13.04. Chapter 4 continued

The ENDS for which the gospel ministry was established

(Continued) A main part of the ministry is instruction. The character of the babe is that he is "unskillful in the word of righteousness." He, therefore, needs instruction—instruction from the word of truth, called "the word of righteousness," as unfolding and manifesting "the righteousness of God," that is, not God’s intrinsic and eternal righteousness as a just and holy Jehovah, but his wondrous plan of saving sinners by the incarnation and mediation of his dear Son, so that "he might be just and yet the justifier of him who believes in Jesus." (Romans 3:21-26.) Now if these weak and vacillating members had been but well instructed in "the word of righteousness;" if they had been favored with clear views of the Trinity, and seen how intimately and closely it was connected with the divine Sonship of Jesus; if they had been well grounded and established in an experimental knowledge of the Son of God by some gracious discovery of his glorious Person to their soul—would they have been tossed to and fro and carried about with these winds of erroneous doctrine?

We are not advocates for dry doctrine—far from it; but we are advocates, and warm ones too, for laying before the people the grand verities, the vital truths of our most holy faith, with every doctrine according to godliness, which we have ourselves tasted, felt, and handled as the food of our soul. We never loved so much, never more highly valued, never saw more beauty in, never felt the sweetness more of the grand doctrines of grace which we have professed so many years; and were never more fully, if so much, persuaded of the importance and indeed necessity that they should be the main staple of the ministry as setting forth the person and work of the Son of God. To be well established in the truth is a great blessing both for minister and people. It gives a firmness to the ministry and a satisfaction to the church and congregation. They feel that they can trust their man. He has fully proved, and therefore well knows his ground. He has felt the truth and power of what he preaches in his own soul. He is resting all the weight of his own personal salvation on the grand and glorious truths of the everlasting gospel, as all centering in the person of Christ. He has his sharp exercises, and may have his doubts and fears; but those touch not the foundation, do not affect the truths themselves, but only how far he may be deceived as to his personal interest in them. But his very exercises make him hold truth with a firmer hand. Lies, he well knows, cannot save him; errors, he is fully confident, cannot sanctify him. All his hope is in the truth; all his dependence is on Christ and his finished work. The enemies of the Son of God, of salvation by grace, of a living experience of the power of truth, are therefore his enemies, because they would dig up the foundations of the everlasting gospel, destroy his faith, and root out his very hope. He contends, therefore, for the truth in its purity and its power, not only from a sense of its sweetness, but from a sense of its necessity. It is with him not a mere Sunday sermon, the subject of a text neatly spun out into a discourse, but the one grand matter, the one thing needful, by which he must live and die. He therefore digs more and more deeply into its hidden treasures, that his own soul and the souls of his hearers may be enriched thereby; and he guards it with more holy zeal and indignant warmth against the thieves and robbers who would plunder himself and them of their very hope of salvation.

2. But we now come to the positive side—the ADVANTAGES which we are to reap from the ministry of the gospel. These are contained in verse 13, of which 15 and 16 are but a fuller explanation—"Until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:13.) We shall have to open and work out several points of truth here.

1. The leading idea is that of "coming unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." The means of its attainment are "unity of faith and a knowledge of the Son of God."

We have already shown that growth is the grand mark of life. But this growth has both its object and its term. It is not a rapid, loose, shooting up, like that of a tall, lanky, over-grown boy, or of a tree which spindles with its one shoot on high, without thickening its stem or throwing out its side branches. The object or intention of the growth is "to grow up in all things into Christ;" the term or end of the growth is that of "a perfect" or adult man, or, as more fully expressed, "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Strictly speaking, as is evident from verse 16, the growth intended by the Apostle is that of the whole Church, as the mystical body of Christ; but the expression, "Until we all come," allows us to apply it to individuals. As this last is the simpler meaning, we shall consider it first.

