SECTION 8

PROOFS IN SUPPORT.
1 Cor. 12 is positive on this subject.
" By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body " (v. 13), one body in which the gifts are exercised; the exercise of these gifts, as well as the baptism itself of the Spirit, demonstrates that it is a question of a body on the earth.
" God hath set some in the church; first, apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers, after that, miracles; then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues," Cor. 12: 28. He had set them neither in such and such a church, nor in the Church gathered to heaven.
The epistle to the Ephesians, almost entirely, treats this subject. Christ is the Head of His body which is the Church; chap. 1: 22, 23. There is one body and one Spirit; chap. 4: 4. This body grows by the ministry of that which every joint supplies: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers; chap. 4: 16, II. It is very certain that it is on earth that this takes place.
Paul wrote to Timothy, that he might know how to behave himself in the " house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth," 1 Tim. 3:14, 15. There was then a Church, which was one, the pillar and ground of the truth, a body manifested in unity upon the earth, a bride who desired the coming of her Bridegroom in order to the accomplishment of her blessing; who, meanwhile, sought to glorify her Bridegroom, and who, by the power of the Spirit who was in her, manifested the glory in which her Head was, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. And if Jesus, her Bridegroom, was in heaven, invisible to the natural sight, she it was who was visible on earth for the manifestation of Christ's glory; and she was on earth Christ's epistle of commendation, known and read of all men; 2 Cor. 3.
That God makes sure to this Church, seen in His eternal counsels of grace, an unfailing portion of glory in heaven, is certain. That, in consequence, the gates of Hades cannot prevail against that which Christ has founded on the confession of the Son of the living God, nothing again more certain. But to employ such precious truths to set aside the responsibility under which the Church is laid that she should be down here a Witness to the glory of Jesus, is to use the certainty of grace to destroy the necessity of a life answering to it.
Christ asks that we may be one, so that the world may believe; John 17:21. That which Christ asks for, is a visible unity, a unity which witnesses to the nature, the love, and the holiness of Christ, and even to His power; and that, in order that the world which knows not Christ, neither can see Him, may learn, by the effects which it sees, what is the real source of grace which is hidden from it and beyond its reach.
But a world church, visible, and a spiritual church, invisible, there is what, on the one side as well as on the other, destroys completely the thought and counsel of God, not, assuredly, in their eternal accomplishment, but where God has always placed, in the first instance, that accomplishment, that is to say, in the responsibility of man. God has always first entrusted to man as responsible, that which He intends to accomplish later, according to the efficacy of His own power.
The world church is a denial of the nature, the love, the holiness, and the affections of Christ, as it is of the nature, the love, the holiness, and the affections of the bride, while it pretends to realize her unity. The invisible Church is null as a witness in this world, by the very fact of its invisibility. Rather would it serve as a witness of the powerlessness of the Spirit and the powerlessness of Christ Himself, to disengage His own from this world which has rejected Him, and to gather them in oneness by virtue of His Spirit, and as an evident demonstration of His glory-to gather them, as the faithful bride of His heart who belongs to Him alone.
The world church is founded on the compatibility of Christ and evil in the most intimate relations; it denies thus the character of Christ. The invisible Church, as such, is null in testimony. It is the denial of the power of Christ to gather His own, to gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad, and to manifest in them, thus gathered, His power and glory.
That the Church, alas! is invisible, is but too true. And if it is so, it is in a fallen condition, it is unfaithful to the glory of its Head, it has failed of the object of its establishment on the earth.
To own such a truth as this, to confess it as a fearful sin, a sin perhaps irremissible as to the integral re-establishment of God's system, to confess in this respect our sin and our iniquity, this is what places us in our true position on this point.
To justify such a state of things, to put it forward as regular and providential, as that which ought to be, is to show hardness in sin; it is to lack the heart and affections which seek the glory of Christ, and which show that we have the consciousness of our relationship with Him as His bride. How afflicting is this!
If the Church ought to have manifested on the earth the glory of Christ, it is very certain that a visible church, worldly and corrupted, does not do so; and that, just the contrary, by the very avowal of those who sustain it and plead its cause, it only hides those who are Christ's. It is not less evident that no more does an invisible church, by the very fact of being invisible, manifest on the earth the glory of Christ.
Let those then who seek to justify such a state of things say openly that the Church was never responsible, by its faithfulness upon earth, to manifest the glory of Christ; if not, let them own that we have fallen.
I appeal to the whole of the New Testament, to all the principles of the word of God, to the history of the Acts, to the testimony of the epistles, and to the consciences of saints, to judge whether the Church has maintained the testimony to the glory, the holiness, the love of her Bridegroom, and whether she has maintained it as a faithful bride, who ought to be occupied with it during the absence of her Bridegroom, who knows but her Bridegroom, who is watchful for His glory and continues faithful to Him, all the more because He is absent.