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Messages From |
THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH...
The church of God contains all true believers. As salvation constitutes us members of it, all the saved are its members. No one can be a Christian outside of the divine church. The church is the body of Christ, and the body of Christ includes all the redeemed in heaven and earth.
This is one of the principal distinguishing features between the true church and the false, between the divine ecclesia and man made institutions. This one truth, the catholicity of the church of God, locates every sect. The church of God includes the family of God, and it is but one family in heaven and on earth; therefore it includes in its membership every Christian, all the redeemed in paradise and all the saved on earth. Including all Christians, it is not a sect, but is the whole. Now, a church that does not include in its membership all Christians in heaven and earth can not be God's church, and hence it is a sect. All the religious denominations taken together come far short of including all Christians. Before any of these institutions arose, there were millions of Christians. None of the blood washed saints in paradise are now members of any of these earthborn institutions; and right here upon earth there are tens of thousands of happy saints in robes of righteousness who have come out and stand clear of creed bound churches, and there are many thousands of others who are saved from sin and have never joined any of them. Therefore all denominations put together, both Roman, Greek, and Protestant, do not constitute the universal church, but are only sects.
In holding membership in the one universal church and in no other, we stand clear of the sin of division; are members of no sect, but members of that church to which all the saved in heaven and earth belong. This is the one and only catholic church. The church of Rome has long laid claim to the title "Catholic church," but in doing so they have assumed a title that does not belong to them. They are a sect—a sect, too, that includes very few real Christians. The church of God is catholic not only in that it includes all Christians, but also in that it is destined to fill the whole earth. "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High." Dan. 7: 27. "And the stone which smote the image upon the feet became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." Dan. 2: 35. These texts have direct reference to the universality of the church of God.
Moreover, the religion of the church of God will apply to all men of all nations. The church of God gathers into her fold the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, the high and the low—in short, all classes of all men. These, when saved, are on one common level of equality. Many of the religions of the world are local in their nature and apply only to certain classes. These have adopted peculiar customs, manners, and styles of dress. But Christianity, the religion of the church of God is not local in any sense. It is the one universal religion, the one religion that will apply to all classes of men. It imposes no peculiar customs, manners, or dress. Thus we see again the catholicity of the church of God.
THE EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE CHURCH...
The use of the term "exclusiveness" conveys the idea that all who are not in the church that Jesus founded are excluded from salvation and the Christian's hope. If any person is not disposed to comply with the conditions of membership in God's church, he can turn aside and join some church that presents a wider door, but he can not thus obtain salvation. There is but one Savior of all men. " There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Those who are saved by him are baptized, or inducted, by one Spirit into one body; so all who are outside of this one body are excluded from the grace of God.
Christ is an exclusive Christ. There is no other besides him God is an exclusive God. He says, "I know no other." There was a time when certain people tried to compel Jehovah to fellowship and acknowledge their gods. For instance, the Philistines placed the ark of God in the house of Dagon, but Dagon could not stand before the God of heaven. The next morning when the Philistines went to their temple they found Dagon fallen down before the Lord. They set him up in his place, but the following morning he was again fallen down, and nothing was left of him but a stump. This shows that God is an exclusive God. He acknowledges no other God. In order, then, to honor God we must reject all other gods and worship the Lord of heaven alone. There is but one Holy Spirit. The world today is filled with spirits, but in the midst of them all there is but one true Spirit of God, and in order to keep clear in our souls we must reject every other spirit. The faith that Christ gave us is an exclusive faith. No other saves the soul. The truth of God is exclusive in its nature. Everything contrary to it is false. The kingdom of Christ is exclusive. It is a stone that breaks everything else to pieces. The only church that Jesus founded and named is also exclusive, for there is only one body in Christ.