Christ is the Head of every member individually, as he is the Head of the whole body collectively. Growth of the body, from babyhood to manhood, is the growth of individual members in the body. If, then, I am a member of the mystical body of Christ Jesus, I shall grow. My growth may be so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible; but it will be growth still. If I have union with Christ, I shall be supplied, at least in some measure, out of his fullness. He is my life, and he has promised, because he lives, I shall live also; and if I live by him, I shall live upon and unto him. Paul could say, "The life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God;" and tells us, "And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." (2 Corinthians 5:15.) But this life and this growth are maintained by means, and the chief among them is the ministry of the gospel. By a sound gospel ministry our souls are fed. Christ is set before us in all the glories of his divine Person, in his Deity and Sonship, and in all the graces of his suffering humanity. His covenant characters and gracious relationships, his blood and righteousness, his death and resurrection, his ascension and glorification at the right hand of the Father, his present mediation and intercession, his sympathy as a once suffering but now exalted high Priest, and his ability to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him—are brought before us as the food of our faith; and as we taste that he is gracious, and feed upon him as the bread of life, there is a growth into him. We grow out of self, and it is to be hoped, in some measure, out of the love of the world and of sin; and we love and admire him all the more that we taste of his grace and see of his glory. The term or end of this growth is "perfection"—that is, not moral, legal, or fleshly perfection, but that adult state, that ripeness of judgment, that maturity of Christian stature, that establishment in the truth which distinguishes the grown-up man from the weak, ignorant, vacillating child. Paul’s "perfect man" means an adult, a grown-up man, not perfect as free from sin, defect, or infirmity, but as arrived at fullness of strength and stature. The word is therefore well translated, "of full age," (Hebrews 5:14,) it being precisely the same word as is rendered "perfect" in the passage now before us. But this maturity, which it is the end of the ministry to accomplish, mainly depends on two things, which mark and test the soundness of the ministry and of the food furnished by it.

1. First it is "in the unity of the faith." There is, there can be but "one faith," as there is but "one God and one Lord." This faith is "the faith of God’s elect," as opposed to the faith which is common to all men; "the gift of God," as opposed to the work of man; a fruit of the Spirit, as opposed to a fruit of the flesh. There is a unity or oneness of this faith in all the living members of the mystical body of Christ, so that, with all their seeming differences, their faith is really one and the same, and they the sole possessors of it. The object of their faith is one and the same—the Son of God; the ground of their faith is one and the same—the word of his grace; the author and finisher of their faith is one and the same—the Lord Jesus Christ; and the end of their faith is one and the same—the salvation of their soul. This faith has to grow, (2 Thessalonians 1:3,) and it grows as fed by the word of truth. Here then we see the benefit and blessing of the gospel ministry. It is intended to feed the faith of the Church by holding forth to it the word of life. (Php 2:16.) This therefore demands not only a truthful but a living ministry—not only soundness in the faith itself, not only life in the minister’s own soul, two indispensable requisites, but life in the word which drops from his lips. The true servant of God is at a point in all that he advances. He can say therefore with Paul, "We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." (2 Corinthians 4:13.) This faith in his heart meets and unites with the faith in the heart of his gracious hearers. They are sure that he believes what he preaches, because his "speech and his preaching is in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." And what is the effect? That both his faith and their faith stand not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:4-5.) This is the unity or oneness of faith which, as working by love, knits and unites the heart of the people to the minister and of the minister to the people. They thus grow together, for as his faith becomes strengthened and enlarged, fresh fields of green pasturage are opened to him, and into these he leads his willing flock. But a wretched time-server, who has crept into the ministry to eat a piece of bread; or a puffed-up novice, who has a little smattering of doctrine in his head and a set of wheels to his tongue; or a crafty hypocrite, who is watching every turn of the wind nicely to shift his sails; or an erroneous man, who hides his error under the pulpit cushion until he can safely bring it forth; or a vacillating character, who, either from ignorance of the power of truth, or from false charity, or from a soft, pliant disposition, holds with all sides and is faithful to none—how can any such men as these feed the Church of God which he has purchased with his own blood? If I have a living faith in the Son of God, what union can there be between my faith and the faith of such men? It is not merely oneness of doctrine but oneness of faith, and that too neither dead nor drooping—but living, acting, and growing in minister and people—which binds them together.

