altogether to God's pleasure -- a Man of an entirely new order -- He is the Son of God. You are of Him, a member of His body -- of Him as a Man; you could not be of the divine Person. The Holy Ghost, His gift, dwells in you. I believe the real difficulty
is that the Man of the new order is not seen superseding the man after the flesh, and that each believer now is formed out of Christ as Eve was formed out of Adam's rib. I need not add more. Reconciliation must be first distinctly apprehended.
I may add that manna in its nature and quality is unknown if you do not apprehend the peculiar and blessed way in which a Man (whose springs were in God) walked in the details of daily life here, and that you could not walk as He walked but as He lives in you. Not merely in His obedience and in His acts, but in the grace and beauty in which they were done. Be assured that if you were practically in the knowledge of Christ as the manna you would understand His Person better than any one could instruct you.
I see Mr. Darby quoted where there is no possible reference to the present subject; but as I said at the beginning I say at the close, you will never understand any divine truth until you are morally up to it in your soul.
I believe that in everything, from the beginning to the end, that in Christ, God was manifested in flesh; and everything in Him was in divine beauty, whether in the weariness of flesh and blood, which was new to Him, or in His mighty works, which were natural to Him. It is all wrong to speak of Him as 'entering into the circumstances of men'. He was a real man; it was not merely 'entering', He "took part of the same".
The effort to reduce eternal life to the details of a man's life in natural things is to escape the fact that eternal life is outside the senses, an out-of-the-world condition of things. People are not enjoying this; and there is therefore an effort to reduce eternal life to the details of human life.
Our blessed Lord never learned or borrowed anything from man. He was unique in everything that He did, and that He was, whether as a Babe, or sitting wearied by the well, or on the mount of Transfiguration; all was consistent with the life of God. He had no other source;
but He was a real man in flesh and blood, and He gave up the life to which, in us, sin attached. It is the controversy of 1866 over again, when it was denied that our blessed Lord gave up the life to which sin attached. Where is the atonement? How are we redeemed if Christ had not man's life to give up?
It is very sad that souls should be distracted by questions of the kind instead of being built up in their most holy faith, until we all come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. In fact they are not "growing" -- they are only seeking help and comfort through the wilderness.
The truth is that God was manifest in flesh; the divine Being, a Spirit, took bodily human form. Outwardly there was no distinction between Him and other men. If there were, the high priest would not have given thirty pieces of silver for singling Him out from His disciples. He was only a man to the natural eye, but when any one had light from God to know Him as a divine Person he was there and then greatly blessed. See Peter in Luke 5 and all through the gospel until you come to the thief on the cross. I believe the opposition is really against the new man -- the man out of heaven. Many Christians know something of man being judicially terminated in the cross -- and every pious one would like to have more of the grace of Christ in his ways and thoughts, but I am afraid very few would like to have the first man altogether displaced and to be here in the grace and manner of life of the "Man out of heaven". The opposers want to have two persons in one, man and God, one time to act as God, and at another to act as Man. They really do not see the incarnation. They do not see that He who was God became a Man and hence a Man out of heaven. They would have Him to be a Man in flesh and blood, and in a way distinct from His being God -- whereas He is God, and He, that same Person, became a Man in flesh and blood, but He came from God, He brought everything with Him. He learned nothing from His mother nor from any one here. He is
a Man out of heaven. He bore the judgment on man, He was put to death in the flesh but quickened in the Spirit, and He is the Man of God's pleasure for ever; and it is only as you are of His nature and order that you could be united to Him, or, that you are a "living stone" in His building.
I believe when we rightly apprehend the new creation which is ours in Christ, that we must see how very far we are from the manner of life in thoughts and ways which is really ours as "brethren" of Christ; and hence some of the truly conscientious shrink from seeing the exalted position in which He has placed man through Himself.
I quite agree with you that the time has come for speaking out.
