Table of Contents

Assembly Truth

Contents

Prefatory

Preface.

SEVENOAKS, KENT.

ECCLESIASTICAL.

PREFATORY.

SYDNEY, N.S.W., 1877.

ASSEMBLY-TRUTH.

The Word of God as to Individuals and the Assembly

Remarks as to "The Assembly of God,"

in Its Rule and Mode of  Self-Regulation.

APPENDIX.

Account of Two Scenes,

in which the world saw the unity of the church;

and so could believe that the Father sent the Son.

FIRST SCENE.

SECOND SCENE.

Two Prophecies through a Wicked Man

John 11: 49-52.

Two Requests of the Lord to His Father

John 17: 11, 12, 20, 21.

"Inclusive" and "Exclusive."

On Heresy

Remarks on the English Psalter

1876-7.

Contents

Remarks on the English Psalter

"TWO ESSAYS ON THE HEBREW TENSES.

Preface.

REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH PSALTER.

TABLE OF SIGNS AND MARKS.

INDICATIVE MOOD

INFINITIVE MOOD

IMPERATIVE MOOD

PARTICIPIAL FORMS

"AND" THE CONJUNCTION

Ps. 3 Title "fled" is an infinitive.

G. V. Wigram - Memorials Volume 2: Part 1 Ecclesiastical

G. V. Wigram

This document may be found online at www.stempublishing.com

You are welcome to freely access and use this material for personal study or sending to other Bible students, compiling extracts for notes etc, but please do not republish without permission.

With the prayerful desire that the Lord Jesus Christ will use this God-given ministry in this form for His glory and the blessing of many in these last days before His coming. © Les Hodgett (contact@stempublishing.com) (2011)

Assembly Truth

Assembly Truth

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

Contents

Prefatory

Assembly Truth

The Word of God as to Individuals and the Assembly

Remarks as to "the Assembly of God," in its Rule and Mode of Self-regulation

Appendix

Account of two Scenes, in which the world saw the Unity of the Church; and so could believe that the Father sent the Son

Two Prophecies through a Wicked Man

Two Requests of the Lord to His Father

"Inclusive" and "Exclusive"

On Heresy

Preface.

This second volume, while differing widely from its predecessor, will scarcely be less acceptable. The first part contains some most valuable expositions of the doctrine and the discipline of the Church of God. The importance of these papers at the present moment, when so many souls are passing through deep exercise upon these subjects, cannot be overestimated. Many a sorrow, and indeed many a breach of the unity of the Spirit, might have been avoided, if the scriptural principles here enforced had but more generally governed the Lord's people. They are most earnestly commended to the prayerful study of the saints at large. The second part is critical in its character, consisting of "Remarks upon the English Psalter," "An Examination of the Hebrew Bible as to the Structure and Idiom of the Language," etc. These papers will prove exceedingly interesting to every student of the Scriptures, and are so simplified, accompanied as they are with new translations, that all will derive both instruction and edification from their perusal. One remark may be quoted. G.V.W. says: "When I read from Genesis 1 to 2: 3 in the English Bible, I am as one listening to a narration; when I read the same portion in Hebrew, I am as one in the presence of God, the living God in action." This difference — and every one will feel its importance — he has sought to remove in his own translation. He adds: "Our authorized version, with its many words which have since changed their meaning (some of them altogether) since it was written; with its many italic words, put in to make it like English; with its want of uniformity as to the use of the same word in English for the same word in the original . . . is still (all that notwithstanding) a precious gift from God to the English people. But if it led the way, faith would follow on, through grace, to something better. Ezekiel 43: 10, may have a word for faith herein." It will thus be seen that the only desire of the writer was to convey more accurately, if possible, to the English reader the words of God. The papers were written for publication, and it should be again stated that C.E.S. has most kindly rendered his valuable aid in passing them through the press.

May the Lord in His infinite condescension deign to own the publication of these volumes in the blessing of His people. E. D.

SEVENOAKS, KENT.

Part First.

ECCLESIASTICAL.

PREFATORY.

HAVING been lately appealed to by several beloved friends, in difficulty from questions in their localities, as to what some call discipline in the Church, for the results of my fifty years' experience, I felt that they were not worth much. After looking to the Lord, however, I bethought me that I might, at least, show love, and pass afresh through the word as written by our God on the subject. I did so, and jotted down the remarks which are found in these papers. When a dear young brother had made a clean copy of it for me, I asked him, "What do you say to its contents?"

His answer was, "I found much food for thought in it, but can give no judgment formed upon it as yet."

I gave the copy to another who is in the work to correct for me, and made the same inquiry of him.

His answer was, "It contains much that has to be weighed; much in it, in the aspect in which you look at it, is new to me." I think he judged that it was in itself worth perusing, though his perusal of it was as my fellow-helper.

To him I said, "If it will help 'ours' to examine the word of God afresh upon the subject, I would, after prayerful correction, publish it." For we have need, in these parts, having learnt that God's assembly is "holy," of a little help now to the better understanding and appropriating of what is meant by the "One Assembly," which is holy; as men say, the "Holy Catholic Church." It is not for me, on the one hand, to dogmatise; or, on the other, to keep back from my brethren anything which I can honestly say I judge to be of God, and for their good. "Let the rest judge."

SYDNEY, N.S.W., 1877.

ASSEMBLY-TRUTH.

INSTANCES of God's own interference inside the assembly; Himself — or by the Apostles.

1. Ananias and Sapphira, as in Achan of old and Judas, Acts 5.

2. The murmuring about neglect of the widows, Acts 6: 1.

3. Except the Apostles: The scattered abroad preach the Gospel, Acts 8: 1.

4. Simon, Acts 8: 9.

5. Peter going to Gentiles, Acts 11: 2, 3-18.

6. Jews in Antioch, Acts 15: 1-35.

7. Paul and Silas part, Acts 15: 36-41.

8. Paul will go to Jerusalem, Acts 21: 1-4, 10-40, and Acts 23: 11, etc.

No. 1. Rom 16: 17: "Mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrines which you have learned; and avoid them."

There are two words, in our authorised New Testament, which are translated by the word divisions; the word here DICHOSTASIA, is, properly speaking, dividing or divisions; the other, schisms or rents. There might be any number of rents or splits in a skin or coat, without the skin or coat being divided in twain. Division, in contrast with unity of the Spirit, is what is looked at here by the Apostle. What lay at the root of these divisions shows the outrageous wickedness of the whole thing. "For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." (v. 18.) Paul's command, as to such, is to "mark them . . . and avoid them," (in the New Translation "turn away from,") and English New Testament (Rom. 3: 12) renders the same word by "go out of the way of." The enormity of the sin is marked: — If any man, instead of "keeping the unity of the Spirit," (Eph. 4: 3) and "the one body and one Spirit," (v. 4) sins against it, to set aside. It is sin (not merely against a man's own self, or a brother, but sin) against God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and the assembly, by breaking, what God had made to be one, into two. What Paul warned against is clear; any energy or action which had as its aim the setting aside of this unity. But no mention is made of whence the evil had, or might come; whether from outside or from inside. The wicked mischief-makers are not named here as being inside; nor as to arise from inside (as in Acts 20: 29-33). Nor was it likely, in the few weak ones at Rome, (chiefly individual believers who happened to be at Rome, etc.,) and the instruction of the letter being, too, of the most elementary kind possible, that they were from inside; the probability is all on the other side, as Paul found it there himself in the last of Acts. It was also from outside that Paul had himself had to meet the evil. See his letter to the Galatians; (see again and read Acts 15: 1-5, and 22-31). But he had (Acts 11: 29-33) to warn his beloved Ephesians of that same evil, in another form; it would appear from among themselves. "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them." (See again 2 Tim. 2: 16-18, "Hymenaeus and Philetus," etc.).

If (Rom. 16: 17) it had occurred inside an assembly anywhere, I do not see any difficulty; put outside of the assembly in any place, they are put out as wicked persons, and no longer looked upon as "Dear Brethren." "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, saints as called," gives to the letter, in many ways, a peculiar interest. One thing is clear from it; viz., that an individual saint has to walk with God and please Him in every respect; and so gets the power of the assembly-truth as it is in God's mind. Saints nowadays forget this too much. Each saint must be made of God and walk with Him; each sheep must be a sheep ere it is one in the flock.

No. 2. Divisions, properly so called, (see 1), that is DICHOSTASIA, and schism properly so called (SCHISMA) (as in Cor. 1: 10) are different things, as we shall see, if we attend to text and context.

"I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no (Greek) schisms among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment."

To divide into two that which was one, by means of the introduction of a new root or a new set of principles [as where the pure gospel of God's grace in Christ had been received, to introduce "except ye be circumcised ye cannot be saved," which was done by a wicked enemy] is one thing; and, for various parties or sections to exist inside that which had been one, and still remained in its unity, — "the Church of God at Corinth" was quite another thing.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he looked at the assembly as the church which was for the Christ in heaven, His body and His bride; but when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he looked at the assembly as the model of the Church of God down here on earth. (1 Cor. 1: 2-9.)

The Corinthians walked carelessly, and (it ought to be borne in mind, that) ere Paul wrote to them, God had been cutting off many of them for sin* (1 Cor. 11: 29-32) even before Paul was moved to write to them and point out the evil among them, and try to stop its continuance and the continuance of the judgments of God. The supper was for the company; but each at it had to judge himself. (vv. 28, 29.) If there was evil, each was to judge himself; if he did not, the assembly was to judge the evil in judging the evildoer. If it did not, God would vindicate His own holy presence and chasten His children, lest they should be condemned with the world. Well, a trustworthy report reaches Paul, and (oh, the grace of our God!) He used their failures in particular as an occasion in which to give to all His children more light and truth. All is real; whether their standing as of God, or their failure in conduct, their inconsistency with that standing, or His grace in so dealing with them — all is real.

*Not necessarily those that had sinned as individuals, but, perhaps, some whose removal would be most felt by the rest. Individuals are thus often removed when the company has to be judged.

The first thing that Paul writes against is sects or parties, formed by schisms among them. They appear to have thought of the Church more as their Church; and of their own places and privileges in it, than as God's Church and habitation upon earth. And so God's servants in the house, which house they themselves were, were theirs also (1 Cor. 3: 21-23) as they also were God's; but they squabbled about these servants, and would have made them heads of schools (1 Cor. 1: 11, 12); men who were God's servants, and theirs, for Christ's sake. They boasted in what they had gotten — a Church, and would be masters in it. Paul boasted in Him who had gotten him, and set him for the Church universal. His servant, slave, and bondsman Paul would be, and serve Him in any humble, lowly service down here. In them, too, it went so far as that there were contentions.* (v. 11.)

*The word ERIS, here translated contentions, is variously rendered in the N.T., "debate, strife, contentions, variance." Paul writes (1 Cor. 3: 3): "Ye are yet carnal" (fleshly, and not spiritual): "for whereas there are among you envying, and strife (ERIS), and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men!" That is, the flesh is the root of these things.

They used their privilege of being of the house wrongly; to God's dishonour and their own; still their sin was inside the church; and general corruption within was not like splitting the church and making it into two, and doing so upon the principles of Satan, the world and the flesh. (Rom. 16: 18-20.) They tried to rise out of their place and be free in nature (fallen nature), instead of being only living stones built together by God, and they fell. Paul knew his own servant's place, just like his Master, and went on with his service, in which he got breaking enough for himself, but so became, through grace, fitted of God to help them out of their fallen state. For he clave to, and loved the lowly foundation (1 Cor. 3: 10-15) which lay at the basis of all — a foundation so wondrous that everyone who built upon it in reality would be saved; if they built with works not according to God's mind, their works would all be burnt up, but the soul would be saved yet so as by fire; if the works that were built were good according to God, the soul would receive a reward. Their fleshliness, factions, blindness, self-complacency, etc., occupy him to end of 1 Cor. 4. Evidently Paul was occupied in love, not wishing to punish, but to get their souls into the light of the grace and blessing which belonged to them. The perception of which, in contrast with their own practical walk and conduct, would have broken them down and restored their souls.

Then comes their unholiness, as making a faction against holiness and Paul, and sheltering an incestuous person. But Paul's treatment of the case throws much light upon what our conduct, if in the Spirit, should be under the circumstances, and what the points are which we ought to guard.

A sin of the flesh, and that too in a most abhorrent form — such as the heathen would not even have named — was the occasion of their being puffed up. (1 Cor. 5: 1, 2.)

Observe it. There was a door of escape from the censure; if any had been free from fellowship with the rest in evil, any poor weak one that had stood for holiness might have mourned before the Lord, in order that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among them. Instead of which they were puffed up. There were no (not even a few) Annas, not even one to sigh and to cry for the abomination (as in Ezek. 9 and 11) None save Paul (v. 5) were awake to the enormity of the dishonour put on God; none pitied the soul that had sinned; none thought of Christ and the Spirit and the assembly. But, through mercy, Paul stood firm for holiness (v. 3) and for the unity of the Assembly, and for God's way of staying the plague in the assembly, and for saving the soul of the chief offender in the day of the Lord Jesus. None at Corinth had, in their weakness, identified themselves with God against the evil. Paul's alternative was a sad and solemn one, if they persisted in the evil. There, where the name of the Lord Jesus was owned and submitted to, was God's Assembly: they that were such would gather together and act with, his servant, Paul, endued with the power of the lord. A solemn alternative, if the worse came to the worst; but an alternative which Paul had authority and power to carry out, and God and Christ would sanction him in doing; viz., to test the assembly, and to act out God's mind together with those that owned it, and leave all the rest for God to deal with. Paul and John and Peter, etc., had the power requisite for the equally awful act of judgment in the form referred to (v. 5), the delivering to Satan. The assembly has it not, though, acting with God, it is able, as we shall see presently, to act in similar cases to the one before us. But that responsibility and ability to use it rests with the assembly as such. The assembly, having exercised its mind, and everyone in it his, as to how far it has been compromised by and to past evil, and what the Lord would have it as a whole do with the unrepenting sinner in its midst, can, after every effort has been made to restore his conscience, shut him out of it, as a wicked person who will not repent; for the Holy Spirit is in the assembly, and we have His word; and even (in 1 Cor. 5: 6, 7, 8) the word of His grace, for such a case of leaven. If the assembly as such, and conscience in all, have, been appealed to, and all has been done in order to reclaim the erring one yet without avail, the honour of God, and of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit demands, at the hands of the assembly, the exclusion of such a person from it. The assembly as such must sanction what has to be stated about the person, whether it be to the saints only, as it might be in some cases, or before the world also, as in such a case of incest sanctioned at Corinth; but the dishonour must be removed from the name of God and His assembly. If the person is restored in soul, and really repentant, the assembly, but it only, can receive back. The action was always of the assembly as a whole, and not of a pastor or pastors, elder or elders. Besides, in enforcing holiness, we must remember that it is the assembly only receives, or excludes, or receives back again. And every caution and means should be taken to maintain this, for thus only every individual in the assembly is made to see his or her act and deed in the assembly's actings. Of course, in an assembly of the aged and infirm, and of others — it may be true of many an Anna — there may be those who, themselves not able to enter into a case from personal sickness or other reason, trust it all, with prayer and lively faith, to God. To a godly soul there is no difficulty, if God wills that I leave a matter with Him, in my doing so. It is the prayer of the hidden ones which often keeps up and restores strength in the assemblies. A few more Annas and Simeons, what a gift from the Lord would it be to us in our day! Had there been one Anna at Corinth, evil would not have gone to the length it did.

But God is sufficient for us, and His way is best.

In 1 Cor. 5: 9 we read, referring to some letter which God has not seen fit to give us, "I wrote to you in an epistle not to company with* fornicators," (not of this world, for then must ye needs go out of the world; but) "not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a man, no, not to eat. . . Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person." From the surface, or at the first sight, of this passage, "company with," "keeping company with." look as if what was meant was that outside intercourse which a man has with a worldly man in business of any kind. But this is set aside by the apostle's adding, "not of this world, for then ye must needs go out of the world."

* The same word occurs in 2 Thess. 3: 14.

Moreover the meaning and use of the word is much stronger than would express such casual, outside intercourse. It is a compound word made up of three words, SUN, together with; ANA, thoroughly; and MIGNUMI, mingled. The last (MIGNUMI) is used (Matt. 27: 34) of the vinegar mingled with gall, given to our Lord on the cross; and again (Rev. 8: 7, Rev. 15: 2), fire mingled with blood, and a sea of glass mingled with fire; and again (Luke 13: 1), blood mingled with sacrifices; and its noun is used (John 19: 39), a mixture of myrrh and aloes. To me it seems that the compound word expresses that which we call "the intimacy of loving friends" more than aught else. But take it in its least forcible meaning. I deal with the man of the world, and have intercourse with him in business, without any question of how far his principles and morality are those of a Jew or of a heathen. I would like to confess Christ before him, and to be known in my principles and morality as not a man like those who have a name to live whilst they are dead, a mere man of Christendom, but a true living member of that body of which Christ is the glorified Head; but if any man is called a brother (a member of Christ Himself, and not only in the outside kingdom), and an immoral walk  or ways are found to be his, confession and prayer and every effort to arouse his soul come in; and, if without success, I can at least break off all intimacy with him, and cease to take a meal with him. The assembly, as such, will have to act for God, and itself, and for him, too; but, as an individual, if he be unholy, and I cannot reclaim him, I withdraw from him all voluntary companionship, and tell him I do so, and why. The assembly may be called to act, and may prevail to restore him, and, if so, that would change my course as to him and me together. I must not act capriciously toward another, for my Lord's sake and my own as subject to Him. But if a Christian in early days could not walk up to, the standard of a Peter or a Paul, to his own satisfaction in the Spirit, a Christian in these latter times should still be aiming at that, trying to live to Christ, who wills that they that live should live unto Him. (2 Cor. 5: 15.) And thus he cannot bring his walk down to what the walk of persons in the assembly may be, but has Christ Himself to seek, and what was according to the original standard. I have often had to do this, but I told it not, save to the one whom it affected. And I must say, painful as it was to do it, the Lord owned it remarkably.