2. But with that there is "the knowledge of the Son of God." If you will read the passage carefully, you will perceive the little word "of" before "the knowledge of the Son of God." This little word "of" refers to the unity just mentioned. Thus there is not only the unity or oneness of faith, but the unity or oneness of the knowledge of the Son of God. Our readers will bear in mind that the point now before us is the growth of the whole body generally, and of each individual member particularly, through the instrumentality of the ministry of the word. There is a oneness, therefore, of this knowledge both in the minister and in the people. He knows the Son of God for himself. He has had that view, discovery, manifestation, or revelation of the Son of God, whereby he spiritually knows him as the Son of God. He can therefore preach him, and testify of him to the people. They, we of course mean the spiritual part of them, also know, or at least are panting to know the same eve-blessed Son of the Father in truth and love. Here they meet, not only in the unity of faith, but in the unity of knowledge—a sweet, experimental knowledge of the Son of God in his Person and work, beauty and blessedness, grace and glory. Directly that Paul’s mouth was opened he "preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God." (Acts 9:20.) And how came he to know that he is the Son of God? Because God was pleased to "reveal his Son in him, that he might preach him among the heathen." (Galatians 1:16.) As, then, the heaven-taught minister sets forth the Person and work of the Son of God, from a gracious, experimental knowledge of him, the blessed Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them to the people through the ministry of the word. They receive Christ under the word of the truth of the gospel, which testifies of him, for it brings forth fruit in them; (Colossians 1:5-6; Colossians 2:6;) and they thus receive the love of the truth, and are saved thereby. (2 Thessalonians 2:10.) Now minister and hearer are as one—knit together in a oneness of knowledge, as well as a unity or oneness of faith. But this knowledge, both in him and them, is, for the most part, but weak, scanty, and imperfect. It is true, real, gracious, experimental, but necessarily imperfect, and will be so to the end of our life, for "now we see through a glass darkly." It therefore admits of growth. Even blessed Paul, who could say, "Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but rubbish, that I may win Christ," (Php 3:8,) was obliged to add, "that I may know him," as if he did not yet know him. So great and glorious was his Person, so complete his finished work, so broad, and long, and deep, and high was his love, so sympathizing his heart, so strong his hand, so sweet his mouth, so superabounding his grace, that all that Paul knew of him was but as a drop—compared to the boundless ocean! There is, then, a growth in this knowledge, both in minister and people. As he advances in this knowledge, they advance with him. Every fresh trial, temptation, and affliction which befalls him, leads him into a deeper and further knowledge of the Son of God. As this is brought forth before the people, it feeds their knowledge, and by it their faith, for "Faith is by knowledge fed;" and as the same Spirit teaches both minister and people, for as there is "one body," so there is "one Spirit," they move on together in this blessed path of an experimental knowledge of the Son of God. This is God’s plan, as laid down in the word of his grace; this the fruit of the ministry of the gospel, as traced by the hand of the Holy Spirit. We are not yet done with our subject, as we have still to open Php 3:15-16; but, for the present, let this suffice. And now what are those voices which we hear in the distance? "You are cutting us off. You are setting up a fixed, arbitrary standard for the ministry, and if we cannot reach your standard you are at once cutting off our heads; or if you spare us as Christians, you cut us off as ministers." Not so, dear friends and brethren in the ministry—to you we speak who have any faith in, any knowledge of the Son of God, and testify to the people of that faith and of that knowledge as far as you possess it. It is not the strength of your faith, nor the depth of