A LETTER TO THE BRETHREN IN THE LORD, MEETING AT QUEEN'S ROAD, READING

^[p. 532] A LETTER TO THE BRETHREN IN THE LORD, MEETING AT QUEEN’S ROAD, READING

Reviewing Christian Standing and Condition, by C.E.S.
DEAR BRETHREN IN THE LORD,

I feel constrained to write to you, and submit to you the errors which I find in Mr. Stuart’s pamphlet, entitled, ‘Christian Standing and Condition’, as I compare it with Scripture. My object is not to attack Mr. S., but to preserve you, as far as the Lord may help me, the truth of the gospel, which, I believe, is undermined in that paper. I will state, in the order in which they occur in the tract, what appear to me as very serious errors.

No. 1. The attempt made at the opening, in the first three pages, to establish that truths are implied in Scripture which are not expressed, is a perversion of Scripture, for though the resurrection of the saints was not expressly stated, that was the true interpretation of the words. This error I should have passed over in silence, had not Mr. S. deduced from it a false conclusion, that the new man is implied in Romans, which is contrary to the object of the epistle, seeing that it was written to set forth how the converted sinner is set here on earth, while still encompassed with the flesh; and the verses referred to by Mr. S. (chapter 6: 18, 22), as proving that the new man is assumed (page 6), refer to practical growth, even the effect of the word in the believer. Fruit is always of the Spirit; but doubtless, as we shall see further on, it was necessary to Mr. S.’s system that the old man should put on a new appearance here, and this, in Mr. Stuart’s mind, is the new man.

No. 2. Mr. S.’s whole line of argument about the words ‘stand’ and ‘standing’ is erroneous. His mode of interpretation in making words which are used figuratively ^[p. 533] to express a mere fact, is misleading and unspiritual. Further on in the tract we find the same in the way he uses the word ‘preserve’, to establish that we do not change our persons, so that new creation is only preservation! It is sad to see a christian so far outside the mind of the Spirit that he cannot grasp His meaning beyond a mere literality. No doubt others have followed this line of interpretation, but to what would it lead? For instance, in the same way, “little children” in John might be said to mean only very young people.

Most of the unsound systems of interpretation are based on occupation with mere words instead of what is the mind of God in the passages. The result of this with Mr. S. is a jumbling together of Romans and Ephesians, whereas one is the saint on earth, going to heaven; and the other, the saint coming from heaven to express the heavenly Man on earth. An error in interpretation is like a man going a wrong road, the further he goes the more out of the way he is. Mr. Stuart acquires his idea of standing from its opposite, that is, that ‘the ungodly cannot stand in the judgment’.

Now when God undertakes to give the believer a standing, is it a mere contrast to what he was before? Is he only an acquitted criminal? Is that the standing? If Mr. S. had left out the word “christian”, and entitled his tract, ‘Standing where there was no standing’, there would be some meaning in his paper, but to call his theory of a standing christian is simply untrue. The christian standing is one given of God, and hence commensurate with His own love and purpose.

No. 3 (page 8): Mr. Stuart writes, ‘The standing of the christian, as is the case with that of the Israelites, is connected with the throne’. This is entirely unscriptural and misleading, and the mere fact of assuming that there is any similarity between the Jewish standing and the christian standing at once exposes it. The standing of the christian is in direct contrast (see ^[p. 534] Hebrews) to the standing of a Jew; there is a contrast, but no similarity. Let us remember it is christian standing that we are considering. Now, instead of the believer being placed before the throne of God, it is our Saviour who is the Mercy-seat - the One who went down into death for us; who, having purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; as He, blessed be His name, was down in the lowest place for me, I am now, through grace, placed by Him in the same acceptance as Himself. The responsible man has failed, another Man has come in, and this Man’s standing, blessed be God, determines the christian standing. Mr. Stuart, while he states the efficacy and value of Christ’s work, entirely overlooks, or does not apprehend, that everything now is in complete contrast to what it was for the responsible man. Here, without any desire to asperse the author, let me say, that the error underlying every sentence in this pamphlet, is, that neither the end of man, according to God, is seen by him, nor the complete newness of the man introduced by our Lord Jesus Christ. I am persuaded that here lies the root of all his misapprehensions; I do not say, far from it, that he has not so grasped the work of Christ as to its efficacy for the soul’s salvation; but I do say that every line of his teaching in this tract tends to subvert christianity. I do not mean by that, all vital religion, but I do mean the christian standing and state introduced by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is evident that if you do not see that there has been a complete annulling of the old man, an entire setting aside of the man in the flesh in the cross, you cannot see the perfectly new man introduced by our Lord Jesus Christ.