I have been asked, does "Put out from among yourselves that wicked person" (the extreme act of the assembly) put him back into the world where he was before he professed to believe? I answer, "Yes" and "No." "Yes, and Satan is the god of the world." "No, the man is not before God, my God, where he was before he professed to believe." If a Hebrew came to Christ, and gave up the bullock and the rams of the great day of atonement (types), and took to (the anti-type) Christ for atonement, and then turned his back on Christ, and went back to Judaism, "he had crucified for himself the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame." (Heb. 6: 4-8, Heb. 10: 26, 27, 29.) Such an one had other things written about him by God in these passages, and the aspect was altogether different from "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23: 34) "Preach the gospel, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke, 24: 47; Acts 2: 14, etc.), and their aspect is to be to me what it is to God. Take again Paul's word. If he had delivered anyone to Satan "for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord," the man is, in mine eyes, in a new position to what he was ere converted. If the sin was unto death of the body, and pronounced so by an apostle, I could not pray for that sin to be forgiven in this life. (1 John 5: 16.)

It is a very solemn thing to be put outside of the assembly of God, and ought to be thought of as such. Has God a habitation upon earth? and has anyone been excluded from it? I am sure distance and reserve towards him of the whole household which has put him outside as a wicked person, becomes each one who remains in it, who knows and honours that house and the God who dwells there; and such, too, is the path of love toward the man himself. My relationships are as much interfered with, the assembly having put him out, as if an apostle had; for an apostle was but a servant of the Church; and who could conceive such a thing as Paul finding Timothy or Titus walking as friends with a Hymenaeus or Alexander (1 Tim. 1: 20), or with Philetus? (2 Tim. 2: 17, etc.) The very notion is incompatible with any truth about God, His house, the fellowship of the house with God, and with the servant whom God had used in such judgments.

But Paul did not put out this wicked person for our sakes, because God would have us to see how the assembly itself could act; and truly the apostle was glad to have it so, and felt bound not only by the assembly's act of exclusion, but by its act of reception again. It will not do to say, "But, then, they had signs close at hand, and there are none such now." For is it the presence of signs of power which is to rule in our minds? or the presence of the living God in His house, and His written word as our guide? But of this more hereafter.

Observe, it is not hidden evil within a man, but overt action, which shows that we do not discern and judge ourselves, which calls for correction outwardly.

In one place Paul names some in an assembly to which he wrote; they were discovered by him, but their outside conduct being fair, perhaps, they were not detected by others. What is within a man is all known to God, and if I do not count myself dead to it as sin in the flesh, but allow myself to act upon it, it is known to me if I am living with God; but as to a witness for Him before others, overt action has a more important place. The Lord knew all along who and what Judas was, the apostles did not; when the spirit of the man began to come out before men, the case was changed. So perhaps in Phil. 3: 18, 19.

No. 3. 1 Cor. 11: 17. The disorder at the table. In verse 18, divisions should be read schisms (as in 1 Cor. 1: 10); then, too, apparently instead of its being one supper common to all, each took his own supper with him, and one (the poor man) was hungry, and another (the rich) drank too much. (vv. 20-22.)

The supper was given by the Lord Himself to Paul for us, by the Lord then in heaven. (vv. 23-26.) And observe it once again. The Lord having been offended there, death and sickness had been sent on men, because their spirit and conduct were not consistent with the discerning the Lord's body, even ere Paul wrote this letter.

2 Cor. 2: 5-11 are to be noted. Paul had not acted in his power over the assembly (1 Cor. 5 and 2 Cor. 2: 5-11), but left the assembly (roused by him) to act; and they had found grace to judge themselves and the sin they had sanctioned, and to put out as a wicked person him that had done this. God's honour cared for, and evil judged, God acted with them. Overwhelming sorrow came upon the man, and Satan, ever watchful, tried to turn it to his own purpose. Had the man destroyed himself, it would have been no wonder, Satan being at work. But God's end would not have been gained. Paul writes to the assembly, now, again: "My grief is past; your chastening of the man has broken him down, he is overwhelmed; receive him, and restore him; I beseech you confirm your love to him." Give (v. 9) proof of your obedience. If (v. 10) you forgive him, so do I: for what I forgave, it was for your sakes, in the person of Christ, that I forgave it. (v. 11) He had forgiven something, perhaps what the man had done against himself, and he beseeches them to think of the man himself, and restore him.

2 Cor. 7: 4-16 should be studied. What sort of a spirit becomes those who are forced to press God's judgment on others; and what is repentance after a godly sort? These are important questions for us.

In 2 Cor. 10: 6, we find a reason for his pouring out, and among disorderly persons, the light he had about evil. It might form some of them unto obedience ere he came with a rod to revenge all disobedience, when their obedience was fulfilled; for edification and not destruction was in God's mind, and in his too (v. 8), and he would keep within the line God had measured to him. (vv. 13-15.)

What happened in the Galatian churches would have been a cause for withdrawing oneself from another gospel, which is not another, unless God had, in mercy, sent Paul upon the matter to them.

No. 4. 2 Thess. 3: 6-15: "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition (doctrine handed down) which ye received of us." The doctrine here referred to was (v. 10), "If any will not work, neither should he eat." And he adds on (v. 14), "If any obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed." Yet "count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." (v. 15)

To be sure! A child in the nursery, or schoolroom, or in the family, must be trained to good habits (v. 10), and to submission to parental authority (v. 14); yet he does not lose his place of child, brother, etc., if, having been naughty, the rest of the children or school are told to withdraw or shrink from him, until he has confessed his fault. Suppose it were the rule:

No. 1. "Meals to be eaten when lessons have been said;" and, if one child having snatched his meal before lessons were ended, a second child despised another order — No. 2. "Do not speak to a disobedient child," and would speak and play with it, and got a bad mark for so doing, and were put into a room by itself, no one would count either the one or the other to have lost its place in the family. Family, nursery, and schoolroom correction may have died out, since the world got into its dotage; but in other days many a household of love and order witnessed such things, to the correction of evil in the little ones, but to the present prayerful grief of the nurse, governess, parents, etc.

Also, as it seems clear to me, that if Paul had sent Timothy to abide at Ephesus (1 Tim. 1: 3), Timothy, as a man sent down to instruct, could not set about leaving the house or the table (as some that are unwise would have done). If there were any there who rejected his teaching, he might withdraw himself, refrain from such, but he was told to teach inside, and not to go or to put outside; so I have no such idea as that this is a case of excommunication, or putting outside of the house of God* — no, but of correction inside the house of one who might have lost all but his place at the table. "To be sent to Coventry," that is, no one of your companions allowed to play with or speak to you  -  though you are not cut off from the meal table — is a serious punishment to a child.

*The question whether a person put away from the Lord's Table is put thereby out of the house of God does not affect in any way the grounds of discipline. — ED.

No. 5. SUNDRIES: 1 Timothy, is Paul's letter to Timothy about the maintenance of doctrine (1 Tim. 1: 3; 6: 3-5); he is told as to those that are destitute of the truth — supposing that gain is godliness, etc. (v. 5) — "from such withdraw thyself." The words "from such withdraw thyself" are not in the better MSS. The word is APHISTEEMI, "withdraw, depart from, refrain from." It would not alter the sense if inserted. And (v. 20) he is to avoid (turn aside from), EKTREPOMAI, (the same word as in chap. 1: 6, and v. 15, is translated turned aside.). Clearly a man sent down to instruct a family or a college† would not set about either turning the children out or leaving the house himself. If there were any there who rejected his teaching he might "withdraw himself from such." It was Paul who bade him bide there, even that he might charge some not to teach other doctrines.

†Not Timothy nor Titus had Paul's apostleship under Christ, nor were they "the assembly." Only an apostle or the assembly could excommunicate.

Again, 2 Tim. 2: 16: Timothy was to shun "vain babblings." Two had been led away through them to err (to miss the mark or go astray), saying that the resurrection was past, and overthrowing the faith of some. Then (v. 19) "depart from iniquity" is the word to everyone that names the name of Christ (or "the Lord" as the MSS.). This is addressed to us (each) also, as to Timothy.

So again, from those that had the form of piety, but denied the power of it (2 Tim. 3: 5); he was to turn himself aside. Compare with Romans 1: 29-31, and you will see that the evil to be turned aside from was as bad as that among the heathen; only it was intensified by being in the place, and under the pretence of light.

Titus was left at Crete to set in order things which remained, and to place elders in every city. "As I appointed thee" gives to him the authority of one carrying on Paul's work so far. (Titus 3: 10.) "A heretic," after having twice admonished, he was to reject (or have done with) knowing that such an one is perverted, being self-condemned.

Defectiveness of doctrine does not make it to be heresy, nor is all error heresy. What constitutes heresy is, it is the fruit of "human mind and will having been at work in connection with doctrine." The word heresy means "a choice" (from "to choose"). If the evil is present in an upright mind, get the thing once clearly before his mind and he will be set free. If a second time the mind turns back to it, there is reason to fear that there is want of ingenuousness, his having turned away from it before (after the admonitions) condemns him, if he turns back to it. For he had admitted that the root out of which his doctrine flowed was a bad one. His will had been at work. Its reappearing looks as if he had changed his doctrine without giving up the root of it. "Reject, or pass by such;" that is, do not sanction with your authority, which is from Paul, any such as teachers.

1 John 2: 19. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us."

Observe, this is a final departure, upon the ground of never having had real connection with "us." But Paul, in the case of Hymeneus, Philetus, etc., speaks as though they may have had real connection with Christ, and so might be saved in the end, yet so as by fire; but that they were withdrawn from the church militant, as having been untrue, traitorous to their Master in the war, and had not repented thereof.

2 John 7-11. A deceiver goes forth, not confessing Christ coming in flesh. He is a deceiver and antichrist, and is no more to be received by a Christian than a Mohammedan would be. He wants to pass himself off as a Christian teacher! Do not know him, or say, "How do you do," to him. How senselessly stupid, more so far than would be a religionist of any other name, is the Christian who accredits and lends his sanction, in any way, to one of whom John says, "He is a false teacher, a deceiver, an antichrist."

In Rev. 22: 11, the righteous and the holy are called to separate themselves from the unjust and filthy; and afterwards those that meet God's mind go into the city; and they that have not met His mind are shut out forever.

P.S. The living energy, the wisdom and love and care for God in His assembly, for it under Him, and for all in it — by God the Holy Spirit, as filling and acting in and through each apostle, must be seen in action in the Word itself. I have taken a few fragments out, to enable me the better to study the detail of directions either to the assembly or to the man of God, in it, But they must be seen in their connections with the life and heart, mind and soul of an apostle, for all their beauty to appear.

Remark this: Through the mercy and grace of God. the principle of every evil which has ever come out against Christ and His church, since Pentecost, was allowed of God to germinate and bud while there were yet apostles on earth, in order that we, led by God, might see the fuller development of the evil in aftertimes and various places in our own circumstances, and also the, judgment of the Holy Spirit, through the apostles, upon that particular evil, now fully opened near us, though then, perhaps, showing itself only in germ.

Take dislocated fragments, and you unavoidably get away from the mind and power of the Spirit of God, on the one hand and, on the other hand; from all the human affections of the apostles as to what is good.

God's word gives to me, in the histories of men from the commencement, a mirror of what is in my own heart as to sin. It is Scripture which is the book of experience to the simple saint.

Those experiences I cannot exhaust in my tiny life, nor find around me all the evil which is in contrast with God. The word is so full that, as I judge, no, evil can appear which is not found traced out, in some history or other, for my instruction. May my soul, in the secret of God's presence, learn the seeds of evil so as to judge them and to avoid the development of them. If there be self-discernment in God's presence, and self-judgment by us, there need to be no broken bones or rebukes from the assembly, or chastening from the Lord. Judge all when you are inside the veil with God and Christ.

The whole scope and range of the new name of God (as revealed in "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit") is the question in the assembly; and this as revealed in and through the Son of man, and wrought out from Him, by the Holy Spirit, in living apostles. God that Himself made and makes the assembly, is Himself the keeper of it; though allowing man, world, and flesh and Satan to discover themselves, the meanwhile, in and by outward connection with it; while they that walk humbly before Him are preserved and kept.

*** The above is an extract from a larger manuscript.

The Word of God as to Individuals and the Assembly

The Word of God as to Individuals and the Assembly.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

Reader, I would ask of you a question. — What place has the word of God in our spiritual blessing?

Firstly, as to the individual soul. The Lord spake (in John 5) thus, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation" (the Greek has "judgment," and not condemnation); "but is passed from death unto life." (v. 24.) And the Holy Spirit wrote by Peter, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1: 23.) "The word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." (v. 25.) And what is written in James confirms this: "The Father of lights (James 1: 17). . . . of His own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures (v. 18); wherefore . . . receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls (v 21); but be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (v. 22.) And Peter adds as to spiritual growth: "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby, if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." (1 Peter 2: 1-3.) In the passages I have referred to, His word is spoken of as God's means of producing blessings.

Then, secondly — As to the assembly down here — scene of the sway of God, whether in government, or as a house, etc. How was it brought into being but by the coming of the promise of the Father, and the preaching through Peter, James, and John, of Jesus as made Lord and Christ on high, with forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to all those who judged themselves and confessed their sins, as many as the Lord called? (Acts 2: 32-40.) Then they that gladly received His word were baptised; and the same day three thousand souls were added. "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (vv. 41-47); thus the company was formed. As Peter said when, with the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16: 19), he opened to the Gentiles (Acts 10: 34): "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. The word which He sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all:), that word ye know." "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them which heard the word." (chap. 10: 34-44.) God wrought this through His own word.

Paul, too, (Rom. 10: 8-17), "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach. . . . So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God." This as to individual blessing.

See also as to the assembly (Eph. 3), how that which was pre-eminently His gospel, the mystery (Eph. 3: 3-10), and (Eph. 5: 23-27) the setting up of the assembly, as the body and bride of Christ. "Christ is the Head of the Church, and He is the Saviour of the body." He "loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (compare Eph. 1: 8-23.) All this was by the word of God through Paul. Again, in the marvellous description which he gives of the Church, as the Church of God on earth (1 Cor. 12 - 14), how is everything of blessing, power, correcting, and setting right, etc., all made to depend upon the Holy Spirit revealing the mind of the Lord through the truth of God, and word of the apostle. The simple truth, however, of 1 Cor. 11 settles the whole question. How can two walk together unless they be agreed? God, the true and living God, had rallied a people upon earth, in the name of the Lord Jesus; and had made it a habitation through the Spirit for Himself; those in the house must either be clean, and walk according to His mind, revealed by His apostles and prophets, or Himself was there to judge, and cause that "many among them should be weak and sickly, and many sleep." Paul, with his word, had to explain God's dealings with those at Corinth to them. The individuals in the house should discern the Lord's body, and should discern how far they are in their walk consistent with His death, which they set forth or announce; for all practical inconsistency where God dwells comes into judgment; if by the action of the assembly, then with the view of healing; but if not by the assembly, then of God, who will judge His own people here, in love, in order that we should not be condemned with the world. (vv. 23-34.)

God wills things, and needs not to speak. But generally you find in the context His apostle or a prophet is near, to explain that which occurs to man, as in the case of Ananias (Acts 5), and of Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11) It was by the word of the Lord that a Peter, John, or Paul, through the Holy Spirit, saw through and explained circumstances, guided saints and assemblies, and gave judgments or sentence upon wickedness, and these judgments stood firm. The word of the Lord changes not.

If any say that we are incompetent to do this, I refer them to 1 Cor. 10: 1, and to verses 12 and 13 following it: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." A most remarkable verse after such evils had been shown! If any say, "But how?" The answer is ready in Heb. 4: 12-16; and, again, in 2 Tim. 3: 13-17. Or is not the Word the sword of the Spirit still? (Eph. 6: 17; Rev. 1: 16, Rev. 2: 16, Rev. 19: 15.) Paul's authority to set aside the thoughts of some may serve us, too, while following Christ; for. it is not dead. (1 Cor. 14: 36, 37.) Truly, as in the parable of the sower, there are four effects of the word. If it comes where Satan rules, it is swallowed up and disappears. If where the world and the flesh are not judged, the world and the flesh, and not it, triumph. But it alone is the seed fruit-bearing when it, through grace, falls into a poor sinner's heart.

Passages might be multiplied. But all spiritual blessing is of God, and so is His grace in man or in an assembly, and it has to be inwrought by His word through the Spirit; all failure is man's fault, through the world, flesh, and Satan not having been judged, nor God sought to.