your knowledge, nor your gifts and ability in testifying of it that is the question. It is the reality of it. What we write, we write from the word of truth and our own experience as a Christian and as a minister. If we set up a high standard, we must cut ourselves off; but believing that we have a living faith, and a gracious knowledge of the Son of God, and this faith and this knowledge forming, as the Lord enables, the basis of our own ministry by tongue and pen, can we admit anything else, whomever it may touch? Would you have us allow that an unbeliever in, or a denier of the Son of God is a true servant of Christ? Shall we set up unbelief in the place of faith, and ignorance or denial of the Son of God instead of a knowledge of him? "O dear, no!" you say; "we mean no such thing. God forbid that any one who desires to fear his name and preach his word faithfully should set forth any other way of salvation than faith in the Son of God. But, but"—well, what "but?" "Why, we do not like, and, indeed, we do not at all approve of your setting up a certain standard of faith and knowledge, and cutting off all ministers who do not exactly come up to your standard." But where have we done this, here or elsewhere? We have shown you, from the word of God, what the ministry of the gospel is, or should be. We have moved carefully and cautiously, step by step, with the express language of the Holy Spirit in the word of truth; and, we may add, with our own experience of the truth of God. If we preach faith, it is because we have some testimony that we possess it; if we preach the knowledge of the Son of God, it is because we have seen and known him in the light of his own gracious revelation. Our writings and sermons, such as they are, have been for years before the Church of God. Let them be our judge, whether we have ever set up any other way of salvation than a living faith in, a living knowledge of the Son of God. But we do not set up a fixed standard of this faith and this knowledge, still less a fixed standard of grace and gifts for the ministry of the gospel. If we cut off any, it is the hypocrites in Zion, the false preachers, the erroneous men, the deniers of the Son of God. But we never have touched (God forbid we should ever touch) the weakest of his saints, or the least of his servants. Would to God there were more ministers of the everlasting gospel. It would truly rejoice our heart to see men raised up, humble, simple, sincere, sound in faith, blessed with an experimental knowledge of the Son of God, and furnished with sufficient gifts of utterance as well as inward life and power to feed the Church of God. We much need them. The Lord is taking home, or laying aside by sickness or infirmity very many of his servants. And where shall we look to find their successors? It seems to us, at present, a gloomy prospect. We have plenty of preachers, whose worst feature is that, puffed up by a vain idea of their own gifts and abilities, and fawned upon by a tribe of admirers and flatterers, they have not light enough to see their own deficiencies, or life enough to feel their own shortcomings. How can men grow, or even desire to grow, who think themselves already arrived at full stature, and wonder that all do not admire them as much as they admire themselves? How can they approve themselves to the family of God, when they evidently are pushing themselves forward, as if they were qualified to stand in any pulpit, to preach to any congregation, and to take first and foremost rank among the servants of God? They will have to learn a different lesson before they find an abiding place in the confidence, the esteem, and the affections of the discerning family, however well they may stand in their own. "Before honor is humility." "God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble." The Lord bless you, you humble servant of the living God, who in simplicity and godly sincerity preach what God has taught you, and feed the people with the food with which he has fed you. We would not say a word to cast down or discourage your tried, exercised soul, weaken your hands, or cast a slight on your ministry. But you will not think our sword too sharp or words too cutting, for if our heart can read yours, you love all that is good, and hate every false way.

