The church
is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its
laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands
and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the assaults of his
adversaries. Thus the Bible seems to me to depict the church of God.
But what if the army contains a multitude of men who will not obey
orders or submit to discipline? or if the city be overwhelmed with a
mass of aliens, who see in its laws and institutions mainly means of
selfish individual advantage? Responsibility, not privilege, is the
foundation of strong character in both men and institutions. There
was a good grain of truth in the old Scotch minister's remark, that
they had had a blessed work of grace in his church; they had not
taken anybody in, but a lot had gone out.
There are plenty of churches of Laodicea to-day. May you be
delivered from them. But, thank God, there are also churches of
Philadelphia and Smyrna. May you be pastors of one of the latter. It
will not pay you a very large salary, for Demas has gone to the
church of Laodicea, because the minister of the church of Smyrna was
not orthodox, or not sufficiently spiritually minded--meaning
thereby that he rebuked the sins of actual living men in general,
and of Demas in particular--or preached politics, and did not mind
his business.
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