I ask you, dear brethren, to weigh carefully Mr. S.’s statement ‘placed before the throne of God by faith in the sacrifice of Christ’.

Is each one still the responsible man, brought before the throne and there acquitted through faith in the sacrifice of Christ? That is, that the only change from ^[p. 535] an Israelite to a christian is, that the latter has a better sacrifice than the former. This teaching does not prevent the salvation of the soul, and does in a measure describe the standing of the millennial believer, but I contend that there is not in it a trace of the christian standing which is our subject. The christian standing is entirely and absolutely determined by Christ - the second Man. If this is not seen and maintained, the christian standing cannot be seen and apprehended. Hence, instead of being placed before the throne as Mr. S. teaches, the quickened soul learns that the throne of judgment has been turned into a throne of grace, that Jesus our Saviour is the Mercy-seat (Romans 3: 25). The glory has its throne in Him; the Man who bore our sins is now the concentration of the glory of God. There all God’s nature and glory are displayed, and, though the glory is not displayed in us yet, we are in this world “as he is”. The first man had sinned and come short of the glory of God; of him we were by nature; now, through grace, we are of the second Man, who has “made peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1: 20), having borne the judgment of the first man, whose history terminated in the cross; and I am justified, I am made the righteousness of God in Him; I occupy the same position or ground before God that Christ does, as Man. He who measured my distance is now the measure of my nearness. Jesus took our place in judgment, and now, through divine grace, we, who believe on God, are associated with Him in His place. Our standing is Christ’s place, the place He has entered into as Man risen from the dead. That determines ours; for we are in Him.

No. 4. In page 9 the hope of the glory of God is confined to ‘the day of display of God’s glory, when the King shall come forth in power, and establish God’s authority on the earth by the execution of judgments, the saint no longer fears, but, on the contrary, looks forward to it as a hope’. I deny, on the whole tenor of the epistle, that the “hope of the glory of God” is this. The fact is Mr. Stuart does not get beyond a millennial saint either as to standing or hope.

No. 5. Mr. Stuart writes of Romans 5:11, ‘we joy also, or boast in God, knowing that He will listen to no charge that may be brought against us, however true such a charge may be’. There is no ground whatever in the verse for such a statement; the simple meaning of the passage is, that we, who before were enemies, now joy in Him through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the reconciliation. We have been brought to Himself, and we joy in Him.

No. 6. In page 10 I find the statement, ‘If nothing can be added to make our standing more perfect, nothing can be added to give us any higher position as saints before God. Nothing is any higher in the universe than the throne of the majesty in the heavens’.

Now, while judging of this statement, let us remember that the standing in Mr. S.’s theory, is ‘the ability through grace of a fallen and once guilty creature to stand before the throne of God without judgment overtaking him’; and here, he says, you cannot add to it, nor can the believer have any higher position! Surely, my brethren must see the fallacy of this teaching. If this were written of the true standing which is “as he is”, I should agree, for no position can be higher than that; but this is asserted of one acquitted at the bar of divine justice on believing the death and resurrection of Christ. Acquittal before the throne is the highest standing in Mr. Stuart’s mind, and beyond this, however advanced he may be, as to relationship, the saint can never come!

It is, I repeat, all unscriptural, and he has fallen into this confusion because he does not see that God’s justification of us takes place only consequent and contingent on the setting aside of man in judgment, which was effected in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and hence every believer who never had any locus standi

^[p. 537] in the old man, now through grace finds he has a standing in the Man risen from the dead, and hence it is no longer what he is, but what Christ is before God. I trust I need not add more on this point, I have dwelt on at much length already, but I must press on you, dear brethren, that this theory would rob you of christianity as a perfectly unique thing into which you are called by the grace of God.

