Christianity in its Moral Characteristics

Ministry by F. E. Raven
– Part Four

Introduction 1.  Light 2.  Liberty 3.  Life 4.  Testimony in Unity	- Acts 26 - John 8: 28-36 - Philippians 2: 1-16 - Romans 12: 1-8
• Ministry by F. E. Raven – Part Three

INTRODUCTION
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS MORAL CHARACTERISTICS Lectures delivered in 1895, Place Unknown Ministry by F. E. Raven 11: 75-131

These four 'lectures' are a fine example of what John Vedder refers to as

• "FER's ability to present some other, more familiar, subjects with a much greater degree of clarity and incisiveness than did others. In addition, his willingness to consider seemingly familiar subjects from an unfamiliar point of view was often refreshing …"

If you are only used to the great truths of Scripture being presented from man's side and for man's benefit,

• you will find this presentation of the moral characteristics of Christianity enlightening and quite likely challenging to previously cherished views.

• While the great benefits of the gospel to man are not to be undervalued, there is great enlargement of spiritual apprehension in seeing the grand primary purposes of God in securing, through the work of Christ and the Spirit, that which is for Himself and His eternal glory.

G.A.R.

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LIGHT
Acts 26

My thought is to bring before you, as God may enable me, the great moral characteristics of Christianity.

• I do not intend to speak of the doctrine upon which Christianity is founded, but rather of what Christianity consists in, in the hope that we all may be better instructed as to this.

• The doctrines may come out, but my object is to show you that which God saw fit to introduce into the darkness of this world, and into which we as Christians are brought.

• The great pervading evil in Christendom is that divine things have, in men's thoughts, been materialised.
  • A common idea with many is that life is communicated through baptism; there is nothing moral about that, it is a material idea.

  • Again, people speak of the "house of God", and mean by it a material building.

  • Then such things as "harvest thanksgivings" are common, that is worship in connection with material blessings.

• All is materialised. It is well to get our eyes opened to the terrible departure in all this from what is of the Spirit of God.

• It would have been impossible for God to reveal Himself simply as a Judge. It would not have been suitable. There would have been no grace about it. Man was sinful and a sinner before God, and therefore the very first principle of the revelation of God must of necessity be grace.

• Hence as the first step in this direction God provided a sacrifice, which should clear sin completely from before Him. If I look at the work of Christ in its first and most important aspect it is for God, and that is where a mistake is often made. People do not see what I should call the God-ward aspect of the work of Christ.

• In the Old Testament figure you get in the day of atonement the blood sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat; that is what I should call the divine aspect of the work of Christ, and the gospel is based upon it. If you want one word for it, common amongst us, it is propitiation.

• God in infinite grace has been pleased, before ever there was any approach on His part to man in the gospel, to provide a sacrifice which has cleared sin from before Himself. This is the witness of the grace of God, and is the first thing I see in Christ.

• He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Victim provided of God, He who was to clear sin from before God, came out from God, and that is the witness which God has given of His grace.

There was the personal ministry of Jesus on earth before this work; but the coming of Christ here in that sense really anticipated His death, and the truth of the glad tidings could not come out fully until after His resurrection.

• Then, when sin has been cleared from before God, and the blood has been sprinkled on and before the mercy-seat, the witness that sin has been cleared, then God comes out to reveal Himself in the glad tidings to the heart of man.

• God can point to Christ and say, 'Can you have any doubt about My grace? I have Myself provided the sacrifice which has cleared sin from before Me, in order that I might reveal Myself in grace to the heart of man'.

• It was the divine way. Man had not a word to say to it. God did it entirely on His own account. It came entirely from the divine motion. Jesus says,
  • "I come to do thy will, O God".

• It is not the common idea of a substitute which is presented here. Sin was cleared, not by a substitute for man, but by a divine Person. There is the truth that Christ was delivered for our offences, but the great point is that God cleared sin for Himself, by One who came forth from Himself – a divinely appointed, divinely provided Victim.

• And when we speak of the grace of God, we do not speak of any particular Person of the Godhead. It is very important that, while we distinguish the Persons of the Godhead, we should maintain in our souls the truth of God, in the unity and counsel of the Godhead.

• It was the Son who became Man that He might be a Victim, and by His own sacrifice remove sin completely from before God: He appeared once in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. I have told you the divine object in this already, and I want you to ponder it.

• It is, that God might be revealed in man's heart. Do not miss this, because if you fail of the divine object, you will not get into a living Christianity. You will get into the sort of Christianity in which plenty of people are, but you will not get into the Christianity of God, to be in the light as God is in the light.

• Therefore, when I point to Jesus, I say, Do you doubt the grace of God?
  • "God has set him forth to be a mercy-seat through faith in his blood".

The mercy-seat is, I judge, where God speaks to man.

• The mercy-seat in Israel was where God put Himself in communication with Moses to give him a charge for the children of Israel, viewed as a redeemed people.

• Now, in the gospel Jesus is the mercy-seat. Why? Because in Him God speaks volumes. In Jesus is revealed to you the grace which provided the Victim which has completely cleared sin from before God. Jesus speaks to every heart now. The very name – Jesus is "Jehovah saving".

Now another point. Jesus speaks not only of grace but of righteousness. God has set Him forth as a mercy-seat for the declaration of His righteousness, but you cannot touch righteousness until you have touched grace.

• The principle of the gospel is, that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life; but you must begin with grace, because the first thing which God provided was that which cleared sin from before Him, and that was a question of pure grace on the part of God, which took account of the state and necessity of man, and, in order that He might be made known to the heart of man, provided the sacrifice to remove sin.

Now, sin having been removed and God glorified in its removal, the righteousness of God is in man's favour.

• The power of God has acted in righteousness, to release man from the penalty of death; and not only so, but to set man in the place of supreme honour and glory to carry into effect every result of the removal of sin. Righteousness is declared. It is not declared simply in terms, it is declared in Jesus.