During the reign of pagan persecution the rulers offered to stop the bloody martyrdom and allow the Christians to worship God in freedom if they would concede that the pagan idols also were real gods. This they could not do, but chose rather to die. It is this very point of exclusiveness that is the present offense of the cross. People would not seriously object to our setting forth God's church as described in the Scriptures if we would only recognize their earth founded institutions as being also God's churches; but this we can not do and be honest before God and faithful to his Word. There is one household of faith. Christ does not have a plurality of wives. He has but one bride, and she has no sisters. "My dove, my undefiled,, is but one; she is the only one of her mother." S. of Sol. 6: 9. It is true that there is in these last days a sisterhood of Christian bodies calling themselves churches, but the Lamb's wife knows no kin to them. They are an entirely different family. Their mother is Mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots. As God is one, only one religion can emanate from him. As God is not the author of confusion, his church can not l e split into a confused lot of rival institutions. He recognizes no sisterhood of churches. If, therefore, there is but one church that emanates from God, whence come the rest? Martin Luther would answer, "Whatever is not of God is of the devil." Men come to us and say just what the devils besought of Christ— " 'Let us alone.' Go and preach what you believe, but let everybody else alone." This is great blindness. If the true God would reign, Dagon and all other gods must fall down and have their heads broken off. If Christ be lifted up, Antichrist must be demolished. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness can not jointly flourish nor even coexist in the same heart. As the coming of light must dispel darkness, and the preaching of the truth must vanquish error; so the church of the living God must utterly exclude and antagonize every counterfeit church. Hence in the present evening light, which reveals the true fold, " every founder is confounded by the graven images for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity' and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish" (Jer. l0: 14). That time is now come, for the preaching of the pillar and ground of the truth demolishes the work of error.
God's church is exclusive like himself; and he who is not willing to commit himself exclusively to God and the church that Jesus purchased with his own blood, but for the friendship of the world and of the masses of sectarians enters the great wicked Babel of isms and by so doing avoids persecutions, is not fit for the kingdom. Though men have held a place both in God's church and in man's sects through ignorance, yet when the true light comes, they must cut loose from one or the other. If they then refuse to walk in the light, they will go into spiritual darkness.
The spirit of this age is to place Christ and Belial on an equality—to call everything that has a name to be religious God's church, and thus try to palm off upon the Almighty the corrupt works of the devil and insult his holiness by classifying with his heaven born church all the hypocrites and abominable characters taken into the false branches of Babylon; but "the Lord knoweth them that are his."
The great congress of all religions held in 1893 in Chicago at the World's Fair was a perfect selling out of Christ. The representatives gathered in that congress claimed to meet in one common brotherhood, thus forcing fellowship between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, God and idols, heaven and hell. Heathen idolaters, Shintoists and worshipers of all the ridiculous gods that Satan has invented met on one common level as one great family—an act will virtually denied tile exclusiveness of the ('oaf of the Bible and placed God on the level with heathen idols. This, we say, was a slander on the name of Christ and wicked blasphemy in the sight of God. It virtually proves that Roman and Protestant Babylon have left God and gone over to the gods of Baal; for surely Christ is separate from all such, and the God of the Bible is the only God, his church is the only true and safe fold, and the faith of Christ is alone from heaven.
THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH...
This is the one all important and absolutely essential attribute of the divine church. Before God put forth the first creative act in the formation of this world, he determined that its inhabitants should be holy. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Eph. 1:4. For this reason he created man in his own image—in his own moral likeness. And this image of God in which man was created and to which he is restored by the all transforming and sanctifying grace of God is "righteousness and true holiness" Eph. 4: 23). "After God" must mean after the original pattern in which man was created—after the moral likeness of his own Maker, which is defined as "righteousness and true holiness." Col. 3: 9, 1(), leaves us no shadow of a doubt that this original God likeness, from which we have the word " godliness," is restored to the soul of man here in this life: "Seeing that ye have put off the old man [evil nature] with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him. that created him." Here we see that salvation in the second Adam brings back the holy image of God that man lost by sin in the first Adam.
