ation of the church has been committed until the
Lord shall return in glory. His oversight extends to the slightest
detail in the ordering of God's house, holding all in subjection to the
will of the Head, and directing all in harmony with the divine plan.
How clearly this comes out in that passage in the twelfth chapter of
First Corinthians. As in striking a series of concentric circles there
is always one fixed center holding each circumference in defined
relation to itself, so here we see all the "diversities of
administrations" determined by the one Administrator, the Holy Ghost.
"Varieties of gifts, but _the same Spirit_"; "diversities of working,
but _the same God_"; different words "according to _the same Spirit_";
"gifts of faith _in the same Spirit_"; "gifts of healing _in the one
Spirit_"; miracles, prophecies, tongues, interpretations, "but all
these worketh the _one and the same Spirit_, dividing to each one
severally as he will." Whether the authority of this one ruling {130}
sovereign Holy Ghost be recognized or ignored determines whether the
church shall be an anarchy or a unity, a synagogue of lawless ones or
the temple of the living God.

Would one desire to find the clue to the great apostasy whose dark
eclipse now covers two-thirds of nominal Christendom, here it is--the
rule and authority of the Holy Spirit ignored in the church; the
servants of the house assuming mastery and encroaching more and more on
the prerogatives of the Head, till at last one man sets himself up as
the administrator of the church, and daringly usurps the name of "The
Vicar of Christ." When the Spirit of the Lord, speaking by Paul, would
picture the mystery of lawlessness and the culmination of apostasy, he
gives us a description which none should misunderstand: "So that he, as
God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2
Thess. 2: 4). What is the temple of God? The church without a
question: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. 3: 16). Whose prerogative is
it to sit there? The Holy Ghost's, its ruler and administrator, and
his alone.

When Christ, our Paraclete with the Father, entered upon his ministry
on high, we are told more than a score of times that he "sat down at
the right hand of God." Henceforth heaven is his official seat, until
he returns in power and great glory. {131} When he sent down another
Paraclete to abide with