THE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, Philadelphia:the Revival of the Word of Christ, and the Brotherhood of Christians. (Rev. 3:7-13.-Continued.)

It has been often observed, and is evidently true, that the person of the Lord is more prominent in this address than in any of the others. It is a beautiful testimony that He is being Himself sought after with a new earnestness, to which He with a full heart responds. And the character in which He displays Himself is that of holiness and truth; for there is no way of nearness to Him but by separation from the evil that He hates, and being formed by the truth which He reveals. The Word is separative and formative? The mark of its reception is, the abandonment of all iniquity, marked as such, not by the common conscience of men, but by the Word itself. This is the sign of entrance into the sanctuary-of the presence of the Lord realized, when in His light we see light.

Absolute truthfulness is rare indeed. The penalties attending it are so many, often to be escaped by so slight a swerving from the strict path,-a path often so lonely and without sympathy, and so barren as it might seem in its isolation. Even to Christians, Christ often appears to have deserted it. And then after all to break down there! and what so likely as to break down? In this way we may connive at self-deception; for what do all these reasonings amount to, but that the path is to be a path of faith to us now as it ever was, and difficulties are to be as ever the test of faith?

Here, then, is conscience challenged as we enter on this address to Philadelphia. Have we indeed the " courage of our convictions" ? or, perhaps, have we the courage to expose ourselves to possible conviction ?

And note that the " holy " goes before the " true." There may be " truth," or "genuineness" as the word means, where after all holiness is not maintained. Satan succeeds by some puzzle for the mind in diverting many from a true issue. Authority may be pressed and bowed to as from God, and the soul awed into subjection to what it dares not approach near enough to recognize in its true character. Conscience may act, but blindfold, at the bidding of another than its "one Master." With Him, on the other hand, the "holiness" it is that guarantees the "truth."

He who thus declares Himself invites after all to no path of uselessness:He has the key of David, is Ruler over the kingdom absolutely, opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens; and to those whom He addresses, pledges an open door, plainly for service, as the whole tenor here implies, and as the apostle three times over uses the expression (i Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12; Col. 4:3). Who could be in Christ's company without finding on the one hand His rejection, on the other how human hearts recognize their Lord? Here is no contradiction, but what every page of the gospels bears witness of to us.

Assuredly faith will still be necessary, and a judgment by results will be often much mistaken.
If we wait for these to authenticate our course to us, we must in the meanwhile walk doubtfully, and not in faith. These words are an assurance rather to those who may be pursuing what to sense seems doubtful enough as to its issue. He affirms it to them. If they have the character here,-if they are with the Holy and the True,-holy with the Holy, true with the True,-then precisely because of this assurance, they need not ask, Will this be fulfilled- is it being fulfilled to us? Our eyes must be upon the path and the Leader. Success, where it seems fullest, must yet be tested rather by the future than the present-rather by eternity than time; and he who follows it most will be most distracted by other voices than His who speaks here. What tempter lures indeed the servants of Christ like this? For how many does success, rather than the Word of God, sanction their measures, while alluring them into direct opposition to the Word! If even gained in true obedience, how often does the flattery of great achievement unbalance a soul which adversity could only school to more endurance ! These things are but common-places of experience; and in view of them, we need not wonder if God has, in general, been sparing in measuring out to His people great success.

And yet finally the success is great indeed, as it is certain to those who conform to the rule laid down as of old to Joshua:"This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein :for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success." Alas! how much oftener is this thought to be insured by a supple and worldly wisdom than by a close and undeviating adherence to the Word of God!

The Lord now gives here, as elsewhere, what He approves in them:" For thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, and hast not denied My name."

A little strength He marks and approves; yet it is but a little. No Pentecostal energy revived, no faith that can move mountains, shall we find here. The "day of small things," in the Christian as in the Jewish history, is not at its beginning, but at its close. It is a great mistake to confound the day of Ezra with the day of David. And although it may be said, and truly, that eternal life and the power of the Spirit know no decrepitude, yet our day and generation leave their imprint on us. They should not; we are not blameless in it; yet they do. Still "a little strength" is here approval.