• I do not know how better to express it – Jesus speaks volumes, and God declares in Jesus His righteousness. Sin brought death into the world. Death came in as God's penalty on sin.
  • "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die".

• When sin had been removed by Christ being made sin, and bearing its judgment on the cross, Christ went into death, because the penalty of death lay upon man, that in death He might glorify God, that everything might be accomplished.
  • "Without shedding of blood is no remission".

• He went into death, but as having first perfectly removed sin. He goes into death for the glory of God, and God is glorified in His death, and what then? The power of God raises Him again from the dead, and He is the witness of the righteousness of God – righteousness in which God can act in power in raising man from the penalty of death.

• He must be the first to rise from the dead, but then the truth does not stop there. Christ is exalted to be the minister of everything that He has secured. He is Lord. He is raised again that He may have dominion both over the dead and the living. He is a quickening Spirit, set above all that He may fill all things.

• I do not believe that God has now a single thing to say to man apart from Christ. If I wanted to tell a man the way of salvation, what should I say?
  • "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved".

• And why should I say that? In my own mind the thought would be, that, in the Lord Jesus Christ, God is completely revealed to man. I can well understand the apostle saying to the Philippian jailer,
  • "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house".

• I have sometimes said – although I do not want to be misunderstood – that man is saved by light. We often talk about man being saved by faith; but there is no substantive value in faith, and man is saved by light. He is saved by God being revealed to his soul.

• God could not be revealed to his soul if grace had not blotted sin out; but Christ removed sin in order that God might be revealed to the heart of man in grace, and that is God's way of salvation for man, and is the reason why I say that man is really saved by light. He is brought into salvation by light.
  • "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved".

• What is the meaning of that? Well, that you have got divine light, the revelation of God in your heart; for you confess with your mouth, "Lord Jesus", the One in whom God has been pleased to reveal Himself, and whom God has raised from the dead. All that shines in the face of Jesus.

• It is the shining forth of the effulgence of God. There is the light of God seen in the way in which God is to be known in the soul of man, and that is the proper result of the presentation of God's glad tidings; God is revealed in the heart of man which, apart from that, was in utter darkness.

• The gospel went out to people who were in the darkness of heathenism to turn them from darkness to light, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance. They do receive these things, for you cannot possibly turn to God revealed in grace, without getting forgiveness of sins and inheritance;
  • but the point of it is that you are turned from darkness to light, and from Satan's power to God.

• I wonder if every soul here has a true sense of the Lord Jesus Christ as being the blessed revelation of God, who has come out of His own place to be known by man.

Now a word or two in regard to apprehension, because I have spoken of the truth on the divine side.

• If we look at things from our own point of view, we regard the gospel as it affects us, and the gain which we get through it; but I think it is very important to see the divine object in it, and I cannot doubt the truth of what I have said,
  • that the light of God was to come into the heart of man, His glory was to be known there as seen in the face of Jesus, it was to be a revelation to him of God, suited to his state and condition.

• Now the first thing in the commission to Saul was "to open their eyes". The eyes of the Gentiles were to be opened, and that is what new birth properly effects. This opening of eyes was put in a certain sense into the hands of the apostle in his ministry, but the real opening of the eyes is the work of God's Spirit.

• But though a man's eyes may be opened, he has not got light, but he craves light. When first the work of God begins in a man, you may depend upon it that man will not rest until he gets light. If you want an illustration I take Nicodemus. What he wanted was light as to God.

• Take any man where the work of God has begun, that man wants light. He has got his eyes opened like the man in John 9, he begins to see the falseness and unreality of everything here, but whatever he may crave, he has not got light as to God, God is not yet revealed to him.

Now the next point is, "To turn them from darkness to light". Darkness really is the degradation in which man was in heathenism.

• What was light? The revelation of God in grace in Christ. That was part of the apostle's mission, though first man's eyes were to be opened. Then he was to be turned from darkness to light, to the blessed revelation of God in the face of Jesus, and from Satan's power to God – the latter went with the turning from darkness to light.

• When there was real turning to God, what then? Well, they turned to a God who had been revealed to them in the gospel, they were not to turn to an unknown God, or a God with whom there was any uncertainty – that would not have been light; but to God as He had revealed Himself to them in the gospel.

• The gospel came to them first on the part of God to reveal what God was, then they turned to God as He had revealed Himself in grace and in righteousness.

"That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in me" – two things that are commonly connected in scripture.

• But to me they are accompaniments of the gospel; the vital point to my mind is the turning from darkness to light, and from Satan's power to God, so that God is apprehended in the soul as He has been pleased to reveal Himself.

• Now the light of God has taken possession of the soul of the believer, and thus it is we come to be in the light as God is in the light, that is in the full light of the revelation of God.
  • That is the very first principle of Christianity, you cannot touch anything else until your soul is brought into the light of the revelation of God.

• You cannot talk about deliverance or life or testimony until you are brought out of darkness into God's marvellous light, into the blessed light in which God has been pleased to reveal Himself in the gospel.
  • I do not think it has been sufficiently seen that the first aspect of the work of Christ was God-ward, in order that God might reveal Himself to man in grace.

• It began with God bringing Himself in Christ close to men in a Man; and now in the gospel God has revealed Himself fully to man in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, suitably to the state and condition in which man is – that is, in grace and, in ability to justify.

• The full expression of it is, Christ Himself raised from the dead and set far above all heavens, in order that He might fill all things. That is what God has done for the display of Himself. Man is now the vessel of that display. What a wonderful thing it is to have turned to God in that way! So that now it is not simply that God is in the light, but we are in the light.
  • That is the first principle of Christianity, and the effect of it is this, that you get your heart established in grace.

