The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 590

;

LOVE

550

ion of all God's saints on earth

— of

the present, the past, and the

future.

To one

living in an obscure hamlet faith in the

saints is the

consciousness

communion

of

that he belongs to an exceedingly-

wealthy, numerous, holy, and elect family

and that instead of ever he shall ever be more closely united to it. It is the sacred knowledge that all the saints of the Old and New Covenants, all the heroes and heroines, the whole cloud of witnesses, together with apostles, prophets, and martyrs, and the redeemed in heaven, are not aliens to him, but with him belong to the same body not only in name, but in reality, as shall once be gloriously manifested. It is the precious comfort for the lonely heart that, in all the ends of the earth, among all nations and peoples, in every city and village, God has His own whom He has called out and gathered unto life eternal and that I share with them the same life, possess the same hope and calling, and sustain to them, getting estranged from

;

it,

;

;

however imperceptibly, the tenderest and holiest communion; yea, the firm and positive assurance that if the earth came suddenly to an end, and they only were to be saved who, being possessed of an eternal principle, had the power to bloom forever, that then all God's saints would come out as one holy family, in which holy circle the least of His servants would glitter as precious gems.

And

therefore this glorious communion should no longer be beby confining it to one's own small, often shallow environment. Of course there is no objection, when friends living in the same place, meeting together in the Lord, understanding one another, and edifying one another through the Word, speak of their littled

small circle, in connection with the

wherever

communion

of saints.

For,

and worship saints dwell together, there indeed the communion of saints breaks through the clouds, and vouchsafes unto them a glimpse of its brightness and glory. But, altho such in love

dwelling together in unity stands in connection with the communion of saints, and is a result of it, and affords a foretaste of what it

some time

shall be,

it is

only a very small part and faint reflec-

however good, devout, and holy, to the great and wide world-circle, they can not be otherwise than a small company. And this necessarily imparts to it something private and exclusive tion of reality.

In such a circle,

the hearts become exclusive.

Compared

while the communion of saints is the very opposite ; not ^jrclusive, but mclusive. It is not an idea which closes the door and shuts the

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