One or two have written to me about --------'s paper, as to the way he writes of the Lord's obedience. I have answered that every moral quality was in the Lord; He learned nothing from man, but the circumstances into which He entered by becoming a Man brought out the obedience. He learned obedience; I do not think that the sui generis order of Christ's humanity is apprehended. His motives and acts were different from any ever known by Adam or any of his sons, and yet He was a real Man, but He was a corn of wheat altogether unique. Even -------- used to speak of the difference between the holy nature and the innocent nature. Many think that the blessed Lord reverted to the latter. He was God manifest in flesh.
As to the objection raised against your saying that Jehovah will dwell among His people in the millennium, surely the new Jerusalem would be as nothing if He were not there. The glory, as I understand it, will then be manifested by the new Jerusalem.
I return the letter you so kindly sent me. It is very plain that --------does not see God's purpose in a Man; he is
thinking only of Christ as God. God is setting forth His own glory in Christ as Man, otherwise there could not be glory unto Him in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages. If I begin at Genesis, the great purpose before God is man. In His own Son becoming Man He had a Man to His pleasure, and the church is the complement of that Man. The world could not contain the books which could be written of Him, but the church will fully and perfectly display Him. Some have no idea of the mystery or of God's purpose in Christ. He as a Man can authorise to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
The great impression made on me by your letter is that Man, the Man Christ Jesus, is not before the vision of your soul as He is in the mind of God. If you do not see with God, you are not in communion with Him. Your one point is to prove His deity, quite right in itself; thus all the old commentators said the miracles were recorded to prove Christ's divinity. But look for a moment from God's side. His great purpose is to be glorified in a Man, and hence "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages" (Ephesians 3:21). You do not seem to have approached God's purpose in Man. He has a Man now to His pleasure; now there is glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men.
I believe that if you would look at our blessed Lord on the earth as He was in the eye of God, you would see that He as a Man expressed the Trinity here; hence He can authorise His disciples to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. No one else could reveal or declare the Father but the Son, and no one could have the Spirit without measure but the Son, and He is a Man.
Do you apprehend in any measure the greatness of the complement of Christ? The world could not contain the books which would be written, but the church is the complement of the Man who fully expressed God here. The church could not be the complement of His divinity.
I am, thank God, assured that if you are led to see the Man Christ Jesus as He is to God, you will not in any measure lose sight of the Son ever with the Father, and the only One able to fulfil His pleasure; but you will adoringly see Him as such while afflicted in all our afflictions, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, the lowly, dependent Man. He ever lived here from a Babe in all divine beauty. The manna was on every leaf and every thorn; never could there be anything equal to it. He magnified God in all the details of daily life. He learned nothing from man; so that God is not only well pleased with Him, but His word to us is on the holy mount, "This is my beloved Son: hear Him".
One word more. You must keep your conscience up to your faith. And again, I would ask you to look at Christ on the earth as the Father saw Him, or rather as God saw Him, for all the Persons of the Trinity were expressed by the Man Christ Jesus.
May He lead you into His mind.
I can understand the difficulty of the two brothers. They will never see their way out of it until they accept that Christ is a new order of man -- "the Man out of heaven". Many think that because He was perfect in flesh and blood, that the Christian is to come to the same perfect Man. He was in the likeness of flesh of sin, but He knew no sin. The error at Plymouth was that He was connected with flesh of fallen man. They quite forgot that He was sui generis (of His own kind), and that He was made flesh in order to bear the judgment on man in flesh and blood. He, the perfect One, in the flesh bore the judgment on man, and judicially terminated that order of man, in the eye of God, on the cross. There the end of all flesh has come, so that He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, wherefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Every believer is of His order, of His brethren -- the fruit of the grain of wheat which had died. He is of a new order -- out of heaven -- and though He was
altogether lovely in the eye of God here as a Man in flesh and blood, He gave up His life. He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and no one can walk here, as He walked, who is not in the power of His life. You cannot be like Him as He was here but as you are empowered by Him where He is. "Without me ye can do nothing". You cannot imitate Him. You must come from Him in heaven to be like Him as He was on earth.