• I have greatly enjoyed lately the thought that I am in the light in which God has been pleased to reveal Himself. I can understand the expression, "Rejoice in the Lord". Why? Because in the Lord, God is revealed in all His thought to man.

• God has thus come out in blessed grace; and the benefit that we get is forgiveness of sins, and not only that, but the Spirit given to us to indwell our bodies, so that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.

May God give us really to know the great light in which God has shone out, that we may better see the first great principle of Christianity as God has been pleased to establish it here. Amen.

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LIBERTY
John 8: 28-36

I desire to carry out the purpose which I mentioned last time, viz., to bring before you the leading features of Christianity in its true power – I do not mean doctrinally, though of course you could not have it without doctrine, but morally.

• It is a very great thing to ascertain the true nature of Christianity, what the great moral characteristics of it are.

• I referred last week to the first thing, which is light, and explained that light was the revelation of God.

• Light makes everything manifest, but that is a consequence of light; you do not get things made manifest until you get the light, and the light, as I said, is the revelation of God; that is, the revelation of God makes everything manifest.
  • "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light".

• That is the first great feature of Christianity.

One point to which I alluded last time was not, I think, generally understood, and that was as to the groundwork of all, namely, the putting away of sin. I was laying stress on the importance of propitiation.

• Many people, in their thoughts of the sacrifice of Christ, begin at substitution. But substitution is not the first aspect of the offering of Christ;
  • the first aspect of it is that which was God-ward, namely propitiation.

• The great point in the offering of Christ was that sin should be removed from under the eye of God, so that God might be free to accomplish His will.
  • "Once in the end of the world hath he" [Christ] "appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself".

• I understand by "sacrifice" in that passage that Christ gave Himself up wholly to it; that cost what it might, whatever it might mean to Him in the way of suffering, He would remove sin from before God; that is what He came to effect, and to effect it for God.

Sin stood in the way of the accomplishment of God's purposes of grace. Those purposes had to be carried into effect; but it was impossible for God to come out to man till sin had been removed, and Christ came to this end for God's will.

• But that is not substitution, or Christ suffering in the place of others; it was a question of propitiation, of removing sin from under the eye of God. It was the exigency of God's will.

• I do not think any one will find any difficulty so far; but the point of difficulty was in this, which I suppose I failed to make clear, that when Christ died, sin was no longer under the eye of God. All that was due in regard of it had been borne. Christ was on the cross made sin, and it was thus completely removed.

• He, by divine appointment, represented sin on the cross in the presence of the holiness of God; but in the act of death the eye of God rested only upon absolute obedience and righteousness, and in the sufferer God was completely glorified; sin was removed in order that God might be glorified in man in death.

• Death was upon man, it was the governmental penalty, to which we are all subject, which God has attached to sin in connection with man's life in this world; Christ really died, but His death, instead of being the mark and fruit of disobedience, was in perfect obedience, entirely to the glory of God.

• Thus what came under the eye of God in Christ's death was perfect obedience and righteousness when sin had been removed. Of course all was effected upon the cross; it is only there that we find the Lord Jesus addressing God otherwise than as Father.
  • He says, "My God, my God".

• But at the moment of His death it is,
  • "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit".

• And the blessed answer to it comes out in resurrection, even that death was annulled, and man placed, in the Person of Christ, at God's right hand in the heavenly places.

I only refer to this subject again on account of the importance of the truth of propitiation, since in virtue of it God can address Himself to man; He has set forth Jesus to be a mercy-seat through faith in His blood.

• I quite admit that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, but I warn all that death is not the final dealing with sin:
  • "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment";

• it is the lake of fire which is the final dealing with sin. And if Christ removed sin from before God, you may depend upon it He suffered at the hand of God what sin demanded from the holiness of God.

I pass on now to the great and important question of liberty. Many a person has light that has not got yet into the enjoyment of liberty. But it is not according to God that you should be in bondage; that would not suit the grace of God at all.

• I would not like my children to be in bondage; it would be a painful thought to a parent. If God makes known His love to our hearts, He does not want us to be in bondage, it is not of him.

• But it very often takes people a long time to get practically into liberty, because, if you are going to be delivered from the power of a thing, you must first judge the thing from which you are to be delivered. And this is the practical difficulty with every one of us, to learn what we have to be delivered from.

• But it is no pleasure to God that a man should be in bondage. From habit of soul, and experience, it may take us a long time to come into liberty; but the word is,
  • "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free".

I will speak of liberty in respect of three things – you can follow them up at your leisure – which are brought out successively in the Gospel of John, and thereby the question of liberty is made more intelligible to us.

1. The first is sin – what the Lord speaks of here –

2. the second is legality,

3. and the third is the world.

• They are three things which hamper every one of us grievously, and it is a long time before we break free from them. I can speak feelingly in that way, for I think that I know the power of all three.

• But it is a blessed thing to see that the grace of God is such that He would have a Christian here in this world to be free of all; and his soul to be in the enjoyment of liberty from all that to which he is naturally in bondage.

• I will take up the three points in detail in connection with John 4, 5 and 6. I cannot speak beyond myself, for no man can help others beyond where he is himself; it is not God's way that he should, for it would not be honest, but I think I can give you the thought that comes out in those chapters as to the liberty that God would have the Christian to enjoy.

The first point is sin. In Romans 6 we get,

• "How shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein?"

• The question is raised immediately grace is known,
  • "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

• Sin, I understand to be insubjection to God; it is will without goodness, for God alone is good. Man's will is sin, and "sin is lawlessness", that is, defiance of restraint,
  • a man will do his own will; that is the principle of sin.

• It may come out in a variety of detail, but I only deal with the principle. Immediately a person comes into the light, to know the grace of God, and has received the Holy Ghost, the question comes up,
  • "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

• Then in Romans 6 the apostle takes up the principle of deliverance from sin. The same thing is seen in principle in John 4, in which the woman of Samaria represents a soul under the power of sin.