God has set before our eyes in his holy word—a model Church and a model ministry, and by so doing has displayed both his wisdom and his grace. From not seeing and from not following this inspired pattern have arisen almost all the errors and all the evils which have made havoc of both Church and ministry, and perverted some of God’s choicest gifts to the vilest purposes. As this point has an important bearing on our present subject, and has not met with the attention which it deserves, we will devote to it a few moments’ consideration.

Without a proper pattern to instruct his eye and guide his hand, no artist, no artisan, can properly execute any work. It is not supposed that he will ever come up to his model, for that is assumed to be perfect; but it is expected that he will do his best to imitate it. If he be so ignorant as not to understand, or so conceited as not to follow the pattern set before him, he will be all his days a poor bungling workman, the plague of his employer, and the spoiler of everything put into his hand which demands skill and execution. We see, therefore, a divine pattern laid down both in the Old Testament and the New. When God said to Moses, "Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them," he added, "according to all that I show you, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall you make it." (Exodus 25:9.) Not a pin of the tabernacle nor a vessel of service was left to the choice of Moses. Binding upon him and on the artificers employed by him was the injunction—"And look that you make them after their pattern which was showed you in the mount."

Similarly, the Lord has given in the New Testament a perfect pattern of the ministry of the word and a perfect pattern of a gospel Church. The pattern of the ministry may be found chiefly in the ministerial Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus; but there is no one passage where it is more clearly yet concisely laid down than in that which we have been unfolding and have not yet succeeded in finishing, that is, Ephesians 4:8-16. The perfect pattern of a gospel Church is given in 1 Corinthians 12:4-31. But we find very beautiful and concise descriptions of what the Church at large is as the mystical body of Christ, Colossians 2:19, Ephesians 4:16, and Ephesians 5:25-32, all which demand much prayerful attention and consideration. As one of these passages, Ephesians 4:16, is in connection with our subject—the ministry of the gospel, we shall direct special attention to it. We have shown hitherto that one of the main objects of the ministry of the gospel is the edifying or building up, as the word means, of the body of Christ. By "the body of Christ," as applicable to the Church, we may understand two things—1, the Church of Christ as a whole; (Ephesians 1:22-23; Ephesians 5:29-30;) 2, the Church of Christ, as represented visibly on earth by a gospel church. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; 1 Corinthians 12:27.) The difference between these two bodies is that the one is invisible, the other visible; the one perfect, the other imperfect; one the reality, the other the representation. But from their close connection and their resemblance, the Scripture often speaks of them as one, and transfers to the visible Church what is true in its fullest sense only in the invisible. Unless we see and understand this, we cannot enter into the spiritual meaning of such a chapter as 1 Corinthians 12:1-31. Now, God’s idea, so to speak, and we may add, intention, are that this body is to "grow into a perfect" or matured "man;" and when this is attained unto, it is "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." In the eye of him who sees all things from the beginning, the Church is already complete; but it is not so in present realization or visible manifestation. It has, therefore, to grow; and this growth has a measure or appointed standard, which is "the stature of the fullness of Christ." By turning to Ephesians 1:22-23, we shall see what this "fullness of Christ" is—"And has put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all." This fullness is not his fullness as God, (Colossians 2:9,) nor his fullness as God-man Mediator, (Colossians 1:19,) but the completeness of the mystical body of which he is the Head. The subject is somewhat difficult to understand; but as it contains much deep and precious truth, and is closely connected with the ministry, we trust that our readers will give us their attention as we attempt to unfold it.

Growth is of three kinds—1. Growth in the whole body of Christ; 2. Growth in a church as a representation of this body; 3. Growth in each individual as a member of the body. And to each of these kinds of growth the term or limit is "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." But of course this differs according to that which has to grow. We will view it in each of these three senses.

1. View first, then, the growth of the whole body. The body of Christ is ever growing. In this sense "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" will only be attained when the whole body is complete, and all his mystical members glorified in eternal union with the glorified Head. But it cannot be said that this body is yet complete, except in the mind of God, for many of his elect are yet unborn, many born who are not as yet born again. As, then, each member is quickened into divine life, the body grows by the continual development and accession of these living members, which will go on until the last elect is gathered in, and the body is complete. But now see the bearing which the ministry of the gospel has on this growth of the body of Christ. By the preached word the members of this body are quickened into spiritual life. Accessions are thus made continually to the body, for every soul quickened by the word becomes a manifested living member of Christ. What a permanent blessing is, then, couched in the ministry of the gospel, as the means appointed and owned of God to build up the body of Christ; and in this sense every sent servant of God is a laborer together with God. (1 Corinthians 3:1-23) As, then, the ministry of the word is the appointed means of thus edifying or building up the body of Christ, it will be maintained until this body is complete, and it has attained to the appointed "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

2. But, besides this growth of the body as a whole by the accession of successive members, there is also a growth of the visible body of Christ as represented in a gospel church. Does a gospel church always remain at the same stand? Is there no difference between a newly-formed church and one that has been established for many years? It is true that when we come to examine their actual, internal condition, many old established churches are sadly disappointing to a spiritual eye. They have lost the vigor of youth, without attaining to the wisdom and stability of old age. But most churches resemble the human body in its three periods—youth, manhood, and old age. When first formed, there is usually with them a period of warmth, activity, and zeal. To this succeeds the church’s best period, when its young members have become matured and ripened into steady, solid, well established believers. And then follows the third and worst stage, when it sinks into old age and all its attendant infirmities, when it has neither the active vigor of youth nor the solid strength of manhood; but the deadness, sloth, peevishness, and fretfulness of decrepitude.

