The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 236

XXXIX. The Government

of the Church. "

No man

can say that Jesus

the Lord, but

Ghost."

The

last

work

of the

Holy

Spirit in the

—

I

is

by the Holy

Cor.

xii. 3.

Church has reference

to

government.

The Church is a divine institution. It is the body of Christ, even tho manifesting itself in a most defective way for as the man whose speech is affected by a stroke of paralysis is the same friendly person as before, in spite of the defect, so is the Church, whose ;

speech

and

is

impaired,

invisible

still

the

same holy body

of Christ.

The visible

Church are one.

We

have written elsewhere " The Church of Christ on earth is and invisible. Even as a man is at once a perceptible and imperceptible being without being therefore two beings, so does the distinction between the Church visible and invisible in no wise impair its unity. It is one and the same Church, which according to its spiritual being is hidden in the spiritual world, manifest only to the spiritual eye, and which according to its yisu ble form manifests itself externally to believers and the world. " According to its spiritual and invisible being the Church is one In like manin all the earth, one also with the Church in heaven. ner it is also a holy Church, not only because it is skilfully wrought of God, dependent entirely upon His divine influences and workings, but also because the spiritual defilement and indwelling sin According to its of believers belong not to it, but war against it. Hence visible form, however, it manifests itself only in fragments. it is local, i.e., widely distributed; and the national churches originate because these local churches form such connection as their own character and their national relations demand. More extensive combinations of churches can only be temporal or exceedingly :

at once visible

loose

and

flexible.

And

these churches, as manifestations of the

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