When I read such passages of Scripture as those above, and others like them, I know not how to measure my own littleness, so infinitely blessed as I am in Christ; or how to fulfil this my new responsibility. I know not how to grasp the wonderful admirableness of my place in the body of which Christ is the Head; nor the solemn blessing and responsibility Godward, of our having been called to bear His name and to show out His character on earth, holding forth the word of life. But God will maintain His own position as God; and wherever He is, His own character will shine out too, whether He be acting Himself directly, or whether He be acting through the assembly, or through us individually (and here Phil. 2: 12,13 is indeed consolation to us). Yet what is produced upon one's mind by all this, is a something very different from what is awakened in most minds when "ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE" is spoken of by men. God, and the assembly and myself in the one case; and man settling things for others, is, alas! too often all that is found in the other case. I do not mean that what is of God does this, but that in the now worn and hackneyed state of men's minds, the term, "ecclesiastical discipline" (most properly belonging to the lawyer), does too often evoke things and ideas which are not of the Spirit, but contrary to the word, in our poor minds.

As matter of fact, "ecclesiastical" (though not occurring in N. T.) is merely a dry term for of the "assembly," and the word "discipline" never once occurs in the New Testament

The mind of man, and the mind of the present generation in particular, being considered, and the way that the page of all that is called ecclesiastical in history (and, alas! now, and like to be so to the end), is the record of the vilest and wickedest things, it seems to me a term calculated to ensnare the unguarded into, and to confirm the mind in, false ideas; and I doubt whether, as used commonly, it is not altogether too narrow a word in its meaning for the large and wide range which it ought to cover. (Away from books I can only count upon Bagster's smaller authorities for a check to my mind.)

I should define PAIDEIA, education, training up, nurture of children (Eph. 6: 4); instruction (2 Tim. 3: 16); chastening (Heb. 12: 5, 7, 8, 10); and in like manner,

PAIDEUO (the verb), to educate, instruct children; to teach, admonish, instruct, improve; to instruct by chastening. The primary idea is "PAIS," a child, servant, slave, and all needful for the proper education of such.

A father or mother may know, and ought to know, that the rod may be necessary for a child, though many a parent finds that with early training and prayers the rod has never made its appearance in their circle. But with the word. "discipline," the rod assumes a place of pre-eminent, forwardness to most minds; as some of old have said, "No school without a good rod; no nursery or private schoolroom without its rod." In point of fact I find it is by very many limited to excision.* It is not the surgeon's service only, nor it, with the physician's action superadded; according to the extracts above, it includes very much more, both as to the individual and the assembly, Now that is not the aspect of God towards His assembly or the individuals in it. As God, He solemnly calls upon us as individuals to discern our own selves, and to put away the evil, and every evil, everything not according to Christ. He calls upon the assembly, too, to discern its ways (and the ways of all in it) and of itself as a whole, and to avoid His having to express His mind to their, to our, shame and grief. Yet if forced by our crookedness to "use" the rod, whether His own or that entrusted to an apostle, it is that we may be delivered from evil; it is protective to His name, but curative of His children.

*Jehovah hates putting away (Mal. 2: 16), even He who said "Lo-ammi, not my people," to her who had been called, "Ammi, my people;" and "Lo ruhamah, not pitied," to her who had been called "Ruhamah, pitied." (Hosea 1 and 2) He ought, and can, and He will, put away persons from Him, if they put not away their sin and bad ways.

God ought surely to be vindicated. His being as God, His character, the mercy and grace, and mercies bestowed upon us, all demand it. More than this, He will have it so, and His Son, Lord of all, is looking down upon us to secure it; for He is not indifferent to the will, honour and glory, of His Father. And the Holy Spirit, too, is in us, and among us all, to make this good as our privilege and life; good against our own flesh, and the world, and Satan.

Solemn but strong grounds for us to live up to. His purpose for us is to live to Him who died for us and rose again, that they which live might live to Him. (2 Cor. 5)

The word of God, in nature, was first creative, all after God's own order. Held to, it would have been preservative (more mighty to preserve than the serpent to mar). Neglected, it turned to judgment, yet through grace was, ere judgment came forth, supplanted by the word about "the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head," germ and security of victory complete to all that hold it.

In the continuation of the fallen creation, the word of God, in providence, pledged itself in blessing, but this was in the rainbow after the deluge. Again it showed itself in government, with a people temporarily redeemed and saved from Egypt. In prophecy, it stretched onwards, in God's patient goodness, to a rebel race, to tell of Him, "the Word of God," that was to come, the King expected for the kingdom, and the Giver of eternal life — Himself eternal life — and the one grand subject of the written Word.

We have, through faith in the Word, Himself our Head on high, and down here His Spirit, token of present fellowship with Him, of safe conduct through this life and of eternal glory. But the Bible! What a gift it is to us, and how to be prized in a day of infidel myths like the present.

The education of the believer goes on from his new birth. He learns that God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith He loved us, has quickened us together with Christ, raised us up together, and made us to sit together in Him in heaven. On the other hand, self, and all that attached to self previously, he has escaped from entirely, as looked upon by God as having been crucified together with Christ; died together with Him, and been buried together with Him. So far, in principle, ALL is sure to faith, and by the Holy Spirit. We reckon ourselves dead to sin, as well as alive to God through Jesus Christ. But we have, therefore, to be in practice consistent with both these blessings. As individuals we are set in mercy. The assembly stands in grace and peace. The babes have to learn; the young men to overcome; and the fathers to rest in Him that is from the beginning. Live by faith within the veil, and the wilderness, with all its sorrows, turns for a testimony to you. Rom. 5: 1-11, shows us part of our schooling; so does Heb. 12: 5-13, and 2 Peter 1: 5-14. Truly we are still in the six thousand years "war," but greater is He that is for us than all that are against us. It is the assembly militant now, but soon, how soon! will the victory and the triumph supplant the battle of life. May we quit ourselves like men, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

Philippians 1 gives the visible walk of Paul according to his full communion of life with Christ; all full of Christ, and all for Christ, though down here, and himself (Paul) in weakness.

Then Phil. 2 gives us the perfect walk of Paul's Lord, the Christ, in its mighty circle. From the throne where He was worshipped, down to earth, and death of the cross, and back again to His reward on high and on the throne.

And then Phil. 3 shows the inward springs of Paul's course, the only perfection which he or we can now attain (though perfected for God in Christ); namely, forgetting things behind, and stretching out to what lies before, toward the goal, and for the prize to which he was called — Paul's one thing, that he did.

As a conqueror now, he could say, "All things work together for good to me." The principles on which the Holy Spirit acts are all found in the written word; and the light is so clear as to the connection between principle and practice, and as to the soul or assembly walking with God in the Spirit, and therefore blessed in its actions, or walking in the flesh and according to man, and therefore getting correction and chastening.

Remarks as to "The Assembly of God,"

in Its Rule and Mode of  Self-Regulation.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

In this paper I take it for granted that my reader has learnt from Scripture the elementary truths about the (so-called Church or) assembly of God upon earth; that he knows that it was formed, first, at Pentecost, on the descent of the Holy Spirit as the promise of the Father; who thus made good the power and testimony promised by the Lord to the apostles, when it was shed abroad by Jesus as already made Lord and Christ in heaven; and that the glad tidings, which accompanied it, were but fruits of expiation accomplished, and righteousness established in heaven for each individual believer (2 Cor. 5: 21); viz., to as many as believed and repented, present forgiveness of sins made known and the gift of the Holy Spirit. There were two new things to be received — God's dealings with the individual believers, and then the place of such in the assembly.*

*The New Jerusalem in glory will be, likewise, an assembly of persons dwelt in by God and the Lamb.

This new company (in all about three thousand souls, gathered out by the preaching of Peter and John at Jerusalem), became "God's assembly on earth," called out by the power of the Holy Spirit, to wait on the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, and to await Himself coming back. The characteristic marks of each individual in the assembly, and of itself as a whole (given at the close of Acts 2, 4) are not those common to fallen humanity, but are divine and heavenly.

My desire is to call attention to some things connected with the internal characteristics of this assembly and its unity,* things which did and were to characterise it in its activities and sufferings. I want to consider (not so much the external marks of it, but) what the unity of the Spirit in itself is, and what betokens this in its existence and actions. The term "Holy Catholic Assembly," if rightly understood, is simple and correct enough; holy, as set apart in itself to God, which the assembly as a whole, and the individuals also who form it, are; and catholic or universal (that is, in howsoever many places any parts of it may be found, they are all parts of one whole). This results from its unity being a unity which is inseparable — the unity of the Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit in every part of it makes it one. But this definition does not suffice to guard against the wanderings of men's minds. Perhaps, if we added, "gathered through faith, and by the Holy Spirit, from among Jews and Gentiles unto the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne in heaven, during the time of the Lord's being earth-rejected," it might be better. For many there are that look at the holiness and catholicity of that congregation, or convocation, which was called to be one on earth, and will be one when Israel as a whole shall be saved; and it will be under the Lord Jesus (not then absent, but) come again as the king that cometh in Jehovah's name. The one who is now espoused to Him will then have been owned as the Bride, the Lamb's wife, and be with Him in His court on high in heavenly resurrection glory, the new Jerusalem. But the land of Israel, married to Jehovah, will have upon earth its city "Jehovah Shammah" (the Lord is there); nor Jews (my people), nor Gentiles on earth, will then be in resurrection bodies.† For Jews and Gentiles will not be blended then, as now, in one. Such is God's doctrine about His Church or assembly. Reader, do you know and own this assembly?

*The various titles given to this assembly in Scripture carry with them, and present to our minds, each of them, a unity (as in Ephesians, where it is looked at as the Body (Eph. 1), and (Eph. 5) as the Bride of the Christ, who was Himself its already glorified Head; and, note it, the head of a body, and the husband "head of the wife" — give two different meanings to this one word head, and head over all things gives a third; (all of them are true of Christ); either as the habitation of God, or as the people of the Lord — His flock (Peter's great subject) passing now through the earth to heaven; or as the family of God (John's), of which Christ is Firstborn among many brethren, or as the temple of God on earth (1 Cor.) in contrast with the heathen temples. Each of these figures gives the idea of a unity. But how different a thing is this Church or Assembly, from what men mean when they now speak of the Church, or the congregations upon earth.

†The New Jerusalem above and over the other (Isa. 4: 5) will be "the court" in heavenly places to, and of the kingdom upon earth. The Christ has titles of glory; some of them belong to the people who are to be in heavenly places with Him, and others which pertain to the people who are to be displayed in earthly places. For the former see the note at the beginning; and for the latter, during the millennial kingdom upon earth, there are such as king of Israel, head of the Gentiles, etc. The court and the kingdom under one Head, as well as all the outlying subordinate dependencies.

We are not "the subjects of a King" as they will be, for the word that answers to "king" is "subject." But we speak of the members of a human body as being partakers of the same life and nature as the head. Ours, now, while suffering with Christ the glorified Head, it is to be "one Spirit with the Lord." Have I the Spirit of God and Christ and of sonship? I am then one in the Spirit with the Lord. Am I a son of God? Christ on high has not been ashamed to call such "brethren," and, as individuals, all such are in relationship, the one with the other; for the same Holy Spirit dwells in each of us (1 Cor. 6: 19) and the same relationship to the Lord and to God is common to all. But if God in His goodness puts any of these together in a place, they are, and ought to be, in that place a part of His one assembly. The son or child is now in a family.

The one assembly of God on earth has the Holy Spirit dwelling in it (1 Cor. 3: 16, 17; 2 Cor. 6: 16), though with somewhat different results than the individual believer. It has the Spirit for its power in all its activity and responsibility as an assembly, as also has the individual believer for his own life and responsibility. This as to the assembly is spoken of as the unity of the Spirit, which all are exhorted to strive to keep,* "in the uniting bond of peace." The Agent (or He who in the Godhead is called the Holy Spirit) is He who first formed the believer, and then the assembly for Christ, and He alone is the only power therein. For the assembly to suffer or to act as it should, He must be the spring and originator of its submission or activity, as He was of its very being. Come down from on high, and being God, and having taken up His abode in the assembly — no wonder that He should take the lead in all actions and all subjection of the company, He is here as witnessing to Christ. His motives are divine; and He works from, and around, and to Jesus, who is Lord and Christ, and who is on the throne. It is Himself (the Holy Spirit) who wrote the Scriptures too. And that instinct, too, of divine life — which (though never contrary to what is written) is yet of higher birth than conscience — it is He who forms it in us.

*The unity of the Spirit is a self-existing unity, for it is God who, dwelling in the assembly, makes this one. But this may be forgotten, or we may (through selfishness and worldliness) not keep it. "The uniting bond of peace" is the only way of keeping it known to God's children.

I cannot doubt, first, that everything which springs up in the individual believer, or in the assembly in its collective character, which is not from Him (the Spirit of God) will tend to lead us down either to self-judgment or to shame; or, secondly, that whatsoever leads up to fellowship with God by the way, from the starting-point to the end, working in us the being willing and the acting energetically of His own good pleasure (which is our full blessing in the end), is ours through Him down here. He is our keeper all through. For there is no origin or source of good but God. And all that God gives us He gives in and by Christ, while the Holy Spirit is working in us.

On the one hand there is a uniting power to the individual believer; namely, fellowship with the Father and with the Son, by means of the Holy Spirit, who reveals the things of God and His Son to and in each, and so produces also fellowship among them through the objects of the faith common to them all, on the other hand, it is of the assembly that its unity is called "the unity of the Spirit."*

*It was true of all who acted upon Peter's sermon (in Acts 2), that each of them received, and knew that he himself had forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and thereupon openly entered into the fellowship of the apostles.

Having called attention to the individual believer, and also to the assembly in which he is placed by God as one part of a whole,* I would now speak of the assembly as under the guidance down here of the Holy Spirit, who presents Christ on high as the object of faith, and the polar-star in our journeyings. And the assembly has to seek to know and to do the will of the Lord Jesus, and in order that it may be able to do so, it must watch against everything that would grieve the Spirit, and so leave itself in dimness of sight and in weakness. I repeat it, Christ is the object of faith always, as God presents Him to us. And the Spirit is the power in us while our hearts and minds are turned to the Lord Jesus, and we reckon ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God.

*The difference between a soldier when looked at as an individual, or as in his regiment as part of the standing army of a country, may help some minds herein.

Let me ask here, ere I go on, do you, my reader, know that God looks upon you as an integral part of His assembly, where Himself dwells on earth? It is so written of each believer, and of the assembly too, and each should know it and act upon it.

Some may say, But how will God show his mind? To this I answer, Did God ever find any difficulty in revealing to any one, or in leaving on the mind of an Abraham, a Jacob, a Job, a Saul, etc., or on any assembly whatsoever, that it was unquestionably Himself who had been with them? In Old Testament times the mind of God was revealed to His servants often with a "Thus saith the Lord." From the time of the Lord, revelation of new truth has flowed through, but from within, man (the book of the Revelation excepted). Peter's, and John's, and Paul's epistles were largely the result of their watchings of things around them: the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, and giving them God's view of everything, and the want of harmony between them and the truth revealed to them. And by the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, God has given forth all His mind about things down here where we are, and up there where He is, and what is to come to pass too; so that we have His mind, in these writings of the Holy Spirit, given to us, — and we may "be taught of God." God and Enoch; God and Noah; God and Abraham; God and David; God and Paul — the living and true God and the feeble vessel, knew one another; and the guardian Vicar (the Holy Spirit) down here, and the guardian, our Lord Jesus Christ on high, are thoroughly acquainted with each dependent and obedient one down here. Do you, indeed, live to Christ and live to God in heaven, and know nothing of what pleases and honours them, and of what displeases them, because contrary to the written Word? The Holy Spirit wrote the Acts and epistles, and knows where, therein, everything is to be found, and how to apply it to conscience and spiritual instinct. No; the difficulty is not there, but must exist, if anywhere, in our own selves.

If I can say, "It is written," I, having found the written Word to be the seed of life eternal to me, bow to it. It judges me, and it traces for me the path of life, and, as when it was the instrumental means of quickening me into life, it judged my death and sins, so, now that I have eternal life, it shows me the pathway of blessing, and judges every departure therefrom; the Spirit of God using it upon a heart humbled in God's presence. As to everything else, I must judge it, ere I receive it. This, to every believer, makes the Bible to be a peculiar book, and no book like it. God gave blessing to Adam until he should eat of one tree. (Gen. 2: 17.) God was with His word; Adam ate, and was judged. I, a man, cannot judge God, or His word; it judges me, and makes manifest to me the real character of everything. The same is true as to the declaration of Gen. 3: 15. The Scriptures also ("it is written") tell us (Acts 1 and 2) of the coming down of the Holy Spirit from the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne; and of His setting up, by the preaching of new truths, an entirely new system of things among God's people upon earth, a new system in a new people — a new system of government and worship. And these new things were to abide in Christ's name — until He comes again. The Spirit was to abide, and is found so abiding. (Rev. 22: 16, 17.)  -  So I bow to God and His word, and acknowledge that the Spirit is abiding down here still. God is not now between the cherubim, but dwells in His holy assembly upon earth; and when Christ comes back, those that are alive and remain (1 Thess. 4: 17) will be glorified without seeing death.