Such was the Laodicean church, and such are many of our gospel churches now. Their best members, the pillars of the church, have died off; none of the younger members, taken in perhaps on a very slight experience, have succeeded to their place; peevishness and fretfulness, often issuing in strife and contention, mar all love and union; the old members are too self-willed and obstinate to heed counsel or admonition; the pastor, to whom all once looked, is removed by death, and the pulpit filled by a succession of ministers. Supplies, however, cannot have his authority or influence, and gradually the church sinks into senility and death. Such is the history of many a gospel church, as too many can testify. The church itself, thus stricken with old age, may not see its own condition, and like some old men naturally, who cannot bear the thought of old age, and still affect to be young, may stoutly resist any imputation of decline. Ephraim had grey hairs here and there upon him—yet he knew it not. (Hosea 7:9.) But leaving this point, let us see what is God’s idea, in the word of growth in a Christian Church. It is beautifully described by the Apostle—"But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:15-16.) There is also a very sweet and concise description of the same growth and by the same means in an almost parallel passage—"And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increases with the increase of God." (Colossians 2:19.) By putting these two passages together, we may, the Lord teaching and enabling us to understand them, arrive at a right conception of growth in a Christian Church. We may observe that it is dependent on two things as means and instruments of this growth; 1, the ministry of the word; 2, the mutual communion of the members with the Head and each other.

1. It is in the mystical body of Christ as in the human body. All the members are dependent on the head for life and growth, but much more in the mystical than in the natural body. Only as we are supplied out of his fullness, can there be any sensible life or manifest growth. By "holding the Head," that is, holding union and communion with the Head, "all the body, through its joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God;" that is, according to the will, purpose, and power of God. And as in the human body, the members grow together. Now, here comes in the benefit and blessedness of a sound and experimental gospel ministry. It feeds each separate member; at least, that is what it does or should do, according to the mind of God. Now, as each is thus fed, each grows. The eye grows clearer, stronger, and more discerning; the ear becomes more fine, delicate, and discriminating; the taste more refined and yet more sound, less fond of sugar-plums, and more relishing savory food; the hand stronger and more open and enlarged; and the foot more active and willing to run on errands of kindness and love. And as they grow together, so are they more firmly knit together. How well knit are the bones and joints of a man compared with those of a child. How compacted they become by use and exercise and advancing manhood. How strong their union, and how almost indissoluble they become. So in the mystical body of Christ. Indissolubly united to their living Head, the members are indissolubly united to each other; and, as thus united, they minister to each other’s growth and edification. The whole body is "fitly joined together," for all the members "are baptized into one body," and "all have been made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:13.) God has thus mingled and tempered together the strong and the feeble, the lovely and the unlovely, the honorable and the less honorable, so that each contributes to the nourishment and growth of the other. The figure of the vine and the branches may help us to understand this. The sleeping, dormant bud in the stem may represent the members of the body of Christ before divine quickening. It is in the vine, but not developed into manifest life and growth. But at a certain period a power is put forth, which may be called manifest life; (for the bud in nature never was really dead;) sap flows into it from the stem; it shoots, it grows, it blooms, it bears fruit. Nor is it alone in life, growth and fruitfulness. Its fellow-buds grow with it into fellow branches, and the life of the one keeps pace with the life and growth of the other. So in the mystical body of Christ. The members grow together. The strong arm has a fellow in the strong leg, and the health and strength of each member are the health and strength of all. As this growth is being carried on, there is a "growing up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ;" for it is out of his fullness and the supplies of his grace that all this growth comes. But there is also growth of the whole body by the union and communion of the members with each other. This is beautifully opened up by the Apostle—"From whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part; makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4:16.) Each member contributes to the welfare and benefit of the other. The eye does not see for itself, nor the ear hear for itself, nor the hand minister to itself, nor the foot walk for itself, but each individual member acts for the benefit of the others and the whole. We cannot enlarge on this subject, but it is set before us as God’s pattern of a gospel church. But now observe its connection with the ministry of the gospel. The ministry feeds and strengthens each individual member. As then each member is thus fed and strengthened, it feeds and strengthens its fellow-members. The whole body is first "fitly joined together;" it then becomes "compacted," that is, firmly knit and strengthened, "by that which every joint supplies; and by the effectual working in the measure of every part, the whole body edifies itself in love." To open this subject, to explain how the members mutually contribute to each other’s nourishment and growth, would not only take up too much space, but would divert us from the more immediate consideration of our subject. But it may easily be seen how the ministry of the gospel contributes to the mutual growth of the members. When, for instance, there is an addition to the church, and the candidates can speak of their being called or blessed under the ministry of the word, and give in a clear and sweet testimony to the work of grace on their soul—does not this kindle new life and feeling in the hearts of the members of the church? Or when any one member is signally favored and blessed, he does not eat his morsel alone; he is glad to communicate to others and share with them the blessing of God which has made him rich; and how this will often revive a drooping soul, and if it does no more, will draw forth prayer and desire for a similar blessing. No, if it even works jealousy, it does not work amiss, for these coals of fire which has a most vehement flame will often stir up the languid soul, and draw forth the wrestling cry, "I will not let you go except you bless me."