This moral perfection in man is essential to the very object of his being. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy." Lev. 19:1, 2. "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manlier of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." 1 Pet. 1:15, 16. Can any thoughtful mind read these words without receiving the impression that God created man to enjoy the blessing of fellowship and companionship with him? to enjoy the society of God and to be a "worker together with him" in carrying forward his beneficent plans? the imperative command is, "Be ye holy"; and the one great and all sufficient reason for the injunction is, "Because I the Lord your God am holy." The import of the reason is this: Man was created to walk with God. God being holy, man also must be holy; otherwise there can be no affinity between God and man, no adaptation to each other's society. Therefore when our first parents by sin lost their holiness of heart, the image of God, they were spoiled for his heavenly society. They dreaded his approach, and hid with fear and trembling when they heard his voice. They having now become unholy, his holiness drove them out from his presence. And let it here be considered that as heaven is filled with the holiness and presence of Cod, it is the utmost folly and delusion to cherish a hope of entering into its ineffable glory unless one is made perfect and spotless in holiness before God. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord"; but "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
For this great object was the church established here on earth. She is the mountain of God's own holiness, and her plane of moral perfection is the plane of heaven. She is all one "family in heaven and earth," so that all who are in fellowship with her are in fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3), and are consequently fitted for the enjoyment of all the holy society of heaven. The church of the living God is paradise restored on earth, a "new creation." No person can enter it except through salvation from all sin, and no person can remain in the church after he ceases to be holy, any more than Adam and Eve could remain in Eden after they had become corrupted by sin. As their own sin made the presence of God unendurable and necessarily drove them out, so "every branch in Christ that bringeth not forth good fruit, the Father taketh away." There are, then, no unholy branches in the Christ vine. "for if the first fruit [Christ] be holy; . . . so are the branches ." Rom. 11: 16.
Persons belonging to the different religious organizations that men have founded, it is said, ought to be holy; but all the members of God's church are holy. When member of a modern sect are judged unworthy of membership, it is in the power of its rulers, by some course prescribed in their discipline, to expel such; but when men become unfit to dwell in the body of Christ, they thereby forfeit their membership, and, so to speak, expel themselves. God's church is self adjusting. "Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. " " l He that committeth sin is of the devil. " 1 John 3: 6, 8. By the act of sinning he transfers himself front the family of God to the family of Satan. "As the root is holy, so are also the branches." Therefore the unholy are not branches at all.
The chief end of man's existence is to worship the Lord. But how must a holy God be worshiped ? Answer: " Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Psa. 29: 2. "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; fear before him all the earth." Psa. 96: 9. The same in substance is required by the Savior in the absolute demand, " God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth." Since God's church is on the plane of spiritual worship to God, it is holy in his sight.
The church is also seen to be holy unto God because he walks in the midst of her. 'Where two or three meet in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' 'And I will manifest myself unto you as I do not unto the world.' These and similar statements show a social communion between God and his people in the new Jerusalem, which is the church of the first born; and holiness is just as essential now to the enjoyment of the society of God as it was when its loss drove Adam and Eve from his presence.
But still more strikingly does the holiness of God's church on earth appear when we consider it as the actual dwelling place of God. " In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation God through the Spirit." "As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them." Can any person conceive of God dwelling in any other than a holy temple? Nay, "the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. 3: 17. Neither can a few unholy ones pass under cover of the general holiness of others. Had there been a thousand holy men in Eden, they would have intensified rather than decreased the fire of God's holy presence and would have made the place all the more unendurable to the sinner. So no hypocrite can smuggle himself into the awful temple of God's presence. To the unholy "God is a consuming fire." "Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." Psa. 1: 5. There never was nor ever can be a sinner or unholy person in the church, which is the body of Christ. Such characters may and do assemble with the church, and may seek to pass for members of the body, and where the church is deficient in discerning, such may actually pass undetected, but they are not in the church.