I may now refer to the differences of spiritual powers from the spirit of man, and how their workings make manifest themselves and their sources and their characters. When a demon or demons took possession of men (see, alas! many instances of this in the gospels), it or they seem to have made nothing of the human beings they entered into. Them they used as but mediums by which they would express their own malicious, murderous, lying character, and their delight in displaying man and creation degraded in God's own land. The human vessel lost all its individuality, and power, and character; the demon displaying his. But in contrast with this, the apostles and prophets and faithful, taken possession of by, and filled with the Spirit of God, did not lose their  individuality, or power, or character. They had to act under known responsibility and order, however much the glory displayed might surpass themselves, or the weakness of themselves be made manifest thereby. Through the agency of the Spirit they might be, and were, lifted up in ecstasy beyond themselves as unto the Lord; or brought down in sober judgment to care for God's people and things down here, etc. The proofs of this are many. But observe it, not Peter, nor Paul, nor John ever failed to read aloud the mind of God and of Christ about persons or circumstances. Walking in the Spirit, their souls were up to the Lord Jesus, and in obedience to and dependence upon God, they could see and read His mind as to everything in the assembly, and did so. (See Acts, and the case of Simon Acts 8; and Acts 13: 10, and Acts 16: 16-19; and 1 John 4: 1-6, and 1 John 2: 19; Acts 5 again.)

I am NOT an apostle or a prophet, you will say. No; but I have their writings in my hand written by the Holy Spirit; God has commended them to me and to us, and (in 2 Tim. 3) shows the sufficiency of them. And our Lord (John 6: 45) is our warrant for trusting God to be the teacher to us of His own word. And who is it, according to what is written, that acts in individual believers and on the assembly? Whose is the power that works in, and that works out to be willing, and to act energetically but God? and so also as to the edification, government, and service of the assembly. Scripture assigns all down here to the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. (See 1 Cor. 12, 13, 14, as to the edification; and 1 Cor. 5, 6, as to government and service.) It was, at times indeed, through an apostle, or an evangelist, or a prophet as a medium, but always based upon the word of God, and applied by God to the individual. But the assembly and all in it have the responsibility of His being in it, the power of order and of edification, and they have the ability to act, He being ungrieved, and having God for their guide, and the interests of the Lord Jesus in view. The assembly of God was set up and ruled over by the Spirit of God, through inspired apostles; its doctrine given to it through New Testament prophets; its glad tidings heralded, at first, by evangelists, and then by any loyal-hearted ones led thereunto by love and circumstances. Those scattered abroad (Acts 8: 1) went everywhere preaching the Word. God's dwelling-place in Israel, until that particular Pentecost, had been between the cherubim, first in the tabernacle and then in the temple. From that particular day of Pentecost, He, without at once breaking up the temple or the nation (so long-suffering is He), took up with and put forward another temple. The assembly formed at that very Pentecost — there would He dwell — and there He did dwell. Reader, do you really accredit this, and act upon it, that the living and true God, who made heaven and earth, has not left the earth, nor left it without a dwelling-place, a place of abode for Himself? And that is the assembly of God, the dwelling-place of His Spirit down here. So it is, so He does, and this makes the assembly of God a very blessed, and yet a very awful place to be in, and be connected with. As a living stone does God say that you are an integral part of God's house on earth? But the responsibilities and the privileges of this cannot be avoided — the one rests upon us, and the others, freely given to us, lie at the basis of the responsibilities. Oh that we knew more of this, the true God dwelling in His assembly, and that we might walk in the power of the faith of it. God has not left the earth; He dwells in the midst of His own holy assembly, and abides with it, the living and true God. What a blessed reality, if known to any!

But God being here, He must be the spring of all that should be done in any assembly, as a part of the one great assembly, and the power and end of it all too. So far I am clear.

I come now to the distinctive peculiarities of the assembly.

Its constitution is unique. Nothing on earth is or can afford a precedent as to it. First, as to the standing of an individual in it, and then of his knowing how to blend his standing as an individual with the standing of the assembly as a whole.

When Paul wrote to an individual believer (even about the work of the Lord in the assemblies for which he had engaged a Timothy or a Titus) his introduction wishes them "grace, mercy, and peace;" just as when he speaks of himself as an individual, remembering the law of sin and death in his members, he writes (1 Tim. 1 - 5): "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (or first). Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy;" and in like manner, looking at himself individually, he could say (and did say), "I do so and so lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." As descendants of the first Adam, this is the aspect in which we are set, in mercy; though able, through the faith, to say, thanks to the humiliation of our Lord, we have been crucified together with Him, died together with Him, and been buried together with Him. (Rom. 6) So that as He died, then as to sin once and now liveth unto God, so we also can now reckon ourselves to be indeed dead to sin but alive unto God. But still it is the same truth, though the one looks at the character of God — mercy; and the other shows out the way in which the Lord Jesus in His humiliation has met everything that was contrary to God and us, on God's behalf, so that guilt is all gone. Still it was God meeting upon Christ, in judgment, what we were or had of our own from Adam the first. What was old and of us was met. When, on the other hand, he addressed assemblies, his words are "grace and peace." For the assembly as such had no existence apart from a quickened, risen, and ascended Christ, and, as Paul writes (Eph. 2: 1-6), God who is rich in mercy (v. 4), drawing out of the Ephesian pit, you sinners, and out of the Jewish pit, us children of wrath, quickened us together with the Christ, raised us up together, and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.* Here, it is what is altogether new and in Christ. These are matters of faith to him who receives that which is written.

*As to the anointed man and what was in Him (Eph. 1: 10; Col. 1: 20), the counsel of God about Him, as revealed to us was from before the world (was), and the new heavens and new earth were then foreseen and appointed. Partakers of His life, one Spirit with Him, seated in heavenly places in Him, etc., and the whole of the assembly-doctrine looks forward to what shall be, and is all found secured in Him; and God Himself will make it good for Him. The elements which God will work out through the cross and death of the Christ, unto that eternal glory, entrusted to man at Pentecost, man has, as ever, failed to hold. Satan, the world, and self-confidence, have turned Christianity into Christendom. But, if we think of the assembly, it is God's assembly, responsible to Him as to its fruits, and, alas! its abuse of the grace given. There the living members of Christ's body are, and ought to be, by faith, found and fashioned by grace.

Now each in the assembly of God, at first, had to know and carry with him these two truths; the one, as to himself as an individual, "God has had mercy and compassion upon me, my sins are all forgiven me, and I have received the gift of the Spirit from the Lord Jesus, and am a temple of God; and the other, as to the place in which I find myself, it is the assembly of God, the habitation down here of God through the Spirit, who had come down to bear testimony to Christ." The holding and rightly using both these truths is safe, and the oversight of one or the other is a cause of weakness both to individuals and to the assembly. As we shall see.

It is a serious error to speak or pray about God's holy assembly as nothing but an assembly of poor weak sinners. Looked at as God's holy assembly, that is not the truth of Scripture; and, on the other hand, Paul, as in the assembly, never forgot the mercy which rested upon him as an individual. The mercy keeps the conscience clear amid all the movements of sin within, and the soul is thus free to go forward, in the power of the new life which it has in Christ Jesus, in all holiness. These can never, on this side of the glory, be safely separated.

The apostles had been formed for the testimony by the descent of the Holy Spirit; the assembly was brought into existence by the testimony to the Lord by the apostles.

Paul shows us the sort of people who were gathered.

Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things, and things despised, and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are. God's object was that no flesh should glory in His presence. For the gospel was the gospel of the cross of Christ, and these were fruits of faith in it. To preach it with wisdom of words would have been to make it of none effect; it was the power of God to salvation. God would destroy the wisdom of the wise and the understanding of the prudent, and, by salvation by the cross, He made foolish the world's wisdom, even as also by the foolishness of preaching He saved those that believed. But herein God's power and wisdom stood out in relief, and no flesh could glory in His presence; glorying could alone be in Him, and joy in what He had provided in the Saviour that had been crucified. How do the power, and wisdom, and grandeur of that which was of God shine out! For the cross of Jesus — measure of man's wickedness, and end of Christ's humiliation — to contain the only salvation of His murderers! And if Christ, the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and the Holy Spirit were to be displayed in God's assembly, we see that those in it had no light or wisdom or power of their own to display or boast in.

A foolish, silly, stupid sheep,* each and every one of them, and each one, too, had been lost as a runaway from the owner, and had had a wandersome nature of its own, besides the injuries it had sustained while wandering.

*An amateur sheep-owner (his own shepherd) told me he could find no creature so stupid as a sheep. It is said, too, that such a thing as wild sheep are not known to exist

God has one flock and one Shepherd. There is but one assembly. It is made up of all the smaller ones, and comprises them all. He has a trustworthy Shepherd, now on high, the Lord Jesus the Christ, and has also down here One who acts as guardian for Him and them, the sheep of His pasture. While the sheep under Him down here are subject to Him, they ever look up to the Lord Jesus, their Shepherd, their Guardian, there on high; and, forasmuch as their Guardian down here, and their guardian Shepherd up there, are both of one, and have but one mind, the sheep, if subject and dependent, follow out His footsteps in the pathway which Himself trod when He was down here. For will and ability to do so they have that other guardian, the Holy Spirit, with them.

As to blessing, they whom Peter knew in the assembly all came in after repentance, made willing by the Lord, through forgiveness of sin, and the gift to them of the Holy Spirit, to become dependent and obedient.

Questions might and did arise about their practical consistency with these truths, and their fellowship with the assembly of God. If any did submit and walk as the apostles walked, it was a blessed fruit of the Spirit's keeping. If any swerved from the narrow path, and walked as men and the world around them, they, in so doing, were led away by him that mastered them — Satan. But the Spirit of God was in them (if, indeed, they had believed unto eternal life in Christ Jesus), and He was in the assembly too. The Holy Spirit being thus with them and in the assembly, the word of the Lord was not, could not be, bound.

Each has to be, so far as he can, the bearer of the Father's name which is upon himself and the rest; and so his brother's keeper; and in the assembly each has his part in the responsibility of God's honour and glory, being connected with the assembly. No one is deterred from using the Word, if he can do so as in the Spirit. Man's will and mind, and energy, have no place to be allowed to them in that scene. What is God's will and mind? Where are we, each of us who are in the assembly, if sin be allowed? How shall we, as those that have eternal life and live to Christ, meet His mind in the matter? What, Lord, wilt thou have me to do? And what are God's thoughts about the assembly as having evil in it? These would be godly thoughts; if any evil appeared in anyone in it, and they would be in harmony with the written Word, and, as I should say, have been brought by the Holy Spirit to mind. If I discovered evil at work in myself, I ought to purge out the leaven. If another discovered it in me, I should lay the matter before the Lord, and in His light discern all about it, and act accordingly.

So, if Paul had to withstand Peter to the face, it was to be done in the Spirit and not in the flesh; and Peter had then to act as with God. In some cases two or three might go with the one; and if well chosen, they are often a help; for both conscience and instinct are often roused and strengthened by the presence of the faithful. The matter is still in private. I am aiming to get one awake, or into self-judgment. Have I or we as individuals succeeded? Blessed success! the matter stops. Have we failed? Is leaven among us? It will spread. Is it spreading itself to others? Is the assembly in danger of becoming a hiding-place for sin? I may mention it to the godly walkers. But if it is really sin and leaven it must, if not met otherwise, come before the assembly; that is, if the Spirit's mind, as given in the written Word, is to be followed. In all the steps referred to above, I may have acted in dependence upon Christ on high as Head of the assembly, and may have done so with judgment of myself, and in lowliness of mind. But if all has failed, then I must appeal to the assembly as that which through the presence of the Spirit has both responsibility and power. The heart and affections, the mind and the intelligence of the Lord Jesus, are there in His Holy Spirit.

Now, I beg you to observe that if in some sense the assembly seems to take the form of a court of trial, it is a court of a most peculiar kind, and its mode of action and objects are unlike those of any other court, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Christ the Lord of all looks down on them from above, and His Spirit is there among them; and the first question is not about the individual who has failed, much less of what punishment he is to bear. No; but what does God and Christ think of the assembly in this matter; and what of any individuals who being in the assembly have had to do with the grief? It is a solemn question, for individuals and for the assembly too, whether or not the spirit and mind, bearing and aim, of the action of individuals and of the assembly are in harmony with those of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

And, note it well, the sin being plain and evident — so far as there is a trial of any one — the first questions are, not, Who did this sin, and How is it to be punished; but, Are we compromised to God's mind, according to His written word, in all this as an assembly? and are we, by silence, to compromise the honour and the name of God? And then each individual, instead of having (horrid thought) to vote against another man, has to humble himself, and see whether he himself may not have been heedless as to God and Christ and the Spirit, and as to God's assembly, so as to have given occasion to the adversary, and through negligence and want of spirituality (which might have prevented the evil) be blameworthy. The mind has to rise up above itself, through faith and the Spirit, to God, and His mind and word, which judges man, and all his ways and thoughts. The honour, too, of being in such an assembly in its present dignity (habitation of God) and destiny, and having forgotten it, may have to be thought of. Not till then can any of the assembly, or itself, be justified in, and fit to speak of, the person who has sinned. And then, too, this is arrived at, not as though self were above the conduct of the failed one, but as forced by God and His word —  self-judged as an individual; and then the assembly, having cared for God's name and honour, which it carries and must vindicate, it has to deal with the channel by which the leaven was first introduced, but always with salvation in its heart and mind.

The assembly should have the mind and heart, thoughts and affections, of Christ Himself in it; for it has His Spirit, and is inseparable from Himself.

The Saviour God rests in His love upon the Man at His right hand on high. That Man's eyes, in all His perfection, look down on us in love, but in holy all-revealing power. Dwelt in by the Holy Spirit, we in God's assembly have to bring all our ways and doings under those eyes of our Lord, shining out their rays of light; and whilst looking unto Him we know that all, as to ourselves and the assembly, have a bearing upon the honour of the name of the Saviour God, one way or another.

If the differences peculiar to the assembly of God, which distinguish it from every other association upon earth are not seen, everyone must fail in the attempt to live in it properly, and to partake of the sufferings incidental to it, and to carry out its activities. Its essential distinctive peculiarity is, that God the Holy Spirit dwells in it to animate it in all its parts, and to direct and regulate it as something dear to Christ Jesus, who is on the throne in heaven. It is God's habitation on the earth. What other assembly but it, can be called by Him who is its all-pervading Spirit to walk worthy of these its characteristics.

Though I have rested most on the action of the assembly in the cases of failure, what I have said applies equally to every part of its life and responsibilities down here, active or passive. The mind of God alone has to be met.

It is clear that every company must have a government and principles of its own, if it is to continue in well-being and to thrive. The object of these, and mode of action, will tell out its character, and to whom it belongs; and all that flows forth from it will manifest relationship with the same. And so it is with God's assembly. Dwelt in by the Holy Spirit, in the world though not of it, on the earth, and passing from heaven's side of the cross on to the Lord returning upon the cloud of glory — it is of God; and its calling is, to show out, in its walk here below, the privileges grace has bestowed upon it, the same character and walk as did the Lord its head, and the hope of glory. It is in time, and has a course to run in time; but it is of eternity and for everlasting. It bears upon it as united to the Lord Jesus Christ, the name of the Lord Jesus — spite of world, and flesh, and Satan. Of what other company can these things be said? Are we awake to these things? Has the unity of the Spirit its right place in our souls? Do we see that each assembly is but a part of the one whole? that its walk depends upon the Spirit and Our subjection to His written Word? That it is He, in His offices and working, who alone could have kept it up to its responsibilities; and would have done so, had it but honoured the Lord Jesus, and so walked in the Spirit. And who now is sufficient under Christ to put us who escaped professedly at the Reformation into a path and walk which, amid all the ruin around, would have led, and may yet lead, us to be to the glory of God in the little while till Christ shall come. Yes, that would have been the gain, had the Scriptures, then afresh put into man's hand, been studied, and had we all been taught therein of God.

If I take other companies acting under kings and rulers, the army and navy, the law and the church (so-called), schools, the prison and reformatory, the hospital and lunatic asylum, etc. etc.; all these are quite different from God's assembly; are of quite another kind; have another mode of working; another order of things, and have another level of things too. They are of this world and for it; earthly and not heavenly; for time, and have no eternity. The very best things of Caesar's they may be, into whose hand God (not Christ) has put the sword of government,

A colonel of a regiment,* a commander of a ship, the chief officer of a prison, or a schoolmaster — none of them originated the company under him, or supposes for a moment that he can either inspire those under him with his own mind, or thus carry them with him. The position he is in gives him authority to guide outwardly. Let each of them act upon the laws and principles laid down for those in their official spheres. But if any use their own earthly position as a precedent in God's assembly, he is (though unconscious of it, and, perhaps, doing it through ignorance) guilty of dishonouring God and His assembly. He is a prelate, self-appointed, and gets into the position of being Lord over God's heritage. Caesar's duty, and the magistrate's, is "not to bear the sword in vain." The chiefest and most useful man in God's assembly has to be the will-less servant and burden-bearer for all, under Christ. There will be also, where the assembly is in spirit carrying out its Lord's mind, a congruity or consistency traceable in what it does with that which is in God's mind and Word. Impatience and a restless seeking to be quick do not accord with, "He that believeth shall not make haste."† Paul's mind was decided enough as to what had to be done (1 Cor. 5) but he gave the assembly time to wake up out of its criminal slumber. If any seek for evidence, let them remember that God the Holy Spirit is Himself in the assembly. If the action has commenced with God Himself, what place has mere suspicion? Moral evidence and legal are very different. The former is to heart and conscience, the latter to mentality. A looking for unity of consent instead of a general conviction of conscience would soon show itself, and is of nature. God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. And this I must say, that it is a very solemn thing for one with a sinful nature still in him, though having found mercy and been saved by grace, to have to do with the putting away of one who has failed to walk worthily of the Lord, and to have to do it in His name and presence. If it does not humble us down into self-judgment, and judgment of all our own ways, it will harden heart and conscience fearfully. And we do well to consider our own selves, and to be softened before Him who alone has preserved us. But if the Holy Spirit be in the assembly, sin must be thrust out of it, and with it the sinner too, if he loves it better than God and His own place in God's house, and prefers to be put out of the house to the giving up of his sin. God and sin abide not under the same roof; and this is well rolled in upon our own souls in every act of excommunication. For Christ's honour and God's and the Holy Spirit's it must be done; and for our own too, and for the sake of the failed one, and of the world around. But still it is a very solemn, humbling, and heart-searching duty — imperative duty though it be — and, be it remarked, the sooner God's name is really cared for, the sooner does His saving power and presence show itself.

