Page:Darby - Notes on the Book of Revelations, 1839.djvu/59



All these, however, were dealings in which, though a remnant prayed, the Church had no natural place. 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