As to your question -- I think that it is of the deepest importance to accept that the Son of God "made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7). I do not believe that He ever swerved from this until He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He was God manifest in flesh, but He never departed from the form of a Servant. He says, "I do nothing of myself" (John 8:28). For thirty years in private life He lived a Man every way well pleasing to God. As a Man in flesh He was perfectly to the mind of God. He could say, "I was cast upon thee from the womb" (Psalm 22:10), and finally, in the three years of His service, He declared God's heart to man. No one could do this but the Son, but all the time He did nothing of Himself. "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10). He witnessed a good confession before Pilate. He could say, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). And also, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). He constantly avowed His greatness, but still was always the Servant. He could say, "Before Abram was I am", and yet He was at the very moment One who had made Himself of no reputation, for we read, "Then took they up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself" (John 8:59). He could say, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). This He did after His death. He had finished the work He was given to do.
From Mr. N-------- down, every division amongst us
originated in an incorrect apprehension of Christ's humanity -- a humanity, as J.N.D. writes, which had its spring of action in God, and if any one does not apprehend this, he does not understand the nature of the body of Christ. Be defective about Christ's nature, and you are defective about the body of Christ "all of one".
There is no true idea of the manna except you see the Son of God in simple, continued dependence on God as a Man here on the earth. Practically, nothing is so unknown amongst us as the manna. We understand dependence on God when we are in a strait, but dependence on God pure and simple, when you have resources in your possession, is I am afraid very little known; and this was the wonderful life of our blessed Lord here on the earth. If we heard of a rich man who said that he would live a whole year on the wages of an agricultural labourer in order that he might be an example, we should not expect that he would ever flinch from this path until the year was fulfilled.
I confess to you that I shrink with horror from those who speak on this great subject in the carnal mind, but I am deeply assured before God that you cannot understand the mystery -- God's present object, if you do not apprehend Christ as He was here for God, for the church is His body....
I do not agree that the question is -- What is divine and what is human in our Lord's course? This question is raised in my judgment to evade the real question, which is -- Did our blessed Lord take a bondman's form, taking His place in the likeness of man? I am sure the more simply we accept in faith that He, the Son of the living God, took the form of a bondman, the better we shall know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe that for thirty years in private life He was a Man in every way suitable to God. He not only magnified the law, but He made it honourable, and as the manna He was ever in perfect communion with God. He was entirely dependent on God. He could say, "Man shall
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3). He was perfect and beautiful as a Man in the eye of God. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 17:5). All His springs were in God. In all this beautiful path He did not depart for a moment from the form He had taken, while all the time the Son in the Father's bosom. Then in the three years of His public service He declared the heart of God to man. His power was infinite to effect this. On the mount of transfiguration the glory of God claimed Him. The voice from the excellent glory proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son: hear Him" (Mark 9:7). From this point He descends to die. What He -- a Man -- has done, He can enable His disciples to do; and it is here, I doubt not, that many, through unbelief, refuse to see His wonderful pathway as a Man because we all would naturally shrink from it. First a Man in every detail, beautiful in the eye of God, and next, a Man declaring God to man. He had not where to lay His head, He continued nights in prayer. "When he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Peter 2:23).
The church -- His body -- is the complement of Him that filleth all in all. Every bit of the moral beauty that was in Him as a Man will come out in His body -- the church. I need not add more. It is not easy to express one's mind on so great a subject. I quite agree with you that our blessed Lord was ever in full concert with the Father and the Spirit, and thus the Trinity were expressed in Him.