*An officer whose regiment had been his pride was at a large meeting of believers (from three to eight hundred present). He came to me and asked, "What in this? There is a constraint and a control over this whole meeting? Is this the presence in power of the Holy Spirit? I know what it was to have my regiment, as one, well up in my hand; but this is quite another sort of thing. I do not understand it, and never saw such a thing before."

†Observe it. Between the announcement that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3: 15) and the full accomplishment of it (Rev. 20: 10) seven thousand years run their course. God needs not to make haste. In this case His glory needed delay. On the other hand, sometimes He acts so soon as the ground of His acting is before the people of His love — as in the cases of Achan, Judas, Ananias and Sapphira. He that is led of God, as was Moses (Ex. 32 and 33), may be quick in interceding when with God in the mount, and quick in judging the people on his descent from it. In Paul there was quickness enough in announcing God's thoughts about covering over incest; but he had also a God-possessed patience to leave to the assembly time for it to learn and do God's mind. Who is sufficient for these things? God alone. But He will reveal, to those that are His, His mind and His time for action.

Observe, too, while a man may take hours to write out what he has learnt from God's Word; and, while a soul without God can see nothing aright of God, the moment it is quickened, what a change. The dull Samaritan woman could see nothing at first; but what a change when she knew Him who had been talking with her: "Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did — is not this the Christ!" and more than this, for she had intuitively dropped into the wake of his mind — for she went to call the Samaritans to come out and see the wonderful One.

Coming up, as we all are, out of the depths of ignorance from the (so-called) reformation, when God in His good providence gave us back the Bible (alas! how little have any of us fully searched its contents)  - I judge that God would have us very patient the one with the other as to our want of intelligence, and as to our want of power also* to know what is written, and also how to communicate it the one to the other. How patient has He been towards us! As patient as powerful! Nor has He left us to our own complacency and self-sufficiency, but is bearing with us, and seeking still to lead us on. Look up to heaven, no change has taken place in God since Pentecost. No change in Christ. We are in the same way the assembly has been in since the beginning; onward, each and all, from the cross of Calvary until we meet the Lord coming for us. And down here the Spirit and the truth are just what they were at the beginning. May we learn and be guided, as Peter, John and Paul each was, to walk, in his own day and sphere, surely led by the Spirit, and under God and the very eyes of the Lord Jesus.

*Though ignorance and want of power may both be sinful. The former, if we have the book in our hands, and the latter, if the Spirit of God has not been looked to as God's provision for the believer.

Paul was in grace given to us as a model man; one in whom we might see how far a man of like passions with ourselves could, down here, follow out the life of the perfect One. From his conduct in 1 Cor. 5 we may learn much. For as formed, and led, and sustained by the Holy Spirit, Paul lived to Him who had given Himself for him; and had died for him, in order that he Paul, constrained by Christ's love to him and His people, might live to Him. And thus he lived to God; God had the first place with Paul through Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit's power. The assembly was to him God's assembly, standing in His wondrous grace and favour; and God and Christ ministered to it grace and peace; for it as an assembly points onward to the glory of the New Jerusalem, residence and wife of the Lamb; and to each individual in it there is grace, mercy, and peace. Paul claimed what God's connection with the assembly, and its blessing, and the blessing of each one in it, required according to God's mind; viz., that that (to which, on earth, the Father's delight in His Son and His service, had led Him to commit His own name and honour) should be holy, for He is holy; should not be a scene in which Satan displayed man's lawless will and selfishness, through deeds that were so (of the defiled earth and wicked world) that even the heathen knew not the like. Righteously roused by the wrong done, and indignant at the insult thus put on his God, he entered upon the service. Yet it was mercy that sent him thither; for God (1 Cor. 11) had been cutting off unrepentant children at Corinth before this. Paul knew mercy right well (how large a debtor to it was he himself); and how blessedly now do we find him the servant of God's mercy in the gospel, and how careful that, they that obtained mercy should walk in the unmixed enjoyment of it. But love and mercy never cover sin; God's mercy (1 John 4) to us came out to light with the gift of eternal life to them that were dead, and by Christ made propitiation for sin. The tokens of the love and mercy (1 John 4: 9, 10) bore the stamp of death and measure of sin which needed such an expiation, if eternal life was to be free in us; if grace was to reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ; but grace was not unmindful, after it took effect, of mercy in connection with the individual believers, and of Paul's standing as an individual in mercy; and that mercy was to all the individuals who were in the assembly — the incestuous person as well as others; and to the poor dark world around. God's mercy does not ignore sin. He looks to the whole wilderness and to the glory, when He shows mercy; and in that mercy there is life eternal given to us who were dead, and the blood, the measure of sin, which must be known if the measure of acceptance is to be enjoyed. Who but God could curse the sin and bless the sinner?

And mercy did make its voice to be heard, in the careless assembly at Corinth, and for the incestuous man, when once God's claim had been thought of, and when, through the Spirit, it had been met so far as to arouse the assembly. It is no question with me, Whom will God make use of now in such or similar cases? Himself is in the assembly. He can act, and it is according to His way to act, and to act in such a way as will bring out into light the existence of the assembly. Its state now is militant, the life possessed is energetic, Christ's will and glory are its aim, and the Spirit works thereunto. At the present time it is of far more importance that the characteristics of the assembly itself should be made manifest, than that individuals, having more spiritual intelligence than others, should be brought forward. What is of God will not be hid, but in this very way the superiority of Paul showed itself. Instead of himself taking up the question with the rod of his power, he waited and elicited the action of the assembly itself, and so identified himself more with God in His mercy than in the use of the power delegated to him of God. We have not the authority or the power which were really delegated to Paul for ourselves. And for ourselves he so acted as to make it plain that the very feeblest can, if walking in humbleness and holiness, clear themselves of the responsibilities of God's honour and name being cared for in His own house. To assume authority which we have not got, and to deny a responsibility which does rest upon us, is to be doubly blind. And to act in power is impossible for the weak. But God's strength still will perfect itself in our weakness. Life and holiness are what we must act upon, God being for us, The question (with any who are alive to God through Christ, and so awake to any shortcoming in the assembly, or to any positive evil in it) may begin with the instincts of the eternal life within, or with conscience enlightened, etc. It must begin with some individual or individuals in the assembly, God chooses by whom.

Much that would be weighty and unanswerable in a human court would be incongruous in God's assembly; for conscience before and under God's Word and spiritual instinct are not like the human mind reasoning and weighing evidence. A lawyer addresses himself to man's mind as competent to weigh and decide upon evidence, and aims at putting out of sight all that would make against his client's case. God and His mind and truth are to rule in the assembly. Moreover God, too, in His assembly can, and often does, make men speak out as being in the light of His presence. No judge pretends to that. The assembly is not a jury weighing evidence and judging it, but a priestly company met, with God present, to examine itself and those in it. Self-judgment is a humbling, softening work.

And in all the business of the assembly — the mind and will of God and the Lord, alone has to be sought. It is this that makes influence (possessed by any individual over other minds) so wrong and evil and dangerous in the assembly. The influence of an individual, however amiable and devoted, or the will and control of a man, is not God's control in His own assembly. Many a godly man, on finding his influence and practical wisdom — tending to blind the saints in a place (as to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the duty of each saint in the assembly bearing his own individually conscientious responsibility) — has himself had to guard them against this influence; and some feeling inability to do so, have left the place, for the Lord's and saints' sake.

Do I see worldliness (fruit of self and flesh not having been judged and ceased from, through Satan's guile), in God's assembly? I do see it then. And am I not grieved? Surely that should be the case if these things (hateful contrasts as they are to the Lord) were found attaching to myself. They are as wrong in others as in me, and am I not one with all in the assembly, and one with Christ too, and dwelling in Him and in God? A feeling of pain and distress accompanies the discovery. The Spirit, too, is grieved. What is to be done? Consciousness of one's own littleness may lead to look round and see who there is, having avowedly more competency than I have, who is on the Lord's side. I cannot condemn this. But if to the question, Who is on the Lord's side in this matter? there be no answer — "Here am I, send me," for then, however incompetent, I must clear myself, and seek that the name of God be vindicated, such is the mind of Christ. I cannot excuse myself from the duty.

The Bible is God's letter to His saints. The assembly should be the mirror upon earth reflecting the "grace, mercy, and peace" revealed as in Christ Jesus, but thus presenting God to the whole world.

The idea of headship, or possession of the right to be accuser — we know where to look for him who acts thereon. The right to be the first to speak of sin, of failure! Monstrosity in a company made up, through grace, of those whom mercy picked up as utterly lost, at great cost to itself, though now, safe in Christ and all brethren together; a company under Him who being God became man, and obedient to death — the death of the cross for them all, and in and among whom the Spirit dwells. I have seen some (alas!) with Jehu's zeal, trying to outrun others, and show their zeal for the Lord, and their cleverness in accusing, and their readiness to be judge and jury. Executioner (thank God) they cannot be. They know not what spirit they are of. May I not ask, If a son or a daughter in a well-brought-up family had got into a line of conduct ruinous and disgraceful, and one of the children had to call the attention of the whole family to the shameful facts, dangerous to the well-being of the family, to the name of the father, and to the liberty of the delinquent, what would be the spirit and way and temper in which he, as the loving brother of the other, would enter upon and go through the painful duty? Imagine it to be forgery of government securities to an enormous amount, and the amount spent in riotous living, or forgery against his father. Firm he might be impelled to be for the sake of father, mother, brothers, sisters, and for the failed one's sake too. But brokenness of heart would mark him. We, in addition to all such similitudes, have to eat of the sin-offering ourselves ere we speak of the sin; have to do it, as for the Lord's sake, and for restoration's sake to the failed one.

May we know how to act as integral parts of that assembly which stands now in grace and favour with God, chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world; and to blend this mercy, which having found us at first, is still our daily, hourly, provision till the wilderness is past, with grace. God says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy;" it is only those who can respond to this heartily, and those alone on whom His mercy will abide for ever. Israel knew not its own need of mercy, and so found no delight in mercy (Rom. 11: 23-36) as shown to them. Nothing but mercy would really have suited them. It was shown to them, and they turned from it as to themselves, and kicked at its extension to others, through unbelief, and so were locked up in unbelief. And we, that is Christendom, what has it done with the mercy which Christianity gave forth to us? It has forgotten it entirely, and will perish. As having no response to give to God's mercy it does not suit Him. Grace and peace it never knew. But, if he lock both Jew and Gentile up in unbelief, mercy will yet show itself forth in a more excellent way.

To blend that mercy which is in God, and in which my soul is set individually with the grace and peace in which God's holy assembly is set and stands, in a risen and ascended Christ, is the problem which we need to be taught of God how to solve. The Holy Spirit alone can show us, in this day, that path of eternal life in which we have to walk. No vulture's eye could ever trace it. I say now, for if I have eternal life, if Christ is our life, we have to live it out down here now, as much as fully to possess and enjoy it hereafter in its own more congenial scenes and clime above.

APPENDIX.

1. HUMAN mentality may show itself in mental clearness about, the word of God; but this is not enough without consideration of God's moral ways of dealing it to souls. I might be clearer in perception than anyone else; have intense decision in conduct, as being thus more clear-sighted as to texts; but if I drive others against both time and their measure of knowledge, I am not led by the Spirit, and what the good? The enquiry ends; a decision is come to; perhaps those most in blame are sheltered, but their consciences not ploughed up, and humble souls (not otherwise affected then) are shocked at the whole procedure. They wanted time for prayer and humiliation without which they could not act under responsibility and to the Lord.

2. Awful as it is, I have known persons looked up to, constitute themselves pleaders against others and judges in cases, and the judgment, ostensibly by the assembly, given against one that was innocent, and who was excommunicated for that which the pleader and judge had himself committed; and the same sort of thing is oftener still the case in domestic regulations of the assembly. Lord, what is man when left to himself? What are we when we play with thy name, and at making, maintaining, and governing in (so-called) churches?

3. Actings in the assembly should be, from first to last, from motives, and in an energy and to an end, that can bear the scrutiny of God's eye as identified with Himself and Christ. And it is easy to be deceived herein. Frequently unity of judgment, or the consent of all or of the majority, is insisted on or sought after. But this oft misleads. 1st, it is based on the principle vox populi vox Dei (the voice of the people is as the voice of God). If this be counted as authority from God, it would be an error; for fleshly concurrence of human minds, in pride acting upon worldly principles, would produce it. 2nd, it leaves out the important question of whether the matter so decided upon really is God's very mind for us or not.

4. In rebuke or putting away, I do not get rest or feel I see the whole case until three things are clear. 1st, the root sin; 2nd, the occasion; 3rd, the overt display of sin. 1st, David knew how to climb, using God, from the sheepfold to the throne; but knew not aright God's relative position to himself; 2nd, at rest on the throne, not going out to war when the kings go out, he saw, in his idleness, Bathsheba; 3rd, though on God's throne he defiled himself and dishonoured God by adultery, corruption, and murder. Thus he learnt David's self, and afterwards God. (Ps. 32) So in Solomon's case, in Job's, in Peter's. This is important, because, until the root sin is judged, there is no real healing; and the overt sin is very unlike the root sin; not it at all, generally.

5. The love of ruling has been the ruin of the nominal church, not only in the bishops of old, whom Constantine set aside and supplanted, but in the bishops after Constantine; in the governments at the time of the Reformation, in all the Protestantism and Nonconformity, from wilful Diotrephes downwards. Had they but known what the assembly of God was and is, it could not have been so.

In some cases, and where the majority were willing to sanction it, some deficit or some sin has been known to one or another; but nothing has been done. And why not? On the plea, "I told it to So-and-so, and he did not see with me, or could do nothing." I answer, "Try what you can do, and then tell it to the assembly. Despise not your responsibility and God in it."

6. I have known cases in which one or two have unconsciously assumed to rule, by telling one that had sinned that "he had better not come to the table." Where is the authority and power of the assembly? A private opinion of one or two individuals is not the action of the one holy assembly, led by God and the written Word. It falsifies everything, and is the assumption of power. It is evil. too, for it generally hides the sin which God's word would have either cured or set aside. And what means suspended communion? It is either a refusal to have faith and act upon it according to the Word, or else to bear the shame of incompetency, through sin, to find out God's mind about the matter in question, and ourselves and the assembly.

Again, what is the leaving of the table of one's own accord, or allowing others so to leave it? It is self-will, love of one's own way, and the expression of blindness as to the true character of the table.

P.S. — Whatever you do in any matters of the assembly of God, do it as having the heart and mind of Christ, as well as being one spirit with Him.

Account of Two Scenes,

Account of Two Scenes,

in which the world saw the unity of the church;

and so could believe that the Father sent the Son.

Acts 2: 41-47; and Acts 4: 31-35.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

FIRST SCENE.

"Then they that gladly received His word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." (Acts 2: 41-47.)

SECOND SCENE.

"And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts 4: 31-35.)

It cannot be denied then that there has been a manifestation of the body (the Church), and of the unity of that body on the earth at the beginning. Apostles and prophets upon earth, though a spectacle to angels in heaven, did not exercise their ministry in heaven; and the faithful who composed that unity, that body (the Church), were all upon earth.

The unity which I speak of is the unity of the Church, as a body on earth during this dispensation, the unity of a society here below. It was first produced by the sending of the Holy Spirit here below after Christ had ascended and been glorified; it only took place and existed after the sending of the Holy Spirit, and as the result of His mission. It is evidently something different from the unity of all the elect in heaven; for a great portion of these elect were already saved and removed from earth ere the unity that is spoken of began. It is a unity which belongs to the present time, between Pentecost and the coming again of the Lord, of which the Holy Spirit, sent down from above, was to be the strength. It is a unity which should have acted on the world, and consequently have been seen by the world. As the Saviour Himself said, "That they also may be one . . . that the world may believe," etc., and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit applied in effect to the welfare of the body here below. Further, that unity was visible at the beginning after Pentecost; all the manifested saints formed part of it. The joints of supply were all working in the unity of the body upon earth. Yes; there has been here below a manifestation of the unity of the body by the power of the Holy Spirit, carrying it out in all the joints of supply. These joints of supply did exist, and were active; and if any joint did not perform its functions aright, the Holy Spirit, by means of the apostles, applied the remedy, although Jesus was no more on earth. "What will ye," says Paul, "shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, or in a spirit of meekness?" Thus the glory of Christ was not in the dust here below. The Church, filled with the Holy Spirit, one and united, reflected in the midst of the darkness of the night of the world the glory of that hidden One, of Jesus its beloved Saviour. This manifestation of the glory of Christ by the Church in unity no longer exists. Is that a matter of indifference?

