66

gladly owe all to free-grace; for they know, by felt necessity, they can have salvation upon no other terms. Secondly, they are the recipients of a common faith (Titus i. 4); a faith of the operation of God, that has Jesus for its object, the word for its food, and the Holy Ghost for its energizer a faith which discovers salvation, not creates it, and which, at the command of God, is given the believer, in order to see his personal interest in a common salvation," and to participate in the privileges wrapped up in salvation, and unfolded to faith according to the measure of the gift of God. Hence, we have the various ages, states, and experiences, of the one Church-equally loved, quickened, blessed, and secured in Christ, but differing according to the measure of faith, as "babes, children, young men, and fathers." Thirdly, they are the subjects of common temptation (1 Cor. x. 13). Cast into a pathway of tribulation, they alike suffer from the plague of sin within, and the consequences of having to live in a sinful world, which try every grace, hide pride from man, uproot pernicious plants, and produce sympathy with the suffering body of Christ, travelling through the same wilderness of woe. Now the members introduced into the living Church by regeneration, find, however gradually truth may be unfolded to their understanding, and however long they may be kept contending with the original possession of their mind's error in every shape, however clouded and partial their views of doctrine, and however they may rebel against divine dealings, yet in one point there is no difference" They know they have passed from death unto life, because they love the brethren." The blessing of union is felt directly life is communicated. "At our gates, all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, are laid up for thee, oh, my beloved,” saith Christ to his Church, and when the gate of regeneration is passed, this precious fruit of union is found. And how gracious of God to provide this pleasant refreshment, for the sons and daughters of Zion ! When leaving their own people and their Father's house, they are called to follow the Lord, into a land not sown. When amidst inward debatings, worldly balancings, family considerations, homeward contentions, spiritual ignorance, native prejudices, carnal pride, the Lord lets fall that honey-drop into the heart, love to Christ-and for his sake, love to his family. Here is union experienced in its first, and best state. The children of God appear then, in angelic form. Disrobed of "bodies of sin," in the eyes of the newly awakened, they are not regarded as men of like passions". with themselves, but they are looked up to, loved, and envied, as a race of celestial beings, permitted to have a little while here below, in bodies sanctified by the indwelling of a divine nature.

66

In the dimness of spiritual light, the new-born child thinks nearness, and contact with the Church, will have a spiritualizing effect upon his soul; hence, he longs to be in their company. Ignorance drives him to associate with those who will teach him. Difficulties in experience,

lead him to communicate with those longer in the way, and the newly implanted grace of love, makes him long after association with those, whom he believes are bound up in the same bundle of life. Thus the believer is allured into the wilderness-separated from the world, and made willing to "go forth in the footsteps of the flock, and feed the kids beside the shepherds' tent." Strife within and without, only drive him closer to the newly-found family. The people before despised and reviled as a vulgar clique, as fools and fanatics, yea, as the very "off-scouring of all things," are now the cherished companions, the sought-out associates, of the quickened soul. Rank, wealth, and talents, fall before the ark of God; and though the stump of Dagon is left in the heart, which discovers its cursed existence in upheavings and outbreaks of devilish pride, yet the Lord manifests His sovereignty, by making love carry the sway, so that the soul in the face of every foe shall cry out to God, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return (to the world), from following after thee; where thou goest, I will go, thy people shall be my people." Happy art thou, reader, if a beam of light streams back upon thy path, that shows thee thou hast got the fold by this track. Never fear but thou art in Zion's ways, and in a little time, thou shalt be eternally united to the blood-bought family above. The Lord's called people find, that love to Christ, and love to his saints, run in parallel lines; so, in proportion as the love of Christ is in exercise, the love of the brethren is enjoyed. Whereas, "he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness (some root of bitterness in the soul towards a fellow member), hath blinded his eyes." If, reader, thou art walking in darkness now, see whether the cause may not be traced to this source.

Now a word upon the second point, the benefit of disunion; and this considered personally and generally.

In early days of love, the Church's beauty almost eclipses Christ, but a jealous God will have the first and best place in the heart. Hence, a weaning time must come, and to effect this, the Church must be seen in her deformity. Envyings, strifes, selfishness, worldliness, covetousness, appear in the hitherto faultless family; and then the young believer cries out, "All men are liars! Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; at first were they angels, but now I inquire, they are devils. Surely the world I have turned my back upon, is better than this." So the poor, bewildered soul argues, bnt cannot see a hand and heart of love in all this. The weaning from the world was plain, but this weaning from the Church is wrapped in mystery, and some have been driven to this bleak spot-I, or they, are hypocrites. My love is turned to hate, because they are reprobates, or I myself am one, and the soul is left to wail and howl over its lack of love. But the Lord makes blessed use of this solitary spot; it discovers whether Christ alone will do for the soul. A child of God may

glide along Zion's pathway very comfortably, with Christ and the Church for its companions; but when God removes the Church in experience, and only Christ is left, then the soul tests the nature and sweetness of Christ's supports and consolations, apart from all human instrumentality. But again, disunion is a personal benefit, because it tries the grace of love of the brethren. It proves whether it be love of person, or love of principle, inhabiting the person. It shows whether we love for Christ's sake; and therefore, despite all the evil seen in them, we can yet love on, testifying to the truth committed to us, in opposition to their error, bearing with their infirmities, patient to their ignorance, and endeavouring, as much as possible, to live in peace, without compromising principle. If, personally, the believer were not tried in this way, the grace of love and union with the Church, would have no test. The infirmities and failings of the family produce disunion, and this tries the grace, whether it stands in the wisdom of man, or in the power of God; whether it is wrought by God, and so abides through all opposition, or is only a fleshly feeling, produced by natural causes, that shall expire in darkness. Generally, to the Church at large, disunion has its benefit. It has been well observed, "Pain is a blessing to mankind, being the great detector of disease, and oftentimes the preventor of otherwise cureless maladies." Such benefit has disunion been to the church of God. Disunion in doctrines and divisions in sects, have been made instrumental in testing truth on the one hand, and guarding it on the other. Foes have often brought to light truths, that friends were afraid of-and Satan's kingdom has been made to shake, by the very means he had used to subvert God's throne.

