MINISTRY
MINISTRY
No one was ever fitted to help others who had not been helped himself. The Lord does not instruct us by angels who never have the same temptations and deliverances which we have.
There are two classes of ministry. One by the servant who has been preserved from a snare by seeing it; another, by one who has escaped from it. Every minister of the word derives his power from one or the other. The first, doubtless, is the higher ministry, and where souls are awake, it is very effective; but the latter is the most generally acceptable, because as a rule, there are more instances of being caught than of being preserved. We all like to hear how to escape, and be at liberty again.
I do trust that the Lord intends great things for —— in raising up among the saints there a man who has [p. 342] learned in the dust the exalted nature of “the Christ” - the Head in heaven, the body on the earth; hence heavenly in all its sensations, intuitions, and affections. Romanism gave up the Head by substituting a man for Christ’s vicar. In every failure with (so-called) brethren in this time this is the first. The Head is given up, while the congregational character is retained. That is popery. Sardis recovered the gospel, but no church. The truth revives in Philadelphia. “Thou ... hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name” (Revelation 3: 8). “Thou ... hast kept my word” - protestants could say that much; but the great revival was “my name”. Unbounded virtues and divine consequences spring from His name. His name puts Him in His place. If there be the gospel without the church, you are sure to work the flesh into a coadjutor in service; and when this is full blown, you can carry on christian things by human means (the great desideratum of the present day) without Christ; and this is Laodicea. We are to go on with Christ, thank God. In the kingdom of heaven founded on the word, not the Holy Spirit, every bulwark of christianity is being surrendered. There is Catholic emancipation, Jews in Parliament, and so on. I have heard that an M.P. said lately in the House, ‘You gave up the Holy Spirit when you emancipated the Roman Catholics, you gave up Christ when you admitted the Jews into Parliament, and you gave up God when you admitted the infidel’.
Now concurrent with this retrogression, the blessed God has been pleased to revive the truth in the assembly; so that the truth is really there, though I admit very feebly held. This I feel, that it is an immense responsibility, the simple fact that it has been committed to us for the good of the whole church.
The bee carries the honey to the hive, it is common property; a wasp would eat it! The latter is isolation.