To me it is a subject for tears and deep humiliation. The glory of Christ present, so to speak, in the Church on earth, by the power of the Holy Spirit, shed all its light. on the cross, all its brightness on sin, and on the world. The cross, which began the Christian life, closed the life and hopes of the world; but it shone with all the brightness of the glory to which it led, and which was to be its crown. The cross and the crown were the two termini of the Christian life, the beginning and end of it. All the rest, all that lay between, was only passing away.

It was easy to be a stranger and a pilgrim, where the cross and the glory united together to place in its true light the world which had crucified the Lord of glory, where the world was for the heart — only the empty tomb of Christ; and for love — only the scene for a testimony borne to a glory and to a love which produced the ardent desire that He might come again quickly.

Is it so now? Are we united as at the beginning? Does that testimony of devotedness still exist? Are the glory of Christ and His coming things so present to the Church that every sacrifice is easy to it? that the cross is light for it? that the riches of this world are only for it an opportunity given of God to bear witness to His love, only unrighteous riches of which one frees oneself, as of a burden, in order to cast them into the treasuries of Christ, that they may come out transformed and purified in the waters of His love?

Am I to be satisfied when people tell me that the unity of the Church, in the bosom of which all this did manifest itself, can no longer exist, because "the first Christians, who formed part of it, are dead"? Ought my heart and my conscience to content themselves with such an answer?

Reader, is your heart satisfied with it? If it be, I have done reasoning.

If the manifestation of the glory of Christ in us and by us here below on earth, in His body, which is the Church, does not touch you, I have nothing more to tell you. If the heart is indifferent to all this, there is no more reasoning for the Spirit of God. But if it be only knowledge that you lack, may God deign to bless my words to your heart!

The doctrine of the unity of the church, as a body, whether at the beginning or through the whole duration of the dispensation, is closely connected with the doctrine of the presence of the Holy Spirit here below. If He unites the members which are on earth to those who have departed [and will unite all together in glory hereafter,] is it not just as true, that, being on earth as regards the order of the dispensations, He necessarily unites into one body all the Christians who are on earth? It is perfectly certain that this it is which He did at the beginning.

If, then, the Holy Spirit does not now visibly unite the children of God into one body — if that is now impossible (for whatsoever reason it may be), it is evident that the state of things established by God on earth, as the means of manifesting His glory, and as the instrument of testimony, has ceased to exist. You may give it what name you like - failure, ruin, apostacy.* It is one of the gravest facts, of the deepest import, in the kingdom and in the dispensations of God.

*If the Holy Spirit gives us to penetrate through that which envelopes the mystery of lawlessness, and if thus, before the full manifestation of the apostacy to the world, we can say, "There is the apostacy," it seems to me that to condemn the anticipative application of this expression to those who walk in the spirit of the apostacy, and who will be the apostacy when the veil is removed — it seems to me, I say, that this is less profitable and less true than to warn the Church of the circumstances in which it is placed. [As Jude said: "Enoch . . . prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh . . . to execute judgment . . . and to convince all the ungodly . . . of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him," although they were still hidden in the bosom of the church, where they had got in unnoticed. Man, reasoning according to his own views, might say, They are not "these" at all. According to man he would be correct. In fact, they were not these persons; but the Holy Spirit says "of these," because, though hidden, they were of the same race. It was the same principle; they were the same men, morally speaking; only the discernment of the Spirit was necessary in order to designate them. Is it wrong to speak as the Holy Spirit speaks?] If anyone found a plant which produced poisonous fruit while it was not yet the season for it to bear its fruit, and said to an ignorant person, This plant bears poisonous fruit, pay great attention to it, would there not be more blessing for that person than if it had been said, See that plant, it does not bear poisonous fruit? [Or, than if nothing had been said about it?] The first remark might, perhaps, fail in exactness, and be less logical than the second; but would it be less true, less seasonable?

In order that the force of the unity produced by the presence of the Holy Spirit may be better understood, I call attention to a fact. At the time of His first coming, Jesus, as Son of Man, was corporeally here below, although, as God, He was present everywhere. All the ways of God, on earth, were connected with that great fact; so it is also with respect to the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when He was going away, promised "another Comforter." That promise was fulfilled not many days after, and the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples, although He was present everywhere, inasmuch as He is God. According to the dispensation of God, the Holy Spirit dwells now also personally in the Church of God here below on earth. All the ways of God are connected with this great fact — the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The Spirit bears a living testimony to the glory of the Son of God, as the Son Himself glorified the Father while He abode here below.

This doctrine of the coming down of the Holy Spirit, and of His abiding presence on earth, in the Church, is evidently of the deepest import in the question of the unity of the Church.

At the beginning, "the Lord added to the Church . . . such as should be saved."

The expression (1 Cor. 12: 26) "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it" [and such like] is not applicable to the members of the body of Christ who are already in heaven. Either, then, this principle of love no longer finds any application, or the Church has yet a unity on earth, and must be viewed as a body which has "many members," but the members of which — of this body which is one, although they are "many" [members] — are but "one body." In its present state, that body has failed, is dilapidated, ruined, if you will.

The word apostacy has frightened some; it occurs in Scripture, however. As in Acts 21: 21, to forsake Moses, lit. apostacy from; 2 Thess. 2: 3, a falling away. And a word almost itself occurs for divorcement, Matt. 5: 31, Matt. 19: 7; and Mark 10: 4. Apostacy supposes the falling away from an original position in which that which is spoken of stood.

The failure or fall of man in the present dispensation is according to the analogy of all that ever came to pass until now. Sad are the proofs of the folly and weakness of man, and of the power of Satan, of our enemy, in every scene in which man has been tried.

Adam soon lost his innocency, and Eden.

Noah got drunk in his tent soon after the flood.

The Israelites made a golden calf before Moses came down from the mount.

Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire, before the days of their consecration were ended; and Aaron did not eat of the sin-offering as commanded.

Solomon, set up as king, in peace, fell into idolatry.

And even though the glory of Christ will have been manifested in the last days, the moment Satan is loosed, the nations will submit to him, and make war against the beloved city and camp of the saints.

The fall of man in the present dispensation, and the ruin of the dispensation, by means of man's unfaithfulness in keeping the deposit which was entrusted to him, is only a repetition of that which has been found in him from his creation downwards; in all the situations, in all the circumstances, in all the dispensations, in which he has been placed (or, alas! ever will be placed) on trial — failure, and nothing but failure, the result. If this did not take place in this dispensation, that would be which is contrary to the analogy of all that is presented to us in the history which is given to us in the Bible, and contrary to all that is revealed to us about man in all the dispensations of God.

P.S. — The subdivision of Christ's Church (His body) meets one on every hand. It puts me in mind (as all doubtless may have some separate portion of the form of the Church) of those who parted the Saviour's garments among themselves; while that one vest which could not be rended, which was inseparably one in its nature, was cut lots for whose it should be; but in the meanwhile, the name of Him, the presence of the power of whose life would unite them all in appropriate order, is left exposed and dishonoured. I fear, indeed, that they have fallen too much into the hands of those who care not for Him, and that the Lord will never clothe Himself with them again, viewed in their present state. That could not be when He appears in His glory. I say it not in presumption or dislike to any (for it is a reproach to me, a grievous burden; it is a humbling, most afflicting thought).

There was a second temple raised, by the mercy of God, after the long Babylonish captivity; but, alas! they learned to trust in it too much, and to say, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these;" haughty, because of the Lord's holy mountain, they looked at it as adorned with goodly stones and gifts, and ceased to look to the Lord of the temple; ceased almost to walk by faith, or to have communion in the hope of the return of the Messenger of the covenant to be the glory of the latter house. The unclean spirit of idolatry may have been purged out, but the great question still remained, Is there the effectual presence of the Spirit of the Lord? or is it merely empty, swept and garnished? Blessing, there was, but did they not disregard Him from whom it came, by pride and self-complacency, and seeking to turn it to their own, instead of going on to His, glory? If so, and (alas!) so it was, 1 Cor. 10: 1-14 may apply it to ourselves, for things happened to them as types (or ensamples).

In conclusion. Faith boasts not itself in the faithfulness of Him in whom it is. That could not be in a case in which the Lord has been put to shame in the "house of His friends," if one is of that house. Faith identifies itself rather; first, with the Lord (Ex. 32: 11-32), as did Moses of old, in zeal.

And secondly, with the sins of God's people, which are ours too, in deep humiliation of self, bearing them in confession before the Lord. Ezra 9 and Nehemiah 9 and Daniel 9 and Ezekiel 9, and Paul and Peter and John are witnesses of this, concurring therein with the ensample of their Lord Himself. (Luke 13: 33-35.)

O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him, Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws which He set before us by His servants the prophets. (Dan. 9: 8-10.)

And thirdly, in sympathy with the sorrows, misery, and even failure, of God's people, and in testimony too, as did Joshua and Caleb. Individual faithfulness does not prevent one feeling, in spite of oneself, the effect of the unfaithfulness of the company of which one forms a part; and though Joshua and Caleb reaped in the end the effect of their faithfulness, they experienced also, during the passage through the wilderness, the effect of the sins and unbelief of the assembly; nevertheless, not without receiving consolations and a strength in their hearts which the rest of the people did not enjoy. The members of the same body ought to wish and desire to suffer from the misery of the other members through love, through the Spirit of Christ and of charity. If they will not do so through love, they will have to do it through necessity and pressure from outside.

Two Prophecies through a Wicked Man

Two Prophecies through a Wicked Man.

John 11: 49-52.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

"Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, we know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of [or from] himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should [lit. was going to] die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that [lit. in order that] also he should [lit. might] gather together in [lit. into] one the children of God that were scattered abroad."

The first of these two predictions found a fulfilment (Acts 2); but still awaits its fullest. (Rom. 11: 26-32.)

The second is, that Jesus was going to die in order that He might gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Surely in "gathered together into one" there is unity. And the children of the heavenly family — of His Father and our Father, His God and our God (John 20: 17), were not known as such till He was risen; after that they knew Abba, and the Firstborn among many brethren, and the Spirit of adoption and the unity of the brotherhood in their own family. (1 John.) Again, Jesus, the good One, prophesied the same. (John 12: 24, 32.)

Reader, will your ignorance make void God's promise? or the truth of the realization of the unity which faith gives to me and to the rest of the children?

Two Requests of the Lord to His Father

Two Requests of the Lord to His Father.

John 17: 11, 12, 20, 21.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

Verses 11, 12: "I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through [lit. in or by] Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we. While [lit. when] I was with them in the world, I kept them* in Thy name: those that Thou gavest Me I have kept [lit. guarded], and none of [lit. no one out of] them is lost [lit. has perished], but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled."

Verses 20, 21 "Neither pray [lit. ask] I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

*Jesus, besides being faithful as the responsible Master to His twelve apostles, had been thoughtful of the eleven in another way, even as of those to whom He had given title to become sons of God. (John 1: 12, 13.), This the son of perdition shared not, for he had not received the Lord. The eleven He had kept in the power of the name of His own Father. Now, He asks the Father to keep [treasure up] them in His own name.

BOTH of these requests are about unity.

The first request that as He the Son had preserved and guarded in His Father's name a people, through the days of His trial in humiliation [His Father had given them to Him] (v. 12), the Father should now keep them Himself according to what was involved in that name of the Father — My Father and your Father. When the Holy Spirit, promise of the Father, came down on Pentecost — gift of the Father through the Son (Acts 2: 33, 36), then the power and the instrumental means were evident; viz., the Holy Spirit's use of the apostles in testimony to the Lord Jesus, and working with it too. In the Galatian epistle we find, "Ye are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26); and (Gal. 4: 4, 6) "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made [lit. become] of a woman, made [lit. become] under law, to redeem them that were under the law . . . that we might receive the adoption of sons [the adoption of sons; lit. son-place or sonship]. And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." This flowed out of the place the Son was in; and was by the Holy Spirit Himself who was, and is, Spirit of God and of Christ. (Rom, 8)

The expressions, "Holy Father, keep in Thine own name," "Whom I kept in thy name," put the relationship of the names of Father and Son very forward before the mind. It is the leading idea in the truth here presented. But what a way of putting it! that the reality of the relationship, right out from the heart and mind of the Father might be realized in us, "that they may be one, as we."

The second contains another unity, and is "not for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word," and here a visible result to be attained is stated, "That the world may believe that Thou didst send Me." The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth; for it sees Him not, nor knows [not having learnt or been taught of] Him. (John 14: 17.) Nor can it know [intuitively perceive] the things of God. (1 Cor. 2: 10-16.) The unity here is not as "in the name of the Father" (name or manifestation supposed by the title "Father," as used by Jesus), and as true, fully so, to Him, but "as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us." The mode of manifestation is here in question. There was and is essential union between the Father and the Son, besides that of ostensible relationship and full fellowship (true also of the Holy Spirit) in counsels, plans (as well as nature), in truth, affections, thoughts, in life, or being, and in principle, and hence indirectly in outward practice and walk; that "they may be one, as we."

How near the unity and fellowship (unqualified by any let or drawback) lay to the Lord's mind when making these two requests (referred to above) is proved by what follows. In those requests He had, as Son of Man and One in service representing the Father, and accomplishing His will — in full intelligence and fellowship with the Father, yet in thorough dependence and obedience — asked two things as having full liberty to do so. But then follows what shows a change. He does not request as One in service requesting of One on an equality with Himself (which would well become Him as the perfect Servant of God and the Father); but says, knowing right well that all His actings were in full accordance with the Father's mind:

Verses 22, 23. "And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that [in order that] they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me."

Unity twice spoken of. By His having given to us the glory which the Father had given to Him, He showed His intention of all being shut in toward the end in His glory in perfect unity. When the millennial glory sets in, all that Christ is will shine into, and through us, as all that the Father is will shine unhinderedly into, and out through the Son; and this will make the Church, in that day, the vessel of the display through the Son of the Father's being and glory, perfected in one! And the world below will know that the Father sent the Son. The prince of this world, the god of this world, set aside as a usurper, and the Lord become the Father of an age (Isa. 9: 6), such will be the world's knowledge and acknowledgement (see Isa. 4: 4-6) as it looks up to the heavenly glory on high.

Wondrous addition made by the Lord to what He means to accomplish, "that the world may know that Thou hast . . . loved them as Thou hast loved Me." Yes, if we suffer with Him, we shall share His glory.

Secondly (which shows the fixedness of His mind about this unity) He adds:

Verse 24, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world."

Not only are we to share the highest of the given redemption and salvation-glory — such his love and purpose — but His own heart's desire is that His nearest and dearest friends, partakers of His sorrow, should behold Himself there in "the more excellent glory;" in glory, eye-witnesses of His majesty, and hearing the voice uttered in heaven to Him in the excellent glory — "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight." Our object of adoration and worship when we are peacefully beholding His place in the highest glory!

Thirdly, He adds in verse 26, confirmatory of fellowship with Him and the Father, as verse 25 is of our complete severance from the world through His grace:

Verse 26. "And I have declared [lit. made known] unto them Thy name [i.e. that which is Thy manifestation under that title of Father], and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

As the two preceding blessings are, in their full import, for the time to come, yet hope now lays hold of both of them; and, in one sense, the second is open to us, in that the Son is already in the Father and in His glory, yet in the third we have a portion for the wilderness all through it. No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is [lit. He being] in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him [lit. told out in detail]. (John 1: 18), And again verse 14: "The word was made [lit. became] flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld [contemplated] His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of [or with] the Father) full of grace and truth;" "and (v. 16) of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." John could write of what he had known; have we no songs to sing while glorying in our God through our Lord Jesus Christ? (Rom. 5: 11) And what will it open into when we are with Himself above the Mount!

"Inclusive" and "Exclusive."

"Inclusive" and "Exclusive."

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

There is but one holy universal Church. It was formed by God at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit (the promise of the Father) was sent down by Jesus (Lord and Christ in heaven) to form it, and to dwell in it. He makes all its parts to be one body, from Pentecost to the Lord's return. He works everything that is of God in them and by them, and is Himself that which makes them to be fitted for the Head glorified on high.*

*It is the promise of God, the Holy Spirit dwelling down here on earth among the quickened sons of God, which fits them and constitutes them the one Church — the body of that glorified Man, born of the Virgin Mary by the overshadowing, to whom it was said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall he called the Son of God." (Luke 1: 35) There is a unity of the Spirit and a unity of the faith. (Eph. 4: 3, 13.)

Our marks, as members in particular of Christ, and also as a society or fellowship, are to be both "inclusive" and "exclusive." "Called out from evil and to be filled up with good," is every child of God, and it is such only who are in position in the body.

When first taken up we were all badness, and the good alone in God. But He shined into us the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, sealing it with His Spirit, who formed in us an incorruptible seed, and made us partakers of the divine nature. The evil was covered and met to faith by Rom. 6; the good found and made ours in spirit by Eph. 2: 4-10. The Church, however, is on earth, in a wicked world, and all and each individual in it has the law of sin and death in the vessels into which the treasure has been put. We have to bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus therefore; and are always delivered unto death. For two reasons: 1st, we have sinful flesh, and Satan is near; 2nd, because God would have it hourly tested, and seen that the excellency of the power of keeping us is of God and not of us. His way is the way of resurrection from the dead, in lifelong application. If evil breaks out, He judges it, for He is holy. God separates us from ourselves by forming and keeping Christ in us, who are changed into the same image from glory to glory.

