PHILADELPHIA:WHAT IS IT?

My purpose is, as the Lord enables me, to follow the track of what I have no doubt to be a gracious movement of God in recent times, and with which as such all His people are necessarily concerned; to seek to show the principles which characterize it, and their meaning and value as taught in Scripture; to speak also of the difficulties and opposition through which it has had to find its way; and in this my aim will be to exercise hearts and consciences (if unexercised) with relation to it, and still more to help those already variously exercised to a settlement of questions which at the present time are pressing heavily on many.

I do not propose, however, any history of the movement of which I speak. For this I have no special competence; nor, if I had, would it serve so well the purpose that actuates me. It would raise question as to facts, and prejudice minds in opposite ways, by the introduction of names and persons, familiar and in reputation, perhaps the reverse. Our tendency is too much to make men commend the truth, rather than the truth commend the men who follow it. I shall look therefore at principles simply, with their necessary results (as far as these can be traced), only referring to history so far as may be necessary to explain their importance for us, and omitting wholly the names of those who have stood for them, or stood against them.

This may be deemed unsatisfactory by some, and of course leaves the application of principles to be made by every one for himself. But with divine light as to principles, and a soul truly before God, the application will after all be comparatively easy. It will test us, of course, whether we be there; and that seems to me to be in His mind for us, in a special way, just now. Let us not seek escape from it; but that we may stand the test, and find the blessing which He surely designs us in it.

For He does design blessing. This is the end from which He never swerves. When special times of sifting come, the sense of weakness everywhere apparent, and the love we have to one another would make us gladly seek escape, for ourselves and for others also. But, thank God, it is as vain as it is unwise and unbelieving. Satan is the sifter of God's wheat, and it is a serious thing indeed to have to do with him; but sifting is the ordained method of purification. Take Simon Peter as the great example of it in the gospels:he is in special danger, foreknown by the Lord as specially to fail, and yet cannot be spared the sifting. "I have prayed for thee," says the great Intercessor; not that thou mayest not be sifted, not even that thou mayest not fail, but "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and, when thou art converted," (or restored, as the meaning is,) "strengthen thy brethren." Here was good to come, (even for one who might seem to have failed utterly under it,) from the sifting of Satan.

What comfort for us in this, whether we think of ourselves or of others ! And if the Lord had for us, in His abundant goodness, any work for Himself ready to be put into our hands, what wonder if, first of all, He were pleased to let us also-perhaps finding our way into it, even as Peter did, through our own self-confidence and imprudence,-find, though in sorrow and suffering, the value of Satan's sieve ? We have, I believe, ground for the conviction that this is the meaning of what is now taking place.
But I go on at once to what is the matter that I have in hand, and raise the question which is at the head of this paper.

I do not propose now to work out the proof of what is familiar and accepted truth for most, perhaps, who will read these pages, that the Lord's addresses to the seven churches in Revelation contemplate, in fact, successive states of the Church at large, answering, in the same order, to the condition of these respective churches, or assemblies ; and that unitedly they cover the whole period, from the apostle's day till the Lord takes us to be with Himself above. The great proof of this must be in fact the correspondence that can be traced between what is thus assumed to be the prophecy and its fulfillment; and this it is not difficult to trace as far as regards at least the first five churches.* *Those who have difficulty I may refer to " Present Things," published by Loizeaux Brothers, and where it can be obtained also, bound up in a larger volume, " The Revelation of Jesus Christ."* Let us briefly attempt this.

1. Ephesus, to which, in its first fresh fervor, the doctrine of the Church was declared by the apostle, is shown heading here a history of decline. Outwardly things still look well. The secret of departure is only realized by Him whose heart, seeking ours, cannot but be keenly conscious of it, if first love is no longer there. Here is the beginning of the end, a root upon which evil fruit of all kinds will be found, if there be not recovery.