• It has been said that if we had had the writing of John 3 and 4, or the dealing with the persons spoken of, we should have reversed the teaching – what the Lord said to the woman of Samaria we should have said to Nicodemus, and what the Lord said to Nicodemus we should have said to the woman of Samaria. There is no doubt truth in this, but it only shows how much greater God is than our thoughts.

• The Lord spoke to Nicodemus the very thing that Nicodemus needed, for I do not doubt there was a work of God in him which drew him by night to Christ; and describes, it may be, what had taken place in him.

• But in chapter 4 the Lord has before Him a woman under the control of sin – the same was true in a certain sense of Nicodemus, but not in the same manifest way – and He brings before her in the chapter that His grace would communicate to such a person as herself a gift that would be in her the power of complete deliverance from sin.
  • "Whosoever drinketh of this water"

• – that is, the springs and streams of earth, for I think the Lord spoke morally, and referred really to that which was connected with this world
  • – "shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto eternal life"

• – that is, springing up to emancipate the soul from the law of sin and death, which is so natural to it.

All the "water" of this world is sin; excitement, and that with which people seek to satisfy themselves in this world, is all sin; it is men doing their own will.

• A man thinks himself perfectly entitled to do his own will in this world, but it is "lawlessness"; man virtually makes a god of himself, he will not have the control of God, but says, 'I am entitled to take my own course'.

• The pride of man practically says, and says continually, 'There is no one greater than myself, I do not want control, I want liberty for my own will, and I do not care to be thwarted or opposed'.

• The woman of Samaria had done her own will, she had lived in sin, and the Lord reveals to her what it came to.
  • "He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again",

• man is never content. Take a proud man, he is never satisfied, his pride is his bane, and it always exposes him to suffering, for he never can be certain that his pride will not be wounded; the pride of the greatest person in the country is liable to be wounded. Content does not belong to this world. Now the Lord adds,
  • "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto eternal life".

• The great end to which it springs up is eternal life; but in the meantime its effect is that it delivers a man from the bondage of sin,
  • "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free".

  • Jesus says here, "Whosoever practises sin is the servant of sin",

• because a man's practice proves to what he is in bondage. If a man practises righteousness, it proves that he is the servant of righteousness. If a man practises sin, he is in bondage to the principle of sin.

• But the Spirit in the believer, which Christ gives, sets a man free from the law of sin and death. The first great thing which God would do for a believer, is to deliver his soul from bondage to sin. Not that I have not sin still in me, but I am no longer the servant of sin.

• I have sometimes contended against the idea of two natures in the Christian on the ground that I do not allow that one person can be characterised by two natures.

• A Christian is characterised by one nature, and an unbeliever is characterised by another nature; an unbeliever is characterised by sin, and a believer is characterised by righteousness.

• The thought of God in grace is to set man's soul free from the dominion of sin, and it is that which is effected by the Spirit of life in the believer. How is it effected? I believe it is by the revelation to him of what is true in Christ; the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus introduces the soul of the believer into the presence of another scene where Christ is.
  • "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"

• refers evidently to life in another scene; Christ lives unto God, and the soul is attracted to Christ, is held, as it were, to Christ by the Spirit of Christ, and in that way the believer is emancipated by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

John 4 is a great study. The Lord comes out in the chapter as the Christ; He came here to accomplish all God's will in suffering, and being raised again He communicates the Spirit.

• I think He anticipates in John 4 the gift which He would give, since He gives the Spirit because He has accomplished all the will of God down here; He has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work which the Father gave Him to do, and now He communicates the Spirit, to be in the believer a well of water, springing up unto eternal life.

• The first element of liberty for the Christian is, that down here in the world where once he was the complete slave of sin, like the woman of Samaria, his soul is set free from the dominion of sin; he no longer practises sin, although sin is in him, because he is no longer the servant of sin. He is here for the will of God; as the apostle says in Romans 12
  • "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God".

• The Christian says, 'I have been long enough here for my own will, and to please myself; now I am going to be here for God's will, that is God's pleasure'.

• The will of God is "good, and acceptable, and perfect" to the believer, as it was to Christ. The will of God has been set in presence here by Christ, and the believer says, 'That is what I am here for'.

Now I come to the next point, and that is legality. I think many people are set free, in a way, from sin, who yet are not set free from legality.

• We think we are going to make ourselves acceptable to God; many a one is hampered and hindered in that way. I have had that kind of thought passing through my own mind that I was going to make myself in some way acceptable to God, that I was going to be something super-spiritual.

• Now I want to show you that the work is all on God's side; it is not for man to work. If you remember, in John 5 the Jews accused the Lord of breaking the sabbath. The answer of the Lord to them was,
  • "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work".

  Legality is that man works. What the Lord reveals in the chapter is that God works, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work". And to what end? To deliver man from the condition in which sin had placed him. What for?

• That he might pass out of death into life; that is where the Father reveals himself. When scripture says that "God is love", that is God's nature; but when it says, "My Father worketh hitherto",
  • that is not simply that God is love, but that God is active in love.

• There is a deal of difference between God's nature and His activity. I quite admit that what God is goes forth in activity; but the moment that God is in activity then it is the Father, and that is what the Lord brings out in John 5,
  • "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work".

Then He gives you the character of the work,

• "As the Father raises up the dead and quickens them".

• What does He do that for? His blessed name is revealed as Father in the sending of the Son, and He raises up the dead and quickens, in order that those who are quickened may enter into relation with the Father, that they may not only know that God is love, but may know the activity of God in love – that is what we as Christians have all tasted.

There is one verse in this chapter which is very often quoted; the Lord says,

• "He that heareth my word" –

• what do you think that word was? It was His testimony revealing the Father. The next clause is,
  • "and believeth on him that sent me";

• the first thing is that you hear the word of the Son revealing the Father, and then you believe on Him that sent the Son. Then what follows is,
  • "has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment",

• the Lord assures that, for all judgment is committed to Him,
  • "but is passed out of death into life".

