ASSEMBLY TRUTH
FROM THE MINISTRY OF G. V. WIGRAM VOLUME 2
INSTANCES of Gods own interference inside the
assembly; Himself - or by the Apostles
1. Ananias and Sapphira, as in Achan
of old and Judas, Acts v.
2. The murmuring about neglect of the widows,
Acts vi. 1.
3. Except the Apostles: The scattered abroad preach the Gospel,
Acts viii. 1.
4. Simon, Acts viii. 9.
5. Peter going to Gentiles, Acts
xi. 2, 3-18.
6. Jews in Antioch. Acts xv. 1-35.
7. Paul and Barnabbas
part. Acts xv. 36-41.
8. Paul will go to Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 1-4, 10-40,
and xxiii. 11, &c.
No. 1. Rom.
Xvi. 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 authorized 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.} Pauls command, as to such, is to
"mark them
and avoid them," {in the New Translation "turn away from,"} and
English New Testament {Rom. iii., 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. iv. 3} and "the one body and one
Spirit," {v.4} sins against it, to set aside. It is sin {not merely against a
mans 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 xx.
29-33}.
Nor was it likely, in the few weak ones at Rome, {chiefly
individual believers who happened to be at Rome, &c.,} 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 tot the Galatians; {see again and read Acts
xv. 1-5, and 22-31}.
But he had {Acts xx. 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. ii. 16-18 "Hymenaeus and
Philetus," &c}.
If {Rom. Xvi. 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 Gods
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,
{see1}, that is DICHOSTASIA, and schism properly so called {SCHISMA}, {as in
Cor. i. 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
Gods 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. i.
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*{xi. 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.
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 Gods Church
and habitation upon earth. And so Gods servants in the house, which house
they themselves were, were theirs also {chap. iii. 21-23} as they also were
Gods; but they squabbled about these servants, and would have made them
heads of schools {chap. i. 11, 12}; men who were Gods servants, and
theirs, for Christs 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.}
They used their privilege of
being of the house wrongly; to Gods 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. xvi. 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 servants
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 {chap. iii. 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 Gods mind, their works would all be
burnt up, but the soul would receive a reward. Their fleshliness, factions,
blindness, self-complacency, &c., occupy him to end of chap. iv. 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
Pauls 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. {chap. v. 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.
Ix. And xi.} 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 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. Pauls 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 Gods 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
Gods mind together with those that owned it, and leave all the rest for
God to deal with. Paul and John and Peter, &c., 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, giving 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
.; for the Holy Spirit is in the
assembly, and we have His word; and even {in chap. v. 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, the honour of God, and of the Lord Jesus 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 assemblys acting's.
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 chap. v. 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 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
apostles adding, "not of this world, for then ye must needs go out of the
world."
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. xxvii. 34} of the vinegar mingled with gall,
given to our Lord on the cross; and again {Rev. viii. 7, xv. 2}, fire mingled
with blood, and a sea of glass mingled with fire; and again {Luke xiii. 1},
blood mingled with sacrifices; and its noun is used {John xix. 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 Lords 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. v. 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. vi. 4-8, x. 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 xxiii. 34.} "Preach the gospel, beginning at Jerusalem" {Luke
xxiv. 47; Acts ii. 14, &c.}, and their aspect is to be to me what it is to
God.
Take again Pauls 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 v.
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. i. 20}, or with Philetus? {2 Tim. ii. 17,
&c.} The very notion is incompatible with any truth about 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 assemblys 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. iii. 18, 19.
No. 3. 1 Cor. xi. 17: The disorder at the
table. In verse 18, divisions should be read schisms {as in chap. i. 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
Lords body, even ere Paul wrote this letter.
2 Cor. ii. 5-11 are to
be noted. Paul had not acted in his power over the assembly {1 Cor. v. and 2
Cor. ii. 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. Gods 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
Gods 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} 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. vii. 4-16 should be studied. What sort of a spirit becomes
those who are forced to press Gods judgment on others; and what is
repentance after a godly sort? These are important questions for us.
In
chap. x. 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 Gods 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. iii. 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, &c., 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, &c.
Also, as it seems
clear to me, that if Paul had sent Timothy to abide at Ephesus {chap. i. 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.
No. 5. SUNDRIES: 1 Timothy is Pauls
letter to Timothy about the maintenance of doctrine {chap. i. 3; vi. 3-5}; he
is told as to those that are destitute of the truth-supposing that gain is
godliness, &c. {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. i.
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.
Again, 2 Tim.
ii. 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 {chap. iii. 5}; he was
to turn himself aside. Compare with Romans i. 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
Pauls work so far. {Chap. iii. 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 thin 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 ii. 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, &c., 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, and antichrist."
In Rev. xxii. 11, the
righteous and the holy are called to separate themselves from the unjust and
filthy; and afterwards those that meet Gods mind go into the city
and they that have not met His mind are shut out for ever.
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 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.
Gods word gives to me, in the histories of men fro 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 Gods presence, learn the seeds of evil so as to judge them and
to avoid the development of them. If there be self discernment in Gods
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.