It is vain to refer to Hebrews 12: 23 and Revelation 4 and 5 for the throne of God. In the one we find (which I suppose is what Mr. S. refers to) “God the Judge of all”, but there is no question whatever of standing there; while in Revelation 4 and 5, it is a throne of government towards the earth about to act in judgment, and the saints are in association with it and enthroned around it.

No. 7. In page 11 we have the statement ‘Our standing then before the throne is seen in Romans to be complete, before one word is said of our being in Christ’. Now this betrays the writer’s real view as to our standing. Is it in Adam or in Christ that we get our standing? In Adam according to Mr. Stuart, for he says that our standing is complete before one word is said of our being in Christ. I have already endeavoured to point out that there is not in this theory the truth that the old man has been judicially terminated in the death of Christ, without which God could not put any one in Christ; hence the believer when thus justified must be in Christ, he has no other standing. If the believer be justified, it must be through the cross of Christ, where Adam is judicially terminated, and now through grace the believer is in Christ, which is not Mr. Stuart’s teaching. There was no justification for us until Christ rose from the dead (see Romans 4: 24, 25). The sin offering had been offered up; but in that death the old man has been crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. If our justification ^[p. 538] could not have been until Christ rose, then what is detailed and opened out in Romans 6 occurred before justification for the believer, though not as an experience.

It is a denial of the work of Christ as to the annulling of the old man, to allege that our justification is independent of it. The believer is justified through grace because of the work of Christ, and in that work not only are his sins borne, but the old man is judicially ended in the cross, so that on being justified he is no longer regarded either in his sins, or in that man who was under the judgment of God. To God he is in Christ. Hence in Romans 6: 11 he finds he is in Christ. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ”. Was the old man crucified with Christ after justification or before it? If it occurred before, then Mr. S. is clearly in error, and if it did not occur before, when did it occur? Will Mr. S. venture to suggest that the believer only requires to know that the old man was crucified with Christ, and that it was not His work in order that God might be able to transfer the believer from Adam to Christ? Be assured, dear brethren, the evil of Mr. S.’s teaching lies here, and as we go on it will be more and more exposed.

No. 8. In page 14 we have the statement, ‘For it is by the indwelling of the Spirit that we come to be in Christ’. Now I beg you to review Mr. S.’s theory in the two preceding pages. It is this, the one justified has believed in the gospel of his salvation, and is therefore sealed, and because sealed, he is in Christ. Thus Mr. Stuart admits that a believer that is justified is in Christ, but as justification is sufficient without any addition, that it is not necessary any way for his standing that he should be in Christ, for his standing is complete without it; in fact, according to Mr. S., he is justified before being in Christ, because it is consequent on the faith that justifies that he receives the Spirit, and in receiving the Spirit’s indwelling, that ^[p. 539] he is in Christ. Were we to accept this teaching it would involve that we are justified while in Adam, and this would necessarily suffer the continuance of the old man.

In page 11 Mr. S. says that the change from being in the flesh to being what Scripture terms “in the Spirit”, is affected by the Holy Spirit given to us, and not simply by what the Lord has done for us. Scripture teaches, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.... The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3: 6 - 8). That which is born of the Spirit is not of the flesh; the believer being justified, is, when sealed by the Spirit, in the Spirit. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5: 25).

Mr. Stuart justifies man as of Adam, and then gives him the Spirit of God, and then he is in Christ; whereas it is clear from Scripture that the believer being set in Christ is an essential part of his justification, and he finds that through divine grace he has an entirely new standing, namely, justified by God; that Christ Jesus died and rose again to obtain for him this new standing; that he is not in Adam but in Christ; and that, consequent on believing on God, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, he is sealed by the Spirit.

No. 9. Mr. Stuart’s summary of the gospel of God in Romans is misleading and unsound. He writes (page 14), ‘How instructive is the order of the gospel of God as set forth in Romans 1: 8. First, deliverance from the guilt of sin by what the Lord has suffered for us; next, deliverance from the power of sin by the present application in practice by each christian of the death of Christ to sin, and freedom from the law (chapters 5: 12, 8: 11) and finally, deliverance from the presence of sin by the power of God (chapter 8: 12 - 39)’.

