(Continued from page 66.)

10. THE ASSEMBLY, IN ITS PRACTICAL WORKING.

The Church of God is therefore an organization, the body of Christ,-the body on earth of an unseen Head in heaven. he body is always looked at as upon earth, just as the Head is in heaven and thus, as governed by that Head, one with Him as joined by the uniting Spirit, it is His representative in the world, to be the expression of His mind, His will, His nature. This every individual is of course; but that is not enough:it has pleased Him to link these individuals together:and thus even individual duty is not performed, if one's place is not filled in the body, of which we are part. There is to be an "epistle of Christ," (not "epistles," as it is practically often, sometimes actually, read) which, the apostle says to the Corinthians, "ye are." (2 Cor. 3:3.)

If then we are livingly linked together in such a manner, and for such a purpose, how necessary it must be that, as gathered together, we should habitually seek His mind, learn what He would have us so as yoke-fellows together, how we are to sustain and supplement each other in His service. The value of organization in this way seems, strangely enough perhaps, least appreciated by those who should know it best-by those who have had recovered to them by the grace of God the knowledge of His own perfect organization for such work as His, which demands the very utmost of our united energies !

" Organization " is every where appreciated among Christian workers in the various bodies of Christendom to-day:nothing can be done without organization. So abundant is the manufacture of them now, that they are in danger of becoming parasitical growths upon the bodies themselves from which they sprang, and of over-burdening at last what they were designed to buttress and support. There are in fact some very serious reasons for the distrust we have (some of us) learned to entertain of them. They are too loose and large in some ways-undisciplined and destroyers of discipline :all distinctive faith is in danger of being swamped, by many of them, through their loose association of the most contradictory elements,-converted and unconverted, Christians with the deniers of Christ, in an "unequal yoke " forbidden by God Himself under the severest penalties. (2 Cor. 6:14-18.)

And then on the other hand, by their mere human artificial rules, they oppress the conscience almost equally, and substitute the will of the majority, or officialism, for the guidance of the Spirit of God. With all this we have learned so to link the very thought of organization, as to look upon every suggestion of it with more than suspicion as necessarily unspiritual and evil,-at least, outside of and so against Scripture.

But what then shall we do with the thought of the "body of Christ," which is most surely that of an organization, as it is also scriptural and divine ? That common relationship which we have to one another binds us to "consider one another to provoke to love and to good works " (Heb. 10:24); with which the apostle conjoins the "not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another." Do not such words imply the opportunity given for more "consideration " of individual needs, and more occupation with the Lord's work among us, and that in our "assembling together," than is almost any where found among us? more than "open meetings" or reading meetings or prayer-meetings, as these exist among us, can unitedly supply ?

Must not fellowship with one another be sadly limited in its range, if there is not fellowship in the Lord's work among us and around us ? if there be no gatherings to consider this ? and such not exceptional, casual, something supererogatory, as it were, but earnestly and heartily entered into as essential to cur corporate duties, and thus to our right spiritual health itself?

Right and left of us, in all the denominations round, Christians come together to consider the Lord's work, and express their interest in and identify themselves with it. Is it a necessity laid upon us any where as two or three gathered to the Lord's name, that we should be cut off so largely as we are from all gathering together for such purposes ? I cannot but believe that wherever such lack exists, it is a most serious one. It tends to make our interest in one another partial and exceptional ; to deprive us of much of the good that should come of the differences that are among us which make mutual help so necessary, and in its ministry so serviceable in binding us together ; it tends to make our Christian activities more desultory and feebler ; to deprive us of many doors that would be found open to us ; and to expose us to the reproach of being (as a whole) out of the way of usefulness.

Why is it that those who have the gospel, it must be allowed, in a simplicity at least as great as anywhere, should be even capable of being assailed with just such reproaches ? Why, in fact, have we been left so much behind in the evangelization of the world by others with much less light, but zealous in their cooperation with one another for such a purpose ? Have we been too heavily freighted by the truth we carried ? If it were dead truth, probably ; but not if it were living. Truth, that is known in the power of it, is " such a weight as wings are to a bird;" and had we gone in the same zeal after the same class that these have sought, no ecclesiastical prejudice could have robbed us of the blessing. The hindrance, of whatever nature, has been something else than this.