The foregoing is apparent when we consider what constitutes membership in any society. First, the conditions and process of becoming a member must be met; and, secondly, the name must be entered on the roll of membership. Therefore the class book of any sect decides who are and who are not its members. No matter how much a man may affirm his membership, if his name is not recorded in the classbook, his claim is false; and no difference how vile a character may be, if his name stands on the book, he is a member, even though the society be ashamed to confess the fact. Now, it is by these same two tests that we define membership in God's church. First, all must enter through Christ, the only door, and by the process of salvation (John 10: 9; Eph. 2: 18); for there is no other possible admittance. Second, he must have his name in the Lamb's book of life; for there is no other enrollment of the names of all the household of God. Thus no one can enter except by obtaining salvation, and all that are thus born of God do not commit sin, but are "holy brethren"; and, furthermore, no sinner or hypocrite has deceived God and got his name written down in heaven, and whosoever commits sin and does not continue to overcome, that man's name is blotted out of the book of life. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book " ( Ex. 32 : 33 ); but " he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life." Rev. 3 5. There are, then, no sinners' names continued on the book of God's church, nor names of any who have been overcome by the devil or any evil agent. There is not an unholy member in the church of God. She is a ''spiritual house, an holy priesthood ," " a chosen generation, a royal priesthood , an holy nation , a peculiar people" (1 Pet. 2: 5, 9). Yea, saith her Lord, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. " S. of Sol. 4; 7.
UNCHANGEABLENESS OF THE CHURCH...
Though great and popular counterfeits of the church have been formed on earth, which are very mutable in all their elements; though it is true that the real membership of God's church may increase and decrease in numbers, and that during the middle ages the saints were trodden down and so worn out by the persecuting powers of darkness that but few remained on earth to keep alive the holy seed; yea, and though it is also true that nearly all the doctrines and principles of the church of the living God were trodden under foot by the adversary and almost entirely hidden beneath the traditions and the inventions of men, yet it still remains true that every doctrinal element of the divine structure is eternal and unchangeable. Many factious bodies have arisen since Christ purchased and founded his holy community, but "the portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things" (Jer. 51: 19). The fold of Christ is the same thing on earth today that she was before the first "molten image" of sectism was evolved born strife and spiritual ignorance. We have seen that God is the builder and maker of the church; and the wise man says, "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." Eccl. 3:14-15. It looks, indeed, as if these words were placed on record to rebuke all the founders of new sects and inventors of new creeds, and also to vindicate tile unchangeable church of God.
The law of Moses was given for a temporal purpose and for a limited time. "It was added because of transgressions [to restrain sinful deeds], till the seed should come." Gal. 3: 19. That seed is Christ (verse 16). So the law system was to remain only until Christ should come, and it was supplanted by the new covenant, the law of Christ. While it was in force, however, no man could set it aside, add to it, or take from it. But the Christian system constitutes the law of the kingdom of God, which shall "stand forever"; therefore it "shall be forever. " An attempt to change one word of it is sure death to the soul. Even the pope, with all his boasted power, is unable to change the eternal laws of the kingdom of heaven, though he shall "think to change times and laws" (Dan. 7: 25). No power short of the throne of God can change one thing in the divine church.
The same self denial, and repentance, and utter forsaking of all sin, that were conditions of entering the church at the beginning must be met today. The same experience of entire sanctification and holy character demanded then is yet required and fully provided for in God's church. "No man can serve two masters" now any more than when Christ uttered the saying. Although Satan has deceived the mass of sectarian professors into the false belief that they can serve sin and Christ right along together— sin daily in word, thought, and deed, and yet be Christians—but the Book has not changed, and it is still true that "he that committeth sin is of the devil. " The same purity, unity, glory, power, and perfect peace, that God put in his church are yet there, though only appropriated by few men on earth. The miraculous gifts that the Lord set in the body have never been taken out. Gifts of wisdom, of knowledge, of healing, of discerning of spirits, and of casting out devils —all these are yet in the church, notwithstanding the teaching of sectarians to the contrary. Not finding these gifts in their bodies, they have taught that God has recalled such things. He has never promised to set in men's structures what he has placed in his own church. But since we have returned from Babylon to the heavenly Jerusalem, we find all the precious gifts yet remaining in it and awaiting the faith once delivered to the saints to grasp them and develop them into use. There is not one nonessential incorporated into the Word of God, nor yet one element that was to drop out after the death of the apostles or at any subsequent time.