^[p. 540] Here he makes from chapter 3 to Romans 5:11 deliverance from the guilt of sin by what the Lord has suffered for us. This is not according to Scripture. The object of chapter 3: 20 to chapter 4: 25 is to shew how a believer is justified from all things, accounted righteous, which the law could not do. Mr. Stuart calls this deliverance from the guilt of sin. Thus, at length, we have what is our ‘highest position as saints’, one to which ‘nothing can be added’, even what it is to be placed before the throne of God; and that is neither more nor less than ‘deliverance from the guilt of sin by what the Lord has suffered for us’. If brethren accept this, they have surrendered the truth of the gospel.

No. 10. ‘Next, deliverance from the power of sin by the present application in practice by each christian of the death of Christ to sin, and freedom from the law (chapters 5: 12; 8: 11)’. The meaning of this scripture is that there were two men - Adam and Christ. One brought us all into condemnation, the other by His act of obedience obtained righteousness for every believer - that the Second brought the first to an end judicially in the cross, and therefore believers are no longer in that man, but in Christ, “likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ” (chapter 6: 11); and as in Christ there is freedom from the law, for we are dead to it by the body of Christ, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8: 2); the deliverance, I repeat, is freedom morally from the existence of the body of sin and death, and Mr. Stuart in saying it is ‘deliverance from the power of sin by the present application in practice by each christian of the death of Christ’, overlooks the real meaning of the passage, and makes deliverance to be from the power of sin in practice, instead of the deliverance which would enable one to reach to the practice he speaks of.

^[p. 541] It is not easy to see what Mr. S. means, he does not see the right thing, and it is difficult to explain how a believer would have deliverance from the power of sin by present application of the death of Christ. This, if it means anything, means that we are to apply, moment by moment, the death of Christ in order that we should have deliverance from the power of sin.

This plainly is unsound and impossible, unless I first see that I am placed in complete deliverance from it by the cross of Christ, before I enter one bit of practice. Then it is true I am to arm myself with the same mind, I reckon myself dead unto sin, that is, being practically dead to everything for which Christ died, and thus I grow to “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Corinthians 4: 10). But it is evident all through this paper that Mr. S. does not see the judicial end of the first man in the cross.

No. 11 (page 14). ‘And, finally, deliverance from the presence of sin by the power of God (chapter 8: 12 - 39).’ I really cannot imagine what Mr. S. means here, the passage is simple enough to the simple reader, even setting forth the state of one enjoying the deliverance of the passage we have been considering, the believer’s spiritual history on the earth, in the wilderness.

No. 12 (page 15). ‘There are two lights in which the sinner is viewed. In one he is seen as a responsible guilty creature, who needs a standing before the throne, but has it not; in the other, he is seen as one dead in sins, who needs quickening. Romans 1 - Romans 5:11 treats of the former; Ephesians 2: 1 - 7 of the latter.’ This is very misleading. It is a mixture of truth and error. In both epistles the Spirit is describing the course of grace with regard to believers. In Romans the Spirit describes how the sinner who believes is justified. Like the prodigal son who has returned, he has no standing, but the Father provides it; while in Ephesians the believer is made acquainted with the sovereign act of ^[p. 542] grace, taking us up from the lowest point of being dead in sins, to be quickened, raised up, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. The effect of this error is that Ephesians is said to be condition, and not a word about position (a subtle way of ignoring our new and great position), and hence our being in Christ as condition is prominent.

No. 13 (page 15). ‘So the teaching about being in Christ is developed in the Romans, and that at some length (chapters 5: 12; 8: 11), as it is also elsewhere, when the manifestation of christian life in the saint is the subject of the apostle Paul’s teaching’. Now the passage referred to here is really the explanation of how the believer obtains deliverance, and it is not, as Mr. Stuart asserts, a development of being in Christ, when the manifestation of christian life is the subject. This passage was true of me as justified, and having the Spirit; but, as remaining down here in the body of sin and death, it was necessary that I should learn deliverance from sin, and therefore my being in Christ is opened out to set me free, and not simply for the manifestation of christian life.

No. 14 (page 17). ‘In the Word these blessings, which are both effected by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the believer; namely, being in Christ and our being joined to Him.’ This is not true. I must surely be in Him before I am united to Him, but Mr. S. asserts that I am not in Him until the Holy Spirit is indwelling. I am fit to be His companion, as of His life and nature, in order to be united to Him.