2. Smyrna next shows us the double assault of the enemy upon the Church in this weakened condition. Persecution on the part of the world, as under the Roman emperors ; internally, the introduction of a bastard Judaism, such as in its beginnings had to be met by the apostle, notably in Galatia, and which, in contrast with the heavenly Church, develops as the enemy's seed, "the synagogue of Satan,"-the mixing together of true and false in a legal and ritualistic system claiming earthly position and promises, and already slandering-this I take to be their "blasphemy"-the faithful remnant.

3. Pergamos shows us then the pilgrim character of the Church lost:they are " dwelling where Satan's throne is." And while Nicolaitans ("subjectors of the laity") preach now their "doctrine," Balaam-teachers seduce the people of God into evil alliances with the world, and mere idolatry.

4. Thyatira carries this on to full development in Romanism, as we see to-day. That which Balaam-teachers did before as individuals, a woman (type, as we know, of the professing Church) does now, speaking as a prophetess, with the claim of divine authority, and yet branded with the awful name of Jezebel, the idolatrous persecutor of true prophets in Ahab's days. Here development in this line ends :a remnant is beginning to be marked out again ("the rest in Thyatira"), and prepares us for a different condition of things in the next address.

5. In Sardis accordingly, we have no indication of Jezebel or her corruption. There are things that have been received and heard, but they languish and are ready to die. The general state is that of death, though with a "name to live," and a "few names that have not defiled their garments" in this place of the dead. It is easy to see that we have here the national churches of the Reformation, with their purer doctrine given of God, though hard to be maintained in the midst of what-as the world claiming to be the church-is necessarily "dead," with "a name to live." There is here, and all through, to this point, no possible difficulty of identification for a simple and honest heart, of what is presented to us in these churches.

But this brings us, as the next stage, to Philadelphia; and what is Philadelphia ? This ought to be a question capable of answer surely, and of satisfactory answer too. There can hardly be a doubt, if the previous applications have been correct, that Philadelphia must be something following Reformation times, outside of the state churches which have already found their delineation, and something which the three hundred years that are past have been ample to develop. But there are things connected with the identification in this case which should rightly make us pause and be very sure of our ground in attempting any explanation.

Philadelphia has, as a whole, the Lord's approval in a way no other of these churches has; except indeed Smyrna, with which in another respect also Philadelphia is linked. For here the "synagogue of Satan" once more appears as there:there seems some recrudescence of the Jewish principles typified by this ; or at least something brings these to the front in the Lord's address.

But it is intelligible why people should shrink from appropriating to themselves the commendation that is found here; while yet that very commendation must cause every Christian heart to crave the character which our blessed Master can thus commend. Thus it always must have appealed to Christians ; and since no circumstances of our time can ever render it impossible for us to fulfill the conditions necessary to His approval, there surely must have been Philadelphians in every generation of His people since these words were written. And here how blessed to see that what the Lord approves in Philadelphia is given in such absolutely plain speech. Keeping His word, not denying His Name, keeping the word of His patience:how simple all this seems; how simple it is, to a heart that is truly simple ! And yet, if we apply it closely, not meaning to let ourselves off easily, these words will be found, I doubt not, capable of searching us out to the very bottom.

But though thus there have been Philadelphians in all times, a Philadelphian movement is another matter; and this is what we should look for, from the place of this address among the other addresses. We shall have to face this, if we would be thoroughly honest with ourselves, and would not deprive ourselves therefore of the blessing of such a commendation. For while it is very well to take heed that we flatter not ourselves with being what we are not, there is another thing that is to be considered, and that is, if there be such a movement, our own relation to it. And this may well cause us anxious inquiry, may it not ? and it would be a strange disappointment indeed, were we to have to accept that such an inquiry as this could not expect to attain its end.

If the Lord have given me in His addresses to the churches to find a clue to His relation to the successive phases, complete or partial, of the Church on earth, then I must surely ask myself, where am I with regard to this ? And if I plainly do not belong to that line of development which ends in Thyatira or Papal Rome; if also I do not belong to the state churches of the Reformation, or those similarly constituted, though they may not be established; am I to find no place in that which the Lord addresses ? If I am, where must I find it, but in Philadelphia or in Laodicea ?