The inspired apostle Paul, speaking of the new testament ordinances, said to the Corinthians " For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread," etc. 1 Cor. 11: 23. And in verse 2 he commanded them, sayng, " Keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you." So God's people are not left at liberty to modify one of the ordinances in the least, much less to substitute the sprinkling rite of paganism and Romanism for the sacred ordinance of burial with Christ in baptism. How presumptuous it is to cast away one of the ordinances of Christ, as the largest portion of professors do, or all of them, as the Quakers and a few others do, taking the ridiculous position that the law of Christ met with a revision some time after the apostles died! How directly opposite to the words of Christ this falsehood! Thus we read: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do till he come." And the command to baptize all who believe in Christ is incorporated in the commission which authorizes the perpetual ministry and to which is subjoined the promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. "
So the obligation to administer the ordinance of baptism extends parallel with the commission to preach the gospel to the end of the world; and so of every element of the entire divine system. There is not a mutable factor in it. This fact is clearly established in Jude 3: "Beloved, . . . I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." The verb "delivered" is in the aorist tense and therefore denotes that it was "delivered once for all," as rendered in the Revised Version and nearly all other translations. If it was delivered once for all, it is therefore unchangeable to the end of time. Even the language of the Common Version, "once delivered unto the saints, " conveys that idea. So we repeat that the church as it stood in its primitive glory and unity exists unchanged today.
INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH...
Upon the erroneous supposition that the church which Christ built was entirely destroyed Mormonism has built her house. Her adherents maintain that the apostasy destroyed the church, that hence it because necessary for man to build another, and that under divine inspiration Joseph Smith reestablished the church of God upon earth. Now, if we can prove that the church of God has never been destroyed, but that it exists today, we shall establish the fact that all the Mormon sects are but human frauds imposed upon the people.
In Dan. 2: 44 the new testament church was prophesied of as a kingdom set up by the God of heaven, a kingdom which should never be destroyed, but should stand forever. This accords with the language of Jesus in Matt. 16:18: "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." These solemn declarations of heaven's truth are sufficient to establish the fact that the church which Christ built will stand forever. If the gates of hell can not prevail against it, it is indestructible and exists today. Yes, dear reader, that divine temple stands just as solid and firm as in days of yore. Though it has witnessed bloody scenes of martyrdom and has for centuries been largely hidden from human view by the ecclesiastical rubbish of men, yet it has never been destroyed—never. Earthly kingdoms and governments have passed away; great and mighty changes have been wrought in the earth; but the church of God has stood unshaken; and now, as the burning truth of God consumes the piles of ecclesiastical rubbish, and the glorious light of the evening time dispels the mists and fogs of the dark and cloudy days, she appears again in her wondrous beauty and pristine glory. So shall she stand while the cycles of eternity roll.
Let us briefly view the elements that compose the church. Christ is its head (Col. 1 :18), foundation (1 Cor. 3 :11), door (John 10 : 7, 9), and governor (Isa. 9: 6, 7). Its walls are salvation (Isa. 26:1); its law is the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2); its bond of union is the love of God (Col. 2: 2); its membership consists of the saved of all nations. Now, to destroy the church would be to destroy its foundation, which the apostle Paul declares "standeth sure": its head, which is alive forever more; its door, which no man can shut; its law, which endureth forever; its walls, salvation; and all the people of God, who compose it. Since, however, there never has been a time when God did not have a people, and since all the above named elements are eternal, the church of God is indestructible. Its walls of salvation no man can batter down.
Only one phase of the church went into apostasy, the people, and not all of them; for three million, rather than bow down and acknowledge the ungodly doctrine of popery, sealed their testimony with their own blood. The foundation, head, door, government, unity, purity, etc., of the church never went into apostasy; and in these last days when we come out of the apostasy we simply return to these primitive elements again. We come to the same Zion that Christ established in the beginning.
