Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... Depravity blinded the world to the glory of Christ when he came in his own person, and blinds them to the measure of his glory in which he comes in the persons of his people. The bitter Ishmaelitish laugh and jest with which you, the worldling, scorn the Isaac of God, the promised seed; the hard words or hard deeds with which you, born after the flesh, persecute him that is born after the Spirit, will bear no excuse from your assertion that you did not know, you did not think, you did not see, that Christ was living in him—that it was really the promised Seed of the woman, Messiah himself, you were persecuting. For it is only your hatred and bitter prejudice that blind you. If you feared God and loved Christ, you would see him in his people: They that fear thee shall rejoice when they see me trusting in thy word; — “they shall glorify Christ in me.”
Ah ! consider, in your dislike of those that are Christ’s; in your suspicion of them; your hard thoughts and hard speeches concerning them; your discomfort in their presence when their godliness, their Christliness, comes out; your scornful joy over their infirmities and failures; —consider what a proof you have in all this of your deadly enmity to that Christ who liveth in them. You cannot but know that as yet Christ liveth in them only partially. If Christ is in them, the body is dead because of sin, though the Spirit is life because of righteousness. A body of sin and death is in them, as well as a living Christ. And that body of sin and death is a drawback on the completeness of the life and likeness of Christ in his people. They profess to give no more than a partial, though still a real, representation of Christ. They profess no more, though they long that it were far more, yea, long that it were unbroken and complete. ...
For more, see:
reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com
Ah ! consider, in your dislike of those that are Christ’s; in your suspicion of them; your hard thoughts and hard speeches concerning them; your discomfort in their presence when their godliness, their Christliness, comes out; your scornful joy over their infirmities and failures; —consider what a proof you have in all this of your deadly enmity to that Christ who liveth in them. You cannot but know that as yet Christ liveth in them only partially. If Christ is in them, the body is dead because of sin, though the Spirit is life because of righteousness. A body of sin and death is in them, as well as a living Christ. And that body of sin and death is a drawback on the completeness of the life and likeness of Christ in his people. They profess to give no more than a partial, though still a real, representation of Christ. They profess no more, though they long that it were far more, yea, long that it were unbroken and complete. ...
For more, see:
Hugh Martin on the origin of persecution
[O]bserve the explanation, the origin, of persecution. It originates in the world’s hatred to Christ, and is directed against him. It must be so, seeing that Christ liveth in his people. Saul, Saul…
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