Now if the Spirit of God be at work in the midst of such a state of things as Sardis implies, not merely to sustain a remnant, but in testimony against evil as a whole, in what direction will it necessarily be found working ? Will it not be in separation between the living and the dead ? that is, in leading Christians to seek out their company; or in giving expression to the "love of brethren"? which is only to say in English, in Philadelphia ?

Is it not plain that this has in fact characterized, in various degrees, many different movements that have arisen since Reformation times, in which more or less was affirmed the separation of Christians from the world, and the communion of saints as a visible reality ? Every effective protest against the misery of an unconverted church membership has partaken of this character. And the maintenance of the diversity between the Church and the world has necessarily led on to the assertion of the related truth of the Church's practical unity. Philadelphia, "brotherly love," is a word which, going to the heart of the matter, covers surely all this seeking after the making visible of the Church so long conceived as necessarily invisible.

Putting all together, we may take this as clearly what Philadelphia means. It stands for a broad and well-defined movement in the history of the professing church, and which has assumed many different characters. These differences may indeed be pleaded against its practical nature as defining any distinct path for the people of God to-day. But this is only a superficial view of the matter. There are other things to be considered, which will essentially modify this first conception, and make us realize the word of God, here as elsewhere, to be "quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword," and requiring from us a real and complete integrity in our obedience to it, in order to such blessing as the Lord sets before us. Let us turn to consider now the first warning which He gives us in connection with this matter.

2.THE OVERCOMER IN PHILADELPHIA.

The separation of the Church from the world, and its restoration to visible unity upon the earth! if that be in the heart of the Philadelphia!!, as in his heart it must be for him to be this, how the Lord's words appeal to us, " Thou hast a little power." Power equal to such work as this is plainly not his; though He will graciously acknowledge what there is. The ideal before him is an impracticable one; though, thank God, this is to be widely distinguished from an impractical one. Infidels have rightly declared that the Christian standard is an impracticable one; but every Christian knows that to "walk as Christ walked" is very far from an unpractical ideal.

If you are acquainted at all with the feeble efforts of Christians in the direction of which we have been speaking,-of their inconsistency with one another, and with their real object, we shall surely realize, that, in the path in which Christ leads us, we have need of the deepest humility, if we would escape the deepest humiliation. It is not my object now to enumerate these; but the warning which the Lord gives to the Philadelphian is surely one that speaks volumes here, for it is upon his heeding it that all depends for him. " Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." It is in this respect that overcoming is to be accomplished for the Philadelphian, as it is plainly the only evil that is in view.

But with this his "little power" unites, to make the warning more impressive. The unattainableness of the ideal, the little progress that we make toward it, the weakness manifest in others as in ourselves, all combine to dishearten and weary us. That seems to be often the failure of principles which is only the failure to act upon the principles. But this too is saddening enough. Let it be that the principles themselves have only failed by not being carried out, if they are too unearthly-too heavenly – for that which all the history of the Church has proved her to be, would it not be wiser to materialize them somewhat ? If a lower path be more practicable, is it not after all the better ? It is not realized that to give up a single point as to the Lord's will is to give up obedience as a principle. How many points we give up is then but a question of detail.

As a matter of fact, it will not be difficult to find the wrecks of failed Philadelphia strewing the centuries since Luther. Every genuine revival, as being the work of the same Spirit, has tended in the same direction. It has brought Christians together; it has separated them from the world; it has proved afresh the power of Christ's word; it has revived the sweetness of His Name. The sense of evils in the professing Church, intolerable to the aroused consciences and hearts of His people, has forced many, in obedience to the Word, to "depart from iniquity." Alas, is it not the constant reproach of such movements that hardly has a generation passed before the spirit of them is departed, they have sunk to nearly the common level of things around; they have no more been able to retain the blessing than a child the sunshine it has gathered in its hand ? If wedded to some principle which the natural conscience owns, or some assertion of right which men value as their possession, such movements may still grow, and faster than before, while the old men weep at the remembrance of the days they have seen, and realize their temple to be in ruins.