And how is this marked? Surely in what follows,-" Thou hast kept My word, and not denied My name." It is not in gifts restored to the Church, as some claim now; it is not in ecclesiastical position, nor in numbers, nor in place among men;-in none of these things is there strength before God, but in obedience and devotedness.

We have seen in Thyatira Jezebel's word claimed as inspired and authoritative; we have seen, too, in Sardis, a separation from and refusal of such claim:yet the Church, though no longer inspired, teaches still. There is, as men say, an open Bible, (blessed be God for it!) and with this, a certain necessary diffusion of light. The Reformation creeds insist upon the fundamental truths of the gospel, and these have been sealed by the lives and deaths of the martyrs. At the first, also, these
creeds are in harmony with the convictions of those who subscribe them, although very soon dissent has to be embodied in a separate creed. Then a strife of creeds begins which has been the shame and reproach of Protestantism,-which has added schism to schism and sect to sect.

For the creed in Protestantism,-the pretension to catholicity, as in Rome, being gone,-means sectarianism. Who that has the thought of Christ's Church would undertake to frame a confession or constitution for it? Hence all such things now are local, and professedly for a part only. It is a fencing off of a greater or less number from the rest. If you cannot agree, you are at best dismissed to go elsewhere, and find or make a party for yourself.

But he who will keep Christ's word can bind himself to none,-must preserve his individuality of conscience, subject to one Master only ; as much so as if there were no other Christians but himself on earth:and in a true walk with God, the knowledge of Himself, acquaintance with His Word increases with each step of the way. The light brightens to the perfect day, and in this brightening light we are called to walk, true to it, and to Him whose light it is. An immense thing it is, in a day like this, to be keeping, with an exercised heart, the word of Christ! Not a word here and there; not following it until the cost may be too much; but through honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report. For is there right obedience any where, when there is not in our purpose obedience every where? Can He whom we serve accept a compromise to His own dishonor, when we really tell Him we will do this, but not that, at His bidding? Solemn questions these, which may His grace keep ringing in our ears, until they wake up only harmonies of joy and peace within our souls, and not self-accusation.

Let us understand that keeping Christ's word means, if it mean any thing, honest subjection to the whole of it:to that of which we may not even perceive the importance, as if we did; calling nothing little which He enjoins-of what has equal authority with the weightiest to emphasize it for us. Herein is often the truest test of a right spirit in us, when we obey not in uncertainty, but in darkness; and go out upon His leading, not knowing where.

We have need to remember, too, that our own contrary wills are often the most effectual hindrances to receiving what is really Christ's word. How solemn it is to think that of the mass of things in which we differ from each other as Christians, this contrariety must needs account for very much the larger part. The Lord's words are plain enough, and universally applicable, that " if any one will do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." It is due to Him to own that as the blessed Spirit of God could not lead into contradictory beliefs, these differences must be of us, and not of Him. But then, found as they are in so many whom we must esteem as godly men, what a warning they give us of how much that is not of God,-of real in subjection-may be found even in such. So far as we have indeed whole-heartedly followed Him, who can doubt that He has led us right? But then how little really unreserved following of Him there must be after all!

And who can measure the loss even now? and who then can measure the eternal loss, when we
thus let slip communion with Himself? And how many are trying to win it back, or make up for its absence by filling their hands with work for Him, as if they were almost persuaded that "to obey is" not " better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

How plainly perceptible it is when a soul reaches the barrier line beyond which he will not go! Activities may go on, and the whole outward man be no other than it was, yet there is something gone from the soul which at once one with God will discern as hindering fellowship. How sorrowful to lose one another's company this way, while yet perhaps the feet go on together! But if we lose Christ's companionship, what shall replace it?