No. 15 (page 17). ‘Being in Christ necessarily puts us in the heavenlies.’ Before we have had, that being in Christ was only condition, and now we are necessarily put in the heavenlies, because being in Christ, that is, in such a condition; so that, being in the heavenlies is not position. Now this is corroborated by the next sentence, ‘We could not be in Christ without being .there, for He is there. But as members of His body,

^[p. 543] we are viewed now as being on earth, not in heaven, though united to the Head who is in heaven.’ Now what does all this mean but that we are in Christ, that is condition in heaven, because He is there, but though as members we are united to Him, the Head who is there, we are viewed on the earth, and not in heaven. Strange indeed. Surely if I am united to the Head who is in heaven, my union with Him must be in heaven where He is. In a word, from this teaching we have the condition of being in heaven, but not the position; though it is plain to any simple soul, that union must have followed being in Christ; and that through union, we are absolutely one with Christ where He is.

No. 16. ‘But how do we come to be in Christ?’ (page 18). ‘It is by the indwelling of the Spirit that we come to be in Christ, and He in us. Now this was consequent on His ascension.’ Here, now, it fully comes out that being in Christ in Mr. S.’s theory is not ‘concurrent’, with being justified (though in a former page he says it is) because the ascension was not necessary for our justification; death and resurrection, he says, assured that. Hence no one is in Christ according to this reasoning who is not connected with the ascension, i.e., with Christ in rejection; no Old Testament saints, nor saints in the kingdom will be in Christ, and no saint is now in Christ until he has received the Holy Spirit. Now it transpires that Mr. Stuart does not see the divine nature in us, apart from, or previous to the Spirit giving us Christ’s power. It is divine nature in Romans 7 that delights in the law of God, and the lack in that state is that there is not the knowledge of death to the first husband, nor the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence Mr. Stuart confuses Christ’s nature in us with the knowledge of being in Christ, which is consequent on the Holy Spirit coming down; but I was in Christ in the eye of God, when Adam was set aside in His death. If Jesus represented the believer in death, bearing his judgment, and clearing him of the ^[p. 544] man of sin and death, surely He represents him still more as risen from the dead. “For if by the offence of the one death reigned by the one, much rather shall those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ” (Romans 5: 17).

I cannot follow Mr. Stuart when in his effort to shew there is not standing, but only state and condition in being in Christ, he writes, ‘Could we speak of the Son’s standing in the Father?’ He is confounding an actual subsisting fact in the divine Persons with the work of divine grace in man, which has transferred the believer from Adam to Christ through His blessed work; and he is using the passage (John 14: 20) inaccurately, because there it does not refer to standing, but to the knowledge of what “in that day” would be theirs. It is nature and life. Mr. Stuart should, if he could, have adduced some other scripture to prove that “in Christ” is not a standing. In page 12 he says justification, being sealed, and in Christ, are ‘concurrent’, but when he comes to account for these blessings seriatim they are anything but concurrent according to his system.

In page 19 Mr. S. labours to shew that “accepted in the beloved” is not the correct reading. I do not contend about readings, but I assert the whole meaning of the passage is lost if the “Beloved” is not the measure of our acceptance. And in reply to Mr. S.’s challenge ‘and what other passages can be quoted to prove it if this fails?’ Now, then, hear Scripture - “He hath chosen us in him [that is standing] before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1: 4). To what condition? “That we should be holy and without blame before him in love”. To this we, who have been born in sin and “shapen in iniquity”, shall come, to “be holy and without blame”, Ephesians 1: 4; 5: 27. Now nothing can be plainer than that God’s purpose was to have us in Christ before there was an Adam at all, and that this, His purpose, is the meaning and import of “in him”, or “in whom”, or “in Christ”,

^[p. 545] all through Ephesians. It is painful to see a christian so blind to the plain purpose of God, that he cannot see that the blessed God had chosen us in Christ as our standing before the world began, before there was an Adam at all, though we have, since His purpose was formed, fallen into the ruin and misery of Adam; Mr. Stuart cannot divest his mind of what has occurred in the interim. He cannot go back to God’s purpose and see that all that has occurred to contravene it has been removed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything is through Christ’s work as perfect and as beautiful before the eye of God, as if never an Adam had existed, nor a world had been.