So simply all this takes place, that it is easy to see it must take place, unless the power of God prevent the natural evolution. The first generation had to break through natural surroundings at the call of God; they had learned of God, with exercised hearts, and followed Him through suffering and with self-denial. And their children come into the heritage their fathers had acquired for them, necessarily without the exercise their fathers had. Nature attracts them to the path, not warns them from it. They accept easily, and can easily let go. They know not the joy of sacrifice. They have not the vigor gained by painful acquirement. It is easy to predict what will naturally follow; not necessarily from anything wrong in what they hold as truth, but from the incapable hands with which they hold it.

But the argument from such failure seems to be used so disastrously with souls to-day, that it is worth a deeper consideration. Does "success," as men count success, argue anything as to the goodness before God of that which succeeds ? Or conversely, does failure and break-up, to any extent you please to name, prove that which has been made shipwreck of was evil, or that there was evil at least inherent in it ? Carry it out thoroughly and honestly, such a supposition, and see where it will land you. If you know the Apostolic Church, as seen in Scripture, and the blessed heritage of truth with which it was endowed at the beginning:tell me where shall I find this Church, when I come to the beginning of uninspired history ? and where shall I find this truth possessed by her even in many of its fundamentals ?

The answer is too plain and terrible, Scripture itself preparing us indeed for it. It was needful, even while this was being written, that Jude should exhort to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." And Paul speaks of the "mystery of iniquity already at work"; and he and Peter of the special evils of the last days. And John could find the signs of the "last time" in there being already "many antichrists" (i John 2:18).

Outside of Scripture, it is enough to say, in the language of another, that the historical church "never was, as a system, the institution of God, or what God had established; but at all times, from its first appearance in ecclesiastical history, the departure as a system from what God established, and nothing else." And as to doctrines, "it is quite certain that neither a full redemption, nor (though the words be used once or twice) a complete possessed justification by faith, as Paul teaches it, a perfecting for ever by His one offering, a known personal acceptance in Christ, is ever found in any ecclesiastical writings, after the canonical Scriptures, for long centuries."* *J. N. Darby." Christianity, not Christendom," pp. 7, 22.*

But what, then, about this apostolic church which, in some of its most important doctrines, seems to have vanished out of the world in such a manner, for so long a time ? Were its principles at fault or what, that it failed so quickly ? What principles of Scripture shall we find that will secure us from failure, though they could not secure those who had them at the beginning ? Is it not plain that Scripture exhorts us, if we be Philadelphians, to "hold fast"? and does not this recognize the danger of not holding fast ?

No one need wonder, then, if the wrecks of Philadelphia are strewn along the road; while Rome retains, century after century, her boasted unity and power over souls. It is accounted for by the simple fact which Scripture recognizes, that error roots itself in the world more easily than truth. And so the Lord asks by Jeremiah (2:ii) :"Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods ? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." Rather, then, may we argue the reverse way, that if, in an adverse world, and with Satan's power rampant, a people could find a way of steady increase and prosperity, this exceptional vigor would have to be accounted for, and not the fact of reverses and discouragements.

Yet after all, it should be clearly understood to what the Lord's warning words exhort:"Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." What is that which they are called to "hold fast"? I beg my reader's earnest attention to the answer which the message itself gives :this is not a certain deposit of doctrine clearly. I do not mean to deny such a deposit-very far from that; nor, if there be such, that it is to be held fast. Necessarily it is; and yet, I say again, this is not what the Lord speaks of here ; whereas in the message to Sardis, it is this unmistakably.

The comparison between the two is in the highest degree important. To Sardis it is said, "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent." There a measured amount, a clearly defined deposit, of truth is indicated:and this is simple and most instructive, if we recall what Sardis means. A wonderful blessing was given in those Reformation days. Many a truth of immense significance and value for the soul had they "received and heard." And they knew the value of it all; but in their eagerness to secure it for the generations to come, what did they do ? They put it into creeds and confessions; and I say not, they were wrong in this. Nay, they had clearly a right to say for themselves and declare to others what they believed they had received from God. Those "confessions"- truly such they were in those days of martyrdom- read by the light of the fires kindled by their adversaries for the signers, are blessed witnesses to-day of the truth for which, when felt in power, men could give their bodies to the flame, and quail not.

