To be near unto God - pagina 422

not know this grace and does not see it. It ha3 not even the faintest idea of what this grace might be. For this very reason it should be strongly guarded against, that on the ground of this privilege, the church should imagine that the Spirit does not operate in this as yet unregenerated world, and that he is a total stranger at least to the forces of nature in the material, unconscious creation. This error is fundamental among those who are too mystical and over-spiritual. Hence it must every time be confessed again and brought The Spirit is in every creature. The to mind: Holy Spirit works in every creature of rational life. But the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, which the miracle of Pentecost brings, is only known and tasted in the church of Jesus Christ. The working of the Spirit, the activity of the Holy Spirit, and the fellowship of this Holy Spirit must be collected in this mutual relation as in one bundle. Or else the child of God mercilessly abandons the unconverted world, in direct conflrct with the prayer of the Lord: "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that (in the world) Thou shouldest keep them from the evil" (St. John 17:15). And now the second point which should be carefully considered. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out for the first time and once for all, and he has been in the church ever since, never to leave her again, but to dwell in and and with her forever more. But this is all too frequently forgotten. What is in the church is therefore by no means yet present in everyone that is counted in the church. The true church of the living God is the body of

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