The Church is, then, and each member of it must be, both inclusive and exclusive; and the excluding of evil by the including of the perfection of good, God in Christ, sealed home by the Spirit, as marking us to be Christ's through His quickening power.

God used the Christ in humiliation (Rom. 6) to meet and free us from all that was contrary to us in nature, and to give us power over sin. God used the Christ in Eph. 2: 4-10 to separate us unto the very highest blessing in pure goodness. Included and excluded were in God's mind; let included and excluded be in your minds and in mine.

I was an atom, in perhaps the two hundred and fiftieth generation from Adam and Eve; six millenniums nearer the great white throne than was the hour of shutting out from Eden. I am now part of a company fitted for, espoused to, Christ; about to be the Bride, the wife expectant, of the Lamb.

Sin and its torrents of woe saved from! A loving Saviour, my portion and my home! Sin and death judged; righteousness and life eternal gloried in!

In PRACTICE — the first duty down here, as to others, is to own and to confess and maintain the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and the Church as God set it up. According to that I am to include myself and all that are Jesus Christ's, and are walking as saints — as those that are to exclude both all sin, and those that will walk contrary to the blessed truth we have received. The God-made church did so while intelligently under the rule of the Spirit and the Word. Many a man-made church cannot do so. Its self-made laws prevent it; or man-ruled, it sees not why it should do so, or how it can, as having members of its ownself, receive those who are not such.

The Church, object of faith, in the Word, counts that every true child of God is, to God's mind, a member in particular of Christ, that his place therefore is at the table, and that, to God's mind, he is subject to all the discipline of the Church, and of the house of God on earth. We must do likewise; include all such as on the muster-roll of God's Church, and as those who are excluded from sin's and world's and Satan's way.

Unholiness in theory, morality, doctrine, or practice, puts anyone under discipline (various in measures), for the chaste virgin espoused may not walk heedlessly. And discipline comes in correctively.

We cannot give up the faith as to the unity of the Church, nor act as if we did by going there where it has been and is denied; and we are bound by God's rules as to holiness, and can recognise no child of God who is unholy, save as being under the Father's or the Lord's discipline.

It is asked, "Would you receive a godly member of an independent church to 'occasional communion?' or of one of the national establishments?"

Faith answers: "A child of God is a member of Christ, and is of the Church militant. All such we receive, because Christ has received them; they are permanently members of His body, though they know it not. If any such come, who are walking as the Word enjoins, receive them." If they come on that ground, all their own practical inconsistency rests with themselves. If I accepted them on the statement to "occasional communion," I make myself guilty as sanctioning that which the Word does not. It is one's duty, however, to them in love to explain to them, that all who are at the table are equally included under the doctrine and discipline of the written Word. This, I have found, has deterred many. But discipline is of the Lord and the Father, and many shirk owning themselves subject to it.

Again, in the fifty isms of the day there are some, the error and principles of which would forbid, by the fear of the Lord, any one who is of it being received. A Jesuit might be indeed a child of God, and wish to come. Faithfulness would say, "No; your avowed principles justify 'doing evil that good may come.'" So of Romanism. Socinianism denies Christianity.

A congregation ("Independent of the Independents." as its form is called in England) in Bristol acted, and persisted in acting, as if neither it nor its (so-called) members were responsible as believers to avoid indifferentism to the glory of Christ. Faith says, "Touch not the unclean thing, accredit not its letters commendatory, receive none such; they are not clean." Often there is leaven working and making itself manifest in the conduct, and that might exclude; and, alas! often does.

It is very kindly of denominational congregations to receive, or to be willing to receive, to the communion any who, not having their names in the book of "the members of it," might wish or be willing to be there; but they are not consistent in doing so, or if they have a clause in their rules to sanction it, that is a second departure from Scripture, as much as is their constitution.

But faith is consistent; it sees every child of God to be a member of Christ, and if not otherwise disqualified, it can receive him or them without difficulty.*

*Wherever the special membership of a humanly made and arranged church (as in nonconformity and national churches) is owned, the universality of God's Church is ignored so far forth; and their reception (as they say for occasional communion) of one not a 'regular member' is a practical inconsistency with them. Not so with those who, acting in faith of the universal church, can and ought to receive all who are holy. Holiness may not be compromised. Better walk alone all one's days than grieve the Holy Spirit.

This is what one writing against the special membership of dissenting and self-made churches, assigned as one argument against their position: "If I am a member of the whole body, I am a member of the parts of this body, which meet in divers places; it is not a question of becoming such — I am such already. This is the principle I have always maintained, and on which I have insisted and acted. By the very fact that I am a Christian, I have all the claims of a member of the body wherever I may be found. It is not a right which I acquire by joining any particular body; it is a right which I possess as a member of the body of Christ."*

*The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby. (Ecclesiastical.) Vol. 1.

Strong ground for the one who is acting as honouring the holy universal Church of God, and not man-made national, or dissenting churches. But this existent fellowship with the sons of God everywhere in God's Church universal, which forces [Peter saw that he must either accredit Cornelius and the work of God in his house, or give up his own standing, "Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gifts as unto us, who believed on the lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could withstand God?" (Acts 11: 17)] me to own them, does not obliterate that other word, "Holy." It grows out of it, to say the truth. The holiness is the parent of the universality. Our holiness is our separation from evil by the power of good revealed in us.

Receive therefore, I should say, every child of God who is walking with God.

But do not let your own distinctive position or ground be lost sight of or covered over; to quote a favourite text, "Let them return to thee, but go not thou to them." And insist too, I should add, upon discipline as being over all.

On Heresy

On Heresy.

from Memorials of the ministry of G. V. Wigram.

Vol. 2, Part 1, Ecclesiastical.

Fifth Edition

Heresy is not departing from the figure of truth, but from the Spirit of truth, and it is the spirit of the heretic we are called upon to judge as a work of the flesh more than the fruit in the form of doctrine.

The Scriptures are given to us by God as "a complete depository and standard of truth"; they contain all we need to know as Christians, and by them every error may be detected.

But who is the interpreter of Scripture? I answer, "The Holy Ghost." As the Lord Jesus Christ is more or less directly the subject of all Scripture testimony, so is the Holy Ghost the only authorised and infallible interpreter of it. True, He gives to each babe in Christ the unction whereby to know all things, and gives, too, various measures of capacity in understanding; He may also give teachers to the Church, and gifts of wisdom and knowledge as blessed links of connection between Himself, the Interpreter, and the children whom He teaches; diligence and carefulness of study, and a pure conscience undefiled have also their place in the learner. But still the Holy Ghost Himself alone is the Interpreter; to Him, as God, the plans of God and the glory of Christ are fully known and precious, and it is His ability, and willingness, and faithfulness which constitute the security that each humble soul shall receive its own measure of truth. In honouring Him the saints find great power and enlargement and unity in the truth; and the reverse is true if they dishonour Him. May He guide us whilst considering "heresy."*

*The word hairesis, heresy, means a choice; the verb hairetizo, to heretise, occurs in Matthew 12: 18, "my servant whom I have chosen." There is another word akin to it, haireomai in Philippians 1: 23, "What I shall choose I wot not." 2 Thessalonians 2: 13, "From the beginning chosen you." Hebrews 11: 20, Choosing rather to suffer."

The most insidious way in which this is done is setting the gifts above the Giver; trusting to the teacher or his wisdom, or to the divine mind in ourselves, and its measure of development, and thus really to forget the Person and agency of the Holy Ghost, without whose present energy everything will only work ruin.

The first thing I would observe is that heresy is said to be a work of the flesh (Gal. 5: 20), "the works of the flesh are . . . seditions, heresies, envyings." Whether the flesh is here looked at more immediately as the root whence heresy in the principle of it arises, or as the energy of the sects and factions in which heresy displays itself, matters not; both are true. If anyone, instead of looking for the Holy Spirit's guidance, dabbles with his own mind in Scripture, he will see either something in the book which is not there, or the contents of the book out of their proper order and relative importance, etc., and here heresy begins. He has, unconsciously perhaps, dishonoured the Holy Ghost, and honoured himself. The leaven of heresy, it may be, is now at work in him; if so, and if he does not judge himself, the leaven will by-and-by show itself. He will either broach things which are not at all in the book, or he will broach a connection of things which is not true, or he may diminish the importance of foundation truth, or magnify unduly the importance of some item or point of superstructure truth. How the captiousness shows itself matters not. He will deal with the truth not as a Spirit-led man would. Moreover, when the enemy is working by heresy, he rarely takes as instruments those who are offensive to human nature, yea, many natural beauties and ornaments may cover the plot; but the puffing and breaking of the bubbles within will soon call on the saints for judgment. If they do not anticipate the evil, it will rise and fall over; he will draw away disciples after him; a sect will be formed round himself, and the man is a heretic (Titus 3: 19); the progress of the work will, unless grace prevent it, be, through the lowering of trust in Christ, and in the personal presence of the Holy Ghost, to destruction of the whole batch. (1 Peter 2: 1.)

Observe, heresy is a moral evil, and is inside the Church; it begins in a man interposing self in the place of the Holy Ghost as to the interpretation or apprehension of truth . . . the captiousness of the human mind becomes evident, and the evil works on to the schism of the body into sects. Thus heresy, it is to be observed, becomes in practice a denial of Philippians 3: 15-17.

Brethren, it is a solemn word: "There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." (1 Cor. 11: 19.) The Holy Ghost assures us that it is God alone who can and who will preserve His own; but the saints should watch. The poor of the flock I beseech to notice, that heresy has a great deal more to do with the spirit in which things are held and taken up, and propagated, than with the thing itself which is held or propagated, Every Christian, however simple, can watch the spirit in which friends hold and set out their views. Is it Christ-like? Is it like the apostles? Does it keep truth in its place and proportion?

Is conscience, and not only intellect, drawn into action'? are questions the simplest can apply.

Observe, the words heresy and sect are in the Greek both hairesis. The word is correctly rendered (Acts 5: 17), the sect of the Sadducees, and (Acts 15: 3) of the Pharisees, and (Acts 26: 5) the straitest sect of our religion. These were parties or sects formed by Jews whose minds had played with the Jewish religion. That the common thought of Christ's religion was formed by a comparison of it with these sects is plain (see Acts 24: 5), where Tertullus accuses Paul before Felix of being "a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes," and (v. 14) Paul admits "that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I," and (Acts 28: 22) "as concerning this sect we know that it is everywhere spoken against," said the Jews at Rome to Paul.

As heresy begins with the natural mind playing with truth, so its mode and means of success are the getting the saints upon hard points and questions, and a thinking instead of praying. Paul communicated his gospel privately to them of reputation (Gal. 2: 12); the heretic does it privately also, but to the weak, and especially to women (2 Tim. 3: 6); and so in a twenty years' experience have I always found it, and this is obvious, because the simple, on the one hand, are often puzzled about conceits, for pressing which heretics have been excommunicated, and yet these are not heretics; they mourn over their own perplexities in secret, and trouble no one with them. On the other hand, they would oft, through ignorance, deny what the heretic would deny through wickedness. I press this because such is the only safe and sure test, and every Christian may use it; no other test, indeed, can apply, because while few have large a knowledge of history as to know in what forms of error as to doctrine heresy has been displayed, none can know the forms which it may hereafter take; and, besides, "error does not constitute heresy;" and again (as we shall see) the worst heresies grow out of truths misapplied.

As every man in sound mind intuitively feels it to be his duty to take care of human life, so every Christian is responsible to guard against heresy. Of course, in doing this great watchfulness must be kept over our own spirit. A man may be very positive in holding, and heady in pressing, fancies; such, for instance, as that "the world" in John 3 means "the elect world," or that all men are pardoned, though believers only are saved; or that the temple in Revelation 11 means the literal temple; or the overweening bias, the crotchet, might be devotedness; the great tribulation,* the sudden rapture, etc. His manner of holding and pressing his views might be as bad as his doctrine was defective, and yet grace might see that there was no sanction of evil — bitter herbs are not leaven — and the things after all may be kept in a subordinate place.

*I conceive saints in our days should mark and discountenance the way in which many, who hold opposite views on the subject, hold and press the point, Where will the Church be in the great tribulation? So far as man goes this way marks real mental disease, and to the spiritual mind it is heretical in tendency at least. And what is the effect of their dragging everyone after the same point, and giving it an under place as though (all-important as it is in connection with our hope) it formed part of our foundation? The Lord will neither hasten, nor delay, nor change, His movements because of our thoughts; neither will He teach concerning His movements those who will argue and think out truth, instead of praying it out as they were wont to do. When truth becomes a matter of argumentation, naughty arguments are sure to be had recourse to, inferences and consequences, and tradition, and threats perhaps used. They that do such (Rom. 16: 17, 18), one has well said, "to the man who will systematise it, the Bible says, 'I am none of your sort.'" Canons of interpretation and human standards are poor things in sanctuary light.

Some heresies have been formed upon the denial of foundation doctrines, as Arianism, and some upon points of superstructure, as Anabaptism. But of all kinds of heresy, I conceive the worst is that which is so formed upon truth as to make truth appear to be on one side, and the Holy Ghost opposed to it on the other. If God saw me (for example) separating myself in spirit, affection, thought, or action, from the members of Christ now on the earth, to a section of it which was characterised either by knowledge of truth, or by supposed freedom from error, or if He saw me trying to form such a party, He would, I judge, see marks of incipient heresy. In both cases I should be opposing truth to the Holy Ghost; in the former case I set the Holy Ghost in life in the members, below knowledge or freedom from error; in the latter case, I, in practice, oppose knowledge, etc., to the Holy Ghost in His mode of working; for His aim is not to form schools well taught, or free from defect and error, but to build up the living members of God's household in separatedness to God and in brotherly love. If such a thing worked out into a sect it would be pre-eminently evil.

And it is to be observed, that not only is a sect which takes a truth for its basis, and opposes it to the Holy Ghost, the worst form of heresy; but also that the intensity of the evil increases directly as the purity of the truth; for example, a sect built upon a correct view of an ordinance would be bad; but a sect built upon a correct view of resurrection and glory, or any points about them, would be worse; yea, worst of all would be a sect built upon such a truth as the power of the Holy Ghost, through the blood of Christ, to give present peace with God, and this might easily be the case; it might result thus, because I hold assurance to be of the essence of faith, I might refuse to accredit as Christians those who had not assurance, and might form a sect on that most blessed and precious truth, rending an inflamed limb from the sickly and enfeebled body, because I mistook the feverish state for the warmth and glow every member of the body when in health should possess, whereas the Holy Ghost has united in one all who know the blood of Jesus as salvation.

Heresy is in principle the playing of the flesh with truth, and is the sending into parties those who should be one. May the Lord keep His saints watching and praying.

The sum of what I say is this, God has given us a standard of truth, and a Guide for the understanding and use of it. Heresy is not, as some take it to mean, some undefined error in doctrine, but consists in the flesh setting aside the Guide, and itself attempting to use the standard, the end of which will be sects as one of old, Augustine, said.

Remarks on the English Psalter

Remarks on the English Psalter

G. V. Wigram.

from 'Memorials' Vol. 2, Part Second, CRITICAL.

1876-7.

Contents

Preface

Remarks on the English Psalter

Translation of the First Book of Psalms (1 - 41).

"TWO ESSAYS ON THE HEBREW TENSES.

San Francisco and Auckland on to Sydney.

(26.10.77.  Put by till England, Si placebat illi." [being an])

Examination of the Hebrew Bible as to the Structure and Idiom of the Language

Translation of Genesis 1 - 4

Showing the style of Scripture, or the mode of revelation when written.

This last is good. G.V.W.

Preface.

Piety in the reading of Scripture is precious, and I thank God that there are many (whose mother tongue is English) who study the English Psalter.

Still to piety must be added divine intelligence, or we shall come short of blessing; for that which men call the Old Testament presents us with the providential and governmental ways of the Creator toward man upon earth. Man was on trial. After he had fallen, could he save himself? And it was not until the gospel of Jesus Christ the Saviour came, and was given forth in the New Testament, that life and immortality were brought to light. Man a ruined creature tried — is always man lost. Israel, indeed, will have passed through more than three thousand years of trial and failure as a nation ere it gives up its self-righteousness. A man as fallen deserves nothing at God's hand but rejection; but Christ, "the man that is Jehovah's fellow," "God manifest in flesh," overcame and won for Himself a place, in which, on God's behalf, He is now Saviour of the lost, Saviour to all who find grace to receive Him. He alone is a ruined sinner's refuge, Himself, who died on the cross, and rose again, deserves everything at God's hand; this is through faith the believer's rest, and here should be the centre and end of our new, our eternal life,

If still standing upon his own ground as a mere creature, a man may find in the Psalms how others have been upon the path he is treading, and been, too, in deeper sorrow and difficulties than himself; but while still holding fast to self, he will not see how Christ suffered for our sins, and now lives for us who believe in Him, so that we may live to Him, and wait for Him till He comes to fetch us. Self and worldliness, and acting for time, will as naturally result from the one course as unselfishness, heavenly-mindedness, and living to God and Christ result from the other; viz., that of seeing Christ as the one great Person and subject of the Psalms. The testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, as in His teaching, is always to Jesus and His works, etc.

No one can understand the Psalms aright who does not see Christ in them. Read any book without seeing the writer's mind in it, and you will misunderstand it.

Language supposes the power of intercommunion between those that use it. But it supposes more; viz., correspondence of mind, to some extent, in them, and not only the knowledge of the forms of speech of the particular language in question. These, however perfect they may be, are not equal to the mind that can use them, and which judges of their force, or else uses them amiss.