• How? In that the activity of the Father has been revealed to him, and now he stands in relation to the Father, he is brought into sonship; the Father raises up the dead and quickens, in order that the one who is quickened may know God,
  • not simply in His nature, but relatively, because "Father" is a relative term, there is no meaning in the term "Father" except in connection with relation.

• The great truth in John 5 is the Father and the Son; the Father reveals Himself in the sending of the Son.

Now that is the end of legality, because what I apprehend is that it has been the Father's [pleasure].

• Now that is the end of legality, because what I apprehend is that it has been the Father's pleasure to reveal Himself to me actively in grace, to take me out of the condition in which I was, in order that I may enter into relationship with Himself, that I may know Him as Father, that I may know His love resting upon me as it rests upon His Son, as the Lord prays in the last verse of John 17,
  • "that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them".

• Where this wonderful chapter, John 5, is entered into, it means complete deliverance of mind and soul from legality. You will never get deliverance from legality until you know what it is to rest in the Father's love. The Father's love resting upon us as it rests upon Christ forbids the very idea of legality.

• I cannot improve myself for Him, and His great point is that I may be for His pleasure, He has made me for His pleasure, quickened me out of the state of death in which I was, that I may be for His pleasure.

• I fully believe the truth of what I say, that it is the knowledge of the Father in our souls as Christ has made Him known to us, God active in grace, which is the complete end of legality.

• It is not only that you have eternal life and will not come into judgment, but you know that the love of the Father rests upon you as it rests upon Christ. And what is the outcome of it? You love the brethren; that is what we read in the first Epistle of John,
  • "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren".

• And why do we love the brethren? Because we know the love with which the Father loves us,
  • "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God";

• we know the Father's love, and we pass out of death into life in the knowledge of the Father's love; but
  • "we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren";

• we come into the christian circle, and the christian circle is everything to us.

There is the third point, which I think you get in John 6, namely, deliverance from the world.

• I have tried to show you the secret of deliverance from sin and from legality; now I will try to show you the secret of deliverance from the world – John 6: 53-58:
  • "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever".

There is one thing that must be true to all of us – you must be in the communion of the death of Christ.

• You cannot shut your eyes to the great fact that Christ has died. You cannot allow that Christ has died to the world, and we are to live in the world; and therefore of necessity you must appropriate His death.

• If there had been anything here for God, Christ would not have died, and it was because in all that is here,
  • "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life",

• there is nothing for God, that Christ has died to it; and therefore you cannot live in it. You cannot righteously shut your eyes to the death of Christ.
  • It is the great sin of Christendom that they ignore the death of Christ, that Christ has died to the whole course of things here.

• I quite admit that He died for us; but the great fact remains that He died to sin, He died to the whole course of things here, and it is not right on the part of the Christian to ignore the death of Christ. The Lord's table has this character,
  • "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?"

• And you get the same in principle here – you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you are in the communion of His death.

• Christendom is all built up as though Christ were living in relation to the world, as if the present time were a kind of millennium. And therefore I refuse the thought that the sects and systems in Christendom know anything about the Lord's table, they are not in the communion of the death of Christ.

• But the Christian who really knows what the death of Christ means,
  • "Now is the judgment of this world"

• – that the whole system is judged, that Christ has died to the whole course of things here, because there was nothing here for God – is in communion with that death. But that is not in itself deliverance. This is realised in having an object outside of it.
  • The Lord said, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live because of the Father".

• When the Lord Jesus was down here upon earth as a Man, He wanted no object here, and He had none. I quite admit that the saints, the excellent of the earth, were His delight; but they were not His objects, He did not live because of the world.

• A man of the world lives because of the world, and if you shut such a man up out of the world, it is to him a living death. Man cannot live without an object, and man's object naturally is the world.

• Christ lived because of the Father, He was perfectly independent of every object here in the world, He found His entire portion in the Father:
  • "I live because of the Father".

• Now mark the rest of the sentence, "So he that eateth me" – appropriates Him as the necessity of our souls – for that is what it is to eat Him, to appropriate Him, the One who came down from heaven, the blessed One who became incarnate, to come within the reach of our appropriation –
  • "He that eateth me, even he shall live because of me".

What a thing to be able to say, 'I am no longer dependent on the world for joy, and the sorrows of the world do not in a sense affect me, though I feel them; I am independent of the world, it does not minister to me, I do not live because of it, but I eat Christ, the living bread which came down from heaven, and live because of Him.

• 'Just as He, a Man down here upon earth, lived because of the Father, so I live because of the living bread that came down from heaven to bring my soul into the knowledge of all the good of heaven'.

I think these three chapters bring to us in a remarkable way the completeness of the liberty into which the believer is brought,

• not left down here in bondage, but brought now into the most blessed liberty; the power of the Spirit of life emancipating his soul from the control of sin; the revelation of the Father's name liberating him from legality; and his satisfying portion found in the living bread which came down from heaven.
  • As the Lord says, "If the Son shall set you free, ye shall be free indeed".

• He gives you the knowledge of the Father, the privilege of the house, revealing the Father to you. But when you get into the house, and have got the liberty of the house, do you suppose you are going to lose sight of the Son? The Son is the living bread, and that is what you get in John 6.

• It could not be, if the Father has been made known to us and we have the consciousness of the Father's love, that we should lose sight of the Son. He is the light of our souls, and a portion to us, as bread is; He lives unto God and we live with Him; we are as independent, in that sense, of the world as Christ was when He was here, living because of the Father.

May God give to us to know something about the reality of these things, not only that He has come out as light to make Himself known to us according to the truth of His own blessed nature, but in the divine thought that in the very place where we have been under complete bondage we should be in complete liberty in the power of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us, liberty from sin, liberty from legality, and liberty, too, from the world.

