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p482 [S O M Cluff] MY DEAR BROTHER, - I must tell you that I have never adequately read the articles in the Voice, to give you an exact answer, and in what I have there is such thorough obscurity in the important passages that it is not easy to lay fast hold of their import; they are the statements of one who has never thoroughly digested and realised his own thoughts. It is only last week that I read the larger number of them. These I had at least a month ago; they had been sent to me anonymously. But I would not delay answering a letter so kindly written, and give you what is now with some distinctness on my mind. Further inquiry may enable me to speak with more detail. But there is another point I must refer to. If the effect in all those under the teaching is substantially the same, though it would be unjust to charge all the particular statements on the teacher, we are as much concerned before God with the result in souls even the weakest dear to Him, as in the particular ideas of the teacher. It is something which produces that effect. Now I always found the effect produced by this teaching to be, not Christ before the soul, but itself. They had got something wonderfully new and beautiful, what was not heavenly (that was common) but divine; and where Christ was spoken of, it was not Christ Himself, but Christ in them, conscious power of His life in them. This was chiefly with women: men were more usually unhappy because they had not this gold, tried in the fire. The effect on others, 'convicted Laodiceans' - for all were in Laodicea (a name nearer the truth than they thought), was that they were rich and increased in goods; others were to go down to Bethany too; they supped with Christ. I cannot say this seemed to me of God. It was themselves and Stradbally, not Christ.

It was only here that I read the first three of the articles, the Pauline Epistles; and I shall now tell you what I find answering to the effect in souls, and often expressed by them, though sometimes obscurely, in them and the articles, Colossians being the principal alleged basis. Christ being our life (which no Christian, of course, objects to), we are livingly in Him, but He as man is in God, so we are in God. Our life is in God - not hid in Christ there, but we alive in God - so as all the fulness of the Godhead is in Him, and we are complete in Him, we are entered into this place, into this fulness which is in Him: connected with this is that we are not merely justified, but actually and livingly God's righteousness, we are it, we livingly. Now I have heard of this being stated much more crudely, and some of the statements in the articles are very obscure, but if they mean anything they mean that all is in the condition and state in which Christ is Himself; as He is, so are we. There is no mediatorial Christ. Now scripture never speaks of Christ in God. When Christ speaks distinctly as man, He says, "my God"; and so the Holy Ghost; "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ," etc. And I have always remarked that when we are placed in the same glory and acceptance - as we are, or shall be - what belongs to His Person is always carefully secured. Here we are put together. You would never find Christ saying to His disciples, "Our Father" - a rightly formed christian mind would be deeply shocked at it - though He says, "My Father and your Father." As an inference man would say, we can thus say "our" - not one taught of God. And this is what those who have received this teaching are come to, not these words, but this evil thing. It is such a connection with Christ in life, who is a man in God, that we are there too, only in heaven, dead not merely to sin but to nature; and, as far as I have found, it is always justified by such inference. A mediatorial Christ is lost by union. There is another point which I have not mastered, though it is in what I read connected with this - righteousness in incorruptibility; of this, therefore, I cannot speak. But what I have stated is the real substance and root of the doctrine, and is wholly false - not of God, though it may seem elevating and high. The very barrier that scripture has carefully put when speaking of our privileges, you have overstepped; and hence souls have got, not Christ all, but an exalted self.

Since this question has come before me, I will look through such of the articles as I can command. I never saw them until I came here. I have spoken plainly, because Christ and souls are in question, but I have not a trace of ungracious feeling: What would rouse souls to more devotedness would always be welcome to me, but we are sanctified by the truth. I write at once that I may meet the letter graciously sent me, but I will (D.V.) look further into the articles, though I have very little time; and if called for, as far as I judge, write again.

[52333E]

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