Wonderful and adorable is He who, being God, has Himself spoken as God manifest in flesh to man; and who has referred, too, to the pre-eminent authority of the written Word. (John 5: 46, 47.) Man is thus left without excuse. And, note it, men could understand Him; for through grace many did so, unto eternal life. He who made man Himself knows the mind and faculties of man; and He could, and did, use words with life-giving power, so as to bow the will of man, and move hearts and minds and consciences in those that received Him.

But more than this, God the Holy Spirit (owning the Anointed of God as the centre and end of all God's actings) has given to us not only the truth as presented in Jesus when down here, and who then went on high and sent down the Holy Spirit to form us down here for Himself, but He has also given us God's counsel, plans, choice, ways, and the outline of the future from the cross of the Christ (as the One in whom a heavenly and an earthly people were destined from before the foundation of the world to be secured) until His new heavens and new earth, yet to come, be set up.

Now observe this. He, Jesus, has been born of the Virgin Mary, by the Holy Spirit; has lived on this earth; has made good His testimony, and done His work. He suffered on Calvary, but now (risen from among the dead) He sits at God's right hand. Grace had from the beginning delighted in the Son; and it cast much in the histories of men of God down here (as Adam, Noah, Moses, David, etc.) into types of Him that was to come. And further, when He came as Messiah, and was rejected, He opened up His glory as the last Adam, life-giving Spirit, and Heir of all things. But Himself has come, has made atonement in death under judgment, and is now pardon and life-giver to the believer. Note this, because the first book of the Psalms (1 to 41) gives us Himself and His position at His first coming; the experiences He then made, and what He did thereon. He had access to Jerusalem, and was found there; and there were in Jerusalem and in the land Israelites who were waiting for the consolation promised. But He is now on high, earth rejected, though heaven honoured.

Now if I study the first three gospels, I get light divine upon this first book of the Psalms. They give me the pictures of Himself, and as going through His course of humiliation — the moral side of Himself and His life on earth, from Bethlehem till His receiving up into glory.

In the Acts and the Epistles, I get a God-inspired yet detailed commentary upon this humiliation and its results, whether immediate or on to the final state. Such being the case, I do not think it too much to say, that if I or you, reader, are acquainted as we (made partakers of the benefit) ought to be with the Gospels and Acts and Epistles, then the first forty-one Psalms will be read in the light of God, and not merely (blessed as that is) with reverence and piety. Of one thing we are sure; God, when He wrote these Psalms, used words correctly according to the truth of what was before His own mind and of that which came to pass. Read these Psalms according to God's mind in them, then according to that which was true as to the being, position, experiences, etc., of the Anointed man. They are given to us by God in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles. And you will find both humbling enough, while so occupied, and intelligence to gladden your heart and brighten your mind through the operation of the Spirit given to those that believe. Nothing has struck my own mind, after the perusal of the Psalms and the Gospels, more than the moral impossibility of any created mind having originated the idea, firstly, of such a wondrous person as the Lord Jesus was, individually and morally too; and, secondly, of the necessity for such an One to be found and to come in if the whole outline of truth as presented in the Psalter was to be made good.

So Saul of Tarsus, when locked up in nature's darkness, but glorying (after the flesh) in Abram and David, what a contrast from Paul when he saw that Jesus had taken Moses' place and David's! Read the epistle to the Hebrews, and contrast Paul with Saul, and the contrast is less, really, than when you see the contrasts between Christ with His Melchizedek priesthood, sin done away, and Aaron with his priesthood ever recalling sin to mind: the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched in heaven, and the perishable tabernacle in the wilderness. What a contrast!

Any translation which really contains one jot or one tittle at variance with the truth of Jesus Christ and any part of His work must, so far forth, be in error, and the error should be corrected. But while learning the truth through the text and by the Spirit, I must know God's truth, His subject in eternity, and heaven as my subject, ere I can correct my defects in doctrine, or read the Psalms aright.

Context is said by some to be the key to the Hebrew language. I have no objection to make to this statement. I wish it had been more followed out and acted upon. I remark, however, that the observation is necessarily true of every language. For instance, in Greek, let any one write a disquisition on the term "beginning" as connected with our Lord. If he does not mark and observe the contexts of Gen. 1: 1, and Mark 1: 1, and John 1: 1, and its force generally in John, he will be without a right clue, even if he fall not into error. A teachable mind has to weigh forms and terms of a language ere using them; and much more important still in divine grace is the mind of the Spirit of God as given to the believer. (John 6: 52, 63; 1 Cor. 2)

REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH PSALTER.

I was struck some years ago with the fact of there existing in English two authorized translations* of the Psalms of David, that of the Prayer Book, and that of the Bible This fact, and another connected with it; viz., that so far from being identical, these two authorized versions differ widely the one from the other, both impressed me.

* Bagster and Sons, Paternoster Row, London, published these, side by side, with notes by L. C. L. Brenton; and also a hexaglot Psalter, presenting the Hebrew, and the Bible, and the Vulgate, and Jerome's, and the Prayer Book, and the LXX versions in parallel columns, all visible at one and the same time.

I had no leisure then in which to follow up the subject.

My lot had been cast providentially where the English language had sway, and I had received the authorized version as a gift from God in His grace and providence. But to that same providence I owed the knowledge of Hebrew and Greek and Latin, and felt called upon, whenever I could, to examine God's book as He wrote it, and to see how far man had, in any measure, mingled anything with the unsullied transparency of the Word. God's truth is so divine and unique, that it will shine forth even out of a defective translation. But this would not justify anyone in preferring, for any reason whatsoever, a bad to a good version of the same.

The painful impression (referred to above) was deepened when I had leisure to examine the books referred to on the previous page. It was also confirmed by the new translation into German in the recent Elberfeld Bible, etc.

I began to look at the question seriously, and this little book is one result thereof.

1. I have, in my prefatory remarks, set forth the test and touchstone, to which every statement as from Scripture must be submitted.

2. The correctness of this is confirmed by the Authorized Version. Its weak points and failures grew up out of comparative ignorance in the learned translators of the subject of Old Testament prophecy; viz., man, the human being, after the fall, in which the race was ruined, under the providence, and government of God. He was tried as to whether he could restore himself. If they had seen that as the subject, they never would again and again have put the New Testament assembly forward in the Old Testament as that in which the promises to Israel were to be fulfilled. For the Old Testament presented man failed and failing while trusting to himself; the New Testament presents God's great salvation in Christ. Nor would they, if they had understood God's subject in the New Testament (viz., the Man that was Jehovah's fellow, winning, as the only obedient One, all things for Himself), ever have made His Church, as set up at Pentecost, to be the means of introducing the millennium instead of its ending in Babylon. Then will He come forth, His heavenly saints already with Him in heaven, and set up the kingdom on earth in Israel. God has used and honoured their translation. I bless His name for it. Yet through it would I go on toward something better.

3. Much, of course, turns upon the right understanding of what has been called by the Rabbis moods and tenses. Can I present the difficulties in this part of the subject to the mere English reader? I judge it might be done, and done in a way that the thoughtful would see, first, the difficulty on the Hebrew side of the question; and secondly, by carefully comparing it with a supposed representative in English of the Hebrew Psalter, get valuable help, or at least food for thought.

In trying to do this, I would (with as little alteration as possible) use the English Bible translation; drawing out from it words, and marking in English what will correspond with the Hebrew as to its moods and tenses; this representation of the Psalms carrying in it the signs and marks of the table adjoined.

Hebrew grammarians tell us that there are but four moods (or modes) in Hebrew — the Indicative, the Infinitive, the Imperative, and the Participial forms.

And that it is only the Indicative which has tenses which mark times. The older writers call the first of these two the Perfect; and the second, the Future (now called by many the Present).

TABLE OF SIGNS AND MARKS.

INDICATIVE MOOD

p to mark the English word which represents the Hebrew word, which the Rabbis say is a perfect, and which carries the pronominal affix (or sign of the person) at its end.

f to mark the English word which represents the Hebrew word, which the Rabbis say is a future, and which carries the pronominal prefix (or sign of the person) before it.

The persons in both are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, sing. and plural.

INFINITIVE MOOD

b to stand before every INFINITIVE.

IMPERATIVE MOOD

c before every IMPERATIVE.

PARTICIPIAL FORMS

d before every PARTICIPLE.

"AND" THE CONJUNCTION

v to precede every "and" however translated, "and" being called in Hebrew vav.

Thus, Bible version:

Ps. 1: 1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

v. 3. And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Ps. 2: 8. Ask, etc.

Ps. 3 Title a Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom, etc.

Ps. 1: 1. "Walk," "stand," "sit," are in Hebrew perfects.

v. 3. "Do," "prosper," are futures.

Ps. 2: 8. "Ask" is an imperative.

Ps. 3 Title "fled" is an infinitive.

Which might be represented thus:

Ps. 1: 1. Blessed is the man that p has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, v and in the way of sinners p has not stood, v and in the seat of d the scornful p has not sat.

v. 3. v And all that f he does f shall prosper.

Ps. 2: 8. "c Ask."

Ps. 3 Title b in his fleeing from, etc.

This may suffice for an illustration.

[What can be observed in any of the languages in which God has been pleased to write, I would state. Let others correct and add more.

1. Neither of the so-called tenses (both of which are in the Indicative Mood) has absolutely what we call a time of its own.

p The preterite, or perfect, naturally and properly refers man (but then it may do so in one way or another) to a past time; e.g. "In the beginning God p created the heaven and the earth. And the earth p was without form, and void." (Gen. 1: 1, 2.) By "created" and "was" God marked a time past; and we have creation and its original state ere it was afterwards formed to its state as fitted for Adam.

But then GOD says that He has a way of His own: "He calleth things which are not as though they were."* (Rom. 4: 17.) He does so sometimes. And to the mind of man, if humble and attentive, there is no mistake likely to arise. God is in eternity, and if He speaks His purpose and intention, and speaks of it thus: "p I have made thee a father of many nations," there is no mistake. To Him all time is. People around Abraham might jeer him for his credulity. But Abraham (as we see Rom. 4) knew the ground he was upon, and took God at His word. The fiat of God's word is a sure ground for faith to rest upon; and Abraham looked away from himself and his circumstances to God and His power and truthfulness. To this I may return again. But what the Rabbis called Pret. or Perf. is contingent, or dependent,† as to its time, as noticed above. And the use of the term "tense," either as to it or the other form, is calculated to lead the mind in a wrong direction.

*Gen. 12 to 17 may be studied as to this way of God, and the prophets also, and the New Testament. Many instances are there.

†I prefer either of these terms (as giving a positive idea) to the term aorist, which (if I understand it) is negative.

f has still more of this contingent, dependent character about it. In p there is its own distinctive characteristic as past; and my impression is that none of the apparent exceptions are exceptions at all. The law stands good; only the law has a wider range than man's range; for man is man, and on earth and in time; but this mode and style of speaking is found to have been adopted by men, holy and unholy, in Scripture. God speaks in the past, of that which is in counsel and purpose, and therefore as sure as if it were done already. Man will be found in Scripture to have so spoken where his own mind was fixed and settled that so it should be — changing will, his own mortality, the power of circumstances being overlooked, and surcharging with uncertainties his "I have done it." God is God, and eternity and heaven are His; and His counsels, plans, fiats, stand within His circle, and cover over to faith (now that they are revealed to us) all difficulties. But f, as I said, is more absolutely contingent. "Whatsoever he f doeth shall f prosper." (Ps. 1: 3.) Here we have apparently a present time and a future time. It could be said of Christ, "All that He does shall prosper." He, the corn of wheat, had to die, that it might bring forth much fruit. His cross here and the throne there above are inseparable. In many a Scripture the Spirit has put forward for the faithful the attributes and character of Jehovah — His actings, too, as prayer-hearing, or as having appointed certain things to be hereafter, as glory or judgment. Faith would naturally say, "Thou art my Father and my God," and as naturally adds, "Therefore I wait for Thy Son to come and take us home to Thy house. As to what faith has given, I am pardoned, God is my Father; as to what hope waits for, it is to see the Lord Himself." f would be a contingent; and unless I get away from Hebrew, or want to subject Hebrew idiom to the idiom of another language, I had better give up the term tense.

But I may have to return to this. I give now a summary of Ps. 1 and 2, a divine introduction to the Psalter:

Ps. 1. Here the demonstrative article is twice used; in v. 1 once, and in v. 4 once.

v. 1 describes the blessedness of "The or That individual," who alone never had a blot from association with any of man's wicked confederacies.

v. 2. He knows no delight but in Jehovah's law, and is wholly occupied with it, and

v. 3. The one ever prosperous one. There is but one whom this suits.

But (mark the contrast) v. 4: "The ungodly" as a class. Alas! save one, there is none righteous, no not one (Rom. 3: 10); none have any stability here; none of them will have any standing in the judgment, any place among the righteous.

v. 6. Jehovah Himself is judge between the last Adam, together with those to whom He is a root, and the ungodly who turn their backs on Him.

Ps. 2. The one man dissociated from all evil down here (Ps. 1), has been rejected by man; but is here seen to be Jehovah's anointed.

vv. 1, 2. Vain and imbecile all men's efforts against Him whose cause is Jehovah's. (vv. 3-5). For He has said, Yet have I set Him king in Zion (v. 6). Himself, the earth-rejected one, reads out as Son from on high the decree and the promises to Him (7-9); and then in grace and mercy gives warning.

Study these two Psalms in themselves, and then study them in the Gospels and Acts and Epistles, according as the Holy Spirit there casts light on them through the Lord and His apostles and prophets. If you find enough to humble you, you will find enough, too, of light given to you about Himself who is the subject of them to make you worship and adore].

The portion above between brackets ( [ ] ) is no formal grammatical dictum, but a statement of impressions made upon my own mind while working through the whole Psalter, so as to observe the force and power of the Rabbis' moods and so-called tenses, and tested by their current use therein, and the doctrines they lead to, and how far they agree with God's subject as before referred to. I have marked all the occurrences in Hebrew of vav (which is equivalent to our "and"), so that everything may be tested by that which is given in English. In working out this, my mind has perhaps formulated a theory which might admit of a clear statement. But if there is a theory coming to the birth, I would try and prove it ere I state it. But up to this moment I am still only learning.

As to the statement of "the law of vav* conversive" (for so it was taught me) — that the introduction of a fresh "and" connected with a verb could turn a future into a past or a past into a future — I have long given it up. It could not be so. Nor if (misled by the Will-o'-the-Wisp light of "tenses") you admit it, will you find that it solves the difficulties. In a moss or bog you look out for an "and" to put you right, and find none; or, forgetful of your "and" occurrent, you go on sound in doctrine, because you have overlooked it, but know not what to do with it now that you have found it.

*The doctrine of vav conversive. The past tense, with the prefix vav, expresses future time when preceded by "a verb in the future or by an imperative." And "the future tense, with the prefix vav, and dagesh in the following letter, is used to express the past."

A law to be a law must be universal and undeviating. Such is not the case with the statement I have referred to, and it is no law. This Professor Lee and others have shown. To pull down is easier than to build up. Other statements have been made as containing the law of the so-called tenses, but not kept to by their own makers.

My present attempt is neither a new translation of the Psalms nor "a word for word" translation. But if I, sitting down to my Hebrew Psalter with the Bible (English) in my hand, can so far remould it (the English) "clause for clause," according to the Hebrew — the English bearing remembrancers of all the "ands" occurrent, and of all the moods and other various verbal forms in Hebrew — it will, in the measure in which it at once retains, and recalls to mind the old treasure in English and yet presents the Hebrew idioms, be of interest, and may be of value. Such a book as a young converted Hebrew, knowing Hebrew well, but English only colloquially, could understand, is just that at which I aim.

My intentional departures from the English Psalter were such as these:

1. To change Old English words whose meaning was formerly different from what it now is. The old word now misleads. For instance, "leasing" (Ps. 4: 2, Ps. 5: 6) is not gleaning, but "lying;" "discomfit" (Ps. 18: 14) for "discomfort." So "prevent" (Ps. 21: 3; Ps. 59: 10; Ps. 79: 8; Ps. 88: 13; Ps. 119: 147, 148) is equivalent to our modern word "anticipate." So Ps. 29: 9, "discover" for "uncover, lay bare." So "quick" (Ps. 55: 15; Ps. 124: 3) is "alive" (and not quickly), etc.

2. To mark the demonstrative article or pronoun by writing "the" with a large T — thus, "The" or "That" — and this even if it does not stand the first word in a sentence.

3. To put in italics all the words supplementary to the sense; but this is what the Authorized Bible Version has done.

4. To omit the "O's" ("O Jehovah," etc.). They are contrary to Hebrew custom and mind. A hundred "O's" in a modern prayer would tell of feeling in him who prays, and of weakness; not of faith. Look at the New Testament.

5. To translate into English the titles at the heads of some of the Psalms, and any Hebrew word left in them as Selah, Higgaion.

6. To render the word "Go-i" in Hebrew always Nation; and its plural, "Go-im," as Nations. "Gnam," People; and "Gnammim," as Peoples. "L'ummim" (a plural), as, side-nations, "Ohm," singular; and "Ummim," plural (which do not occur in book 1)

I incline, at present, to look at them as perhaps Gog and Magog, whether of the Old Testament or the New Testament (as Rev. 20: 8).

G.V.W. 5.1.77, Motuiki.