O what a blessing there is in a real, gracious, savory, experimental ministry. How a church flourishes under it, as member after member is by it edified and fed. How it promotes union and brotherly love; and as these are promoted, how the church edifies or builds itself up in love. But where there is a cold, barren, lifeless ministry, under it church and congregation sink into a dead, listless, lethargic state. No union or communion is felt among the members; they care little for each other’s welfare, naturally or spiritually; they just meet, out of formality, on the Lord’s day, and while a few poor, tried souls are secretly sighing and mourning their own carnal state and the dead state of the church generally, the talkative professors have it all their own way, insensible of their own death, and the death in the pulpit and pew; and strife and division, perhaps on the merest trifles, soon rend the already disunited members asunder.

We see, then, the connection between the ministry of the gospel and the growth and edification of the Church as the body of Christ. And what is true of the Church collectively is true of each member separately. The ministry of the word is God’s appointed means to instruct, feed, and edify every member of the mystical body of Christ. Much, indeed, of this instruction and edification is conveyed so gradually as to be almost insensible. We are on the look-out for great signal blessings, and, indeed, we are right in so doing; but we should bear in mind that it is with the soul often as the body. The food that we daily take feeds and nourishes our frames, and yet we are not always sensible of the benefit thus derived from it. So, in sitting under a sound, gracious, experimental ministry, there is a being fed and nourished by the word of life, as distinct from special seasons of signal blessing, which are rare events, though so highly prized when they do come.

