All these, however, were dealings in which, though a remnant prayed, the Church had no natural place.[1] For the growth of the apostasy is not the subject here. It is all mere angelic providential dealing. It is not the Son of Man in judgment. It is not the Lamb in glory on the throne, but in sympathy withal with a suffering people, whom the world is against, and whom He ostensibly recognised. This was quite lost when the world recognised the Church. The Church wholly lost its place. It had gradually practically approached the world—it was now ostensibly sunk in it; such was its downward course, having lost the spiritual discernment, it was not capable of seeing its position in the outward blessing. So Abraham, when his wife was taken into Pharaoh’s court, he had gone down into Egypt first. Then the Lord acts by angelic ministrations on the profession, first in
- ↑ As regards the crisis, it is viewed as actually in heaven, i.e. lost sight of on earth entirely, as it was actually, when it lost its place of testimony here below, as a city set on a hill. For all through, as to time, whatever the particular condition of the saints, from the moment the Church ceased to be owned by the Son of Man in judgment here as in the seven churches, it was viewed either mystically (which gives the protracted period), or actually in heaven when the latter day trials and judgments, the crisis, a8 it has been called, takes place. In both cases it is lost sight of on earth.