But the wrong was here :they took those creeds and imposed them-with all the emphasis that penalties enforced by a State-church could give-upon the generations following. Their own measure of knowledge was to be that of their children and their children's children. If there were error in the creed, that error must be transmitted with it. And all this was given into the hands, not even of spiritual men, but of the world-church they had reared up, to care for and maintain!
Necessarily the Spirit was grieved and quenched. He was leading them on-you can see it in Luther's letter to the Bohemian brethren-far beyond where they actually stopped. He was ready to lead them into "all truth" (Jno. 16:13). They put up their Ebenezers not to show simply that thus far the Lord had helped them, but as the Ultima Thule of knowledge. What wonder if they really, to those under the sway of these systems, became such! Henceforth it was to "what they had received and heard" in the sixteenth century that they looked back. The word now was no longer, as with the Reformers, when they were reformers, "On with the Holy Spirit of truth, our Teacher," but "Back to the Reformation."

The words of the Lord to Sardis are therefore precise in the marvelous accuracy which His words necessarily must have. "You have taken," they say, "the measure of truth you have, as if it were all truth:well, you have limited yourselves how much; but at least be true to what you have got:'be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die'." In view of infidel criticism everywhere undermining to-day the foundations of Scripture itself, how are the Reformation churches responding to this ?

But Philadelphia is called to "hold fast," too. Yes, but what ? what she has, of course; and that is a little power, and Christ's word kept, and His Name not denied. Notice that there is no longer a measured quantity-"what thou hast received " ; nor is it His "commandments" or His "words," but His "word." The distinction is so clearly drawn in the gospel of John (14:21-24) that, although it may be familiar to most who read this, I shall briefly state it.

Love is not to be measured by profession or by emotion, but by obedience. " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them," says the Lord, "he it is that loveth Me." The response to this is :"and he that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him."

But there is a deeper love than that manifested in keeping commandments. It is that which takes account of all His word, whether positive command or not. And here the response is greater correspondingly. "If a man love Me, he will keep my word" -so it should read, not "words"; "and my Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make our abode with him." Here it is plain that there is a fullness and permanency of communion not to be found in the previous case.

Philadelphia has kept-is keeping, as long as she remains Philadelphia-not His commandments, but His word:this as a whole. Not, of course, that she knows it all:that were impossible. But, just for that reason, she has not a certain amount of truth which she has received, and to which she is faithful. She is like Mary at His feet, to listen and be subject to whatever He has to communicate. His word as a whole is before her. Not limiting the Spirit, she will be led on; for He leads on. Her ear is open. She has the blessedness of the man "that heareth Me," says the eternal Wisdom, "watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors."

Of course, this is no peculiarity of any special time; it is God's way at all times to lead on the soul that is just ready for His leading. And at all times of special revival this has been seen especially. But of late, many will recognize that Scripture has been opened to us more as a whole than at any former time since the apostles; and that this has been in connection with such a movement as had the features, if I have interpreted them aright, of what in the Apocalypse is called Philadelphia. Certain great truths being recovered to the Church have helped to open up in a new way the Old Testament as well as the New. The dispensations have been distinguished; the gospel cleared from Galatian error; the place in Christ learned in connection with our participation in His death and resurrection; the real nature of eternal life, and the present seal and baptism of the Spirit in contrast with all former or other operations and gifts; the coming of the Lord as distinct from His appearing:do we not owe it to the Lord to acknowledge without reserve what His grace has done ? and must we not connect it with the fullness of Christ's word here, in contrast with the "what thou hast received and heard " of Sardis ?

We must recognize it in order to admit the question, which to me, I confess, grows more solemn daily:Is this attitude still maintained, and is it to be maintained ? are we to go on with the Lord still
learning, still to learn ? or to make even these blessed truths a measure with which we shall content ourselves ? A large measure is still a " measure"; and once getting back to merely "what we have received " is after all to accept the bucket (or say, the cistern) in place of the flowing well. At the feet of Jesus, who will presume to say we have the measure of His blessed Word ?

(To be continued.)