I am sometimes afraid that the Synopsis (though the best of man's works) is more imbibed than the Bible. J.N.D. used to say that we should not only go to scripture for thoughts but that we should think in scripture.... I quite agree with you that if you do away with the truth of the Lord's perfect humanity -- that He had a life which was laid down at the cross, if this be not held, where is the atonement? This must be insisted on and maintained unequivocally. Here -------- and -------- in 1866 slipped away,
when they opposed J.N.D. for saying that our Lord gave up the life to which sin attached. Surely it could not attach to eternal life. I cannot believe that any one questioning the Lord's perfect humanity -- a life which was laid down at the cross -- could in his soul realise the atonement. I do not say that such an one is not saved, but I maintain that he does not in faith apprehend that a real man has borne the judgment on man. See Hebrews 2:14, 15. Many a one is saved who believes in Jesus who yet knows very little of His work. Many speak only of the suffering of Christ -- of His 'passion' and such like; they have not in faith, that is, before God, apprehended the death of Christ. Unless His death is appropriated His life is not enjoyed. See John 6. I cannot enjoy Christ who is my life, where He is, except as by faith I am over Jordan, that is -- dead with Him. Everything according to the Father's pleasure, has been obtained for you by the death of Christ; as you accept in faith His death, you enjoy what has been obtained for you, though you are still alive in the body. There is a great reluctance to accept the distinction of living in heaven -- 'outside of the senses', as J.N.D. says, because of the cost -- the break with things here which it entails. I heard of a man who wanted to surrender the honour of knighthood, because of the cost of the patent! Many limit the death of Christ to the putting away of sins. It would entail too great a cost to accept the dignity of being in His life now, through the self-same death.
J.N.D. used to say that any one who would try to define God manifest in the flesh would soon fall into error on one side or the other. I know, to the joy of my heart before Him, that Christ was here God manifest in flesh. All His springs were ever in God, and everything He did as a Man in flesh was in perfect keeping with the eternal life which He was. He never left heaven. Everything He did He did well, and to the full pleasure of God. He was ever dependent on God, and in everything consistent with God.
In none of the offerings was typified the power of death broken. Death is the judgment of sin, but death was annulled. Christ is declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from among the dead. If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. The life of Adam must go in judgment. No child of Adam could bear the judgment. The Son of God became a Man. He came to do God's will. He bears the judgment. He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit. The life of the testator must go, it cannot be resumed.
I trust that I can show you that -------- is doctrinally correct. You admit that Christ died to sin, that He gave up the life to which sin could attach. Now if Christ gives up the life to which sin and responsibility could attach, then through His death, I (a believer), am free from sin, law, flesh and the world. It is plainly taught in Romans 7 that it is not the law that is dead but that I am dead to the law (the same form of expression as dead to sin) by the body of Christ. If Christ be in me the body is dead because of sin. If a man be dead he is free from the law. Excuse me, but I think you have misconceived the scope of death. You say, 'Moreover the law is not judicially ended at all'. There you are quite right, but the man under it has died with Christ. The man is gone in death; he is judicially ended in the cross; the law is still in its full integrity; we could not become dead to it, except by the body of Christ.
As to your point, that the saints in the millennium will have the law written in their hearts, you cannot infer from this that Christ did not in His death free man from all that lay upon him; all that he was chargeable with. In a word you must admit -- Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, in death. You have confounded law with the demand of the law; the law remains, and its demand has been met; and again
(as you see in the type in Leviticus 16) it is on the ground that the first man has been judicially ended on the cross that God sets up man in the flesh after a new manner in the millennium. Sin is gone in Christ's death. The law's demand has been met in Christ's death; our old man is crucified, judicially terminated, and Paul could say "by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14); there is no judicial termination anywhere else. In Christ's death I am justified from sin. In His death the body of the flesh is destroyed. In His death I am free from the curse of the law; in His death I am crucified to the world and the world to me.
I hope you will ponder all this. The Lord help you and bless you much in apprehending the scope and vastness of Christ's death.