• If you study those chapters attentively, you will see how the whole thing is worked out, what wonderful chapters they are, and what liberty they reveal for the Christian to be brought into in the very place where he was once in bondage.

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LIFE
Philppians 2: 1-16

I have stated on previous occasions my purpose in these addresses, namely, to bring under your attention the great characteristics of Christianity. I have tried to take them up in a sort of moral sequence, and have already spoken of light and liberty.

• If the state of the world and man is darkness, alienation from God, and ignorance, then the first thing that must come into the world is light from God, God must needs reveal Himself in some way suited to man's condition.

• But then, when God reveals Himself, there is this to be said, that man cannot go back to the knowledge of God which he had in the garden of Eden, that would not suit the case.

• What Adam might have known of God would not suit man now. He knew God as a beneficent Creator; but Adam was an innocent man, he had no knowledge of evil, and knew nothing about the grace or love of God; and the knowledge of God which was open to Adam would not suit man now as fallen and a sinner.

• For the fact that I have been in darkness and in ignorance of God, necessitates that if I am to be put in touch with God, I must know Him in the grace suited to my condition. The gospel is the glad tidings of the grace of God, God making Himself known in a way suited to man in the condition in which man is; God comes out in the light of what He is, in the light of His love.

• It is plain that the first principle and characteristic of Christianity must be light;
  • "God, who commanded that out of darkness light should shine", the apostle says, "has shone into our hearts, for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ".

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TESTIMONY  IN  UNITY
Romans 12: 1-8

I have endeavoured to keep before me the thought that I had from the outset in connection with these opportunities of addressing you. My object was to present the great moral features of Christianity.

• I have taken them up successively, and come tonight to the close, namely, the subject of testimony in unity. I will, in a few words, go over the ground again for the sake of maintaining the connection, for the more you study scripture, the more you will find how every one truth involves another truth.

• Truths are not all so many distinct items. There are different truths, and in ministry we may take them up as distinct truths; but you will find that every truth is interwoven with other truths, and that every successive truth you take up involves other truths.

• In other words, the greatest item of truth which you can take up depends upon some previous truth. I am perfectly satisfied that that is the character of what is presented to us in the New Testament.

• It was the same in measure in the Old Testament. We are told that no prophecy carries its own interpretation; every book of prophecy is interwoven in the general scheme and framework of prophecy, and you cannot rightly understand any particular prophecy apart from apprehending the place which it has in the whole scheme of prophecy.

• There is a foundation to all truths, and I judge the gospel to be that foundation; but after that, every truth hangs on some preceding truth.

• the truth of the one body; that is, I want to bring it before you in its moral aspect as testimony.

• Most of you will remember the prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17,
  • "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us" – what for? – "that the world may believe that thou hast sent me".

• The unity of saints was to be the testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son. You will see, therefore, the intimate connection between unity and testimony.

• One point more which I will just refer to for a moment, and speak of later on, is this – one great truth which is insisted on through many of the epistles is that of the one body;
  • but the one body does not present the idea of union, it presents to us the thought of unity:

• that is, that where there had been two bodies, Jew and Gentile, now there is one body. Just as you get here,
  • "We being many are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another".

• That is my subject tonight – unity, and in connection with unity, testimony. It is a very interesting subject, because, as I said just now, there is no truth which has been more operative amongst us than the truth of the one body.

• It has brought most of us out of the different associations in which we once were; we felt that the different things in which we had been brought up were inconsistent with unity.

• I shall also, by the grace of God, try to show you that if we fail to answer morally to the mind of God in the one body, we become the worst sect that ever was formed. That is a strong statement, but I have not a doubt about the truth of it.

Now I will just retrace a little what has been before us, and you will, I think, see how one truth, leads up to another.

1. The first great truth is the gospel, and the gospel is light, because in it God is revealed, the revelation of God is light.

• I do not speak now about the effect of light, which is to make manifest, although it is light which does make manifest. To get things made manifest, you must first have the light.

• Therefore the point is, What is light? and light is the revelation of God in the gospel – in other words, in the gospel God has been pleased to reveal Himself.

• It is the glory of God in that sense that He has seen fit to reveal Himself, the great object of it being that He may be known according to what He is, that is, love, in the heart of man.

2. The next characteristic I spoke of was liberty. I took it up in connection with John 4, 5, 6; and sought to show that

• the great point in chapter 4 is liberty from sin by the Holy Ghost in the believer;

• in chapter 5, it is deliverance from legality by the revelation of the Father;

• and in chapter 6 it is deliverance from the world by finding a portion in the Son, as living bread come down from heaven.

3. My next point was life, which follows on liberty; and what I sought to bring out last week was the new position, and the power to live in that position.

• Christ having accomplished redemption has put us in an entirely new place before God,
  • "To as many as received him, to them gave he title to take the place of children of God".

• The power has come in by which we can live in that place – that is the meaning of John 20. The Lord first says,
  • "Go, tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father",

• and then afterwards He breathes on them, and says,
  • "Receive ye the Holy Ghost".

• I touch on these things because life is essential for the Christian in relation to the new position which Christ has given us the title to take according to the will of the Father. Therefore when it speaks of the place of children in John's epistle, it says,
  • "Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God".

• It is the Father's gift; Christ gives us title to take that place, and the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; you have come into life.

• But it is life in relation to a position which you never previously occupied before God, a totally new position which never previously belonged to man, which no one ever had till Christ gave it to him according to the Father's will.

Now I come to another point tonight, and that is the one body, which connects itself very intimately with what I have just been saying.

• You have to remember that the full height of the thought of God concerning believers is that they should be brought into sonship; in other words, that they should be brought to perfection, to glory, to be fitting companions of Christ.

