And, reader, remember, this was a type. A type of what? A type of something that has been in existence for over eighteen centuries; is in existence still; and shall be in existence until the moment that our Lord Christ rises from His present position and descends into the air. In one word, a type of the Church of God in the world. How important to recognize this fact! How sadly it has been lost sight of! how little understood, even now! And yet every Christian is solemnly responsible to recognize, and practically to confess it. There is no escaping it. Is it true that there is something in this world at this very moment answering to the camp in the desert? Yes, verily; there is, in very truth, the Church in the wilderness. There is an assembly passing through this world, just as the literal Israel passed through the literal desert. And moreover, the world is morally and spiritually to that Church what the desert was literally and practically to Israel of old. Israel found no springs in the desert; and the Church of God should find no springs in the world. If she does, she proves false to her Lord. Israel was not of the desert, but passing through it; and the Church of God is not of the world, but passing through it. If this be thoroughly entered into by the reader, it will show him the place of complete separation which belongs to the Church of God as a whole, and to each individual member thereof. The Church, _in God’s view of her_, is as thoroughly marked off from this present world as the camp of Israel was marked off from the surrounding desert. There is as little in common between the Church and the world as there was between Israel and the sand of the desert. The most brilliant attractions and bewitching fascinations of the world are to the Church of God what the serpents and scorpions and the ten thousand other dangers of the wilderness were to Israel. Such is the divine idea of the Church; and it is with this idea that we are now occupied. Alas! alas! how different it is with that which calls itself the Church! But we want the reader to dwell, for the present, on the true thing; we want him to place himself, by faith, at God’s stand-point, and view the Church from thence. It is only by so doing that he can have any thing like a true idea of what the Church is, or of his own personal responsibility with respect to it. God _has_ a Church in the world. There _is_ a body now on the earth, indwelt by God the Spirit, and united to Christ the Head. This Church—this body—is composed of all those who truly believe on the Son of God, and who are united by the grand fact of the presence of the Holy Ghost.