Surely when you think it over you must see that if our blessed Lord was not a real Man with Man's life, His blood would not have been a sacrifice for us. The life is in the blood, and because "the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same" (Hebrews 2:14). He was born of a woman, born under the law. He died unto sin; an angel could not take man's judgment on him. The judgment is on Man and a Man only -- the seed of the woman, can bruise the serpent's head: our Lord was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" (2 Corinthians 5:16). If our blessed Lord was not a real Man He could not have been made sin; He could not have drunk the cup. He was always "the Son of man which is in heaven" (John 3:13), ever the eternal life. He could not give up eternal life. He gave up the life of the flesh which He had taken; He shed His blood; the blood is the life of man, it is gone in judgment, and I, through grace, belong to a Man raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father. The first man is historically ended before God in the cross. If the first man is not ended, you may be forgiven like a pious Jew, but you are not justified. You are justified because you see Christ risen out of the judgment due to you. The man under judgment is gone in His death; according to the type, the carcase of the sin-offering was burned without the camp; we are called to go forth unto Him without the camp. The apostle John more particularly insists on Christ come in flesh (His humanity) than even on His divinity. I am convinced that the present contention is but a revival of the contention of 1866. -------- would not admit of the Lord bearing judgment; he would admit only that He died. I remember I saw at once his mistake when I heard that. See how he attacks J.N.D. for saying 'the life He left behind'.
You cannot be troubled more than I was then. I was one of the seven who besought J.N.D. to continue breaking bread, for he purposed to sit aside.
The Lord relieve your spirit and comfort you abundantly as He surely can.
It is plain that if you know Him that is from the beginning, you know Christianity, what He brought, and what He is, and not anything He found here. Life is given to every believer. Christ is the life; the Spirit is the means, so to speak, just as natural life was in the blood. Hence it is said, "If we live in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25); and "he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Galatians 6:8). -------- is trying to awaken saints to the fact that having a title to a thing, and having practical possession of it, are two very different things. To say 'it is God's gift, and therefore it is mine' is not enough. There is no continued earnestness to ascertain the nature or gain of the gift. The "young men" and "babes" (1 John 2) are going on to full consciousness of their possession; their title is not improved by their consciousness of it, but their enjoyment of it is. The fact
is that the life is outside death, and you must travel NO WITNESS WITHOUT SEPARATION
PROFESSED STANDING INCURS RESPONSIBILITY
SAVED FOR THE CHURCH
AFFECTION CANNOT TOLERATE INDIFFERENCE
WHAT SUITS GOD'S HABITATION
START FROM GOD'S SIDE
LOVE IN THE TRUTH
WORSHIP
WE GET WHAT WE VALUE
DEVOTEDNESS IS TESTIMONY
HOW THE FLESH HINDERS IN MEETINGS
THE EVANGELIST IS NOT OF THE WORLD
THE SPIRITUAL BOND EXCLUDES NATURAL STATUS
GOD'S PRINCIPLES ADEQUATE FOR THE DAY OF DIFFICULTY
PUBLICITY IN SERVICE UNSUITABLE IN THIS DAY
PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS
TAKE HEED THAT AN EARTHLY FAVOUR DOES NOT DIVERT FROM SERVICE
HOW TO BE FITTED TO GIVE THE LORD'S MESSAGE
THE FIRST MARK OF A MINISTER OF GOD
SUFFERING FOR THE TRUTH
ALLEGIANCE TO CHRIST
PREPARED FOR ALTERNATIONS
THE USE OF HUMAN MEANS IN THE LORD'S WORK SPOILS IT
FELLOWSHIP WITH HIS DEATH
GOD'S HOUSE AND YOUR OWN HOUSE
SENT INTO THE WORLD FOR CHRIST
WHERE TRUE SERVICE BEGINS
THE WORK OF THE EVANGELIST
THE PREACHER AND THE EVANGELIST