• That is not precisely the same thought as that of children, because children is the position which we occupy down here; sonship is identification with Christ in glory,
  • He is "the firstborn among many brethren".

• I quite admit that there may be but a shade of difference between the idea of children and that of sons; but there is that shade of difference, although the connection between the two things is very intimate.

• The full height of the divine counsel in regard to believers is that they should occupy the place of sons:
  • "He has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us to sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will";

    we are predestinated "to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren".

• So, too, the same thought is revealed in Hebrews 2, that
  • God is "bringing many sons unto glory".

• Now I say the truth of the one body hangs on that, and that is what I want to bring before you tonight, by the grace of God. The connection may not be clearly seen, but I am perfectly assured of its truth.

• What has rather led me to see it is this – that the truth of one body is introduced in Romans 12, and yet in the previous part of Romans there is no allusion in terms to it that I am aware of.

• Everything in the first eight chapters of Romans, which is the doctrinal part of the epistle, is in its immediate application individual, and yet one body appears in chapter 12.

• I argue from this that there must be a sufficient foundation of doctrine in the first eight chapters for the body, else it would hardly be possible for it to be referred to in connection with practice in chapter 12. And as we shall see presently, the body is the thought of God in regard to believers here at this moment.

• It is not that I get any instruction in Romans as to what the thought of God is in the body; but I get the recognition that believers are one body in Christ, and therefore I look to find in the previous part of the epistle a sufficient basis of doctrine for the body.

I will just refer for a moment to the truth of sonship. It is a curious thing that in scripture sonship is not presented exactly in connection with eternal life viewed as a present blessing; what comes in in that connection is the place of children.

• Sonship comes in much more in Paul's doctrine, in connection with the truth of the one body. The way in which we are brought into sonship is faith,
  • "Ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus".

• The effect of faith is always to bring light into the soul; and thus when the truth of God's Son is apprehended, light has come into the soul as to God's thought in man: you have thus the light of it.

• What makes sonship effective to us is the Spirit of sonship. As scripture puts it,
  • "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father".

• That is how you get into the good of it. It means in a moral sense that the heart is by the Spirit of God in the enjoyment of God's love, and not only in the enjoyment of God's love, but able to respond to it in the cry, "Abba, Father".

• It is the Spirit of God's Son in the believer's heart which cries, Abba, Father. The Spirit makes us conscious thus, that the grace of God has associated us with Christ in glory;
  • God has "predestinated us to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren",

• and before I get to glory, I am enabled, by the Spirit of sonship to cry, "Abba, Father".

• In that sense, the Spirit discharges two functions in the heart of the believer; He sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, and on the other side He enables the believer to cry, "Abba, Father", because He is the Spirit of God's Son in our hearts.

Now there is only one Spirit of sonship, just as God's Son is one. I think no one will have the least difficulty in either the one or the other of those statements. The apostle, in Galatians 1 says,

• "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me"

• – God's Son is one. And what follows on that is equally true, the Spirit of God's Son is one, there is but one Spirit.

• Now every believer participates in the Spirit of God's Son, it is only one Spirit in all believers, no one here has a different Spirit from another; we all partake of one Spirit, and that Spirit is the Spirit of God's Son; it is not our spirit,
  • "the Spirit bears witness with our spirit",

• – that is another matter. It is the Spirit of God's Son who cries, "Abba, Father", in the heart of the believer. This is a very important point, for the truth of the one body really hangs on it.
  • "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body … and have been all made to drink into one Spirit".

• It is one body down here, composed of all those "many sons" whom God is bringing to glory, those who believe in God's Son, and who have received the Spirit of sonship. By receiving the Spirit believers are constituted one body, as the apostle puts it here,
  • "one body in Christ".

• And that is what makes me say that while you have not revealed in Romans the doctrine of the one body, you have the basis of it, for in chapter 8 the thought of the Spirit of sonship is introduced; as the apostle says there,
  • "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, Abba, Father".

• I quite admit we are all individually sons of God, by faith in Christ Jesus; but when I come to the Spirit of sonship, by which we cry, "Abba, Father", what I maintain is that it is the Spirit of God's Son, and by receiving the Spirit of sonship, we are bound of necessity into one body:
  • it is a heavenly band in Christ, united together in one Spirit, so that we constitute one body.

• That is what I believe to be the basis of the truth of the one body, and the apostle comes to it here, he says,
  • "We being many are one body in Christ, and members one of another".

I desire now to say a word about unity in connection with the body. I need not go over the passages, but a great many scriptures will, I think, occur to everybody here. You will find the truth of unity is commonly pressed in scripture in connection with the body.

• For instance, in this passage in Romans 12,
  • "As the body is one".

• You get the same thing in Corinthians,
  • "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body".

• The same truth is taught in Ephesians,
  • "There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling"

• – that is unity. So also in the early part of Ephesians,
  • "That he might reconcile both unto God in one body".

• So, too, in Colossians,
  • "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which also ye are called in one body".

One body is pressed as a great cardinal truth of Christianity, in the sense that in a place where there had been two, Jew and Gentile, now there was one body in Christ.

• It is "the mystery", something which cannot be manifest in the public ways of God, but which is made known to faith. In the public ways of God Jew and Gentile cannot be one. How then are they one?

• What I have brought before you solves the mystery – by receiving the Spirit believers are constituted one body in Christ and members one of another, and thus the obligation to unity is enforced.

• When Christ comes, Jew and Gentile will not form one body. Both the Jew and the Gentile will be blessed, but the position of the Gentiles will be rather to eat of the crumbs that fall from the Master's table; they will be blessed subordinately to Israel.

• Christ will take the place of the Head and Husband of His people, but He will take the place, too, of the Head of the Gentiles. Most of you will remember the very beautiful expressions of Simeon when he took the Child Jesus up in his arms; he said,
  • "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light for the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel".