But again, has there not developed among us a dangerous tendency, on slight occasion, to break up? Is it out of place to remind ourselves, that Philadelphia must be that-a "brotherhood" ? Have we not failed in cultivating that spirit of brotherly fellowship of which the hand to hand occupation in the Lord's work is certainly a very important part ? We have, no doubt, left room for the development of gift, and been unfeignedly thankful to see evangelists, teachers, and others raised up among us ; but have we not lacked in seeking, in the way stated, to make the work of the Lord a matter of common responsibility and widest fellowship ?

"Business meetings," even "brothers' meetings," will not fill this gap. We need something wide enough to take in all the Lord's interests on earth, free enough to give every one place in it, practical enough to concern itself mainly with home duties and responsibilities that lie upon us in connection with the places in which we live and the spheres in which we move day by day. We want something which will bring us continually into remembrance of our individual duties as the Lord's workers, be suggestive, encouraging, and helpful as to our fulfillment of them, fit us more together as really co-members of the body of Christ, make us realize His mind for us as a whole, and form it in us, give us practical wisdom for the days in which we live, that we may be like the men of Issachar who came to Hebron, to make David king, "who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (i Chron. 12:32), -something that may develop all the truth we have into practical expression.
I am persuaded that if the Church of God be, as it plainly is, an organization, we have yet to use it for all the purposes of an organization, and that charged with the responsibility of representing Christ, and being the practical expression of His mind on earth. And if we be but "two or three" in each place, instead of thousands, while acknowledging sadly, as we must, the broken condition of things, we are just as much responsible to show forth in our measure what the Church of God should be:-a living, united, working, cooperating membership; a body, moving in unison with the mind of the unseen Head, in the energy of the Spirit, which has formed and which inspires it.

No one suggests that we can all read our Bibles at home, and that there is no need of our coming together for this purpose. Nor that we can pray in our houses and our families and have no need of prayer-meetings in the assembly. Why should the work-meeting, the means of communion in practice, be the only thing thought unnecessary ?

Yet for lack of this, the prayer-meetings become vague, general, with little definite application to needs that are not known, and to service which is merely personal, private, or shared by few, with which communion is not sought, and little possible. Our reading meetings lack similarly the point of personal application, the freshness of interest which is supplied by the incidents of service unknown save to individuals. We are in fact, largely, individuals, touching each other at a few points, hidden from each other in most; save as personal friendships join us here and there, and which, without the larger interests to steady them, tend to form us into parties, and in times of pressure break us up into them.

How little do we "consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works"! how pointless, from lack of knowledge, do exhortations of this kind fall ! How little in general are we near enough to each in our inner lives to encourage or give opportunity to make them! Yet as children of God and members of Christ, we are in a relationship to one another nearer and more abiding than any other can be!

We need to draw nearer together as Christians practically, not merely theoretically. In the stress of the world upon us we need to take each other by the hand, and strengthen each other's hands in God. In the presence of evil we need to show, not a broken, but an embattled front. In a world away from God but over which His mercies linger, we need a more practical fellowship with the gospel, and encouragement to every one to take earnest part in ministering it. In all that concerns the Church of God we must have that which will give us better opportunity to know that we are " members one of another." And we need, as partakers of the mind of Christ, to give this more united practical expression.

Membership in the body of Christ means service:every part of a "body "is in necessary relationship with the whole, and there is no independency any where; each needs and serves and is served by the whole. God has acted upon this principle throughout nature; and nowhere more fully than among men. If "it is not good that man should be alone," God makes for him as a helper, not the repetition, but the complement of himself. He unites the weaker to the stronger, that even by this weakness his strength may be better served. She is given him to be ministered to, that by this she may minister to him also, drawing him out of himself, developing his heart,-a blessing which all he gives cannot repay. The needs and inequalities of men similarly have built up society by division of labor; and even the regions of the earth are thus helpful by the difference of their productions in binding together the nations of the earth. The city is the highest development of this principle; and if man departed from God built the first, yet God has prepared for His people the final one :a "city which hath foundations," and will abide.