THE CAUSE OF LEVITY IN PREACHING THE GOSPEL
LOSING DEPENDENCE
THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THE BODY OF CHRIST
THE REMNANT TESTIMONY
THE REMNANT CHARACTERISTIC
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
SOLID WORK IN EVANGELISATION
CO-OPERATION OF THE SAINTS IN THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL
PURPOSE IS NOT EXECUTION
CHRIST'S CHIEF INTEREST TO BE PARAMOUNT
THE SERVANT A WITNESS
GUIDANCE FOR THE SERVANT AS TO LOCALITY
THE MENTION OF SINS IN ASSEMBLY
CAN WE ASSUME TO BE THE ASSEMBLY OF GOD IN ANY PLACE
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY NO. 1
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY NO. 2
UNSOUND TEACHING
RELIGIOUS DEMORALISATION
ON CIRCULATING WRITINGS OF THOSE WHO HAVE TURNED ASIDE
RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ASSEMBLY AS TO THE MEETING-ROOMS
RESPONSIBILITY AS TO DISCIPLINE
HOLY HANDS -- THE FIRST ESSENTIAL IN PRAYER
RECEPTION UNSECTARIAN
RIGHT GROUND OCCUPIED WITHOUT FAITH
BEGIN AT THE INNER CIRCLE
THE CHURCH IN PATTERN
CIRCUMCISION: TRUE FOR ME AND TRUE TO ME
LEARNING THE HEART OF CHRIST
NO SERVICE WITHOUT SACRIFICE
THE HEART OF THE REMNANT
ENTRANCE INTO THE HOLIEST
THE REMEMBRANCE OF HIS DEATH
THE TABERNACLE AND THE TEMPLE NO. 1
THE TABERNACLE AND THE TEMPLE NO. 2
GOD'S CHIEF INTEREST
PRESENTATION TO HIMSELF
THE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRIT
DICTATION FROM THE HEAD
THE UNIQUE CALLING AND NATURE OF THE CHURCH
RESPONSIBILITY AND GIFT
SEPARATION FOR ONE'S CHILDREN AND FOR ONESELF
CALLING TOGETHER FOR GENERAL PRAYER
THE END OF MINISTRY
DISCIPLINE CASES
STEWARDSHIP
THE SERVANT AND THE GIVER
PREPARED TO GO ALONE
STATE AND PRACTICE
LEAVEN
THE RAPTURE AND THE APPEARING
THE BRIDE
ADVANCE IN GRACE
GOD'S GRACE AND MORAL CORRESPONDENCE WITH IT
And thus Thy deep perfections,
Much better should I know;
And with adoring fervour,
In this Thy nature grow. (Hymn 51)GOD'S GRACE FOR US AND THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN US
POSSESSING AND USING POSSESSION
THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH
THE THREE GREAT LINES OF TRUTH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
WHAT IS TRUE OF ME HAS TO BE MADE TRUE TO ME
LIGHT BEYOND GROWTH
THE LORD GUARDS HIS OWN TRUTH
THE WORK AND THE GIFT
OUR COURSE -- FAITHFULNESS TO THE TRUTH, AND PRAYER
DIFFICULTIES ANSWERED
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 1
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 2
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 3 - NEW BIRTH AND ETERNAL LIFE
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 4
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 5
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 6
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 7
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 8
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 9
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 10
ETERNAL LIFE NO. 11
1. A SERVANT'S LOCALITY 2. ETERNAL LIFE
GOD'S MEASURE -- AND MY MEASURE
THE SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND REVELATION
NEW BIRTH. THE VINE, ETC. NO. 1
NEW BIRTH. THE VINE, ETC. NO. 2
NEW BIRTH. THE VINE, ETC. NO. 3
NEW BIRTH. THE VINE, ETC. NO. 4
GROWTH
THE BEST ROBE
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 1
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 2
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 3
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 4
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 5
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 6
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 7
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 8
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 9
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 10
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 11
GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 12
THE SCOPE OF CHRIST'S DEATH
THE LIFE GONE IN JUDGMENT NECESSARY FOR ATONEMENT
LIFE IN CHRIST