The church of God is a spiritual institution. " Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. 2: 5. Its door of admission is a spiritual door. Jesus says, "I am the door. By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." John "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." 1 Cor. 12':13. Its foundation is spiritual. "for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. " 1 Cor 3: 11. "that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. " 1 Cor 10: 4. Thus we cover every specification of the New Testament church and find it holy, divine, spiritual and eternal; therefore it is utterly impossible for men to build an organization like it, for they can not manufacture spiritual things. This church is the finest organization the world has ever seen. It is truly worthy of God himself. It is his temple, in which he dwells; therefore there is nothing so august as the church, seeing it is the temple of God; nothing so worthy of reverence, seeing God dwells in it; and nothing so solid, since Jesus only is its foundation, and it is declared to be the pillar and ground of the truth. There is nothing so closely united and indivisible, since all hearts are knit together by the perfect love of God; nothing more lofty, since it reaches higher than heaven; nothing so regular and well proportioned, since Christ and the Holy Spirit are the architects; nothing so beautiful, since it is ornamented with Christ's holiness; nothing so brilliant, since Christ is its light; nothing so strong, since Christ is its walls and bulwarks. There is no institution so spacious since it is spread over the whole world and takes in all that have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; no institution so spiritual, since all its membership are living stones, animated and inhabited by the Holy Spirit; no institution so lasting, since it is destined to stand forever. In it the poor, the wretched, and tile distressed of every nation find shelter. It is the place where God does his marvelous works, for there he is to be sought and found and worshiped. Such is the church of the New Testament. She is a strong tower, into which we have run and are safe.
PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH...
This feature of the church we have already gathered from the preceding chapter; for if the elements of the church are eternal—and it is indestructible in its very nature—then its perpetuity follows as a natural result. In Dan. 7: 18 it is said, "But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." This text teaches the fact that Christianity was to continue eternally. The same we have in Luke 1: 31, 33: "He [Jesus] shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." The kingdom and the church are in some respects identical. They are inclusive of each other. Christ established the everlasting kingdom of God, planted his church in the earth, and began his reign of righteousness and salvation in the beginning of this dispensation; and the above texts assert that his kingdom and his reign are to continue forever. Therefore the perpetuity of the church is assured.
In the Book of Revelation, chapter 12, the pure church of God is brought to view under the symbol of a woman clothed with the sun and having the moon under her feet, etc. That woman was the primitive church arrayed with the light of salvation, purity, and holiness, and with the authority a n d the power o f Jesus Christ, her husband. Verse 6 says: " The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days." Verse 14 reads, " And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." This wilderness signifies the obscurity into which the true church went and in which she remained during the dark reign of apostasy. Although during the Dark Ages there were true disciples of Christ that never embraced the absurdities of the Roman church, among whom we mention the Cathri, the poor men of Lyons, the Lombards, Albigenses, Waldenses, Baudis, etc., yet " the living church retired gradually within the lonely sanctuary of a few hearts, and the external church was substituted in its place, and all its forms were declared to be of divine appointment. "—D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, book I, chap. I. "There existed at that dark period, when 'all the world wondered after the beast,' a numerous body of the disciples of Christ who took the New Testament for their guidance and direction in all affairs of religion, rejecting the doctrines and commandments of men. Their appeal was from the decision of councils and the authority of popes, cardinals, and prelates to the law and the testimony, the words of Christ and his apostles."—History of Romanism by Dowling, page 272.
Thus the church of God existed during the reign of popery, and in the place prepared of God she was nourished and kept alive "for a time, and times, and half a time. " During this long period, however, she was largely in obscurity, symbolized by "wilderness." Though the church was largely obscured during the reign of apostasy, being hidden under the human rubbish and creeds of men, and though during the reign of Protestant sectism her members have been scattered in the various so called Christian societies, so that really tile true church has not shone forth in her visible beauty; yet she has existed, and thus has been perpetuated that true Christianity and church which Christ established in the earth; and in these last days the same church is coming up out of the wilderness and returning to the unity, purity, holiness, organization, and oneness of primitive days. Thus is fulfilled the prophecy in Solomon's Songs 8:5: "Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" Christ is the one who is leading her out.
So in these last days the church of God, in her gathered condition, is a visible organized body of believers, distinct and separate from all the religious bodies of human origin; and she is the same church, the bride of Christ, the identical woman that was seen in symbol (Rev. 12:1) in her primitive glory, and afterwards nourished in the wilderness, or state of obscurity, during a long period of apostasy, and now again brought back to the apostolic plane, looking fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. [ End of Part 3 ]