Thus ministry is God's law of nature, as it is the expression of the nature of God Himself, which is love. " Love seeketh not her own; " "by love" we " serve one another." Love is freedom, happiness, the opposite of all legality, the spirit of heaven, conferring and reflecting blessing. And that fullest description of love which we find in Corinthians is enshrined in that of the "body of Christ" as its proper home and the means of its expression. Here the necessity of all parts to one another is just what provides for and makes necessary the constant out-going of love to one another. There are some small animal half-organisms that grow by division; but the higher the organism the more its unity is enforced by the abhorrence of this. A part lost is not supplied again:the creature is maimed, and goes mourning for its loss, refusing substitution.

Such is the body of Christ then-the highest pattern of such fitting together that can be:and if but two or three can practically be together, this does not free them from the obligation to all the members. Love would abhor the thought of this as freedom, and it is only at peril to ourselves that we can act upon it. Love would indeed hold fast therefore the local expression of the greater thing, not set it aside for the unpractical and impossible; yet would it see that this did not in fact degenerate into merely partial, and thus sectarian, display. It would still look out and beyond, as partaking of the divine love towards all, and unforgetfulness of the tie existing. It would look out over the whole field of Christ's interests and identify itself in heart with all; seeking ever to widen the outlook and extend the sphere of practical sympathy. Prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, would become ever with it more definite, while yet larger in scope, and more according to the apostolic, sadly forgotten rule, "for all men."

But more:did such a spirit animate us, we should come to see, perhaps, that there were other "divine movements" among Christians elsewhere; not less to be recognized as such because, mixed up with what was of the Spirit of God, there were elements too purely human, and that the enemy was striving to adulterate them with various evil. We should learn too that God had lessons for us, most practical and profitable, from all around, if we were only humble enough to learn from all sorts of teachers, and wise enough to be able to "take forth the precious from the vile," the imperative condition for our being "as God's mouth" (Jer. 15:19). Doubtless we should find very frequently our own rebuke in it, and this would test us much:it would show whether we desired to believe that all wisdom was with us, and outside was only darkness; whether, like Gideon's fleece, the dew of the Spirit was with us wholly, and all the ground around were dry.

Not that it is meant by this to encourage a tendency to run hither and thither, which is in general but the expression of restlessness and want of proper occupation with our own things. Our feet are to be kept in a known path, and not allowed in doubtful ones. It is the heart that is to be enlarged, and not the path, which must ever be a narrow one. The spirit of the wanderer is one too little heedful of the way with God to be able to guide another into it. "Let him that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity" is a word which, followed in the spirit of it, will keep one from every doubtful thing (which may, therefore, be evil) as well as from what is known as such; and from that also in which I may see the working of the Spirit of God, so long as it is yet mixed with that which I have to judge as contrary to His mind.
I would press upon my own soul what I press upon others, speaking from convictions which have been now a good while with me, and only increase with the lapse of time, that while we rightly gather together as worshipers, and hearers of God's word, we have nowhere perhaps, except fitfully and exceptionally, gatherings of the whole as workers under the Lord our Head, and to possess ourselves as such of His mind, wherever, however expressed, in all the largeness which we must recognize His mind to have. I believe such meetings to be necessary for the maintenance of true Christian fellowship in its full reality, with each other and the Lord alike; and to help to make the assemblies a living, intelligent representation, however feeble, of the "body of Christ."

I had purposed saying more, but have perhaps reached the limit of what the Lord would have at this time. Merely fragmentary and suggestive, these papers must not be supposed to ignore what else in the address to Philadelphia has been unnoticed. If He should be pleased to use them to bring the consciences of His people more into exercise as to what is surely a special word from Himself for the present day, the object will be attained. F. W. G.