Furthermore, disunion has extended the gospel to spots, where unity would never have gone, and contentions have done more in disseminating the truth, than love. The apostle Paul, speaking of the deeper disunion arising from heresies, says, "Even these are not without their profit to the Church, because it makes manifest those that are approved;" and as errors in doctrine lead to failures in practice, the church is thus delivered from Satan's snare, while it speaks to them, "Be not highminded, but fear."

But in the midst of manifested disunion, and apparent disorder in the Church, is there no union? Yea, there is a blessed, and beauteous union, both eternal and experimental. God views the Church in Christ as a perfect body, which Christ personally represented when he hung upon the cross. Rent and bleeding it may be, broken it can never be. Not a member can be severed; not a bone must be broken. The High Priest under the law was to have a complete body; nothing wanting, nothing superfluous (Lev. xxi. 18). Christ answers to the type; the names written in the Lamb's book of life, make up "the body and members in particular;" "the joints of which body are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman "—and all in glorious

* B

union with Jesus the Head, which gives life and feeling and energy to the whole.

Hence follows the experimental union of the Church with each other, "according to the measure of the gift of Christ." A visible, and universal union, was not the point of promise, nor the matter of our Lord's prayer, "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee." Here we have an union invisible, mysterious, eternal, and spiritual; and Christ asks for his Church, that the same union may be vouchsafed to them that existed between the everlasting Father and the eternal Son. If, therefore, the Church's union be in accordance with this prayer, advocates for visible and external union must find they have taken their stand upon wrong ground. Visibility and uniformity, were the characteristics of Judaism, but belong not to the gospel of Christ. But those who are under the law in experience, will ever be flying to the law for their doctrines. Hence, the lamentable confounding in our day, of a national covenant with the covenant of grace (Heb. viii. 9-13), and the unhallowed mixture of mosaic shadows with revealed truth. What wonder, therefore, that we have Judaic union grafted upon the gospel of Christ, and an elastic bond that embraces every creed imposed upon the Church, for "the unity of the Spirit, and the bond of perfectness."

But God's taught people wait for the day, when a manifested union shall appear in the Church. When the building shall be finished, and the head-stone shall be brought off with shoutings of " Grace, grace unto it!" When the Bride shall be taken home, and heaven's admiring myriads of adoring angels shall confess, that God's eternal Son has got a partner, suited to share His joy, and wear His crown.

November 10th, 1846.

G.

WHO IS ON THE LORD'S SIDE?

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

MY DEAR BROTHER IN THE LORD,

Permit me, through the pages of the GOSPEL MAGAZINE, to address those members of the redeemed family who read it, on a subject, which, for months past, has greatly occupied my mind. I have often wished to write you thereon, but have never dared, thinking that you have much more valuable communications to cull from, than any I could send you. The matter in question continues so to press itself on my mind, that I now venture to ask the favour of a few lines in your very valuable

publication. I need not assure you, that I rejoice greatly in the noble stand you make for the truth as it is in Jesus, and that I earnestly pray for the success of your labour of love. The doctrines you proclaim, I believe to be the truth of God, revealed in his holy word; I count it my highest honour to be permitted, by our Master, to confess them with you. It is the value I set on those precious doctrines that has suggested to me some very serious thoughts; I may say, misgivings. My brother, it is a high calling with which the Lord has blessed us (Phil. iii. 14; Heb. iii. 1), and in this, if in any case, we must say, unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required (Matt. xii. 48).

We believe that we know the truth as it is in Jesus, and that we are of those who have no confidence in the flesh (Phil. iii. 3),-who glory in nothing, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. vi. 14); of that Christ who died, the just for the unjust (1 Pet. iii. 18); who was made sin for us, that we might be made the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD in Him (2 Cor. v. 21); and who of God is made unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. i. 9), of that most precious Christ in whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen (2 Cor. i. 20).

You are well aware that in the present day, many, very many, are saying, here is Christ, and there is Christ; but it must be confessed that in much of this, there are uncertain sounds and confusion of tongues. Their word towards God's people is yea and nay (2 Cor. i. 18). Seeing these things, I have been led to ask myself,-Do we speak as we have been put in trust by God with the gospel? (1 Thess. ii. 4). Are we faithful to our Master, and to his truth? Are we zealous for his name? I mean we who have been shown a more excellent way (1 Cor. xii. 31). Do we not allow those, who, according to our views of divine truth, preach "a yea-and-nay-gospel;" a gospel of offers and conditions, to outrun us in zeal, and to outstrip us in activity? Do we merit such an accusation as the following, which caught my eye in one of the monthly Magazines for November? "The more doctrinal truth, the less practical zeal." I have often cast my eyes over "the fields ripe unto the harvest." I have looked at the labourers, and have been constrained to say,-The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few (Luke x. 2).

My Master whispers to me as I write, "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest." Yes, dear brother, this is what we should desire, for on looking over the fields, I see that amongst the labourers, our numbers are most lacking. This ought not to be. Do we believe that God the Holy Spirit has given us clearer views of divine truth than he has done to the mass of those we see going forth as preachers of the gospel? Then it becomes

us the more imperatively to be instant in season and out of season, through evil report and good report, to proclaim the glorious doctrines of grace as we have been taught them. The more preachers