Perhaps at your first deliverance, or afterwards, under some special trial, deep affliction, or powerful temptation, you were signally favored under a sermon; but how rare these seasons are, and what bright spots do they form in a believer’s experience. But distinct from these special and rare seasons there is a feeding under the word, a revival of faith and hope and love, a being renewed in the spirit of the mind. Sometimes instruction is communicated by it to inform and establish the judgment; sometimes a light is cast on a dark path in providence or grace, to show us that the Lord is with us in it; sometimes our evidences are brightened, and doubts and fears dispelled; sometimes temptations, which we have thought peculiar to ourselves, have been so touched on that we see the servant of God is tempted as we are; sometimes we get such views and discoveries of the blessed Lord, as he is set forth in his Person and work, as draw forth faith upon him and love towards him, and he is felt to be near, dear, and precious; sometimes we can so travel almost step by step with the minister as to fully believe we are in the footsteps of the flock; and as he opens up and proves, point after point, by the word of truth, the work of grace in the heart is so shone upon by the blessed Spirit that we have no doubt of its genuineness and reality. Sometimes, again, our cold, sluggish, dead, and backward hearts are stirred up to take fresh hold of the mercy of God in Christ, of the faithfulness of a covenant God, of the fullness and freeness of rich, free, and superabounding grace; and as faith embraces these divine realities, the soul is melted and softened into contrition, humility, and love. Sometimes the fear of God is sensibly strengthened, the evil of sin more clearly seen and felt; prayers and desires are kindled to be kept from it, that it may not grieve us, and sorrow of heart experienced, with many inward confessions on account of past backslidings. Sometimes peculiar strength is communicated under a special trial, resignation given to the will of God, the rod submitted to and embraced, and the mercy acknowledged that he does not leave us to go into evil unchecked, without repenting of or forsaking it. Sometimes keen reproof enters the soul; we see that we have been entangled in a snare of Satan; we may almost fear the wound is incurable; but blood and love form a balm that well suits the bleeding conscience. Sometimes we are led to see how worldly, covetous, and carnally-minded we have been; how carking cares and business anxieties have, like locusts, eaten up every green thing, and how little we have really thought of, or done for the Lord during the week. The contrast between all this worldly din and dust, and the calm, still, spiritual services and worship of the sanctuary, strikes the mind; and while it conveys secret reproof to the conscience, yet, mingled with it, there springs up an earnest longing for deliverance from the pressure of the body of sin and death, and for more enjoyment of that sweet spirituality of mind which we know is life and peace. But now, in order to see how all this nutritious food, communicated to the soul by the ministry of the word, is connected with not only the growth of the individual members of the body, but how, by joints and bands, the nourishment is ministered, view the effects, such as we have just described, in connection with our fellow-members. Love to the Lord produces love to his people; union and communion with him create and cement union and communion with those who are manifestly his. As, then, one or another testifies to a blessing received under the word, there is a spreading of the blessing, a diffusion of the warmth, a running down of the precious ointment upon the head and beard, down to the skirts of the garments. Heart becomes more closely and firmly knitted to heart, and soul to soul; and as the joints and bands are thus more compacted together, the nourishment flows more fully into them, and through them becomes diffused over the body. In every church there will be stiff joints, crooked fingers, lame legs, tender feet, arthritic shoulders and limbs, which, if not actually paralyzed, are full of old chronic complaints; and these are almost out of the reach of the nourishment spoken of, are little themselves benefited by it, and therefore cannot spread it on. But, in describing the mode in which the body has nourishment ministered by joints and bands, we are no more bound to set it all aside, or doubt and deny it on account of these crooked joints, than a lecturer on anatomy, in describing the human frame, is obliged to explain diseased structures or crippled limbs in the natural body. We do what the Scripture does—describe the body of Christ as it should be, not what it often is; we draw after God’s model, not after man’s; and for this simple reason, that God’s pattern is inspired and perfect, but man’s a perverted and base imitation.

All who have known and felt spiritual blessings, and have witnessed their effect upon the healthy members of a church, will bear witness to the truth of our description; and any exceptional case of a crooked or half-paralyzed member which neither receives nor communicates nourishment no more nullifies or impairs the accuracy of our statement than a diseased or defective joint in the human body sets aside a true representation of the natural frame. How blessed it is when the ministry of the word is thus owned of God, and answers the end of its divine institution. There is now no room for strife and contention, petty jealousies, evil surmises, unjust suspicions, cold looks, averted eyes, cutting expressions, harsh speeches to the face or behind the back, dwelling on past grievances, raking up buried injuries, and rubbing up old sores. The spirit now is that of love and union, humility, meekness, gentleness, and quietness; strife and division are shunned and abhorred by the soul thus favored and blessed; it would do anything or suffer anything rather than pain the feelings, grieve the mind, or wound the conscience of the dear children of God. This is, if we may use the expression, God’s idea of the ministry, and of the way in which it ministers nourishment to the members of the mystical body of Christ. He has set a pattern before our eyes, that we may know what his mind and will are. But this cuts both ways. As you read what we have thus feebly and imperfectly traced out, a secret sigh springs up in your bosom. "I wish that our minister fed our souls as you describe; I wish that our church was as flourishing, as fruitful, as united, as loving, as mutually ministering to each other’s comfort and profit as you have drawn. But it is not so with us. We are rather starved than fed; and the members of the church, or at least some of them, instead of ministering to each other’s comfort, seem more ready to tear each other to pieces." Your complaint may or may not be just as regards your particular instance. The ministry may feed others, if it does not feed you; and you may yourself be one of those unpleasant, quarrelsome, disaffected members whose words and actions rather foment than allay strife. But this is a point on which we cannot now enter. We shall, therefore, conclude our present section with the expression of our belief that nearly all who fear God and have a right judgment in these matters will admit that Zion is low, in a low place, and will join with us in the expression of our desire and prayer that the Lord would graciously revive his work, and in justly-deserved wrath would remember mercy.