We will be like our Creator and Redeemer in righteousness: "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." 1 John 3:7. Some do teach that we can not be righteous. The Word of God declares they are deceivers.

When we thus become of the pure, holy, righteous and merciful nature of Jesus it will of necessity separate us as far from this world and worldliness as he was separated. "I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17: 14. There lies a great and wide gulf between the Christian and the world. Jesus is the bridge for the sinner to cross to the Christian's land. Sin and Satan is the bridge for the return of the Christian to the world.

When the children of God are fully redeemed they are one even as the Father and the Son are one. "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." John 17:22. This means a complete annihilation of every partisan spirit, a destruction of all strife and division. Should every professed Christian get salvation to the full Bible standard there would not be a sect left upon earth.

God predestinated you to be conformed to the image of his Son; holy as he is holy; merciful as he is merciful; perfect as he is perfect; pure as he is pure;

righteous as he is righteous; as far separated from the world as he is from the world, and one even as God and his Son are one. Such is the perfect redemption offered to man in this life through God's beloved Son. What can be more beautiful upon this earth than a soul redeemed from sin and a life reflecting the holy life of the Savior. "Christ before Pilate" is a rare and much admired work of art, but Christ in the soul and life is a work more grand and beautiful. For man to properly reflect the divine character necessitates a very close walk and deep communion with the Deity. There must be a constant feeding upon the divine life. There must be a careful watching and an effort to cultivate a deeper sense of the presence of God. Happy and blessed is the man whose heart is so filled with heavenly love and reverence to God as to cause him to give "all diligence" to develop into his own glorious image.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHURCH OF GOD.

More than one hundred times the words church and churches are used in the New Testament. It is always translated from ekklesia. Most translators agree that a more correct translation of this Greek word would have been congregation. "The church of God" would then have read, "Congregation of God." "The church of the first-born" would have read, "The congregation

of the first-born.' The church that was at Antioch would have read, "The congregation that was at Antioch," etc.

WHAT IS THE CHURCH OR CONGREGATION?

The word church is a much misused word. It is commonly used at the present day when speaking of the edifices erected for the purpose of the assembling of the church to worship God. The quoting of a few texts will give us the Bible definition of this word.

"Likewise greet the church that is in their house." Rom. 16:5. This was the home of Priscilla and Aquila. This church was in their house. This house was not the church. The church was in their house. The command was to greet the church. This certainly begins to throw some light upon this subject. See 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Phile. 2. "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Eph. 1: 22, 23. "And he is the head of the body, the church." Col. 1:18. See also 24th verse.

These texts plainly teach the church to be the body of Christ. What is the body of Christ? Ans.-"Now ye [Christians] are the body of Christ, and members in particular." 1 Cor. 12:27. The body of Christ is the church. The church is Christians. This enables us to understand how the church could be in Priscilla and Aquila's house, and how we can greet the church. This is the Bible definition of church.

WHICH, ONE CHURCH OR MANY?

In the writings of the apostles the plural form of the word church is frequently used, but this argues nothing against the unity of God's church, nor in favor of the multiplicity of sects. If all the saved people in the world could be congregated in one place there would be no occasion for using the plural form of this word. Had it been so in the days of the writers of the epistles, the word would have been used only in the singular. But since there was a church or congregation of Christians at Antioch, also a church at Corinth, at Thessalonica, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, etc., to speak of the whole it would be proper to use the plural of church. "The churches of Asia." Please notice there is only one in each city, and the same writer addresses them all.

It does not take a town of so great a size to-day to find seven towering meeting-house steeples, where assemble as many different bodies of believers, termed sects. No one minister addresses them all. No one elder gives orders to all these different sects. 1 Cor. 16:1. No one minister ordains elders in all the separate bodies. 1 Cor. 7:17. The word churches was used to denote the different geographical location of the congregations of the Lord. The minister arguing in favor of the plurality of denominations from the plural term churches as found in the Bible is either ignorant or unfair. A plurality of sects is Babylon confusion.

The plural form is used in the Bible with reference to location and not to bodies having a different faith or belief. The church at Antioch had no contrary faith with the church at Corinth as we find existing between the denominations of to-day. They were separated by geographical distance, and not by difference of belief. Had these different churches come together in one place they could all have listened to Paul preach and said, Amen.

ONENESS OF GOD'S CHURCH.

"The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul." Acts 4:32. Can these same words be correctly used when speaking of the believers throughout the various denominations of to-day? "Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. 15: 5, 6. "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." 1 Cor. 1:10.

By these two texts we learn that the church of God has but one mind; it has but one mouth, and all speak the same thing. This is beautiful, this is heavenly. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for breth