• That is the position in which Christ properly stands relatively to Gentile and to Jew. But in Christianity, while Christ is hid from Israel, He is made known to faith as Son of God; He is hid, but the Spirit of sonship is given, and the many sons whom God is bringing to glory are constituted one body, because they have received one Spirit.
  • Thus the principle of unity is enforced by the body.

• Where the thought of union comes in, it is in connection with the place of the church as the bride. What I understand to be taught by union is, that the bride shares the honours of the bridegroom, that all that is given to the bridegroom is shared by the bride.

• And that is what the church comes into; the exaltation and honour that belong to Christ as Man are shared by the bride. He is raised up and exalted, and so, too, the church is quickened together with Him, and raised up and made to sit in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

• That is not quite the idea of the body: it is the saints being in Christ there, sharing His honour and exaltation – that is, union.

• Unity comes out in connection with the body, and the body in scripture is commonly spoken of as here, though I do not doubt that the body has its place in the glory, as
  • "the fulness of him that filleth all in all".

Now I come to the testimony. I think everybody will accept the great truth that the body is one; but when I come to the testimony, that leads me to another thought, which is this – the one body is a practical truth, not a mystical idea.

• The generality of Christians in sects and systems would admit the existence of the church as one body, but they take it up as a mystical idea, not a practical one.

• With the exception of the Church of Rome, which in a certain sense does hold to the truth of one body, to the Christians in sects and systems the one body is not a practical truth. They justify the existence of different bodies, and hold that there may be Christians in all of them, as doubtless there are.

• But that is not the truth of the one body in scripture; one body in scripture is a practical truth,
  • "By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body".

• The unity of saints was the testimony to the world that the Father sent the Son. How could you, apart from one body, get the fulfilment of what the Lord prays for in John 17,
  • "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".

• All Christians were to be constituted one body in Christ; and the unity resulting from this was God's testimony to the world, that the Father sent the Son. Therefore it was a practical truth.

• And it has had a great effect in the present time in separating saints from the different bodies in Christendom, and in drawing us together, for we have felt that our fellowship must be consistent with the truth of the one body, as the dial of a clock must be in correspondence to the works.
  • But where I feel we have been defective is in that we have failed to apprehend, as we ought to have done, what the one body was set here for.

• There is only one thing it was set here for, and that was that the body, being Christ's body, should be morally descriptive of Christ; there was no other purpose that I know of in the body here.

• Man was to be displaced in its practice and affections. And I say, if we are not exercised as to that, as to what the divine mind was in the body, we are like salt without savour.

I will give you an idea of the divine purpose in the body. The apostle speaks in Colossians 1 of God making known to the saints what was the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles, that is, of the one body; and what was it?

• "Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory"

• – that was the divine thought. Christ was in the Gentiles in that sense, in the one body, the hope of glory. In a later passage in Colossians it says you have put off the old man and have put on the new,
  • "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but" – what? – "Christ is all, and in all".

• It was the body of Christ; every member of the body stood in the same relationship to God as Christ, sons of God, and therefore it follows that, by the Spirit of God, the whole body was to be descriptive of Christ.

• Study the Epistle to the Colossians, and see if the purpose in the body is not that it should be a vessel for the display here of Christ? Read chapter 3, and see how it was all to come out,
  • "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a complaint against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye".

• Spiritual affections in the power of the Holy Ghost were to carry saints right above the distinctions of flesh; these were not publicly set aside, but there was a power come in by which saints were to be borne superior to them.

• It is not levelling down or levelling up to make a unity in flesh, or to set aside the distinctions which exist in the government of God; but an energy of spiritual affections, which gave the members of the body to rise superior to the distinctions which existed.
  • The energy of the Spirit of God was in the vessel to reproduce Christ in the body down here.

• That is the wonderful character of the mystery; what God intended as answer to what Satan had effected. Satan had caused the Son of God to be cast out of the world; and yet here was a vessel in which nothing was to be displayed but Christ Himself – that was the thought of God in the one body. Who can gainsay it for a moment?

• You cannot read scripture without seeing it; and the unity of the saints was the great testimony that the Father sent the Son. It was not unity in flesh, but in spiritual affection.
  • "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee"

    – that is, in the reciprocity of affection –

  • "that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me".

I just add a remark. I do not think you can really understand the truth of the body if you are not established in the truth of sonship.

• As I said at the beginning, one truth in scripture so hangs upon another that if you are not established in sonship, that is, in the purposes of God about you, I feel confident that you cannot really enter into the truth of the one body, as that which is here for Christ.

• The first thing is to learn that we all stand before God in one common relationship in Christ; having been predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son, and that we have all received the Spirit of sonship.

• If we have got hold of that, the next step is simple, to apprehend that by the very fact of partaking in one Spirit, we are one body in Christ, and members one of another.
  • And then I think we can go a step further, and see that the one body is to be here descriptive of Christ.

• All that which when He was here was in a sense shut up to Him is now diffused, in the power of the Holy Ghost, in the body in which He is displayed.

• And then, though that is not my subject now, the one body, as the bride, is to share His exaltation and honour as Man – that is its privilege and portion.

I do not need to say more. I do not think that any one will question the great importance of the different steps I have sought to bring before you.

• And it is of so much moment to us, because called out as we have been by the truth of unity from the various associations in which we were found, our position is a most critical one;
  • and if we become ecclesiastical and fail to be in the reality of the truth, our position is easily forfeited, we may let it slip almost before we know it.

• The thing for us is to be really exercised as to what the mind and thought of God was in the one body here upon earth. That one body will be displayed in glory, but it will never be in its testimony here upon earth again.

• And if we have left different associations because these associations were a practical denial of unity, then the truth of the one body is really to be fulfilled in measure in us, and we ought to be exercised about it.

• I quite admit no one of us comes up to it; but I think we ought not to be indifferent to it, or contented with a unity consisting simply in ecclesiastical order.

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