Seventh. When persons are turned to the Lord now or have become christians, the same instructions imparted to the first Christians should be imparted to them, to show them how to serve God and be finally saved. If this is not so, then no man can show how we are to be guided to the everlasting city.
We give these as a few of the clear principles from which we can not turn away without apostasy and utter ruin. These are vital and fundamental matters, and no man can infringe on them or treat them with indifference without being held in distrust. No man will turn round and repudiate all of them at once, but those who turn away will depart little by little, introducing a little new, leaving a little out, and encroaching on these principles, first in this and then in that. Such men will flounder and think themselves abused if we do not think they are perfectly sound. But there are some things we can not think. We can not think white is black, or that black is white. We can not believe without evidence. If men desire us to think they are sound they must give us the evidence to prove it and we will rejoice to believe it. They can easily do this if they are sound.
[MY CHURCH.]
WE never say my church. There is no being on earth who has a right to say my church. The Lord says, Matt. xvi. 18: “On this rock will I build my church.” He has a right to say “my church.” He gave himself for the church. The church belongs to him. He sanctified and cleansed it. This church, in Scripture, is frequently styled simply “the church,” and in our conversation about it, in nine cases out of ten, we can be understood sufficiently explicitly, if we say “the church.” We read of “the church in Jerusalem,” “the church in Corinth,” “the church in Rome,” “the church in Ephesus,” etc. We may say “the church in Cincinnati,” “the church in Covington,” “the church in Louisville,” “the church in Indianapolis,” etc. It is called in Scripture “the body,” “the body of Christ,” “the church of God,” “the church of the living God,” “the kingdom of God,” “the kingdom of heaven,” “the kingdom of God’s dear Son,” etc. These latter designations refer to “the whole family” in the aggregate. This body, or building, or temple, is the one of which Solomon’s temple was only a type. According to Scripture, there is no other church but this. The Spirit of God is in this. The life of Christ is in it. God dwells in it. In it is life. Out of it there is no life. It does not belong to the members, but they belong to it. It does not belong to the preachers, but the preachers belong to it.
We repeat, there is no other church but this according to Scripture. This church originated in Jerusalem more than eighteen hundred years ago. It was established in about one week after our Lord ascended into heaven. The King was coronated and crowned Lord of all. The great High Priest had entered the true holy place, not with the blood of slain beasts, but with his own blood, to make one offering in the end of the ages to purge us forever from our sins. The Spirit of God descended, inspired the apostles, and the church was established. That is the true church, according to Scripture, and there is no other church that has one particle of divine authority in it. The Romish Church was born hundreds of years too late. There is not a trace of a Pope in Scripture, except in prophecy, referring to him as the man of sin and son of perdition, nor in any other writing for centuries after the founding of the true church. Nor is there a reference to a Roman Catholic. There really was not one in the world, much less a Romish Church. For the first three centuries there was no church but one, “the church of the living God,” in existence. All others have come into existence since then, and have not one spark of authority.
Does the reader say, “You are not in that church yourself?” We are not discussing that question; but if we are not in it the loss will be as great to us as to any one else not in it.
Speaking of this church, or building, Paul says: “I, as a wise master-builder, have laid the foundation, and other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” No man of any intelligence thinks there is but one kingdom of God, or but one body of Christ. If we are in that we are in Christ, in the Father and in the Son. To be out of the one body, or one kingdom, is to be out of Christ, out of the Father and of the Son. There is no union with the Father and with the Son, only in the body or in the kingdom.