QUES. 1.-Is the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, spoken of in Acts 5 :1-11, that which is mentioned in 1 John 5 :16 ? Also, in Acts 4:32, "Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own "; yet, in chapter 5 :4, Peter says to Ananias, " While it remained, was it not thine own ? " Why this difference ?

ANS.-It is evident that in the sight of God Ananias and Sapphira had committed "a sin unto death." Peter perceives this, and pronounces the sentence, which God executes on the spot. We take it for granted that you understand that this judgment is governmental, not eternal; that it refers to the body, not the soul. It was no common sin they committed-no mere yielding to some passion of the flesh. A mighty work of the Spirit of God was going on, exalting Christ in the souls of men in such a fashion that believers counted their possessions their own no more, and therefore, instead of accumulating, they distributed; instead of buying more, they sold:the Lord, who was rich, had become poor to make them rich; and His manner was being reproduced in them. It was admirable, and it brought great praise, no doubt, upon such as did this. Ananias and Sapphira coveted this honor. It is already great sin for a child of God to envy the honor which proceeds from the workings of the grace of God; but when, to obtain it, deceit is resorted to-planned deceit-the judgment of God must fall upon the offender. It was not a mere lie to man to avoid difficulty; it was devising a lie, and agreeing together in it, in the face of God the Holy Spirit, who had but recently come from heaven and taken up His abode in the Church. It was great wickedness.

As to the difference you speak of, it was "grace working in them which enabled them to look at their goods as not their own; but actually, as Peter says, each man's property is his own until it is dedicated; that is, it is under his own control; no other person has any right over it. Once dedicated, to hold it back is robbery.

QUES. 2.-What is meant by the ground, or principle, of the one body, and being gathered upon it?

ANS.-Suppose you were among heathen, where many gods are worshiped, and they asked you which one yon worshiped, would you not reply, " There is one God only, and I can therefore worship no other"? So, if any Christian among the many bodies or denominations of Christians asks me, " To what body do you belong?" I reply, " The Scriptures know but one body (Eph. 4 :4), the Church, the Body of Christ, which Christ loves, for which He gave Himself, and which the Holy Spirit is forming by the daily addition of newly-converted souls. I, a true Christian, belong to that body; I know no other, and can therefore confess no other; no more than I can confess other than one God, or one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, or one Holy Spirit. I believe in baptism by immersion; I believe in free grace; I believe in election:but for Christians to assemble together as Baptists, or Methodists, or Calvinists, is one thing; and to assemble together as members of Christ's Body, to which all true Christians belong, is quite another. The former is sectarian, the latter is Christian. The former is man-made, the latter is God-made. The former embraces but a few of God's people, the latter embraces them all. The former makes some doctrine or practice, true or false, the center of gathering; the latter makes Christ, who is the Head and Saviour of the Church, the Center. This produces a vast difference both in the character of the worship and the growth of God's people, because the Holy Spirit does not gather God's people on sectarian ground, nor around any other center than Christ himself. He must remain true to God's great purpose, however much God's professed people have departed from it.

Any company of Christians thus gathered in confession of their common membership in the Body of Christ will, of course, recognize any other company or companies likewise assembled, and they will practice together all that Scripture enjoins upon the whole Church of God. Individuals presenting themselves to be received, and accrediting themselves as members of the Body of Christ, will be received as such by any one of the companies on behalf of Christ and of the whole Church; or, any one sinning against Christ, and requiring to be put under discipline, will be so dealt with by any one of the companies on behalf of Christ and of the whole Church. The truth that " there is one Body " will govern all their ways and actions; everything will be done in the light of that fact. They cannot be together in one place, but they are together in one Spirit.

This is what is meant by the ground, or principle, of the one Body, and the practice resulting from it.

But God's people are never out of danger in this scene. Satan, their great enemy, is ever watchful, ready to spoil whatever is of God. If the world comes in, and the flesh is not held under judgment, he can corrupt every truth and lead God's people to the abuse of whatever is true. In this truth of the one Body, and its resulting practice, for instance, self-willed men may in some given place do what is wrong-Diotrephes-like, cast out godly men who stand in their way, and then trade upon the obedience which that truth produces, using it now to enforce, not God's will, but their own, and to enslave their brethren, thus corrupting its divine purpose. Some remarks of yours, together with your question, show you have this in mind. In such a case it is Satan usurping the truth; and we are never to yield to him, but to resist him. It is popery-a persecuting power, which to obey is but to surrender a good conscience and make shipwreck of faith. As Rome proclaims herself loudest that she is the true Church, so such an abuse as this of the truth of the one Body will proclaim the loudest that it alone is on the ground of that one Body, and that, be their actions righteous or unrighteous, you must go to them to occupy that very ground! Such an abuse of truth turns, alas, many from the truth, and comes fearfully near to "changing the truth of God into a lie." But, whatever the confusion, the word of God as our guide is plain:"Follow righteousness" is the first thing; then "faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart" (2 Tim. 2:22).

QUES. 3.-Please give through help and food an exposition of Rom. 8 :13.

ANS.-It is the test applied. This is always God's manner. He first establishes thoroughly the perfect freedom of His people. He can allow no bondage to exist in His family. He mast have them as free to call Him Father as He is free, by the death and resurrection of His Son, to call them sons. No genuine fruitful-ness or holiness can exist apart from this. The first seven chapters of the epistle have therefore been given for this. By the sacrifice of the cross they nave declared all believers righteously justified from all their sins; dead to, that is, separated forever from, the sin that still dwells in them ; dead to law, that is, forever free now from that principle in obedience or action. All this to make us at home in the light, in the fellowship of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ.

But if, " when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them," so now he ever seeks to introduce counterfeits-persons who profess all the grace, but avoid its path and responsibilities. The verse you bring before us meets this. It shows the two different roads followed by the two different peoples:The people who "live after the flesh," whatever be their profession, are on the road to death-to eternal doom ; the people who, not by asceticism, but "through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body," are on the road to life everlasting.

And mark, it is not a question of failings which may be found here and there in the child of God, or of some good deeds which may be found in a mere professor; it is a course of life which characterizes the one and the other on the two different roads mentioned.