Naturally and necessarily connected, then, with "Thou hast kept My word," is this:"and hast not denied My name." Christ's name expresses what He is. " They shall call His name ' Emmanuel,' which being interpreted is, 'God with us.' " And to fulfill this, He is named "Jesus"-"Jehovah saving;" for save He must, that God may dwell among us. Thus, again, He is "Christ." the Anointed One, to fill the Mediator's place,-with God for us, with us for God. Who that knows it would deny this blessed name?

What does it express, what does it emphasize for us but communion with God? He hath come out after us, left His place and glory, to let the light of that glory in upon our hearts. It is in Him, this glory, in-

" The person of the Christ,
Enfolding every grace."

Justified we must be, to be able to draw nigh ; and without sanctification " no man shall see the Lord;" but the Lord Himself is thus the end and sum of all. " Christ is all," says one whose life spake with his lips; and " I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom 1 have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him."

It is, as often said, what gives the peculiar glow to the picture of Philadelphia here, that it is Christ personally who fills the scene of their vision, and who associates them with Himself. This is what gives them their name, surely, in its spiritual power and value; for never was Christ welcomed into a heart but He made room in it for all His people. This is true linking with one another when we are united by the Center,-when our association is first of all with Christ, and this determines the measure and character of all other associations. For indeed there is much, even among the people of God, that is not Philadelphian, but only a corrupt and evil counterfeit. If our "part" is first of all to be with Christ, let us hear Him say, " Except I wash thee, thou hast no part with Me." And this is not spoken of the first general " washing" when we are born anew, which the Lord expressly distinguishes from this washing of the feet, the cleansing from all defilement by the way. If He washes, there can be no compromise with defilement; our feet must be in His hand; there must be surrender to Him at all points, so that He may be able to show us all that is evil in His sight. Thus alone can we have part with Him; and therefore in this way only can we have rightly part with one another.

To this such union as can be obtained by compromise is in essential contradiction. It is mere confederacy, whatever may be the end proposed. God has one method for us by which we may walk together according to His mind, and only one. We are to "follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." By taking the same road, we are necessarily brought together. The road is guaranteed to us by its four decisive marks; and here there can be no compromise, we must not give up any one of these. Moreover, it is thus by a path in the strictest sense individual that we find our company; yet it is wide enough to contain "all that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart." Its characters are, first of all, "righteousness," and this must be maintained before we can properly speak of " faith " at all. But then "faith" marks the conscience in the presence of a living Lord, as well as a heart confiding in Him; and so it is only that we can have this restful, practical confidence, as we walk in conscious recognition of and obedience to His will. Here "love" then comes in due place,-we can now let our hearts out; and in this atmosphere love will develop itself. While lastly, " peace " characterizes it in view of opposition and conflict and trouble:the Lord is over all the uprising of the water floods. In all this, it may be said, there is nothing but the most complete individualism ; yet here it is we find the divine law of association. There is no confederation, no agreement, no prescription of terms to one another. One Master prescribes to every one his place, and in accepting that place we find the true law of co-operation with one another. United to Him as members of His body, we are, to begin with, "members one of another." This is not a question submitted to us, whether we shall be one; and to form other unions, while it may be ignorance, is none the less complete opposition to His will". Alas! in our day it is not "union is obedience" that is the motto, but "union is strength;" and for whatever purpose men may have, they combine. Strength of a certain sort is found, no doubt; but it is not where he found it who says, "When I am weak, then am I strong;" " I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me."

Individuality is thus lost, a majority decides for the remainder; for the advantage gained, certain things which we do not approve must be acquiesced in. Conscience, at first uneasy, becomes more tolerant. More demands made upon it find less and less the power of resistance. Christ's word is given up, and what is due to His name forgotten. How many have thus lost in their souls the sensitiveness to sin they once had; yet the apostle insists, " Let him that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." Blessed, thrice blessed are they who, if they have but a little strength, yet have kept His word, and do not deny His name.

(To be continued,)