No. 17 (page 21). ‘Hence the truth of new creation underlies all the New Testament teaching about the saints walk and conversation’. Mr. Stuart studiously limits new creation to practical conduct. ‘No fruit, then, for God can be produced by any one of us on earth apart from our being a new creation’. It is because a believer is in Christ that he is a new creation, but he is not in Christ (according to this teaching) until the Spirit is indwelling, and no fruit has ever come from any one before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and that he was in Christ. Hence the new creation is not in existence until there is power to bring forth fruit, and as the Spirit is the one who really produces the fruit, there is no new creation until the Spirit comes! Truly the fruit is the fruit of the Spirit, I never heard of the fruits of new creation. I admit we are created unto good works of an entirely new order, and that the Spirit of God is the only power to effect these good works; but the new creation must have existed before the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; otherwise there is no “new bottle”, only a new power, a power which, though not indwelling, had influenced and controlled the saints of God even when there was no “in Christ”, for Christ had not come. Mr. Stuart is sinking deeper and deeper into confusion because he does not see what a believer ^[p. 546] is in Christ. He has set forth that one is not in Christ until the Spirit dwells in him, and that he is not a new creation until after being in Christ, and that then the fruits come. This makes out that the Spirit can dwell in the old bottle - the Wesleyan doctrine and the doctrine of the Friends, one entirely subversive to christianity.

No. 18 (page 22). Again, ‘Will our person be re-created, namely, our spirit, soul, and body?’ 1 Thessalonians 5: 23 settles that question as regards the saints, when Paul prays that their “whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Mr. Stuart entirely misapprehends the meaning of “preserved”; it refers only to the present time, and is used in connection with the word “blameless”. To build on that word, that our persons would not be new created is preposterous. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”. Everything will come out new. “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15: 49 - 52), so that new creation is not limited to things not material. “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21: 5).

No. 19 (page 23). ‘And we are there in Him as saints, those once Jews, and those once gentiles together one in Him, but thus viewed as saints, not as members of His body.’ It is contrary to the truth to say we are viewed as saints, and not as members of the one body. To whom does chapter 1: 19 refer if not to the whole church? Has not the whole body been raised up in Him? Individually we enter into what was already true of every one of us corporately, and we are co-raised, Jew and gentile, one and all in Him to sit in heavenly places; we are “one body by the cross”, as is stated in chapter 2: 16.

No. 20 (page 29). ‘Is then, we may ask, being a new creation, or a new creature, part of the saint’s standing?’ Certainly, for I should not be in divine righteousness ^[p. 547] apart from being in Christ before God. I could not be in the holiest, I could not know the Father. The old order has disappeared for an entirely new one.

No. 21. ‘Hence the word dwells so much on being in Christ, which, with the co-relative truth, Christ in us, really owned, can alone enable us to be fruitful, and to be profitable servants. But our state as christians, and practical conformity to it, are very different matters. The former is absolutely true of every christian; the latter depends on our walk’.

This is an entire misapprehension of being in Christ and Christ in me. My being “in Christ” in Romans, is that I am in the Man who died for me, and through Him a standing is given me in the righteousness of God. “In Christ” in Ephesians is as God in His purpose saw me, and which Christ fully effected for me, so that I am fully there according to His mind; and “in me” in John, is that I am becoming acquainted with my new position as in Him, and this fructifies into Christ being in me, Christ everything, and in all.

Thus, dear brethren, I have tried to set before you how the truth of the gospel has been seriously compromised by Mr. Stuart’s teaching. I do not for a moment assume that I have made no mistakes, but this I am assured of before God, that I am contending for the truth in opposition to a teaching which undermines it. And I may add that I should not have acted in true brotherly love, had I not endeavoured to set before you the erroneous system of teaching, which I trust many may have listened to with a good conscience, and without apprehending any serious departure from the truth of the gospel.

I need scarcely say I do not unchristianise the author, but, as I should say of the Book of Common Prayer, the system taught is subversive of christianity.

Yours in the love of Christ. and to serve you,

December 1884. J. B. STONEY.