all remembering that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever:” so that they should not be “carried about with divers and strange doctrines.” Perfect liberty of heart from man, but perfect subjection of it to God, which will honour his grace wherever it is seen, and above all will hold fast, by its experimental knowledge of the Holy One of God, communion with whom, is the great safeguard against the snares of Satan in our walk, and the instrument of that fellowship with saints, which in subjection one to another, ministers to the safeguard and security of all. And while having most perfect liberty, as the Scriptures affirm, and indeed experience has abundantly proved, in personal blessing, to hold full fellowship in communion one with another, let them take heed of building again the things they have destroyed, in forming Churches, in resting upon individual influence, which shall but pave the way for a result common to all that exist, though they may honor the grace which may be given to any to help. Individual leading, I believe to be the destruction of the Church now, because it is not the Spirit’s leading, (though if the Spirit be in the individual, there will be its measure of power)—whilst universal subjection to the Spirit, is our great, peculiar, and proposed safeguard and strength; in a word, the Spirit of personal humbleness, holding fast by Christ, and proving all things by virtue of that communion, fed in knowledge by the word of God, and whose estimate of holiness will reach as far as the windings of the human intellect, or the vainer subtilties of human passions or affections if unsubdued. And let us remember, “if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.” And if judgment is coming, as it surely is, though men shalt not see it, till it does come, saying “peace and safety,” I warn with this word, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth”—not the dwellers in heaven. And if they feel they have only a little strength, they will find that the Lord has set before them an open door which no man shuts, which the Lord has opened, and they adoring his band have only to walk in with this honor of blessing, (oh! how undeservedly put upon us,) “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience.”
The Lord give us grace to walk in his ways.
